Surviving the Dead (Book 4): Fire In Winter

by James Cook

  “Yes.”

  “Um…Harold. Harold Nelson.”

  “Okay. Harold,” I said, keeping my voice calm and friendly. “I need you to go back over there with the others.”

  As he walked away, I hog tied the second slaver and laid them both on their sides. “Don’t try to move,” I said. “And no talking. This is your last warning. Disobey, and you die.”

  By the looks on their faces, I didn’t have much to worry about.

  THIRTY-ONE

  It would have been nice to sit down and have a chat with the people I rescued, but as usually happens when a bunch of idiots let loose with unsuppressed rifles, the goddamn infected showed up.

  The first moan sounded from the east, where the sky had already faded from cobalt blue to a lurid purple. It was quickly answered by dozens of others, converging from all directions. I let out a stream of curses that would have set a drill sergeant’s hair on fire and stomped over to the prisoners, knife in hand.

  I knelt in front of them. “Do you want to live?”

  They made the appropriate noises.

  “Then you will do exactly as you’re told.” I cut the rope binding their ankles and helped them stand. “Wait here,” I said, and walked back over to Nelson and his group.

  I said, “You have to get out of here. Every walker within five miles is headed this way.”

  The old man spoke up, clearly the leader of the group. “We were headed for Hollow Rock. I understand we’re not far from there.”

  I shook my head. “Hollow Rock is ten miles that way.” I hooked a thumb over my shoulder. “I just came from there.”

  The old man’s face fell, and a woman who I guessed to be his wife stepped forward. “Then where should we go? It’s almost nightfall. We were going to build a camp fort and spend the night here, but now there’s no time.”

  I raised a placating hand. “There’s a place about a mile north of here, it’s called Traveler’s Rest. You’ll be safe there. If you want to keep any of this stuff, I suggest you get it on the wagon and get ready to move.”

  The old man turned around and looked at his group’s scattered possessions. A little of the fear left his face and he seemed to gain confidence. “He’s right. Estelle, you get up on the wagon. Leo, Ernie, Jenny, y’all help me pick this stuff up. Come on now, we got to move.”

  I lent them a hand, moving swiftly, not trying to stack or organize anything, just throwing it in the wagon. We were done in less than two minutes, but already there were infected close enough to be a problem. Regretting the loss of ammunition, I put down a dozen of them in rapid succession, then made my way back to the wagon.

  “Listen to me,” I said, as Harold took up the reigns. “Take the highway back the way you came. The first road you come to, take a right. Follow it until you see a water tower on a hill. At the bottom of that hill is another road. There’s a big wooden sign, you can’t miss it. That road will take you to Traveler’s Rest. If anybody gives you trouble at the gate, tell them Gabriel Garrett sent you. Okay?”

  Harold nodded. “Okay.”

  “Go on,” I said. “I’ll catch up with you.”

  I started walking back to the prisoners, but heard Harold’s voice behind me. “Mr. Garrett?”

  I turned and looked over my shoulder.

  “I just…” he struggled for words, not sure how to thank a man who had just saved him and his family from being sold into slavery.

  “You can thank me later,” I said. “Now get moving.”

  He gave a single nod, shouted at the horses, and slapped the reigns.

  *****

  There exists in the wastelands a burgeoning subcategory of society, created by circumstance, necessity, and the natural proliferation of effective survival techniques, and they are commonly referred to as Runners.

  They are a very useful people, and make their living by a combination of scavenging, trading, and transporting things from one place to another.

  Got a letter for a trade contact on the other side of the river but don’t feel like making the expedition?

  Hire a Runner.

  Found out your uncle is still alive in Colorado and want to send him a message?

  Hire a Runner.

  Can’t sell something where you live, but know it will fetch a good price somewhere else?

  Hire a Runner.

