by Wood, Gareth
Later that evening we heard a plane. It sounded like a small engine aircraft, but by this time clouds were hanging low over the hills, and we couldn’t see anything. The sound persisted for a few minutes and faded away, and attempts to call the plane on our radios failed. The sound gave us hope, however. A plane meant Cold Lake was looking for us. If the raiders were smart they’d fuck off now and leave us alone before they were descended upon by the wrath of the military, who did not look kindly on “parasites upon the human species”, as I had heard them called a time or two.
By the time we settled in to camp we had gone several kilometers, and hadn’t seen any houses or other vehicles. I sat on the ground and watched the others doing camp chores, my leg burning and sore. We wondered aloud why the group of undead had been there, with no prey nearby, no buildings, and no reason.
January 22
That morning we woke to the sound of gunfire. It wasn’t nearby, and we heard about a dozen shots, all coming from somewhere ahead of us along the road. Eric and Jess both thought about three kilometers off, and I believed them. We packed up quickly, and got on our way. We kept following the road towards where we had heard the shots, or in that general direction, at least. We thought about heading into the brush and avoiding the whole area, but decided to approach and see if we could grab a vehicle or determine what they had been shooting at. The road ran out of the hills here, and started a long gradual downhill slope. The snow was quite deep, but the day was looking like a warm one, despite the heavy clouds and slight wind.
An hour passed, and we came close to where we estimated the shooting had been going on this morning. We stopped, and concealed ourselves in some brush about 100 yards off the road. We had a short conference, and then Kim and Eric went off to scout. They left a lot of gear behind, taking only the basics, and traveling as lightly as they could. Eric went because he’s done this before. He was in Afghanistan after the World Trade Center attacks, and knows how to get around without being seen. Kim was going as backup, and she’s just about as sneaky as Eric.
We sat there the rest of the day waiting. We had agreed to radio silence, unless they had an emergency, and Eric had warned us it could take hours to get where they were going and back again. So we sat and kept a lookout and stayed quiet. We had a quiet, cold lunch, and stayed warm by huddling together. We had to stay out of the sunlight as much as possible, but there was almost none to speak of, so it was easy. During the afternoon, as I was getting worried about them, a family of deer walked right past us. They sniffed the air, but didn’t appear too disturbed by our presence. I guess the lack of hunting has made them less skittish of people. The largest one looked at us, and snorted loudly, then walked on. We watched them go quietly, and kept our post. Darren asked me if I thought the animals were being preyed on by the undead as well, but I couldn’t remember if anything had been in survival briefings about the undead eating animals. They seem to be a specifically human predator. We talked about this for a few hours, the others joining in with opinions and speculation. Around supper time we gave it up, having talked it into the ground. Kim and Eric still were not back.
January 23 – before dawn
Kim and Eric made it back to us intact in the darkness before the sun rose. I was on watch, and heard a rustling on the trail that passed nearby. The clouds were still thick overhead, so there was no moon to see by, and honestly I couldn’t have said what phase it was in right then if money was involved. I raised my pistol, checked the silencer, and nudged Darren with my boot. He came awake, and I whispered to him that I had heard noises down the trail. He sat up and woke Jess and Mandy as I turned back to the trail. Watching in silence, the tension building over the seconds, was turmoil. Was it a bear? Some sheep? Or was it a couple of walking dead out hunting for flesh and a midnight stroll? Turned out it was none of the above. I dimly made out a human silhouette against the cloudy sky, and was raising the gun, just in case, when I heard Eric whispering, “Don’t shoot me, you fucker!”
Kim and Eric slid down into our shelter beneath the trees, and let out sighs of relief. We let them get some food and water in them, and then they told us what they had seen. Eric told us that the raiders had a camp about six kilometers west by southwest. He and Kim had parked their butts on a hillside about a kilometer away and watched them for several hours. The camp was centered on a house, but they had too many people to all be inside. There were tents, a camper trailer, trucks, motorcycles, and a police van. Eric sketched us a quick map of the site while he talked. He and Kim had counted forty-seven people. There were only four women that they could make out, unless there were more inside the tents or house. They spotted three sentries, and said that those were so badly deployed that they could have snuck up on two of them without the third knowing anything was wrong.
