Harvest of Ruin (Book 2): Dead of Winter

by Mongelli, Arthur

  Linda lingered in the opening doorway long enough to understand that Tar was inviting her in simply by the act of opening the door. She hesitantly started into the dusty foyer, thinking that it probably hadn’t been cleaned properly since his wife died. She followed him down the hall that ran next to the stairs to the kitchen in the back of the house. She found him filling a coffee pot in the porcel-iron farm sink, as he stared blankly through the window into his snow-covered backyard.

  “Morning, Linda,” his gravelly voice finally rasped at her.

  “Hello, Tar. Daltry is awake, not talking yet, but it’s looking good.”

  “That why you pedaled your little red bicycle through a foot of snow down here?” he cast back gruffly.

  “No,” Linda hesitated. “We need to address a couple things regarding our conversation a couple weeks ago.”

  Tar knew the conversation was coming and dreaded it. They had been moving the strangers that wandered up to the barricades, at least the ones they deemed to have potential, to the outlying farms outside the walls. Their lack of trust for these strangers meant forcing them to fend for themselves in the undead infested countryside for weeks. This didn’t bother him much, but he knew that Linda despised the situation. The arrangement had been one of convenience, a temporary solution to dealing with the flux of people that wandered up the roads wanting to come into Donner. It gave Donner a buffer outside the walls to help protect from the undead as well as, at the very least, a warning about marauders. The strangers were provided with the security of having walls and guns nearby, as well as an, as-of-yet unclear, path towards gaining entrance to the town.

  While Linda despised leaving potentially good people out among the undead, she also recognized the need to create a process for appropriately screening candidates, as well as a protocol for integrating new arrivals into the community. This was the reason for her visit. The snows had shut most of the community indoors and the traffic at the clinic had slowed. For the first time in weeks, she had a chance to continue the conversation.

  What had begun as a few small groups of stragglers here and there had grown into a rather large crowd of people setting up permanent camp outside the western barricade. With winter in full swing, their numbers were too great to allow them all to be able to survive on foraging alone. The bounty that they had initially offered to kill undead in return for rations was canceled after two weeks, when Donner’s dwindling provisions forced them to clamp down.

  “We need to start bringing people in yesterday,” she continued as he silently filled the water reservoir and placed the carafe onto the warming plate.

  “We haven’t ironed out a plan yet, Linda,” Tar deflected, flicking the red toggle on the pot. “It’s just too dangerous.”

  “You know that family of seven that came last week? They settled into the barn at the Carter’s place.”

  “Yeah,” Tar said flatly, as if he wouldn’t remember the appearance of such a large family.

  “They are a family of five now. The twins froze to death last night.” Linda had to steady herself to prevent her voice from betraying the emotion she felt at the unnecessary death of the beautiful toddlers. “We need to sit and iron it out now. No more delays.”

  Tar breathed deeply, letting out a heavy sigh before he responded.

  “At least let me get some caffeine in me, Lin. I have a feeling this is going to be a long conversation.”

  Linda nodded, moving across the room to the kitchen table and pulling a chair out to sit down. Mail, circulars, and pamphlets were piled at least three inches high, covering most of the table. Linda had started mentally piecing together the puzzle that was Tar, basing her conclusions on her observations and conversations with the other townsfolk. She felt his gruff, all-business demeanor was a cover for the depression that it hid. The pile of mail on the table, sleeping on the couch rather than in bed, and the general lack of housekeeping was all the evidence she needed to diagnose him. She also knew that any conversation she broached with him about the subject would be met with anger and dismissal. Tar was a relic of another age, an archetype of stoicism. He gave her the impression of being a hard man and she hadn’t seen anything that showed her evidence of him being anything otherwise, but she couldn’t wrap her mind around why he was fighting so hard for the people of Donner when he had already lost everything.

  “Cup, Lin?” Tar asked.

  “Huh?” she replied, snapping out of her dissection of the man. “Oh, yes, that would be nice.”

  Tar came to the table and pushed the pile of mail, clearing enough room to set a mug and a crystal sugar bowl down in front of her. He moved back to the counter and leaned on it, taking a large swig of his coffee.

