Harvest of Ruin (Book 2): Dead of Winter

by Mongelli, Arthur

  She moved immediately off the highway and clambered over a fence into an empty pasture. She made a beeline towards a copse of trees at the far end, and the mountains beyond. The pounding of the earth beneath her feet jolted her broken arm, sending a fresh burst of pain with every jarring footfall. She passed a darkened house off to her left but her instincts screamed at her to keep moving. She ran on for the next hour straight, despite her breath coming in great heaving gasps.

  As the sky lightened, the landscape came into focus. Without realizing that she was doing it, she started drifting back towards the signs of humanity. She saw the things lurking about near every vehicle and structure, everywhere that might have been a source of safety and comfort to her. After a couple of close encounters with the things, Nala moved back into the open fields. She kept a rural highway off in the distance to her left, making sure to keep it in sight, but staying well clear of it. She was very careful to remain quiet and unseen whenever she was forced to cross a road, making sure not to draw the attention of the things that seemed to stagger about everywhere.

  As the day progressed into the afternoon, she knew she needed to find some food, water, and shelter. She was starving, but the fear of what could be lying in wait inside the many houses and structures she passed, kept her moving onward until nightfall. She alternated between running and walking the entire day, slowing occasionally as her lungs and muscles demanded, but never stopping fully. As the light of the day waned, she began to worry what the night would bring. She weighed her options as the gathering gloom of dusk deepened the gray sky to charcoal. She thought briefly about climbing a tree and spending the night clutching the bole of it. She discarded the idea when she considered what would happen come morning, if she woke and were surrounded by those things.

  She was considering trying to find an abandoned car to shelter in, when she spotted lights ahead from what looked like a tiny village that butted up against a wide creek. As the darkness set in fully, she realized that she was losing sight of the road, the point of reference she used to guide her. With little else in the way of options and scared that she would twist or break an ankle in a gopher hole, she moved to the south and decided to follow the road walking along the shoulder. As she climbed over the top of the guard rail, she spotted a sign indicating she was entering the town of Poudre Park.

  She turned her full concentration to moving as silently as possible on the blacktop, as she approached the lights in the distance. Her visibility was next to none with the dense evergreen forest around blocking out all the light cast by the clouded-over moon. The sounds of other feet scraping about nearby on the roadway kept the panic clutching at her chest and her pulse drumming in her ears. About a mile further up the road, she spotted a bonfire blazing a few hundred yards ahead. She could hear voices in the distance, but was too far to make out what was being said. Hope leapt inside her. It was her first sights and sounds of humanity since dawn, twelve hours previous. She smiled broadly and moved a little faster toward the familiar sound of people, happy that it was not more of those things. People meant safety.

  Nala walked down the middle of the road, growing ever more eager to be back among the living. She came within the edge of the light cast by the bonfire and saw that it burned in front of a building a sign advertised as being The Lodge Deli and take-out. Just as Nala walked forwards into the light and was getting ready to call out, she sensed that something was wrong. Inner alarms rang out at the sight of a few men sitting out front. She jumped back, and scrambled into the woods on the opposite side of the road. What little noise her feet made running out of the firelight and back across the wide roadway went unnoticed by the four men she could see standing inside the doorway of the building. The men were drinking from bottles of liquor and the way they carried themselves made her instantly wary. These men were the type she always avoided, the kind that made her squirm. They were the kind of men that would stand there with their buddies and whisper to one another and leer perversely as she walked past. Their looks and talk would leave her casting nervous glances over her shoulder until she was back among normal people. She knew their look.

  As she watched nervously from the drainage ditch, out in the open, she heard a woman start screaming from inside the building. By the tone and desperation of the woman’s screams, she knew immediately what was happening. She slunk back further into the shadows, knowing that her salvation was not at hand. Her heart ached for the woman inside, and she wished desperately that she could do something to help her. With a broken arm and no weapon, though, she had no desire to share in the woman’s fate.

  Nala continued creeping backward up a slope until the ground she was slinking through changed in texture. By the lack of scrubby growth and the appearance of soft grass underfoot, she could tell that she had made the transition into someone’s backyard. She glanced around nervously, spotting the darkened house immediately, the sliding glass doors leading inside stared blackly back at her. She wasn’t sure if her eyes were playing tricks on her, but she thought she saw some movement from the driveway that ended at a detached one car garage behind her. Chills shot up her spine and she moved as stealthily as possible around the bole of a tree. She could still vaguely hear the cries of the woman in the building a few hundred yards below and across the road. She had to clamp her good hand over her mouth to keep from screaming as one of the terrible creatures ambled out noisily from the front of the garage, heading towards her.

  *

  The conversation about their course fizzled out in the face of Will’s infectious optimism about Benoit. Most still secretly clung to the hope that somewhere, maybe on the other side of the Mississippi, maybe at the Canadian border, that there was a wall. In the fantasy, this wall would be guarded by the military and that after a brief interview they would all be allowed to pass out of danger. It was this hope kept them moving when wiser heads would’ve stayed at the farmhouse, safe and warm, until the springtime.

