Harvest of Ruin (Book 3): A Spring of Sorrow

by Mongelli, Arthur

  *

  Yen and Nala rode in silence out to the outskirts of town. The only sounds that entered their consciousness were that of the heater ticking, the wind blowing through the shattered windows, and the leaf springs squeaking. Yen pulled the Explorer down the drive to Harold's house, easing it in next to Harold's pick up, now sitting emptied in the drive next to the workshop.

  “This the place?” Nala nervously asked, slouching low in the seat and bringing her gun up to the ready.

  “Sorry, no, this is Harold's place. He and some of my people are gonna come along as well.”

  Seeing her relax visibly and scoot upright in her seat, Yen swung out of the Police issue Ford and moved purposefully towards the workshop. The silver smokestack that jutted from the roof was puffing dark clouds up into the overcast sky. Yen rapped with the back of his knuckles on the frame of the steel door. He could see a shape moving through the frosted glass a moment before the door swung inward. Harold stood there in his boots with his coveralls unzipped, folded down and tied around his waist, displaying his ample stomach.

  “What the fuck happened to you!” Harold shouted on seeing Yen covered in blood.

  “Get your gun, Harold. Where are my people?”

  “Out back, they're setting up in the old hay-barn,” Harold called back as he shouldered his coveralls back up and zipped them, blushing slightly as he noticed Nala for the first time.

  “Ma'am,” he politely blurted before tipping an imaginary hat to her.

  Harold brushed past Yen and scurried across the rock salt-crusted driveway to the main house.

  Yen cut across the length of the garage and broke into a trot as he strode through the well-trodden crusty snow, moving towards the graying cedar barn a few hundred feet distant. Nala stepped out of the Explorer and moved inside the workshop a couple steps, edging near the wood burning stove to steal some of its warmth while the men gathered themselves.

  What the fuck am I doing here? she asked herself as she vigorously rubbed the hand poking out from the end of the cast that Linda had applied to her shattered arm. You don't even know these people Nal. You're really gonna risk your ass for some strangers?

  “Fuck!” she blurted aloud, dispelling her doubts immediately and replacing them with anger.

  She tapped deeply into the vein of fire that stole her sense away and brought her to the porch of the house the foul men were in. The men that had left a trail of raped corpses wherever they went. That anger brought a warmth with it. No longer feeling the cold, she stepped back out under the steel gray sky of daytime in the high Rockies. She absently fingered the emblem emblazoned on the grip of her pistol. It was the same pistol that she had taken into that house.

  She had faced so much pain and seen so much injustice those first few days that now, the mere thought of these men gunning people down with impunity brought that seething anger bubbling back to the surface. She barely noticed when Harold came out of the house with a pair of rifles slung over his shoulder and walked within feet of her as he crossed the driveway. He went back into the workshop and came out a moment later with a box of shells in each hand and pulled the door shut behind him.

  Nala snapped out of her reverie at the sound of the door slamming shut and noticed Harold for the first time. Even in his heavy winter coveralls he looked gaunt and tired. The man started his old truck up and kicked the heater on full blast. When he finished sliding the long guns behind the bench seat he stood straight, looking across the hood at her.

  “You're the new girl, huh?” he asked almost disinterestedly. “Heard about you, they said you can handle yourself in a pinch.”

  Nala just stared at the man. She held her tongue, afraid that the raw, unbridled anger she felt would manifest in tears of rage. Crying, regardless of the source, was not something she was going to allow herself right now. Instead, she focused on her breathing to calm herself. After a few moments of silence Harold spoke again.

  “You able to work a rifle with that arm?”

  His eyes squinted as he appraised her, waiting for an answer.

  “Don't know, haven't tried. I don't see why not, though,” she answered honestly.

  “Pistols are fine and all for close range. The object is to not let them get close enough as to where you'll be needing them.”

