Surviving the Dead (Novel): The Hellbreakers

by James N. Cook

  I nodded and threw the tarp on the ground beside another body. Cason straightened his end and then gave the corpse a hard kick. I heard a rib crack and looked at its face. What was left of it looked female. I took the arms, Cason took the ankles, and we rolled it onto the tarp.

  “Anything else I need to know?”

  Cason looked over his shoulder as he walked backward, elbows tucked at his sides, arms bent in half. A pair of well-defined trapezius muscles bunched into little knots on either side of his neck. “Everybody fights. Everybody.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  He glanced at me, then looked backward again. “Other than that, just clean up after yourself and do what you’re told. Ain’t too hard to get along here, just so long as you be respectful of other people’s shit.”

  I lifted the tarp over a dead man’s foot. “Shouldn’t be a problem, as long as everyone remembers to be respectful of my shit.”

  Cason gave a low chuckle. We dumped the dead body and set off to get another one.

  “Alex, man, you gonna do just fine.”

  *****

  Night fell and a horn sounded three times.

  “That’s the shift change,” Cason said. His big hands began folding up the tarp.

  “Is it always three notes?”

  “Yep. You hear that when you workin’, mean it’s quittin’ time. You on watch, it mean somebody comin’ to relieve you. But don’t leave your watch station till somebody show up. Watch captain come around and ain’t nobody showed up yet, you let ‘em know, they handle it. Commander Cortez takes that shit seriously.”

  “Why is that?”

  “’Cause he’s smart, that’s why.” The tall, lanky man set off for the wagon train, the tarp folded in his gloved right hand. I fell into step beside him. His longer legs forced me to walk quickly. Around us, more than a hundred other people were doing the same, faces grim, hands pulling scarves down and lifting goggles from tired eyes.

  “What do you mean?”

  Cason moved the tarp to his left side. “You work somebody hard, you got to let ‘em rest. Otherwise they break down. Can’t have that shit out here. We short-handed as it is, can’t go losing nobody if we can help it.”

  I stayed quiet and kept walking. Cason didn’t say anything else on the way back to the wagons. His demeanor hadn’t changed since earlier in the day, but I guessed he was feeling the day’s work and the drain of the hot sun just as much as I was.

  The temperature had dropped ten degrees by the time we reached Delta Seven’s supply wagon. A dull red glow hung over the mountains to the west, their peaks a sharp blue line against the retreating light. The oxen that pulled the wagon had been freed from their traces and tethered nearby. I watched Sergeant Hahn fill two buckets with feed grain and set them in front of each animal. Her motions were quick and sure, no wasted movement, the actions of someone executing a chore so familiar it required no thought. The other people I had seen at midday were carrying out chores of their own. An attractive Hispanic woman unfolded several stools and set them around a small fire dug into the ground. Some kind of stew boiled over the fire, and a big man with a shaved head, sunburned face, and pale blue eyes squatted next to it feeding dollops of bread dough into a sizzling skillet.

  “Take a seat”, the Hispanic woman said to me. I did as she asked.

  Hahn returned from feeding the livestock and sat down in the stool to my left. “So how was your first day?”

  I looked around at the wagon train. The wagons were lined up in neat rows, each one with an invisible square around it, perhaps eight wagons to every acre of land. It all seemed to occupy a sizable space until one considered the surrounding landscape. I imagined when the vultures looked down at us, we were no more than a speck in the hostile vastness of the Arizona wastelands.

  “I’m hot, tired, hungry, and wondering what the hell I’ve gotten myself into.”

  Hahn’s face registered surprise before she laughed out loud. It was a strong laugh, with a husky roughness contrasting against a veiled femininity.

  “Well, at least you’re honest.”

  I gave a slight nod and said nothing. The light was fading quickly. Lanterns were going up on poles all around the camp. The Hispanic woman who had set out the stools grabbed a hammer and two metal posts and began driving them into the ground. Cason lit a couple of lanterns while she worked. In less than a minute, the area beyond the fire was lighted enough to see into the adjacent campsites.

