This Shattered Land - 02

by James Cook

He sprinted over to the trailer to comply. Tom and Sarah had already taken up their rifles and stood back to back, scanning for threats.

  “My name’s John Rollins.” The man at the edge of the field said. “Mind if I come over so we can talk?”

  “That depends.” Gabe shouted. “How many of you are there?”

  “Just me, unless you count all the dead folks on my tail.”

  “Bullshit.” I yelled. “No one could survive out here alone.”

  The guy actually laughed. He had some stones, I’ll give him that much. “I guess I must be the exception to the rule, then.”

  “Are you armed?” Gabe asked.

  “Hell yes, I’m armed. I’d be crazy not to be.”

  Gabe almost broke a smile. “Alright, come forward then, but keep your hands where I can see them.”

  He walked across the field with his hands over his head, then stopped a few yards away from us and turned his left side toward the fire. There was a pistol on his hip, and some kind of assault rifle slung upside down across his back.

  “There, now you know where my guns are. Mind if I put my hands down?”

  “Fine,” Gabe said, “But stay where you are and don’t make any sudden movements.”

  “Fair enough. Don’t suppose you could at least take your finger off the trigger, could you?”

  Gabe and I both lowered our weapons, but kept them at the low-ready position. Now that he was closer, I could see him better. He was an older fellow, with a shock of unkempt grey hair and a white beard. He was a little shorter than me, lean, and dressed in threadbare clothes and a pair of sturdy hunting boots. I figured him to be in his sixties, but he stood up straight and didn’t seem to move with the stiffness of old age.

  “Did you say there are infected following you?” Sarah asked.

  The man shifted his gaze over to her. “They’re not necessarily following me, but there are a bunch of ‘em coming this way. I been running around trying to figure out what’s attracting all of them. Don’t suppose that engine noise I heard a little while ago had anything to do with that fancy four-wheeler over there, now did it?”

  I frowned. “We’ll ask the questions, Mister Rollins. What are you doing out here to begin with?”

  He smiled. “Please, call me John. I live not far from here, got a cabin up on the southern face of that mountain over yonder.” He pointed at a low peak jutting up against the darkening sky in the distance. “I came out this way to see if I could shoot me a deer or two. They like to bed down here in this field, makes for easy hunting.”

  “Did you know the people who used to live here?” Gabe asked.

  The man shrugged. “Not especially, no. When the dead started walking, I kept to myself for as long as I could. After I started running out of food, I came down here to see if these folks might be interested in working together.” He shook his head. “Wasn’t much left to talk to by then.”

  I heard a moan drift over the tall grass, and another one answered it from across the field. Then another, and another.

  “Well, looks like our friends finally decided to show up.” I said. “John, I’m going to have to insist that you make camp with us for the night. It’s not safe to be out and about.”

  He half-turned and looked around the edges of the field. “No, I guess not.”

  “Hand over the weapons.” Gabe said.

  John turned and eyed him sternly. “Fella, if I wanted to hurt ya’ll, I would have done it already.”

  He held up one hand and reached slowly around his back to bring his rifle up where we could see it. I recognized the model.

  “AR-10.” I said. “Looks like a custom job. Nice scope.”

  John smiled at me. “Shoots .308, and lots of ‘em. I been watching the five of you from up on that hillside for a little while now.” He glanced over at Gabe. “You did a nice job on this boy’s haircut.”

  Gabe scowled, his face darkening. As a sniper, he does not take it well when someone gets the drop on him. The old man reached into his shirt and pulled out a length of cord. A bullet with a hole drilled through it dangled from the end. “I’m guessing you might know what this is.” He said.

  I’m not quite sure what reaction the old man was expecting, but Gabe’s eyes turned fierce, and his voice lowered into a warning growl. “You might have gotten me in your sights once old man, but don’t count on it happening again.”

  I looked from Gabe to John. They seemed to be in some kind of wordless pissing contest, staring each other down. I sighed in irritation. We didn’t have time for this shit.

