This Shattered Land - 02

by James Cook

  “I get the feeling that using the railroads is going to create its own set of problems.” Sarah observed, running a finger over the highlighted route on the map.

  Gabe nodded. “I imagine it will, but it beats the hell out of the alternative.”

  He was right, of course. The fourth night out, we had stopped to make camp within a few miles of I-40 and scouted around to see if conditions on the interstate were any better in that part of the country. If anything, the hordes were bigger and the signs of fighting more brutal. The interstate was simply not an option. We’d managed to skirt around Asheville back in North Carolina, then bee-lined west staying well north of Chattanooga. Our luck held up for a change, and we managed to get past Nashville by staying well south of the overrun city and giving ourselves a ten mile buffer zone north of Columbia. The last couple of days saw us make quick progress north of Jackson, where we had set up camp on a rural road lined with empty houses set well back from the highway. A search of the houses within short walking distance had even yielded a couple hundred rounds of nine-millimeter ammo to replenish what Brian had used with his MP5.

  Our intention from that point was to reach a railroad track that would lead us to what we hoped was a passable bridge across the Mississippi just north of Memphis. That was the plan, anyway.

  As Gabe is fond of saying, no plan ever survives contact with the enemy.

  Chapter 12

  The Journal of Gabriel Garrett:

  Threat Response

  The mood was grim amongst our little troop as we set out. With our last can of gas burning up as we creaked and bounced along the winding country road, we all knew the tough times were about to begin in earnest. None of us looked forward to the prospect of walking a thousand weary miles through a massive lawless wasteland, and we were under no illusions about what we might have to do to stay alive. But we had our weapons, our wits, and we had each other. That counted for a lot.

  Before the Outbreak, the military conducted numerous studies about battlefield psychology which invariably found that a man’s confidence is much higher, and his anxiety much lower, when paired up with even one other soldier in battle, especially one he trusted. Trusting Eric and Sarah wasn’t a problem, I knew they could handle themselves in a stand-up fight, but Tom and Brian were a question mark. Not that I didn’t believe in their courage, no one survives the Outbreak for as long as they have without a big pair of stones to brag about, but I doubted their actual combat effectiveness. Eric has flourished as a rifleman under my tutelage, which I concede as a point of personal pride, and the guys at Quantico took Sarah’s innate strength and mental toughness and made a well-honed fighter out of her. Tom and Brian, however, posed a dilemma.

  Brian has the makings of a warrior, and a damn good one at that. The problem is that he is young, inexperienced, and as tough as he may be, he’s still just a kid. As for Tom, while I have no doubt he wouldn’t hesitate to fight to protect his family, I’m worried that in doing so he would only succeed in getting himself killed. I wish I could have had more time to train him before beginning our journey west, but time is not on our side. Winter is coming, and it is a long way to Colorado.

  These thoughts slogged disconsolately through my mind as I watched the gas needle’s slow, gradual descent toward the big red E. I drove with Eric riding shotgun. Tom and Sarah rode in the narrow bed where the gas cans used to sit, which was a hell of a lot more comfortable than riding on the trailer. Brian stood between them holding on to the roll cage and, as always, keeping his head on a swivel and scanning around for signs of danger. Being up a few feet higher than me gave him a longer field of view than what I could see from the driver’s seat. Brian spotted the trouble before even Eric’s uncannily sharp eyes could, and he tapped me excitedly on the shoulder.

  “Gabe, stop-stop-stop!” He shouted.

  I braked as quickly as I could without slamming Tom and Sarah into the roll bars. The MUV came to a halt as I reached for my rifle and swept my gaze across the road ahead of me for signs of hostiles.

  “What is it?” Eric asked, turning around in his seat to look at Brian.

  “Straight ahead.” The boy pointed. “There’s a big van on its side across the road. Could be a good place for an ambush.”

