This Shattered Land - 02

by James Cook

  I rolled the firewood to the cabin in a rusty old wheelbarrow. Brian helped me stack it on the front porch while Tom watched us through the window with a troubled expression on his face. I knew that expression all too well. I had seen it looking back at me in the mirror plenty of times.

  Figuring that Tom needed some time to think, I offered to do a little knife fighting practice with Brian. The boy smiled and ran down to the bunker to fetch a couple of plastic training knives. While he was gone, Sarah pulled a chair up next to her husband and put an arm around his shoulders. They leaned their heads together, holding hands. Tom kissed her on the forehead, and pulled her close. It made me remember my own parents, how they would sit next to each other on the sofa and smile at me while I played on the living room carpet as a little boy. I had to swallow a few times against the lump in my throat when I turned away. Brian emerged from the bunker and brought over the two red plastic knives, extending one to me hilt first.

  “Okay, let’s go over some basic blocks and strip tactics.” I said, falling into a fighting stance. Brian followed suit as we circled one another.

  “Remember,” I said, “don’t use the same tactics against the living and the dead. The dead don’t feel pain.”

  Brian nodded and shifted his stance a bit, putting more weight on his left side. The momentary distraction let me lunge in with a strike at his mid-section. Brian saw it coming and managed to swing a forearm around to deflect the attack, nearly knocking me off balance. Before I had a chance to recover, he executed a deft little spin move and dropped his weight while aiming a reverse slash at my knee. I hopped out of the way, but only barely. A grin spread across my face. The kid was fast and devious, a natural fighter.

  “Nice block. Blocks are great, but they are not fight-stoppers. This time, try to strip the knife out of my hand.” I said. Brian nodded.

  I lowered my center into a crouching stance and scuttled forward. Brian gave ground and circled. A quick fake to the right, then a drop step to the left drew his attention. My training knife flew out toward the fingers of his knife hand, then abruptly switched direction to hurtle toward a point just above his hip. He sidestepped the stab by a fraction of a second and brought his free hand underneath mine in the same motion. Gripping my wrist, he brought his knife hand down with a hammer fist strike at my blade just above the thumb. The thumb is the weak point of your grip, and if you put leverage against it in the right direction, you can easily strip a knife or a gun out of someone’s hand. Brian’s strike demonstrated that principle by smashing my knife to the ground. A fraction of a second and a quick snapping motion later, the tip of his weapon stopped just short of my throat. I nodded my approval.

  “That was a kill. Nice work.” I said. Brian beamed back at me.

  I heard clapping off to my right, and turned to see Gabriel leaning against the shed with a half-smile on his tattered face.

  “Not bad, kid. You’re pretty good with a blade.” He said as pushed of the wall and walked over to stop in front of Brian, kneeling down eye-to-eye with the boy.

  “Your mother told me that today is your birthday.”

  Brian shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. That stuff doesn’t really matter anymore.”

  Gabriel frowned at him, and placed one hand on his shoulder. Brian’s arm looked painfully thin and frail under Gabe’s scarred hand.

  “Your birthday is still important, son. Here, I got something for you.”

  He reached into his coat and pulled out a knife in a nylon sheath. It was a venerable Buck Nighthawk. Brian’s face lit up in a smile as Gabe handed it to him. All of his premature seriousness and maturity melted away, and for a moment, he was just a happy kid again. My heart warmed to see it. I could almost imagine him before the Outbreak, playing baseball in the park, or eating a hot dog at a back yard bar-b-que. A boy his age should have been running around playing with his friends and making mischief like kids are supposed to, not learning how to kill a man with a dagger.

  “I can have it?” Brian asked.

  “Of course.” Gabe said, smiling. “Every fighting man needs a good knife.”

  Brian looped the knife onto his belt, and practiced drawing it a few times. The black blade looked eerily natural in his hands. He turned and scampered back to the cabin to show his birthday present to his parents.

  “Dad, look what Gabriel gave me.” He said, turning to the side so that his father could see the knife in its sheath.

  “That’s nice, son.” Tom said, looking up from a map. “Did you say thank you?”

