I grew up in rural Missouri. I’ve seen heavy storms hit before, but this one took the prize. I’d never seen a winter storm hit like this one, especially this early in the year. Throughout the last few months, we’d all noticed that temperatures didn’t get nearly as hot as in years past. By early August, we were already seeing frost on the ground in the early hours of the morning. Before August had ended, we’d already had our first snow. Winter was coming early, and it was coming with a vengeance. The Fimbul Winter was here.
At first, I’d welcomed it. I’d always preferred the winters. My wife has always said that I was part polar bear. I never wore a coat until the temperature dropped well below freezing. I wore short-sleeved uniform shirts, year round. I had long-sleeved uniforms; I just refused to wear them. However, this winter was different. The thermometers that we had on the guard shack on the front gate read twenty below on the coldest nights.
Initially, we were all happy. The Facility’s temperature remained constant. The cold would freeze the zombies and we would have free reign to scavenge for supplies. That was before we discovered that not all of the dead had frozen in their tracks. There were a few that still moved, albeit slowly. I started calling them Frostbiters. Fortunately, they’d been rare. That didn’t keep me from worrying about running into one in this blinding snowstorm.
I turned my head to check on Spec-4, when I saw her mare stumble. She didn’t fall, but I knew that we didn’t have long to find shelter before we lost the horses. Almost as if on cue, I saw a shape emerge from the blinding snow. To my left was a large structure. It looked like a house, but it was only there for a second. That was all I needed to get my bearings on it. I didn’t wait for Spec-4 to react. I just grabbed her reigns and tugged. She didn’t look up or seem to notice. She was succumbing to the cold.
Pulling the reigns free from her hand, I led her horse towards the spot where I’d seen the house. We were almost on top of it before it emerged into view. It was an older farm house with an attached garage. Fortunately for us, it was the kind that had wooden double doors that opened outward. It was padlocked, but that wasn’t going to stop me.
Jumping down, I pulled my hammer from my belt. The lock shattered with the impact, either from the force of the blow or the extreme cold. It took all my strength to pull open one of the doors against the over two feet of snow that lay on the ground. Agonizingly slowly, I opened the door enough to get the horses inside the shelter. Before I did, I had to clear it. I couldn’t risk going into the darkened garage if there was a Frostbiter inside.
I pulled my flashlight from my belt and scanned the interior. No car, but there were boxes along one wall, shelves of tools along the back and firewood along the outside wall. That was good, because it meant that there was a fireplace or woodstove inside the house. We would soon be warm. That was more than enough to make me want to hurry this along and get us inside before frostbite started taking our fingers and toes.
Spec-4 was practically lying against the neck of her horse as I led them inside. Once out of the wind, the temperature seemed to climb twenty degrees. I helped Spec-4 down and sat her against the boxes. Then I got to work removing the packs and saddles from both horses. In minutes, I’d removed the gear and set it aside.
“Wilder?” I asked. “Are you still with me?”
“Y…y…yes,” she muttered through chattering teeth.
“Stay here with the horses,” I said. “I have to clear the house before we go inside.”
“Y…y…you….ca…can’t…go…a…a…alone,” she said, raising her head and trying to stand.
“I have to,” I said. “You’re in no shape to go with me.”
She didn’t argue. Reluctantly, she leaned forward and lowered her head back into her arms. I shrugged out of my pack and shook the snow off of my coat. Then I took it off and wrapped it around her. I was still cold, but it was bearable. Besides, it would be tough to maneuver in a heavy coat. I needed to be able to move, in case I had to fight inside.
I quickly checked the Keltec Shotgun. It was covered in ice. There was no way I could use it. It would have to be stripped down, cleaned out and dried before I could safely use it. The same thing went for my M-4. I kept them both clean, but the snow had covered them in layer after layer of ice. The big XVR on my hip had been under my coat, so it was just fine. There wasn’t much you could do that would make it not fire. Revolvers were slow to reload, but reliable as Hel.