  Eric looked over at me and didn’t quite manage to suppress a smile. The kid was developing the kind of healthy paranoia he would need in the days ahead if he wanted to stay alive. A van across the road wasn’t necessarily an indicator of an ambush. Plenty of cars crashed during and after the Outbreak, and with no highway safety crews to clear them away, they stayed right where they wrecked. Prudence was warranted, as always, but I honestly didn’t think that we were likely to face armed attack as far away from any major population centers as we were.

  I should have known better.

  The biggest mistakes of my life have always been the result of overconfidence or complacency. My friends learned that the hard way when those raiders led a swarm of undead against us back in Morganton, and they sure as hell got nailed by it again today. You’d think I would have learned by now.

  I ordered Brian to sit down in the back while I eased off the brake and approached the wreck. It was an old white and yellow conversion van laying on its side and covering most of both lanes. Judging by the rust on the exposed sheet metal, and the plants sprouting through the asphalt directly beneath it, it looked like it had been there for a while. To get around it, I would have to drive through the overgrown brush on either side of the crumbling blacktop. That worried me. Anything sharp that lay out of sight in the high grass might damage the Honda’s tires. I slowed to a halt a short distance from the van and studied the sides of the road.

  Several things grabbed my attention at once.

  Tell-tale streaks ran through the grass, standing out brighter than the growth around them, indicating that someone had walked through there recently. Footprints marred the ground where the asphalt met the brush; booted footprints with an even gait, not the erratic barefoot kind left behind by the infected. Alarm bells started ringing in my head. A brief memory of an empty, dusty road in Fallujah flashed through my mind. A road that seemed not quite right, a road with footprints where footprints shouldn’t be, all coming into view just as IED’s blasted the Humvee in front of me into a flaming wreck and bullets started pouring out of the sky like rain. My adrenaline spiked and my heart began to race as realization dawned on me.

  Brian was right. It was a good spot for an ambush.

  All this occurred to me in the space of less than a second. Eric watched me and read my expression. His eyes hardened into twin shards of ice, his jaw set into a grim line, and the fighter within him once again emerged. He snatched up his M-6 just as two gun-wielding figures popped over the far edge of the overturned van. He didn’t hesitate. His rifle beat out a muffled staccato rhythm as he sent bursts of sound-suppressed fire downrange. One of the figures ducked for cover while the other fell back spurting blood from a hole in his throat. I slammed the shifter into reverse and began to peel backwards. The trailer jackknifed to the passenger side, forcing me to wrench the wheel into a J-turn and expose Eric to enemy fire. The Glovers shouted and clung to the roll cage for dear life as I fought to turn the MUV around. Other gunmen came boiling out of the forest on all sides of us and starting cracking off shots. There had to have been at least eight of them. Eric switched his rifle to full-auto and unleashed a stream of suppressing fire forcing them to keep their heads down and preventing them from aiming their weapons. Bullets cut the air in our general direction, but nothing hit us. Yet.

  I had almost gotten the Honda back in drive when Eric’s magazine ran dry. With no time for a reload, he snatched his Kel-Tec from its holster and started spraying lead at the side of the road farthest from us. Something popped on my left, and I turned to see a man with an M-1 carbine shooting out the driver’s side tires from twenty yards away. I snarled a curse and reached for the pistol on my vest.

  “Cease fire! Cease fire now goddam
mit!” a voice bellowed over a bullhorn from behind the van.

  The command distracted the gunmen, but it didn’t mean shit to me. I switched my pistol to my left hand and sent two rounds at the man shooting our tires out. He saw the gun coming in his direction and ran for cover in the trees with his rifle clutched in one fist. A .45 round from my Sig smashed into the stock of his weapon and burst it into splinters, just barely missing a kidney shot. He yelped in pain as wood shrapnel peppered his lower back. I fired a couple more rounds to give him something to think about before turning to where the other gunmen had fallen back into the high grass. I couldn’t see them, but I could see where they had disturbed the foliage in their retreat, and began cracking off low potshots at the indentations they left in the brush.

  “Reloading!” Eric barked. I kept up the covering fire. He swapped out the mags in both of his weapons in a quick series of practiced movements, less than five seconds on the reload. Just as I fired the last round from my pistol, he brought his rifle up and starting shooting again.