  Brian stopped and flushed, realizing that he hadn’t.

  “Thanks Gabe.”

  He belted out his rusty, grating laugh. “You’re welcome little man.”

  I pointed a finger at the boy. “He’s getting pretty good with those things.”

  “I know, I’ve been watching you two practice.” Tom replied. “Just remember son, don’t use that knife unless you have to, understand? It’s not a toy, so don’t treat it like one.”

  “I won’t dad, I promise.”

  Tom looked at his son for a moment longer, then gave a nod of satisfaction and went back to studying his map.

  The rest of the afternoon passed quietly. As the sun began to sink behind the distant blue hills, I walked out to the sheer cliff that forms the entire western face of the mountain the cabin sits on. A flat section near the edge overlooks a vast panorama of undulating mountains rolling away toward the western plains. Gabriel and I had placed a couple of Adirondack chairs there and dug a rock-lined pit near the ledge. It was a good spot to enjoy the warmth of a fire and watch the sun bed down behind the Appalachians.

  Tom brought out a folding chair and set it near the other two while I grabbed some kindling. I got a fire going and took a seat in front of it, holding my hands out to absorb the warmth. Gabe opened the bottle of Maker’s Mark he brought with him and poured a few fingers into tin cups before passing them around. We raised our cups in salute and took a sip. The whiskey was crisp and warm, singing notes of caramel and oak on my palate and tracing a line of slow-burning fire on the way down. I sat back and watched the daylight sink behind the horizon.

  The sky faded from burnished gold, to smoldering orange, and finally to a deep, dark blue that lightened shade by shade toward the eastern horizon. The blue in the distance faded into black that grew and expanded until it devoured every corner of the sky. Stars pierced the gloom in multitudes that glittered bright and defiant against the empty curtain of night.

  “Sure is a nice evening.” Tom said, starting his second whiskey.

  “Yeah, it is. Probably only about thirty degrees or so out here, but after this past winter it’s downright toasty.” Gabe replied.

  “Speaking of, how long do you think this damn nuclear winter is going to last?” I asked, looking over at Gabe.

  He reached up a hand and scratched his beard. “Probably another year or so, maybe longer. If that Army fella you talked to was right and there were less than a dozen nukes fired, it should be over in two more years at most. Problem is, it ain’t just the nukes that caused the Earth to cool down. You gotta remember, half the fucking world burned down during the Outbreak. Cities, forests, factories, chemical plants, hell most of the Southwest all the way to California went up like a Roman candle. I remember watching news footage from KTLA, and Los Angeles was just one big burning firestorm. All that shit made its way into the atmosphere too.”

  “So what you’re saying is we’re probably stuck with these cold temperatures for a couple more years, right?” Tom asked.

  Gabe nodded. “No sense in worrying about it. Not much we can do except try to stay warm, and hope for the best.”

  Tom grew quiet thinking about that. An hour passed while we sipped the strong liquor and watched the fire burn low against the far horizon. The temperature dropped about ten more degrees, making me regret not bringing a blanket. I threw a couple more logs on the fire to ward off the chill. The cabin’s front door opened behind me and I he
ard Sarah’s light tread approaching the fire.

  “Little guy go to bed?” Tom asked her.

  “Yeah, he knocked out in front of the stove reading a book. I left him be, we can put him to bed in a little while.” She said as she put a chair down next to her husband.

  “Thank you for staying with him, it was nice to have some quiet time.” Tom said and reached out for her hand.

  “No problem.” She flicked a gesture at Gabe and me. “I figured you needed to do some male bonding, or whatever the hell.”

  “If by bonding, you mean the careful and deliberate consumption of several fiery libations, then you are correct ma’am.” Gabe said, his southern accent growing thicker. “Care for some of Kentucky’s finest? It’s good for what ails you.”

  Sarah smiled. “You know what? I don’t mind if I do.”

  Gabriel poured her a couple of fingers and handed her a cup. She gave the amber liquid a discerning sniff.

  “Nice, you guys have the good stuff.”

