by Woods, Shane
“Mr. Pfeiffer,” Grayson broke in, “Let’s continue. Calmly.”
“Right.” I stopped, then began anew. “A few weeks I said? Somewhere around there. Maybe two, three, so, anyway…”
ONE
Ohio weather is notorious. It’s too damn hot and humid in the summer, with temps hanging in the 90s. The wintertime? Yeah, the exact opposite, with lake effect snow and temps hanging in the single digits and lower. It sucks, but it does afford us those perfect times of the year in between all of that.
This brings us to where I am now. The nights had been getting progressively cooler, yet not much real drop in the daytime temperature. This gave these perfectly cool mornings, crisp and clear, but not to the point of seeing your own breath just yet.
My target stood a good few blocks from me. I’d spotted the heathy looking doe moving with a few others at least an hour prior, judged their direction, took a chance, and set up my stakeout.
The new modifications Henry had done to some of our light pickup trucks were a Godsend. Scavenging several auto parts stores and garages yielded a ton of do-it-yourself window tint kits. This led to him retrofitting a couple of the Rangers and a Dodge Dakota with bed caps, tinting all the windows, opening the rear of the cab to the bed and finally he installed an internal tailgate release. We now had mobile hunting blinds for the upcoming hunting season. So long as you were cautious, and quiet, it did a very good job of keeping you hidden from prey, as well as those who would hunt you.
I’d waited a solid hour or more for at least one of the deer I’d witnessed to present itself to me. With the weather cooling down, we hunted for meat, not for buck or doe, not for trophy, and I was more than pleased to see a well-fed female break cover within range of my Mk. 18.
I pulled the short rifle nice and tight to myself, prone shooter position with a clear view from the back of the truck through the tailgate gap, a la The Beltway Sniper, but with a much wider area of attack.
The doe worked her way into the clear, then behind an abandoned car left forgotten in a driveway. I kept the rifle tight in place, my finger alongside the trigger guard. I could have taken the shot when she first appeared, but I lacked any and all interest in tracking a wounded animal through infected territory, and therefore waited for that perfect shot.
As I lay in place, my every breath coming shallow and slow, she began to slowly break cover. Head down and grazing, I got a front shoulder first. Then slowly, emphasizing that we had all the time in the world now, she began to move from the other side of the car.
I moved my finger to the trigger, ever so slightly applying pressure as the magnificent girl came into full view and I obtained the perfect shot I had been waiting for. Just another moment, and it was go time.
Her head came up quickly, but gracefully, as I slowly pushed the air from my lungs and began to leverage more pressure on the trigger. Just a moment before the crisp trigger gave way, she disappeared in a flash of movement and a loud bleating call.
I lifted my eyes from my optics and watched at range as a single runner hit the side of the deer full bore, spearing her against the car from out of the tall grass nearby. Before the doe could even react, two more joined the scene, both working feverishly at disabling her head and neck. The first runner let its head fall back as it let out one of those piercing shrieks to call others to the dinner table. Another runner joined, and moments later a few of the slower variety.
Blood erupted in fountains and flowed in rivulets as they dug in, rending flesh and bone from fur and skin. They ate ravenously, and I watched. Clearly, it was no longer a hunting trip, and I was back to intelligence gathering.
So, I watched, my rifle still at the ready and a sheet of window screen hanging over the gap, blowing lazily in the gentle breeze. I was in my binoculars now, trying to avoid the gore while I watched their actions, instead. At any given time, one or two of them would have their heads up, eyes and ears on a swivel watching for either more prey, or a threat. I wasn’t sure. They did, however, make sure the shamblers had gotten their fill as much as they had gotten their own.
We had all been curious about this. They seemed to get slower, or ‘become all slow and shambly’, as Shannon had put it, whenever food was scarce or that particular freak hadn’t eaten in a while. So why did the faster ones seem to help the slower? It was suggested we kept a few for studying, but no way in Hell was I going to have our enemy sleeping in our compound.
I watched the gruesome scene unfold for a few more minutes until my bladder couldn’t take it any longer.
Reaching for the rope attached to the top of the tailgate, I drew it in, then grabbed the top of the gate and pulled it in tight until I heard the faint click of the mechanism on both sides. Then, I secured it further with bolt latches that Henry had installed and searched for a restroom.
I gave my contribution to the gallon jug next to me and reached through to place it on the front seat, then I followed it myself into the cab of the little Ranger.
Turning the key in the ignition, the truck started. Barely a hum now, instead of the old low rumble. Henry had also gone overkill on muffling the exhausts of our vehicles, as well as adding any sound deadening material he could find to the engine compartments.
It resulted in nearly dead quiet vehicles on the positive end. On the negative, it added several hundred pounds to some and occasionally resulted in cooling issues during the warm weather. We had one team stranded a week back with a hydro-locked engine.
Okay, some quick knowledge for those not ‘in the know’. The vehicle overheated, and being in hostile territory, they kept driving it. Full of people and supplies, it didn’t take it long before that overheating caused head gasket or block issues which, one or the other, froze the engine in place because it was getting coolant into the cylinders. Hydro-locked.
