The Complete Deadland Saga

by Rachel Aukes

“Nothing?”

  “It was a rat,” I said sheepishly.

  His brows rose.

  I added, “It was a really big rat.”

  He eyed me suspiciously for a moment before returning his focus to the task at hand.

  “Chicken,” Jase whispered as he walked by.

  “It was really big,” I countered, but he’d already moved on to killing a zed.

  We spent the next several minutes killing zeds, the entire time I kept on the lookout for rats. I hated rats nearly as much I hated zeds.

  Once we finished clearing the boat section, Clutch checked in with Marco on the radio. “There are plenty of stinkers in here,” Clutch reported. “It will take a little longer than planned.”

  “Need help?” came Marco’s response.

  “Negative. Nothing too challenging here. I’ll check in every hour. If anything goes wrong, you bug out and don’t look back. Protect the civilians.”

  Marco didn’t respond fast enough for Clutch’s humor.

  “Tell me you’ll bug out,” Clutch demanded.

  “I’ve got it covered,” Marco replied.

  We worked our way closer to the center of the store, zigzagging through debris. We finished off any zed we came across, but as we worked our way inward, they were becoming fewer and fewer. Leaning on a table of folded shirts, a zed seemed to stare off into nothingness as though contemplating the mysteries of life. Oblivious to our presence, Griz and I approached. This one was dressed in suit. On its lapel, it had a pin with two laurel leaves crossed over a book and a shepherd’s hook.

  “What’s that mean, I wonder,” I said without thinking.

  Griz’s lips thinned. “It meant he was a chaplain.”

  I frowned. “Oh.”

  Griz lifted his blade and paused for a moment before finishing the deed. I turned away in haste, trying to pretend this zed never existed, and I bumped into the clothes rack. A petite zed wearing a store uniform lashed out, and I jumped back. “Shit!”

  My reflexes kicked in and I swung my machete, crushing its head in a single shot. “Not frozen,” I said breathlessly before yanking my machete out of the zed’s skull.

  “Guess there’s some life left in them yet,” Griz said. “Good to know.”

  “Be careful,” Clutch cautioned.

  “Yeah,” I replied as I grabbed a folded shirt and cleaned the blade now coated in the thick brown sludge that had once been blood. Killing zeds had become easier over the months. Not just because I’d gained skill and became desensitized to them, but because the zeds were becoming weaker. Their bones had become brittle, to the point my machete rarely became lodged in their skulls or necks anymore.

  I crept more carefully as we scoured the store for more zeds. It didn’t take long for us to finish the wide-open area. With the offices in back completely burned or collapsed, we turned our attention to the restaurant on the eastern side of the store.

  “Looks in pretty good shape,” Jase said while the four of us stood outside the closed glass door. The area beyond the glass was draped in darkness, making it impossible to see what hid within. “Do we go for touchdown?”

  Clutch and Griz stepped up to the glass pane and both looked through.

  Griz spoke first. “If there’s anything in there from before, it hasn’t gotten out yet, which means it likely is never going to get out.”

  “Let’s leave it for now,” Clutch said. “We’ll post a guard in this area to play it safe.”

  I looked back at all the merchandise in the store waiting to be plucked, and I grinned. Just as I was about to say let’s go shopping, something clanged on the other side of the door.

  “Ah, shit,” I mumbled.

  A zed’s visage appeared through the glass. Then another face emerged from the darkness. More kept coming. These zeds, protected from the elements, looked nothing like the ones we’d just killed. These were healthy zeds, and there were at least thirty of them.

  “You guys really think that door will hold?” Jase asked.

  Griz and Clutch both shook their heads.

  “Not a chance,” Griz said.

  “Son of a bitch. Let’s get out of their line of sight and see if they settle down,” Clutch said as we were already taking steps back.

  Instead of calming, our retreat seemed to rev up the zeds even more. They pounded on the door, fighting to get past one another at us. One zed tripped as others shoved at it from behind. Its head slammed into the door, and the glass shattered. Pounding fists tore through the weakened glass. With only the metal handle bar across the middle of the door to hold back the zeds, they worked into a frenzy to get at us.

