Harvest of Ruin (Book 3): A Spring of Sorrow

by Mongelli, Arthur

  “Tim, where the fuck are you going?” Laura screamed from the rear seat, where she sat tending to Christine and the kids. “We need to get her somewhere fast. She is in fucking labor and we are on a tight timeline to get somewhere she can deliver this kid safely!”

  Tim paused in the doorway for a moment. His head was starting to throb from the impact. After a moment, he exited the vehicle without a word.

  “Damage?” Tim asked as he came around the door, closing it behind him.

  “Not bad, radiator fan seems to be running fine, doesn't seem like there is any damage there. Headlight is fucked though-” Will started.

  “Our good one that is. No more traveling at night unless we get a replacement light or swap out to a different vehicle,” Jen replied. “Which might not be such a bad idea considering the conditions we've been traveling in. Also, the trailer hitch snapped when we hit. Gonna have to offload some supplies and ditch it here.”

  “Fuck,” Tim hissed.

  Tim started feeling hopeless and claustrophobic as the reality of the situation set in. They now not only had to find a safe place for Chris to be comfortable and deliver the baby, but they also needed to find a spot they would be safe come nightfall. In short order they would have a screaming, crying, fussing, shitting little thing bringing the undead from all corners upon them. Christine would probably be unable to travel for a day or two at the very least after delivery. More, if there was bad tearing and they couldn't get her sewn up. What happens if she dies in giving birth? His mind nagged at him. What then?

  Will could see the terror start to creep onto Tim's face, he knew where the man's mind was going and had similar concerns. He cared for Tim, his wife and Christine, Luna and Sophie as well. But he knew that at any moment if shit went south that Jen would be his primary, and only concern. The rest of the group would have to fend for themselves. It wasn't out of cruelty or callousness, it was just the reality that they were all trapped in. All one could do was worry about themselves and their loved ones, if someone didn't fit into either of those categories, they were on their own. He couldn't imagine what it must feel like for Tim and Laura, who were trapped with two kids, and for Christine who was about to have her first.

  “Get the water bottles, Tim,” Will directed, knowing that the man needed a task to break his head clear of the pressures of the situation.

  Tim looked at him confused for a second, as if not understanding the words, then nodded and moved around the side of the vehicle. A minute later he came back with two bottles, a sports squeeze bottle and a Nalgene. He immediately started hosing the windshield off with the squeeze bottle, refilling it from the Nalgene once it was emptied. Will watched him for a moment, and realizing that he had pulled it back together, he climbed into the driver’s seat. He figured since he was less invested in the happenings in the back of the SUV, that he'd be the more reliable driver.

  Tim, exhausted from the stress and long night of driving settled himself in the back of the SUV. He did his best to keep the kids occupied so Laura could devote all her attention to the laboring girl. Will got the vehicle moving again while the incessant moans from Christine punctuated the gusts of wind blowing through the shattered windows. The windshield, though cleaned of the fresh blood and gore, was still a mess. The shattered glass combined with some stubborn blood and clots of hair embedded in it, made visibility continue to be a struggle.

  The miles flew past throughout the course of the day, Will pushed the Yukon as fast as he was comfortable with on the hilly, unfamiliar terrain. The undead staggered across the fields intermittently, always drifting towards the vehicle once they noticed it. The road they were traveling on, Roger Canyon rd., was extremely rural, offering nothing other than an occasional farmhouse to interrupt the endless grassland. Most of those farmhouses looked to have been abandoned sometime in the early part of the twentieth century.

  As the afternoon lengthened into the early evening, Christine's continuous moans and the need to find somewhere to settle in before dark weighed heavily on them all, even on the normally aloof Will. The sun was halfway down on the horizon when a hand painted road-sign appeared offering the Last gas before Laramie. Will knew of Laramie from the maps, it was a city, as far as that goes in Wyoming, at least. He accelerated beyond his comfort, eager to find somewhere safer than the side of the road to spend the night with a screaming pregnant woman. Within ten minutes the rolling plains around them transformed into housing blocks on both sides of the road.

