The one group of people that he had secretly always looked down on was rural people. He justified his prejudice on the basis that those people made the conscious choice to be philistines. That despite the benefits of public education those people chose to embrace banality rather than strive for culture and a 'modern' way of life. The way things seemed to be shaping up at the moment, made him feel woefully inadequate for life. He worried that he had no knowledge that would be of any use in this type of situation. His six years of higher education and all his amassed wealth meant nothing in comparison to one redneck with a gun. He was completely dependent on Jack and it made him feel small and insignificant, like he was a child again. At these thoughts, his humor at the expense of Jack and his family was swept from him.
As Jack and Esme discussed the necessary tasks in opening the cabin and setting up for the 'long-term' as Jack said, thoughts of the potential scale of the disaster crept into Mark's consciousness. What a total collapse or Shit-hit-the-fan scenario as Jack and Esme kept referring to might mean for him. He knew nothing about survival and his heart condition would keep him from doing anything but the most minor of labor. As the anxiety started to well up he focused on his breathing to try and calm himself.
The Bronco bounced across what appeared to be a wide rutted dry creek bed and through a small copse of trees before the cabin appeared. The cabin was a modern chalet-style structure that sat nestled against the edge of a clearing with its back side to the forest. A solar array and windmill sat in the open front yard, and a couple acres of cleared pasture sat above the yard, on a small plateau. Jack steered the truck around behind the cabin and parked next to a backhoe. He left the truck running and turned to Esme.
“Back me up?”
Esme nodded and stepped out into the failing light of day. Jack looked at his children.
“Y'all stay here until we come back, we gotta clear it quick.”
Jack Jr. nodded and Sammy picked her nose in silence. Jack looked at Mark for a moment and opened his mouth as if to say something. Instead, he closed it and stepped out onto the scrubby brown grass, joining his wife at the rear of the truck. Mark breathed easier with the pistol not aimed at his chest. He and Amber watched as the two moved off, alternating cover and movement with what appeared to be practiced precision.
*
Tim wasn't a tracker, the handful of hunting expeditions he and Jen had gone on over the course of the winter were largely unsuccessful. It was in his lack of wilderness knowledge that he couldn't even read the obvious signs that indicated the campsite had been abandoned months prior. It was only when Jen, having seen him looking about frantically in the distance, joined him that they were able to piece together some things about the site.
“Kid?” Jen asked, nodding at the skeletal remains half-buried by leaves and mud.
Tim nodded in return before responding.
“Let's keep this bit to ourselves.”
Jen took a moment, wondering why the body was completely skeletal for a moment before acknowledging his statement. It didn't make sense to tell them and create a panic within the rest of the group. It was too late in the day to find another site and this one appeared safe in that it was long abandoned, despite the macabre find.
“Cannibals?” she asked, sheepishly.
“Could be. Though, it could've been one of the undead or picked apart by a pack of dogs. I'd guess there are a few explanations,” he responded, unconvinced of any of the alternatives.
Packs of wild dogs were a new danger to those who survived the undead. Over the course of the winter, many of the former pets that had survived the initial starvation had banded together to hunt. Some of these new packs were even joined by coyotes. They had been forced to shoot a number of feral dogs that had come lurking around the house over the course of the winter and early spring. Each time when a pack returned they looked thinner and behaved more brazenly. Early in the new year, Christine had been out on the front lawn trying to hide her morning sickness. She had been quickly surrounded by more than a dozen of the beasts. They advanced on her threateningly but scattered quickly when she finally remembered to draw the weapon at her side and fire a shot.
In the wee hours of the morning, they could often hear the sounds of dogs sniffing around the house. Whether they were drawn by the smell of cooking food, or because they associated humans with food was moot. After Christine's encounter, they took great efforts to avoid them. The idea of having to travel anywhere on foot was made increasingly more dangerous by the dogs and Tim hoped that the SUV would make it to wherever they were headed without problems. He hoped the conversation with Jen would drop there. After seeing the bones of a small child, he was anxious to get back to his family. Any of the possibilities for the fate of the child to whom the bones belonged to worried him greatly.
The fact that they had seen neither the living nor the undead all day sparked the same hopeful thought in their minds as they settled in uncomfortably for the night. Could it finally be over? Even though they had dispatched a handful of undead over the course of the past week at the farmhouse, they all rationalized their hopes in a number of ways. While the lack of humanity was unsettling, the lack of undead fired that spark of hope within them all. None spoke their thoughts aloud for fear that they would jinx it or someone would remind them of the reality they were in. Tim was certain that they would know for sure the following day, as they neared Minneapolis, a city of nearly half a million.
The night passed without incident and they all woke early, ready to travel. Their initial fears and trepidation had worn off and the excitement of the journey began to take hold. Tim was feeling reassured in his decision to leave as they finished their morning ritual of toileting and got settled back in the Yukon. The countryside blurred past, outside the windows and with the empty rural roadways, they were able to travel at a decent speed. They purposefully avoided allowing their eyes to linger long enough on their surroundings, knowing that the hope and happiness they felt would be dispelled by the sight of a single staggering undead.
