The North: A Zombie Novel

by Cummings, Sean

  We had to get those people out of that pen, and that meant only one option, although I shuddered when I thought about the risk.

  The last of the King’s Own would go on a fighting patrol and save those civilians.

  26

  Journal Entry: 18 NOVEMBER 0639 HRS ZULU

  What should we do with Dawn-Marie? She’s only been with us for a couple of days. We’ll have to leave her back at the hide along with Jo and Kenny when we head out.

  I’m so freaking tired. I’ve debriefed Cruze and I’ve sworn Mel and Kenny to secrecy about what we found in the coulee until I’ve had a chance to fill in the entire team. The last thing we need is a lot of speculation about why Sunray had slapped together a makeshift death camp. Look at me, keeping secrets from Sid Toomey. Am I punishing him or have I lost faith in him? I’m going to need him on the patrol. He’s a one-man wrecking-crew, and our best machine gunner.

  What we’re about to do might spell the end of every last one of us. I have no idea what kind of fighters Sunray’s people are, but they’ve had more training than us and they’ve spent six months out there battling creeps instead of barricading themselves in like we’d done. But Sanctuary Base isn’t going to happen until we get past Sunray. I think everyone on the team kind of knows that by now, although we’re all afraid to say it. We could abandon the carriers and start gum sucking it cross country on foot, but it will take us weeks and we honestly believed we’d have gotten much closer with our carriers by scrounging diesel and pushing on. I guess we didn’t realize the sheer totality of this messed-up new world it until we’d broken out of the city. We didn’t have a clue that we’d be going through occupied territory, or that we’d be fighting skirmishes against former soldiers – for crying out loud, we thought the enemy would be the creeps!

  I’m starting to understand why Mom took her own life. She couldn’t cope, and now I’m wondering how I’m going to cope enough to keep giving Jo a light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe she’s luckier than the rest of us – she’s just a kid, she only has a few years of the old world for a frame of reference. This terrifying world of creeps and sudden death is Jo’s new normal – maybe she’s better able to adapt to it because she doesn’t really remember much else.

  I’m going to crash for a few hours. If I don’t, I’ll probably lapse into a coma. Cruze and Doug and Sid can run the OP for now. This afternoon we’ll have a team meeting and hammer out our next move.

  ***

  I awoke to someone nudging me in the ribs. “Get up – it’s near noon,” Sid grumbled.

  I opened my eyes and looked around the tent. It was empty, and everyone’s kit had been cleared out.

  “What’s the situation?” I said with a yawn.

  “The team got up about forty minutes ago – Cruze had me pull the GPMG out of Ark One. Everyone is doing a count on our ammo and supplies. We’re going on a fighting patrol, aren’t we?”

  I pulled myself out of my sleeping bag and slipped on my mukluks. “Yeah, Sid – just after last light.”

  He handed me a cup of instant coffee. “There’s been a lot of movement over the past few hours. Another armored recce probe – we could hear their Cougar. Cruze and I checked it out.”

  “What did you see?” I asked, not at all surprised. We had, after all, whacked their sniper crew, not to mention destroyed one of their light tanks.

  “Just the one vehicle,” he answered. “They must have been looking for their people – you just know they spotted the burned-out hull of that Cougar and the bodies. They know we’re coming.”

  I gulped back the coffee and handed Sid the mug, then rolled up my sleeping bag and began stuffing it into the valise. “Yep – they know we’re coming. They just don’t know what form it will take. Where’s Cruze?”

  “She’s outside, supervising,” he said, eyeballing me closely. “That chick – we need to get rid of her.”

  I ignored Sid’s comment and tossed him my valise. “Here – chuck this outside the tent. Check on the ammo with the rest of the team.”

  He didn’t even try to catch the valise, allowing it instead to bounce off his barrel-sized chest and drop to the floor of the tent. “One man, one kit,” he said impatiently. “And you didn’t answer my question about the chick.”

  “She stays with us for now,” I said firmly.