  Most folks think Runners are lone wolves who live in the forests and sleep in trees every night, and because of this, some people have taken to calling them Rangers, although they generally dislike that term. But what I have learned through extensive buying of drinks and generous trade negotiations is that Runners are not as aloof from one another as most people think they are. I would not call them a community, per se, but they definitely have a sort of loose association and rules of conduct.

  Rule number one: If you take a contract, you fulfill it, or you die trying.

  It takes a long time for a Runner, or a group of Runners, to establish a good reputation. The more dependable people perceive them to be, the more they can charge for their services. But it only takes one failed contract to spoil things for everyone, and you do not want to be that guy.

  Rule number two: Runners are not hired muscle. Which means no assassinations, no robberies, no vandalism, no leg-breaking for debt collectors, no kidnapping—basically no involvement with vice, racketeering, or general thuggery.

  Rule number three: Never reveal the location of a campsite without a consensus of the community.

  And that is, without a doubt, the best part of being on good terms with Runners—the campsites.

  The rules regarding campsites are simple, but strictly enforced. It boils down to three things: leave the place cleaner than you found it, don’t be greedy, and leave something behind for the next guy.

  To keep track of who uses the campsites and when, every Runner has two names. There is the normal name used for interaction outside your Runner association, and then there is the name known only to your fellow Runners. This name is not chosen, it is given by someone else based on any number of things. Maybe you have a tattoo, or a distinguishing physical feature, or you are seen engaging in some activity that is, for whatever reason, memorable.

  Or in my case, a walker jumps a Runner out of nowhere on the road to Hollow Rock, I peel the thing off the guy before it can bite him, toss it away, grab the first weapon close at hand—which happens to be a sawed-off shotgun in a holster on said Runner’s back—and disintegrate the walker’s face. Then the Runner, in his elation at not dying, gleefully screams, “This. Is. My. BOOMSTICK!”. And from then on I am known and referred to exclusively by that moniker.

  Boomstick.

  It can be anything really, but once an association decides on your name, you’re stuck with it whether you like it or not. Each Runner makes a symbol for their name, which only people in his or her association can identify.

  And so it was, I found myself on a wooden platform, built among the struts of a water tower near Traveler’s Rest, leaving a pound of goat jerky, five MRE packets of instant coffee, and a twenty-round box of 5.56 ammo, drawing a circle around it with a piece of chalk conveniently left there for the purpose, and then scratching a crude pictogram of a shotgun with a backwards B on the stock.

  Boomstick was here. And he was generous indeed.

  Considering the messy purpose I was using the site for, I thought the donation—which would have been considered excessive, albeit welcome, by most Runners—appropriate.

  Finished leaving my mark, I walked back to the edge of the platform and peered downward. It was after nightfall, but the sky was clear and the moon was nearly full, allowing me to see the two men dangling from the platform by their feet.

  It had taken a lot of effort to retrieve my pack and then hightail it to the campsite with the two slavers in tow, but I had pulled it off. And now, the two would-be kidnappers hung upside down from a platform thirty feet in the air, suspended by lengths of para-cord, their heads less than five feet from the
grasping hands of a hundred or more ghouls. The smell was atrocious, and I was much further from the source than they were.

  “How you boys doing down there? Ready to talk yet?”

  “Fuck you!” one of them shouted, the man I had dubbed Pig Face, because … well, he kind of resembled a pig. The other I called Smart Guy, because he didn’t seem nearly as dumb as his partner.

  After reaching the tower, I had made use of a four-in-one pulley system some enterprising soul had installed above the platform. The prisoners hadn’t cared much for it, being that I tied the rope around their ankles and hauled them to the platform upside down, but they had nonetheless cooperated. I can only assume that being held captive was a better option than being left for the infected, so they had not given me any trouble. I think for just a few brief moments they entertained the hope I was not going to hurt them, maybe take them back to Hollow Rock to stand trial.

  That hope was to be short lived.

  “You know, you’re not giving me much reason to let you live,” I said, cupping my hands around my mouth to be heard above the din of moans.