There was no help for it. I readied the big revolver and my flashlight. The door that led inside the house from the garage was locked, but it was an old house. The door fell easily to one well-placed kick next to the doorknob. I stepped into the kitchen and swept from right to left. The place looked like it had been abandoned this morning. Everything was in perfect order. In less than five minutes, I had swept the entire house including the basement.
I was relieved to find nothing lurking inside, living or otherwise. The owners must have been caught away from home, because it seemed like it hadn’t been touched. All the windows were closed and the doors were still locked. Inside were two woodstoves and one fireplace. The place was old enough that it didn’t have central heat or air. It was entirely heated with wood. That was fine with me, since I grew up in a house just like that.
I stripped two thick quilts off of a bed and grabbed a stack of towels from the bathroom. The towels I used to dry off the horses. Then I covered each of them with a quilt. I took Spec-4 into the house and sat her on the couch. She was still shivering and almost unable to do anything for herself. I stripped off her wet outer clothing and boots, and then wrapped her in thick blankets.
I spent the next half hour getting the fires going again. Soon, a warm fire was crackling in the fireplace. It would be a while before the temperature in the house was anything close to warm, but at least we were out of the cold. The cabinets yielded a surprising amount of food. I wasn’t brave enough to open the little refrigerator, though. Instead, I melted a pan full of snow on the stove and used the water to make oatmeal. Nothing warms you up like a good bowl of oatmeal.
I had to feed the first bowl to Spec-4. She could barely hold onto the spoon, let alone feed herself. After she’d eaten, I pulled out my hip flask of Bushmills and gave her a long pull. She coughed and sputtered, but kept it down. Her eyes were watering, though. The good thing was that she was getting color back into her face.
“Thanks,” she managed to mutter, through the shivers.
“No problem,” I replied. “I’m just glad you’re still with me.”
“I wouldn’t have been if we’d been out there much longer.”
I went back to the kitchen and returned with another bowl of oatmeal. This time, I let her feed herself. Then I dug into a bowl of my own. The oats were filling and went along way to warming my insides, but the Bushmills finished the job. Unfortunately, it was the last of my good Irish whiskey. I still had a couple bottles back at the Facility, but that was all I had with me.
I sat all of our weapons near the fire to thaw out. By the time Spec-4 had finished eating her second bowl, she was already nodding off. That was good. She had warmed up enough to relax. The fires had warmed up the house considerably, and put out enough light to see by. I decided that we would be better safe than sorry and covered the windows with blankets so nothing outside the house would see the light. No sense inviting trouble that we really didn’t need.
It was an old three-bedroom farmhouse, well outside the city limits of Lebanon. In fact, if my internal map was correct, we were closer to the little town of Phillipsburg than to Lebanon. There were plenty of blankets in the hall closet so I had no trouble covering the horses, the windows and us. My only problem now lay in finding something to feed the horses.
After checking all of the possible entrances to the house and garage, I decided that we were safe enough to relax for a while. Well, at least safer than we would have been outside in the storm. I made sure to look out through the windows for any sign of movement, but the drivin
g snow made seeing anything beyond a few feet from the house impossible. I just hoped that the Frostbiters couldn’t see any better than we could.
After stoking all of the fires, I returned to the living room. Spec-4 was sound asleep on the couch. That left an old overstuffed chair with an ottoman for me. It looked more inviting than the floor, so I grabbed a couple thick quilts and made myself comfortable. Before I dozed off, I put the big XVR in my lap and covered myself up to my chin. I fell asleep with my hand wrapped around the handle of the pistol.
I must have slept deeply, because I didn’t recall any dreams. I awoke in semi-darkness, with the room illuminated only by the glow of the embers in the bottom of the fireplace. The room was just starting to turn chill and I could see my breath in the air as I exhaled. It was time to add more wood to the fire.