  He wrinkled his nose and horked a wad of thick green snot onto the ground in front of him. Nala did her best to hide her disgust as the first trickles of warmth came out of the truck's vents. A moment later Harold nodded his head, gesturing into the distance. Nala could see a half-dozen men approaching from the barn, bristling with gun barrels.

  “Tar didn't want them all armed,” he said matter-of-factly. “I don't agree. Hop in my truck and get yourself situated, it's time to pay Tyler a visit.”

  *

  Tim stayed awake as late as he was able to that evening, sitting by the campfire and poking absently at the embers. He felt like he owed Bob some kind of comfort, but nothing would come to his tired mind. Finally, Bob spoke, clearing the tension.

  “Get some rest Tim,” he said, poking his pale sweaty face up from the sleeping bag. “You all have some miles to go in the morning, and you're gonna need your rest. I wish you all the best on your journey. Really. This world is shit and I can't even imagine the fear you all live in, for the kids and the women. That pregnant girl, can't remember her name . . .”

  “Chris. Christine,” Tim replied.

  “That's quite a burden for someone so young. The father?”

  “We . . . she lost him on the ice. We all lost something on the ice. I lost my partner, my best friend of twenty years, Sophie lost her father, Christine, her best friend and lover.”

  “The ice?”

  “We crossed the Great Lakes at the onset of winter. We figured there would be less undead than skirting near Chicago or Toronto. It didn't turn out so good,” Tim trailed off, forced to consider the choices that were made leading to the tragedy on the frozen lake. “None of us were prepared for the cold hard brutality of the crossing. In the end, we strayed off course when our compass froze and the undead, thousands of them, caught us out in the open with nothing to do but run.”

  Tim trailed off, choking on the grief that came back too easily in his tired state.

  “There's something my father used to tell us when we were kids,” Bob interjected when he saw the veil of grief lower over Tim's face. “He used to say that luck was passed down generationally, father to son and so on. I'm at the end of my line here now, both literally and most likely as far as my whole damn family line is concerned.”

  A sardonic laugh came from Bob that degenerated into a phlegmy coughing fit that lasted a few moments.

  “The only thing I have left to give is my luck. It might mean nothing to ya, might not be worth anything, but I'll give it to you anyways. It's all yours, for the kids and Christine.”

  “Bob . . .” Tim started, awkwardly.

  He briefly considered cracking a joke about the state of Bob's luck at this point, but thought better of it. Tim had always been uncomfortable around death and though Bob's impending death and his acceptance of it helped diffuse his awkwardness a bit, he was still uncomfortable.

  “Thank you, Bob,” he managed to muster, earnestly, before he stood and turned, climbing into the back seat of the Yukon to rest for the night.

  He cautiously slid into the middle row, moving beside Luna and Laura, who were already sound asleep. He did his best not to disturb their rest and silently closed and locked the door behind him. At the moment, the humor of locking the doors on a windowless vehicle was lost on him. He fell fast asleep no sooner than he lay his head down on Laura's shoulder. The stress of the past forty-eight hours had taken its toll.

  It was just after the sun mounted the hills to the east when everyone slowly started waking. It was impossible to continue sleeping once people started moving about in the cramped SUV. The morning chill kept everyone huddled in their sleeping bags for the first twenty or so minutes o
f wakefulness. The sound of a gun report jolted everyone upright in a heartbeat. Their heads whipped around the campsite looking for any sign of threat, before settling on the limp form of Bob, lying next to the neatly folded pile of bedding that he had used the night previous. The crimson and pink spray of blood and fatty brain-matter behind where he lay was all the indication they needed to know that Bob had met his end on his own terms. Though he was a stranger, their hearts were heavy for the man who had traveled thousands of miles across the Atlantic to die alone in that field.

  They hurriedly relieved themselves and packed the rest of the gear back into the Yukon. They pulled back onto the roadway within five minutes of Bob's departure into the hereafter. Normally they would've eaten breakfast before leaving, but they dared not linger about after the gunshot. Instead, peanut butter and crackers were handed around the car and eaten in silence. Their thoughts dwelt on what they had already lost and what they had left to lose as they traveled towards the distant unknown.

