Mad Swine (Book 2): Dead Winter

by Steven Pajak

  “Listen, Wesley, why don’t you go back and see if Cody’s calmed down, okay?” I asked. I wanted him out of the way if there was danger. “We’ll see what’s going on here. Go on now.”

  Wesley turned and ran full-out back toward the CP, kicking up puffs of snow, again running with all he had, like kids do. This time, I couldn’t blame him ignoring the elements and safety. Looking at the Elmore residence gave me the creeps and I didn’t yet know why. Lara was standing outside the house, about twenty feet from the front porch. The Mosin was unslung but she held it lowered in front of her. She saw us coming and gave us a quick nod, then turned her attention back to the front door.

  “What’s going on, Lara?” I called out from the steps.

  She looked at me again and made quick eye contact and then turned back to the door. “I saw the kid walking the dog and then all of sudden the dog started going a little bit nuts. He was barking at the house and his fur was all up on his back. His eyes were like all rolled up in his head when he barked. It was unnerving. I saw the door open and the snow blowing in and accumulating there. Looks like it’s been open for a few hours.”

  “Did you go in?” Kat asked. It was just a question, and an honest one, but Kat had a way of making her questions seem interrogatory.

  Lara shook her head but said nothing. I could see in her eyes she was offended by the question, but mostly I think she was embarrassed that she hadn’t gone in to check it out. She was embarrassed that she was scared to go in by herself.

  “It’s good you didn’t go in,” I said. “Let’s take a look together.”

  The three of us ascended the steps with our weapons drawn. I paused at the open doorway for a moment and looked around. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting to find, maybe footprints or blood or anything that could give us an idea what we might be up against. The wind or something else entirely had pushed the door all the way open and six or seven inches of snow had already accumulated on the landing. A few inches of snow had been blown further into the home and a thin layer covered the first four steps leading down to the lower level family room.

  Before advancing any further, I reached into my coat pocket and dug out several coins and handed a couple of them to Kat and kept a few for myself. We paused for a moment, listening carefully for any sounds of movement. Thirty seconds of silence spun out before I finally signaled for Kat and Lara to check downstairs, leaving the main floor to me. Kat nodded and immediately took the lead, starting down the short set of stairs that would lead to the lower level.

  Moving with caution, I ascended to the main landing, my boots just whispers against the carpeted stairs. The design of the home was similar to mine. Designed around the open concept, the stairway would open up to a living room, dining room and kitchen combo with only one dividing wall which hid the fireplace chimney stack. From the top of the stairs, I could easily see into the living room and kitchen, and part of the dining room; all rooms appeared empty.

  Stepping into the living room, I almost started when I heard the sound of coins bouncing against the ceramic tiles downstairs. One thing we learned early on about the infected is that they have great hearing. The other thing is that they could sit quietly for long periods of time waiting on unsuspecting prey to pass close by before finally breaking silence and ambushing. Deploying the coins was designed to get the things active and moving before we entered into an enclosed space—like Mr. Elmore’s house—and were surprised by any of the things lurking inside.

  I held my breath a moment listening for any response elicited by Kat’s coins. Ten seconds of utter silence passed. I continued across the living room to the fireplace and knelt down in front of it. The stone of the hearth was frigid and barren. There hadn’t been a fire here in a while. I suddenly became aware that I could see vapors escape my lips with every exhale. It was cold in the house. Much colder than it should have been if the door was only open a few hours.

  As I started to rise to my feet I heard the whispering of approaching feet on the carpet coming from my left. I looked up expecting Kat or Lara, but instead I saw one of the creatures. He was a man in his forties wearing a barn coat, flannel shirt and a pair of chambray work pants. His black hair was short cropped and parted on the left, although it was greasy and unkempt. The infected man had a huge gash on his forehead, just above the left eye, and his blood stained that side of his face. His mottled gray skin was starting to turn an ugly green shade in some places. He walked with an odd limp and I noticed that his right foot was bent at an odd angle at the ankle.

  When I stood to my full height the man’s eyes widened as he set his sights on me, becoming acutely aware of my presence. A moan escaped his chapped lips and his pace quickened as he limped more aggressively toward me. He had already covered more than half the distance of the hall before I’d noticed the sounds of his approach. Now that he was less than ten feet away, excited by the prospect of tearing into live flesh, he made his mad dash for me.

  With little time to spare, and with little thought, I held the splitting maul out in front of me. The handle struck the creature sternly in the chest as his momentum carried him heavily into me. Although there was no power behind my blocking motion, it gave me a moment to plan my next move. I kneed the bastard in the groin—although that action could no longer elicit the expected response it once did from the living—and then put all my weight behind the axe, pushing the man to the floor, using one of my feet to trip him up simultaneously.

  Immediately the crazy started to struggle to his feet. For a moment his movements reminded me of a turtle on its back, kicking wildly in an attempt to get its feet back under its body. When the thing made it up on one knee, presenting a larger target, I used that opportunity and sprung forward, swinging my axe and slamming the flat end of the splitting maul against the side of the infected man’s head. Upon impact, blood, bone and brain-matter exploded into the air and rained all over the one wall that divided the living room from the kitchen.