Reluctantly, I slid out from under the covers and stretched. According to my watch, I’d been asleep for nearly four hours. The storm was continuing unabated outside as I stirred the coals and added more wood to the fire. The fire in the kitchen had gone out completely, but there were still coals in the back bedroom. Once the fires were stoked, I decided to check on the horses.
They were standing together in the cold garage, but I’m sure that the blankets helped. I found a couple five-gallon plastic buckets and started filling them with snow. I’d let it melt, so that the horses could at least have a drink. I’d work on finding them something to eat when the storm broke. I wished that there had been more that I could do for them, but water and warmth was going to have to be enough for now.
Spec-4 was still asleep when I returned to the living room. I sat back in the chair and stared into the fire, lost in my own thoughts. I must have dozed off again, because when I opened my eyes the storm had stopped. I could no longer hear the howling winds outside the little house. From the amount of light I could see seeping around the blankets, I could tell that it had to be what passed for morning, now.
I dug around in the cabinets until I found what I was looking for. It was a familiar looking large red container of coffee. There was an old-style percolator pot sitting atop the cast-iron stove in the kitchen. I filled it with melted snow water and added the coffee. Then I placed it on the stove to boil. While I waited for the coffee, I took out my cleaning kit and went to work on our weapons.
By the time the coffee had percolated, I was just finishing up with the weapons. I reloaded all of them and slipped into the kitchen to find some cups for the coffee. Spec-4 was awake and sitting up when I returned. She looked much better than before. She even managed a weak smile as I handed her a cup of the freshly brewed coffee.
“Thanks,” she mumbled. “How long was I out?”
“The better part of ten hours,” I replied. “You really needed the rest.”
“Did you get some sleep?”
“Yeah,” I answered, over the top of my mug. “Plenty.”
“How are the horses?” she asked, glancing towards the door to the garage.
“They’re fine,” I said, smiling. “We found this place just in the nick of time.”
“If we’d have been out in that storm much longer, we’d have died,” she said, shaking her head.
“The Gods were with us,” I replied, sipping my coffee.
“You’re from around here,” she said, sipping her own cup. “Have you ever seen a winter like this?”
“I’ve never seen a storm like this before,” I answered, shaking my head. “I’ve never even heard of one this bad. I doubt anyone has.”
“What do you think caused it?” she asked, looking up from her coffee.
“I'd guess that all the crap in the atmosphere's blocking out the heat from the sun,” I replied. “I imagine that the sudden stop of billions of cars, planes, trains and factories’ pouring exhaust and heat into the air didn't help matters either.”
“What did you call it?”
“The Fimbul Winter,” I said, grimly.
“What’s the Fimbul Winter?”
“In my religion,” I said, softly, “it’s one of the signs of the end. It signals the beginning of Ragnarok; the Doom of the Gods.”
“That doesn’t sound very good,” she said.
“I thought that the dead returning might be a sign that Ragnarok was upon us, and now we have this unnaturally cold winter. The old books tell us that the Fimbul Winter will last for three years. I don’t know if we can survive three years of this.”
“I don’t either,” she agreed. “It'll be too cold to go out after supplies.”
“If this is the Fimbul Winter,” I said, after a moment, “and I truly hope it isn’t, then this could be the end of everything.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” said Spec-4.
“Neither do I,” I replied. “After the final battle of Ragnarok, the world will be rebuilt from the ruins of the old one. It’s not an end, as most people think of it. Ragnarok is a cycle. The Gods will be reborn and the world will be renewed.”
“Do you believe that?” she asked.
“Yes, I do,” I answered, smiling. “I believe that even in the worst of times, we can rebuild. With perseverance and courage, we can rise from the ashes.”
“I like the sound of that,” she said, smiling.
“Me too.”
I got up and started peeking out of the windows. I couldn’t see anything out in front, but behind the house was an old barn. It looked like the people that had lived here might have kept livestock. At least they did until the dead returned. It was worth checking out. There might be feed in the barn that I could give to the horses.