  *

  Mark pulled Amber off the driveway and onto the crisp, virgin snow that lay under the boughs of the conifers. He veritably dragged her along behind him. They were both screaming as they crunched through the snow, the undead converged on them from every direction except a narrow gap that Mark had spotted ahead of them. The effort and struggle was compounded due to the lack of food and water. They struggled with every step as the hands of the infected started reaching out at them from between the trees as they ran.

  They stumbled down a slope and over a gully into a narrow clearing. A throng of the infected started coming out of the forest to their left. He shifted their direction away from the horde, and felt a strange sensation underfoot. The ground underneath the snow was exceptionally flat. It took a moment before he had the dawning realization that it wasn't a simple forest clearing. They made it to route 26. The roadway was sheltered from the sun by the boughs of the magnificent conifers, and was still covered in a heavy blanket of snow.

  “We made it to the road, Am, run now!” he shouted at her, breathlessly.

  Their ankles were cold and lacerated as the harsh rind of ice that crusted the top of the snow shredded their skin once their feet punched through. The hoarse sounds of their breathing and racing hearts blotted out the sounds of hundreds of infected moaning. As they ran, the infected poured through the forest around them like a putrescent river flowing through the trees. The fast infected that Mark had shot was no longer visible behind them, only the slower ones, but in great numbers.

  Looking behind, Mark thought that it looked like the end of a marathon, and they were winning. He started laughing despite himself until he spotted the sign. The green sign with the triangular white tent on it. He fumbled around quickly and mashed the unlock button on the electronic key, and the Tesla chirped from under a heavy blanket of snow and pine boughs. They were inside with the doors locked in a matter of moments. The tires were spinning uselessly in the deep blanket of snow the car was locked in, when the mob of infected caught up to them.

  All four tires spun uselessly as the infected piled up behind the stranded car.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Mark chanted, gritting his teeth as he willed the car onto the roadway.

  Amber was beyond words at this point, she was just continually screaming unintelligibly. Hands slapped and scratched at the windows as the infected jockeyed to get to the two. They moved along the sides of the car, smearing their faces across the windows, mouthing at them. The pit in Mark's stomach grew to a chasm and the voice in his head told him that this was where he was going to die.

  Then a wonderful thing happened. The combined weight of the infected piling in from the rear became forceful enough to push the Tesla free of the snow drift that it floundered in. The car shifted a bit to the right and its spinning wheels caught on some gravel beneath the snow. Before either of the two could make sense of what was happening, the car jolted up and onto the roadway. The rear end fishtailed for a moment before Mark was able to get it under control. He laughed maniacally as they crunched their way through the snow, moving slowly down the snowbound road. They both watched as the mass of infected sloughing away behind them grew more and more distant.

  *

  Mark and Amber were both too timid and scared to try and enter a building, so they survived the next month living entirely in the Tesla. They only left its safe confines in order to toilet or when Mark had to set up the solar array he had Jimmy-rigged to recharge the batteries. Without a physical map to guide them and no GPS to assist them with their route, they were forced to argue about and to trust their gut in regards to their course. The route they followed was generally to the south; they wanted to get clear of the snow and the dangers it carried with it. The fear of accidents and impassable snow drifts spurred them onward.

  Although Mark's improvised charging method worked well, they had to spend an entire day north of Ogden, Utah waiting for the Tesla to fully charge. It was the following day when they passed a frightening road-sign hanging from an overpass. It said Salt Lake City 15mi. The sign brought with it the dawning realization that they were on a collision course with a major city, something that neither of them were even willing to consider trying. As the stalled traffic of dead and disabled cars started piling up on the roadway about them, they hurriedly took the next clear exit, regardless of where it led. They had no set course as they had no destination in mind, so when they exited the highway, they chose to head eastward. They knew what was west, overpopulated California and the infected; the east still held hope.

