by James Cook
When we neared the terminus of the accessible part of the highway, the driver tugged the reins to bring the wagon to a halt. Turning in his seat, he said, “End of the line.”
I looked at the snow piled ahead of us, a wall of it nearly eight feet high, and knew the next part of the journey was not going to be easy. “Thanks for the ride,” I said, grabbed my gear, and climbed out of the wagon. The driver grunted and said, “Be back tomorrow at noon. I’ll wait one hour. If you don’t make it, I’ll be back the same time the next day. After that, your trade expires and I leave with or without you.”
“Understood,” Tyrel said.
As the clip-clop of iron-shod hooves faded into the distance, the three of us put on snowshoes and began the long walk to Woodland Park. Tyrel went out on point since he was the most experienced mountaineer among us. Rojas watched our six, leaving me monkey in the middle. A half-mile of slogging over hard-packed snow saw the mountain pass widen. We arrived at the small town of Cascade, site of the North Pole Home of Santa’s Workshop, an amusement park billed as ‘A Vibrant Christmas Themed Playland!’
Only there would be no children or costume clad workers in Santa’s Workshop this year, no screaming voices on the rides, no smells of carnival food and hot chocolate, no magic shows, no hollow commerce. Cascade was under at least eight feet of snow, much like the highway ascending it. The towering granite walls surrounding the place ensured it would remain thusly encased until the spring thaw.
We passed the peaked roofs of houses and flat buildings and the triangular boughs of evergreens as we moved through town. The lower half of every building was invisible under a brilliant, reflective lake of white. But even with only half the town visible, the marks left by the Army’s visit were still plain to see.
Here, a mortar had shattered the upper windows of a three-story office building. There, bullet holes riddled the side of a tattered house. To my left, a fire had burned a restaurant until most of the roof collapsed, while to my right, a scorched black hole big enough to drive a car through marred the side of a pre-fab metal storage building. I wondered if there were any infected trapped beneath the ice, and if so, were they still conscious? I imagined their white eyes fixed and staring, hands outstretched, mouths frozen open in a silent scream, hunger gnawing at them while they lay motionless, unable to move. I shivered, and not from the cold.
We hiked five more miles in silence, the midday sun beating down from overhead. It had been frigid in the shadow of the mountains in the early morning, but now, without shade in the thin high-altitude air, I began to regret wearing so many layers. Just as I was about to voice my concerns, Tyrel turned and suggested we slow down. The last thing we wanted in this weather was to break a sweat. He heard no argument.
The next community we passed through was Green Mountain Falls, little more than a sparse collection of structures paralleling the highway. The Army had not made it this far out, but the buildings were not in much better repair than Cascade. It struck me once again how quickly manmade things deteriorated when there was no one left to look after them. Maybe it was my imagination, but I could not shake the feeling that once the intent of human minds was absent, all the things once upheld by that intent went into an advanced, accelerated state of decay. Law and order not the least among them.
It was roughly five more miles to the outskirts of Woodland Park. My thighs burned and my breath was ragged from the effort of the climb. Walking in snowshoes was better than stomping through snow taller than my head, but it held its own difficulties. When the buildings were in visual range, Tyrel stopped, lifted a pair of binoculars, and studied what lay ahead. A few long, silent minutes passed, and then he said, “Let’s move off the highway.”
Rojas and I exchanged a glance, but did not argue. When we were under the shelter of pines north of the road, I asked, “What did you see, Ty?”
“Can’t say for sure,” he replied. “But it looks like somebody got here ahead of us.”
I looked at Rojas again. His dark eyes were narrow and cloudy.
“What makes you say that?” I asked.
“Furrows in the snow, for starters. Not random like what the walkers leave, but neat, like people walking single file. I looked close at some doors on an apartment building, and the ones on the upper floors looked like they’d been forced open.”
Rojas thought about it, finger tapping against the side of his jaw. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Tyrel looked at him. “First time for what?”
