Catharsis

by Adrienne Lecter

  “It’s dated from a week after the shit hit the fan in the States,” I observed as I continued scanning it. “Looks like they had a little more time than us, whatever good that did them.”

  Nate glanced at the paper over my shoulder, then picked it up and shoved it between some of the straps on the outside of my pack. “Let’s move on. Nothing interesting to see here.”

  I nodded, following him to the door, but I lingered a moment longer at the threshold. “There are no signs of looting here,” I observed.

  “Your point is?” Nate asked from the outside, a little annoyed with my delay.

  “It’s a perfect house for looting,” I pointed out. “Far enough back from the town that it’s easily accessible—and defensible—even if the town’s overrun. There’s a road right there for cars to drive up to the door so you can more easily drag things out without risking exposure. At the very least, people should have come here to get blankets, coats, and food that doesn’t spoil.”

  Nate continued to look at me, willing me to say it. Sighing, I finally stepped outside, closing the door behind me. “This house should have been looted,” I insisted.

  “We found lots of properties in Montana that were still sealed up,” Burns reminded me.

  “Yeah, Montana. I’m sometimes surprised they even realized that there was an outbreak in the rest of the country,” I griped. “France is smack in the middle of the continent. They had a much higher population density than we did.”

  “Exactly,” Nate replied. When I glared at him, he offered up a wry grin. “You just answered your own question. More people. More people who died or got infected. Means a much lower chance of anyone else making it.” He looked around, nodding toward the single broken-down car in the distance. “I’m sure the larger towns were just as much epicenters of slaughter as we’ve seen with ours. If we’re stupid enough—and you know Hamilton well enough to make that almost a certainty—we’ll get there to see for ourselves. But here? Few people around, and everyone getting sick must have kept the tourists away. So they either died, or must have long ago wandered off inland, where there’s food and water aplenty.” His eyes narrowed. “But you know all that. So what’s with the questions?”

  I pretended to do a quick sweep of the back of the house as it got into view. “Wishful thinking, maybe,” I admitted. “Would have been nice to land and run straight into survivors, you know?” Thankfully, the radio squawked before I could admit that getting a chance to check how steady my shooting was might have been great, too. Nate was still eyeing me way too cautiously for my own good.

  “Anyone find anything remarkable yet?” Bucky asked.

  All the other groups reported in negative, so it was up to Burns to break the news. “We got a house here, intact. From what we can see of the town over there, it looks just as empty.”

  Bucky took that without a snarky retort. “All groups, head down the beach toward Cabourg. We’ll do a quick sweep of the outlying houses, then head into the town center. Hill, try to set up a communications hub and scan to see if you get any frequencies.”

  It didn’t take long for the other groups to close up to us, with the countryside deserted and no obstacles in the way that would have warranted extra care. I remained close to Nate and Burns, figuring it made the most sense to stay in clusters rather than spread out completely. Being on high alert in the obviously deserted stretch of the countryside made me feel vaguely stupid, but I remembered enough of last year not to let the apparent lack of shamblers lull me into a false sense of complacency. Besides, it wasn’t just the zombies possibly hiding in ditches that had my brain wanting to jump at nothing.

  “Stop it,” Nate grunted in my direction, making me halt in glaring at the two soldiers advancing to my right. When I eyed him askance, he gave me a level look. “I get that you neither trust them nor feel comfortable relying on them, but you’ll get eaten if you keep needlessly diverting your focus like that. Be wary when we set up camp, if you must, but not out here in the open. Nobody’s gonna jump you while their own hides are on the line.”

  I wasn’t quite sure if that last statement should have comforted me, but the hint of scorn lacing Nate’s words was enough to annoy me—and, as he had planned, take him seriously enough to shove my latent suspicions aside for more active ones.

  “If you say so,” I grumbled as I paused at a lump of rags—but, like before, it was only that, discarded clothes, not the remains of whoever they had belonged to.

  “I don’t like this,” Burns voiced exactly what was going through my head. “It’s all wrong here. Too much debris for an actually deserted place, but nothing in sight.”

  “If they are still around, they’re likely hiding closer to the town center,” Nate suggested, nodding down the road we were ambling toward and the houses slowly taking shape in the distance. “Right now it’s not cold enough for snow here, but we’ve known for a while that some of them are smart enough to nest inside. Just because one house was deserted doesn’t mean the others are.”

  I was tempted to tell Captain Obvious that we weren’t complete rookies here, but instead turned on my mic when I saw Nate fiddle with his com unit. It was one thing to keep conversations just between the three of us if we needed a moment of privacy, but quite another when calling for backup might depend on a working connection. I didn’t need Nate’s silent hand signal to know to zip it. Even if I had given a shit about appearing unprofessional by entertaining everyone with my constant rambling—and I kind of did, I had to admit, grudgingly—I knew that it was damn distracting, and that was the last thing we’d need if there was anything lurking in the town ahead. One last suspicious glance to the side revealed that neither of the soldiers was glancing in my direction, let alone keeping track of what I was doing.