  They meandered about southern Idaho, western Wyoming and northeast Utah for a couple weeks, having to make a number of course changes as they encountered the infected and impassable traffic. Eventually, they made their way to southeastern Wyoming. They ran the Tesla's batteries dry and the overcast, rainy spring skies prevented them from recharging the solar batteries for nearly a week just east of a town called Fort Steel. Fortunately for the couple, Jack had the car well stocked with provisions. When the clouds finally parted, it was only for a few hours before the sun dipped below the horizon. With a weak charge, and suffering from severe cabin fever after a week of bickering in the cramped Tesla, they decided to move on in hopes that Nebraska might have more sun.

  The mood in the Tesla was growing ever more tense as the hours slipped past and the battery life gauge crept ever lower. They ignored each other as much as possible, just to keep things civil. A sign indicating that they had entered the city limits of Laramie, Wyoming came into view just as the steering wheel jerked to the shoulder and a grinding sound issued from the front of the vehicle. Mark let off the gas and let the car drift to a stop directly in front of the sign. After a few moments of digesting what happened, Mark knew that they had a flat tire. He finally got out and nervously walked around to the front passenger side to confirm his suspicions. Completely exhausted and drained from all of the bickering, Mark threw himself back into the driver's seat and slammed the door shut. He grabbed hold of the steering wheel with all his might and pounded on it in defeat.

  “Fuck!” he groaned through gritted teeth.

  “Mark,” Amber said nervously, after a moment. “What is it? What's wrong?”

  “We've got a flat tire, Am.”

  “Oh! Is that all?” Her voice brightened. “We've got the spare in the back, right?”

  Mark was on the verge of tears, holding onto the anger was the only thing keeping them at bay. He ignored her and lay his forehead on the wheel, lamenting their fate. He knew the spare was there, but there were hundreds of pounds of provisions atop it. Mark had neither the strength nor was there enough daylight to change it at the moment.

  “Mark!” Amber repeated, this time laying her hand on his arm and holding it.

  “Mark” she repeated, her voice suddenly urgent.

  When Mark finally lifted his head from the wheel and opened his eyes he could see two men approaching them on the roadway.

  *

  After two hours on
the road they took the first of what was sure to be many bathroom breaks. Christine's bladder was a sieve at this point in the pregnancy, it seemed the entire weight of her unborn baby was resting directly atop it. After the necessities were taken care of, they lingered and stretched in the morning air, none were eager to return to the extreme discomfort of the Yukon. Between the wind whipping through the shattered windows and the constant nuisance of shattered glass everywhere, they were all more than happy to linger by the roadside for a few extra minutes. Will, Jen and Tim pored over the atlas plotting and planning their route while the kids played. Laura was busy comforting and attending to Chris, who was in the process of emptying her stomach shortly after finishing her breakfast.

  Tim and Will found Salida and Denver on the map and proceeded to plot a number of alternate bi-way journeys to the area. As always, they pushed to avoid interstate highways and cities altogether. They took turns using their fingers to measure the distance, comparing it to the map key in the corner. They exchanged a smile when they finished; if they were able to avoid any major detours or any of the innumerable other problems that lurked, they were hopeful that they would make it to Colorado sometime that evening. Tim tempered his enthusiasm though, he thought that it was more likely they would be forced to camp in Wyoming, somewhere between Cheyenne and Laramie, but seeing his friend smile, he kept his thoughts to himself. The last thing any of them needed when traveling through this nightmarish landscape was someone to throw a wet blanket on their dreams. Besides, even if they had to spend one more night out, they would hit Colorado in the fresh light of day which was a far cry better than trying to find the town under the cover of dark. He feared the idea of strolling into the midst of a bunch of strangers in the middle of the night. They decided to avoid Salida altogether, Bob's warnings were too vague and overtly threatening in regards to the women to even consider. The plan was to head for Steamboat Springs and once there, after they got a lay of the area, they would plot a new course.