The North: A Zombie Novel

by Cummings, Sean

  “Cool … let her sleep some more.” I answered back.

  I hit the intercom. “Listen up! Cruze is going to provide cover for us. Dawson, toss down a couple of Jerry cans and Sid, grab the siphoning tube from the tool kit. Grab your personal weapons and we’ll check out that barn.”

  I slipped off my headset and grabbed a pair of fully-loaded magazines for my carbine. I climbed up out of my crew commander’s hatch and hopped down off the nose of the carrier. Dawson rushed up beside me with a pair of Jerry cans in hand, her carbine slung over her shoulder while Sid tripped off the front of the APC, nearly doing a face-plant in the process.

  “You’re one graceful SOB,” I said, as I watched him get back to his feet and brush himself off.

  He shrugged and said, “Whavevs … I want a small extended line with Dawson in the middle. Keep your weapons at the ready – we don’t have a clue what we might be walking into.”

  I stood up and scurried over to Dawson’s left, keeping my left finger along the trigger guard of my carbine and flipping off the safety with my thumb. Dawson tossed an empty can to Sid and pointed the barrel of her weapon toward the barn.

  “I’m ready,” she said firmly. “Let’s get in and get out.”

  “You good, Sid?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Dude, I’m always good. Let’s go steal us some diesel.”

  We crept up to the barn, listening carefully. The chill breeze blew through the waist-high crab grass and I kept an eye for trip wires and booby traps as we approached the barn door. The wind whistled as it blew through the gaps in the wood. The main door opened and closed, making a clunking sound every few seconds as a length of hemp rope waved back and forth like a pendulum. We got our backs up against the exterior wall and slunk up to the entrance as Sid pulled out his flashlight.

  “You guys cover my ass,” he whispered, readying himself to shine the light inside. Dawson and I nodded as he aimed his barrel through the gap and flashed the light into the darkness. After quickly scanning the barn, he slowly opened the door with the toe of his boot and stepped inside. Dawson and I followed with our weapons at the ready.

  I scanned the drive bay and saw an old Massey Ferguson tractor that was literally buried in bird droppings, at least a few inches thick. If there was any diesel in its tanks it would have long ago lost whatever octane it once possessed – the tractor looked as if it been parked in the barn for decades. I stepped through the entry, my weapon at the ready, and shone my flashlight across the hay-covered floor. A pair of field mice skirted underneath the tractor’s small front tires and I was startled by a pigeon that took off through a hole in the roof.

  “It freaking stinks in here,” said Sid, as he eyed a ladder leading up to a hay loft.

  “That’s the natural smell of decay,” said Dawson. “This isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative.”

  “Sounds romantic,” he snorted.

  “Pfft … what do you know about romance?” said Dawson.

  “Okay … shut up and keep your heads in the game, guys.” I said as I shone my light around the back of the tractor, picking out a wall of hay bales stretching up to the bottom of the loft. As if she’d read my mind, Dawson scrambled over to the door and poked the barrel of her carbine inside. It opened with a screech and Dawson shone a light through the doorway.

  “Clear,” she said firmly.

  I dropped to one knee and gazed up at the hay loft. “I think this barn is a dud. Sid.”

  ”There’s a loft, I’ll have a quick look and if there’s nothing worth scooping up, we’ll head out.”

  In seconds he was climbing up a rickety wooden ladder. I gazed around the barn and decided that if it had once been part of a functional farm, then it was probably before I was born. I felt a nudge of disappointment that we hadn’t found anything worth scrounging, but there were likely to be hundreds of barns between now and the time our fuel tanks ran dry. I was never a betting person, but there was still a chance we’d find something that ran on diesel; I didn’t care if it was a pickup truck.

  “Oh shit,” Sid called out. “Dave … you need to see this.”

  I glanced at Dawson and pointed to my eyes and then the doorway. She nodded as I walked over to the ladder and began climbing. He pulled me up with one hand and I steadied myself on the uneven floor. I glanced down and decided that a fall from this height would probably break something important, so I kept a healthy distance from the edge of the loft, following Sid over to a small wall of hay bales. What I saw told me that someone had been in this barn before us. Somebody downright evil.

