This Shattered Land - 02

by James Cook

  We stayed up long enough for darkness to fall before turning in for the night. The warmth of the day faded quickly in the sun’s absence, and the air soon grew damp and cold. I grabbed a spare wool blanket out of my pack to fend off the chill while I slept, and took a room on the second floor at the end of the hall. Eric claimed a room across from me next door to Brian. When I checked in on him before turning in for the night, he had pulled up a chair next to a window overlooking the front parking lot, his right hand resting comfortably on his assault rifle.

  “You good to go, bud?” I asked, leaning on one hand against the doorframe.

  He looked over and nodded. “Yep. I’m good. Get some sleep, man. Long day ahead tomorrow.”

  I hesitated a moment before leaving. “You know, if you want to talk about what happened with the bear today…”

  Eric laughed. “I’ll be alright, Gabe. I was a little bummed out earlier, but I’ll get over it. Speaking of, is there anything you would like to talk about?”

  His smile faded as he spoke, and his expression darkened a fraction into a knowing stare. Despite the fact that I stand a head taller than my friend, and outweigh him by over sixty pounds, I found myself shifting uncomfortably under that damned calculating gaze.

  “Don’t know what you mean.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Mmm-hmm. Right.”

  “Well, I’ll see you in the morning.” I said.

  Eric smirked at me and waved a mock salute. I scowled as I turned away and stalked back to my room.

  The sheets on my bed were crisp and cool, and they smelled like sunshine and a warm breeze. Or maybe it was just the detergent Sarah washed them in. Either way, it was nice. As usual, I only took off my boots and my weapons. Sleeping in my clothes would allow me to get up and be ready to move out quickly if need be. My Falcata and pistol rested on a table within arm’s reach, just in case. I laid down on the comfortable bed and stared at my sword under the dim moonlight filtering in through the window. I could lose all my other possessions, but as long as I had a good blade and the means to make fire, I could survive just about anything.

  I closed my eyes and let weariness take over. Alone in the dark, I kept seeing Sarah’s face. Those beautiful eyes, and the little dimples in her cheeks when she smiled. I kept telling myself that no good could come of such thoughts, but they came on anyway. It was with a heavy heart and a worried mind that I drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 10

  Hog Teeth

  The second day of the trip started out much easier for me than the first. All I had to do was drive slowly and make sure that I didn’t throw Tom and Gabriel off the trailer. On the longer, straighter stretches of road, I could go pretty close to twenty miles an hour so long as I dodged the innumerable potholes that dotted the empty highway threatening to destroy my tires at any given moment. That being said, the straight stretches of road were few and far between. Most of the roads to Tennessee wound and snaked over hills and valleys in meandering, unpredictable lines. We lost a good deal of time at one point when we were forced to stop at the crumbling edge of what had once been a bridge over a broad, swift flowing tributary. Gabe and I stood for a few moments looking down into the muddy brown water as if we could bring the bridge back by staring at it long enough.

  “Well, looks like we have to find another way around.” Gabe said, shading his eyes with one hand and squinting at the other side of the empty span.

  I snorted. “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”

  Gabe shot me a glare, then turned on his heel and walked back to the Honda. I spit over the edge and cursed my shitty luck. An hour later, we finally got back on track and continued east following back roads that paralleled Interstate 40. During the Outbreak, a massive flood of people fleeing the hordes of ravenous undead choked every major interstate highway that ran across the entire breadth of the eastern seaboard.

  Gabe and I had ventured out to survey the highway that first winter afterward, and discovered a long, snaking wasteland of walkers, crashed vehicles, dead bodies, and flaming destruction. We saw signs of fighting not just between the living and the undead, but amongst the survivors who were trying to flee. Back then, there were enough panicked, desperate people still running around to cause problems for us if they ever found our cabin, so we decided to stay away from major highways whenever possible. Anyone who survived that first winter had left the interstate behind a long time ago, but large hordes of ghouls still roamed among the wreckage. As much as I would have liked to use it, I-40 belonged to the dead. Besides, Gabe’s plan for reaching Colorado involved following railways rather than roads once we ran out of fuel for the MUV.

