“We’re secure.” she protested thickly with her mouth full.
“For now. Some of them have rattled around outside, and a few times got to thumping and banging on the wall near the window.”
“A few we can handle, especially since we’re still armed.”
“One, gunshots —
more
gunshots, I should say — could break whatever spell is working in our favor to keep us more or less unnoticed by the bastards. Two, the rifles are all fucked.”
“What?”
He shrugged again. “Water screwed them up.”
“How’s that?” she asked, swallowing mightily to clear her mouth.
“Cold water, hot barrels . . . they didn’t stand up to the temp change very well. We didn’t test yours, but Smith’s ‘16 and my AR are both shooting crooked enough to be useless. Fuckers are warped out of true.”
“Fuck.” Whitley said, setting her bread down and starting to fumble with the pouch of cappuccino powder. “How in the hell did that happen?”
“We were up on the bridge for a while, running mag after mag through. The heat built up, then we jumped in the damned river which was cold enough to put us all in danger of hypothermic shock.” he pointed out. “They’re tempered, but not against that kind of abuse.”
“No rifles?” she asked, looking as unhappy as he felt.
“Yeah, we’re down to pistols.”
“Not good.” she said as she balanced the pouch against her legs beneath the blankets and reached for the bottle of water again.
“Yeah, tell me about it. The five-five-six we’re carrying is useless now, and unless Smith squirreled some away in his gear harness that I didn’t see, we don’t have all that much pistol ammo.”
“How do you know I didn’t have some tucked away?” she asked as she finished pouring water into the drink pouch and started sealing it.
“I stripped you, remember?” he said mildly. “Smith put his own shit up, but I did yours and mine; and I checked through your pouches while I was doing it so I’d know what we have to work with. There’s only a handful of nine mags in them.”
She blushed as she shook the pouch to mix the contents up. “Yeah. Not too many, maybe three or four if I remember. I had a couple of boxes in my pack, but . . .”
Peter returned the nod. “The truck’s stuck on the bridge, and after what happened I don’t think we should even consider trying to get at it again.”
“How much ammo do you have stashed in your pack?”
“Good news, four boxes and five mags, split between my M45 and backup piece.”
“Backup?”
“Khar PM, little five shot. It’s a holdout gun.”
“Where do you keep that?”
“Ankle holster.”
“Oh.” she reopened the pouch and sipped experimentally.
“But the bad news is my hand weapons are forty-fives; so what I’m carrying isn’t going to trade with you guys’ Berettas.”
“Great.”
“Exactly.” he said as she picked up her cheese covered bread again and resumed munching on it. With a drink in hand, she was able to eat it quicker; the bread tended to be kind of dry since it was designed to survive edibly for five years once packed up into the MRE.
“We’re in some real pretty shit huh?”
“Welcome to Fucked, population us.” he agreed.
“Eat something Gunny.”
He hesitated, then studied her again. “You sure you’re feeling okay?”
“I’m fine.” she nodded. “And once I’m on the outside of that nasty shit the DOD calls Buffalo chicken I’ll be even better.”
“Hey, it’s better than nothing.”
“I’ve been to Buffalo.” she informed him with a sour grin. “Trust me, they’d do a lot more than disown what’s in that box.”
“When did you go to Buffalo?”
“I’ve got some family . . .” she started to answer, before trailing off and shrugging awkwardly. “I mean, I did.”
“Nothing says people we haven’t checked on are dead.” he said calmly. But it was a poor attempt at reassurance, and he knew it. The Northeast, with its dense pack of cities and general lack of spread out rural areas, had fared poorly in the outbreak. Some of the news that had trickled out about New York . . . words like bloodbath were mild. Abattoir was a better one. That city, with its incredible population density and water constrained borders, had literally disintegrated from within.
“Doesn’t matter.” she said with a smile that was obviously forced. “Doesn’t matter. This is hot, and calories are calories. Crack open something for yourself, eat it, then sack out. What time is it?”
“A little after twenty-three hundred.”
“Eat.” she repeated. “I’ll sit a watch until Smith wakes up or three gets here. Come daybreak, we’re going to have a lot of shit to do.”
