Harvest of Ruin (Book 2): Dead of Winter

by Mongelli, Arthur

  Tin and Nick took their first break at what they assumed was mid-morning, both plopping down into the hardened, blown snow, already exhausted from the morning’s efforts. They had no real semblance of the time as neither wore a watch and the heavily clouded sky diffused the light of the sun behind. Nick pulled his mask up revealing a red blotchy face and sat panting in great deep breaths. Tim grabbed a water bladder and packed it with snow before tossing it to Nick.

  “Gonna need to wear that under your clothes for a bit,” he panted at the boy, who looked at him incredulously. “Saw it in a movie, said you’ll die if you eat the snow because it cools your body too much. Gotta let your body heat warm it first.”

  Nick shrugged and worked the bladder up the bottom of his coat, shuddering noisily as the cold vinyl exterior touched the soft warm skin of his stomach. Tim filled another bladder and did the same to himself.

  “Fuck, that better be worth it,” he said, finally settling the freezing bladder in place.

  Nick laughed a bit and the two started off again into the white abyss.

  *

  Tar stepped clear of the aisle leading to the front door, gesturing with his arm for the men and their sons to leave. Tyler looked a little confused and hesitated a moment.

  “Just remember, if you walk out that door,” Tar admonished, “you are leaving this community. The clinic, the patrols we send out to scour the land to hunt those things, and when we get around to it, the walls we will be constructing are a part of this community and if you choose to leave, you will not have access to them.”

  Tyler turned purple at the statement and he roughly pushed his boys out of the restaurant ahead of him, the rest following behind. Sam Sr. and his son both hesitated, casting an apologetic look to Tar before they too, moved out of the restaurant. Tar paused, letting the implications of his statement settle in to the rest of those present before continuing.

  “Gentlemen, look, I…We wouldn’t be asking this of you if it wasn’t necessary.” He leaned back against the stool he normally occupied. “Tyler is right. This is your life-blood; the fruit of your labors. You gentlemen control most of the stock of food that we need to survive the winter.”

  Tar paused to light a cigarette and take a swig of his coffee.

  “But, what Tyler is too hardheaded to see, is that, without the rest of us, there are no walls, no night guards, nothing to protect you from the dead or the bands of living savages. Without us, you are alone. What that means is that you would not have survived Grayson’s attack on Donner, and if you let the town starve to death, you will not survive the next attack.”

  Again, Tar paused, letting the men assembled see the bigger picture.

  “What I am doing here, is not taking your food. I am offering you the opportunity to be a part of this community, to give freely what you have produced in order to provide for those who are working to protect you. Gentlemen, we are on the edge of a precarious moment in history here. The decisions we are making right now have the potential to allow Donner, maybe even humanity, to flourish, or to disappear altogether.”

  Tar finished his statement and looked around the room. Silence returned to him. He took a sip of his coffee and a long drag of his cigarette, crushing it out into the ashtray as he blew out a cloud of smoke.

  “The decision is up to you all. You know the stakes as well as the options available to you. I’ve asked Darla to start preparing meals for the community. If you all wish to be a part of that, we would be glad to have you. Any and all food-stuff should be turned over to her. We will work together to ensure that enough breeding stock remain for your herds to be replenished come next year. But gentlemen, I must tell you, you are either in or you are out. There are no half-measures here.”

  *

  The hours slipped past as the two trudged across the icebound lake. As the afternoon lengthened, they found themselves resting more and more often. They had been pushing themselves past the point of exhaustion. Tim was in agony, struggling to put one foot in front of the other. Only the biting cold numbed the pain, as he had left the bottle of codeine he had on one of the toboggans. It was during one of their many rests that they heard a roar split the sky, sounding even over the wailing winds. Tim struggled to get his M4 untangled from the backpack when a second roar issued. A moment later, they heard the nearby crunching of feet tromping on crusty snow.

  “There!” Nick yelled, pointing.

