Deadland 02: Harvest

by Aukes, Rachel

  And so we waited.

  * * *

  We were able to move above deck freely after the sun had set, though silence was critical. With over fifty people crammed on board the Aurora, whispers and the sounds of shuffling feet were the only breaks in silence. We’d all prepared for this moment, we’d practiced it over and over. But the five newcomers were foreign to us and our plans, adding a huge element of risk to our plans. Maggie and Don avoided us, glaring at me whenever our paths crossed. I wanted to glare right back. Instead, I tried to take the higher road and simply ignore their unthankful asses. Hali, still pissed at her father for offering her up, had isolated herself in a corner of barge One.

  Even though Clutch thought it too risky, Tyler allowed Vicki to cook the deer for dinner since the wind was out of the north and the bay door was closed over the barge. Everyone ate in silence. The tension was higher than it had ever been.

  Through the hull, the sound of the moaning herd made nails on a chalkboard almost melodic. As I lay in my bunk and stared at the springs and mattress of Jase’s bunk above, I prayed that they would have moved on before morning. I tried to sleep but settled for staring at the ceiling.

  I headed up to the galley sometime before dawn. I didn’t bother checking my watch. Upstairs, Jase was kneeling on a bench, his hands clasped and his head down. Clutch sat at a table nearby, cleaning his rifle. I took a seat next to him and watched Jase. I hadn’t seen him pray since we’d buried his dog, and it worried me to see his façade gone.

  Clutch glanced up before turning back to his work. “He’s been at it all night,” he said softly, also looking worried.

  Seeing Jase’s ragged appearance, it was clear the stress was getting to him. His hair was mussed and dark circles underlined his eyes. I headed over to the countertop and poured a cup of coffee, and then set it down next to him.

  He looked up, startled. “Oh. Thanks.”

  I sat and wrapped an arm around him. After a moment, his tension gave way and he leaned into my embrace. “It’ll be okay,” I murmured. “We’re safe here.”

  He nodded slightly before reaching for the cup and taking a drink. Holding the cup, he watched me for a moment, and then placed his forehead against mine. “I hope we’re safe.” When he pulled away, he put the cup down and traced the fresh scar on my face and he winced. “That’s still a doozy.”

  “Do you think it’ll hurt my chances at getting a date?” I asked.

  He gave me the smallest hint of a smile before he looked back out the window and wrapped his hand around the cross he wore.

  I sat there, with my arm around Jase, while he prayed. Clutch eventually joined my side. We watched the night sky turn from black to dark gray with hints of gold in the east. As light gave definition to the shapes and trees, any hope I had plummeted.

  I could make out the zeds filling the bridge and road to either side. Not a blade of grass remained. They’d filled in the entire area to the west, disappearing into the trees, and were still spreading out. Our Humvee at the boat ramp was being rocked as zeds fought to get whatever they smelled inside.

  A leaf in the wind caught my eye, and I noticed it was blowing north, which meant the wind had switched direction sometime during the night. My eyes widened, and I grabbed Clutch’s arm. “The wind.”

  He looked. After a moment, he nodded tightly and then pointed at the zeds. “I think we just entered hell.”

  “No,” Jase said.

  Clutch wrapped an arm around him, then another around me. I clung to him but could find no comfort in the embrace. My stomach clenched with terror. A tear rolled down my scarred cheek as I held onto Jase and Clutch and stared outside. One hundred thousand pairs of eyes were focused on Camp Fox, and they looked ravenous.

  GLUTTONY

  The Sixth Deadly Sin

  Chapter XXII

  Two very long weeks later

  “It seems like the ones in back and on the edges are moving on,” Tyler said as he walked down the steps and into the crew quarters. “Only problem is that there’s still at least fifty thousand or more out there sticking around.”

  “Figured that was the case,” Clutch said while he did another lunge. “I have to hand it to them. Once they zero in on something, the bastards are persistent.”

  “It really sucks being at the bottom of the food chain,” I said, matching Clutch’s lunge.