  The zed that had broken the glass with its head was on the ground and crawled out from under the bar. More followed, some tumbling over the bar while the shorter ones crawled under it.

  “Outside to the Humvee!” Griz shouted, and we ran.

  We jumped over debris and around fallen racks. The linoleum floors had become slick with the melting snow, and we slid our way through the store. I fell hard on my knee, and stars shot through my vision. Clenching my jaw, I jumped up and forced weight on my injured leg.

  “To the RP!” Clutch yelled into the radio. “The store is overrun. Get out of here!”

  Chapter II

  Griz pointed to the collapsed wall beyond the boats. “Plan B! Keep going. We can’t risk the front entrance. We need to put more distance between us and them.”

  As we ran passed the entrance, I risked a glance behind me to see three dozen voracious zeds tumbling after us. Rats scurried under racks of clothes and counters. Fortunately, the slick floors were proving difficult for the zeds, and we were getting well ahead of them. I followed Griz as he weaved through the fallen boats and toward the open space where a huge glass door had once been used for moving boats in and out of the store.

  Part of the ceiling had collapsed above the door, leaving debris piled several feet high. I stumbled over the rubble and caught myself before falling onto dangerous glass shards. Outside, the sun shone brightly enough to blind me. It took me only a second to get my bearings, and I ran toward our Humvee.

  Something had drawn some of the zeds away from us and back to the main entrance. There, the loud engine of the other Humvee slashed through the area. The fast-moving distraction, with six people piled inside, plowed through the herd. Frost stood in back with a rifle and took shots at the zeds that got back up.

  With them working on the herd outside, I turned and focused on the dozen or so climbing over the rubble. I unslung my rifle, took aim, and fired. A zed dropped. A shot rang off to my left, and another zed fell. A third shot joined in. We finished off the small herd in less than four minutes.

  After I checked out the bodies in the rubble to make sure none survived, I turned to see Marco walking around the dead in the parking lot. I couldn’t see Clutch’s face, but if his slow, heavy march toward the other man was any indication, he wasn’t pleased.

  I hustled toward the pair as Clutch threw his arms in the air. “I told you to bug out if things turned to shit. Tell me exactly how bringing everyone into a zed swarm is bugging out?”

  “I wasn’t going to let you have all the fun,” Marco replied.

  “What part about it being a direct order didn’t you understand?”

  Marco pointed to the east. “My boss is lying dead across the state line right now. I’m not like you or Griz. I wasn’t some G. I. Joe Rambo before the outbreak. I was a volunteer, not a soldier, and I’m not good with following orders. Hell, before all this, I was a consultant who had just about reached Delta’s Million Mile status.”

  Clutch wagged a finger at the younger soldier. “Someone could’ve died back there. That’d be on you.”

  After a pause, Marco spoke. “I know. If things got hairy, I would’ve made sure they were safe. You have my word. I’d never put them at risk.”

  “C’mon guys,” I said as lightly as possible. “The store is just about cleared. I’d really love to do a little shopp
ing. Okay?”

  Grudgingly, they turned their attention from each other and back to the store.

  It took five hours before we had the stragglers in the building dispatched and enough rubble cleared to back our vehicles inside and park them in between the boats. From outside, no one could see any sign of survivors.

  We couldn’t risk bandits finding us here like they had at the store on the Mississippi. We’d been exhausted and let our guard down then. It had proved to be a fatal mistake.

  Never again.

  The guys worked at clearing multiple exit routes, with one route to the vehicles and backup routes, one to each direction. With how prepared we were, everyone had agreed to spend as many days here as needed to sift through supplies, give the Humvees an oil change, and prepare for the long trip ahead.

  I straddled an ATV, taking in the huge store surrounding me. My jaw slackened as I rested. Aside from the basic looting of cash, guns, and ammo—all of which probably happened during the first day of the outbreak—the store was relatively untouched.