  “Those are propane lamps,” I said. I could hear the surprise in my own voice.

  “That they are,” Hahn said. “No shortage of the stuff out here. It’s the one thing we’ve never run short on.”

  “Food’s ready,” said the big man cooking the stew.

  He pulled a box from the wagon and set it next to the fire. The other people in the squad formed a line to the man’s left. He placed metal bowls on metal plates and filled the bowls with stew. Then he put spoons into the bowls and gave each plate a pair of greasy circles of flatbread. I was fourth in line. When I had my food I sat back down on my stool, balanced my plate on my knees, and dug in. The stew was simple. Canned vegetables, rehydrated potatoes, rice, beans, and some kind of dark, tough, reconstituted jerky. I dipped the bread into the gravy and devoured it. That done, I shoveled stew into my mouth until only a few streaks remained in the bowl. The big man who had prepared it was staring at me with amusement when I looked up.

  “Hated it, huh?”

  I smiled a little. “Terrible. Give me the rest so these folks don’t have to suffer through it.”

  That got a laugh, and the mood seemed to ease around the fire. Hahn finished her plate and set it on the ground next to her. I did the same.

  “Okay,” she said. “We got a new guy.”

  “No shit?” Cason said. “I didn’t notice.”

  Hahn frowned at him. “Zip it, smartass.”

  Cason’s missing tooth made a dark spot in his grin. “Yes ma’am.”

  “It’s been a long day. I’m beat, and so are the rest of you. Everybody make introductions, but make it quick.” Hahn turned her dark eyes toward me. “How long have you been out here alone, Muir?”

  “Six years, I think.”

  She went still for a long instant. “Wow.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So we’re the first people you’ve seen in…”

  “Six years.”

  “Holy shit,” the Hispanic woman said. The others were staring at me wide-eyed, hands unmoving over their plates.

  Hahn looked at each person in turn. “So what that tells you is this man doesn’t know the rules. He doesn’t know what’s been going on the last six years. Everything’s going to be new to him. Keep that in mind in all your interactions. Understood?”

  A round of acknowledgment.

  “Okay,” Hahn said, looking at me. “You go first.”

  Cason brought me a mug of water. I drained it and began to speak.

  TWENTY

  I started with the basics. Grew up in L.A., son of a cop, college, the fighting career, Flagstaff, and a glossed-over version of my trek across the desert. The last part took precisely four sentences. The others were curious for more, but I had nothing else to say on that particular subject. It was a black stain on my life, etched in blood, and I had no desire to revisit it.

  Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

  When I was finished, the others began to speak.

  *****

  Hahn led things off.

  She had served in the Marines from 2001 to 2009, discharged on a medical. Caught some shrapnel to the hip. VA promised her a check every month and sent her home to New Mexico. She was working as a personal trainer when the Outbreak hit. And yes, she was a lesbian, so don’t fucking ask.

  She nodded at Cason.

  In case I was wondering, he was six foot six. He looked like two hundred and ten but probably weighed closer to two-forty. His last name was Durant, no relation to Kevin. Before the Outbreak, he had work
ed as a mechanic and fabricator in a classic car restoration shop he owned in Los Angeles. Before that, he’d been on a national championship basketball team at Duke University and played four seasons with the Clippers. A torn ACL forced him into retirement, after which he pursued his passion for automobiles. He’d lost the missing canine to an elbow from none other than Lebron James himself.

  And that was all he had to say.

  The big man who cooked our dinner spoke up next. His name was Tom Lowe. He had owned a construction business. A good one. There was a large, custom-designed pistol on his hip. Don’t touch it, ask to borrow it, or even acknowledge its existence without his express permission. He was not fucking kidding.

  His family was dead. That was all.

