“Sam, cut off the spotlight,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, my light is plenty bright enough for this; just be ready with the spotlight in case I need it.”
The big light shut off immediately and the bright, semi-flood radiance of my weapon light took over as I continued circling for a better view. Another two steps took me around the loosely attached bark of a dead oak tree, and the reflected radiance of my light displayed an eerie tattoo of woodpecker holes that decorated almost every square inch. I slid around the oak and braced—ready to fire if needed as I studied the crumpled form that quivered against the base of a giant elm. Dirty white sweater, ripped and torn slacks, missing a shoe . . . patches of blood covered scrapes visible on the back of her hands. I couldn’t see her face, though. A matted tangle of hair fell across her cheek, blocking my view. I grimaced through the reflex site as I continued to circle. Six more steps put me almost square in front of her, and brought a familiar sense of unease as I held the sight locked on her head. Risking a quick glance downward, I stooped and picked up a short length of rotten wood. From my distance I could see what looked to be spasms passing through the woman, and I stood back up and took a few breaths to steady my nerves, and then tossed the stick at her. My aim was for her torso, but it thumped directly into her chin before bouncing across her shoulder. She began a low, halting moan and her head tilted sideways, leading the way for the rest of her body as she slumped onto the ground. My stomach flip-flopped in both hope and apprehension as I recognized the form of Doc’s stepdaughter Francis. She was Walter’s niece . . . and sister to Marty—one of the many ghouls that I blew the head off of during the rooftop battle at the campground. Her body still quivered as her eyes fluttered, and she reached for me feebly with pale white hands. Not gray. I swore under my breath and crept forward. Her breathing was shallow and rapid, and I hesitantly reached out a hand and touched her forehead. It was ice cold. I swore again under my breath, and then after a moment’s indecision, covered her with my jacket and backed away.
“We need a stretcher down here . . . she’s alive and as far as I can tell, not infected.” I kept her identity to myself for a second as I continued with the vials. “White female, semi-conscious, cold and clammy skin, several visible abrasions on her face and hands. Possible hypothermia . . .”
My voice was cut off by Sam. “Michelle . . . Thompson has two figures at the edge of his vision on the driveway by the lake, can you confirm?”
“Negative, there’s a pretty thick tangle blocking my view through the woods. I’ve got a clear line of sight for about forty yards down the first switchback of the driveway, but practically zero straight down the hill.”
Walter’s heavy voice came across the radio. “She’s right . . . from her position, the only open view you’ll have is if they stay on the gravel and come up the driveway.”
Sam cut in again. “He just lost them. Repeat, we have no visual on the approaching targets.”
This time my curses consisted of several multi-syllable words strung together. When I finished venting, I quick-stepped toward Michelle, cutting off my light when I got close. As I hunkered down next to her, I hit the mute button on the radio and whispered to her. “It’s Francis. She’s still alive, and as far as I can tell, not infected. It looks to me like she’s suffering from exposure, but I don’t want to risk any more people out here until we take care of this.” I pointed down the road. The occasional moonlight was defusing from behind the increasing cloud cover, and I could see the lighter gray of the driveway stretching out in front of us. My night vision was still recovering from its conflict with a bright weapon light, but I noticed Michelle’s slight nod as she also held the mute button on her radio.
Mute didn’t stop several other people from asking about our status all at once, however, and I let go of the button.
“Everybody hold on a minute. Wait on the stretcher and keep everybody inside. Sam, have Thompson keep sweeping the area with the night scope. Let us know if you can pick them up again, and keep the spotlight ready.”
“10-4.”
I turned to Michelle. “If they come through the woods, we should be able to hear them in plenty of time to adjust our field of fire, if necessary. If they come up the road, we should see them long before they see us, and if Sam kicks on the spotlight, it will be at our backs but in their eyes. Win-win.”
“What if they cut through the woods and somehow end up near Francis?”
“Then we shift over and protect her.” She nodded and lifted the scope to her eye, sweeping in slow arcs across the gravel.
We waited . . . it didn’t take long. Less than ten minutes later, Sam called out a glimpse of both figures on the gravel halfway up the driveway. A minute after that I could hear the soft crunches of their footsteps. Another few moments passed and then Michelle whispered. “I’ve got one . . . now two . . . figures approaching. They’ve just cleared the bend of the last switchback and are walking this way. The one on our left looks like it’s dragging its ankle.”
My night vision was keen enough to pick out their approach, although not with anywhere near the clarity of the generation three scope Michelle was looking through. At thirty yards, she called out softly. “I’m almost sure they’re infected.”
“Let them get a little closer, and then we’ll hit them with our lights.” I unmuted my radio and told Sam to get ready. At twenty yards, Michelle gave the quick count. “3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . Lights!”