  The nine of them spent the remainder of the day in the house just outside Hancock, NY. They whiled the time away sorting, organizing, and repacking their gear. Bjorn found a small two-horse trailer that hooked nicely up to the Jeep and they were able to shift a lot of the canned food and most of their gear into that, freeing up room in the vehicle to raise the back row of seats. This gave them more room inside. Though not entirely comfortable, they would no longer need to be sitting on top of one another. Bjorn managed, after a few hours work, to pry open the homeowner’s gun safe and they acquired a pair of hunting rifles and a couple hundred rounds of ammo. They also found and a few gas cans in the basement that they filled from the pump and stowed in the trailer.

  Within a few days, Tim was finding that he was able to put a bit more weight on his injured leg. His fears that the bullet had struck something vital, like an artery, started to dissipate along with the pain. He used the time to rest, refraining from doing too much as he didn’t want to aggravate the injury and set back the healing process. He was feeling much better about their prospects and his spirits were high.

  They ate as much of the remaining perishable food as they were able to on their agreed upon final day of rest. That evening they went to sleep early, though with their heads full of the dread and excitement of the departure the next day, they still awoke feeling tired. They were all ready to go at daybreak. Jen got behind the wheel of the Jeep to make sure the vehicle could handle the heavy snow, laden as it was with a trailer full of goods. She did a couple laps around the yard before she felt confident that there should be no problems as long as they kept the speed down. She parked again and got out so they could do the final thing they had discussed before leaving.

  They wanted to make sure that everyone in the group could handle a gun in case a situation called for it, which was a certainty. Not wanting to draw any undead towards the house while they still occupied it, they ultimately decided to do the training and practice on departure day, just prior to leaving. Tim handed a rifle to Laura in exchange for Luna and Bj
orn handed one to Jen. They practiced shooting for the better part of an hour, swapping weapons every twenty minutes or so, so that all of them could get some practice. Bjorn spent the majority of the session giving tutelage to his daughter on how to use a pistol. The rifles that they had available proved to be too heavy for the little girl. Even though he wouldn’t let her carry a gun, with all of their lives dangling precariously, he knew just how important the skill could be. They burned through most of the rifle ammunition that Bjorn had found in the gun safe, but everyone left with a reasonable expectation of being able to kill an undead if the need arose. They loaded up the rest of the gear and filed into the Jeep, when the first roar of the undead drifted across the river at them. They turned north, heading across the bridge towards I-86.

  They drifted through the snow-bound ghost town that was once Hancock, New York, watching the undead ambling around the streets at a distance. Nick and Christine watched their hometown drift past the windows of the Jeep with heavy hearts, suspecting that they were seeing it for the last time. With that thought came the realization that they were bidding farewell to any hope of seeing their families again. Jen steered the Jeep onto the westbound lanes of I-86. The highway was relatively free of cars; whatever had snarled up traffic so badly was apparently behind them now. The going was still tiresomely slow, however. The deep snow and treacherous drifts that sometimes crested three feet in height kept whoever was driving tense and alert with a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.

  Tim, Laura, Bjorn, and Jen alternated driving, taking two-hour shifts, both to fight snow blindness as well as the stress of keeping the heavy vehicle atop the roadway. Tim was relaxing in the passenger’s seat, cradling his sleeping daughter on his lap while he thumbed absently through the atlas, when an epiphany hit him. He flipped madly back and forth a few times to confirm that his idea could work. He wanted to address it to the rest of the group that night, when everyone was alert and thinking clearly.

  They stopped for the evening at a rest stop north of Campbell, New York. They had to cross the median to get to it, but it was warm, and safe. They blocked the entrance with the Jeep and trailer in tow and lit a fire inside after breaking a window above. After a meal of peas and beans and some snacks from a vending machine, Tim decided it was time to discuss his plan.

  “I know we briefly discussed heading up towards Ottawa to avoid most of the shit, but I had an idea that I wanted to discuss with you. I don’t know if you noticed, but we aren’t headed to Watertown,” he started, but by their faces, it was apparent that no one had noticed. “I didn’t turn north onto 81 at Binghamton. I came up with a plan that should get us there quicker, maybe as much as a week quicker, without having to risk passing through a major city.”

  The cities had been an endless source of stress and discussion among them. Will, having escaped from New York City and the urban sprawl of northern New Jersey, was adamant about avoiding them at all costs. It seemed that all roads to Wisconsin led through at least one major metropolitan area. Pittsburgh, Chicago, Cleveland, Akron, Milwaukee, and Green Bay all needed to be avoided if they traveled through the states. They would only need to avoid Toronto and Ottawa if they went the Canada route. This was the course on which they had been headed, figuring that if they could move north of Toronto, they would largely be in the clear all the way into northern Michigan. They also all entertained their underlying hope that the problems stopped at the border.

  “Would’ve been nice to hear about it earlier,” Will chimed in. “We all should’ve had a say.”

  “Fair enough, and I’m sorry for that, everyone was singing and having a good time, and I didn’t want to ruin it. But you are right, I should’ve spoken with you all before bringing us a couple hours past 81. I’m sorry. We are only a few hours off-course. If people decide against it, we can backtrack.”

