Chapter 7
Things weren’t exactly rosy when I woke up again, but Nate had been right—getting some quality rest helped. It was still dark outside but through the window I could see the sky start to lighten. Nate was leaning against the wall next to the other window, like a statue. A somewhat unkempt, not exactly fresh-smelling statue that tried hard to stifle a yawn. I allowed myself another moment of letting my sluggish mind come alive before I sat up and pushed myself to my feet. After staying still for so long my muscles were sore and stiff, but I was slowly approaching feeling-alive territory. He watched me as I stretched, then sauntered over to him, peering around him into the yard.
“All quiet?”
He nodded. “As backwater regions go, this one’s really deserted.”
“Makes one wonder why we bothered going as far as Wyoming for the winter,” I mused.
Nate only had an ambivalent shrug for me. “What would we have done without the, what was it, one hundred and twenty glasses of applesauce?”
“Fifteen,” I corrected. “And yes, of course. Winter would have been so dull without that.” I had to admit that I could do with some applesauce now. Then I realized that if my sense of taste was really as fried as I thought it was, I’d never again taste applesauce. Or bacon. That thought made me grumble obscenities under my breath, prompting a tired laugh from Nate. “Why don’t you catch some shut-eye?” I suggested. “I can take it from here. Particularly if all it takes is to stand around uselessly and try not to die of boredom.”
A muscle in his cheek jumped, making me wonder what had prompted that, but it was an understatement to say that we were both rather touchy right now.
“Wake me once the sun gets too bright for you,” he murmured, then paused to lightly brush his lips against my cheek. He was past me, dropping his assault rifle, before I could decide on how to react. I watched him as he stretched out on the mattress and was out cold within moments. Under different circumstances I would have felt bad about not pulling my own weight, but considering that it already felt like a feat to do anything that went beyond not moving, I decided to give myself a pass. Less than a week had passed since I’d woken up from what should have been my deathbed. If there ever was a time to cut myself some slack, it was now.
Standing watch used to be a part of my daily life that I actually liked. It made me feel productive on those days when there really wasn’t anything to do. It gave me time to reflect on things without my mind going off on weird tangents. When there was a perimeter to guard, it was that low-level kind of exercise that worked wonders to get the kinks out of my spine and shoulders that driving all day long usually left.
Now it was a new kind of torment.
Maybe it would have been better if I’d had more than ten steps to pace, and that over floorboards that creaked loud enough that I soon stopped, trying not to wake Nate up in the process. As nice as being uninterrupted was, the level of boredom associated with it was dangerously high. And to top it all off, every time I shifted—and often enough when I kept still—I felt the various aches of my body. A twinge here, a light throbbing there, making it impossible to ignore for a moment that, try as I might pretend, I was not okay. And that was just physically speaking. Mentally? “Bleak” was the most positive I could manage right now.
The sun slowly rose, forcing me to step away from the open window and into the perpetual shade of the room. Even that warm first light of day was enough to be annoying, but at least there was a window not facing east at the other side of the room that I could pull back to. That was one problem I really didn’t know how to handle. My thigh would heal, as would my now-useless reproductive organs. The muscles that had started to waste away in my one week of inactivity and sickness could be bulked up again, and I was sure that I would soon run and squat again without issues. But the sun? Even with all manners of shade-throwing apparel and sunglasses I would always remain helpless if for some reason I lost them. And then what? I was screwed. And there was no telling if continued exposure to that bright glare would ruin my eyesight rapidly. There was still hope that the sensitivity wasn’t permanent, but I doubted that it would decrease much over time, unless I was going blind. Just great.
I would have loved to give Nate some more rest, but by nine I just couldn’t stand it anymore. Half an hour later, we were back on the road, besting another awfully hot day. We crashed in a barn to weather out the worst of the noon heat, then resumed our trek in the afternoon. All day long Nate kept urging me to drink more, until I was ready to pelt him with the empty water bottles that started piling up in my leg space. I still wasn’t hungry, but before long I heard Nate’s stomach growl, making it obvious that food was a necessity rather than an option. We decided to stop for the night about an hour before sundown, searching for another abandoned if mostly untouched home. Only this time we were out of luck. Four of the houses we tried were infested with squatters—of the undead kind—and several more raided down to broken furniture used for cooking fires. The only thing we found was half a pack of stale puppy kibble, which only sustained us for so long. We ended up sleeping in the car, forgoing watch tonight in favor of getting an early start. The next day went down about the same, with yet more destroyed, raided homes. Someone must have gone about it in a systematic way, either desperate in the very beginning of our new world order, or getting ready to settle in for the winter. It left us confronted with a dilemma—either go on and hope that tomorrow would finally be our lucky day, or take matters into our own hands.
Another night without food, another morning with no loot in sight, and it became obvious that we had to do something about this. Nate was still hesitant about that as he watched me stretch in the morning, my limbs not quite cooperating as they should—but we really didn’t have a choice. Hunger I might not have, but I definitely felt worse that morning than the day before, a clear sign that my body was screaming for sustenance even though I couldn’t hear it. So raiding the next small-town supermarket it was.