Peter finally relented and reached into his pack again. He checked through the remaining MREs and selected one.
“What, you get to pick?” Whitley protested when she saw him reading the labels.
“A, I out rank you. B, they’re mine. And C, shut up.” he retorted with a grin as he pulled out his favorite.
“What is it?”
“Chili Mac.”
“Bastard.” she said immediately.
“Yummy.” The simple mix of beef chili and macaroni pasta was a favorite of MRE connoisseurs everywhere. Even the DOD couldn’t screw it up, despite years of attempts.
“Did you get Skittles or M&Ms?”
“I haven’t even opened the fucker yet.” he pointed out.
“If you get Skittles then trade me.”
“Eat your own.”
“Come on Gunny, I’m taking your watch. I love Skittles.” she said, flicking her hand at the crumpled package of chocolate M&Ms on the floor in front of her. “M&Ms are boring.”
“I dragged your ass out of the damned Mississippi.” he said as he tugged on the pouch to open it.
“Gonna hold that one against me I see.”
Peter grinned again. “You’re not as light as you look you know.”
“I hope yours was stepped on.” she said darkly as she took another bite of her cheese covered bread.
“That’s not much.” Smith said unhappily.
“It is what it is.” Peter answered. “Better than nothing.”
“Yeah, but carrying it isn’t going to be all that simple now.”
Everyone was back in their clothes, dried overnight thanks to the still smoldering fire in the metal cooking bowl. Sunlight was trickling into the house through the ventilation holes shot the night before; but even so the room was dim. After getting dressed, Peter’s first order of business had been searching the house for anything useful. He hadn’t been holding his breath, but the search hadn’t produced much despite his modest hopes.
The little pile of ‘supplies’ they’d turned up out of the house’s meager offerings was limited; but that was a mixed blessing since — though the structure clearly belonged to a family — he and the others had also not turned up any backpacks. Or bags. Or even plain old shopping bags. That last one Peter couldn’t figure out; just about everyone he knew kept a stash of grocery bags in their house for all the million and one reasons a bag could come in handy. But whoever had lived here, nothing.
“We convert one of the blankets into a sack.” Peter told him.
“How do we do that, exactly?” Smith asked.
“We cut one of the sheets into strips and use it as straps to tie the fucker closed and suspend it on you.”
“Is that going to work? Wait, on me?”
“Sure will. Thanks for volunteering to carry it.” Peter said, pulling out his pocket knife and kneeling down next to the pile of stuff with a suppressed groan. He was dressed and warm again, but that didn’t change the creak he felt in his joints as he lowered himself to the floor. “Hold one end of this.”
Whitley knelt and took one edge of the sheet, holding it taunt as Peter started slicing the fabric into two inch strips. Smith bent down as well and started sorting through the blankets. “What about the others?”
“Other what?” Peter asked.
“The other blankets.”
“What about them?”
“Should we bring them along too?”
“Your call.” Peter shrugged.
“It’s cold, and we’re headed north.” Smith pointed out. “And we did just almost freeze to death.”
“Blankets wouldn’t have helped us survive a swim in cold water.” Whitley said.
“Well we’re not planning on going swimming again are we?”
“We weren’t planning on going swimming yesterday either.”
“Fuck off Whit.” Smith protested in an annoyed voice. “You know what I mean; we’re back to solid ground now.”
“Maybe.” Peter said as he continued cutting the sheet up.
“Well we’re past the damn Mississippi aren’t we?”
“Think that’s the only river between here and South Dakota?” Whitley asked.
“The only big one, right?”
“I lost the map. Until we secure another one, we won’t know what we’re walking into terrain-wise without seeing it firsthand.” Peter shrugged. The map wasn’t lost, but the swim had converted it into a sodden mass of water-logged paper that had more or less melded together. It was useless now as anything other than a paperweight.
“I think we should bring them.”
“Okay, bring them.” Peter said, clicking his knife closed and returning it to his pocket. Whitley took the cue and started spreading out the blanket. “But we’ll probably turn up some more jackets and stuff in the other houses.”