  Eight of us were going through daily exercises. We’d just finished several sets of push-ups and sit-ups. We tried to keep it interesting by having each scout come up with an exercise, but after a while, even that got old. There were only so many variations to a push-up.

  But the herds outside just kept coming. Even though it seemed like tens, if not hundreds, of thousands continued on their journey, enough stayed behind, seemingly too hungry to continue for the slight chance for prey. Two herds currently surrounded the Aurora from the bridge and both sides of the river. They couldn’t reach us, not through the water, but at least a hundred tried—or were pushed—each day, and at least a couple dozen of those made it onto the island. I’d quit looking out the window on the fourth day. It made it easier to pretend that we weren’t caught in the middle of the world’s worst shit storm.

  “C’mon. Just one.”

  I turned to see Griz with his open hand stretched out.

  Jase shook his head. “No way. Go find your own.”

  “Why? You have a whole case of them.”

  “I risked my life for them.” He held up a half-eaten candy bar. “These Snickers are my one and only joy in life so you’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.”

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  When I turned back to Tyler, he had moved closer to Clutch.

  “We need to ration harder. Vicki says we need to move to a diet of at least ninety percent grain,” Tyler said in a low voice. “Without fresh meat and vegetables, we’re going through our food stores four times as fast as we calculated.”

  Clutch’s lips thinned. “People aren’t going to like to hear it.”

  I winced. They weren’t going to like to hear that news at all, but we had no other option. Heading to the mainland was out of the question. Worse, enough zeds had fallen in the water and scared the fish away, not that I could yet take a bite of fish without gagging. More and more zeds were washing ashore and now lingered on our island.

  As long as the zeds were out there, we were stuck in what could easily become our tomb. “We need to get the zeds away from the Aurora,” I said my thoughts aloud.

  Tyler chuckled. “Want me to get on the bullhorn and order the zeds to leave?”

  Clutch was watching me all too closely.

  “I’ll do it,” I said after a moment. “I’ll lead the herds away from the river barge.”

  “Cash…” Clutch warned.

  I gave him a pleading look. I knew the odds. I’d been an actuary before the outbreak, but I figured the odds out on the river couldn’t be any worse than staying on the boat. Staying on the boat was only delaying the odds. “If we don’t do something, who knows how long the herds will stay. If we wait until we are out of food, it’ll be too late. You know how long it took to build up the reserves we’re burning through. The winter may kill the zeds, but without our livestock, it’s going to kill us, too. I’ll take a boat and run the Pied Piper plan.”

  “We’ve only tried that with tiny herds, a few dozen zeds at most,” Tyler said.

  “The plan hasn’t failed yet,” I countered.

  Clutch watched me for a moment—it was a calculating gaze—and then turned to Tyler. “I’ll lead the mission. I want Cash and Jase to stay on the Aurora.”

  “Like hell,” I said. “Camp Fox needs you more than it needs me.”

  Clutch grabbed my arms. “What happens when you come up against a lock or a dam?”

  “I’ll figure out something. What would you do?”

  He shook his head. “Leading them away is one thing. How are you going to turn around and get past them and back to the
boat?”

  “I’ll bring plenty of supplies and hide out until the coast is clear.”

  His brows rose and his lips tightened.

  “The idea could work,” Tyler mused. “But it’s dangerous. It’s awfully dangerous.”

  “What other option do we have?” I asked. “If I fail, you still have time to figure out other options.”

  “If we fail,” Clutch added. “We’re a team.”

  I tried not to look relieved, but the idea of not having Clutch along terrified me. I smiled and gave a single nod.

  “I’m in,” Jase said, and I looked around, realizing we’d drawn the attention of everyone in the room.

  Clutch glared at Jase. “Now, hold on a minute.”

  “This is a Charlie team mission, right?” Jase asked. “I’m a Coyote. You’re not going to make me sit this one out. We’re in this together.”

  Part of me wanted to scream at Jase to stay behind where it was safer, and I suspected it was exactly how Clutch felt about both Jase and me. But Jase was right. We were in it together.