  The tension began to mount as the sky dimmed and the city unfurled before them. None of them knew the way Will did that the city meant there would be a great many undead. About ten blocks in to the outskirts of Laramie, Will could hear Jen shout something that sounded like an unintelligible bunch of syllables.

  “Safeway, groceries. Pharmacy!” She repeated excitedly.

  *

  An hour later, Mark was dressed and waiting nervously at the south end of camp. He did his best to look confident and comfortable among the other men who were gathered to depart, but his heart was racing and his hands quivered. He had spent most of the previous hour arguing with Amber about the need to contribute. Mark wasn't sure what “renegotiating the terms” of their arrangement meant, but the few things that popped in his head made him shudder in fear, for himself as well as for Amber. He knew that he couldn't discuss those things with her though. If he expressed his fears, or even his honest mistrust of Grayson, she would insist they leave the group. As terrible as things were going for his ego in camp, he knew they were safer here than they would be out in the open, unprotected. The earlier conversation with Grayson lent a measure of uncertainty now, knowing that their continued safety was hinged entirely upon his good graces. The whole scenario was too much for him to fully process and he shifted it from his consciousness as the troop of armed men started off on foot towards the south.

  The morning went fairly smoothly. After the first encounter with the undead, Mark folded himself into the middle of the pack, relying on the other men to handle things. They encountered a handful of undead, in pairs or alone, which were dispatched without incident. It was early afternoon when they arrived on the hill beyond which lay the fortified gate of the base. Three Humvees parked end to end sat blocking the front of the guardhouses. Their roof-mounted weapons were trained outwards and were manned. Around the rest of the small base ran chain-link fencing, topped with barbed wire. Grayson stopped the group just as they came within sight of the manned fortifications at the front entrance of the base.

  “Gentlemen, relax your weapons,” he met eyes with every man in the group. “We are not here as conquerors, rather, we come as diplomats. We don't want to give them an excuse to open fire on us.”

  The men nodded and slung their weapons on their shoulders or replaced pistols in their holsters. As they descended from the hilltop down to the gate, they spotted a heap of bodies piled many feet high, off to the left side of the compound. The mass of bodies was smoldering from a recent burning. Mark could only hope that they were the bodies of infected. Fear lit in his heart at the idea they might not be, as the troop of men moved closer. An air raid siren cut the silence, coming from the guard tower. Grayson, at the head of the procession froze, followed by his men. He lifted his weapon aloft with both hands as if in surrender as they moved closer to the barricade.

  “Halt! That's far enough,” boomed a voice from a megaphone.

  The guards atop the tower were wearing gas masks under their helmets, a small detail that made Grayson smile, despite the scenario. The masks to him were a sign that these soldiers were still scared and green. They probably hadn't been outside the base since the beginning and had no idea how the undead operated. Grayson held a hand out to Mark and the others for them to hold position. He bent cautiously low and lay his weapon on the ground before moving forwards, approaching the towers slowly with his hands still raised.

  “United States Senator Marion Grayson, reporting for duty,” he called out as he caught th
e attention of the man with the megaphone.

  The man hesitated before calling back through the megaphone.

  “Bring your credentials forward.”

  “They are in my coat,” Grayson responded without moving his hands even remotely in the direction of his coat.

  “Approach the gate. Alone,” came the booming voice back through the megaphone.

  Mark watched anxiously as Grayson approached the tower. He watched with rapt tension as Grayson slowly pulled his coat open by the collar, exposing his lack of a concealed weapon. Grayson methodically waited for a moment before slowly reaching, snaking two fingers into the inside coat pocket. He slowly produced a bright red, large leather folio. He spun the document case around and handed it to the soldier. The soldier flipped the cover open and started examining the papers inside. After a moments examination, some words were exchanged and the soldier moved back into the compound with the folio, on what Mark assumed was an errand to present them to an officer.