“What other houses.”
“The ones we’re going to search for more shit we can use.”
“Where?”
Peter stopped what he was doing long enough to fix Smith with a tired look. “Three hundred some odd million people lived here. Memphis is just east of us. Where do you think we are, the African outback?”
Smith made a sour face. “What if we don’t.”
“Don’t what?” Peter asked as he resumed cutting.
“Don’t find any other cold weather gear?”
“Exercise will keep us warm.”
“Well I think we should bring these along just in case.”
“There’s only two.” Whitely pointed out.
“So?” Smith demanded.
“There are three of us.”
“We can share.”
“Not unless the alternative is freezing to death.” she answered, wrinkling her nose.
“Figured you would have had enough of that already.”
“We’ll find other stuff.” Peter interjected.
“We should bring the blankets just in case.” Smith repeated.
“Fine, bring them.” Whitley told him.
“Do I have to carry them too?”
“If you want to bring them, yeah.” Whitley said.
“Come on, seriously?”
“I’ll be fine with the sweaters.” Whitley said, jerking her head at the pile of clothing next to the door. Peter started transferring the food they’d turned up in the kitchen over to the blanket. Like Smith had already pointed out, it wasn’t much. Ten cans, mixed between beans and vegetables; plus a twelve pack of instant noodles that was missing two packages. But food was food as far as he was concerned.
“You’re going to wear three sweaters?” Smith asked.
“No, I’m going to wear one and bring the other two, since you claimed the jacket.”
“It’s a windbreaker, not an actual jacket. Poncho with sleeves effectively.” Smith groused. To the Guardsman’s credit, Peter
did
agree with him on this particular point; the garment was not a proper piece of cold weather gear. Thin — basically a plastic outer shell with a single layer of cloth lining it — it would literally do nothing more than
maybe
break the wind, and probably not even much of that.
“It doesn’t fit you anyway.” Smith added.
“No, it’s just really big on me.” Whitley said. Peter ignored their byplay as he and Whitley finished up moving the supplies over. Gathering the blanket’s corners up, he used one of the sheet strips to tie the bundle closed.
“So are we really abandoning the rifles?” Smith asked, changing subjects without warning.
“No sense carrying them.” Peter said calmly. He’d test fired Whitley’s just before they started searching the house, and it was as screwed up as his and Smith’s. The M-16s were useless as anything other than clubs; and the only value his AR-15 had was in the ‘extras’ he’d taken the time to remove and stow in his pack. Like the scope and various mounting attachments he’d added to the weapon; those still worked, and could be put onto any other AR or similar weapon that turned up. The scope he’d have to bore sight, but he knew how to do it if he had time and space to work in.
“Especially if you want to lug blankets along.” Whitley added.
“Come nightfall and the temp drops from cold to fucking cold, you’re going to want one of them.”
Peter knotted two more sheet strips to the makeshift sack, around the top above the one that kept the blanket closed up, then stood up. “Okay nervous Nelly, come here.”
“Who, me?”
“Yeah.” Peter said, handing him the sack and keeping the loose strips in his own hand. “Hold that behind you while I fix these to your belt.”
“This sucks.”
“Yeah.” Peter agreed. He looped and knotted the two strips to either side of the front of the Guardsman’s belt. When he was finished, they stretched up and over Smith’s shoulders, where they suspended the blanket bag of food on his back.
“This shit is going to bump around and bruise the piss out of me.”
“We’ll try to keep the running to a minimum.”
“Why can’t we fit this crap in your pack?” Smith asked.
“Because I’m humping the ammo.”
“Why, if we’re not bringing the rifles?”
“Because odds are we’ll find some weapons if we scrounge around some; and ARs aren’t that uncommon, so the ammo will fit. Or we might run into other groups that we can trade rounds to in exchange for something we can use.”
“This sucks.”
“Quit bitching.” Whitley said as she tied two of the sweaters around her waist by their arms. “Gunny’s carrying the heavy stuff.”
“Gunny’s the one with the pack.”
“Gunny brought a real pack, not that Mickey Mouse bullshit they issued you at Clay.”