Back to reality. With the truck started, and my jug topped off, I did a very slow three-point turn and headed toward the hunting infected. I pressed the accelerator and rolled down the window as the little truck lurched forward.
The first infected took notice when I was about one block away from them. It raised its head from its meal and appeared to try to shriek or vocalize my presence, but the mouthful of venison…MY venison…seemed to keep it voiceless.
Now half a block away, I unscrewed the cap to the piss jug and propped it on my lap, holding it tight so not to spill a week’s worth of myself, well, on myself.
As I glided almost silently past the feeding group, they finally took notice, just in time to receive a heavy dose of a week’s urine. The jug hit the first one hard enough to knock it off its feet, and as it fell, the remainder of the truck-baked fluids showered the rest, and their meal.
Okay, yeah, it was in part a solid ‘fuck you’ from me to them that they may or may not understand. It was also because of how they use their scent.
We had a scouting team led by Dave recently get trapped out on the rooftop of a home. After 5 hours up there, Dave, in all his eloquence, unzipped his fly and gave them freaks one hell of a shower. A couple of them, he observed, actually acted like it burnt or hurt. But mostly, it confused the hell out of them.
Was it the pheromones? Was it the scent itself? We didn’t know, but for even just a few moments it left them distracted enough to allow our friends an escape.
As my gifted golden shower hit them and then made landfall, I drove on. Watching in my rear-view mirror I saw them all get up from their meal and begin looking around. One freak lashed out a couple of times at another though it was broken up by one who ran between them, sniffed the air, then turned back and ran to another point and sniffed, then back to where he started.
I took the next left, chuckling to myself as I did so. The next twenty blocks or so passed uneventfully. I had travelled west from our home, and most of this area was regularly scavenged by our short-range crews. There weren’t even too many infected, as the crews had adopted a thorough sweep and clear method of scavenging. This resulted in similar gains scave
nging but left us engaged for longer as every sign of infected had to be met and cleaned up.
Rich even found a more effective way to neutralize the occasional brute, as well. This was the name we had given to the rarer eight to ten feet tall monsters that had come up from time to time.
Everywhere the large grayish colored freaks went, things got broken. If you became adept enough at identifying the marks, you could stumble across one bedded down at night. We’d found three. Two of them chose partially open garage doors to weasel under. They were each found inside, laid out like some kind of alien gorilla, either asleep or in some other kind of dormant state.
Another had actually made its way inside a house and either pulled up the floor, or fell through, but it seemed to have made a long-term nest in that basement, as evidenced by the piles of bones and gore strewn about in every corner.
In all three cases, the buildings were slowly, quietly flooded with whatever gas, diesel, or fuel oil we could muster in the area. An ignition trail was then poured, lit, and the beast would inevitably go on a rage until the flames consuming it finally took its toll and quenched the fire on the inside of the creature as well.
For if and when we’d encounter one in the open, Rich had disassembled fireworks and saved only the part that made them go boom. He then wired an electric charge for them that could be run off the long-range transmitter and receiver system for radio-controlled cars. Simply turn the five-pound pack of boom to ‘ON’, attach it by bolo, spike, or whatever else you could use to stick it to one of the big freaks, turn on your transmitter, and pull the throttle trigger. It always resulted in a satisfying earth pounding blast, and then the peppering of the surrounding area with whatever included shrapnel the device contained. It worked, it was dangerous but simple and effective. And the detonation system was much smoother than waiting for a mechanical timer to get done with ‘Wrinkle Free’.
The smaller ones, or normal infected, were dispatched in the same ways as usual, as those proved to be the most effective. Disable the head, destroy the entire freak, or shut down its spinal column and render it useless. This went the same for the juvenile infected that were encountered, though understandably it was much more mentally taxing to do the same job. You never get used to being rushed by an eight-year-old in a baseball uniform with exposed veins and blood trickling from his eyes.
My musings continued for the next few blocks until I reached the overpass.
The southern edge of the overpass had been blackened. We’d taken to dumping our nearby dead infected over it and onto the highway. Then, to prevent the stink from reaching the compound, they were doused in accelerant and burnt every week now.
It worked two-fold. It allowed us to dispose of the bodies in a way that kept us somewhat at a distance, and the resulting cloud of smoke had brought a couple of good people here and there.
We had, however, had one small group try to strong-arm their way in. Some of our newer members made note; they recognized the woman and her scraggly group. Some Southern chick who’d taken to calling herself ‘Texas Rose’.
We’d all gotten a laugh as we’re in Ohio, not Texas. You could smell her as well. The small group smelled as bad or worse than the infected we were dumping onto the highway. No rose there. Apparently, she’d been run out of another place of good people that was rumored to be south of here. Much the typical story these days. Ostracized for theft, fighting, laziness, any number or combination of reasons. But as per usual, if they weren’t welcome where they called home before, chances were they wouldn’t be welcome with us, either.
We made mention that we should reach out to that compound, but last anybody heard, they were going under and disbanding, scattering here and there. Oh well.
At any rate, their departure from our vicinity had been hastened by gunfire when it was all said and done, leaving two of her party DOA and Rose herself suffering from a gut wound that claimed her before help could even be administered.