Both of us flipped the switches on our weapon lights and lit up the targets. Two men, both immediately and overwhelmingly identifiable as infected, froze in the shocking radiance. “Hold your fire for a second,” I said to Michelle as I lined up the glowing red crosshair of the reflex sight on the right hand ghoul’s forehead. My finger brushed the target honed trigger once and the ghoul dropped to his knees, teetered for a split second and then slumped backwards. I shifted to the limping creature—his gaze was looking almost curiously at his fallen companion—and I touched the trigger twice . . . a double tap that sent two, sixty grain lead projectiles smashing into his temple. The muted clack-clack of the silenced, semiautomatic .22’s action accompanied his collapse.
We killed our lights and waited. After several minutes, the only sounds that returned were the call of an owl and a slight uptick in the breeze. Without my coat, it sent the beginnings of a chill through my body. That, in turn, brought my focus back to Francis.
“We’ve got two down. No more hostiles in sight. What about you Sam . . . anything?”
“Negative.”
“OK,” I replied, “we need a stretcher and a couple of strong backs. Tell Doc to get a bed ready.”
Chapter 42
*click*
So anyhow . . . as I was saying, that was the other good news. Francis had somehow made it back from the campground, and as far as we can tell, she’s not infected. She regained consciousness once—briefly—before falling back into a heavy slumber. Doc is fairly certain that she’ll pull through from her exposure to the elements, and if her prognosis is correlated to the amount of hot packs and warm water bottles used to bring her temperature up, then she’s almost guaranteed success. Hold on another second, I want to scan again with the night scope.
*click*
OK, I’m back. Nothing to report. Where was I? Oh yeah . . . Francis. Anyhow, both Walter and Doc are stepping a little bit lighter with her return, so it’s all good. What else can I say right now? Not too much, I guess. I’m going to spend a few more minutes out here, and then head back to the tractor shed. When it gets light out, Mike and I are planning to take the speedboat back to the campground and pick up the bass boat, and then once we get back, we’ll load that on the trailer behind my truck, and then Michelle and I will be heading out the door toward Devils Lake. By the way, the temperature is still dropping, and I just felt a few drops of cold rain. Wonderful . . .
Chapter 43
“What does it look like to you?” I asked Michel
le as I scanned the yard of our supposedly abandoned farmhouse through binoculars.
She studied the scene through her own pair of binoculars, and then dictated a sarcastic reply. “Well, it’s obviously not abandoned any more.”
There were two vehicles pulled into the front yard. One of them—a beige sedan with several large dents on the passenger side—appeared to be stuck in the soupy ground of the front yard. The other vehicle, a plum colored crossover between an SUV and a station wagon, was attached to the sedan with a yellow tow strap. Judging from the mud splattering evident on both vehicles, it looked like an unsuccessful attempt had been made to dislodge the car from the saturated ground.
“What do you think? Should we go up and introduce ourselves . . . or try and find another place to put in?” Michelle asked.
“Upstream from here you run into a lot of sandbars and shallow areas. Even with the recent rain I don’t think I’d be willing to risk it. I know for a fact that we can make it to the big lakes from this point.”
“What about downstream from here?” Michelle asked. “Are there any other places we can put in safely?”
“Sure, we can probably get to the creek at a lot of different points, but we’d be driving through muddy fields to get there, and then we’d have no place to leave the truck out of the way of prying eyes.” I shifted my gaze to the medium sized barn that split the distance between the farmhouse and the creek.
“So what do you think . . . just drive right up and walk in the front door?”
“No, I still think we have to play it a little safe. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try and be nice,” I said.
“What do you have in mind?” Michelle asked.
“Let’s cut the distance to about fifty yards, and then we’ll beep the horn. If we can get their attention, I’ll walk up to the house while you cover me. If we can establish some type of contact, maybe we can be the first to offer the olive branch and winch out their car.”
“Just so you know, Eric, I’m getting really tired of biting back the words ‘be careful’ every day.”
My lips creased in a gentle smile. “You let one slip out last night, but I know what you mean. I think we’ve had more than our share of bad luck lately, so maybe we’ll slide by with some good luck for a change. Besides, I have to believe that there are still a lot of good people left in the world.”
“I just hope they’re in the farmhouse instead of a bunch of crack head bikers.”
“I’m pretty sure bikers don’t drive plum colored station wagons.”
She hesitated for a second, and then gripped her rifle determinedly. I watched as her nose dropped slightly and turned toward me. “I’m getting at least one more in . . . be careful,” Michelle said.
I nodded and shifted the truck into gear, heading down the driveway for a few seconds until I came to my stopping point. Two long beeps followed by a dual series of “shave and a haircut” melodies blasted from the horn. Michelle watched through her binoculars for any sign of a reply.
“Top floor—one of the curtains moved,” Michelle whispered.
“Keep watching.”