  Tim ripped his glove off and spun wildly. Overburdened by many layers of clothing and his heavy backpack, he scanned past it at first before readjusting and taking aim. The undead thing was covered in a rime of frost and snow. Even though its right leg was ruined, the muscle ripped away, exposing the tibia and fibula, the thing still barreled at great speed towards them. A second undead could be seen following some distance behind the first. Tim made sure the rifle was toggled to single shot then pulled the trigger. His first shot missed, flying wide over the thing’s head. He steadied himself, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly to ease the anxiety away. His second shot sent brain matter and skull fragments flying from the back of its head, leaving a conical spray of mist behind, as it fell to the ice.

  Tim knelt and blew into his fist, trying to warm his numb trigger finger, before resetting his stance and taking close aim on the one in the distance. He wasn’t sure of his prowess with the rifle at this distance, nearly one hundred yards away, but was anxious to kill it before it closed the gap. He steadied himself and fired. What seemed like nearly a full second later, the distant thing fell backward and didn’t rise. Tim pumped his fist proud of himself, knowing that it was almost entirely luck, but happy with the results anyways.

  “Fuck, man, nice shot!” Nick called.

  Tim smiled proudly, slinging the gun back on his shoulder and hurriedly pulling his puffy mitten back on. He was smiling as they started moving off towards the unseen horizon once again.

  “Come on, Nick. The shots will draw more of them.”

  *

  The findings that Linda was able to come up with over a week of studying and examining the fresh leads offered some explanations, but did little to help their predicament. They threw away the stores that remained of the frozen meat to prevent any further infections, though nearly two months into it, with the power since having gone out, there was little left anyway. As the bodies of the dead burned behind the municipal building, so did her scientific curiosity. What she found, staring at the paperwork scattered across her paperwork strewn office, was that none of it mattered anymore. The only thing that mattered was the things that helped push humanity forward.

  She cared more about the setting up of community meals and talking to Tar about opening the school back up to give the children structure and normality. The world that was had sealed its fate and they were all that was left to live in its husk. She wasn’t entirely convinced that humanity deserved a second chance, but she was determined to help those around her and their children to see another day.

  She sat at her desk in her office, illuminated by the dim gray glow of the cloud-covered sun outside and was startled from her reverie by Nala. Nala moaned and whimpered, rolling about in the throes of a nightmare on the cot across the room. It was something she often did in her sleep and Linda got up from her desk to move to the side of the bed. The woman had barely moved out of her sight since she extended her an invitation into Donner. Not that Linda minded of course; she hadn’t kept regular company, never mind cohabited with another person, since moving into town five years before. For Linda, it was nice having someone around. She took Nala’s hand in her own and shushed her quietly, stroking away the worry wrinkle from the woman’s furrowed brow until whatever nightmare passed. The warmth and contact of another human, someone with whom she shared a bond, reassured her. Instead of moving back to her desk, she sat on the ground next to the cot and laid her head on the pillow next to Nala, eventually joining her in sleep.

  *

  A couple hours after the encounter with the fas
t undead, Tim’s toes alternated between numbness and intense burning pain. He knew that they would need to stop before too long and was already imagining blackened toes. He struggled through the pain and panic for as long as he was able to, stopping only on occasion when Nick would fall face-first onto the ice. The boy’s falls had been happening more and more frequently over the last forty-five minutes. He helped the boy up to his knees, this most recent time, and he left a circle of rapidly freezing blood on the ice below. Nick’s eyes were glazed over, showing no sign of the impact, nor the pain that came with it. Only the blood gushing from his nose gave indication that he was hurt.

  “Nick, c’mon, buddy, we gotta keep moving, you’ll be okay, we just gotta find the group,” he barked, staring directly into the boy’s face from mere inches away.

  He received no response other than the shallow breaths that issued from the boy’s mouth.

  “Nick!” he yelled, shaking the boy, still no response.

  He finally let go of the teen, letting him sag down to the ice and threw his pack off his shoulder. He unfurled his sleeping bag, and wrapped the thing around the boy before rummaging further to produce a cook-stove and canister of fuel. He started the arduous task of setting up a tent in haste. Once it was together, he helped Nick into it and started setting up a cook stove to get some warm water into him.