  I could see his neck beginning to flush and his face twisted itself into a knot. “She isn’t one of us,” he growled. “She’s an outsider – it’s her fault that Dawson is dead and—”

  “And you’re an ass, Toomey,” barked Cruze from the entrance of the tent. She was cradling her carbine and her eyes bore right through him. “You can blame Dawn-Marie all you want, but it was your BS attitude that got Dawson up on the top of the carrier to give you a frigging reality check. You don’t call the shots here and the minute you feel like you’re ready to take over, you just make bloody sure you come and see me about it because I Goddamned guarantee that you’ll fucking lose that fight.”

  My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my temples as Sid looked back over his shoulder at Cruze. He took a step back from me and said, “So this is what it’s come to, Dave? You’re letting the women band together and now you’re their frigging lap dog. You’re letting Cruze fight your battles … fuck you’re a loser.”

  I’d had enough. In a fluid motion I ducked down and pivoted my body in a wide circle, sweeping my left leg underneath the giant Newfoundlander and sending him falling hard onto the floor of the tent. I jumped on top of Sid’s chest and grabbed a handful of his combat jacket.

  “We’re supposed to be on the same freaking team, Sid!” I barked, shaking him hard with both hands. “Kate Dawson was one of the bravest people I’ve ever known and now she’s fucking dead. If you’d have done your freaking homework and actually listened to Dawn-Marie, you’d have figured out by now that the civilians in Eden are fighting us because they’re under martial law!”

  Sid grated his teeth together and spat in my face. “It’s your fault we’re stuck in this hell hole!” he thundered. “We could have picked another route – we could have gone anywhere but here!”

  I pushed my knee into his chest and Sid let out a foul smelling gust of air. “Listen, you asshole. In the bottom of that coulee is something too terrible to imagine. Sunray has set up a death camp, Sid! He’s throwing civvies to the creeps. That’s what we’re up against! Eden is a prison and it doesn’t matter anymore which way we go because everywhere we turn there’s someone or something that wants to kill us!”

  He struggled to push me aside and I leaned into his chest with my knee. Cruze rushed in from the entrance of the tent and placed a calm hand over my clenched fists.

  “Easy now, Dave,” she said in a near panic. “Step off before your sister sees what’s going on. Think about Jo, Dave – we’re all doing this for Jo.”

  I stared hard into Sid’s glaring eyes as he fought to catch his breath. “Is that what we’re doing now, Dave? You want to have it out because I don’t agree with you?”

  “Enough!” Cruze shouted as she grabbed me by the collar and hauled me off Sid Toomey. “Get your ass outside the tent, Sid – in a few hours you’re going to have plenty of time for payback.”

  The walls of the tent were spinning but I was clear enough to see Sid stomp out of the tent. Cruze turned on her heels and threw me a fiery glare.

  “What the hell is wrong with you, Dave!” she snapped. “We need you to lead and not take a fucking shot at one of our people because you don’t feel like answering a question!”

  I slowly got back to my feet and said, “I feel like I’m coming apart – Kate’s death, Eden, that Cougar. But what we saw on patrol, Cruze – it’s unreal.”

  “The whole freaking world is unreal, Dave, now get it together. We have to rely on each other if we’re going to survive.”

  “To what end? Everything is gone now – what’s down in that coulee is just a tiny window into how bad things truly are. We didn’t hav
e a clue when we decided to pull out of the city. Survivors have been reduced to killing each other off, and for what? A Jerry can of diesel? A case of canned soup? What’s the freaking point, Pam?”

  Her features hardened and she dug her finger into my chest. “The point is that we’re still alive – Jo is alive. Every single person barricaded in a hiding place somewhere on this smoldering planet is still alive. Humanity isn’t supposed to go out this way – I refuse to believe it. The creeps? They’re dead flesh – they’ll eventually rot away. At some point in the future there won’t be any more of them – but human beings will continue to exist and they need to have a purpose. Maybe our purpose is to save these people in Eden – had you ever thought about that? Just maybe we can still do some good.”

  I deliberately avoided her gaze, feeling ashamed of myself. Cruze had just given me a glimpse into her own personal light at the end of the tunnel, which was a good thing because I was having trouble finding one of my own.