  That night we made camp in the barn next to a farmhouse surrounded on all sides by broad fields covered in waist high grass. It was nestled in the hollow of a small valley with a clear stream cutting through the center. We spotted it from the crest of a hill and decided it was as good a place as any to stop for the evening. I parked the Honda in a small roadside clearing a quarter-mile away from the gravel driveway before getting out to stretch my legs. Brian poured everyone a cup of water, and we spent a few minutes figuring out how best to make our approach to the farm. Tom argued with Sarah that he should be the one to go with Gabriel and me, and that she should stay behind with Brian.

  “Tom, I want you to listen to me very carefully.” Sarah said, standing close to her husband and staring him in the eye. “I am not some helpless little girl. I’m not stupid, I’m not weak, and I don’t want you constantly putting yourself in harm’s way because of all the misguided macho bullshit that you’ve been spoon-fed your whole life. I can shoot, I can fight, and I know how to defend myself. This is not Hollywood. I’m not going to run screaming at the first sign of danger, or trip over invisible branches and crawl on my knees like in a horror movie. I’m going to do what I’ve been trained to do. I will keep my eyes open, my gun up, and my head on a swivel. Okay?”

  Tom sighed and shook his head. “Babe, you know it’s not like that. I just…” He trailed off, holding his palms up in a helpless gesture.

  Sarah’s expression softened. “I know, honey, I know. If it makes you feel better, we can take turns trying to get ourselves killed.”

  Tom broke a smile. “Alright, fair enough. I’ll stay here with the kid this time.”

  Brian sat up straight and leaned forward in his seat, one hand curled around the roll bar.

  “Actually, I could-”

  “NO!” His parents barked in unison.

  Brian frowned, and slumped back into his seat. I turned away to hide a grin.

  “We ready to go?” Gabe rumbled, adjusting his ghillie suit. He looked like a walking mountain of vegetation.

  “Just a second.” Sarah said.

  She took Tom’s face in both hands and planted a firm kiss on his lips, and then another one for good measure. I watched Gabe out of the corner of my eye to gauge his reaction. He clenched his jaw and turned away, his gray eyes smoldering and icy all at once.

  Not good.

  Gabe grabbed the M110 out of the trailer, and pointed out where he would take position on a hillside overlooking the house and the nearby barn. Sarah and I planned to fan out and approach the house through the field using the tall grass for concealment. We checked our weapons one last time to make sure we had rounds chambered and safeties off, and started toward the farm. Gabe took a few steps into the tree line on the hillside and then promptly vanished from view. No matter how many times I saw him do that, it always gave me the creeps. No one should be able to just disappear like that, especially somebody as big as him.

  The batteries on our radios were dead, so making a coordinated approach was going to be difficult. Sarah quickly moved out of view to my right as we crept through the overgrown field. I felt an irrational urge to poke my head up and search for her, but I firmly shut down that idea. The last thing I needed to do was get my head shot off by some paranoid farmer with a hunting rifle. It was bad enough that we were approaching with weapons at the
ready; anyone who saw us coming was likely to get the wrong idea about our intentions. If I saw a bunch of gun-toting strangers sneaking up on my house, I definitely wouldn’t greet them with a howdy-neighbor smile and a muffin basket. I wondered how we would convince anyone we found there that we were not out to hurt them. We just wanted to get some rest, put some food in our bellies, and then be on our way tomorrow morning.