  It was in that exact moment he heard the plaintive whine of a small engine. Standing up outside the tent, he could see a black dot on the horizon, though he couldn’t be sure of the direction it was headed. He started doing jumping jacks, waving his arms wildly as the thing came closer. God, I fucking hope this is them, he thought to himself as he flailed about, signaling wildly.

  Will pulled the sled up alongside of them, letting off the throttle as he did.

  “Come on, you gotta help me with Nick,” Tim barked as soon as the engine cut off.

  “What happened to him?” he asked, alarm evident in his voice.

  “We’ve been walking for six or seven hours,” Tim panted out. “He just fell over. Let’s get him on the toboggan.”

  Tim realized that Will couldn’t help due to his knee so struggled alone to get the boy onto the sled. He managed to slide the boy’s whole body into the sleeping bag and lash him down. He ripped down the tend and stuffed it under the boy’s legs before hopping behind Will. They tried talking to one another briefly as they rode off into the deepening gloom of early evening, but the sound of the motor and whipping wind stole the sound before it reached the others ears. Close to two hours later, well past total darkness, a single light pierced the gloom in the distance ahead. Will adjusted the course of the snowmobile to aim straight towards it. All the tents were erected and dim lights could be seen inside them as they approached. The anxious faces of Laura, Bjorn, and Christine could be seen in the headlights of the snowmobile as they slowed to a stop in front of them. Laura ran over, throwing her arms around Tim, squeezing him tightly while blubbering sweet things in his ear.

  “Help me get Nick inside his tent,” Tim asked Laura.

  Bjorn came rushing over and grabbed the boy before they had a chance, rushing him into one of the tents. Tim went to the boy’s backpack and took his sleeping bag to replace his own that the boy now had, before following his wife into the arctic tent. The tent had a small entry area where you could take your gear off, so as not to track snow into the main chamber. Tim ripped the boots painfully off his feet in there, grasping his toes painfully and moaning as they came clear. He ripped his socks off and was relieved to find no signs of frostbite.

  Laura put some snow in a pot on the cook-stove to warm for him. When it was ready, he stuck his feet into the water and it lit his toes on fire. Laura assured him it was lukewarm, but it sent jolts of searing agony through his feet as if it were placed in boiling water. He fell asleep a short while later, snuggling with Luna. Laura took his feet out of the water and dressed them in two pairs of heavy wool socks before sliding him the rest of the way into his sleeping bag.

  The next morning, Tim awoke with a start to movement outside the tent. Undead, he thought, jumping up and crawling quickly to his boots with his rifle. The voices of his companions finally drifted through the tent wall. It was Nick, and Bjorn.

  “Tim! You awake?” Bjorn called through the tent.

  “You scared the shit out of me!” Tim yelled, then calmed himself, relieved that there was no danger. “Give me a minute to change my drawers and get geared up and I’ll be out.”

  He could hear Bjorn laughing while he rubbed the last of the sleep from his eyes. He could see Laura nursing Luna while she poured a tin camp-cup with hot coffee.

  “Oh, my precious nectar!” Tim called, holding his pleading hands outward for her benefit as he crawled back into the tent.

  “You’re such an ass,” she said, smirking back at him, handing the cup over.

  “I’m your ass, though,” he answered with a grin, giving both his wife and daughter a kiss on the cheek before taking a long deep swig of the wretched-tasting coffee.

  Tim pulled on the rest of his gear as the warmth of the coffee surged through him, giving him the courage to unzip the tent and step again onto the frigid windswept lake. He finished zipping his outer shell up as he stood straight. He had to let his eyes readjust to the blinding white for a moment before joining Bjorn and Nick at the trio of snowmobiles.

  “Glad to see you up and at it, Nick,” he called, clapping the boy on the shoulder when he got close enough.

  “Thanks, yeah, that was pretty fucking brutal.”