“Back in the early days, before the Army commissioned the militias, we used to have trouble with other groups out looking for salvage. That was why they started the whole program in the first place, to stop the fighting. Once there was a system in place that only allowed registered militias to trade in town, the fighting stopped. AORs, and all that.”
By ‘AOR’ he meant areas of responsibility. LaGrange’s militia, by merit of him being a former Army officer, had been assigned the lucrative territory north of the Springs. The lines were clearly delineated, and the other militias knew to stay within their sandbox. Woodland Park, however, was not included in that division of spoils, making it fair game. I had thought the three of us were the only idiots crazy enough to come out here looking for salvage, but it looked like I was wrong.
I said, “So what do you want to do about it?”
Muscles twitched in Tyrel’s jaw as he stared toward town, eyes flitting from one side to the other. He picked up a handful of powdery snow and let it run through his gloved fingers. “You bring your ghillie suit, Caleb?”
I nodded. “I always do.”
“Rojas?”
“I ain’t no sniper, homes. Don’t own one.”
“All right. We’ll figure it out. Caleb, you’re with me. Rojas, I’ll set you up under cover until we can put things in motion.”
Rojas said, “What’s the plan?”
“Recon,” Tyrel replied. “See what we’re up against. That’ll determine how this goes down. If we’re outnumbered, we’ll sneak around whoever’s out there. If not … I don’t know. Maybe we can negotiate.”
The Mexican laughed. “Out here, there’s only one kind of negotiation, homes.” He tapped his rifle.
I felt my lips pull away from my teeth.
FIFTY-FIVE
With Rojas ensconced and camouflaged on a mountainside overlooking town with orders to wait for us to give him clearance to proceed, Tyrel and I put on our winter-pattern ghillie suits and entered Woodland Park from the east. We left our gear behind except for weapons, ammo, radios, vests, a pair of bolt cutters, crowbar, and a couple of empty duffel bags.
Houses lined the streets west and south of us, while a school building lay to the north. It would provide the best vantage point to observe the immediate area, so we headed in that direction. I stayed low behind Tyrel, the two of us literally crawling on our bellies across the snow. We set an agonizingly slow pace, a necessity when trying to avoid detection. Tendrils of my camouflage dangled in my vision, allowing me only a narrow sliver of obscured sight. The cold seeped upward through my clothes, seeming to radiate into my very bones. My scarf kept my breath from fogging in the air, but a crust of ice had formed over my mouth.
The sun had moved far to the west by the time we reached the open space between the end of the neighborhood to our right and the school ahead. A wind picked up from the north, sending streamers of white powder scuttling across the flat valley floor. Despite the wind chill, I was glad for it; the extra concealment would work in our favor. Anyone looking in our direction would have a hard time making out our shapes.
I risked lifting my face to gauge how far ahead Tyrel was. At first, I could not see him at all, then the wind shifted and I picked out a barely discernable lump about twenty meters ahead. Good, I thought. That meant I was keeping pace.
We crossed the clearing and met on the eastern side of the school, sheltered from the wind by a high wall. The snow was so deep the only part of the building accessible
was from the second floor up. I rose to my feet and went to stand beside Tyrel as he peeked around the corner farthest from us. I was tempted to ask him what he saw, but I knew better. Best to remain silent and wait. Finally, he turned toward me and motioned me close.
“I don’t see any service ladders,” he said. “But we can go in through one of these windows and use the stairs.”
“Won’t that be loud?”
He dug into a pocket of his vest and produced a roll of cloth tape. “Caleb, you know me better than that.”
I followed him around the back of the building and waited while he applied the tape to the smallest window he could find. It was enough to cover it, but just barely. When he finished, I handed him the crowbar.
He used the hooked end to tap the window left to right, top to bottom. Gently at first, then with more force as he gauged the strength of the glass. The tape muffled the noise, but did not eliminate it. I glanced around, worried as much about attracting walkers as about alerting other living people to our presence. I was not sure which one was the bigger threat.