  “If you want some cream, you’ll have to head over to the Henderson’s place. They have a sow that’s still got a suckling calf.”

  Linda shook her head, both at the idea of milking a cow into her coffee and at the need for it. She spooned three teaspoons worth of sugar into the cup and stirred lightly as she spoke.

  *

  “How will they get down to us from the window? Will…” Jen trailed off, referring to the rest of the group, sheltering in the attic.

  Tim just shrugged, knowing she was concerned only with Will and his injured knee. The rest of the group could lower themselves or jump into waiting arms. At the moment, he had neither the interest or ability to concentrate on finding a solution. He was too intent on keeping the four-wheel drive vehicle atop the snowy road while trying to grit through the pain that was building in his hip. As the farmhouse came into sight an idea came to him, he looked up to make sure the moon roof opened all the way. Once he was sure, he spoke.

  “You’re going to need to get out and climb the ladder,” he started. “When you get on the roof, you need to pull the ladder up to you and set it against the house up to the attic window. Make sure the feet of the ladder are straddling the ridge. I’ll wait in front of the garage and you all climb down and in through the moon roof.”

  Jen nodded to him, chewing on her lip nervously as she looked into the distance.

  Jen unbuckled her seat belt and got ready to hop out as Tim steered the Jeep towards the ladder. He bumped a couple undead out of the way or under the tires as he made his final approach. As he slowed the SUV to a crawl, Jen swung the door outward and jumped out and quickly clambering up the ladder. Tim swung the front end of the Jeep around and backed it up to the garage door, putting the transmission in park before pressing the button to retract the moon roof. He painfully stood, with his upper body out of the top of the Jeep, holding his M4 at the ready as he watched Jen straining to drag the ladder up onto the snowy roof of the garage.

  Looking up, he could see that Laura had already opened the window. Tim’s stomach leapt when he recognized the look of terror on her face. Jen had managed to drag the ladder atop the roof of the garage and was trying in vain to get a proper grip to move the unwieldy thing towards the window. From here, he could tell that it was unlikely that the slight girl would be able to carry it alone, nevermind stand it upright it and get it set securely. Tim tried to climb out of the Jeep but a burst of wicked white pain shot down his left leg as he put weight on it.

  “Jen, you’ve got to move it, something is wrong up there!” he yelled, the tone of his voice imparting more than the words alone as to the urgency of the situation.

  “It’s too fucking heavy!” she screamed back at him, obviously frustrated.

  Relying on his upper body to pull himself out rather than his legs, Tim started out onto the roof. His hands and knees slid on the snow-coated metal, but he managed to climb up top after a lot of pain and a little effort. He transitioned to the rooftop and a jolt of intense pain from his hip caused him to nearly swoon, dropping him back down to his hands.

  “Get the far end, Jen,” he grunted at her as he crawled to the other end. “And run!”

  Jen hoisted the end closest to the house and started moving with it, half-dragging Tim on the other end. T
wenty-five feet later, she ran out of room to run, standing against the siding of the house. Tim pushed aside the gut-wrenching agony he was in and flipped the spiked ends of the ladder’s feet down. He planted his bad leg on the bottom rung and hoisted the far skywards while pulling the extender rope. The far end of the ladder shot upwards, high up into the steel gray sky, before he lowered it, leaning against the house. The angle wasn’t ideal, but before the ladder was even set, Laura was already out of the window with Sophie under her arm and Luna’s head sticking out of the top of her Jacket. Jen shot up the ladder past Tim, hurrying to take Sophie from her.

  Tim limped back to the edge of the roof above the Jeep. He measured his fall, intentionally dropping heavily onto his right side in order to keep the impact away from the wound. When he hit the slick metal, he nearly slid off into the growing mass of dead that was fast surrounding it. The movement on the roof had drawn most of the dead from across the front of the house. Once he lowered his legs down into the waiting vehicle, he spun about, bringing his rifle up out of the Jeep and at the ready. Will exited the window next, following immediately after Laura. Jen set Sophie onto the roof and ushered the girl towards Tim before turning back to help Laura off the ladder to the snowy roof. Will clumsily spun about on the window sill and took a moment to get himself situated on the ladder. He came down facing outwards, sliding on his butt to help ease his descent. His face was a rictus of pain with every foot he descended.