I asked if they looked like they were ‘settling in,’ and Eric replied that they already had. They had fire pits with benches around them, and latrines behind the house. He said he knew for sure that it was the group that ambushed us because he spotted that car that passed us. These are definitely the same assholes.
We talked about it, and decided we’d avoid them. Sneaking around them sounded like the best idea, and once we were back to civilized areas we could have the Cold Lake military pay them a visit to see if they could be convinced of the error of their ways. The plane we had heard the other day was almost certainly one of ours, looking for us. Hopefully we would see it again and get in touch. This was a big area, though, and I doubt Cold Lake had much in the way of resources to spare for a search.
We waited until an hour after sunrise, so that Kim and Eric could have some rest, some more food, and a little water. Our food situation is getting bad. We have plenty of water though, from streams that criss-cross the area. Eric says he can feed us easily, even at this time of year, but we might not like our diet for a few days.
We set out, me limping along and wishing I dared use the last of the morphine. Kim and Eric both looked tired, but they seemed alert. After a few hours we rested again, all the while winding closer to the camp. Our plan was to pass through the valley a few kilometers behind the house, close enough to spit on them, but out of sight. We would follow that route down to the next road, and see if we could find a vehicle there.
Several boring hours passed, and we managed to make it to the valley without detection. This close to the camp I doubt they expected any trouble. This was probably where they hunted deer and moose to feed everyone. I wondered where they were getting vegetables from. Probably they were raiding houses in the area for canned goods. I asked Eric and he said they didn’t have a greenhouse set up. Anyways, we ended up making camp in the valley. We all huddled under some blankets as light snow fell on us. Cold supper. My leg ached terribly. We slept as well as we could
January 24
We ran into a trio of hunters only an hour after setting out. We were walking through some muskeg and trying to avoid getting our feet wet, and very glad there were no mosquitoes this time of year, when Eric suddenly waved us all down. We all crouched low and fell silent, listening. Eric motioned to us after a few minutes that he was going to go have a look for whatever he had heard, and the rest of us should take cover. Eric vanished into the woods, and we all sought out cover as quietly as we could. I ended up behind a fallen tree, under some branches that I wished had leaves on them. I checked and couldn’t see any of the others, not even Mandy, who had the least experience of all of us. Good for her.
Shots rang out a few minutes later. First it was two rifle shots, sounding like hunting rifles, and then a short burst of a C7, followed by another one. Someone screamed. Another rifle shot followed a few moments later, and I had a good fix on direction. They sounded close. I started to belly-crawl forward, to see if I could help out Eric, and heard Darren moving, and possibly Kim as well. I heard running feet, someone crashing through the forest towards us, and I stopped and brought up my rifle, aiming in the direction I thought the runner was coming from. Sure enough, t
here he came, making no effort to be quiet, and obviously not seeing us at all. He had a ball cap on his head, a hunting rifle in his hands, and was wearing a camo jacket and black jeans. I felt no sympathy at all for this asshole, and lined up and shot at the same time that Darren and Jess did. Bullets from three directions tore him up, and he looked quite surprised as he toppled face first in the dirt. Seconds later Eric showed up, and looked down at the body as he stopped. He grinned at me as I stood up.
The man at his feet gurgled a last breath, and Eric looked down at him, and said, “You’re going to be okay. I know first aid. Don’t try to move, now.” And then he burst out laughing. It turned out to be infectious. I started chuckling a few seconds later, then the others were all laughing. Within moments I had tears streaming down my face, and we were all gasping for breath.