  “Out with it man!” Bjorn goaded him with a smile on his face. “What’s this majestic plan that is going to get us to Wisconsin by tomorrow?”

  “We are going to cross the Great Lakes.”

  *

  Nala quietly slipped around the back of the huge elm tree, keeping the bole between her and the creature. The thing staggered through the row of bushes at the side of the garage as it approached. She clenched her teeth and watched in terror and anguish as it neared.

  Soft moans issued from its mouth as the stinking thing paused, lingering just a few feet from where she cowered. It smelled of rotting cabbage and human excrement. Its head turned as if looking for her and Nala felt a stream of urine leak out, uncontrollably. I’m going to vomit, she thought. I’m gonna throw up and this thing is going to fucking hear it then it’s going to eat me! her mind screamed as she struggled to bite back the bile rising in her throat. A loud scream issued from the store below. The thing lingered for a moment longer, then turned back on its course, staggering off down the hill towards The Lodge. Nala flinched as the woman’s screams were silenced by a gunshot.

  She barely caught the scream in her throat as it tried to escape her lips unbidden. She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood to stifle it. She watched the dead thing move to the base of the hill and then, silhouetted by the fire in the distance, it crossed the street towards the drinking men. The sounds of frenzied voices drifted up, immediately followed by a gunshot. The thing fell down, never to rise again. Nala moved to the trellis attached to the side of the garage, hoping that it was strong enough to support her. It took her nearly ten minutes to awkwardly climb to the low roof with her one good arm. The lattice work creaked and splintered but held. The roof was nearly flat, pitched towards the rear for drainage and to Nala, after the day she had, it was the most comfortable bed she had ever felt.

  She awoke frequently, with both the biting cold and the pain in her arm jolting her awake what seemed like every five minutes. Always though, her exhaustion swept her back to unconsciousness. In the morning, she awoke to the sound of many motorcycle engines roaring to life. The obnoxiously loud sound jarred her, causing her to smash her broken arm hard on the rooftop. After spending the next few minutes writhing in agony, she was fully awake. Her stomach rumbled and complained uncontrollably. She thought briefly about the house just twenty feet to her left, but the darkness within the sliding glass doors warned her away. She took a few minutes to make sure she was fully aware and had her wits about her before she scanned the area to get a good lay of her surroundings.

  Her eyes scoured the yards and fields nearby for any more of the things before she cautiously climbed down from her perch. She moved from tree to tree down the hill toward the Lodge. There was only one man out front and she did her best to remain hidden from him. He was standing outside, between the building and a row of motorcycles, smoking a cigarette. She was nearly halfway to the road when the front door swung violently outwards. Seven more men came out of the building, smiling and laughing. Six of the men mounted motorcycles and two got in a pickup truck. The back of the truck was filled with cases of beer and cartons of food. Nala’s stomach rumbled at the sight of so much food. A few minutes later, the motorcade roared out, heading west.

  Nala silently cursed at their course; she was hoping they would head east, back the way she had come. She didn’t want to follow them, but there was no way she was going to head back toward Fort Collins. She waited for a full fifteen minutes before daring to cross the road. As soon as she stepped out onto the roadway, she felt exposed and vulnerable. She was terrified that more of the men were inside, maybe waiting for the others to return. Her starvation and constant shivering forced her forward. She cautiously moved up next to the door that led into the convenience store and again waited long agonizing minutes, listening to the silence within. Finally, after listening to the sounds of leaves rustling and the wind blowing through the trees for many minutes, she turned to stand in the doorway of the shop and peered into the gloom inside.

  The interior was in shambles. Shelves were overturned, and the contents of the non-functioning coolers were dumped onto t
he floor. Nala intentionally avoided looking at the naked form of the dead woman cowering behind the counter where the cash register once was. The side wall of the shop was adorned with biker leathers and a pile of drab green-colored clothing on the floor. She picked up a shirt from the pile and examined it. It had a patch on the breast pocket that read “Hawkins, B. 866138 Sterling Correctional Facility.” She knew that Sterling was a maximum security prison east of Fort Collins and shuddered at the thought of thousands of inmates, locked away for years, now roaming about in the open.

  Her thoughts turned to her immediate needs and she moved into the deli section of the shop and started collecting bags of food and drinks. Within a few minutes, her good arm was overburdened with five plastic grocery bags with Thank You printed numerous times down the front. On her way out, she grabbed two lighters, figuring she could light a fire to keep warm if needed. She then took a moment to look for a weapon.

  She peeked behind the register hoping, but doubting, there had a pistol back there. There was no gun, just an aluminum baseball bat. After a minute holding the bat, she recognized that she couldn’t adequately wield with only one arm. Seeing nothing else, she unhooked a two-foot length of chain that was used to keep patrons from roaming behind the counter, figuring that it was better than nothing. There was a torn pile of clothing tossed in a heap on the floor. Nala grabbed the coat, socks, and sweater from the mound. She cast a quick glance at the dead woman and said a quick, silent apology for not helping her, before she moved back out into the morning light.