  “Bjorn!” Tim screamed. “Bjorn, get out here now!”

  Laura, Jen, and the kids moved to the edge of the roof and passed the kids one at a time to Tim, who lowered them into the Jeep. Once she helped Laura safely make the transition, Jen rushed over to help Will, who had finally made it down to the roof and was slowly sliding himself backward towards the Jeep on his side.

  “What happened, Laur?” Tim asked.

  “The fast fucking ones! They got in somehow and got upstairs. Bjorn is holding the door shut,” she belted out, tears and snot streaked her face.

  Her eyes settled on the leg of his pants. Her tears stopped immediately, and a curious, concerned look came over her face as she noticed the blood soaking through his jeans, blossoming from his hip area.

  “Are you okay? Are you bit?” she screamed, the panic in her voice raising her pitch.

  “I’m okay, hon, it’s okay. Just be careful and get into the Jeep, please?”

  She nodded, wiping snot off her face with the sleeve of her coat before moving to the edge of the moon roof. He helped Laura could slide down into the Jeep, which was now completely surrounded with hungry dead, all reaching up towards the woman, desperately mouthing at the air. Once they were inside, he turned his attention and weapon back to the window above.

  “Bjorn, come on, man! It’s time to go!” he screamed.

  No sooner than the words had left his mouth than a blast of automatic weapon fire came from the attic.

  *

  “Have you thought any more about what we would need to do to integrate new people?” Linda finally asked.

  “I’ve been kinda busy bolstering the defenses of the town, to be honest with you, Lin,” Tar replied flatly.

  She nodded. The steady stream of wounded citizens coming into the Heartland Healthcare facility was a testament to the constant jeopardy the town was in. They were under steady assault from the undead moving up from Boulder. They weren’t sure whether the movement of the undead was incidental or whether they were following survivors; either way meant a steady stream of dead filtering up the road and through the forest. A handful of attacks from marauders punctuated the first snowy weeks, with desperate people trying to take what little the community had to get through the winter. The man named Grayson had led the largest assault, sending more than twenty of Donner’s defenders to the clinic with gunshot wounds. Most of the wounded had survived, even with the limited medical capabilities she had at her disposal. Linda had proven to be a more than capable triage surgeon.

  A dozen others had filtered into the clinic with broken legs from stepping in gopher holes during nighttime patrols. There was also the continued threat of the residents falling prey to the infection. Even after the town was barricaded off, isolating it, there were still new cases popping up every few days among the citizens. The steady stream of patients at the clinic kept her from doing any more research into the bacteria responsible for the undead. She hoped with the reprieve the snow gave, that she would be able to put some more time into it, though it all seemed moot at this point.

  “Well, first of all, we don’t have enough supplies. We don’t have enough food for them, Linda,” Tar started.

  The first few sips of coffee started warming his insides and helped him gather his wits for the conversation.

  “I know that, Tar. So what do we do?”

  “Well, if we just start letting people in, there will be hoarding and outright food theft,” he replied. “Those things will most certainly lead to much more serious problems. When people are forced to starve to death or kill for the food they need…well, that’s when this whole thing comes crashing down around us. You are one of us, Linda, but you are relatively new here. The rest of us, we all know one another, we grew up together. We shared in victories and comforted each other in their sorrows. We try and help each other out as much as possible. I just don’t relish the idea of introducing a crop of people who offer nothing and leech off the kindness of the community. There is a divide inherent in that. That divide will be a clear indicator of where the line is drawn, if you get my drift.”

  Tar paused, walking into the living room before returning pulling a cigarette out of a crumpled pack.

  “Not rolling them anymore?” Linda asked, holding her tongue about his hated habit.