  I held my rifle steady just below my line of sight as I walked in a low crouch. The grass began to grow shorter as the top half of the farmhouse grew larger and closer. I had to belly crawl the last hundred or so yards to where the driveway stopped in a wide D-shaped loop in front of the porch. I lay still for a moment to listen, and heard only the steady, ocean-like rustle of wind blowing over the tall fields. The house itself looked like it had seen better days. The porch steps sagged, the roof was missing patches of shingles, and about half of the faded white paint on the siding had fallen off to expose rotten wood beneath. In spite of the stirring, rustling wind there was a kind of silence that hovered over the house. The silence of a place that was once a part of people’s lives, but now stood alone and forgotten, heavy with the weight of time and neglect.

  I looked around trying to catch sight of Sarah, but I couldn’t see her through all the damned weeds. That was both a good thing, and a bad thing. If I could not see her, then it was unlikely that anyone in the house could see her either. The bad part was that I had no idea where she was, or how quickly she could be there to back me up if I needed her. She was most likely hanging back watching me, and if worst came to worst, Gabriel was a demon with that semi-automatic sniper rifle of his. He’d had plenty of time to set himself up in a hide, and was undoubtedly at that very moment watching the house through a high-powered scope. My tactical situation was not going to improve, and nightfall was fast on its way. Decision time. I weighed my options and decided to go ahead and approach on my own. I crawled backward into the high brush and slowly worked my way around the side of the house. My red-dot sight did not have very much magnification power, but it was enough to see that no one was watching me through the windows. I got to my feet and sprinted to the wall.

  Keeping my shoulder close to the siding, I raised my rifle and crept toward the back yard. The only windows on this side were on the second floor, so I didn’t have to worry about being seen from ground level. When I reached the end of the wall, I pied out the corner until I was certain that no one was waiting for me on the other side with bad intentions. That done, I swept the back yard and quietly moved toward the back door. The door was shut, and blinds over the window kept me from seeing inside. I tried the door handle. Unlocked. Hot damn.

  I turned the handle and cringed when the hinges squeaked as I opened the door. Just then, I head the soft rustle of a booted foot stepping on grass and whipped around with my rifle. Sarah waved to me from the same corner I had just rounded. I took my finger off the trigger and motioned her forward. We stacked up on the same side of the door, and I used a few simple hand signals to explain how we would handle the entry. I pointed to myself, and then to the left side of the doorway. Then I pointed at Sarah, and the right side of the doorway. She nodded, and took a deep breath. Her hands tightened on her M-6 as she adjusted the stock against her shoulder. I held up three fingers and shook my hand a couple of times. Sarah nodded again. I counted down.

  Three fingers, then two, and on one we moved. I stepped quickly through the door and swept left, keeping my rifle pointed in the same direction as my eyes. With my peripheral vision, I saw Sarah do the same to the right. The room we walked into was a shabby kitchen with a cracked linoleum floor and cabinet doors standing wide open to expose empty shelves. A thick layer of dust covered everything in sight, indicating that no one had been in the kitchen in a long time. That was a good sign. Sarah ran a finger through the dust on a countertop and held it up for me to see as she shot me a meaningful stare. I nodded and gave her a thumbs-up. An open doorway led to the next room. This one was a living room with moth-eaten furniture and a flat screen TV. The television sat atop a modern metal and glass table that looked out of place next to the yellow sofa, brown loveseat, and an old recliner that was roughly the same color as a bowl of pea soup. The smell emanating from the shag carpet under my boots was faint, but still carried the sickening reek of death.

  I cast a glance around the room, and saw splatters of dried brown crust splashed on the walls, furniture, and floors. The remains of a skeleton lay in a broken pile of blood-crusted clothing and bones in a corner near the front door. Sarah saw it as well and turned to look at me, her expression grim. I pointed a finger up the stairs, and then placed it over my lips in a hushing gesture. I mouthed, “I got point.” and moved toward the staircase. Sarah fell in behind me, watching our six. I grimaced as I looked up the stairs, dreading what the next few seconds might bring. Going up a staircase is one of the worst things you can do in a situation where people might be shooting at you. The best way to handle it is to move quickly, and be prepared to make a split-second decision whether or not to pull the trigger.

