This Rotten World | Book 4 | Winter of Blood

by Morris, Jacy

  All around him, he heard the hollering of the others. Whiteside unleashed a stream of profanity-laced screams that almost made him laugh. But death was dancing on the snow with them, unseen, ready to rear its ugly head at any second. There wasn't time for laughter.

  "Get some of this shit, you fucking cunts," Whiteside yelled, drawing the dead toward him. He chopped down the nearest one. "Get some of this dick."

  Why would they want your dick? Allen thought as he brought down another Annie. That's weird as fuck. He had no time to dwell on Whiteside's words. The dead were thick around the Target, and more were slogging towards them in the distance, pushing their way through the snow.

  Allen strode forward, one eye on the woman in front of the Target, and the other on what was in front of him. If she went down, there would be no point in going after her, although the cart piled high with food might be worth a quick scavenge.

  She stood firm next to the cart, her head shaved down to the skin. He could see the bags underneath her eyes, even from a hundred feet away. She wielded her shotgun like a sword, although he didn't think she was trained. As he watched, she swung the rifle towards an Annie stumbling towards her from straight ahead. The angle of the shotgun was aimed perfectly in his direction.

  "Down!" he yelled before flopping into the snow. He heard the thunderous boom of the shotgun, and then he pushed himself up on his hands and knees in time to see a body fall backward, blood oozing from a destroyed skull.

  "Watch where you fucking shooting!" Whiteside called to her.

  "Come to us!" Tejada shouted, for they were within shouting distance.

  Allen didn't know if the woman heard them. She broke the breach of her shotgun and fumbled in her pocket for two shells. She slid them in and closed the breach. Smooth. No hesitation. No shaking. She wasn't afraid. He chopped down another Annie, the vibration of the blade against skull rattling his arm up to the elbow. His hand stung from the vibrations.

  As the woman scanned the field of the dead before her, Allen kept an eye on the barrel of her shotgun, ready to dive into the snow if she attempted another ill-advised shot. She made no move to run. She didn't seem to even notice that they were there.

  A dozen of the dead stood between him and the woman. They would be able to save her.

  ****

  Day strutted forward, the blade of his hatchet dripping gore on the snow, creating a grotesque Jackson Pollock painting. Fear flowed through him. He didn't know how long it had been since he hadn't been afraid. Even when he had been deployed overseas, he had never known this never-ending fear.

  Ahead of him, he heard Allen yell, "Down!" and without thinking, he dove into the snow. He heard the boom of the shotgun, and then he surfaced from the snow like a drowning man, his eyes wide, his hatchet held out before him like a talisman, like a vampire hunter holding back a vampire with a crucifix. But nothing had changed in his one-second dunk into the snow. The world was still blindingly white. Everyone still advanced in a semi-circle, though they were more cautious now that they had almost been taken out by friendly fire.

  Fear coursed through his veins again. He had a headache. In fact, he'd had one since they left the safety of the Nike campus. He had been overdosing on his body's supply of cortisol for the past couple of days. He felt nauseous and shaky. When they had spent the night in the storage facility, he hadn't slept a wink. His brain kept imagining the dead outside getting through the fence and lifting the door to the storage unit, leaving him no way to escape.

  Now he was running on empty with sandpaper eyes, half-blinded by snow. He should have seen the movement. Maybe under normal conditions he would have, but he was too focused on the woman in front of the Target, her head shaved, spitting fire from her shotgun like a goddamn action hero. She rotated her shotgun again, and he only had a moment to realize that he was in the line of fire. Without thinking, he dove down into the snow again, waiting to hear the boom of the shotgun.

  He didn't know if it came, as he was in too much pain. Something poked him in the eye, and he pushed away, screaming in agony. He stood up then, which was harder than it should have been. A great weight came with him as he stood. Hot fire engulfed his brain, as he felt something tear in his face. With his good eye, he spotted a frozen face, a set of teeth, and he realized that he had lunged face-first into an Annie hidden under the snow.