Last year, that would have been barely more than a hiccup in our daily life. Heck, weeks ago it was part of our routine, something we regularly did whenever our supplies dipped toward the halfway point.
Now? Now it turned out to be a mission that needed careful planning, and lots of deliberation if it really was worth the risk. We ended up choosing Walhalla, North Dakota, just over the border from Minnesota. The name might have played into our decision making, but on the maps, it looked like the ideal target. A small town, probably less than a thousand inhabitants strong before. Small enough that it should be reasonably safe, large enough to have several possible targets—a gas station, diners, a supermarket. We had the car, we had weapons, if somewhat low on ammo. It should have been a simple task of in; locate target; raid target; out. The only prep required was to syphon off some more fuel for the Rover to make sure that in case of emergency, it wouldn’t die on us.
The tension in Nate’s body as he surveilled the town from a good distance of two miles out made it all the more obvious that this was not your average milk run. Maybe if I’d been at my usual level of health, things would have been different, but the longer he stood there and watched, the more I doubted it. Sure, in the middle of the day I felt like a blind mole caught out in the sunlight, but the same was true for any shambler hiding in there. The fact was, we were only two people. That meant we both had to go in, be very quick about clearing any room we entered, with no chance to post a lookout with the car or further down the street. One, or maybe even five, zombies we could manage, but ten? Twenty? A hundred? With just two people, even getting away and driving off would take a lot of luck, should anything go south. And fact was, I wasn’t doing well out in the sun, and I hadn’t fired a gun since we’d hunkered down in the motel. Who knew what other unpleasant side effects I’d become aware of mid raid?
“Are we going to do this, or not?” I asked, deliberately putting some swagger into my tone. Did I want to? Hell, no. But we had to, and postponing things needlessly served
no one.
Nate turned his head slightly and gave me a sidelong glance. “That eager, huh?”
I shrugged, downplaying the unease creeping up my spine. “Always.”
The most promising target was the inn at the western side of town, but we decided to approach from the east. The smart thing would have been to leave the car outside and sneak in on foot, but I wasn’t sure I could walk the five to six miles required for that, let alone run that far if we had to retreat quickly. Nate was going at barely more than a crawl, trying to minimize the noise we were making. If the town was overrun, we could still hightail it out of there.
I did my best to watch all around us, but with my eyes burning from the sunlight, I wasn’t sure how good of a job I was doing. I was tense as hell, my fingers convulsing around my shotgun. As the houses kept creeping by, I tried to remember how many shotguns I’d lost along the way. The one in the factory had been the third… or fourth. It didn’t really matter. As it was, we still found enough guns out there that could be used, or at least stripped down and reassembled into working ones. It was probably stupid to be sentimental about a tool, but the last one I’d been using since Sioux Falls. Somehow this one felt like it hadn’t quite earned my trust yet.
I thought I saw a small pack of wild dogs take off down a side street, but that was the only thing that moved in the entire town. Somehow that was even more creepy than if there’d been the odd zombie banging against a closed window from the inside. Just because we didn’t see them—or hear them—didn’t mean that they weren’t there. Damn, but that factory had really pulled a number on me.
The inn was right beyond where two smaller streets branched off the main street. There were a few cars scattered about, but half of them were missing doors and almost no window had remained intact. Someone had spray-painted red marks on several doors of the surrounding houses, and there were a few lumps of rags at the side of the road that I figured had been human once. Nate brought the car to a halt in the middle of the deserted lot, but left the engine running.
“What do you think?” he asked, surprising me.
“Since when do you care?”
He shrugged. “We both had a bad feeling about the factory, and look where ignoring that got us. I’m not sure about this. What vibe do you get?”
Still looking around, I grunted. “No fucking clue. It looks quiet. As in deserted, there’s-nothing-left-to-loot quiet.”
“Exactly,” he agreed.
We waited another five minutes. Nothing happened. Nate finally killed the engine and got out, and when nothing came hurtling at him, I followed. My thigh muscles protested but carried my weight without cramping. Nate handed me one of the small packs, took two of the large ones for himself, and off we went.
Before we entered the diner, we did a quick round on the outside. Nothing moved, nothing came running and howling at us. There were tire tracks in the grass to one side, but they could have been weeks old, with us having no idea when it had last rained here. Rather than go back to the front, Nate busted the lock at the rear door, and after a moment’s hesitation went inside.
Covering several rooms with just the two of us was nerve-wracking, although the results remained the same—even in the walk-in freezer where we found a half-frozen zombie. We didn’t find anything else, except for lots of trashed furniture and ransacked cupboards. The only thing left were condiment bottles, and as we had no idea whether they were safe to eat or not, we didn’t pick them up. I felt my shoulders sag as we made our way back to the car, disappointment palpable on my tongue.
There was a guest house only one street over that we checked, too, but it was in a similar state as the inn. By then my grip on the shotgun was getting weak, but I did my best to remain alert. Nate noticed, and after a few seconds’ deliberation he nodded back the way we’d come. “There’s nothing left. Wanna check one of the houses, just to be sure?”
