by James Cook
I did a quick lap around the area where the fight took place and assessed the damage. In total, twenty-three men had attacked us. Now they all lay dead in a remote stretch of woodland, miles away from anything, with nothing to denote who they were but piles of carrion that would eventually wither down to bones. What a waste. It would have been nice take an hour or so to pick the bodies over for anything useful and cache their weapons and ammo, but we didn’t have that kind of time. I could already hear distant moans growing steadily louder in the distance. Once I was sure all our attackers were well and truly dead, I double-timed it back to the others. Tom was bandaging Brian’s leg when I got back, and Sarah had Eric stripped to his waist so that she could work on his wound.
“Eric, I need to get this bleeding stopped.” Sarah said. “I’m sorry, but this is going to hurt.”
Eric nodded, his eyes closed. “Do what you have to do.”
Sarah motioned me over and told Eric to lie down on top of the trailer. I pinned Eric’s arms to his chest and held him down while she poured peroxide into the bullet-hole, then packed it with gauze to staunch the bleeding. It wasn’t ideal, but we were in a hurry and it would have to do. I helped Eric sit up and wrapped a compression bandage around his mid-section to keep pressure on the wound. Pain pinched his mouth down into a hard line of misery, and his ribcage had already turned an ugly shade of greenish-purple around the ragged exit wound. In spite of all that, he kept on a determined face and gestured for me to hand him his rifle. He was learning the same hard lesson I learned so many years ago in Afghanistan; the pain can only hurt you so bad. Fighting the pain is pointless, so it’s best to just accept it. Let it run its course. Eventually you get to a point where you realize it hurts just as much to sit still as it does to move, so you grit your teeth and you get your ass moving. Sarah got a bag of prescription painkillers out of the cart and handed Eric a couple along with her canteen.
“Mother of mercy, God bless you woman.” He said, and washed them down.
“Grab a shirt and let’s get moving.” I said to Eric.
“Hell with that, it’d hurt too damn much to put it on.” He replied, handing Sarah back her water. “Just help me with my harness.”
Sarah helped me buckle on Eric’s web gear. I pulled a canteen from his belt and held it up to him. “Drink as much of this as you can stand. It’ll help keep your blood pressure up.”
Eric took the canteen and unscrewed the cap. “I thought high blood pressure was a bad thing.”
“Not when you’ve been bleeding like a stuck pig, it isn’t.”
He took a long pull of water, wincing as he raised his arm. “You learn something new every day.”
I turned and knelt down beside Brian. His father had cut away his pants leg to work on the deep groove carved into his leg, and was just finishing with the bandage.
“You doing okay?” I asked, laying a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m not going to lie, Gabe. My leg hurts like crazy.” He looked up at me with eyes too old for such a young face. “I think I can manage, as long as we can find a place to rest soon.”
I leaned closer and lowered my voice. “I know you’re hurting, but I need you to dig deep and gut it out, you hear? We might have to walk a long ways before we find a place to hole up.”
The boy set his jaw and nodded.
“Come on, son. On your feet.” Tom said, standing up and holding out a hand to Brian. The boy reached up and let his father help him stand.
“What about the trailer?” Sarah asked, shifting her worried gaze away from her son to look at the sum of our worldly possessions.
“You and Tom worry about this guy,” I said, patting Brian on the back, “I’ll see to the gear.”
The moans of the approaching walkers drifted to us through the forest, converging from all points of the compass. If they were close enough for me to hear, they were close enough to be a problem. We needed to put some distance behind us. I opened the lid to a side compartment on the cart and began digging out the yoke and harness.
“Y’all go on, I’ll get this thing sorted out and catch up.” I said, waving down the road. “Eric, can you take point?”
He smiled, his usual smart-ass nature winning through despite the pain.
“Jeez, Gabe, I ain’t dead yet. Just make sure you don’t take too long with this thing, I’d hate to have to come back here and rescue your sorry ass.”