  “Gentlemen, I hate to break up our little conversation,” I said, “but if you take a look around here, you’ll notice that there are quite a few hungry, flesh eating monsters headed our way. We might want to give serious consideration to making ourselves scarce.”

  Gabe nodded, not looking away from our visitor. “Fine. Come one, Grandpa, let’s get somewhere safe.”

  The old timer lowered his rifle and slid it around to his back before walking toward the barn. Brian was already up on the loft in a prone shooting position with his MP5 trained on the approaching infected. Sarah and Tom quickly climbed the ladder to join him. John went up after them, ascending with more ease and agility than I would have expected from someone his age. Gabe stopped at the bottom of the ladder and motioned for me to go up. I briefly thought about telling him to go first, but decided against it. We didn’t have time to argue the issue. I scrambled up as fast as I could while Gabe started taking pot shots at the undead. By that time, several of them had closed to within fifty yards of the barn with dozens more following behind. When I reached the top, I turned to call down to him.

  “Gabe, stop screwing around and get your ass up here.”

  He let off a few more shots and then turned to climb the ladder. Once he got about ten feet off the ground, I let out a little sigh of relief. Even though we were surrounded, we had several days worth of food and water in the loft with us, and at least a thousand rounds of ammunition. The undead had no way of reaching us unless they somehow learned to climb a ladder. I didn’t see that happening.

  I turned from the ladder and kneeled down beside Brian at the edge of the loft. We were about forty feet off the ground with a good view of the surrounding fields. Sarah and Tom came over to join us.

  “Jesus, how many of them are there?” Tom asked.

  “Probably a few dozen at least.” I stood up and patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry partner, it’s nothing we can’t handle.”

  I walked over to the rear portion of the loft under the back wall of the barn. Gabriel squatted on the plywood floor glaring at the newcomer. Rollins, for his part, had reclined against the wall with his rifle resting comfortably across his lap.

  “Don’t suppose you fella’s might spare a little water, could you?” He asked.

  I reached into my pack and tossed him my half-liter aluminum bottle. He caught it with one hand and gave me a genuine smile.

  “Much obliged, Mr…”

  “Riordan. Eric Riordan. The big guy over there is Gabriel.”

  The old man raised the bottle by way of salute and took a long drink. When he was finished, he capped it and laid his rifle aside before leaning forward and crossing his legs beneath him. He peered through the gathering darkness at Gabe.

  “Sir, I do believe that you and I got off on the wrong foot. Maybe if I tell you a little bit about myself, it might help smooth the road a bit. What do you say?”

  Gabe shrugged, staring flatly through the gloom. “Suit yourself.”

  John smiled and nodded. “Alright then.”

  Just as he was about to begin speaking, Tom and Sarah came over from the edge of the loft with Brian in tow. Plywood creaked and groaned under their feet as they approached.

  “Did I hear you right when you said your name is John Rollins?” Tom asked.

  The old man nodded. “That’s right.”

  “I’m Tom Glover. This is my wife Sarah, and my son Brian.”
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  The four of them exchanged a quick round of greetings. Rollins waited for the family to settle in and get comfortable while Brian fished a wind-up lantern out of his pack and spent a couple of minutes working the hand crank. The lantern was round, with LED lights on the inside, and was roughly the diameter a man’s palm. In spite of its small size, it was surprisingly bright. I picked Brian up around his waist and held him near a rafter while he tied the lantern to it with a length of para-cord. I was familiar with the little lantern, being that I had one in my own pack, and I knew that we would have more than thirty minutes of light before we had to wind it up again. God bless pre-Outbreak technology.

  The moans of the undead grew louder as more of them congregated beneath us. I doubted that any of us would be likely to get a good night’s sleep. Figuring that we might as well have some entertainment to pass the time, I asked Rollins to go ahead with his story.

  “Let me ask you a question,” He asked, looking at Gabriel, “you look like a man with some military experience under his belt.” He held up his necklace with the drilled-through bullet again. “What do you know about these things?”