  Then the last soft hills evened out, the town of Cabourg spreading out before us. There were maybe three hundred buildings, half of them still hidden in the fog, with plenty of barricades and broken-down cars everywhere. As quiet and deserted as the countryside just a mile out had appeared, this looked a lot more like I’d expected. Still no remains anywhere in sight, but if I remembered from our early spring venture into Casper, undead presence often came with a great cleanup effort.

  “Williams, Russell, Rodriguez, follow me. We take point checking out the main street,” Bucky commanded as the last of the stragglers caught up. “The rest, spread out, but be smart about it. Always make sure to stay in sight of the next team, and try to keep track of possible evacuation routes. If all hell breaks loose, we meet at the beach, eastern direction.”

  I watched as the three men and the female soldier who’d been with Aimes back when they’d given us the intel on the Colorado base broke away from our disorganized line, slowly making their way along the road toward the first houses. None of them looked extra jumpy, but Rodriguez kept glancing over her shoulder a few times, slightly distracted. At first, I thought it might be inexperience that had her on edge, but then the wind turned and I got a full face of death and decay—sure signs that we were not alone. It was hard to judge the direction, but it seemed to come from the landward half of town—exactly where her attention had been straying to.

  It was only when I realized that Nate wasn’t crinkling his nose that I decided to speak up. “Getting some mighty foul smell from south by southwest,” I reported.

  Someone laughed over the com, and I thought it was Hill who offered a good-natured, “Sorry, my bad.”

  Part of me wanted to gnash my teeth, but instead I kept repeating Burns’s advice to myself—treat them as if they were part of our team.

  “I’m not contending that you smell like a pig,” I retorted. “But if there’s someone here who knows what a decaying slab of meat smells like, it’s me. Trust me, we’re not alone.”

  Rodriguez piped up before anyone else could offer up a few choice remarks, her voice slightly strained. “She’s right, I smell it, too. Not even you can stink up the head like that, Hill.”

  Bucky g
ave a signal, making the other three with him halt as he eyed the surrounding buildings more closely. “Richards, take three teams to the southwestern edge of town. The rest, follow me.”

  I didn’t know what to make of it when Red called Nate and Tanner to follow him, along with the three soldiers assigned to him. Part of me wanted to protest that taking Gita straight to where we guessed the thick of the fray might be lurking was premeditated murder, but I respected her too much to do that to her. Tanner would take care of her, I was sure. That left Nate, Burns and me free to do what we knew to do best, with the others as great backup.

  We split away from the other half, now under Bucky’s direct control, walking a slow circle through high grass and weeds of what used to be backyards and fields until we reached the next large road leading from the town center into the countryside, roughly to the south of it. The fog still obscured the sun, but the ambient light was bright enough to make me guess that any minute now it would break through, giving us a better view of our surroundings. The urban sprawl of the town was stronger here, away from the beach, but that mostly meant more sheds and still-erect fences to obscure our sight.

  “Miller, check the western half,” Red whispered into his com. “Munez, Davis, Murdock, you’re with me. We take the eastern. Tanner, remain in the middle and split to whatever side makes contact first. We’re about three hundred meters out from where the other teams will come to the main square by the church, so if you see movement that far ahead, don’t necessarily shoot first and ask later.”

  Was that a joke? I was still puzzling about that when Nate signaled me to follow him, with Burns bringing up the rear. My left thigh gave a twinge as I ran along the road, crouching between cars where I could, but I did my best to ignore that. Nate paused at the first house, peering between what remained of the fence into the yard beyond, but then signaled me to head over to the next. Red mirrored our advance on the other side of the road, two of his guys taking a quick detour into a side road before they joined him once more.

  It was at the third house that the stink resurfaced. I didn’t need a college degree to put two and two together when I saw the half-eaten carcass of a deer, swarming with flies, on what used to be the front steps leading up to the house. “We have possible contact here,” I reported in, keeping my voice low.

  “We got movement in the backyard,” one of Red’s men said. “Some bones, and what I think used to be a raccoon.”

  Burns caught up to me, hunkering down behind the same car I was hugging. While he was still looking over the carcass, I picked up a stone from the curb and threw it against the wall of the house, jerking at the sudden sound of it clattering onto the front stoop.

  Nothing, then repetitive banging coming from the inside, as if something had suddenly roused and gotten caught on furniture—the cadence familiar enough to make it obvious what was going on. My fingers tightened on my M16, but after a second I shoved it back on its sling, grabbing for my tomahawks instead. Only one way to find out if my grip was any good on those, I figured.

  Pointing at my chest, then at the house, I silently told Burns that I was heading over to check it out. He squinted at me, not entirely happy, but gave me a nod of acknowledgment. Nate joined him just as I stepped from the curb through the open gate, careful not to make a sound as I eased through the dead leaves beside the carcass. From up close, I could see that it had been wrenched apart completely, literally torn limb from limb, the long bones cracked where something had tried to suck out the marrow. I lacked the proper knowledge of bugs to tell how long it had been there, but considering it wasn’t yet stinking too badly, I figured the remains were from last night.