I guess that’s the price to pay when you get turned down on entry twice, and then try to pry your way in via spud bar.
TWO
I passed the long wall to our compound on my way to the southern gate. Henry and his crew had busted their asses, and with the additional help we were getting from so many new hands, the wall was essentially complete. Rich’s dry moat idea had worked wonderfully, though with recent heavy rains, it was more of a mud bog that slowed anything that found its way in.
We’d gotten a few deer that way, as well as a random pig that found its way in. They were good eating, but they also proved that the defense was solid. The thinking that if a deer, which can jump and run and climb to an extent, couldn’t get out of the moat then neither could the infected.
The monstrosities themselves had proven this to be true, as every morning yielded a varying number of them. The work crews had taken to placing bets. They were taken down on a blackboard every morning before work. However many freaks were found in the man-made ravine dictated the winner. The group with the guess furthest from reality was on clean up duty for that evening, and that included burning the barrels of human waste on ground level collected by a laundry chute style system that James had affectionately named his “Shit Chutes”. There was a chute at the end of each floor, and an angled gate to dump or pour into for each. It was grisly, but it’s what we had living in nine-floor brick apartment buildings with no working plumbing. The mess was then rinsed down with a bucket of river water. Disgusting, but again, it worked.
I passed the wall with my driver’s window down, giving a friendly wave to each of the sentries posted at freshly built guard towers as I passed. My hunting truck, painted in old school brush stroke camo, was easily recognized and waved on. My bald head, lengthening facial hair and tattoo covered arms helped too, I was sure.
Katie rolled the large drawbridge down over the moat for me, then rolled the outer gate to it open. I drove through and stopped at the second gate and waited.
It was a prison entrance type system. Henry and James designed the bridging system together. It was robust as all hell, able to raise and lower relatively quickly thanks to a large pulley and crank system. Once the bridge was lowered, an outer gate could be rolled aside to allow access. Then, you waited inside for that gate to close, and then the inner gate could be opened. It was all linked together and one couldn’t move without the other in place. It made entry of multiple vehicles a bit of a chore, so we’d stage outbound and inbound and run both gates as needed, but we agreed it was worth the added security. And it was strong enough to allow loaded semi-trucks or construction equipment passage, which was a definite bonus.
Katie worked slowly but steadily. A heavy-set brunette in her twenties, she’d been an attitude-ridden thorn in my side since she showed up at our door near the beginning of our residence here. Therefore, when she got caught sneaking extra food and supplies from our supply floor, it was my pleasure to put her on gate duty.
I smiled and nodded jovially as she passed me by to roll the inner gate. She said not one word and made sure to watch her feet as she passed by. Maybe, I thought, just maybe I’ll keep her here until her attitude improves. That might be a while.
Once the gate was clear, I rolled my truck through the compound, making my way through rows of houses in varying states of dismantle. The outer wall was a few blocks from the inner, which tightly encircled the pair of long nine-floor brick apartment structures. The buildings provided lots of room in little space, set parallel to each other, and made everyone and everything in view accessible with little to no relative effort.
I reached the single inner gate and gave two chirps of the horn. Noah and Parker, also on gate duty, were nearby at what appeared to be an old poker table.
Noah, having been one of our new additions from the high school, needed as much work as Parker. The thought was to pair them together, and they could watch each other and do better. This clearly wasn’t a thing.
Each thin man had a couple of light snacks and a drink. Pa
rker leaned back in his chair as Noah rose to work the gate. In the process, Parker knocked his rifle over and fumbled with it in the dirt before righting it and leaning it back up, then turned to me, offering a nervous nod.
As Noah rolled the gate back and I pulled through, I stopped.
“Parker, Noah, both of you,” I ordered softly, “come here.”
Both made their way over, issuing a simultaneous “Yes, sir” as they approached. Noah reached me first, running a finger through his permanently greasy dark hair and fixing his glasses.
“You boys are doing better,” I commended. “However, what did I see wrong here?”
“I dropped my rifle,” Parker admitted, a bit sheepish.
“You dropped your rifle because it wasn’t tightly in your hands and at the ready,” I admonished. “Look, I had to honk. You both should be aware. One of you always covers the other, and you both need to be more observant. You just let me right in without even double checking me, my vehicle, or to see who I was and if I was alone.”
“Sorry,” they said, nearly at the same time.
“I’ll get Will or Frank down here to go over some basics with you two,” I advised. “Whomever it is will help you clear and inspect your rifle again, Parker. You dropped it right on the open dust cover.”
They both exchanged guilty glances and complied, then rolled the gate shut behind me as I entered and drove a beeline right into the entrance of the underground garage.
Henry was present and appeared to be forming a steel cage made of fencing and rebar around a wooden form of sorts.
“That’s the most awkward fishing net I’ve ever seen, dude!” I called to him as I stepped out of my truck.
“What?” he questioned, then slapping the chain link, “Oh, yeah it would be! Nah my brother, this goes for the big trucks. And we welding the doors on ‘em and putting in roof hatches.”