  I hugged myself in the shearling parka with golden cream fleece lining I’d found. I looked like an Eskimo in it. It was too warm to wear very long, but I still savored its softness and refused to take it off as I stuffed backpacks and duffels from the luggage section with my discoveries.

  A smile crossed my face as I looked at the big pile of bags to my left. Everyone had a similar pile, and everyone’s pile was full of similar things. Warm, clean clothes. Camping and hiking supplies, such as eating utensils, hydration packs, sleeping bags, blankets, and sleep pads. And even a little bit of one of the most important items: food.

  Most of the snow had melted under the warmth of the sun, leaving everything damp, so I helped Hali string our new clothes on hangers to dry in the cold air.

  We’d all had a good laugh at Benji’s pile. He’d forgone bags and piled toys and games into a mountain. No one envied Frost as he “coached” Benji into trying on clothes and picking out the right color for a winter coat. After a lengthy debate, Frost succumbed to the boy’s adamant choice on a fluorescent green coat since his grandfather had chosen a dark evergreen coat to blend into his surroundings. To Benji, green was green.

  Marco and Vicki emptied the restaurant. I avoided going inside the restaurant, instead waiting at the door to haul their findings. Even with the inside door gone, the restaurant still reeked of zeds that had been cooped up inside stale air for the better part of a year.

  The pair found several huge cans of tomato sauce and vegetables and several bottles of olive oil. The bags of flour and sugar had long been claimed by rodents. The little buggers had gotten to nearly everything not in a tin can. They’d even managed to chew through plastic tubs. Despite the lack of variety in food, I had no doubt that Vicki, who’d been Camp Fox’s cook, would work magic with whatever ingredients she had available.

  After loading what we could into our two vehicles, we quickly discovered we had a problem that was nice to have. We’d found so much stuff throughout the store that we would need to find a third vehicle.

  Taking the risk for the store had proved to be well worth it. No one was injured, and we’d found enough supplies to get us to New Eden without stress of running out. We’d desperately needed this good fortune.

  We took anything we could use, but we also left plenty of gear behind for any who came after. The food was another story. We took anything that could be eaten. With winter coming and no home, we couldn’t afford to leave anything behind.

  The surplus food we now had was crucial, since finding gas for vehicles was becoming harder and harder with each passing day, making supply runs more and more limited. Until this month, I’d had no idea how quickly gas started to go bad when it wasn’t in well-sealed containers. The Humvees could handle dirtier fuel than most modern cars, but even now, the engines pinged after the last siphoning of gas from a car on the side of the road. We added fuel additive at each fill-up, but we only had seven bottles left.

  Griz was the first to point out that vehicles would be obsolete within another couple years. Everyone would be walking, riding bicycles, and riding horses—assuming horses weren’t extinct by then. I dreaded the day cars became nothing more than lawn ornaments and prayed we had a permanent home, free of zeds, before the gasoline became no longer usable.

  In the twilight, I glanced over to where Deb was setting down a pot filled with something steaming onto an aluminum camp-style picnic table. As if on cue, my stomach growled. I jumped off the ATV and headed straight for the food line. Jase pulled Hali to her feet.

  Earlier, with Jase standing watch behind her, she had set up a cozy camp for Benji, his cot surrounded by teddy bears. The boy, oblivious to their actions, was propped against a snoring Diesel and completely engrossed with his new toys.

  Jase clapped once, and Diesel shot up. A startled Benji looked around. Jase pointed to the table where Frost stood, waiting for the kid. “Dinner time, Benny boy.”

  Benji’s face broke into a wide grin. He jumped to his feet and took off running toward his grandfather. He wasn’t a fast kid, but every time food was involved, he’d come close to breaking his personal speed records.

  He slid into being the first in line, just like he did every meal. No one minded. Spoiling Benji was one of the few joys in this new world.

  In the large soup pot was all the pasta that had survived the rats and mice. The noodles had no real sauce, only olive oil and spices found in the restaurant, but it all tasted pretty dang good to me.