  Mark watched Grayson, taking some satisfaction as the man stood with weapons trained on him. Though, for what it mattered, Grayson seemed unfazed by the weapons. Mark, not for the first time, wondered if Grayson's claim of being a Senator was as fake as his southern accent. After nearly five minutes of tense waiting among the bristling men, a neatly dressed officer approached the gate, accompanied by the initial soldier, carrying the red folio. The officer invited Grayson inside the base, handing him back the red attaché.

  Close to an hour later, Grayson came strolling out of the guard tower as if he had not a care in the world. He flashed his winning smile to his men, not even casting a glance toward Mark.

  “Looks like this is gonna be our new home for the time being, ladies and gentlemen,” he said at last as he took a liter of water from one of the men.

  “Our rules?” A man named Silvio asked.

  “We can talk about that later,” Grayson responded sharply, hushing the other man. “For now, we go back to camp and get ready to move in tomorrow.”

  “Will the women be safe?” Mark blurted out, despite himself.

  Grayson paused, half-turned and met eyes with a greasy mustachioed man named Mike. Mark couldn't be sure, but the men seemed humored by his question.

  “Mark, Mark, Mark,” he said at last, issuing a long sigh. “If you don't trust that I have the best interest of All my people in mind, I'd suggest you hit the road when we get back to camp.”

  *

  Will could see that Jen was pointing out of the passenger side window, but couldn't immediately make out what she was seeing in the deepening gloom of evening. He cut down the next side street in the direction she was pointing and after cruising across six blocks of single story homes with fenced in back yards, the Safeway supermarket lay directly across from them. Will weaved the Yukon through eternally stalled traffic, across a major thoroughfare, and glided down the ramp into the parking lot of a suburban style grocery store. It was the kind of store Will had grown up around, rather than the tiny, packed shelves of the C-Town stores he had frequented in his last few years of living in New York.

  At Jen's request, Will parked the SUV out in the lot, about fifty feet from the front of the store. It was a plan she and Tim had followed on their excursions. If they got trapped inside by a mob, they wanted the vehicle to be well clear of the building. They figured that as long as they were able to escape the building they would be able to leave in the vehicle with little difficulty. If they parked in front of the main entrance, where they would spend less time out in the open, the undead could be crowded around and filtering past, making a smooth escape impossible without conflict.

  They broke out their flashlights and guns and everyone filtered out of the Yukon and moved rapidly across the open area and onto the wide sidewalk in front of the store. They were still about fifty feet from the entrance and had stopped out of sight of the store's windows to let their eyes adjust to the deeper gloom. The massive edifice blotted out the rest of the day's light, leaving a deeper shadow over them. The shadows in front of the building were just a shade or two darker than the charcoal of the rest of the sky, but it was enough to wreak havoc with their senses. Impenetrable gloom lurked everywhere.

  Tim and Jen, having unintentionally edged close to one another, stood at the head of the group. They were trying to size up the risk and reward of making it safely into the store as well as their odds of it being a safe place for the night. Both were comfortable in each other’s ability, it was the group of dependents they had in tow that had them nervous. On the supply runs they had always taken ample time to case out the house or shop that they planned on looting. They had always done so during the daytime and they never had others to protect. The children and more particularly, the moaning of belabored Christine were the wild-cards in the scenario. The sounds of moaning undead drifting to them from the distance behind them made both of them nervous about their chances. Though neither of them would ever admit to it, they both thought about the fastest way to end the incessant moans of agony that issued from Chris. Finally, the moment broke and both Tim and Jen spoke simultaneously.

  “We have to get out of the open,” Tim said.

  “Let's clear the office first,” Jen stated.