  The night wore on, growing steadily colder. My whiskey buzz grew into a low, steady hum as the conversation between my companions grew distant. I thought about the forthcoming river voyage to Marion, and found myself looking forward to it. Canoeing had long been one of my favorite hobbies, although it now had a much more serious purpose. Gabe and I had actually paddled the route we planned to take a few times before the Outbreak, so we knew the way quite well. A significant problem we faced was avoiding the rapids that poured down a series of steep valleys to the east. That meant carrying the canoe over land a couple of miles, a prospect that mitigated my enthusiasm.

  As challenging as the short journey might prove to be, my inner scavenger was chomping at the bit to scare up some salvage. One of the places we planned to hit was a little boutique teashop located on the town’s small main street. Tea might not sound like a commodity worth risking our lives for, but when you consider that it is an extremely rare and valuable trade good, the logic becomes a bit clearer. Other small groups of survivors we spoke with over Gabe’s HAM radio over the past couple of years had told us about the trade networks set up on a barter system all over the country. Some of those groups scavenged, hunted, or farmed to provide for themselves, but many had come to depend almost entirely on trade. I’m not sure how they managed to do that in the two short years that had passed since the Outbreak, but somehow they pulled it off. Small caravans of merchants traveled back and forth between these communities, ferrying goods from one place to another. Apparently it was a good living if you didn’t mind the hordes of walking corpses, or the merciless raiders that threatened every mile of usable highway.

  Sarah let out an especially loud laugh that startled me. I looked across the fire at her, blinking blearily against the light. She had one hand in Tom’s lap, gently kneading the muscle of his thigh and leaning into him. I turned my head to hide a grin. It looked like someone was in for a very nice evening. I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous, it had been a long time since I had touched a woman. Well over a year, in fact. Sometimes I thought about Stacy, the girl I met at the abandoned warehouse in Alexis. I wondered how she was doing, if she was healthy and safe, and if she ever thought about me. If I happened to cross her path again, would she be happy to see me? I shook my head at the thought. I had no right to hope for that. She didn’t walk away from the relationship—I did. Sometimes I wondered if I had made the right decision. My thoughts wandered farther back to Vanessa, another ex-girlfriend, but I turned away from those memories. I didn’t like thinking about her. After she got bitten by a ghoul and turned, I had to put her down and bury her in my back yard. Not exactly a romantic ending to the relationship.

  As I leaned over to refill my cup, a rock skittered down the side of the mountain to my left. I stopped and turned my head, straining to see. Nothing but inky black darkness stared back at me from the edge of the firelight. I waited a few heartbeats, listening. All I heard was crickets and the crackle of burning pine logs. I was just about to lean back and laugh at myself for being jumpy when a harsh, gurgling moan ripped through the still night air. Several others answered in rapid succession. The noise of our conversation must have attracted them. For some reason, the dead act differently at night than they do during the day. After sunset, they won’t start moaning until they are almost right on top of you. During the day, just about anything will set them off no matter how far away it is. Maybe it’s a sight thing, or maybe they have some kind of nocturnal hunting instinct. I’m not sure. I just know it is one of the many factors that make the undead a hell of a lot more dangerous at night than during the day.

  I got to my feet with a grumbling curse. The three cups of whiskey in my belly made me sway a bit as I drew my pistol. A quick glance behind me told me that I was the only one who had drawn a firearm.

  “Faaaaannntastic. Don’t suppose you folks got any weapons, do you?” I said.

  Sarah, forward thinking lady that she is, leaned down and drew a little snub-nosed revolver from a holster on her ankle. I didn’t even know she had that.

  “Gabe, Tom, get between us.” She said, pointing her weapon toward the moans growing steadily louder on her side.

  “Like hell.” Gabe rumbled. He stomped over to the woodpile nearby and came back with a splitting maul in his fists. The big half-axe, half-sledgehammer tool would have been too heavy for most people to use as an effective weapon, but Gabe was not most people. He took a fighting stance next to Sarah and drew a disapproving frown from her.

  “Make sure you stay behind my line of fire.” She said. Gabe grunted.