  “Goddammit Gabe, get us the fuck out of here!” He shouted.

  I turned the steering wheel and jammed the accelerator. The flat tires on my side dragged the front end hard left as the wheels on the right gripped the road and started pulling us forward. A rapid series of booms shattered the air as several bullets slammed into the sheet metal around the Honda’s engine compartment. I could tell by the sound of the shots that some bastard was hitting us with a semi-auto .308. The powerful rounds wreaked havoc on the MUV’s engine from such close range. We rolled only a few more feet before the motor sputtered and died, leaving us sitting ducks in the middle of the road.

  By then, Sarah and Tom had recovered from the initial shock of the ambush and added their rifles to the fray. Sarah swung her weapon toward the man who shot our engine. He saw it coming and ducked back down behind cover. Sarah stitched the bottom of the van with half a magazine hoping to penetrate the layers of metal and hit the men behind them. The steel and aluminum used to build cars was not designed to stand up to assault rifles, so her shots stood a good chance of punching all the way through to the assholes on the other side. I expected to hear shouts of pain from behind the van, but none came forth. The SCAR 17 I kept in Honda’s cab came with me as I jumped out to take cover behind the engine block. If these fuckers wanted to fire high-powered rifles at us, then two could play that game.

  “Tom, watch my back!” I called over my shoulder. He nodded and kneeled down to point his rifle at the open road behind me. Brian scrambled into the cab and planted a knee in the seat I’d just vacated.

  “Dad, you cover left, I’ll take the right side.” He called. Tom gave a quick nod and adjusted his aim while Brian brought his sub-machine gun to his shoulder. Eric dropped his mag and reloaded, then jumped down to stand near Sarah. A terse exchange passed between them before they separated a few feet and knelt down to cover the remaining lanes of fire. For a brief instant, a fierce surge of pride burned within me at the withering, organized response my team brought to bear against our ambushers. They reacted exactly as I’d trained them to, but my exultation was short lived. We were still in a world of shit, and if that guy with the bullhorn hadn’t ordered a cease fire, some of us would be sporting brand new bullet holes in our hides. If the gunmen rushed us, we would probably die, but we would take a few of them with us. I was betting they knew that as well as I did.

  A few tense seconds passed. My adrenaline pump was still working overtime, sharpening my senses and lending strength to my limbs. The forest around us had gone silent, spooked by all the gunfire. I wracked my brain trying to come up with a way out of this one. If we didn’t get out of here soon, the undead were going to show up and ruin everyone’s day.

  The guy with the bullhorn blared out. “We want your equipment, not your lives. You’re surrounded, and you have no chance of escape. Lay down your weapons, and you will be allowed to leave unharmed.”

  I couldn’t help it, I laughed. “No can do, asshole. You, or any of these other shitheads show your faces, and I’ll shoot a fucking hole in it.”

  “To hell with this Ronnie.” Another voice called out. “The motherfuckers shot Cato!”

  “Ryan, you shut the hell up and stand down!” Bullhorn guy called back. “I told Cato to wait for the signal, and he didn’t listen. Now he’s dead. There’s a lesson in there for you.”

  “I think you backwoods fucktards are missing the point.” Eric shouted. “We’re not giving you our supplies, or our weapons. You’re gonna have to break cover if you want our shit, and when you do, we’re going to rip you a hundred new assholes.”

  “Listen buddy,” Bullhorn replied. “I don’t want to kill you, any of you, but we are taking that trailer, and we are taking your weapons. I’m going to count to five, and then my men are going to start shooting. You’re outnumbered, and we have plenty of ammo. We’ll just keep shooting until you’re all down. Or you can surrender.”

  He paused for a moment. “One.”

  “Gabe, got any ideas?” Eric asked.

  Frustration and anger threatened to cloud my judgment. I took a deep breath and looked around. “We have to find cover.” I said. “We’re dead meat out here.”