  “This is the stuff of fucking nightmares,” he replied, aiming the remark to both of them.

  “No shit,” Bjorn called back with his characteristic smirk. “Your idea, may I remind you.”

  The three shared a lighthearted laugh at the jest before Bjorn turned the subject to their predicament.

  “Well, the longer we are out here, the more supplies we use. The more we use, the less we have to pack on the snowmobiles,” he started.

  “Well, that doesn’t do us much good for the time being. How the hell are we going to proceed?” Tim responded.

  “Nick has a shitty idea. The idea sucks, it sucks bad, but it’s better than anything I could come up with.”

  “Nick?” Tim prompted.

  “Well, three people go ahead with all the gear except one tent. They pick a spot for the next night’s camp and leave all the gear there. Then return with empty sleds to transport the rest of the group.”

  Tim nodded, digesting the idea.

  “That’s gonna kill our fuel supply,” he eventually responded.

  Bjorn shrugged and Nick nodded soberly.

  “At least those that wait behind can do it in the relative warmth and comfort of a tent, and nobody has to exhaust themselves walking the whole damn lake.”

  Tim sighed heavily. He wished he could think of a better idea. He appreciated the relative comfort it would provide, but worried greatly about their fuel. At best, they were going to travel four hours a day by snowmobile, and burn twelve hours of fuel to make the return trips it would necessitate.

  “You’re right, though, the plan sucks, but I got nothing better either,” he responded at length. “We just have to decide who goes and who stays behind. Both groups are going to need weapons and people that can use them well.”

  Bjorn and Nick looked at each other and nodded.

  “Same thought we had,” Bjorn said.

  “Probably need the snowmobile team to set up the tents before returning to pick everyone up though,” Tim added, a thought striking him.

  “Why is that?” Nick asked quizzically.

  “Make it easier to spot on the return trip. The gear might get buried under a drift otherwise, then we’d be fucked. Also, in case we have any delays, we don’t have to worry about setting tents up in the dark”

  “So we are down to three, three-and-a-half hours of travel a day then?” Bjorn asked. “That way we aren’t traveling at night.”

  T
im and Nick nodded, recognizing the delay that setting up camp would cause.

  “The days are getting shorter. We’re just lucky we had that cold snap and the lake is frozen this early in the winter,” Will said.

  “Doesn’t feel very lucky from where I’m sitting,” Bjorn said, pulling his coat closer around him “It’s fucking cold!”

  They packed as much as they dared to spare onto the toboggans, leaving one tent, as they agreed on, to shelter the rest of the group. By late morning, Will, Bjorn, and Christine sped away on the snowmobiles. Due to the late start and a general malaise towards their situation and their plan, they decided only to run for two hours that day. Tim, Jen, and Nick took turns standing guard outside while they waited. They had little fear that they would be set upon, as they hadn’t seen any dead since the afternoon previous, but no one wanted to take any risks. The idea of being attacked while inside a sleeping bag, inside a tent, was too terrible to even consider. No one wanted to be caught unaware on the ice, with nowhere to run or hide.

  They whiled the morning away playing cards and napping, trying to keep their minds off the dead, the cold, and the fate of the other half of their group. But for their fears and the biting cold that sapped the energy from their bones, it might have been a relaxing break from the endless days of roughing it across most of New York State. Shortly after eating lunch, Nick popped his head in the tent.

  “It’s about time to start packing up.”

  They all groaned and sluggishly started pulling on their many layers of clothes and gathering up their gear to depart. They stuffed their backpacks and rolled their bags up in silence, none looking forward to the next couple hours of windswept riding on the backs of snowmobiles. All of them wrestled with their fears that the other group would not or could not return. Tim had just finished breaking down the tent and packing it into its sack when the whine of multiple motors came across the ice at them. They all sighed audibly, relaxing as the familiar sound lifted the weight from their hearts. The wind had lessened outside, though the rate of snowfall had increased greatly. The heavy flakes bit and stung into their cheeks as they hurtled atop the sleds across the ice towards their next camp.