  In front of me were the bodies of a man, a woman and two little girls lying face down. The four were holding hands with one another. Each had a portion of their heads missing, and I spotted four small-caliber shell casings on the floor of the loft not more than three feet from where I stood. The word “Eden” was painted on the wall above them in white.

  “These people are a family,” I whispered, trying to contain the horror in my voice. “A family, Sid.”

  He nodded, his jaw tightening. I could almost feel the rage bubbling up inside him. “They were fucking executed, Dave. They’d probably come into the barn to take refuge, or to bed down for the night. And these Eden pricks frigging shot them.”

  “These are fresh kills – otherwise we would have smelled them the moment we walked in the barn. Maybe they’d arrived in a car or something. Came up the main road and alerted a sentry.”

  Sid shook his head. “That or a security patrol – to cover this much land, they’ve gotta be using vehicles and if that’s the case then they have access to fuel.”

  I nodded, barely able to take my eyes off the grisly scene. “There’s nothing we can do for these four. Let’s get back to the carriers and push on to Dinsmore.”

  He blinked. “You itching for some payback, Dave?”

  “I’m not itching, Sid. But Dinsmore is a few miles up the road and if it’s occupied by breathers then the odds are they’re Eden people. And I have to tell you: if they decide to start shooting at us they’re going to pay dearly for it.”

  Sid slapped me on the shoulder. “That’s the smartest thing you’ve said all day, buddy. Let’s head out.”

  Six people dead. Each of them murdered simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A small knot of anger began burning inside my chest as I gazed down at the two little girls. They couldn’t have been much older than Jo when they were killed – put to death because their parents made the mistake of trespassing into Eden. I clenched my fists together so tightly that my fingernails dug into my skin and immediately thought of Jo back in the other carrier. I wanted her with me at all times. Nobody was going to get my kid sister. Ever.

  We climbed back down the ladder. Dawson gazed up at me as I slung my carbine over my shoulder.

  “We’re heading back to the carrier, Kate,” I said with a sharp edge to my voice. “Grab those Jerry cans and bomb up.”

  Dawson didn’t have to be asked twice. She dashed to the entrance, grabbing both fuel cans without even stopping.

  It was starting to look like Sid was going to wind up in a scrap after all.

  And God help the Eden tribe if they decided to start shooting at us.

  18

  Sergeant Green always told me that no soldier in their right mind goes looking for trouble. If anything, they like to avoid conflict as much as possible. Killing fellow human beings isn’t something that comes naturally to even the best-trained infantryman. All my tactical manuals taught me that the role of the infantry is to close with and destroy the enemy, but they didn’t say squat about the end of the freaking world. Conventional rules of engagement ended on Day Zero and all I could think about were the two little girls, killed by some twisted individuals who’d decided to mete out their own kind of justice. A harsh, bloody set of laws that mirrored the harsh and bloody new world that we all were living in. I didn’t know who the hell the Eden tribe might be or what their fighting strength consisted of,
but I did know one thing: those two little girls and their parents were murdered in cold blood.

  I stormed through the entrance to the barn and doubled back to the carriers with Sid Toomey in tow. Cruze and Mel Dixon were standing atop their APC keeping a watchful eye on our surroundings.

  “Prep for battle!” I barked, as I climbed up the side of my APC.

  Cruze threw me a firm nod and then gestured for Melanie to climb into the turret as she slid into her crew commander hatch.

  I slipped on my headset, ignoring the rumbling from our engine. Doug Manybears gave me a worried look as he glanced at me over his shoulder.

  I spun around in my seat to see Sid drop down into the turret. He cocked both machine guns as Dawson pulled out a case of M69 fragmentation grenades. She gently removed four of them from their containers and flipped off the safety clips. I reached over and she handed me two grenades which I dropped into the waist pockets of my combat jacket. Taking a deep breath, I adjusted the squelch on my radio and then stood up in my hatch.