I nodded, although that was the last thing I actually wanted to do. Nate told me to guard the door and went in alone, only to return maybe two minutes later. He shook his head as he passed by me, angling for the car. “They even took the mattresses from the beds. My guess is that they raided the town for everything they could use in a settlement.” That made sense—and it sucked.
The car was exactly where we’d left it. I sagged back into my seat, more mentally exhausted than physically, and that was saying something. Nate studied the maps to look for another target, deciding that we should try the next town over.
That’s how we spent the remainder of the day, passing through five towns altogether. All of them were empty. All of them had been cleared of whatever useful things they’d held. In the third one over I had the congenial idea to count the cars we saw at the curb or abandoned in lots—and came up with low double digits only. They’d even taken those.
The sun was already starting to set when I voiced the only alternative I could come up with. “Should we try one of the settlements next? They don’t have to let us in. Just feed us.”
That Nate looked tempted was telling, but he shook his head. “The next one is over two hundred miles south of here. There’s no official town left in the entire state. The only secure option around here would be to go back into the Badlands, and that’s easily a two-day drive, if not more.”
In four we could probably make it to the Silo, but going at this rate, that was a bad idea. The sunlight slanting through the window showed only too plainly how gaunt Nate’s cheeks had become over the past weeks. Not even that abysmal beard could hide that.
“We could try to hunt,” I suggested. “Hunker down in the middle of nowhere, set a few snares. Maybe we get lucky.”
Again he shook his head. “Too risky. If we don’t find anything in the next two days, we’re toast.”
“What about fishing then? We could be over by those lakes there before nightfall,” I noted.
I expected him to shoot me down once more, but much to my surprise Nate nodded. “We could try that. At the very least we can see if they raided the boats moored there as well. Maybe take one of them out into the lake. That would be about the most secure sleeping place I can think of.”
“Done,” I agreed, buckling myself in. “What are you waiting for?”
It was almost a relief when about two hours later, we saw a few zombies shamble along the side of the road. They made as if to come for us, but Nate blasted right by them. I thought about using them for moving target practice, but it was likely better not to waste ammo on something so trivial. It was only when I craned my neck, looking back at the zombies, that I noticed the plume of dust behind them, perpendicular to the road we had come on.
“Do you see that?” I asked.
Nate slowed down, a frown coming to his face. “Could be nothing.”
“Or could be someone following us,” I pointed out.
“Don’t think so. That’s coming from the highway we’ve been trying to avoid all day long.”
“Should we investigate? If it’s traders—“
“What if it’s not?” he said, cutting my musing right off.
“Then we should check and see whether we should lay low, or try to make a run for it.”
He didn’t look particularly happy about my suggestion, but at the next intersection he took a left turn that would bring us closer to that dust cloud. He slowed down further after about a mile and let the Rover come to a halt behind a low hill. The dust had started to settle by then, making me guess that whoever had been on the other side of that hill had veered off into another direction. Now that we were already here, we might as well check it out.
My enthusiasm dimmed markedly as I pulled myself out of the car, the latent heat of late afternoon not contributing positively to my mood. I didn’t miss the concerned look Nate gave me, but pointedly ignored it. My entire body ached, but moving more today seemed to have a positive effect on me overall—except for my thigh.
After making sure that the zombies from the road hadn’t followed us, we started the
short hike up the hill. I was huffing and puffing within minutes, but the sight of rabbit tracks pulled my mood right out of its nosedive. If nothing else, maybe we got one or two of those in front of our rifles. No idea what would happen to a rabbit if I hit it with a round from my M24, but I wasn’t picky. As long as something remained, I’d eat it.
We topped the rise, and before I even got a good look at the other side, Nate slammed into me, forcing me down into the grass. My heart jumped into overdrive, but I did my best not to panic. Leaning over me, he put his mouth right next to my ear. “Soldiers down there. At least three Humvees, and I think two civilian craft. About a click southeast.”
He got off me then, but I took a few moments to calm myself before I got up on hands and knees and raised my head until I could peek over the grass and down the slope. The setting sun glinted off the windows of the cars. Nate’s count had been right, but what he’d left out was that the other two cars clearly didn’t belong to the Humvees.
“Traders?” I guessed, pitching my voice low so it wouldn’t carry.
“Looks like it,” Nate confirmed.
There were seven of them, maybe eight, all clad in gear barely better than rags. They had their hands raised, and in some cases also their voices as they were arguing with the soldiers that had surrounded them. The armed group could have been scavengers, too, but I doubted it. Their uniform gear, the way they seemed to move as a unit with one guy clearly giving orders just looked too well-coordinated to be scavengers. Sure, we could pull that off, but most others couldn’t—and what cause would scavengers have had to hold up traders who, at best, could only reach a fraction of the goods they could liberate from every mall or larger town? That was, if there was still something to liberate. If they were as desperate as we were…
A shot rang out and one of the traders sagged in on himself, making me jerk violently. Nate gave me a long look before he focused back on what was going on below. “Guess negotiations aren’t going too well,” he proposed.
Resurgence: Green Fields book 5 Page 7