Another minute passed with no contact, so I laid on the horn a few more times. This time we both saw the upstairs curtain flutter. A short time after that, the front door cracked open, revealing a hand waving a stick. The end of the stick was drooping with a makeshift white flag. I turned quickly and scanned the interior of the truck, locating just about every color under the sun except white.
“I guess we’re doing this without a flag of our own. Got your radio ready to go?” I asked.
Michelle nodded as she continued to stare through her binoculars. The radios in question were a pair of GMRS walkie-talkies that we had taken with us in lieu of the Fish and Wildlife radios. All of the repeater towers around Devil’s Lake were grid powered with very limited battery backup, so the Fish and Wildlife radios wouldn’t really give us any extra range. As it was, we should be good to go with the ones we had chosen out to at least a mile or more—possibly substantially more over the flat terrain up here. Plus, both were newer models with access to dozens of different privacy codes for security, and both also came with voice operated microphones that would plug into our noise protection headsets. They weren’t as crisp and clear as the ones we left behind, but they worked.
“Let’s assume that they also have binoculars looking at us, so ‘soft cover’ for now . . . no pointing muzzles at them if we don’t have to, OK?”
Michelle mumbled something noncommittal, and then said, “If things turn to crap, you might be better off to run toward the sedan for cover . . . just some food for thought.”
“I’m really praying it doesn’t come that,” I said as I stepped out of the truck, hesitating for a moment in indecision. Leaning across the center section of the bench seat was my AR, as well as the silenced Ruger 10/22. Behind the seat were a pair of 12 gauge shotguns—my M2 and Michelle’s Remington 870. After another glance towards the house, I left them all there. The familiar heft of the CZ 9mm rode in my drop leg holster, and I had six additional magazines—two of them positioned for quick reload—attached to my belt. I left the door to the truck open and waved to the house. In response, the white flag waved again. I did my best to approach in a casual, nonthreatening way, stopping when I was near the stuck vehicles in the front yard.
“Hello,” I shouted towards the house.
The flag waving arm withdrew into the doorway, and I felt my hackles beginning to rise for a moment, but they settled when the door opened and revealed the figure of an elderly man . . . his right hand still clutching the improvised white flag. His left arm was completely gone. From the way the sleeve on his flannel shirt had been rolled up, it didn’t come across to me as a recent injury.
“Can I help you?” The old man’s voice was weak and gravelly. I immediately got the impression that he had spent the last several decades chain smoking unfiltered cigarettes.
“Well maybe we can help each other,” I replied. “It looks like you’re stuck in the mud. I’ve got a winch on the front of my truck.”
He nodded, “That would be right nice of you, but before we get all warm and fuzzy, why don’t you tell me why you’re on my property.”
“This is an abandoned farm. It’s been that way for at least a dozen years.”
“Abandoned doesn’t mean un-owned. My granddad tilled the land here in the 1800s, and I was born about a quarter mile that direction the same year the Jap’s bombed Pearl Harbor,” he pointed to his right over the field. “My mama was working in the crops when I decided to show up. It’s her blood, and much of my own over the years, that’s soaked into this soil. So, young man, you’re correct in that nobody has lived here for a while, but this farm has been in my family for a very long time, and we’re still the owners.”
Michelle's voice cut through my headset. “Is everything OK? I can’t hear what he’s saying.”
“Yeah, I think so, but hold on,” I muttered.
“Well sir, I apologize if this is your farm. I’ve been driving past here for several years, and I guess I just figured that no one had any interest in this place. Do you mind if I come in for a minute and maybe we can figure out a way to help each other?”
“What about your friend in the truck?”
“I think they can stay in the truck for now.”
The old man’s head nodded slowly. “Alright . . . I ain’t never turned away someone who was in need, and I don’t suppose I’ll start now, so come on in—but I’ll ask you to leave that pea shooter in its holster.”
I nodded and walk up to the porch. There were three weather and termite eaten steps that led up to the rickety deck, and I extended my hand in greeting as I crested step number two. His hand met mine, and he spoke first. “Tate’s my name . . . Jonathan Tate. Most folks just call me Tater.” His eyes dropped down to the patches on my jacket. “You a law man?”
“Yes sir,” I replied, “North Dakota Wildlife Officer Eric Coleman.”
“Not too much, but if I had to make a guess, I’d say yours is blocked up.”
“I’d imagine that twenty-some years of birds would probably do that,” he replied.
The inside of the old farmhouse was decorated with peeling wallpaper and falling chunks of plaster. Several of the walls had been defaced with crude graffiti, and at least a decades’ worth of cobwebs filled every corner. Surprisingly, all the windows that I could see were still intact. I followed Tater through the short breezeway and into the living room; the smoky haze getting thicker with each of my steps. The source of the smoke was a rusty black behemoth that, to my eyes, had more than just a passing resemblance to something you might find in the debris field of an old fashioned train wreck.
Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending Page 45