  Eric nodded and stepped backward, lowering his voice. “Alright, on my signal, everybody break for the tree line and take cover. I’ll hang back and lay down covering fire.”

  “No Eric, we’re not leaving you here.” Sarah hissed.

  Ronnie the Bullhorn Guy interrupted us. “Two.”

  “Dammit Sarah, we don’t have time to discuss this. Just do what I say.”

  She opened her mouth to say something else but I interrupted her. “He’s right, Sarah. We have to move. We have no chance out here.”

  She looked at me, then at Eric, her mouth a thin, bloodless line. “Fine.”

  “Three.” Came the bullhorn.

  I wasn’t any more pleased with the situation than Sarah, but right then we didn’t exactly have a lot of options. I would rather it be me that stayed behind to cover the other’s escape, but Eric’s thinking was sound; I have the most combat experience. The Glover’s were going to need me if they were to have any chance of getting out this mess alive. I just had to hope the skills I’d taught Eric would be enough to keep him alive for the next ten seconds.

  “Okay, get ready.” Eric said, his voice nearly a whisper.

  The bullhorn squawked. “Four, last chance.”

  “Now.” Eric hissed.

  Brian scrambled out of the Honda and bolted for the woods, followed closely by his father. Sarah raced to catch up with them. I kicked on the after-burners and sprinted ahead of them as fast as my legs could carry me. My long stride quickly outdistanced the other three. Eric’s M-6 roared in three round bursts behind us as he put the crippled MUV between him and the enemy’s line of fire. It wouldn’t provide much in the way of cover, but it was better than nothing. Shadow figures shouted in surprise and shifted through the brush ahead of us as we broke for the tree line. We only had a second or two until they started shooting.

  A long time ago, I learned the hard way that being able to shoot accurately while on the run is a game-changing skill in a firefight. Most people can’t shoot for shit standing stock still, much less when they’re charging ahead at a dead sprint. Furthermore, it is highly difficult to hit a moving target even at close range. Developed through long hours of drill and practice, my ability to combine marksmanship with speed and mobility has saved my life more times than I care to count. Today was no exception.

  A figure resolved itself against the dim light filtering through the forest canopy just like the silhouette targets I’d punched so many holes through on the practice range. The ACOG sights on my SCAR lined up and I squeezed the trigger twice. A couple of 7.62 millimeter rounds nailed the figure center of mass at less than twenty yards away, close enough to blow his lungs out through his back. He fell over backward with a horrid gurgling scream. I tracked over to my next target. It was t
he guy with the carbine that shot out the Honda’s tires. He was trying to sight in on me, but I was faster and shot straighter. A three round volley stitched him across the chest and he went down.

  Goodnight motherfucker.

  Sarah saw what I was doing, ran a few steps to my right, and brought her weapon up to spray a wide arc at the gunmen ahead of us. Seeing me drop a couple of their buddies in the space of three seconds had shocked them. Sarah sending a hail of automatic fire at them sent them into a scrambling, bumbling panic. They fled back further into the woods looking for better cover. One of them was too slow, and I caught him high on his back with another shot. He hit the ground, but the wound wasn’t fatal.

  Contrary to what was portrayed in movies back in the old days, when people get shot they don’t just grunt and start shouting threats and curses at their shooter. In the real world, they scream, and cry, and call out for help to anyone who will listen, even their enemies. I know from personal experience that getting shot hurts like a mad bastard, and it takes a tremendous amount of discipline to feel that kind of intense, mind shattering pain and keep functioning. These guys didn’t have that. There was no discipline, no unit cohesion, nothing to indicate that we were fighting anything even resembling a hardened, organized enemy. The man I shot squirmed around on the ground screaming for help, but no one had the courage to go to his aid. Not much loyalty going on there.

  As we broke the tree line and made for cover, I risked a glance back over my shoulder to see how Eric was doing. The ammo had run dry on his rifle, and he was back to cracking shots with his pistol. He was still alive, and he’d done a good job covering our retreat. Score one for the good guys. I skidded to a halt and leaned my shoulder against a tree.