Mad Swine (Book 2): Dead Winter (3 page)

Providence did not immediately concede defeat. In one last effort to take what was ours, Providence attacked at first light. They drove a semi tractor-trailer through our front gate, the weak point of our perimeter. Although the driver died under a barrage of small arms fire shortly after breaching our gate, he succeeded in delivering his payload: several squads of raiders. The men and women of Providence exited the trailer with semi-automatic weapons and Molotov’s. We were unprepared for such an attack, but we were well trained and were able to react, and quickly mounted our own counterattack.

With the fate of Bob and Brian unknown, I was down two experienced leaders. I managed to form up a group of forty men and women and created a perimeter defense. I ordered them to keep the invaders pinned down and authorized the use of as much ammunition as it took to accomplish that mission. In the meantime, I formed up another squad with the intention of flanking the enemy and finishing them off, but Kat requested command of the group. Reluctantly I agreed; another decision that would haunt me whenever I reminisced about the past.

Kat took her makeshift squad of men and woman and led a flanking counterattack that succeeded in pushing back the enemy and eventually killing them down to the last man. In the end, Wesley became an orphan when both Ron and Anna were killed while attacking as part of Kat’s assault team. Kat survived the attack but suffered a severe facial injury. The horrible zigzagging scar she was left with would forever remind me of both the horror and the heroics I witnessed on the battlefield that day.

In the morning, when the sun came up, I watched from my deck as three men approached from across the field under the guise of a white flag. I came forward alone to meet them, not wanting any more of my brothers and sisters to shed blood on our grounds. Frank Senior, Phil, and a man I didn’t know huddled around me. We spoke for several minutes and I learned that Frank Junior, Senior’s son, had been killed during the counterattack. Senior requested that he be allowed to retrieve his son’s body so that he could give him a proper burial.

We did not agree on a peace treaty that would unite our people, nor did we discuss the ethics or morals of our actions. We both simply agreed to a ceasefire to allow each side to claim their wounded and dead. But the gesture behind the ceasefire was not lost on both sides and the Providence-Randall Oaks War ended.

There was a close call two weeks later when tensions mounted and we feared the fires of war would be fanned and ignited. A Providence patrol came too close to our walls and ran into one of our patrols out looking for food. Both patrols were surprised by each other’s appearance and a few shots were exchanged on both sides and each side ended up retreating.

Although I increased interior security upon hearing the after action report, I ordered a strict no-fire policy among the men. No one was to fire a shot unless they had permission from me or Kat. I didn’t want nerves and a hair trigger to be responsible for starting the war again. Nothing became of that encounter and I suspected that Frank Senior gave the incident the benefit of the doubt, as did I, and let it go. We all breathed a sigh of relief and I called off the increased security after the second day.

In November, the Providence roadblocks fell, completely overrun by the crazies. Providence had pulled all of its defenses from exterior roads and outer boundaries and concentrated them further within the community. They burned most of the houses around the vast circumference of their grounds in an effort to create some sort of barrier. At times we could hear the sounds of trucks and tractors and bull-dozers on the cool November wind. I had no idea what they were actually doing there, but I suspected they were digging trenches and blocking main thoroughfares to keep the damned creatures out.

Without the road blocks, our communities were even further divided. By December, the war with Providence was a distant memory and the constant threat from our neighbors was no longer on our minds. With the crazies freely walking the roads, we all had our hands full with new enemies.

Now, on this cold January morning, I shook my head at those bad memories. Kicking up plumes of fine snow with my boots and the vapor of each breath materializing like ghosts, I approached the main gate and watched as Lara Logan emerged from the driver’s side of Alan’s UPS truck. The rear end of the brown vehicle was butted up against our main gate, reinforcing the metal structure that had been smashed in during Providence’s last counter-attack, and closing the gaps that once granted easy access for prying arms and hands to snake hold of our residents.

Although the outer shell of the UPS truck bore scorch marks from fire bombs and the roof was dented about seven inches from a large stone that had been delivered over the wall via slingshot, the truck made an excellent outpost for those on guard duty in this frigid weather. Without fuel they could not start the vehicle and turn on the heater, however, they’d hung quilts and blankets along the interior walls and piled sofa cushions on the bare metal floor, which did a wonderful job of blocking out much of the stinging wind. Besides, the seats were comfortable enough after a long patrol around the community.

Lara carried over her shoulder a Mosin Nagant M44 carbine, one of the few long guns for which we had sufficient surplus ammunition after the war. The Mosin sported a wicked spiked bayonet and with all the wood and steel, the Russian- made carbine was hefty enough to be used as an impact weapon.

Lara’s usually blazing red hair was presently hidden beneath a black wool cap which sported goofy ear flaps. Around her neck she wore a frayed red and black checked scarf that covered the lower half of her sweet freckled face up to the nose. To protect her from the cold—as well as nails and teeth of the things outside the walls—she wore a thick woodland military style jacket and black jeans tucked into a pair of black combat boots. Although petite and cute as a button, Lara exuded a
take-no-shit
attitude, which made her an excellent choice as Kat’s second-in-command.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked, one red eyebrow raised questioningly as we exchanged a quick embrace.

“Is everything okay out here?” I asked.

She pulled the scarf down away from her mouth with one gloved hand and I saw that she was smiling at me. She was very pretty when she smiled.

“Well, boss, I didn’t know you cared so much. It’s a long walk in the cold snow just see if I’m okay.”

“I care about you all,” I said, uncomfortably. My wife had always said I was no good with small talk. I was even worse when it came to flirting…if that’s even what I was doing, I just wasn’t sure.

