This Shattered Land - 02

by James Cook

  “I tell you, I am getting way too old for this crap.” Gabe said, extending his legs in front of him and reaching for his toes.

  “If that canoe is half as hard to drag as that stupid cart of yours, then you had better seriously rethink how much stuff we’re bringing with us.” I said.

  Gabe shot me an irritated glance. “The cart has a little thing on it that I like to call ‘wheels’. Maybe you’ve heard of them? They make moving things a lot easier.”

  “Too bad the boat doesn’t have any of those.” I said, leaning back on my elbows.

  Gabe laughed as he stood up, and reached a hand down to me. I took it and let him haul me to my feet, wincing at the stiffness in my legs. Gabe fixed the outboard motor to its mount and I helped him push the canoe the last few feet into the river. We both got our boots wet in the frigid water, but neither of us cared one bit about wet feet at that point. We were ready to get home. I grabbed a rifle and sat down in the front of the boat while Gabe fired up the outboard and steered us into the center of the river. If there were any infected nearby the noise was going to attract them, but we would be long gone by the time they reached the shore. When we were about five miles from home, I saw something up the river that made me turn around and signal for Gabe to slow down. He eased off the throttle and sat up straight to see over me.

  “What is it?” He asked.

  I took a knee in the bottom of the boat and pointed ahead of me.

  “Up there on the right, on that old fishing dock.”

  Gabe peered over my shoulder and saw the same thing that I was looking at. There was someone fishing on the dock up ahead of us. We were about two hundred yards away from them, but I could tell that it was either a girl, or a very young boy. I stood up and waved. The person responded by bending down and picking up a hunting rifle.

  “Oh, shit.” I said.

  I brought my rifle up to my shoulder, but kept the barrel down. The person made a show of keeping their hand away from the trigger while they looked at me through the rifle’s scope. I relaxed a little bit, and eased my finger off the trigger. As we pulled closer, I saw that it was definitely a young woman. Just as I was about to call out a greeting, she slung her rifle across her chest, picked up her fishing rod from the dock, and without a word or a backward glance, she bounded gracefully up the embankment on a set of wooden steps and disappeared into the forest. I frowned at the dock as we passed by it. There was no sign of the girl.

  “What the hell was that all about?” I said, turning to look at Gabe.

  He shrugged. “Don’t ask me. Come on, let’s get going.”

  Gabe sat back down before turning the throttle on the outboard, picking up speed against the steady current. Broad waves spread out behind us and lapped against the shore in our wake. The rest of the ride home passed without incident, and it was just after two in the afternoon when we pulled up to the dock where we started our trip. I climbed the ladder to tie off the canoe to a set of cleats before helping Gabriel stack all of our new supplies on the landing. Once we had everything unloaded, Gabe climbed up and helped me haul the boat onto the dock and carry it to the bottom of the embankment. It was too late in the day for the hours of hiking it would take to bring the supplies back to the cabin, so we cached everything in the basement of the abandoned house at the top of the hill. Once the gear was hidden, we took a few minutes to go inside and eat a quick lunch.

  With a full belly, and a couple of strong doses of caffeine under my belt, the hike home went by quickly. By four in the afternoon, we were walking through the front gate of the perimeter fence. Brian and Sarah came outside to greet us.

  “Welcome back, guys. How was the trip?” Sarah asked with a smile, as she gave us both a quick hug.

  “We spotted another survivor.” Gabe said, taking a cup of water from Brian.

  “No kidding? Where?” Sarah asked.

  “About five miles south, down the river.” Gabe replied. “We tried to say hello, but they ran off when we got close. Looked like a girl, maybe in her early twenties.”

  Sarah frowned. “She ran away?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. It was weird. She had a rifle with her, and she looked at us through the scope first. Scared the hell out of me, I thought she was going to start shooting for a second there. Thankfully, she didn’t, but she didn’t stick around to exchange pleasantries either. Just grabbed her gear and took off into the woods.”

  “Was she pretty?” Brian asked.

  Gabe and I looked at each other and laughed.

  “I don’t know.” I said. “We didn’t get close enough to find out.”