  The stairs creaked and groaned as we made our way up, but there was nothing for it, so we kept moving. I rounded the corner on the second floor landing and took a few steps forward before turning to my right and taking a knee. Sarah fell into place beside me with her weapon pointing down the narrow hallway in front of us. Two closed doors waited on the right and three on the left, one of them only a couple of feet in front of me. I forked a two-fingered gesture at my eyes, pointed at Sarah, and then pointed at the other end of the hall. She nodded and took a couple of steps forward to give me some space. I got to my feet and tried the handle on the nearest door. It was unlocked. I pushed the door open quickly and stepped into the room, leading with my gun. Nothing leapt out at me. The room was as dusty as the rest of the house, so I figured no one had been in there in a while. Neutral colors on the walls, a simple chest of drawers, single bed, and a small bedside table. No pictures on the walls, no decorations, no posters, nothing. Must have been a guest room. Sarah was still watching the hallway when I stepped back out. When she glanced over, I gave her a thumbs-up to indicate that the room was clear and motioned for her to advance.

  The next room was another bedroom, and judging by the rock band posters, the bikini clad models on a wall calendar, and the TV equipped with a video game console in the corner, I figured it must have once belonged to a teenage boy. There was no sign of anyone having been there in months, maybe years. Sarah opened the door on the other side of the hallway to reveal a laundry room. A basket of neatly folded clothing sat on top of the dryer, also covered in dust. Two more to go. I tried to turn the handle to the last door on the right, but it didn’t budge. Sarah reached over and tried the last one on the left with no better luck. I stepped close to her and leaned in to whisper.

  “We take each room together. I’ll kick in the door, you break to whatever side is open, I back you up. Finger off the trigger until you see a threat. Understood?”

  Sarah nodded. She looked neither nervous nor anxious. Just focused. I gave her a soft pat on the shoulder then moved into position in front of the door. Sarah stacked up to my right, rifle up and ready to move. I took a couple of deep breaths, checked my footing, and then lifted my heel and drove it down and forward into the door handle with as much force as I could muster. The jamb splintered apart and the door flew inward to bash against the wall behind it. The noise was like a cold glass of water to the face in the silent hallway. By the time I recovered my balance and got both feet back on the ground, Sarah was already on the move. She paused for a fraction of a second in the doorway, and then broke right. I came in after her and moved left. A queen-sized bed took up the center of the room, flanked by two low tables, a dresser, and an open closet on the left. A desiccated corpse lay on one side of the mattress. I took a few steps closer to see if it was still a threat.

  The clothes hanging from its wasted flesh looked like the kind of thing a middle-aged farmer would wear. Re
d plaid button down shirt, jeans, and white cotton socks. A pair of well-worn steel toe boots sat neatly arranged at the foot of the bed. A wide black stain of old body fluids ringed the corpse. Judging by the lack of strong odor, this person had been dead for a long time. On closer inspection, I noticed that there were a couple of holes in the skull beneath leathery shreds of rotten flesh. One was a small entry wound, accompanied on the other side by a larger exit hole. A nickel-plated revolver lay on the mattress only inches away from one of the dead man’s skeletal hands.

  “This one’s done.” I said. “Let’s check that last room.”

  Sarah had already turned back to watch the other door while I checked the corpse.

  “Waiting on you.” She said.

  We repeated the same set up as before. The right side of the door was too close to the wall where the hallway terminated, so Sarah had to stack up on the left this time. Just as I was about to raise my foot, a moan sounded from inside the room and the door shuddered under a sudden onslaught. I motioned for Sarah to back off a few steps, aimed high on the door, and stitched four shots down the center a few inches apart. The suppressor on the end of the barrel muffled the reports to a series of dull cracks. The first three found nothing but wood and empty air, but the last one hit something on the other side. I heard a thump, a rasping slide that moved down the door, and then a rapid series of louder thumps. Sarah broke a smile.