  "Help!" he screamed, knowing somewhere in the back of his head that he was already gone. He was dead, he just didn't know it yet. He pushed and battered at the Annie hanging from his face. It had no legs. It was just a torso, one skeletal hand dug into his face, the other pulling at his beard. He swung his hatchet at the thing, but the angle was all wrong. He chopped flesh, creating wounds that would have felled a living man but which didn't affect the Annie in front of him.

  He continued to chop at the thing, and then he pulled his handgun free. He placed the barrel of the handgun underneath the thing's jaw and pulled the trigger. It went limp, and he fell forward, trying to remove the Annie's frozen digits from his eye socket.

  "Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh fuck," he muttered, the pain so great that he couldn't even identify it. Finally, he got the thumb unhooked, and he leaned back. He could see nothing out of his right eye. He put his hand up to his face, and it came away with blood. He rocked back and forth on his knees, tears falling from his good left eye.

  That's it. That's fucking it. I'm dead. The words replayed over and over in his head, and he faded from the world, the cold of the snow washing over him, hot blood leaking from his ruined eye.

  He heard a voice and saw Epps squatting next to him. He spoke a few times, but Day couldn't hear what he was saying. He was too busy thinking, I'm dead. His whole life had led him to this point, this single moment in existence. He had survived overseas, actual firefights with people that wanted to kill him. He had survived the downfall of the Memorial Coliseum, hopping on one of the last helicopters out of there before the whole place had gone to shit. He had survived the Burnside Bridge and the escape from Portland, and now, here, in a motherfucking Target parking lot, he had been killed, but he wasn't dead yet.

  He looked around, panicked. Were they just going to shoot him? Right here? Just execute him like a rabid dog?

  He finally became aware of the people around him, Epps, Tejada, Rudy, and Amanda. The other soldiers had work to do. They had someone living to save. He hoped the woman died. Let his death be for nothing. Hell, his life had been for nothing. He left nothing behind. No kids, no wife, hell, not even a serious girlfriend that might wonder what had happened to him. His parents had basically disowned him once he turned eighteen. He had nothing, was nothing, and once he was gone, there would be no record of him ever existing on this fucking planet.

  "You ok, son?" Tejada asked.

  Day sobbed. Unable to find the words to say.

  Tejada and Epps patted him on the shoulder. "What do you want to do?" Tejada asked.

  He didn't want to die. That's what he fucking wanted to do. He wanted to live.

  Tejada rubbed his shoulder gently, circular motions. He still sobbed, unable to get the words out. Unable to say what was on his mind. A flare of pain shot through his head, and he started to feel warm, despite being knee-deep in the snow, despite losing a ton of blood from his ruined face.

  "We gotta go," Tejada said. "Do you want us to take care of you?"

  Day leaned into Tejada's squatting form, and he felt the thread of his life snap. He was done fighting. He wouldn't get to see how the world turned out. He wouldn't be able to leave a mark on the world. But that was ok. He was tired. He was so tired. Day nodded his head one time, and Tejada patted him on the shoulder.

  He felt Tejada stand beside him, and he stared down in front of him. He focused on the snow, on the glitter of the sun within thousands of frozen water crystals. His one good eye, bleary with tears, was flooded by the light. He imagined this is what it was like in heaven. He hoped it was warm there and that there were no Annies. And then the darkness came.


  ****

  Tejada holstered his pistol. He clenched his jaw so tight he thought he was going to turn his molars into powder. Another one. Another one to add to the list. Another kid he had gotten killed. He was a loner, cursed with bad looks, and an abrasive personality to match. But he hadn't deserved this. No one did.

  He felt Rudy and Amanda lift his arms and put their bodies underneath his shoulders. He left the body of Day behind, but his ghost came with him, inhabiting his mind. He focused on the landscape before him, this winter wonderland splattered with blood. He wanted to howl. He wanted to shoot everything that moved without a heartbeat. But that wouldn't do anyone any good. They'd run out of ammo before they could make a dent. And there was another problem on top of that. The highway ran behind the Target. If it was anything like the highways they had seen before, there were probably hundreds of Annies coming their way. They had to move.