  Brian looked disappointed. His mother smiled at him and motioned for us to follow her to the cabin. She put a kettle on, and permanently endeared herself to me by making us a mug of hot tea. While the water boiled, we hung up our coats and weapons and left our wet, muddy boots outside on the front porch. I could feel the tightness in my back starting to ease off after only a few minutes of sitting in the recliner by the warmth of the hot stove. Brian showed us a couple of rabbits and a wild turkey that he brought down the day before, and Sarah pointed out a few fish that she caught from the stream. They wrapped the meat up and stored it outside in the cold to keep it fresh until we were ready to cook it. I noticed that Tom was not around, and asked Sarah what he was up to.

  “He spotted some deer tracks down near the creek yesterday, said he was going to see if he could bring down a buck. He took that big green rifle of yours with him.” She said.

  I nodded. She was referring to Gabe’s M-40, a sniper rifle used by the Marine Corps for many years. It is a great deer rifle, and the silencer keeps it from drawing a swarm of infected with every shot.

  “I hope he gets something,” I said, “it would be nice to have a surplus of meat before we leave for Colorado.”

  A few minutes later, I heard the rattling of a chain at the main gate and I got up to see Tom dragging a field-dressed buck behind him. Gabe and I walked out to help him bring the carcass up to the cabin.

  “Nicely done, man, nicely done.” I said, as we hauled it up onto a table.

  “Got him about an hour ago.” Tom said, smiling. “This should keep us in stew for a couple of weeks, don’t you think?”

  “You think we have time to preserve some of this meat before we leave?” I asked, turning to look at Gabriel.

  He crossed his arms, and reached up one hand to scratch his beard, considering. “It might push us back a day or two, but it’ll be worth it to have the extra food.”

  “Awesome.” I said. “Tell you what, if you work on that tomorrow, I’ll head down to the river and bring back the supplies. Tom, you mind helping me out with that?”

  He shook his head. “Not at all. Honestly, it’ll be nice to get away from the cabin and stretch my legs a bit.”

  Gabe nodded. “Alright, sounds like we have a plan. Let’s make it happen.”

  I walked into the cabin and grabbed a set of carving knives from the kitchen. By nightfall, we had the carcass broken down and wrapped up in pieces of parchment paper. Gabe fired up his big smoker and threw in a few cuts to cook overnight.

  The work reminded me of a time in my life when I thought that hunting was stupid and wasteful. Why bother shooting an innocent animal when all you had to do was pop on over to the grocery store and buy yourself a cut of steak? That was a fine sentiment back in the days when there was still such a thing as grocery stores. Nowadays if you want meat, you have to go out and kill it yourself. Call me crazy, but I think it makes a hell of a lot more sense to kill game animals that have a fighting chance than to raise an animal in a pen for no better reason than to eventually slaughter it. I don’t have anything against deer, and I don’t wish them any ill will, but I do get hungry, and venison is a plentiful source of calories. Calories are life. It’s that simple.

  For dinner, Gabe cooked up the wild game that Brian and Sarah caught the day before, and we all happily ate ourselves miserable. After we cleaned up, I spent a few hours
writing down a record of the last couple of day’s events, and updated my maps to indicate the supplies that we did not take from Marion. The rational part of my mind wondered why I bothered maintaining the maps at all, considering the fact that we would be leaving in a few days. I’m not entirely sure how to explain it, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was somehow important for me to document sources of supplies.

  The next morning, Gabe enlisted Brian and Sarah’s help making venison jerky while Tom and I took the cart and set off to retrieve the supplies we cached by the river. The cart is a curious looking contraption that began its life as a motorcycle trailer. Gabe used his ingenuity and an acetylene torch to reduce its weight by twenty pounds, raise its ground clearance, install shock absorbers and spring suspension, and add a yoke to the front that can be pulled by hand or hitched up to a harness. I wasn’t too sure about it the first time Gabe showed it to me, but now that I was actually pulling it, I had to admit it worked every bit as well as my overgrown friend advertised. Using the harness Gabe designed for it I could barely feel the weight behind me. The harness itself has a single pin attachment on the front that, when disengaged, allows the wearer to drop the harness and raise a weapon on a moment’s notice.