At last, the window collapsed. Tyrel caught it with the crowbar and dragged the glass aside. I watched his back, rifle at the low ready as he crawled through. When he was clear, I followed.
I stood up in a dusty classroom, desks lined up in straight rows, the scents of cold and dust heavy in the air. Pale light filtered in through the windows, illuminating yellow squares on the white tile floor. Floating dust motes swirled through the geometric beams, disturbed by our entrance. Tyrel pointed behind me and said, “Pull that glass back in here.”
He handed me the crowbar and I did as he asked, hooking the cloth and drawing it through the opening. When I had it inside, I dropped it behind the length of cinder-block wall between windows. The tinkling and scraping of shards on concrete was shockingly loud in the frigid silence.
“Let’s see what we can see,” Tyrel said. He went to the door and peered out the window. I stacked up on the wall behind him, rifle at the ready. Almost a full minute passed before Tyrel held up a hand, counted down three, two, one, and then opened the door.
In the hallway outside, he broke left and I followed with my back to him, weapon up. There was very little light. The walls, floor, and ceiling all looked a uniform gray, the monotony broken by doorways and dark blue lockers. We moved to the end of the hall to a door marked: STAIRWELL. Ty tried the door and found it locked.
“Shit. Hand me the crowbar.”
“Come on, Ty,” I said, breaking a smile. “Remember what you taught me about not using a battle axe for a job that requires a tack hammer?”
He looked at me quizzically, then nodded when I removed my picks from my vest. “Right.”
I went to work on the door and said, “Where are your picks? You’re the one who taught me how to do this, after all.”
“Lost them somewhere along the way. Haven’t found new ones.”
“Now I know what to get you for Christmas.”
“Just get the door open.”
A few seconds later, the lock clicked and I turned the handle. “Done.”
“Nice work.”
I opened door and came face to face with a gray-skinned teenage boy with pale white eyes. I had half a second to register surprise before its hands shot out and gripped my arms, mouth open in a savage snarl, a guttural hiss pouring out of its throat. I scrambled backward, cursing in terror, pushing against its chest with my rifle.
The strength of the thing was enormous. Its hands dug painfully into my arms like steel talons. The ghoul lunged and I reared back, a set of snapping teeth missing my nose by less than an inch.
“Ty, help!”
An arm snaked around the dead boy’s throat and pulled it fiercely, drawing its head back, but the hands held on relentlessly. Remembering my training, I let go of my rifle, grabbed one of the boy’s wrists, and levered my arms against the weak point of his grip: the thumb. It took far more effort than would have been necessary with a living person, but the hand broke loose. Not wanting it to get another grip, I pivoted on one foot, used my shoulder as a fulcrum, and broke the arm at the elbow. If it hurt the creature at all, it gave no indication. The other hand continued to hold the fabric of my jacket, ripping and straining to pull me closer to the gnashing mouth.
“Ty, let it go.”
Without hesitation, he took his arm from around the ghoul’s neck. It immediately surged forward, teeth bared. I gripped the hand still holding me, held out one foot, and twisted. The infected boy tripped over my leg and hit the floor, still holding on. I followed it down and put a knee on its chest.
Now I had the mechanical advantage. The ghoul’s grip was strong, but not stronger than my entire body. With my free hand, I drew my knife, lined the tip up with the ghoul’s eye, and plunged the blade sharply down. When I felt it hit the back of the skull, I gave the handle a twist. The ghoul shuddered, let out a groaning gurgle, and went still.
“Son of a bitch.”
My breathing was ragged and fast, echoing in the still air. The ghoul’s hand loosened and tumbled from my arm. I stood up and backed away, checking myself for injuries. Tyrel’s hands landed on my shoulders to steady me. “Easy now,” he said.
A thought hit me and I spun to look back at the stairwell. The door stood open, the interior lit by a window higher up on another floor. I saw no other infected. Stepping closer, I looked up, then down, ears straining. Nothing.
“How in the hell did that thing get in there?”