  A short Asian man with close-cropped hair and dark brown skin spoke up next. His name was Gary Chu. His family had emigrated from Taiwan in the eighties. They owned a restaurant with the best soup dumplings in town. He had been born in Seattle, but moved to San Diego after attending university at Columbia. He had been a human resources manager, and had loved his job. He had never been married, no children, and was damned grateful for that. I asked him about the hammer sitting on the ground next to him. He said he used it for the same purpose I used my axe. I nodded and said I understood, and meant it.

  A young Indian man with a full beard, a thick mop of hair, and intelligent black eyes spoke up next. His name was Rohan Chopra, no relation to Deepak. Cason chuckled at that.

  Rohan had just graduated from MIT with a degree in engineering when the Outbreak hit. He had passed up a well-paying, comfortable desk job back in Colorado Springs to join the militia. When I asked him why, he held up a shovel. Upon closer inspection, it was no ordinary shovel. It was forged from high-carbon steel, affixed to a thirty-inch fiberglass handle, and the edges were sharp enough to peel an apple. He kept the blade in a leather case when not in use. I asked him what the shovel was for. He said it was a prototype to replace the MK 9 Anti-Revenant Personal Defense Tool.

  I blinked.

  Hahn drew what looked like some kind of mass-produced Chinese war sword from a sheath on her back.

  “Ghoul-chopper,” she said. “Government issue.”

  “Oh.”

  Rohan spun the shovel in his hands a few times. “This is lighter, stronger, and more effective. Not only that, but it has multiple uses. If it passes muster in the field, it may just land me a government contract.”

  I looked at Hahn, and then back to Chopra. “There’s still a government?”

  Quiet stares from my new squad mates.

  “Wow,” Chu said. “You really have been out of the loop.”

  Rohan re-sheathed his shovel and waved a hand toward a mousy-looking woman who appeared to be in her mid-thirties.

  “Lily Ford,” she said. “School teacher and certified badass.”

  I looked at the implements of destruction arrayed around her. There was a rifle I recognized as a Smith and Wesson M&P 15. I knew it because my father had kept one in the trunk of his car. There was a small pistol on her hip and a hatchet next to her knee. On her person, I counted no less than three knives, a can of pepper spray, several magazines for the rifle, and an extendable baton. Whether or not she was a legitimate badass remained to be seen, but I was guessing she at least spoke the language.

  “Name’s Elena,” said the last member, the attractive Hispanic woman. She was not very tall and had a lean build, but her eyes were dark, hard, and unforgiving.

  “Used to be a cop in Chicago,” she said. “You’ll be on my fire team. Which means you do what I say, how I say to do it, and you don’t fuck it up. That’s all you need to know.”

  I looked at Hahn.

  “I’d do what the lady says,” she told me.

  “Fair enough.”

  And that was all I had to say.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Two more days of clearing bodies left me exhausted.

  On the evening of my third day in the militia I sat on a cushion that had clearly been taken from someone’s patio furniture and ate rice and beans and stared eastward.

  My eyes were steady. I didn’t blink much. I chewed mechanically, the jaw working in little grinding circles and ingesting carbs and protein and vitamins and minerals and not at all enjoying its work. I had not seen Cary in three days. I had not spoken to Father Cortez in three days. My squad mates talked amongst each other, but did not seem to have much to say to me. Hahn treated me like an afterthought. My only comforts in the grind that had occurred since I first pointed a gun at a pregnant woman stealing my bike in the middle of the desert were the stupid cushion I sat on, the tarps strung between tent poles to ward off the sun, and a ready supply of water.

  I missed my cabin. I missed the silence. I missed taking inventory of my supplies every morning and doing whatever I felt like without answering to anyone. Worst of all, though, I missed Cary.

  “Hey, Muir.”

  It was Hahn. Her voice came from behind me, followed by footsteps.

  “Muir, you deaf?”