  “I’m an ass,” I said after a moment or so of silence.

  Cruze nodded and placed her hand on my shoulder. “No … you’re just being an asshole. There’s a difference. But you got us out of the city, you got us this far and you’ll get us past Sunray. Got it?”

  I gazed at her and forced a weak smile. “You’re pretty good at this, Cruze. Anyone ever tell you that?”

  She nodded again and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “I’m good at a lot of things, Dave. Let’s get our shit in gear.”

  ***

  Pam Cruze flipped open her field message pad and began to read.

  “We’ve got 2 Carl G’s with 8 more rounds. There are 10 belts of .50 caliber ammo, along with 23 belts of ammo for the light machine gun. There are 2,000 rounds of small arms ammunition for the carbines. We’ve got a case in each carrier of frag grenades, along with a case of smoke. Um … 100 rounds of 60 millimeter mortar HE, and that’s pretty much all we’ve got.”

  I nodded. “Good. All right everyone … I wouldn’t have asked Cruze to do a count on our ammunition if I didn’t have a good reason. I think by now that you’ve all guessed what it is. I’m going to be honest about what we’re facing in that coulee.”

  “Fighting patrol, Dave?” asked Doug. “What did you guys see down there, anyway?”

  Mel Dixon was first to answer. “Sunray has got civilians penned up with creeps – we think it’s a death camp. It might be just one of many for all we know. It’s small enough that he doesn’t require a major commitment of troops to man the place. It’s protected by a pair of Cougars and a couple of Coyotes with light guns. But there’s more.”

  I glanced at Sid. He clenched his jaw tightly and then dropped his cigarette butt in the snow. He turned his attention to Dawn-Marie. “You knew about this?”

  She zipped up the collar on her jacket and rubbed her hands together to warm them up. “People disappeared, and our biggest fear was that we’d wind up being lined up against a wall and shot to death if we didn’t follow the rules. It wasn’t until about a month and a half ago that we started to hear rumors of the abattoir.”

  Kenny blinked. “Abattoir? What the hell is that?”

  “It’s French for slaughterhouse,” said Cruze, turning her attention to Dawn-Marie. “How did you hear about it?”

  “From our handlers. They made a point of telling everyone that if they didn’t do as they were instructed they’d be shipped off to the abattoir. Being from the farm, well, everyone knew what that meant … but nobody had a clue where it was. I doubted it even existed until people started disappearing from Dinsmore. A couple of families that had been deemed to be shit disturbers – they were rounded up and shipped off. Nobody ever heard from them again.”

  “And you didn’t fight back?” asked Cruze, her voice laced with suspicion. “People were taken away and you just stood by and watched?”

  Dawn-Marie nodded. “Please … what were we going to do? They could wipe us out in a heartbeat with the amount of military hardware they possess. We just did what we had to do in order to survive and if that makes us collaborators then I guess that’s what we are. I can’t change how you see me.”

  “Dinsmore had a population of a couple of hundred,” I said slowly. “But there were only a handful of people shooting at us when we rolled into town.”

  “Yeah, everyone else died during the outbreak. There were four hundred people in town –whittled down to less than fifty after two months. Some of the townsfolk left to find another place to start over. I don’t know what happened to them.”

  I kicked at the snow with the toe of my boot. “We don’t know how many people are left in Eden. We don’t even know how far Eden stretches or how many towns and villages Sunray has claimed. But we know what the hell is down in that coulee, and we have to stop it.”

  Doug eyed me closely and made a grunting sound. “What are you proposing we do?”

  I looked each person in the eye in turn. “We’re going to go in and save those people. We saw human remains – it looked like they’re feeding the people to them. Why they don’t just execute them using a gun or something, I don’t have a clue.”

  “To save on bullets,” Cruze said resolutely. “And maybe to keep his own people in line.”

  As warped as it sounded, Sunray’s abattoir made perfect sense. He could put the fear of death and dismemberment into the civilian population to guarantee order. No wonder the people back at Dinsmore took up arms and shot at us. Death from a gunshot wound or being blown to bits by a mortar round is a hell of a lot more desirable than the prospect of being ripped to pieces and eaten alive.

