Barren Fields (8 page)

“What happened to the house, Ruben?”

“That was my fault,” he says a little embarrassed. “I broke an oil lantern last night. I turned around with a box in my hand, and it went right over and burst into flames. I was in the garage and it lit up the wall with a few gas cans on it, so I had to run out and we had to just watch everything burn down.”

“Is Maria okay?” Simone asks.

“Yes, thank you. She survived just like you said she would,” he says smiling and grabbing Simone’s hand into a vigorous handshake. “She went with your people to the ranch. I thought I should stay with Samantha to help if I could. I could drive, and she could shoot if it was necessary.”

“It’s a strange world we live in to have neighbors helping in such ways isn’t it?” Simone says drawing a few chuckles from Ruben and Samantha.

“So how do we get around the trailer in the road?” Jeremiah asks.

“Oh, it’ll move easy enough,” I tell him. “Ruben moved it here when the trucks came by earlier. The truck is running, and we’ll take the whole rig to the ranch when we go. It would be smart if we make trips to that RV and trailer sales yard across from the Grants Pass Wal-Mart to provide more shelters for people at the ranch. We won’t be able to build proper rooms quickly enough to house all the new people we are taking in.”

“So let’s move it and get going then,” Jeremiah urges showing he’s a little agitated.

The hair stands up on the back of my neck and my paranoia kicks in again when he says that.
Why the urgency
? I wonder.

“Ruben?” I call out since he walked back around the trailer to the truck they drove here in. “Do you have the keys to the truck that’s hooked to the fifth-wheel?”

“No, I put them under a rock over in the ditch there. I didn’t think it would be smart for Samantha or me to have them on us in case…well just in case.”

“Good thinking, would you mind getting the keys?” I say and turn to Simone. “I want you to take the other truck and go back to the ranch with Ruben.”

“We’re not all going?” she asks a little concerned.

“No, I want to stay here for a while to make sure no one else is coming up behind us,” I say while looking at Jeremiah.

“You still don’t trust us do you?” he says clearly frustrated with me.

“Trust is earned, not given, and you seem a bit too eager to get to the ranch considering your strong dislike in the idea of joining us. It makes me think that you might have told your men to hold back and follow you in an hour or two to make sure our defenses are down with distractions from all the new arrivals.”

“If we were going to do something like that, we could have planned on doing it any time without bothering to try and join up with you,” Jeremiah says while briefly glancing at Isaac, probably wondering what Isaac might have told me. “We do know the layout of the ranch after all.”

“While I think the possibility is slight, you don’t know the layout of the outer perimeter we put up since our large attack, and you might feel this is your only chance to take over the ranch and get rid of me and any people loyal to me since we were able to repel such a huge group of the infected.”

“We had a huge group of infected attack us as well, if you remember us telling you. And we lost seventeen people during our attack. From what I heard you only lost thirteen people, so your attack must have been the same size as ours right? That makes us equal as fighters, I think,” Jeremiah replies with bravado.

The memory of the ranch being overrun and facing our certain death is still painful and frightening to think about. I lower my head a little and frown. I know that only the extreme cold saved our lives during those two days of hell. Our firepower and level of preparedness helped, but without the cold, we would all have died with the numbers we faced. I am angry that I’m even having to deal with Isaac’s group at all, let alone be questioned by them about something they know nothing about.

Isaac sees my reaction and speaks before I can build the will to answer calmly, “You mentioned you were attacked, and one of your people spoke about your losses. We’re sorry for them, but we have lost people as well. No one alive today has made it here without having someone die, but none of your people would talk about your attack aside from mentioning those that were lost. I’ll willingly wait with you here to show no one is following us, but I would like to know about your attack.”

“Attacks,” I say.

“What?”

“Attacks...We had three attacks, all in increasing numbers over a two month time frame. There was a man, someone I turned away from my survival store the first day of the outbreak that joined with a group of criminals. Together they figured out a way to drive groups of the infected at the ranch to attack us.” I look at each of them as I tell our story.

“The first two attacks were simple enough. Forty-nine infected attacked the first time. They didn’t make it onto the property, and we didn’t lose any people. When the second attack arrived a few weeks later, we had our first clue that someone was sending the infected at us. Music…someone was putting radios in the forest to draw the infected to the ranch with music. That’s why I thought your attack was set-up when you said singing brought your infected to you.”