  Crouched on one knee beside the corpse, I used the dead thing’s shirt to clean the blood off my axe. Up close, the mottled skin looked alien with greenish and bruise-colored swirls. The skin looked extremely porous and textured, almost like looking at a discolored golf ball. It had been a while since I had been this close to one of them and my curiosity got the better of me. I lifted the shirt further, exposing the rib cage and a slightly bloated stomach. My gloved finger disappeared slightly into its spongy skin when I prodded it. The skin felt moist and slick.

  Unconsciously I wiped my finger against my jeans. My heart jumped in my chest when I heard Lara suddenly yell out my name. I had been so focused on the dead man that I hadn’t realized that she and Kat had come up to investigate the noises I’d made after the two had cleared the lower level. But Lara’s exclamation had nothing to do with the splattered brains, or the fact that I was playing doctor with a corpse, but instead her wide eyes warned of something behind me.

  Another crazy appeared out of the dining room just several feet from where I crouched next to its dead friend. The woman – at least that’s what she appeared to be – was moving at quite a clip and had closed the distance between the dining room and living room within seconds. Suddenly my stomach clenched and I felt a sickening ball of heat coil up inside of me as I realized the woman was practically on top of me and I had no time to defend myself.

  With little time to react, the only thing I could think to do was to get away from the advancing crazy, create distance between myself and my attacker. Autopilot kicked in and I did a body roll to the right, sort of like an adult version of a kid’s summersault. I came up on my rear end and immediately turned in an attempt to locate my attacker. What I saw was Lara standing where I’d been crouched only seconds ago. She held the Mosin like a baseball bat and as I watched, the stock of the heavy laminate wood struck the crazy woman across the temple, sending her gaunt, mottled body backward. The woman fell like a limp doll, first hitting the carpet on her ass, and then rolling backward an
d smacking her head against the floor.

  In an instant, the woman sat up and was already trying to struggle to her feet. Not to be outdone, it was Kat’s turn to spring into action. Stepping in front of Lara, Kat raised her right arm and sighted her Beretta M92 at the creature that was now up on one knee. Like an expert marksman, Kat took a two handed, thumbs forward grip, and fired two 9mm rounds. The first round entered the woman’s left eye, and even as her head was snapping back from the impact of the first bullet, the second entered through the right side of the bridge of her nose. The infected woman was dead even before her body finally fell in an awkward pile on the carpet.

  I remained sitting on my ass for a few seconds taking in what had just happened before I finally made an attempt to get my feet under me. I stared at both women for another moment before finally attempting to break the tension by saying, “Thanks, ladies, but I had this under control.”

  In typical Kat fashion, she just rolled her eyes and shook her head in exaggerated fashion. Lara simply made a puffing sound under her breath and said, “Whatever.”

  Kat asked, “What were you looking at there that had your mind so occupied that you’d let one of those things get the drop on you, Matthew?”

  Shaking my head and wrinkling my nose to show my distaste, I said, “The skin just looks weird and feels…slick. Like a frog’s skin.”

  Both Kat and Lara exchanged a glance and then at the same time moved forward to have a look for themselves. I halted them, telling them there was too much infected blood by both corpses. Unlike me, neither woman could boast that they were immune to Mad Swine. Although we could not prove that the disease had no affect on me, the fact that I was the only member of our supply expedition to survive unaffected by Mad Swine seemed to confirm the theory.

  Together, we checked out the rest of the house to make sure we were alone. I didn’t expect to encounter any other of the infected. In fact, I was surprised that more than one had even made it into our community. I was more surprised that they’d both found Mr. Elmore’s open door and had stuck together in exploring the home. In the bedroom we found Mr. Elmore’s body. I examined his remains while Kat and Lara watched from the doorway. He was not bitten or attacked by the two things that lay dead in his living room. From the look of his body, Mr. Elmore had been dead for a few days. My guess was that he’d died from exposure. He’d run out of wood at some point and was unable to regulate the temperature within the house. Although he’d fallen asleep under two very thick blankets, he’d become hypothermic at some point and died.

  I closed my eyes and shook my head, disgusted that one of our own had lost his life because of a lack of cord wood. Why hadn’t he come to me or Sam or anyone and asked us to get some wood for him? Why freeze in your room rather than ask for help? This angered me deeply and I felt as though I had failed Mr. Elmore in some way. As leader of this community, I should have been aware of his situation and done something to ensure his well-being.

  Making a mental note to discuss with Reverend Reggie the creation of a community wellness group that could make it a point to visit our residents periodically to make sure they were getting along, I left Mr. Elmore in his room. Kat and Lara were no longer in the doorway where I’d left them; I found them both out on the front porch.

  “What are your orders?” Kat asked, straight to business.

  “Have Sam come in and take a look around and see if there are any supplies she needs. Ask Reggie to prepare a service and let him know we need a disposal team. Tell them to be careful. We can’t have another outbreak.”

  Kat nodded. I stopped her on the first stair and added, “I need you to get a patrol together for me. We need to get firewood.”