They were a few miles north of Rochester, Minnesota when they spotted a stalled minivan with a landscaping trailer hooked to the back of it. There were a number of blue molded-plastic gas cans on the trailer bungee-corded into place against the rear gate. Tim put the Yukon in park, unable to pass up a chance for an easy supply of fuel, and stepped out onto the roadway to check it out. Jen, back assuming the role of Tim's partner, also stepped out into the brisk spring wind as he approached warily. The sounds of the 90s compilation CD that the girls were singing along to drifted out from Jen's open door as she stood watch.
Even from a hundred-yard distance, he could tell that the minivan was unoccupied. His heart-rate slowed a bit and the whipping breeze subsided for a moment and he noticed a series of odd, loud rumbling and squealing noises rolled in from the north. Tim looked back to the Yukon where he could see Jen scanning the area, her furrowed brow indicated that she took note of the odd warbling sound as well. Inside the Yukon, Laura, Luna, Christine, and Sophie were singing happily, bobbing their heads and snapping their fingers inside while Will sat with his head against the window, apparently lost in thought. The image of Luna jumping on her mother's lap melted his heart and made him smile. The dark cloud that seemed omnipresent ever since the undead started walking started flowing into his thoughts. It nagged at his subconscious, it sapped his strength, and worse. It filled his heart with dark thoughts about the fate of his child. He pushed aside the dark cloud of desperation that started to creep over him as he turned his attention back to the task at hand. He pulled two gas cans off the trailer, one full and one quarter-full and set them on the roadway before his curiosity regarding the odd sound finally got the best of him.
He cautiously walked up the roadway, towards the top of the rise, to see if he could tell what the noise was. The area here was wide open with low rolling hills covered by fields of knee-high grasses. On both sides of the fields rolled off to the horizon. Being out in th
e open was a source of perpetual unease since the world went to hell, but in the vast wastes of dead grasses, he had no real concerns about being caught unaware and set upon. Considering they hadn't seen any undead in a full day of travel, the fact that something was making noise at all was irresistible to him. As he moved further from the SUV, he looked back to Jen who had her hands up in a querying gesture. He waved her off dismissively and continued the last fifty feet to the crest of the rise.
Tim was so unprepared for what lay over the rise that he stood there, slack-jawed for a long time, trying to absorb and process the scene before him. A black, unmarked military helicopter sat in the middle of the highway about a half mile down the opposite side of the slope. He stared blankly, shell-shocked, trying to grasp that the object of their pursuit was within reach just a few short hours from Benoit. The initial shock of the sight vanished at the realization that the helicopter's crew was engaged in all out war against an enormous tangle of undead. Thousands upon thousands of undead surrounded the helicopter. Tim at last put the pieces of the puzzle together, the whine and rumble he heard from below was the sound of the helicopter's mini-gun unleashing on the gathered mob of undead. Though as the gun cleared great swaths of undead away, more moved to fill the gaps.
Tim looked behind him, back down to the SUV and caught Will's eye as the man was now standing outside the Yukon, stretching and looking up towards him. He pointed at Jen and hoped Will understood. He knew that there was a knot of tension between he and Will. He also knew that it was for the same reason he and Laura bickered over the winter. He had tried his best not to feed into either of their apparent jealousies, but was well aware that they existed. He also knew that he needed Jen and she him on those supply and hunting trips. He cursed silently to himself, and did his best to fight back the eye roll and head shake as Will ignored his gesture and started walking up the slope towards him. He knew Will wanted to become a bigger part of the security of the group, but he also knew that kind of experience required time and controlled environments. Tim continued staring at the side of Jen's bobbing head as she joined in on the dancing with the girls inside the Yukon, hoping that she would meet his gaze. Once Will had finally limped his way up to the top of the rise, his jaw dropped as Tim's had.
“What. The. Fuck,” he said at length.
“I'm guessing we need to help somehow, any ideas how?”
*
Things were quiet in the cabin for the first few days. Jack had a shortwave radio in his den. He spent most of his time in there, talking to people and fiddling with the knobs on it. They had lights, heat, and a well stocked freezer of frozen vegetables and venison, that, after their initial revulsion was passed, Mark and Amber readily devoured. The downstairs of the house was a great room with a kitchen toward the rear. A short back hallway led to Jack’s office and a bathroom-laundry room combo. Up a spiral staircase there were three bedrooms and a bathroom all overlooking the great room. The kids were shuffled into Sammy's room to share and Mark and Amber stayed in Jack Jr.'s bedroom giving them some privacy. They were comfortable and warm despite everything else that was going on in the world.
A steady stream of terrible stories came in over the radio and Jack felt obliged to share the horrors with the other adults. Esme absorbed the tales with grim stoicism while Mark and Amber did their best not to show just how terrified they were. Three days into their stay and a knock at the door changed everything. Mark awoke to the sound and slid out of bed, crawling over to the window. There was a slate gray pickup truck in the front yard, and while the roof of the front porch prevented him from seeing the visitors, he could hear them once Jack answered the door.