  Tom, not having anything on him to use as a weapon, settled for a thick chunk of hickory from beside the fire. I shook my head at him.

  “Tom, stay behind me, and stay close.” I said. “Anything gets around me, you bash its fucking head in, got it?”

  He glanced at me and nodded. I didn’t really need him to watch my back, especially considering that the stupid chunk of wood he held wasn’t going to help him against the dead, but I figured encouraging him might keep him from getting panicked, not to mention spare his ego. The four of us started moving slowly back toward the gate, the moans of the dead growing louder and closer. Looking over my shoulder, I could just make out the galvanized steel bars of the fence reflecting light from the fire. Funny thing—during the day the gate sometimes looked dangerously close to the cliff. Right about then, with the ghouls nipping at my heels, it seemed impossibly far away.

  The moans kept growing louder until a single revenant walked into view. He must have circumnavigated the fence to reach us. The fiber optic sights reflected the firelight as I drew a bead on its forehead and squeezed the trigger. The round went through its skull and kept on trucking out the other side. The creature shuddered, stiffened up, and tumbled sideways down the side of the mountain. Another ghoul walked out of the darkness behind it. It was once a tall, heavyset man. Nearly half of its face was missing, and I could see gray and black bone protruding through its ruined flesh. Its shoes had long since torn apart and yellowish strips of entrails dangled from its waist all the way to the ground. Two more trigger pulls ventilated its decrepit skull. The walker swayed in place for a moment before doing a face plant into the dirt, a putrid ring of body fluid spraying out in a black halo as it slapped the ground. Two shots rang out behind me. Sarah cursed, and then fired again. I risked a glance over my shoulder. Two ghouls were down in front of her, one of her shots must have had gone wide.

  “How many bullets you got left?” I asked.

  “Three.”

  She fired again.

  “Make that two.”

  “Use ‘em, then get behind me.” Gabe said, adjusting his grip on the maul.

  I dropped a few more walkers that got too close and heard Sarah use her last two rounds.

  “I’m out.” She said, falling back.

  “Alright, give me room to swing.” Gabe said.

  I moved as quickly as I dared toward the fence with Tom and Sarah in tow. Only a f
ew steps away now, but we were at the edge of the light cast by the fire. The closer we got, the less I could see. Behind me, I heard Gabe grunt and the wet thunk-crunch of his axe bursting open a skull. Movement to my left caught my eye. I turned to see Brian rushing toward us with a flashlight, the bright shaft of light bobbing up and down as he ran.

  “Brian, shine the light out that way.” I shouted, pointing.

  “Okay, got it.” He said breathlessly as he reached the fence and shined the line in the direction I indicated. There were only two more revenants on my side. I put them down, then had Brian shine the light in Gabe’s direction. Six more were closing in. I turned to Tom and Sarah.

  “You two get the gate open, I got the rest of ‘em.” Sarah gave a quick nod, grabbed Tom by the sleeve, and dragged him the last few steps to the fence at a sprint.

  “Gabe, back off for a second.” I said, running over to him. He buried his axe one last time before dropping back behind me with gore dripping from his weapon. I took a couple of deep breaths to steady my aim. The sights lined up, my trigger finger tightened, and the gun went off. One more down. The next five went like clockwork, one dropping every other second as Gabe’s shooting lessons droned through my head at the speed of thought.

  Focus on the front sight.

  Don’t pull, squeeze. You want the shot to surprise you.

  Keep your thumbs-up on the grip.

  Don’t forget to breath, or you’ll start shaking.

  And then they were all down. My heartbeat had slowed, and my breathing was back to normal by the time I fired the last shot. My hand was steady as I holstered the Kel-Tec. I was getting way too used to this stuff. The fire flickered low and sullen over the now permanently immobile corpses as I turned back toward the fence.

  “Okay, dammit, from here on out, no one goes outside the gate without a firearm. That was way too close.” I said, locking the gate behind me.

  Tom flashed a smile and clapped me on the shoulder. “You handled things pretty good out there, man. That was impressive.”