  When Kat was gone I turned my attention to Lara. It had been a rough morning for her. She always put on a brave face, but I knew her well enough to know her true feelings. The dead bodies were something she just could not get used to.

  “Hey, slugger,” I said. “Thanks for what you did in there.”

  “You’re welcome.” Her freckles were cute when she smiled.

  “I have to get to the CP. Are you okay for sentry duty here for a little while?”

  “Of course.”

  “Just until Sam gets here and gets what she needs. Once she’s gone, get a replacement to stand watch until Reggie and the disposal crew finish up. Tell them to use whatever fuel we might have left to burn those things out by the northwest side.”

  “You can count on me,” Lara said.

  “Meet me in the CP when you’re done?”

  “It’s a date.” She winked at me. When I was halfway down the walkway leading from Mr. Elmore’s home, Lara called down, “Are you ever going to invite me over to show you how to make coffee?”

  I just shrugged. I didn’t yet have an answer to that question.

  Chapter 5

  The Patrol

  The late afternoon sun was bright but the air was crisp and cold, and it stung. The light dusting of snow had stopped an our ago, giving us a momentary reprieve. After the incident at Mr. Elmore’s home I didn’t expect Lara and Kat to actually join me on the patrol. I’d asked Kat to assemble a squad; she showed up with Lara, Justin, and Chandra. They all looked eager and raring to go, but I was still on edge. Anytime I had to face the damn crazies was a terrifying experience, but when they made it over the wall and into our safe-zone people started to lose faith in our security. I’d have to assure everyone that was just an isolated event and that we’d take further precautions.

  We gathered near the western wall beyond which Reverend Reggie’s church sat isolated in the distance, surrounded by thick trees and shrubs. Early on we considered making the trek to the building, which was just a mile and half away. Reggie claimed there were supplies that could be collected. However, the first patrol sent out lost one man and two others were injured. I decided the unknown supply cache was not worth another life. At the time we were still rich with food and supplies and no one would step up to argue the supplies were worth the risk. After today’s meeting, however, I strongly reconsidered the possibility. I was surprised no one else had remembered at this morning’s meeting.

  As I watched, Justin set down his back pack and unzipped it. From within he pulled out two sets of folding fire escape ladders. Each ladder was constructed of tough nylon strapping and epoxy coated steel rungs. According to the manufacturer, each ladder was capable of supporting 1,250 lbs. Justin had purchased them for his townhome just weeks before the outbreak. He and his wife Laura lived in one of the middle three-story units and he was worried about escaping fire from the third floor bedroom. He never actually expected to use the ladders; he’d purchased them more for peace of mind. But in the last three months we’d used them many times with great success.

  Kat picked up one of the ladders and together she and Justin began to affix them to the wall that surrounded our community. By using two ladders, we could send our people over in teams, which was safest. With two people on the ground they could easily cover each other while the next pair made their ascent. Like all of our lessons, we’d learned this one the hard way.

  Lara and Chandra stood in front of the makeshift wooden sled. Designed by Paul, our resident engineer, the sled would hold the weight of the wood to be equally distributed across the surface of the snow and keep it from sinking below. It was the same concept as snow shoes, but I was still immensely amazed by the man’s ingenuity. Without him, life would be almost unbearable. In fact, many of us would not have survived this long. I was consciously aware of our dwindling number.

  Both women were armed with impact weapons. Lara favored an aluminum baseball bat while Chandra hefted a twenty-four inch crowbar. Chandra had frequently practiced and expertly executed a move where she used the bent end of the crowbar to hook her attacker’s ankle or shin and knock them to the ground. Once down, she would follow up with planting the hooked end into the skull and ending the confrontation. Each woman also carried a pistol, per my orders, as backup should the sit
uation get really nasty. The small chainsaw that now rested on the bed of the sled could also be used as a weapon, if necessary. Neither the firearms nor chainsaw would be used unless absolutely necessary as the noise would surely attract attention to our group.

  As usual, I was armed with my splitting maul as my main impact weapon. On my left I carried my Junglas machete and on my right hip I carried my 1911 as backup. Over the shoulder of my coat I carried a sling backpack; my shoulder bag had seen better days, and after the war with Providence it had been retired. My sling was packed with one day’s worth of food and water, a first aid kit, and a few other odds and ends. Every patrol needed to be treated seriously, and everyone needed to be prepared to face any emergency, including being stranded away from the community.

  Justin was finishing fastening his ladder to the wall. He was testing the anchors by pulling on them with his full weight when Kat stepped up and punched me on the shoulder.

  “You ready for this?” she asked.

  I tried not to look at the scar on the right side of her face, but it was unavoidable. Kat pretended not to notice. She’d grown accustomed to people gawking at the angry red line. Instead of looking away, her blue eyes held mine confidently.

  “Someone’s a little anxious,” I said. “You don’t get out much, do you Kat?”

  When she smiled her scar turned into a zigzag of welted flesh. She wrapped her scarf around her lower face, covering her mouth, nose, and most of the damaged side of her face. She tugged her black wool cap down further over her blond hair so that only her eyes were visible. She was not ashamed of her scars; the less flesh exposed to one of the infected the better. Their sharp nails could rake flesh like a warm knife through butter.