  “No time or patience. Half the time my hands are so numb from the cold or locked up from the arthritis that I couldn’t manage it anyway,” he responded, taking a deep drag off it. “Anyone we let into the community is going to need to be self-sufficient. I know that means sending some really helpless people scavenging the countryside for supplies, but the alternative will destroy our own chances for surviving the winter.”

  Linda hadn’t thought too much in depth about the food aspect, though she understood the precarious nature of food stores in the winter time. She couldn’t tolerate these people freezing to death when shelter inside the confines of the barricades was available. She supposed that if them bringing enough food in for the winter was necessary, then they would have to find a way to get it done.

  “So, we make them scavenge a few months’ worth of supplies first? How many are going to die trying?”

  Tar shrugged. He knew his logic was inescapable. With the survival of the town at stake, he hadn’t room in his heart for strangers.

  “We probably have enough food to keep six or seven hundred alive to the springtime. Leaving enough livestock left over to breed for next year. If we let in one hundred people more than that, we will decimate the herd and have nothing for next year. A hundred more than that and we run out of food with two months left of winter, although the fighting and murders that will happen when the food starts running out may make it stretch a bit longer.”

  Tar looked at her coldly as he took a drag off the cigarette, wanting the realities of hundreds of people starving in the middle of winter in the Rockies to set in. By the look on her face, he assumed that she had started to grasp it, even though he knew it broke her heart.

  “Okay,” she said quietly. “So they have to come with enough food for the winter, then what?”

  “House arrest? Chaperoning?” Tar shrugged. “No one is going to like the idea of a bunch of strangers, desperate and road-weary, just wandering their streets. I’d guess the motel would be a place to lock them down until everyone gets comfortable with it.” Tar charred his cigarette out in the ashtray on the countertop and refilled his cup of coffee.

  “What about the children and women?” she asked, hoping to prey on his sense of mercy.

&nb
sp; “Children are at the mercy of their parents in my mind. Orphans…well, I guess they are the exception, if someone is willing to take them in.” Tar issued a smoker’s cough before rustling another cigarette out of the ruined pack. “Women…I don’t know, Linda. I’ve known many a woman with whom I wouldn’t trust my car keys, nevermind my life.”

  Linda nodded, knowing that they would be equally at risk with some women as they would be with some men.

  *

  Tim raised his M4 and waited with baited breath. He watched the muzzle flash in the dark attic through the open window. The automatic fire switched to the sound of a pistol and a half-dozen more shots popped off. He caught a flash of movement from within the room and two ammo canisters and an M4 flew out of the window, clattering noisily even on the snowy roof above the garage. Three more shots sounded within, and finally, Bjorn came out the window, diving head first. Three hands reached out behind him, barely missing him as they grasped for his airborne form. His eyes were wide with fear, his arms and legs pinwheeled as he hurtled towards the roof below. He hit the rooftop hard, collapsing onto his knees and elbows before bouncing into a sliding roll towards the edge of the roof, where the hungry hands reached up from below. He slid to a stop with his back on the roof. His right hand clutched desperately through the snow at the shingles for a hold, while his left arm and leg dangled off the edge of the roof. Dozens of hands reached and clawed, trying to get a hold of him. As he struggled for purchase on the roof, his foot dipped slightly, enough for a hand to grab hold of his boot, jerking him towards the edge.

  A few shouts of alarm and terror issued from inside the Jeep and Tim struggled to crawl back out to help. The undead tugged on Bjorn’s leg, pivoting his body. His upper body spun back onto the roof and he immediately sat upright. Bjorn slid on the snow and grasped for a handhold as he struggled to pull his foot back. The tug of war got intense for a few moments until a second hand grasped him. When he realized that there was no winning the battle, Bjorn calmly reached down, pulled up his pantleg and tugged at the loose end of his shoelace. A moment later, the tug-of-war was over and the undead had gotten one of his work boots as a reward for its effort. Bjorn spun up to his feet, nimbly, and after a brief examination of his knees and elbows, he moved towards the car. He saw Tim, still struggling to get to the roof of the Jeep. He looked his friend up and down, locking him in his gaze.