This Shattered Land - 02 (7 page)

 The
only discipline that I really had anything to offer the former FBI agent was in
knife fighting. At that, much like anything else she endeavored, she proved to
be a quick study. I liked her sense of humor and her tough, gritty spirit. An
easy camaraderie formed quickly between the two of us. I’m sure that Tom
noticed our growing friendship, but he didn’t seem to mind. My dad used to tell
me that if you trust a woman, jealousy should never enter the picture. Tom
proved my father right by living that ideal. Any idiot with half a brain could
see that Sarah was fully devoted to her husband, and he to her.

Training
progressed into techniques to use against the undead, many of them I learned
through hard experience. If you have to grab them, take them by the throat. If
you can control the head, you can control the whole body. Never let them get close
enough to grab you if you can help it. If they do, trip them. Once you take
them down, they have a hard time getting back up. That gives you a chance to
put something sharp and pointy in their brain case, and end the fight. The
infected are impervious to pain, being that they are already dead, so
conventional fighting tactics are mostly useless against them. Never try to
take them down head on. Circle around to one side or the other and knock them
off balance, or plant something in their skull from an angle at which they
cannot reach you. Tripping them up with a long pole is usually pretty
effective, and if all else fails, a good old fashioned kick to the chest will
usually knock them down on their ass if you launch it hard enough.

Working
with Brian was a unique experience, to say the least. His parents insisted that
Gabe and I train him. They didn’t want parental sentiment to get in the way of
teaching him what he needed to learn. The boy was small for his age, but also
intelligent and courageous. He had his mother’s fiery spirit, and what he
lacked in physical ability, he more than made up for with aggression and sheer
determination. He learned to fire every gun that we handed him, and never
complained about recoil even when a gun would damn near knock him over. I had
him experiment with a few different weapons to find something that he could
shoot easily and accurately. We settled on an MP5, which is a sub-machine gun
that fires nine-millimeter pistol ammunition. Gabe and I set up a few targets
in the field at the bottom of the eastern edge of the mountain near a small
lake. The ground there was flat, and it made for a good training area. I loaded
the little rifle and handed it to Brian.

“This
here is the safety.” I said, pointing to it. “This is the magazine release.
When the chamber locks open, that means you’re out of ammo. Press the mag
release, pull this out, and slap in a new one. Make sure it’s seated, then
smack this thing to chamber a round. When you hear it snap into place, you’re
ready to rock and roll. Any questions?”

Brian
looked up at me and shook his head. There was no boyish glee in his eyes, only
the serious gaze of a human being determined to learn and to survive. It made
me proud and sad all at the same time. No face that young should ever have to
look so serious and mean it. I glanced up at Tom and Sarah and gave them what I
hoped was a reassuring smile. Brian raised the weapon up to his shoulder and
took a few seconds to practice lining up the sights.

“This
thing sets up pretty nice.” He said. “I don’t really have to do much to sight
it in, its right there as soon as I bring it up.”

“Put
a few rounds through it before you start getting attached.” Gabriel said,
motioning toward the targets. “Go ahead whenever you’re ready.”

Brian
spent a few more seconds getting used to the feel of the weapon, then released
the safety and sighted in on one of the targets.
Crack.
A fraction of a
second later, I heard a metallic ping
. 

“Hit.”
Gabe said.

He
was looking downrange at the targets through a spotting scope. Each target was
a round disc of steel roughly ten inches in diameter mounted on sticks driven
into the ground. From fifty yards away, they looked like big dots. That would
be a tough shot to make even with good optics. The kid was just using iron
sights. Impressive. He aimed at the next target and pulled the trigger. Another
crack, and another ping.

“Hit.”
Gabe said again.

I
glanced at him in irritation. “You know, we can hear it when he hits the
target.” 

Gabe
frowned at me, but stopped calling hits for the rest of the exercise.

Brian
fired a few more rounds and hit most of his shots. Gabe had him practice
standing up, kneeling, sitting, and prone, the four basic firing positions.
Brian hit the targets consistently, so to keep things interesting, Gabe had him
practice run-and-shoot tactics, doing long wind sprints and firing while he was
out of breath. He did not hit every shot, but he hit enough to impress the hell
out of me. Tom was practically bursting with pride, while Sarah looked on in
mute satisfaction.

Once
Gabe felt confident in Brian’s marksmanship, we packed up our stuff and began
marching up the hill back toward the cabin. The training session had taken a
couple of hours, and my stomach was starting to protest the lack of raw
material inside of it. Tom and I were discussing what we were going to make
everyone for lunch when the dead showed up and ruined the festive mood.

 Six
of them broke the tree line in front of us. They must have been dead for a long
time; exposure to the elements had disintegrated their clothes and peeled away
almost all of their skin. Their general shape, and the fact that they walked on
two legs, were the only indicators that these things had ever been human. Of
course, it was just my shitty luck that every single one of them had their
throats torn out, which meant we did not hear them approaching. That didn’t
give us much time to react. I pulled my pistol and blasted the two nearest to
me. Sarah stepped backward from the grasping arms of a revenant, executed a
combat roll to one side, popped up, and buckled its knee about ninety degrees
the wrong direction with a hard stomp. By the time it hit the ground she had
already drawn her pistol. At the same moment that she blew the walker’s brains
out, Tom crushed a ghoul’s skull with two-handed swing from his hatchet. I
opened my mouth to warn him about the one at his back, but Brian beat me to it.

“Dad,
get down!” He shouted.

Tom
complied immediately, trusting his son’s aim. The boy sighted in over his
father’s back with the MP5 and pulled the trigger twice. Both rounds took his
target through the forehead, staggering it backward before it dropped like a
sack of bricks. Through the whole exchange, Gabe’s expression barely changed.
He drew his Falcata and split the last infected’s head like a ripe melon before
booting it down the hill with a powerful kick.