  “We have a choice to make,” I said, focusing my attention on Sid Toomey. “We can skirt the coulee cross country and head north to another highway – maybe we’d avoid Sunray, but it’s unlikely. Or we can try and do some good – we can save those people.”

  “And the guards,” said Jo in a surprisingly firm voice. “If they’re feeding people to the creepers they should get the same treatment as the guy who shot Katie.”

  I heaved a weary sigh. “So what does everyone want to do? I say we go in there and bring the freaking wrath of God down on them.”

  Sid was about to say something, but Mel beat him to it. “We go down there and take those pricks out.”

  Doug stepped forward. “Yeah – I’m thinking the same thing. We need to do something to help those people – we need to get them out of there.”

  “I’m with Dave,” said Cruze. “There’s no guarantee we won’t run into Sunray if we leave, and I just couldn’t live with myself knowing that we could have done something to save them.”

  Kenny Howard raised a hand. “It’s what Dawson would have wanted,” he said quietly. “She’d have been the first person to volunteer.”

  I looked at Sid. “It’s your choice now. It’s a team decision. What do you say?”

  He lit another cigarette and said, “I’m not stupid enough to believe that Sunray isn’t already out there looking for us and when he does find us, we’re going to be facing off. I’d rather face off on our terms, so yeah, let’s fucking do this. What about the chick, though?”

  “The name is Dawn-Marie, asshole,” she snapped.

  I glanced at her. “Not everybody gets to go with us. Someone has to stay back with Jo.”

  My little sister glared at me. “But I want to go, David! I want to fight.”

  I dropped to one knee and gave her hand a small squeeze. “I know you want to fight, kiddo – but I’m going to need you back here putting together first-aid stuff. Dawn-Marie will be back here, too.”

  “Whoa!” Sid barked. “You can’t leave the kid alone with her.”

  I stood up and said, “I’m not. We need a driver to stay back too – we might need the vehicle for anyone who gets wounded. I’m not going to pick someone – it’s either Kenny or Doug.”

  “I’m a way better shot than Kenny and he’s the best driver we’ve got,” said Doug. “You cool with staying back, bud?”

  Kenny s
hrugged. “I guess so. It’s going to be a freaking small fighting patrol, though, with just the five of you going. What’s your plan?”

  I trudged back to Ark One, climbed inside and reappeared moments later with the 60 millimeter mortar tube in one hand and a bomb in the other.

  “We’re going to drop mortars on these bastards,” I rumbled. “And they won’t see it coming.”

  27

  Journal Entry: 18 NOVEMBER 17:58 HRS ZULU

  We’ve just completed rehearsals for the patrol and everyone has been briefed. We made the best representation of the bridge and river that we could, back in the tent – I just hope it’ll live up to the real thing.

  I can’t afford a single mistake. Sid is bringing the receiver group for the GPMG. Mel and Doug will make up fire team one, carrying the 60 mm mortar along with a case of rounds. Cruze is taking the second mortar and I’ll be hauling what’s left of the bombs from Ark One – a dozen rounds. I’ll also haul the tripod for the machine gun. I’ve had Kenny scanning frequencies on the radio to see if we might be able to pick up something, but no luck – I imagine they’ve got their radio communications scrambled. As for us, we’ll bring along one radio set.

  We’re going to hit them from three locations. From the northeast, Doug and Mel will take out the sentry on the bridge, along with the pair of Cougars. They’ve only got one M72 each, so they’ll engage their armor only if their crews mount up. I’ll be helping Sid set up a base of fire on the bridge and the modular tent. Cruze and I will cross the bridge and do the same thing on the opposite bank while we wait for Doug and Mel to haul ass over to their secondary position. From there, the plan is to use fire and movement up to the compound – at which time we’ll shoot the creeps and free the people inside. I’ll fire off a red pen flare to signal that the area is secure and the civilians are free, then we’ll take one of Sunray’s vehicles and double back to get our two APC’s. We’ll re-org down in the coulee and decide where to go from there.