Sensing my discomfort, Lara’s smile stretched further across her face. “We’re good on the line. I just got back from perimeter patrol and everyone is where they should be.”

“All’s quiet?”

“Except for those damn things out there,” Lara said. Her mouth puckered and her nose wrinkled to show her disgust. “I liked it better when they slept through the night. Now we have to listen to their damn moaning and slobbering 24/7.”

Now that she mentioned it, I suddenly became aware of the crazies outside our walls. I had no idea why they moaned or made other noises. It definitely wasn’t a form of communication; they showed no signs of intelligence—only pure animal instinct to eat to survive.

For the first few weeks after the infection started, the creatures slept through the night, allowing us to be somewhat free to go outside the walls unscathed, provided we kept our noise to a minimum. Apparently, their sleep acted as some sort of hibernation period during the early stages of the infection, allowing their bodies the necessary time for their internal system to mutate and for the disease to take full control. I assumed that it was during this period of sleep that their wounds also healed and tissue regenerated. That period lasted for two or three weeks and now the creatures only seemed to need sleep when they became severely injured. Now, they walked the night and it was no longer safe for us to venture out after dark.

“Maybe some ear plugs might help,” I said jokingly. When she didn’t laugh, I asked, “Hey, you want some coffee?”

Now Lara smirked and asked, “Did you make it?”

“Yep.”

“Pass.”

She shifted the Mosin to her left shoulder and looked up at the sky. Fluffy flakes fell dizzyingly slow from the sky, melting upon impact with our clothing. Her freckled face showed her concern.

“The weather got you worried?” I asked.

She didn’t answer right away. At last she said, “It looks like we’re going to see a lot of snow soon. These little flakes are already accumulating. And with this wind, that means drifts.”

I nodded, fully understanding her concern. Snow drifts against our east wall had gotten as high as three feet at times, just enough height to allow the inhuman creatures to climb our walls and enter our safe zones. Three weeks ago, when the snow fell at its hardest, Lara had killed two of them who were wandering in Harper’s Knoll cemetery. She’d been alone at the gate when she saw them. She’d engaged them with only two shots and felled both of them. It was a horrifying experience for her, although she would not admit that to anyone.

I know she worried about having to do that again.

“I’ll ask Ray for a weather report. If the snow doesn’t quit we’ll ask Sanchez from grounds to have some of his guys keep a watch on the walls and clear away any drifts that get over a foot.”

“They won’t be happy about that,” Lara said, looking away from the snow for just a moment. “They don’t want to go out there any more than the rest of us.”

“You’ll be there to cover them, right?”

“Yes,” she said, but her face still told me she was worried.

“Then they’ll have nothing to worry about.”

The frown that creased her forehead told me my words were no comfort to her. Like any good leader, she was afraid she’d do something that would jeopardize those under her command. She was afraid at some point her good judgment and sound tactical mind would fail her at the penultimate moment.

Knowing I could say nothing further to assuage her fears, I said, “I have to get over to the CP for debrief. If anything comes up, you come find me, okay?”

She turned to me now and smiled, her face immediately shining brightly. Unconsciously, she cocked a hip to the side, making me take notice of her figure. “Sure, boss. No worries. And maybe one day you’ll have me over so I can show you how to make real coffee that doesn’t taste like yak bile.”

I laughed. “I might take you up on that,” I said, taking note of her reaction. That little spark in her eyes confirmed what I already knew; there could be something between us if I allowed it happen. She was pretty, no doubt, and I was attracted to her, but the fact was that I just wasn’t ready for a relationship. It had been only three months since my wife passed. It just seemed too soon, like I was betraying my wife, like our ten years of marriage meant nothing.

Swinging the axe up onto my shoulder, I turned away from Lara and made my way toward the CP.

“Be safe,” Lara called out.

I stopped and gave her a wave, then took a direct route through Harper’s Knoll, where our fallen residents were laid to rest. With snow crunching beneath the heels of my boots, I passed the section of the knoll where Charlie Pruett was buried. Charlie had been the first buried at Harper’s Knoll—our first casualty after the world started to change. His once lonely grave no longer stood solitary. All of the men who’d accompanied me and Charlie on our supply run now rested beside their brother-in-arms.

Shortly after Iggy attacked Darla at Charlie’s funeral and was gunned down by Brian, the rest of the men started to show signs of infection. I had been weak then, and Brian personally put down each man, doing what I could not. I was quarantined for seventy-two hours, until they were sure I wouldn’t turn like the rest of them. Eventually, Ravi concluded that I must be immune to Mad Swine, although that was just speculation on her part.

We were lucky, though. Somehow the disease was contained before it could spread further. Sixteen were dead and from that point forward we were careful about our contact with the infected. These were lessons learned too late for the sixteen, though.

When this apocalypse began, there were one hundred and eight souls in Randall Oaks. We returned from Kappy’s with three refugees, bringing our number to one-hundred-eleven. Only three months later, thirty-one of us remained. Our war with Providence lasted three weeks. We lost thirteen men and women to sniper fire, five men died during the mission to burn down the sniper’s nest and another twenty-two men and women were killed in action during Providence’s final attack. In the two months following the war another eighteen died at the hands of the infected during duties outside the walls.

The number of our dead was staggering. Each time I thought about the number of brave men and women who died I felt numb, dumbfounded. In Afghanistan, during two tours of duty I’d only lost six men under my command. No matter how much I tried I could not wrap my mind around how many were lost in so little time.

Stopping at one of the graves, I bent low and brushed a thin layer of snow away from the marker to reveal the name of the departed:
Robert Brown. Beloved Husband and Father. Brave Soldier.

“I miss you, Bob,” I said.