Minutes later, when we had all calmed down somewhat, and could see again, Eric looked at us and wiped his eyes. He said he had needed a good laugh. He told us that the other two were ‘back that way,’ gesturing over his shoulder, and said that they wouldn’t be needing any first aid either. He started chuckling again, and I would have joined him, except that behind Eric the raider we had shot twitched, pushed himself up on his arms, and said, “Uuuuaaaaaauuuugh.”
I’d never seen one rise before. Always, they’d either been dead bodies or already moving zombies. It made the hair on my neck all stand up, and it looked right at me. Where the living man had something in his eyes, the animated corpse had nothing. It was empty inside. It stood up, and I shouted something, some warning, to Eric, and reached for my gun. Fortunately, the newly risen corpse had forgotten the gun it had been carrying when alive. Its instinct to feed kicked in instantly, though. It lunged at Eric, moving far quicker than any other undead I had seen since the early days of the rise. Eric wasn’t fast enough to shoot it, so he dropped his rifle and pulled a knife. What followed was brutal. Eric took the zombie apart. He cut its tendons, severed muscles, and blinded it in about as long as it took me to draw three breaths. He followed up this butchery with a smashing blow to the thing’s temple with his knife, driving the blade into the brain. It had grabbed him once during the fight, and he had destroyed it before it ever laid another hand on him. He jumped back, now covered in the thing’s blood, and swore loudly and long. He was very creative, too. I’d never heard some of the things he said.
We took the rifles, some water bottles, and some other supplies from the bodies of the raiders. The other two didn’t rise. After that, we moved on, my leg aching more and more as time passed.
January 26
My memory of the last few days is fragmented. I know that I developed a fever and infection in my leg some time on the 24th, and by the evening I was sweating, running a high temperature, and lethargic. Without antibiotics I had to fight the infection as well as I could, so I really don’t remember anything of those few days. I just remember waking up in the dark, Jess curled next to me in the tent, and being very cold. I could hear wind blowing the tent, and wondered where I was. My leg hurt and burned, and I had a terrible urge to scratch it, but I could barely move. I fell asleep after that again, and woke up another time in daylight. I was still in the tent, but Mandy was there instead of Jess. She looked relieved, and told me I was going to be fine. I had the strangest feeling of dislocation, though. She called Jess, and moments later she was there, and I managed to have a conversation with her, though I can’t recall it now.
They knocked me out, I was told, with the last of the morphine and some painkillers that we had brought along. When I came around, mid-morning on the 26th, there was a stillness in the air that told me the weather was warmer. I felt tired, but not terrible, and my leg was only a throb as opposed to the excruciating agony it had been. I was lying alone on my back inside my sleeping bag, in the tent, and I stank. I hadn’t changed clothes in several days, and I had sweated out a fever. It was daytime, and I found a fresh bottle of cold water next to me. I drank most of it down, and tried to sit up. I was weak, and felt like I had lost about ten pounds. I threw the sleeping bag open, and had a look at my leg. My calf was heavily bandaged and stung when I touched it, but it didn’t end in a stump. They fortunately hadn’t amputated my foot and lower leg in my sleep. I lay back down, and closed my eyes for a few moments, very relieved to have my leg still attached to me. I sat up again and looked around, finding my bag, clothes, and weapons. I reached for my Browning first, checked it, and then put it down again. I was about to start getting out of my foul clothing when the tent flap opened, and Darren looked in. He grinned at me, said, “Man, am I ever glad you’re okay!” and vanished again. Seconds later Jess was there, coming into the tent to hug me and check up on my leg. She helped me get changed, and even managed to get me a towel and some water so I could have a quick wash.
She told me our situation was sort of good, sort of bad. We’d moved only a few kilometers from where we ran into the hunter trio of raiders several days ago. A search plane had gone over yesterday, and Eric had managed to contact them. There was apparently a unit of the PPCLI on its way to help us, expected within a day or so. The raiders had moved camp, but were still in the area, and we were out of food. Eric had been gathering “nature’s bounty” for us for the last few days, but it consisted of weeds, roots, and a rabbit. Slim pickings. Jess told me that the pilot had also seen the raiders, and they had fired at the plane. The pilot hadn’t been hurt, but the plane had taken a few hits. We’d been told to sit tight and wait for rescue. They knew our position, so Eric, Kim, Jess, Darren and Mandy had spent the last few days fortifying us. I saw what that meant when I got outside and breathed fresh air. The tent was surrounded by a small log wall on three sides, and covered with camouflage in the form of branches and leaves. There was a fire pit, and the clearing we were in also had many other small log barricades and shelters. There was lots of cover available if we needed it.