  Clutch sighed. “We don’t even know if the plan could work on this scale.”

  “What could work?” Manny asked as he entered the quarters.

  “We’re forming a small team to lead the zeds away,” Tyler said.

  “I’m in if the kid ponies up a candy bar from his stash,” Griz said.

  “Heck, no,” Jase said, and the two poked jabs at each other.

  “This is not something to take lightly,” Tyler said harshly. “I won’t order anyone on this mission. It will be volunteers only.”

  “Well, son of a bitch. You guys can’t go without me,” Wes said. “I’m the best mechanic around here. With a herd that big, you can’t afford to break down.”

  Tyler held up his hands. “Whoa. That’s enough. Five of you will fill a boat and have eyes in every direction. Clutch, you’re senior officer so you have lead. Now, we all need to take time to think through this. If anyone backs out, I won’t hold it against you. Everyone, take sixty. We’ll meet in the galley in an hour to work out the mission details.”

  Clutch nodded. His features were still set hard, so I rubbed his back. He sighed and looked from Jase to me. “I know trying to talk you two out of this is a waste of breath, so either of you want to spar instead?”

  I grinned. Whenever he was stressed, he needed action. Of course, I was the same way. “You bet.”

  “Yeah, why not,” Jase said after stretching his neck from side to side.

  I grabbed my thermos from my bunk. By the time I returned, Jase and Clutch were already chatting about setting up the boat.

  “Mind if I join you guys?” Griz asked as he caught up.

  I motioned him along. “Only if you’re ready for an ass whooping.”

  Griz chuckled. “Oh, it’s not me who’s—”

  Shouting erupted from above deck and I snapped around. “What’s going on?”

  We ran up the stairs and to the galley. Outside, Maggie was screaming at the herds. “Go back to hell, you devils! You’ll never get to us! Never!”

  “Shit,” Griz muttered. “Our first cuckoo has flown.”

  No!

  I reached for my pistol, but the others bolted outside, and I followed.

  Griz reached her first. He yanked her back and covered her mouth. “I should’ve figured out you’d be the first to go nuts.”

  She mumbled something but he kept her mouth covered.

  I scowled at Maggie, keeping my hand on my holster. “Fucking nut. You trying to get us all killed?”

  Lucky for her, Griz still had his hand over her mouth because if I heard what she seemed to be saying, I might have changed my mind and shot her right then and there.

  Clutch and Jase helped drag Maggie back inside.

  Before I reentered the galley, I looked out at the herds to see every pair of eyes watching us. The wind whipped at my face.

  “Well, that does it,” Clutch muttered. “This mission just became critical.”

  “Yeah,” Jase said. “The tough part is that it sounds more like Mission: Impossible.”

  I swallowed and turned away from the ocean of zeds.

  No, it wasn’t just an impossible mission.

  It was a suicide mission.

  Chapter XXIII

  All of Camp Fox squeezed into the galley the morning we left. It was standing room only in a room made to seat twenty comfortably. Weighted down with food and gear, I followed Jase as he weaved through the crowd. I noticed Hali squeezed his hand briefly as he walked by.

  Maggie, who now had a scout assigned to her twenty-four/seven, eyed us with her usual glare of disdain and suspicion. Thanks to her, zeds had proof that we were still here, and their numbers were growing. Her little tirade guaranteed Camp Fox would remain under siege until we starved. I craved to put a bullet between her eyes.

  Even so, she wasn’t the hardest to deal with in the room this morning. Everyone else watched with hope. They put all of their faith in us to save them. If our gamble failed, everyone would starve to death because of us. Those were the ones I really avoided eye contact with, as their gazes followed us silently through the room.

  On the island, we chose a deck boat instead of the speedboat since we could load a lot more extra fuel on it. The .30 cal was useless, and we only had to be faster than the herds. The speedboat also couldn’t hold nearly the amount of supplies a larger boat could. And boy, did we fill that boat. After all, we had to be ready to live on the river for up to a couple weeks.