  “Ark Two stand by for orders,” I said amid a haze of static.

  I glanced down at the map. Dinsmore was no more than 7km away from our current location. The gravel road heading in and out of town was wide enough to accommodate two APC’s abreast, but I didn’t want to present too obvious a target as we approached the village’s outskirts. Infantry Section and Platoon in Battle said that for mechanized small party raids, the proper thing to do would be to use one carrier to draw the enemy’s fire while the other carrier provided supporting fire from the flank. According to the contour lines on my map, there were no natural high features from which Cruze or I could act as supporting fire, so the best option would be to do a combat run right through the center of the village, drawing their fire and identifying their strengths before doing a full-blown assault.

  I gave my head a hard shake as the anger in the pit of my stomach bubbled away like an unwatched pot of boiling water. I needed to stay focused; our goal had originally been to scrounge for diesel and supplies. We hadn’t counted on running into a stronghold of road warrior wannabes, and we’d already seen that the Eden tribe weren’t the kind of people who’d be prepared to sit down and negotiate. I wasn’t crazy about getting into a firefight, but six people had been murdered and I’d be damned if I was going to lose one of our team to those assholes.

  I squeezed my handset and said, “Okay listen up. Ark One will proceed to Dinsmore with Ark Two staying three vehicle lengths to the rear. We’ll be hatches down on my command, over!”

  The radio hissed loudly. “Ark Two, Roger, over.”

  “If you’re wondering why we’ve gone full-blown tactical it’s because a family of four were shot dead inside that barn. They were put to death just like the pair lashed to the cattle fence back at Highway Two. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the kind of people we’re dealing with. I don’t want to get into a fight with anyone, but we’re here and we’ve all been trained. We’ll head into town with the goal of keeping ourselves protected. We will not fire the first shot – I say again, we will draw their fire. Over.”

  “Copy that,” Cruze replied.

  I exhaled heavily. “We’ve all stared death in the face many times over but we’re dealing with some seriously fucked-up people. I don’t know what their strength is, but I do know one thing: this Eden clan is going to rue the day the King’s Own rolled into town.”

  Static sprayed out of the speakers on the radio. “Ark Two, Roger. We knew this would eventually happen … my team is ready. We’ll make sure that Jo stays hatches down.”

  “No,” I answered back. “I want her in my carrier. Send her over now.”

  “Ark Two, Roger that,” said Cruze.

  I intended for my carrier to take the lead into Dinsmore and that meant a slightly greater risk for Jo than if she were to stay inside Ark Two, but after seeing that dead family, it was the only way I could actually feel right about what were going to do. If anything happened to Jo in Cruze’s carrier, I would never forgive myself for not being there to save her.

  Dawson flipped off the combat locks and opened the right rear door of our carrier. Jo hopped inside and threw me a worried look as I motioned for her to come up to the crew commander’s seat. She flung her arms around me and gave me a hug. “Everyone is scared, David,” she said, her voice filled with the vibration of the carrier’s engine. “There’s going to be more shooting, right?”

  I nodded as I lifted her onto my lap. “Yes, Jo. There’s going to be more shooting, but that’s the world we live in now. Nearly every day since we started hiding out at the armory has had some shooting. You know it and I know it. But this time it’s different.”

  She tilted her head to the right. “Different? How come?”

  I pursed my lips tightly. Jo had seen other children die during the handful of times that Mewata Armory was breached by the creeps. She’d had her own close call with a trio that broke through the old rusted window frame in our sleeping quarters. She’d shot one of them before Sid bashed them all to pulp with his baseball bat of doom.

  I decided a little honesty couldn’t be a bad thing. I owed Jo that much.

  “It’s different because we’re not going to be shooting at creeps,” I said firmly. “It’s going to be like those people that were trying to kill us when we were escaping from the city, only these ones are way worse. Do you know what we found inside the barn?”

  She nodded. “Four people were murdered – a couple of them were kids. A family.”