  He cleared his head and saw that his men had cleared the parking lot of all of the dead between them and the woman with the bald head. Lose one, gain one. It was a strange thought to have. He had just lost a man, but here was another living soul to replace the one he had lost. She would most likely be a poor replacement for Day.

  "Hello!" he called.

  The woman looked around her, her shotgun loaded and ready to be fired. She had a panicked look on her face, and he realized that the woman must be terrified out of her mind. "We mean you no harm," he said. "Just thought you might need a little help is all."

  "It's all mine," the woman said. "I fought for it. You don't get none of it."

  Tejada took a look at the woman's cart. It was piled high with cans of stuff. The odds of her making it through the snow with that cart were about as good as his odds of growing a tail overnight.

  "We got our own food," he said. "But, if you don't mind my asking, are you planning on pushing that cart through this snow?"

  "What I plan ain't none of your business," she spat.

  Tejada was beginning to get the impression that their presence wasn't appreciated. Fury rose in Tejada. They had just lost a friend to save this woman from her own stupidity. "How is it that someone so stupid is still alive?" he asked.

  The woman's eyes bugged out, and for a moment, Tejada pictured his own death at the hands of a bald woman in front of a Target. It wasn't how he had necessarily envisioned his demise.

  "Fuck you. Some of us don't got an army full of buddies. I do what I can to get by."

  Allen said, "Yeah, well. You ought to start running. You just alerted every Annie on the highway that there's a free lunch over here."

  The woman looked panicked for a second, as if she hadn't considered the idea.

  "Yeah, well. About that. If you all help me get some of this food back to my house, I'd be willing to share some of it with you."

  Tejada chewed the inside of his lip. Day… Day… Day… in the grand scheme of things, he was no big loss. He was proficient at surviving. He could help carry stuff. He was an extra person to talk to, but Tejada had no great love for the soldier. But to see his life wasted to save this piece of shit that stood before him, that was too much, even for him.

  "Nope, Not interested. I say good luck to you. Let's move out." He twirled his hand in the air and turned his back on the woman. It felt good to stop looking at her, standing there with her shopping cart full of food and no way to get it home. Dumbass gets everything she deserves.

  "We're not just going to leave her, are we?" Epps asked as Tejada strode away.

  "Fuck her. She got out here on her own; she can get home on her own." He could tell his answer didn't sit well with Epps. "Listen, I'm sick of helping people and getting shit on. We just lost Day, and for what? So that lady could get a shopping cart full of food."

  "Hey, she's following us," Brown said.

  Tejada stopped and saw the woman pushing her cart in the snow following in their broken trail. She was a good thirty yards behind them, but she had obviously been pushing the cart through the snow in their direction, her shotgun sticking up out of the basket in easy reach.

  Tejada turned back to Epps and said, "Keep an eye on her."

  They returned to a road called Evergreen Parkway, which ran between all of the stores, a four-lane affair judging by the width of the field of white ahead of them. It was not easy work moving among the dead, cutting them down, and then plowing through the snow. He felt like one of those Clydesdales from the Budweiser commercials, forging through the snow. Unfortunately, he wasn't delivering beer. He was trying to deliver his soldiers someplace safe, someplace where they didn't have to die.

  He tried to scan the world ahead of him, planning their next move like a Chessmaster, but the death of Day clung to him like campfire smoke.

  Periodically, he would look behind them, tracking the lady's progress. She was closer now, bringing up the rear. Once, he caught sight of her running to avoid a closing gap between a set of Annies that they had just passed by. She made it, and Tejada silently cursed her. It was the first time in his life that he had put the safety of his soldiers above the safety of a civilian. It didn't sit well with him, but that's what the world was now. There were no more soldiers, no more civilians. There were just survivors. He felt like a fool for taking so long to get that through his thick skull. If he had realized that concept one day earlier, Day would still be here.