  Tyler and several scouts had speared the zeds on the land by the Aurora so we could load and get out. Even then, hands reached up from below the surface at us. A vision that would no doubt haunt my dreams for the rest of my life.

  While I strapped down our food and gear, Clutch and Jase tied the leftover deer organs to the sides of the boat. Vicki had saved the deer organs “for a rainy day.” The sweet, iron smell of deer innards was strong and unpleasant but not as bad as I would have expected. Vicki had devised a cellar system on barge Four that helped preserve food, and surprisingly the deer had only the slightest smell of decay.

  I pulled out one more item from my backpack, unfolded it, and strung it up on the flagpole at the back of the boat. The wind was just strong enough today that the American flag flapped proudly in the breeze. I sat back and admired it. “I think we’re all set.”

  Griz tossed me a life vest.

  I looked at it and scowled. “It’s going to be harder to shoot with one on.”

  He shrugged his vest on like it was body armor. “We play it safe. No unnecessary risks.”

  “As soon as you know the herds are moving on, get back here as soon as you are safely able,” Tyler said.

  I gave him a salute. “Aye, aye, captain.”

  His eyes narrowed with the hint of a smile before he turned and climbed up to the deck.

  Kurt had spent much of his childhood boating and water skiing, so he was our pilot. He was also the only one who hadn’t volunteered. Tyler had assigned him to the Pied Piper team since we needed Kurt’s experience with boats.

  We had a perfect team for the mission. Jase had eagle eyes, so he sat at the bow along with Griz, who was a master at strategy. Clutch and I, both crack shots, sat across from each other behind Kurt to have our sides covered. Wes, our mechanic, sat near the motor to keep an eye on our six. I also suspected the engine vibration comforted him as he couldn’t swim and really disliked water.

  “Everyone ready?” Kurt asked.

  A chorus of yeses replied.

  He backed the boat from the shoddy dock that had been hastily constructed our first days on the towboat. Wes had a long stick to push away any zeds close to the motor. Kurt piloted the boat slowly and smoothly, and I appreciated that his nerves didn’t relay through the controls.

  Things started to feel real when we pulled around the side of the Aurora and the herd came into sight. I felt like we were the stars of a sold-out concert. Kurt pulled the boat a
round, and we moved away from the river barge and toward the zeds.

  The boat rocked gently in the river current as Kurt piloted it forward, into the U-shape of zeds on the surrounding land and bridge. The zeds looked like extras in an old-time horror film. Filthy, they were all the same shade of brown-gray. Most were emaciated. Many sported fresh boils and old injuries.

  “Don’t get too close,” Clutch warned. “We don’t want zeds to start dropping in on us.”

  It was like someone had wound up the zeds. What had been slow shuffling before became a frenzied dance as we approached. When we approached the center of the U-shape, their moans reached a crescendo.

  “That’s close enough,” Griz said, sounding nervous.

  I didn’t blame him. I was practically frozen, and it wasn’t just because of the cold air. My hands trembled, and I gripped my rifle to me like it was my lifeline.

  Kurt cranked on the CD player, and the previous owner’s choice in music—Motor Boat City’s “Pontoon”—blasted through the speakers. If the smells of deer organs and visuals of uninfected humans weren’t enough to snag their attention, they couldn’t ignore the noise. We hadn’t had time to rig up louder speakers, but the stock speakers seemed to be doing the trick. Dozens of zeds tumbled into the water, pushed in by zeds behind them.

  “Think we got their attention?” Kurt asked.

  “Yeah,” Clutch said. “We don’t want them to keep falling in the water.”

  Kurt brought the boat closer to the western bank and turned the boat toward the south and cut the engine, letting the current do the work. As we drifted past the Aurora, the deck was empty and I could see no signs of inhabitants, though I knew everyone was watching from the galley.

  Back on the towboat, we had debated for less than two minutes whether to lead the herd south or north. Leading them north seemed counterproductive. Leading them south meant that we had to lead them past the Aurora, but it was the direction they seemed naturally inclined to head.