January 28
After a solid day of waiting, they found us. Our first indication was when Kim came back to camp and told us there was a group of about fifteen raiders half a kilometer away and moving in our general direction. She spotted them when she was out scouting, and came back to warn us. She thought she might have been spotted, but wasn’t pursued as far as she could tell. Immediately Eric began directing defences and assigning us to positions. I was still weak, though a lot better, and my leg wasn’t burning anymore. I found myself behind two fallen trees, along with Mandy, a C7, my Browning, and a bottle with gas and a rag in it. Mandy had a shotgun and a Browning as well. Darren and Eric went west to set up at a position nearby, Kim went east, and Jess took her sniper rifle and went up behind us into the brush along a hillside. I couldn’t see her at all, and I guess that was the idea. She stopped on her way out to kiss me. Eric told us radio silence was essential, we were trying to avoid contact if at all possible, and only to shoot if they discovered us. We were pretty well hidden, though the campsite was very evident if anyone happened to stumble into it.
And so we waited. I had a chance to quietly reassure Mandy that we should be alright. We had heard from Captain Tepper earlier this morning, indicating he and his unit were about ten kilometers from us to the west, and should be at our position soon. Another unit had encountered the main group of raiders, and after a short firefight had captured most of them. The raiders had caved like a house of cards once real soldiers had surrounded them.
Fifteen minutes later we heard them coming through the trees, making enough noise to (forgive the pun) wake the dead. By our standards, anyway. They were walking in a line, about fifty meters away when I spotted them, coming towards us at about a thirty degree angle. They were a mixture of older and younger men, all armed with rifles or shotguns, most in the civilian version of winter camouflage. I spotted smoke from a few cigarettes (what a precious commodity that must have been!) and heard quiet talking as they got closer. A young man on one end spotted our campsite suddenly, and said, “Hey, over here,” to his companions. They all turned and started walki
ng into the clearing, looking around at all our tracks and the stumps we’d used as seats, and the tent, which we’d left as a distraction.
Eric called out to them and said: “This is Corporal Eric Craig of the Canadian Armed Forces! You are surrounded! Drop your weapons and surrender immediately!”
They scattered, dove for cover, or opened fire. Several of them nearly shot each other. They were a totally undisciplined bunch of idiots, but they had guns and were dangerous. Mandy and I ducked as they shot the first volley towards where they suspected Eric was, and then we rose up and opened fire ourselves. I leaned over the tree trunk with my C7, and picked a target. Three rounds into his chest and he keeled over, blood flecking the snow and branches. I heard distant sniper shots, and two men dropped in four seconds, both with bullets through the skull. Thank you Jess! Darren and Eric opened up from cover as well, and Kim from about twenty meters to my right. Four more of them went down. The survivors of the initial few seconds were the ones who had immediately taken cover, or the ones who ran as soon as Eric started yelling. Two of the ones in cover shot at Mandy and I, and we were forced to duck and hope none of them could shoot through the trees we were hiding behind. I heard screams, yelling, curses, and rifle shots. After a second I rolled over to my left a few feet, got up on my knees, and shot a few rounds at the trio I could see behind some brush at the far side of the camp. There was a shriek, so I probably hit one of them. Mandy fired the shotgun at them too, and dove back into cover as soon as she had. I waved at her to move over a few feet now, and I rolled again, back towards her. I heard Jess’ rifle again, and somewhere I couldn’t see something made a splat sound, followed by a falling body. God, she’s a great shot!