  “And we’re a family,” I replied. “The bad guys are going to want our carriers, weapons and supplies. They’ll gun down every last one of us, Jo. We have to be ready for anything and if that means we kill them, then that’s what we’re going to do.”

  Her eyes narrowed sharply and Jo said, “I’ll wear my helmet and make sure that Sid and Kate get bullets for the guns. I’ll do my job – you don’t have to worry about me, okay?”

  God love my baby sister. Sometimes her awesomeness completely overwhelms me. I ran my hand through Jo’s stringy hair and then kissed the top of her forehead. “You’re braver than me, kiddo. Okay – get back there and get ready, it’s going to get crazy here any moment.”

  She scurried to the back of the carrier and slipped on her helmet as I stood up in my hatch and took a mouthful of air. “Ark Two, we’re good to go. Let’s move out.”

  And with that, Doug slipped the carrier into gear, pulling hard left around the barn and onto the main road heading out of Neapolis. I could hear the turret gear engaging behind me as Sid positioned the twin machine guns on his prescribed arc of fire. I peered over the left edge of my hatch and looked back to see Cruze’s carrier take up its position on the rear, the turret guns covering the right side of the APC, and I leaned down behind the hatch door and pulled out my binoculars. I was going to look out for any potential ambush sites or areas where we’d likely come under hostile fire.

  We cruised down the grid road for about fifteen minutes, the wheels kicking up a massive cloud of dust. I’d have felt sorry for Cruze’s team having to take a dirt bath in our wake if I wasn’t scared shitless about what we were potentially driving into. Doug maintained a decent clip – I was surprised at how good the condition of the road was. There were hardly any ruts, and the last time we’d seen an abandoned vehicle was back at Highway Two.

  I gazed out through my binoculars to see a grain elevator on the horizon, the word Dinsmore emblazoned across its weathered wooden siding. I told Doug to slow down our approach, not that it would make a lot of difference: if there were Eden people in the village they would have heard our carriers approaching. A Quick Gas & Lube sign nestled to the rear of the elevator told me there was a strong possibility we’d run into someone because if there was any fuel left in the underground storage tanks, the Eden clan would be guarding it with their lives.

  Ahead was a wall of smashed-up, battered cars, at least three high, spread across the grid road coming into town. The wo
rds “Eden Land” had been spray-painted all along the doors and fenders in large block letters. A makeshift barbed wire fence stretched from either side of the smashed vehicles for a good fifty yards. I ordered Doug to bring the carrier into the ditch to our right; I didn’t want to offer anyone the chance to take a pot shot at us before we could scope out any likely areas of ambush. The suspension groaned as we crawled into the low ground, and I glanced out to my left to see Cruze’s carrier taking up a similar position down in the ditch opposite.

  I pressed the intercom. “What are you seeing, Sid?”

  “We’ve got movement up by the elevator … wait … hand me your binos!”

  I crawled underneath the turret cage and reached up to pass my binoculars to Sid. He grabbed them without looking down and I threw Jo a shaky thumbs-up.

  Sid’s voice filled my ears through the headset. “Smart buggers, these Eden types,” he said, sounding slightly impressed. “They’ve been watching us come at them for a while now. There’s a cut away near the top of the grain elevator – hell of a good observation post.”

  “Or a sniper’s nest,” I said, nearly in a panic. I squeezed the PTT button for the radio. “Everyone, hatches down now!”

  I raced up to my crew commander’s hatch and pulled hard on the hatch door. It slammed shut with a deafening clang. I slipped on the combat lock and peered out through my periscope. Doug’s head dropped down as he lowered the seat and I watched as his hatch door closed amid a small cloud of dust.

  I spun my periscope to the right to see if I could spot another access point into the village. Our carriers might have been 10000lb apiece, but they weren’t even close to being on a par with actual tanks – we couldn’t smash through the wall of cars. I’d just spotted a worn-down trail about 200m to our right when Sid’s voice called out through the intercom.

  “Contact!” he shouted. “Stand by!”

  Suddenly the hull of the carrier sounded like it was getting pelted by hailstones as we began taking on enemy small arms fire.