  “It’s a hog’s tooth.” Gabriel said, then reached underneath his shirt. He pulled out a thin length of nylon cord that ran through a hole drilled into an identical bullet. He held it up into the light for the old man to see. Rollins smiled.

  “I thought as much. You got that look about you.” He said. “The cartridge that particular projectile came from wouldn’t happen to be a 7.62 by 54, would it?”

  A slight smile tugged at the corner of Gabe’s mouth as he slipped the cord back around his neck. “That it would.”

  “And I don’t suppose the rifle you pulled it out of was a Dragunov, was it?”

  “As a matter of fact, it was.”

  Rollins laughed, his voice rough and grating. “Well, I guess that means you and I have something in common.”

  He took another pull from my water bottle before continuing. “You see, way the hell back during the Cold War, Uncle Sam sent me and a few other fellas on quite a number of missions into places that the good old U.S. of A. wasn’t supposed to go.”

  “You mean in Vietnam?” I asked, guessing that must have been his conflict, judging by his age. He nodded.

  “Some of the time, but the more dangerous assignments took me into China, Cambodia, and even into Mother Russia herself. Hell, I’m probably one of only a few American men you’ll ever meet that can honestly say they’ve set foot on North Korean soil.”

  “No shit?” Gabe said.

  “No shit.” Rollins replied. “That’s where I got this thing.” He tapped the bullet hanging from his neck.

  “Okay,” Sarah interjected, “would someone mind explaining to me exactly what the hell you two are talking about?”

  Gabe glanced over. “Trophies.” He said. “A hog’s tooth is a trophy. They gave me one when I graduated from scout sniper school at Fort Benning, but a real hog’s tooth is taken from the barrel of an enemy sniper’s rifle.”

  Rollins nodded in agreement. “You see, soldiers in general are a superstitious lot. Marine snipers are especially so. There is a general belief among us that every warrior has a bullet out there with his name on it. If by chance we manage to kill an enemy sniper that was trying to zero in on us, then the bullet in his rifle’s chamber is the bullet that was meant for us.”

  Gabe broke a smile. “And if we kill said sniper and take the round from his rifle, then we can wear it around our necks and thus render ourselves invincible.”

  The two Marines exchanged a glance, and burst into laughter.

  “Oh hell, if only that nonsense were actually true.” Rollins said.

  Gabe’s laughter faltered, and his expression darkened. “Yeah, if only.”

  John heaved a sigh, and continued. “So anyway, me and a few other folks who showed some proficiency at sneaking into enemy territory and living to tell about it got rounded up into a task group and sent in under cover of darkness to North Korea. One of them was a fellow you might have heard of, name of Carlos Hathcock. That ring a bell?”

  “You have got to be kidding me.” Gabriel said. “No way you did a mission with that guy.”

  John laughed. Sarah glanced at me in confusion. “Okay, who is this Hathcock guy?”

  “He was probably the greatest sniper in the history of the Marine Corps. Guy is a legend in the military.” Gabe offered. “That being said, I don’t recall ever hearing about him doing any missions in North Korea.”

  “Nor would you have.” John replied. “It was classified beyond top secret. We all had to agree that we would never speak about the mission under penalty of imprisonment on the charge of treason.” John frowned and stared off into the distance over the fields for a moment. “They also dropped a not so subtle hint that anyone who ran their mouth wouldn’t live long enough to stand trial. I didn’t think too much of it at the mission briefing, but Lord, does it make a whole world of sense now.”

  “What happened?” Brian asked.

  I had to admit, the old man had a bit of a gift for storytelling. He certainly had everyone’s attention, including me.