  I took another bite from my bowl. The wind had picked up from the southeast, surrounding the uppermost part of the Phoenix skyline in a coil of dust.

  “Muir!”

  The footsteps stopped next to me. I did not look up.

  “What’s going on with you?”

  “I’m eating.”

  A moment’s silence. “Yeah, I can see that. Why aren’t you with your team leader?”

  “She left.”

  “Yes, she did. And like I told you, where she goes, you go.”

  “I don’t like that rule.”

  The boots shifted. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me.”

  Another silence. “And what exactly is your problem with my rules?”

  I took another bite, chewed slowly, and swallowed. “I’m not a dog, and I don’t like being ordered around like one.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you volunteer for this militia?”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  I sighed. “You deaf, Hahn?”

  The feet shifted. Hahn had a big ego, and a big personality. She was used to being obeyed. I could feel discomfort emanating from her like a boiling mirage in the superheated distance. The boots stomped away. I finished my rice and beans and set the bowl aside. A minute later, the boots returned. A stool clanked down and then creaked as Hahn settled her backside onto it.

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “I already told you.”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Hahn lean over and interlace her fingers. Another minute passed before she let out a long breath.

  “This has got to be tough for you.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “When you said you didn’t volunteer, what did you mean?”

  “I mean I didn’t have a choice,” I said. “You and your people showed up and took all my stuff and drank my water and informed me you’re gonna raid my city and the government’s coming to clean out everything I need to survive and I can either get on board or I can damn well try my luck out in the desert. So you tell me, Sergeant. Exactly what choice did I have?”

  “Listen-”

  “And ever since that day,” I went on, “I’ve been worked like a dog and treated worse than one. I’ve been belittled worse than I’ve ever let anyone get away with in my life. People keep calling me New Guy even when I pointedly remind them my name is fucking Alex. And I have a strong feeling the next person who does so is in for a world of hurt.”

  “Fighting is against the rules, Muir.”

  I turned my head and fixed her with a stare. Hahn recoiled.

  “I don’t give a fuck about your rules. I don’t give a fuck about your militia. I don’t give a fuck about you.”

  I stood up and dusted myself off. Hahn stared at me like a bear with a bullet wound.

  “I’m done with this shit,” I said. “Where’s Cary?”

  “You mean lieutenant-”


  “I mean fucking Cary!”

  My voice snapped across the circle of wagons like a whip-crack. Hahn went still. People around us stopped what they were doing and stared. The wind continued unabated, making the tarps overhead flap like machine guns. The forest of support poles bent and creaked and streamers of dust blew through the determined little camp.

  “Listen, Muir…”

  “Save it. Where is she?”

  Hahn stared a moment more, then looked away. “Supply train. That way.”

  I looked where she pointed. Then I picked up my axe and my rifle, walked westward, and did not look back.

  *****

  Cary was sitting in the shade of her wagon in a lime green camp chair, the kind that folds up and fits in a bag with a shoulder strap. I stopped in front of her and absorbed the sight of her pretty eyes, the gentle curve of her face, and the way her fingers looked tan and strong, yet elegant and graceful at the same time. She looked up and smiled. I did not fall over, but it was close.

  “Good to see you, Champ. Where you been?”

  “Here and there. Mind if I sit down?”

  “There’s a stool in the wagon.”

  I leaned over the wooden edge of the cargo area. The canvas cover shaded me from the relentless yellow orb burning bright and hot in the unending sky. After a few seconds I found what I was looking for and sat down close to the dark-haired beauty. She fixed me with the eyes, smiled a little, and tilted her head to the left. I wondered if she knew how adorable she looked.

  “Something’s bothering you.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I’m not asking you, knucklehead. I’m stating a fact.”

  My eyes dropped. A smile broke through the storm clouds, and I felt a quiet laugh escape.

  “Yeah. Something’s bothering me.”

  “It happens to all of us at some point.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A case of the fuck-its.”

  I pointed at the radio on Cary’s belt.