Tyrel stepped up behind me. “Must have got bit, then crawled in here and locked the door. Turned later on.”
The explanation made sense. I put my back to the wall and slid down to the floor. “That was too close, Ty.”
“Take a minute. Get yourself together. We still have work to do.”
I nodded, heaving a deep breath. Ty stood patiently, eyes watching the dead walker. It lay on its back, my knife protruding from its face, the arm I broke lying at an awkward angle beside it. There was no sound in the hallway.
Standing up, I retrieved my knife, cleaned it on the ghoul’s shirt, wiped it down with a homemade alcohol-soaked sanitizing cloth, and returned it to its sheath. The dead boy was maybe sixteen or seventeen, probably a junior in high school, not much younger than I was. There was a patch of denim missing from his jeans low on his right calf muscle, and beneath, a mouth-shaped circle of ragged, bloody flesh. I dropped the bloody cloth on its chest.
“Poor kid. Probably got bit by a crawler.”
“Don’t,” Tyrel said. “You’ll drive yourself nuts. Come on, let’s get moving.”
His footsteps echoed up the stairs behind me. I looked at the boy for another moment, wondering what kind of man he might have turned out to be if given the chance. But that would never happen, now. Such a waste, and so many others out there just like him.
I bid him a silent farewell and left.
*****
On the third floor, we watched in alarm as a column of a dozen men, all dressed for the weather and carrying M-4s, marched on snowshoes toward the schoolhouse.
“This is not good,” I said.
Tyrel stared out the window and said nothing.
“We should radio Rojas.”
He stepped away and checked his rifle. “Do it, then meet me in the hallway.”
I turned on my handheld and keyed the mike. “Rojas, Hicks. How copy?”
“Loud and clear, Hicks. Over.”
“You see what’s going on out front? Over.”
“Yep. I got my scope on them, but I think they’re out of range. Over.”
“Probably so. Keep your eyes on them and let us know if anyone else shows up. Over.”
“Wilco. Make sure you switch to your earpiece. Over.”
“Acknowledged. Hicks out.”
I fished a wireless transmitter/receiver from my vest, stuck it in my ear, flipped a switch on the radio, and went outside to find Tyrel. He had taken cover behind a doorway twenty feet from the stairwell. W
hen he saw me, he said, “Go cover the other stairwell.”
I moved down the hall double-time, boots squeaking on the dusty floor, picked a doorway thirty or so feet from the stairwell entrance, opened it, and took cover. Anyone coming out of the stairwell would see only the barrel of my rifle and a small fraction of my face. They, on the other hand, would have no cover once in the hallway. I did not plan to let them get that far.
My father had taught me the Fatal Funnel of Fire concept. The most dangerous thing a person can do in close quarters combat is go through a door. Doors are chokepoints, and anyone with a weapon capable of a high rate of fire and sufficient ammo can devastate large numbers of people pouring through them. Essentially the same concept the Spartans used in the battle of Thermopylae: force your enemy to concentrate their numbers at a single, defensible point, thus eliminating their numerical advantage.
The sound of boots clomping up stairs reverberated in the hallway. I keyed my radio. “Ty, you think they know we’re in here?”
“I’d say it’s a possibility. If they’re smart, they have someone on overwatch. There’s a chance they spotted us coming in the building.”
Just as he finished his sentence, a voice called up to us from the stairwell on my side, “We know you’re up there. Put down your weapons and come out with your hands in the air.”
I turned and looked down the hallway at Ty. He shook his head and held a finger over his lips, then pointed two fingers at his eyes and turned them toward the doorway. Stay focused.
The voice spoke again. It was deep and rough, older sounding, resonant with the confidence of a man used to being obeyed. “This doesn’t need to turn ugly, gentlemen. You’re trespassing here. All we want is to escort you out of town. Don’t resist, and nothing will happen to you.”
Tyrel spoke up, “Trespassing? Last I checked, this is unincorporated territory. Also known as fair game.”