I shot him my best scowl and stabbed a finger in the direction we needed to go. He turned to start down the highway and motioned for the others to follow. The yoke and harness only took a minute or two to hitch before I dragged the cart out of the brush and hustled to catch up. As I passed the van, I paused for a moment to squat down and peer inside the shattered front windshield. I was curious why none of the rounds we fired at the outset of the firefight penetrated through to the ambushers on the other side. Inside the cab I found my answer—sandbags. The clever bastards had jam-packed the inside of the van with a couple of hundred canvas bags filled with dirt. I’d have to remember that one.
The warm stream of blood that had been pouring down my injured arm for the last few minutes finally began to slow down. I knew by the simple fact that I could raise it that the wound wasn’t that serious. It would require stitches, which would hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, but as long as I didn’t let it get infected I had little to worry about. I’ve been hurt a lot worse with less medical resources available and survived it. I could do it again.
Eric’s condition was a much larger concern. He had lost a lot of blood, and once his adrenaline wore off the pain was going to be significantly worse. We had enough pain meds to keep him moving, but the drugs would reduce his ability to focus. In a world overrun with the living dead, that kind of thing could get a man killed in a hurry. What we needed was a place to rest and recuperate for a while. Someplace near a source of water, preferably with places close by to scavenge for food. I picked up speed and caught up with Eric.
“How you feelin’?” I asked.
“Pills are kicking in.” He replied. “My side doesn’t hurt as bad, but I’m feeling a little loopy.”
“You drink all that water yet?”
“Yeah. I’m about halfway through my second canteen.” He patted the green bottle riding on his belt.
“Good. It’s the closest thing to a plasma drip we have right now, so keep it up.”
He nodded, his eyes beginning to glaze over. “So what’s the plan? We still headed for the railroad tracks?”
I shook my head, grimacing in frustration. “No, it’s too far away to make on foot before nightfall, especially with us being all banged up. We need to find a place to hide out, and we need to do it quick.”
Up ahead, brush stirred along the side of the highway. Eric and I noticed it at the same time and stopped short. I pulled my .45 and aimed at the spot where the tall grass shifted. Eric swept his rifle around the surrounding woods.
“Sarah, back on the clock.” He said in a low voice. Sarah shouldered her M-6 and covered our rear.
A figure stepped slowly out of the brush onto the broken pavement, hands raised in the air. I recognized his uniform immediately; he wore Army issue ACU’s, black and green face paint, combat boots, and a dark green headscarf. The fact that he had his hands in the air didn’t mean he wasn’t a threat. He could just be a distraction while someone else flanked us. I kept my pistol trained on him as he approached.
“That’s far enough.” I called out when he was about twenty yards away. “Who are you and what do you want?”
Eric’s rifle lowered in my peripheral vision. “You have got to be kidding me.” He said.
I cast a quick glance at him. “The fuck are you doing?”
“I think the mystery of who was helping us back there just got solved.”
The soldier standing across from us broke a smile and lowered his hands. “That you, Riordan?” He shouted.
Eric smiled back and turned to wave a hand at the rest of us. “It’s
cool guys, he’s a friend.”
The strange soldier walked toward us and Eric met him half way, stopping to shake his hand and clap him on the shoulder. I halted a few feet away and looked on in confusion.
“Care to introduce us?” I said, eyeing the soldier’s weapons and lack of insignia. He glanced over at me, and I noticed that his eyes were a strange hazel color, almost yellow.
“Captain Steven McCray, Army Special Forces.” He said, and held out a hand. “You must be the famous Gabriel Garrett.”
I gaped at him in silent shock. Eric laughed. I had a feeling things were about to get interesting.