  “Back in those days,” John continued, “we didn’t have all them fancy stealth helicopters and such to get us behind enemy lines. We had to do things the old fashioned way—on foot.” John chuckled a bit and shook his head. “Man, that was miserable. We got dropped off about ten miles north of Yeoncheon, and had to hump it damn near a hundred miles over rough terrain with our guns and all of our gear. There were five of us. Me, Hathcock, a couple of South Korean-Americans named Cho and Park, and this spook asshole that called himself Green. No first name, just Green. Hathcock was probably one of the funniest guys I ever met, and the two Korean fella’s were alright too, but that Green fucker was one creepy bastard. He probably didn’t say more than ten words the whole trip into North Korea.” John shook his head, remembering.

  “Our assignment was to make our way north to this little shithole village in middle-of-nowhere Kangwon Province. The CIA pukes that did our briefing gave us all pictures of some fat Chinese general that we were supposed to take out if we could, but mostly our mission was to get in and do surveillance. They gave us some kind of high-tech encrypted radio to send reports back. I remember thinking at the time that the whole damn thing just seemed strange, you know? I mean, couldn’t the spooks just buy a few spies, or something?”

  “What do you mean ‘spooks’?” Brian asked.

  “CIA. Or NSA, or anybody else in the intelligence community, we just called them all spooks.”

  “Why?” Brian asked.

  John shrugged, and held up his hands. “Hell if I know, the name just stuck.”

  “So what happened in North Korea?” Tom asked.

  John scratched his beard, and then continued. “Well, after we finally reached the village, it became pretty obvious that something big was going on. The whole damn place was surrounded by a twenty foot high electrified fence, and there had to have been at least three hundred commie soldiers running around. The troops had barracks outside the village, but the villagers themselves were quarantined inside. Things looked normal enough inside the fence, at first. People went about their business, feeding chickens, cooking meals, kids running around, that sort of thing. Every once in a while, a few soldiers would go in and take someone outside the fence to a big white cinderblock building on the other side of the hill, out of sight of the villagers.”

  John shook his head again, his expression grim. “I don’t know exactly what they did to those poor people, but the only thing that ever came out of there were trucks loaded with body bags. As time went on, and more people started disappearing, the folks in the village started getting restless. I remember this one time, the soldiers came to these people’s house and started dragging off one of the young boys who lived there. Kid couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty. His momma didn’t take that too kindly, and started raising a fuss about it. Next thing you
know, those soldiers were surrounded by an angry mob that looked just about ready to rip their asses apart.”

  John was silent a moment before continuing. “I tell you, I learned something that day. Fear and intimidation will only get you so far. People can reach a point where fear of death just ain’t enough to cow them anymore, especially when they all get to thinkin’ that their gonna wind up worm food anyway no matter what they do. The commies raised their Kalashnikovs and fired a few rounds over their heads, trying to scare ‘em off.”

  His shoulders hitched a few times in a silent chuckle. “It didn’t quite have the intended effect. That mob converged all of a sudden and bashed those sons-of-bitches skulls in with rocks and hand tools. A few young men took up the rifles and started shooting at the soldiers on the guard towers, but that didn’t last too long. The rest of the soldiers came pouring through the gate and made quick work of the guys with the guns and anybody else that got in the way. Everybody ran off and hid in their shacks while the soldiers rounded up the dissident ringleaders and took them off to that damned white building.”

  John sighed. “Now, what you need to understand is that this operation wasn’t no picnic for the five of us. It took us the better part of a week to get where we needed to be, and then we had to spend the next couple of weeks running around in the damn woods trying to stay hidden, and collect as much information as we could. It was hot, miserable, nasty work. North Korean commandos patrolled the hills where we set up our hides, and we had a lot of close calls with those fuckers. Me and Hathcock stuck together most of the time, and we managed to help the other three to not do anything stupid and get us all caught. Sometimes we could move around with impunity, and other times we had to lay face down in the dirt with bugs crawling all over us, and sweating under our ghillie suits for hours on end, waiting for patrols to go away. Hollywood used to like to make a sniper’s job look glamorous, but believe me when I tell you that it was anything but. Hell, ninety percent of what we did didn’t even involve shooting people. We were out there with our asses in the weeds gathering intel.”

  Gabe nodded. “That’s a fact.”