  The hike to the supply cache took us a little over an hour. The clear sky and cool temperature put Tom in a talkative mood, giving me a chance to learn a little bit more about him. I knew he had a contractor’s license before the Outbreak, but I was not sure what kind of work he specialized it. As it turned out, he earned a living remodeling houses and renovating strip mall properties for new tenants. He was a fair hand at just about any work that involved building things from carpentry, to roofing, to electrical work.

  “Those are valuable skills.” I said, at one point in the conversation. “I imagine you’ll find plenty of work when we get to Colorado. The government is calling for people with construction experience to help with rebuilding efforts.”

  “What about you?” He replied. “What did you do before the Outbreak?”

  I laughed, and adjusted the harness on one shoulder where it was beginning to chafe.

  “I’ll give you three guesses.”

  Tom smiled. “Were you a cop?”

  I laughed even louder. “No way man, I was definitely not a cop.”

  Tom nodded. “Okay then, were you in the military?”

  “Nope. Strike two.”

  Tom frowned and thought about it for a few minutes as we walked.

  “Let’s see,” He said, “you know how to shoot, and you seem to know a thing or two about combat.”

  “I’ll give you a hint.” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Gabe taught me nearly everything I know about fighting. I never did it for a living.”

  Tom’s eyebrows went up. “No kidding? Damn, remind me to pay more attention to his range lessons.”

  We walked about a half mile further before Tom spoke again. Suddenly he looked up and snapped his fingers.

  “I got it.” He said.

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “You were a firefighter.”

  That one got me laughing harder than before, and I had to stop for a few seconds to keep from falling over. Tom scowled at me.

  “Well what the hell did you do, then?”

  “You’re going to be pissed when I tell you.”

  Tom held his hands out in irritation and gave me a sideways stare.

  “I was a financial analyst.”

  Tom’s mouth dropped open. “Seriously? You gotta be shitting me.”

  “Nope. I was a cubicle dwelling, number crunching, starched shirt and silk necktie corporate salary worker. At least until my grandmother died.”

  I felt my smile leave my face as I straightened up and started walking again.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Tom said.

  I shrugged. “Don’t be. She didn’t miss anything.”

  We were silent for a few moments, our footsteps and the sound of birds calling to one another the only noise in the peaceful forest. Boughs of tall hardwoods and pines soared overhead and shaded us from the midday sun as we hiked. The trail began to slope steeply downward, and we made faster time as we got closer to the river.

  “So what happened after your grandmother passed?” Tom said.

  A few seconds went by before I responded. My thoughts drifted back across the years, and I felt a sharp pang of loss over what my life had once been.

  “Grandma was rich, and I was one of her two surviving relatives. She split her money between us when she died. After that, I didn’t have to work anymore.”

  “Well, that was nice of her. I assume your folks had passed by that point?”

  I nodded. “They were killed by a drunk driver about a year earlier.”

  Tom shook his head. “Damn, man, that’s tough. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Yeah, well, like I said before. They didn’t miss anything. It was pretty tough when it happened, but it beats how most folks went out during the Outbreak.”

  “That’s true, but it still sucks that it happened to you.”

  “What about you?” I said, “You have any family other than Sarah and your boy?”

  Tom’s expression darkened. “Yeah, I did. I don’t think most of them made it, though. I got a brother that lived out in Arizona. If there’s anybody else in my family that survived, he’s probably the one.”

  “Why is that?”

  “He owned a gas station by the side of the highway out in the middle of freaking nowhere. Had enough guns to outfit a small army. He liked being out in the desert country, always was a bit of a loner.”

  “What’s his name?” I asked.

  “Charles.” Tom said. “But everybody called him Chuck.”

  “Arizona isn’t too far from Colorado, you know. Maybe we’ll see him when we get there.”

  Tom looked over at me and smiled. “I doubt that. Chuck never cared much for crowds.”