Chapter 12
Old Friends and New Enemies
Steve, being the perceptive fellow that he is, noticed our rather shabby condition and offered to lead us to a community of survivors he made contact with a few weeks ago. We gratefully accepted. I tried to keep my game-face on, but the painful half-hour march it took to reach our destination nearly did me in. Exhaustion and blood loss conspired to wear me down with every painful step. The pills I took lessened the screaming agony in my side at the cost of jumbling my thoughts, and robbing me of any ability to focus. I began to stumble and weave as I walked down the road. Sarah offered a shoulder to lean on, but I turned her down. I wanted her to focus on Brian. The kid, for his part, soldiered on with determination and grit, never once opening his mouth to complain. It was obvious that he was hurting, but he kept it to himself. Tough kid.
Finally, we came upon the abandoned remains of a small machine manufacturing business that obviously had seen better days even before the Outbreak. The squat brick building and its gravel parking lot had been repurposed into—I shit you not—a waystation for a stagecoach.
Yeah, that’s right. A stagecoach. Like the freaking Old West.
A large bearded fellow with a shock of long white hair trailing to his shoulders stepped outside to greet us. He wore a pair of coveralls, steel-toed work boots, a straw hat, and that’s about it. Huge slabs of muscle rippled under darkly tanned skin on his arms and shoulders. His dour demeanor combined with the shotgun in his hands gave mute but effective notice that starting trouble with him would not be conducive to a long and healthy life.
“Captain.” He said with a thick Scottish brogue, nodding to Steve as we approached.
“Declan, this is a friend of mine, Eric Riordan.” Steve said, gesturing to me.
The older man regarded me for a moment with an icy, appraising stare. “You look a bit the worse for wear, lad.”
“Yeah, getting shot will do that to you.”
Declan grinned. “And who are these folk with ye? Do ye speak fer them as well?”
I turned and looked at Gabe. He shrugged out of the harness connecting him to the cart and stepped forward.
“I’m Gabriel Garrett.” Gabe held out a hand. Declan regarded him for a long moment before accepting the handshake. His eyes tracked to the dried blood streaking down from Gabe’s wounded shoulder, then over to Brian’s bandaged leg. His expression thawed noticeably when he saw the pain and exhaustion written on the young boy’s face.
“Now what happened here, lad.” The big man said gently, kneeling down in front of Brian and leaning in to look at the wound.
“We were ambushed a couple miles back on the highway.” Gabe said. “Barely got out of there alive.”
Declan stood up and looked at Steve. “Was it those same bastards from the Leary place?”
Steve gave a solemn nod. “Yes, it was. Ronnie was the ringleader, but he won’t be causing problems for anyone ever again. Him or his men, thanks to this group.”
Declan shifted his gaze back to us with less suspicion and a strong hint of respect. “Well, that’s a few flies out of the swarm then. I owe ye a debt of gratitude, aye. Let’s get the lot of you inside then, see what we can do for ye.”
“I’m afraid we don’t have time for that, Declan.” Steve said. “We picked up some followers along the way back.”
The old Scot stopped and thought for a second. “Aye, should have thought of that. Ye said ye were in a fight. Noise and all that.”
“Can you get them to Hollow Rock?” Steve asked.
Declan nodded. “Aye, I can. How many followin’?”
Steve shook his head. “Too many. I need to radio Wilkins and Grabovsky to draw them off before they get too close to the fields.”
“Ye do that then, Captain. The rest of you come inside and rest a bit while I get the horses.”
Steve set off toward what looked like a hastily built shack with a radio antenna on top of it. Declan went into the machine shop through an open garage door. Gabe and I exchanged a glance, then looked back at the Glover family.
“Well?” I asked, looking at Sarah.
“You sure we can trust that guy?” She whispered, tilting her head toward the guard shack just as Steve closed the door behind him.
“We’ve fought on the same side before. He’s…pragmatic, but he’s solid.”
“Pragmatic? What exactly does that mean?” She said, her tone heavy with suspicion.
“Listen, I can explain everything later, but right now we need these guy’s help, unless of course you happen to have a better idea?”
Sarah shot daggers at me with her eyes, but backed down. “Fine. We do this your way. For now.”
I let out a sigh. “Listen, I’m not trying to fight with you Sarah. I’m in pain, and I’m doped up, and I think I’m going to pass out pretty soon. Just trust me on this one, okay?”