“Like that’s my fault?” Smith demanded.
“This ain’t about fault.” Peter said. “Stow it, let’s get going. Whitley, front door and lead us out. Remember, we’re trying to be quiet and conserve our ammo; so detour instead of shooting our way through any problems.”
“Got it.” she nodded, though she still drew the Beretta as she rose. Despite his admonition, Peter drew his sidearm as well. Not wanting to shoot wasn’t the same as not
needing
to. But as she left the room to get to the house’s front door, she also picked up one of the clubs they’d fashioned. Smith and Peter collected theirs as well, leaving each armed with a pistol with a limited number of rounds and stout wooden bludgeons between three and four feet long.
They checked through the windows at the front of the house, and Whitley cracked the door for several long peeks before she opened it fully and led the way outside. Peter gestured for Smith to follow, then exited last to place himself on the tail end of the little squad.
There wasn’t much sun — the day had dawned overcast and looking like it might start threatening rain later — which left the landscape looking bleak and washed out. It matched his mood, but he reminded himself to stop dwelling on it. This was a temporary setback, nothing more. As he’d told Smith, they were in a first world country, next to one of the notable cities in it. They would be able to recover and press on.
It was just going to take some time and effort.
From what he remembered of the now lost maps, west of the river Memphis was fairly compact and clustered more or less right along the two east-west Interstates that crossed the Mississippi. What he recalled about Arkansas wasn’t specific about what surrounded this portion of the city, but as the three of them topped the small rise on the far side of the desolate little road, it looked like the area to the south was a fairly expansive amount of farmland.
Peter put his binoculars to his eyes and swept them across the western horizon, slowing but not stopping as he followed Smith. Lots of fields, he saw. He saw a couple of two-lane roads, here and there, running straight north and west breaking up the fields, but otherwise nearly everything in view was farmland. What was being grown he could only guess at, but some of them included wheat and corn; those, at least, he could recognize. The wheat might be mistaken as weeds to his untrained eye, but huge uniform blocks of it growing together suggested crops rather than untamed growth.
Most of the rest of the crops he didn’t recognize. And, as far as he could tell, a lot of them were well past due for harvesting. He was definitely no expert, but he figured the huge ears he saw on most of the corn stalks he studied were ready to eat. The problem was zombies.
The same problem everywhere these days.
He didn’t bother trying to count how many zombies were in view in and amid the fields; but it was definitely more than a few hundred. They weren’t clumped into any hordes though. Just a few small groups here and there, but those were exceptions. The vast majority of the undead nightmares were wandering about by themselves. Some were trekking in this direction or that like they had somewhere to go; but even these were going in every direction imaginable, so it clearly wasn’t some sort of overriding purpose that was guiding them all.
Others were circling or weaving back and forth with an equally obvious complete lack of purpose or coordination. Some few were simply standing in place, but only a few. Most of them, even though they had no notion of where they wanted to go — or why — were in motion. Staggering, struggling, wobbling, reeling, muddling, lumbering and teetering motion; but motion regardless.
But while that many zombies were a problem in a small space; this area was the very definition of wide open. As long as the trio of humans kept moving and paid attention, they had plenty of room to maneuver around the horrors awaiting them. Breaking contact for a rest might be an issue; but one thing at a time.
“Anything look good Gunny?” Whitley asked, turning her head so she didn’t have to talk too loudly.
Peter considered a moment longer before replying. There were buildings in view, and not all of them were industrial either. He saw some obvious houses, though none he’d necessarily describe as ‘farmhouses’ despite being located in the middle of cropland. But while the grain silos and obvious crop warehouses might not be too high on his list of places to try ransacking, barns and storage sheds could be just as likely as homes to turn up something useful. It was just a matter of what was more probable to be found in each; tools and stuff in the one, clothes and pantry food in the other.
Considering how bare the trio’s resources were, he wasn’t going to start off picky. Anything might help.
“Nice and easy, no big risks; and we’ll check whatever buildings we can get at as we reach them.” Peter answered. “Though there’s a place a little southwest that’s got three trucks and some tractors parked in and around a barn that we might get lucky at.”