 “Everybody
alright?” I asked.

 
We all took a moment to check each other. No bites, no scratches, everyone was
fine.

“Damn,
they came out of nowhere.” Sarah said, letting out a nervous laugh.

Tom
managed a smile as he put an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “I’ve said it
before, sweetheart, but it bears repeating. Remind me never to piss you off.”

Sarah
laughed and hugged him back.

“As
for you little fella’,” Gabe said, reaching down and patting Brian on the back,
“I think you just earned your sergeant’s stripes.”

The
kid looked up at the big man and smiled. His mom came over and gave him a hug.

“Thank
you Brian, you were very brave.”

“Hey,
I helped.” Tom said in mock indignation.

As
bright as the moment was, the lizard part of my brain that had kept me alive so
far was shouting at me to get everyone moving. All the commotion might have
called more infected to our location.

“We
should head back to the cabin. There might be more of them coming.” I said.

“Agreed.”
Gabe said. “Alright everybody, keep your eyes open. I don’t want to get
blindsided again.”

We
were all a little on edge as we trudged the rest of the way up the mountain.
The tension only dissipated when we locked the front gate behind us.

“Can
I ask you a question?” Tom said as we marched toward the cabin.

“Sure.”
I replied.

“Where
did you get the materials to make that fence?” He motioned back toward it. “I
mean, this place is pretty far from anywhere you could have scavenged those
supplies. You must have had a hard time getting everything up here.”

“Actually,
the fence posts were already in place before the Outbreak. The rails were
sitting on a pallet behind the shed.”

Tom
stopped and stared at me. Sarah and Brian stopped to look as well. Gabe kept
walking, and I frowned at his back as he stomped away.

“Something
about all this doesn’t add up.” Tom said. “The solar panels, the bunker, the
fence, it’s like you guys knew the Outbreak was coming before it happened.”

I
turned and looked at Tom for a long moment. “I didn’t, but I knew something
like it was possible. Gabriel…well, he knew about the Phage for a long time
before the Outbreak.”

“The
what?” Sarah asked.

“Sorry,
that’s what Gabe and I call it, the disease that caused all this. Its official
title with the CDC was the Reanimation Bacteriophage, or just Phage for
short.” 

Tom
gaped, dumbfounded. After a few seconds, he shook his head and continued.

“Okay,
putting that aside for the moment, you’re telling me Gabe knew the Outbreak was
going to happen? How?” 

I
sighed, and adjusted my rifle sling. “It’s a long story. Let’s go inside, I
need some caffeine if we’re going to have this conversation.”

We
went back in the cabin and stowed our weapons. I got a fire going in the stove
and set some water to boil in the kettle. Once I had a cup of Earl Grey in my
hand, I sat down at the little kitchen table with Tom and Sarah while Gabe
brooded in his recliner, running the blade of his big Bowie knife over an oiled
whetstone. A deep breath cleared my head, and then I launched into it. I told
them about how I met Gabriel several years ago when he bought the cabin from
me. We soon became close friends, and three years later, he finally told me about
the work he did with Aegis Incorporated, a private security firm with powerful
allies at the Pentagon. His job was to eradicate the carriers of infectious
diseases dangerous enough to threaten the entire world. It was ugly, awful,
brutal work, but at the time, it was necessary. Gabe joined the conversation
long enough to tell them about the missions where his team was sent to fight
the undead, the elaborate cover-ups, and his suspicions about the government’s
involvement. He also told them how he didn’t warn me about the Phage until the
day of the Outbreak, but he made sure I knew enough to be prepared if it
happened. On his advice, I had two survival bunkers built; one at my old home
in Charlotte and the other at my vacation house in nearby Morganton. We finished
the perimeter fence, moved everything from my survival shelter in Morganton to
the one beneath us, and got to work clearing the surrounding countryside of
infected. Ever since then we had focused on simply staying alive from one day
to the next. Last year, just before Christmas, we made the decision to venture
west to Colorado, and what remains of the United States.

When
I finished, I was staring at three stricken, disbelieving faces. Tom got up
from the table and stood next to Gabriel. Gabe didn’t bother looking up. He
tested the edge of his knife with his thumb, frowned, and ran the knife over
the stone again.

“Is
all of this true?” Tom asked.

“Of
course it is.” Gabe rumbled. “You think we would lie about something like
that?”

“Why
didn’t you say anything? We’ve been here two weeks.” Tom demanded.

Gabe
looked up at him, a dangerous glare in his eyes. “You didn’t ask.”

Tom
shook his head and came back over to the table. He sat down and clasped his
hands in front of him.

 “I’ve
been hoping that help was coming, you know? I keep expecting to see a
helicopter on the horizon, or the Army to come along in tanks and kill all of
the infected. We’ve been in the mountains all this time, waiting for some sign
that civilization was coming back.”

I
shook my head, feeling a black wave of weariness wash over me. “I’m afraid
that’s not going to happen, Tom. No one is coming to help us. We’re on our
own.”

I
stepped over to my recliner and slumped down into it. A few quiet minutes
passed.

“Mom,
I’m hungry.” Brian said, ending the silence. I smiled. At least the kid had his
priorities straight.

“Okay
honey, let’s make something to eat.” Sarah replied.

Brian
and his mother put together a meal of canned vegetables and venison. Gabe
stopped sharpening his knife to stare at the wood stove, his scarred face dark
and pensive.

“We
should get the canoe and head over to Marion tomorrow.” He said.

I
nodded. “Okay. I’ll pack tonight. We can head out first thing in the morning.”

“You
two need us to do anything while you’re gone?” Sarah asked from the kitchen
table.