“We trust you.” Tom said, shooting Sarah a reproachful glare. “You’ve proved yourself to us in more ways than I have the words for. We’re with you.”
Sarah had the good grace to look chagrined. “Sorry.” She said, looking down. “It’s just…”
I reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Your son got shot today. You almost died. I get it, I’m about at my limit myself.”
She looked back up and gave me a wan smile. Tom stepped forward and put an arm around her shoulders while Gabe lifted Brian up in his arms. The boy looked relieved to finally be off his injured leg.
“We should go in and rest while we can.” He said, then turned and carried Brian into the small factory. The rest of us followed.
*****
Going for a ride in a bouncing horse-drawn carriage with a gunshot wound in your side is not an activity I would recommend to anyone, for any reason, ever. I would further contend that doing anything with a newly minted orifice ripped violently into your flesh is a condition one should enthusiastically avoid whenever possible. The painkillers in my bloodstream continued to dull the ache, but the ride to safety was not a pleasant one. That being said, it still beat the hell out of fleeing the undead on foot.
Declan drove a pair of strong, healthy mares along an old gravel road that wound through the dense Tennessee woodland on our way to a fortified community. We hitched the cart to the back of the wagon with a length of para-cord and a carabiner. Its well-oiled springs kept it from squeaking too much as we trundled down the badly pitted road. Gabe and Sarah watched for trouble while sitting on crates of canned goods Declan scavenged from abandoned towns along his trade route. Gabe spent about as much time staring at Sarah as he did watching for hostiles. Tom, thankfully, was too busy trying to distract Brian from the pain in his leg to notice. I would have to talk to Gabe about that soon; his infatuation with Sarah needed to stop before something bad happened. If the former federal agent was half as smart as I gave her credit for, she knew exactly what was going on. I just wondered who would be the first of us to do something about it.
Steve sat beside me in the back of the open-top carriage and briefed us on the situation developing in the region we traveled through. A few reestablished communities along the Mississippi River had worked together to lure the infected away from towns equipped with large bridges and port facilities. A resurgence of trade ensued, and the mighty Mississippi once again reclaimed its place as a vital shipping route. Three towns in Tennessee rep
aired hydroelectric plants enough to restore electricity to their grids, bringing a limited array of manufacturing capacity back to the region. Not surprisingly, the first thing repaired was a factory that bottled purified water. Without public water and sewer systems, clean drinkable water was difficult and labor intensive to come by. The factory ran three shifts a day under heavy armed guard and shipped water to towns as far north as Missouri, and as far south as northern Louisiana.
All of this was very interesting, but what caught my attention the most was the fact that there were several secure, fortified crossings established connecting the east and west banks of the Mississippi. During the planning phase of this trip, I spent many a sleepless night wondering how the hell Gabe and I were going to get across the mile-wide river without drowning or ending up as ghoul chow. Problem solved.
As encouraging as that was, the river was still about a hundred miles to the west and three of the people in my group had suffered gunshot wounds. We were in no condition for a hundred-mile overland trek, and likely would not be anytime soon. Gabe was right, we needed a safe place to rest and recuperate. It would probably be July at the earliest before we were healed enough to endure the hard travel that lay ahead. That left us with only about three months to cover ground before the short post-nuclear warm season ended and the snows began to fall. Our chances of reaching Colorado before winter set in were beginning to look bleak.
“So what I’d like to know,” I said after Steve concluded his speech, “is how the hell you wound up all the way out here. Last I saw you, you were still Sergeant McCray, and you were heading back to Fort Bragg.”
Steve let a half-smile crease one side of his face. “They gave me a field commission when I got back to Bragg. Experienced operators are hard to come by these days, so the brass decided I was officer material and handed me a butter-bar. I made captain in about a year, promotions aren’t that tough to get anymore. Avoid dying long enough, and you’ll shoot up the ranks so fast it’ll make your head spin.”