  The front door was closed—and considering the bumping I’d heard inside had originated from the front of the house, I aimed to keep it that way—so I eased myself along the wall toward the back, hoping to find easier access through a terrace door. The fence, covered by vines now brown and mostly leafless, had partly caved in, forcing me to slowly crawl through it to make it to the backyard. I paused as soon as I could glance around the corner of the house, trying to look at everything at once. There was a shed and what used to be a small pool, the once-blue tarps a crumpled heap piled against the side of the rickety structure. I doubted anything larger than a mouse was lurking in there, but made a mental note not to rely on that. Chairs and a table were reduced to splintered wood, the bits and pieces strewn all across the deck. And there it was, a three-part, ground-to-ceiling window array, the middle pane open into the room beyond. Undefined stains covered the frame, blood and feces if I had to take a guess. The reek was much stronger here, as if I’d needed more confirmation.

  The hedge rustled behind me, spilling out Nate as I ascended the three steps to the deck. He gave me the “move back” signal as soon as he caught my attention, but I ignored him, instead ambling toward the door. What was the worst that could happen to me, that I got infected again? Fat chance.

  His curse was low enough that I barely caught it, but all the more vehement for it. I was a step away from the glass when he grabbed my arm and pulled me back. “What the fu—“

  I didn’t bother with answering, instead used his hold on my right arm to swing around and hack at the zombie that was suddenly right there in the face. Dramatic move, but not a smart one, as the sharp ax blade sheared off its nose before it got stuck in the lower jaw. Maybe I should have stuck with blunt weapons after all.

  Realizing what was going on, Nate immediately let go of me to come at the second undead pushing out onto the deck with his sledgehammer. My zombie let out a near-silent scream as it tried to reach me, never mind the ax stuck in its jaw. Gritting my teeth, I brought down the other tomahawk, hoping that my right hand would hold up. It did, but I only managed another glancing blow to its head. Thankfully, the momentum of the swing let me wrench the other tomahawk free, and the next swing hit home. Nate dispatched the third shambler crowding through the door, leaving us both panting from the brief spurt of exertion.

  “Well, that was anticlimactic,” I noted, nudging my downed shambler over onto its back. It didn’t come as much of a surprise that it looked like hundreds of other undead—not that I had expected anything different. They’d been smart enough to seek shelter, but not much beyond that. Glancing into the house, I found the room beyond the deck in disarray, more remains of animal carcasses mixed with what used to be furniture. One corner in particular was covered in fecal matter, swarms of flies buzzing over it. Absolutely no need to venture inside.

  Nate finished his own cursory examination of the corpses before he gave me a nasty look, jerking his chin back the way we had come. I spread my arms wide and gave him the universal “who cares?” look before I followed his order, slinking back to the main road.

  “Three undead, nothing out of the ordinary,” Nate reported in as he followed me. How he managed to put a note of accusation in the last part that was pointing like a blinking neon arrow at me, I didn’t know, nor did I care. It wasn’t just my imagination, I realized, when I found Burns grinning from ear to ear as we joined him.

  The other parties had busted down a few more doors, Tanner getting two busts while Red’s guys were covered in enough gore to warrant a good scrubbing already. Oh well. If I’d ever had worries that we wouldn’t fit right in, that put them to rest. We met up in the middle of the first larger intersection, Nate and Red briefly coordinating before we split up once more. Ten more houses followed, with mixed results. There were shamblers around aplenty, but they seemed disorganized at best, and even though they must have heard us bust down doors down the road, none of them ventured onto the streets to investigate. They were all well-fed, and we found plenty more animal remains to account for that. Considering the state their lairs were in, my guess was that most of them had been former residents that, after snacking on the family pets, had learned that there was game aplenty to be had not far from town. They also seemed to prefer a semi-solitary state, five or six the most we found at one single place. They prov
ided a great workout but not much of a challenge. Nate kept eyeing me critically, but so far my body was performing well enough that I wasn’t about to become a burden.

  At the next checkpoint, Red hung back, giving me a similarly judging look.

  “I’m not about to keel over quite yet,” I told him, not bothering with keeping the latent ire out of my voice.

  “Wasn’t implying that you were,” he replied. “And I’m sure you will let me know if you get there.”

  I stared after him for a second before following Burns further down the road. Apparently, I wasn’t the only snarky one around.

  What else I might have observed about his mannerisms went unnoted as a gunshot ringing loudly through the foggy morning made us all halt in our tracks, looking toward the source. It had come from deeper inside town, where our scheduled meeting point with the others must have been. A staccato sequence of an M16—presumably—going off followed, laying to rest the question whether it was just an accident, or first signs of heavy opposition.

  Red was already giving us the go-ahead when Bucky’s voice grated over the main frequency. “Cole, you dumb fuck!” followed by, “Meeting heavy opposition, two streets east of the town square. All groups, merge on my position!” I really didn’t like that my mind had run along the same lines. Couldn’t he have been as incompetent as he was despicable?