“Jack?” came the voice of the stranger.
“That'd be me.”
“I'm Steve, Steve Williams, this is Daniel and my son Clyde.”
“Welcome, any problems finding the place?”
“Nah . . . well, a bit, the trail is really hard to spot, must've driven past it three times before Danny finally spotted it.”
“That ain't a bad thing.”
“Nossir, it ain't.” The man called Steve laughed.
“What is it?” Amber hissed, still huddled up under the comforter on the bed behind him.
“Looks like Jack invited some people here,” he hissed back.
“Friends?”
“Don't think so, they had to introduce themselves. From the radio maybe,” he hissed back before adding. “Shhh!”
“-free to pick a spot over that there hill and over yonder. There's a creek that cuts through. The water should be good enough, I'd use some tablets to be sure, though,” Jack said, pronouncing creek, crick.
“Much obliged, seen any of the infected out here?”
“Not a one. We heard one of them in the distance a few days back, though. Why don't ya get set up a bit and come on back around noon for some lunch, the rest'll be up and y'all can meet everyone.”
The arrival of that trio was the trickle before the floodgates opened. Over the following week, a steady stream of strangers filtered in, setting campsites on the low plateau that sat above the cabin. Jack was extending invitations to survivors he met on the radio after feeling them out for a bit. By the end of the first week at the cabin there were nearly thirty people scattered about the property. They often heard Esme and Jack arguing late at night, after everyone had gone to bed. It seemed that Jack's decision, though kind-hearted and in the spirit of the God he always talked about, was not well received by his wife.
News that the newcomers carried in with them from the outside was bleak, entire cities were burning unchecked and the infected were everywhere. Rumors were spreading that some of the infected were incredibly fast, though no one that told the tales had ever seen one personally. There were rumors about the Russians nuking Los Angeles and how we annihilated them in return. The rumor-mill was working overtime on Jack's radio, echoing the combined fears of everyone gathered about the cabin, from terrorism to plague to zombies. But with every new arrival, the questions on every survivor's lips were the same. Where the fuck is the government, where is the military?
Mark came downstairs one morning to interrupt a rare daylight argument between Esme and Jack. The married couple were in the kitchen at the rear of the great room, arguing about the influx of newcomers. Jack's voice lowered instantly as he spotted Mark, wanting to drop the issue, but Esme was irate and turned to face the two upstairs.
“Mark, do you think it's smart to keep inviting these strangers in?” she asked angrily. “You want all these strangers roaming about with the plague, infected, or whatever the hell is going around here?”
Mark looked desperately into Jack's eyes for a moment, pleading for the man to intervene, before responding.
“Jack is a good man, he is trying to help people. But, no, I don't think it's smart. That being said, Amber and I wouldn't be here if it weren't for his kindness.” Mark shrugged and walked towards the stairs and down into the kitchen to make a bowl of oatmeal.
“This is enough, Jack.” Esme continued. “No more people, okay?”
“Safety lies in numbers, hon. Some of these people have nowhere safe to go.”
“Hate to sound cold here Jack, but that's not our problem.”
“Well, we got a few more families coming in, ones I already invited. I ain't turning them away.”
“Fine, but no more,” she replied.
She locked him in her steely gaze to let him know in no uncertain terms that her foot was firmly planted on this one. Jack nodded and retreated with his coffee into his den to fiddle with the radio.
*
Laura pressed the power button, silencing the car radio as soon as she realized that Tim was nowhere in sight. Luna continued to screech out her rendition of Paula Abdul for a moment before the karaoke was completely silenced in the vehicle. They all heard the sound as soon as the little girl trailed off. A rumbling static noise drifted in as Laura cracked her window.
“What the . . .” Jen called from
the side of the vehicle, for the first time noticing that Will was no longer standing behind her, stretching.
“No clue,” Laura said.
“Earthquake?” Christine asked.
They scanned the area for a few minutes, hoping to catch sight of the men without having to honk the horn. The sound, a weird humming thrum stopped abruptly, leaving them in quiet, with only the brisk breeze whistling in through the cracked windows sounding. The minutes ticked by slowly as they watched and waited. Jen finally stepped away from the Yukon with her pistol in hand.
“There, up the hill to the north!” Christine called out.
All eyes scanned up the highway, past the minivan, where they finally caught sight of Tim and Will coming over a rise. They were half-carrying, half-dragging two wounded men back towards the SUV. To their horror, as they watched, a massive horde of undead crested the ride, barely ten meters behind. The line of undead stretched as far as they could see, blotting out a good amount of the northern horizon. The throng of slow undead were packed together so densely that there was no way to see how far back the line went. The rumbling of their communal footsteps was accompanied by a low plaintive sound that was the gathered moans of thousands of the undead. Jen turned back to the SUV and edged her head around Luna and Laura in the passenger seat and her heart dropped. She could see that Tim had done something they had all discussed before and agreed on Not doing. He had taken the keys out of the ignition.
Harvest of Ruin (Book 3): A Spring of Sorrow Page 6