  The road they were on ran west, paralleling the highway to the north, out of sight, but not by that much. His plan was to hike a few more miles, find someplace to hole up for the evening, and then take a quick jaunt over to the highway and see if it was manageable. The gridlock, the traffic snarl of the dead, had to break up at some point. He had looked at an old map he'd found in an abandoned car in the Nike parking lot. There weren't a lot of roads that led to the beach, and the highway was the closest one. If it was snarled all the way there, it was going to take an awful lot of time to get there.

  He heard a grunt from behind, and he turned to see the woman struggling with the cart. There was something in the way of the wheels, perhaps a body, perhaps a broken piece of a car, a bumper or a muffler that had fallen off. The ground underneath them was a mystery.

  He watched, still moving ahead on his own path, as the dead began to close around her. Fuck her, he thought. That's what she gets. Without realizing it, he found himself whistling, drawing the attention of his men. "Someone help her out." Though his brain knew that it was stupid to risk helping her, old habits died hard.

  Brown was the first to move, and then Masterson came with him. Tejada didn't know where they found the energy to jog, but they trotted towards the lady. They chopped down a few Annies with their hatchets, and Tejada made a mental note to himself to have everyone sharpen up their hatchets when they found a resting spot. They were probably sharp as butterknives by now.

  Once the dead were down, Masterson and Brown helped the lady lift the cart up and over whatever was blocking the road. Then, without a word spoken between the trio, they trotted back to their position. Tejada gave them a nod, and they continued forward, chopping down Annies like trees, like jungle tour guides with hatchets instead of machetes.

  A half-mile down the road, he turned around again to see if he could find something about the lady that would let him know that she was an acceptable tradeoff for Day. When he turned around, he was shocked to find that she was gone. She had disappeared without saying a word. "Epps, I thought I told you to keep an eye on her."

  Epps turned around, his eyes big like he was going to find himself doing pushups in the snow.

  "I could have sworn she was just there."

  Tejada shrugged. In the distance, they heard a shotgun blast. The woman was still alive. Now her life was her problem. With a heavy sigh, Tejada said, "Let's get a move on. We can't save everyone."

  Epps nodded, and they all tried to put the image of Day's death out of their minds. They didn't think about the shotgun blasts in the distance. They didn't mean anything. It was just another noise, one that they
needn't concern themselves with.

  ****

  Rudy sweated heavily in the sunlight. His eyes were almost blind from the shine of the sun on the snow. The sunshine felt good, and he tried to remember the last time he had been out in the sun, soaking it up like he was now. He had relinquished Tejada to Gregg and Masterson for the time being.

  He had carried the man for several miles, largely in silence, with Amanda on the other side. They walked together now, stepping where the other soldiers stepped. There were Annies under the snow, broken-backed, frozen things that could pop up anywhere. Besides the one that had gotten Day, Allen had stepped on another one. He had fallen backward, scrambling in the snow and kicking it in the face with his boot as it crawled after him.

  Luckily, Epps had been right next to him. He was able to plant his hatchet in the back of the Annie's skull before anyone was hurt. But still, the thought was in his head that at any moment, he could step on his own death. The snowfield in front of them was like a minefield, but instead of being filled with exploding mines, it was filled with flesh-covered mines riddled with disease.

  His feet and shins were so frozen from walking that he didn't think he would notice if anything bit him. He was worried about Amanda. She wasn't built for this type of cold. The last thing anyone needed out here was frostbite. It seemed like the entire world wanted a piece of them, the Annies, the cold, random survivors who showed no gratitude.

  He couldn't believe how the woman they had helped had offered them nothing, no sign of thanks, no anything. She had almost killed a couple of them with her shotgun, and she never even offered a word of apology. But maybe that's why she was still alive. Maybe she had been making it through this entire world by worrying only about herself, never offering apologies for the things she did.