  “I ain’t telling you shit, cocksucker,” Pig Face said. “You’re just gonna kill me anyway, so go ahead and do it.”

  I shrugged, put in my earplugs, and leaned down with my knife. “Okay. Suit yourself.”

  The blade sawed back and forth and the cords holding him up popped—one, two, three—and with a cry of dismay, he plunged down into the waiting arms of the infected.

  I walked back to my bedroll and stretched out, letting my back relax after the day’s efforts. My pack had felt a lot lighter when I was nineteen.

  The screaming went on for a while, first from Pig Face, and then from Smart Guy as he watched his friend being eaten alive, then eventually subsided into ragged sobs only barely audible through my earplugs.

  If it had been anyone but a slaver, feeding someone to the undead would have seemed an extreme punishment. But kidnapping people, raping them, and selling them into a life of brutalization, sexual exploitation, and hopelessness, is hands down the worst sin a human being can commit. So no, I did not feel the least bit bad about it. Had the situation been reversed, he would have done the same to me in an instant.

  I let the last slaver marinate for a little while, staring at the promise of a hideous death, before I tried again.

  “I’m thinking you must have a hell of a headache by now. I’m also thinking you don’t want to go out like your friend there. It’s no trouble at all the haul you back up here, but I’m gonna need some answers first. What do you say?”

  His voice was hoarse, trembling with terror. “Please, I’ll tell you whatever you want. Just don’t feed me to those things.”

  “Excellent.” I hauled on the line until his head was above the platform, where he could look me in the eye, then looped the rope around a cleat bolted to the floor. “First question. Where do you slavers take your merchandise?”

  Smart Guy’s face was beet red, and his eyes had turned dark and bloody. He spoke rapidly. “There are markets in Mt. Vernon, Jasper, Red Blade, and Blackmire. Other places too, but I’ve never been there.”

  “Hmm. I’m familiar with Mt. Vernon, Jasper, and Blackmire, but I’ve never heard of Red Blade. Where is it?”

  “It’s the old Southern Illinois Airport, but the people there renamed it. You can find it on any highway map.”

  “Good to know. What’s it like, this Red Blade? Where’d the town get its name?”

  “I don’t know where the name comes from. Place is a fortress, kind of like Hollow Rock but smaller. It’s an Alliance outpost.”

  “That’s interesting. I didn’t know the Alliance had claimed territory so far south. Usually they stay behind the border. Except for scumbags like you, of course.”

  “Listen, man, I-”

  “Shut up. Let me think for a minute.”

  I put my chin in my hand and pondered the events of the last few weeks. From what Smart Guy was telling me, Blackmire was associated with the Midwest Alliance, or at least with its slave trade. Then there were the AKs the slavers had been carrying, and although I didn’t get a chance to look at them, I was willing to bet if I checked the manufacturers stamps they would be written in Chinese, just like the weapons of the men sent from Blackmire to capture me. I was also willing to bet that if I went back to Hollow Rock and hung a few of those insurgents awaiting trial over a horde of ghouls, they might also be able to tell me something about Blackmire. Now that I thought about it, their appearance occurring shortly before Sean Montford’s murder, in light of other evidence, no longer had the feeling of a standalone attack.

  Blackmire.

  That name was popping up far too often to be a simple matter of coincidence. And its proximity to Hollow Rock did not fill me with a sense of ease. As much as I wanted to stay focused on tracking down Sebastian Tanner, I couldn’t ignore the threat posed by the Alliance if they had influence over a community that close, especially one composed of thieves, slavers, marauders, and other assorted scum. Much like when Sheriff Elliott handed me that Russian-made sniper cartridge, I realized my situation was far more complicated than previously thought.

  I gave Smart Guy a little shove on the chest, sending him swinging back and forth. “Tell me, have you ever been to Blackmire?”

  “Yeah, lots of times.”

  “How long ago was your last visit?”

  “Not long. A couple of weeks.”