I started putting on my gear and grabbing my weapons. Spec-4 was just returning from the bathroom as I was wrapping my shemagh around my head. She just watched me as I adjusted the fabric and reached for my gloves.
“Where are you going?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest.
“Out to that barn,” I replied. “I’m going to look for some feed for the horses. They need to eat to keep their strength up.”
“Want me to go with you?”
“You can cover me from the door, if you like,” I replied. “There’s no sense in both of us wading through all that snow.”
“Fair enough,” she answered. “You’d better be careful.”
“I will,” I assured her. “I don’t think I’m going to find anyone in that old barn.”
“What about the dead?”
“If I run into a Frostbiter,” I replied, “I’ll yell.”
Slipping into my coat, I zipped it up and slung my M-4 across my back. My Keltec Shotgun would be my primary weapon for this trip. With the shemagh in place and the hood up on my coat, nothing of my face was visible. All that was discernible was the gleam of one eye and my eye-patch.
Opening the back door, I stepped out onto the porch. The snow was so deep that it was nearly level with the small concrete steps. With a sigh, I stepped off into the snow and instantly sank into it up to the middle of my thighs. There had to be three feet of it on the ground. It took a great deal of effort to force my way through to the old barn. It took even more effort to open the door enough to allow me to slip inside the barn.
My flashlight lit up the interior like a beacon. There was plenty of hay and an old tractor inside, but no animals. I also didn’t see any signs of movement, from either the dead or the living. There was a damp musty smell to the place, but that wasn’t unusual in an old barn. The smell was as familiar to me as the morning sun. I grew up on a farm and our barn smelled just like this one. It was a mixture of horse manure and hay.
Hanging on one wall was several bridles and halters for horses. Sitting on the gate to a stall were four saddles and several saddle blankets. There was even farrier’s gear, an anvil and a small forge. The people that lived here must have shod horses for a living. That was a dying art, even before the dead came back. A good farrier was worth their weight in gold, especially now.
“Too bad we don’t have a truck,” I mumbled. “We could use all o
f that tack.”
I checked a feed bin and found several large bags of feed for horses. Setting the shotgun against the bin, I shouldered one of the bags. Then I recovered my shotgun and held it in a one handed grip. I could shoot it that way but working the pump would be difficult, not impossible but really hard.
Slipping out of the barn door, I retraced my steps back to the house. Spec-4 let me inside and I sat the bag of feed by the back door. I made four more trips, bringing back three more bags of feed and two bales of hay. Once I was finished, I stomped the snow off of me as best I could on the floor mat by the back door. I sat a bag of feed on the table and reached for the broom in the corner. I used it to knock off the rest of the snow. With that accomplished, I carried the feed into the garage.
I grabbed a couple more plastic five-gallon buckets and filled them both with feed. Placing a bucket in front of each horse, I watched as they both began crunching noisily without hesitation. I refilled their water buckets with melted snow from the kitchen and made sure the blankets were still on them. Then I put down the bales of hay for them and made sure the doors to the garage were as secure as I could make them. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best I could do for them at the moment.
Spec-4 had another pot of coffee ready when I stepped back inside. I could smell it. She’d made it strong, but not as strong as I usually brewed mine. Well, then again; not everyone had spent a big chunk of their life in law enforcement. That tends to give you a much higher tolerance for caffeine, since we all practically lived on coffee. Without a word, she handed me a steaming cup and smiled. I took the cup and returned the smile.
“Thanks,” I said, lifting the cup as a toast to her.
“Find anything useful out there?” she asked, sitting on the kitchen counter.
“I didn’t search it very well,” I replied, “but I did find quite a bit of tack. There’s an old tractor out there. I saw some farrier’s gear, too.”
“Too bad we’re on horseback,” she said, shaking her head. “What’s a farrier?”
Ragnarok Rising: Desolation: Book Five of the Ragnarok Rising Saga Page 2