  Griz and Frost stood guard while the rest of us ate. Benji slurped the noodles while he fed Diesel one strand of spaghetti at a time. I twirled my noodles around my fork, savoring every bite. Jase finished first, as usual, and he always went back for seconds.

  Marco tossed his Styrofoam bowl and plastic fork into a plastic bag. He stood and motioned to Frost and Griz. “I’ll take watch now for one of you guys.”

  It was standard operating procedure to have someone stand watch twenty-four/seven. We always had at least two people guard over our group. Even inside a building like this. Especially inside a building like this.

  Griz grabbed his dinner and sat down next to Vicki. She didn’t even acknowledge him. I remembered the exact moment her personality had changed from kind and optimistic to cold and hard. It was the moment when Tyler was killed. She hadn’t smiled since.

  Deb burped and covered her mouth. “Excuse me,” she mumbled.

  Vicki had mentioned first pregnancies were even harder once a woman was in her thirties. Deb was thirty-four, and couldn’t keep much of anything down. She was losing weight too quickly, and I worried how much longer she could go without losing the baby.

  “Another tummy ache?” Benji asked.

  Deb gave a small smile and nodded.

  “Mom gives me warm milk when my tummy hurts.” His face fell. He said the same thing every time he noticed Deb wasn’t feeling well. I knew what Benji was going to say next. We all knew. “I miss Mom.”

  Diesel always seemed to notice when Benji’s mood faltered, and the dog nudged the boy with his big, shiny nose. Benji scowled and wiped the slobber from his arm. The boy’s features soon eased, and he rubbed the dog’s ears. When he went back to his eating-slash-feeding-the-dog routine, we ate and talked about our findings as well as tomorrow’s plans.

  “There’s a truck rental company not far from here, so maybe it wasn’t destroyed,” I said. “I rented a truck once to move into my house.”

  As soon as I said the words, a weight fell on my chest. I’d been so caught up in keeping busy that my mind didn’t have the time to dwell on the past. My house, an adorable little bungalow I’d been fixing up, was likely a pile of stones sitting fewer than ten miles from here. My parent’s house, not far from downtown, would’ve faced the same fate.

  I still hated myself for not coming back for them. Not only had I left them behind, but also I never came back for them. I had planned to. In the first days, all I thought about was how I
could get back into the city to find them. My dad was a doctor, my mother a nurse and a diabetic. Even though they were both retired, I knew they would’ve been at the hospital, helping out where they could in the most dangerous place of all.

  Still, I had tried to work out a plan to make it to them. Then the news had come that the military had bombed Des Moines and all other large cities. They never stood a chance. Still, not having the chance to say good-bye—not trying to save them—would be something I would have to live with for the rest of my life.

  I sensed someone watching me, and I noticed Clutch sitting in a camp chair. He motioned to the empty chair next to him. I dumped off my bowl and fork and headed to the seat Clutch had saved. I sunk into the seat, and my muscles loosened.

  Clutch pointed to the night sky through the open roof. “Looks like we’re going to have quite a full moon tonight.”

  I looked upward. The moon seemed as though it was racing to claim the sky, even before the sun relinquished its fleeting hold. “The days are getting too short. Soon the days will be shorter than the nights.”

  We sat as darkness bled out from every corner in the building. Small lanterns were lit, and the light licked at the dark. Without any light to mar its beauty, the moon became a brilliant pearl.

  With night, came the beasts. The animals that came out of hiding after the zeds migrated. With little to fear, they searched to fill their empty stomachs.

  A howl in the distance was returned by another. These weren’t the coyote howls from old westerns. These howls sounded like mad men, as though the demons of the night were cackling at what the world had become, taunting us that humans were no longer the most feared predators on the planet.

  The howls had become familiar, but they still unnerved me. Especially when they were the only sound of the night. Trying to ignore the distant wails, I focused intently on the moon. The iridescent pearl was stained by moon spots, and I wondered how each of those scars came to be. I mused if someone on the moon could see similar scars on the earth from all the bombings and fires.

  I spoke softly. “Do you think the earth will ever be a place where we can live without fear?”