  “Okay. Here’s what’s going to happen,” I said. “I’m going to cut you down, and give you a pen and a notebook. You will draw a map, as accurately as you can, of the layout of Blackmire and the surrounding area. When you are done, you will tell me everything you know about the place. And if I detect any hint of deception,” I held up my knife, “I’m going to start cutting. We’ll start with your fingers and toes, and work our way from there. Do I make myself clear?”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “Yes sir.”

  We talked long into the night, the two of us. Once, after he finished drawing the map and I was re-tying his hands, he tried lunging for my pistol. I caught his hand and snapped a few finger bones, then stomped on his ankle. Rather than scream, his face went pale, his eyes rolled up in the back of his head, and he passed out. I finished the job of restraining him, woke him back up, and informed him any further unpleasantness would result in me tossing his sorry ass over the side and smiling while I did it. He gave me no further problems.

  When I had wrung as much information as I could out of him, making him answer the same questions many times, in different orders, and worded differently every time, I slapped my hands on my knees and heaved an accomplished sigh. “Well, I guess that concludes our business for the evening. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you, Smart Guy, but I’m afraid, like all things, our conversation must come to an end.”

  Standing up, I grabbed him by the scruff of his jacket and began dragging him toward the edge of the platform.

  “Hey, wait! Stop! Please, don’t throw me to those fucking things.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to let the infected eat you alive.”

  I positioned him so he was sitting on the edge, facing the horde. “Then what…what are you doing?”

  I drew my pistol and touched it to the back of his head. “The federal government recently passed new laws and regulations. Do you know what the penalty is in Union territory for kidnapping with intent to enslave?”

  He tried to speak, but only a strained croak came out.

  I leaned down and lowered my voice to a whisper. “Summary Execution.”

  And then I pulled the trigger.

  The infected spared me the trouble of disposing of his body. I guess the poor disgusting things have their uses after all.

  THIRTY-TWO

  I only planned to stop in Traveler’s Rest long enough to pick up a few things, but when I walked into the general store I quite literally ran into Harold Nelson.

  He was walking by
with a large jar of pickled eggs, studying a list in his hand, and didn’t see me come through the door until he hit me in the chest and bounced away. I reached out a hand and grabbed him before he could topple over.

  “Mr. Garrett,” he said, face brightening. “I’m so glad to see you’re all right. After you didn’t show up last night I…well, we feared the worst.”

  I stepped farther inside the store, unblocking the entrance, boards creaking under my feet. “There were a lot of walkers out there. I didn’t want them to follow me here, so I led them off and doubled back. Took me most of the night.” It was technically true, but not the whole story.

  “What, uh, what happened to those fellas you captured?”

  I shook my head. “I had to make a choice between them or me. They lost.”

  Now I was lying, but it was better than saying, ‘I fed them to the walkers, spent the night at a Runner campsite, then threw chunks of rusted metal at a tree until enough infected wandered away to escape.’ It was bad enough he had watched me kill eight people, I didn’t want to regale him with tales of torture and murder. Furthermore, there were a few people in Traveler’s Rest—namely the constable—who might take exception to the way I disposed of those last two slavers.

  “I guess I can’t say I’m sorry to hear that,” Nelson said. “Not after what they tried to do to my family and me. You know, it’s strange to me I feel that way. Before the Outbreak, what happened yesterday would have had me curled up in a corner like a scared kid. But now…I guess I’m just glad I’m still alive and they’re not. I slept fine last night. No nightmares or anything. What does that say about me, do you think?”

  “It means you’re human, Harold. When you survive enough bad things, you grow callouses. It’s a common affliction.”

  The old man smiled weakly, and nodded. I let an appropriate length of silence pass, then said, “Is everyone in your party all right?”

  He let out a shaky sigh and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “They’re a little shook up, but they’ll be fine. Listen, I can’t thank you enough for helping us. When those men came out of the woods, I thought we were done for. Then when I realized they were slavers…”