  Tim nodded, he had assumed the same. The office would be the most secure place in the store, with only one or two entrances which would undoubtedly have locks on the doors. Once they cleared the office, they could lock everyone in while he and Jen swept the rest of the store. Offices in these buildings were usually on the second floor, overlooking the registers for security reasons. It would just be a matter of finding the staircase. Another added benefit to occupying the offices would be that they would most likely be able to get to the roof if they needed an escape. They took a moment to formulate their plan while letting their eyes adjust to the deeper dark. The two were also getting their minds and nerves settled into the instinct and survival mode that they operated on their runs. The sounds of running feet behind them finally spurred them into motion.

  “Fuck,” Jen hissed.

  Tim cast a furtive glance back to see a number of shadowy forms moving at breakneck speed across the main road, into the parking lot. In unison, he and Jen started towards the store entrance, moving at the same pace. The rest of the group moved a few feet behind with Will taking up the rear guard. The nerve fraying tension mounted as the slapping of feet on the pavement grew louder. The numbers of the fast undead in pursuit seemed to grow with each passing moment. The fast undead lit panic in their hearts, their many feet slapping loudly on the pavement behind, drawing ever closer. The brisk jog the group moved at quickly increased into a full-out run as they raced to the main entrance of the store before the approaching footsteps reached them. What Tim and Jen had initially planned as being an organized entrance into the building and a military-style sweep, quickly degenerated into a mad dash through the front doors.

  The front sliding doors were already open about two inches. Tim, having arrived first, slid his hands in, and with the rush of fear-induced adrenaline, he was able to spread them apart easily. Jen charged through coming in a few strides behind Tim. She slammed face first into someone's chest a few feet inside the doors. Jen's terrible scream panicked Will, who started pushing Laura, Christine, and the kids from behind. He single-mindedly rushed to help the woman he loved. Laura panicked at the pressure from behind, thinking Will's shoving was due to the encroaching undead. She carried Luna in one arm and had her other arm around Christine's shoulders, assisting her to the building, while urging Sophie just a step ahead of her. She started screaming as well.

  A deadly moment of confusion happened as the rest of the group, running in terror from the fast undead shoved their way inside. The force of the impact of his panicked friends spun Tim around, causing him momentarily to lose his bearings. He regained his composure just in time to slam the sliding doors closed as the pursuing undead closed the gap from the curb to the doors. Flashlights spun about in panicked hands, giving a
strobe effect, and a gun went off as half a dozen fast undead slammed heavily and noisily into the safety glass, shuddering the doors. Dozens more of the undead piled in behind. Fists started beating on and shaking the heavy glass doors.

  After a brief, disorientating moment, everything started to unscramble. Laura screamed. The rest of the group followed her flashlight beam to a massive biker holding Jen in a bear hug as she struggled in his grip. Her slight form looked even smaller in the grip of such a massive man.

  *

  Grayson let his withering gaze linger on Mark long enough to see the man squirm, before turning and starting the troop of men back towards camp. Mark was left feeling extremely uneasy. Grayson's contempt for him wasn't even hidden under the guise of civility anymore. This left him examining his options. He figured he could try and win his way back into Grayson's good graces, but the only way he could see that happening was if he could somehow prove that he was a worthy man, and therefore could be trusted. The other option that presented itself was a nagging whisper that told him to get Amber and leave the group. He pushed the voice away, his fears prohibited it from being an option.

  It was in this line of reasoning that Mark realized one fact, something that he never noticed before, something that unnerved him. None of Grayson's men, his trustees, had women. He wasn't sure if that was happenstance or if by design. The way the men leered at Amber had always made him uncomfortable, now with the realization that none of them were family men, he started considering that there might be a very real threat brewing. His thoughts caused him to move slower, out of a subconscious desire to be away from them. He trailed at the tail of the procession back to camp, lost in thoughts of escape. He wanted nothing more than for he and Amber to be far away from this witch’s brew of hard men. He wanted to escape his own cowardice. The shame he felt in being unable to contribute in a meaningful way to his and Amber's safety was ruinous on his self-esteem. The fact that Grayson had pointed it out to him was mortifying.