  We reached the river basin, and I breathed a sigh of relief when the house where we stashed the supplies came into view. It was just past noon, and we were already halfway through with the day’s work. I parked the cart near the doorway to the basement and pulled the pin on my chest to drop the harness. Tom helped me load all the supplies into the cart, and I was surprised at how much room we had left over when we were finished. The cart did not look very big, but it could hold a lot of stuff. We ate a quick meal of dried meat and flatbread, washed it down with cups of hot tea, and then started hauling our new gear back to the cabin. The walk back was a bit more of a challenge due to the uphill slope and the extra weight in the cart, but it was nothing that I couldn’t handle. The only time that it became difficult was on the steeper uphill portions. Tom pushed the cart from the back when he could tell that I was struggling, and we managed to make good time getting back. As we walked through the gate, Gabe stood up from in front of the smoker with a self-satisfied smirk on his face.

  “How’d the cart work for you?” He called out.

  “It sucks.” I yelled back. “This thing is freaking terrible. Did you put it together when you were drunk?”

  Gabe laughed, and pointed a pair of tongs at me. “You’re a liar, Eric Riordan, a miserable damn liar.”

  Sarah helped us unload everything and carry it down into the bunker so that she could sort it out. We put it into a few piles and divided it up according to whom it was for. Tom looked over the new rifles that I brought back, and let out a low whistle.

  “This is some serious hardware you got here.” He said.

  I nodded. “Those two there are for you and Sarah. They’re more reliable than the M-4’s you’ve been training with, but they work pretty much the same. Got plenty of ammo too.”

  In a rare stroke of good luck, it turned out that the flash hiders on the M-6’s I found were compatible with the suppressors we had on hand. We had over a dozen of the things, but we only ever used four or five of them. Gabriel had insisted that we take the suppre
ssors with us to Colorado as trade goods, and I had to admit that his logic was sound. We had spoken with many people over the HAM radio in the course of the last year that had armed themselves with firearms left behind by retreating military units. A good M-4 or M-16 compatible suppressor would fetch a high price from one of the trading posts that had been set up in recent months.

  “So what are we bringing with us?” Sarah asked as we worked.

  “Well, Gabe and I actually went back and forth over that for a while.” I replied. “We have differing philosophies when it comes to packing for long distance travel.”

  “How so?”

  “Gabe wants to travel heavy and bring as much gear as we can carry. Think Oregon Trail. I think that we should travel light, focus on speed, and scavenge what we need as we go along. After arguing about it for a few months, we came to a compromise.”

  “Okay,” Sarah said, sounding dubious, “and what would that be?”

  “The cart.” I replied. “If we can’t fit something in there, or in a backpack, we don’t bring it.”

  “You did see how much stuff we packed in there today, right?” Tom said, frowning. “That thing wasn’t even full. You mind telling me exactly who is going to be pulling that thing once we run out of gas?”

  “I imagine we all will, at one point or another.”

  Sarah laughed. “We might have to arrange for some of the heavier items to suffer an untimely demise when my turn comes around.”

  I shot her a smile, and went back to work.

  The next few days passed much faster than I would have expected. I found myself looking forward to the start of our journey less and less as the reality of leaving the cabin began to sink in. The little mountaintop fortress had been my home for the last two years, and I put a lot of sweat and blood into making it a good place to live. It seemed like such a shame to leave everything behind, but that was exactly what I had to do. What we all had to do.

  When the day finally arrived, we all got up early as the pre-dawn gray was just brightening into amber and gold over the wide, graceful peaks on the eastern horizon. Gabe and Tom ran a quick diagnostic on the MUV and connected the cart to the trailer hitch. The MUV is an old Honda Big Red that Gabe made significant modifications to for the journey ahead. Ten five-gallon Gerry cans stood in orderly ranks in the vehicle’s bed lashed to mounting brackets with short bungee cords. They contained all of the treated fuel that we had carefully conserved for the last couple of years. After all this time, any gasoline we scavenged would most likely be inert. There was a slim chance that we might find something usable in the underground tanks at gas stations, but I was not going to get my hopes up. I fully expected that once we burned through the last few drops of treated fuel, we would have to make our way on foot for the rest of the trek.