“Two hundred and seventy-six infected hit us the second time. They came grouped together and managed to breach the fence but didn’t get far into the property. They weren’t a threat to overrun the ranch, and we killed them all without losing anyone but they did kill our dogs. The third attack came a month later during the deep cold.”

“So you lost your people after a third attack behind fences and you knew they were coming?” Jeremiah says with derision, completely unaware of the numbers we were facing. “At least we were caught off guard.”

Simone moves to attack Jeremiah for his insult but Samantha is closer. She walks up to him and punches him in the face, busting his nose, and continuing to swing at him.

Isaac jumps in between the two to protect his brother from the attack but also trying to apologize for what his brother said.

“You have no idea what we went through, you bastards!” Simone yells at Jeremiah and the others.

“Please, Eddie,” Isaac says. “What happened during your last attack?”

Samantha shakes her arms loose from Isaac and walks past me grabbing Simone as she moves by. They go ten feet away, to the front of the truck hooked up to the camper, and wait there. Once I see they aren’t going any farther, I turn back, remove my hand from the pistol at my side, and continue the story:

“We were completely overrun,” I say shaking my head and shrugging. “Every shooter was on the line, and we kept knocking them down. Headshot, headshot, headshot. We kept killing them and more kept coming. The only thing that saved us was the extreme cold that slowed them down to a slight shuffle, that and our ammo supply. Our group went through thirty-five thousand rounds of ammo during those two days, and we killed between twenty-five thousand and thirty thousand infected.”

“Bullshit,” Luke says, but he says it in a sympathetic way. “It would take an army to kill a group that size.”

“I used to think so too, but that’s what we killed. There were four thousand two hundred infected we killed beyond the fence before they were able to break through. We counted all those bodies during the weeks it took to clean up. We had thirty-four shooters on the line, so we only had to average a hundred and a quarter kills each. Once they breached the fence, most of our people went into mostly buried storage rooms for shelter, and only eight of us on the storage container towers were left to deal with the remaining infected. We didn’t plan on such a large group ever attacking at once. Hell, I couldn’t even imagine a group that size was heading our way. We would have left more people topside to deal with it if we knew, and it was stupid luck that we had enough ammo on the towers. We put enough up there to fend off ten attacks like the second one, not one attack with ten times the number.”

Isaac and his men look between each other as I continue, and Jeremiah just holds a rag to his nose trying not to look at anyone.

“We have three of the buried shelters, but one never got their doors closed. That is where we lost twelve of our people, including eight of our children. I don’t know what the exact number of the infected we killed is. With the cold, most of the bodies were frozen and fused together. They were scooped up by the tractor, and we did rough counts before we burned the bodies. Maybe one day someone will go through the ash piles and count skulls or jawbones, but for now, our best estimate is twenty-five to thirty thousand infected. None of us thought we would live through it, and for a while it felt like none of us did.”

I turn my back on Isaac’s group and look at my wife. “Simone, please take Ruben back to the ranch now. We will follow you in an hour if nothing comes up. Get everyone ready for an attack, and if I don’t come back, I love you.”

“How are we going to work together at your ranch of you distrust us so much?” Matthew asks.

“You’ll earn your trust, and you’ll prove your abilities just like everyone else that we bring in. This is the first stage of building that trust and possibly proving your abilities.”

“We don’t have any people following us,” Jeremiah says with a muffled finality, trying to force the obviousness of his truth into my brain.

“No, you might not, but that doesn’t mean
no one
is behind us,” I say while looking around at faces finally registering the possibility. “Before a few days ago, I didn’t know there were any runners and we didn’t find any large groups of survivors even though we’ve been moving around for well over a month. Now we have runners everywhere, and I’ve encountered Stockton’s group of fifty plus his prisoners and your group of sixty-five. Who knows how many more groups might be out there and are just starting to travel like yours? No one has been driving vehicles for a while, and all of a sudden trucks and cars are all driving down this road. Any group of survivors or infected in the area will have heard the traffic, and I want to stay here with you to see if anyone follows us.” I then look at Jeremiah directly, and say, “That shouldn’t be too difficult, should it?”

Chapter 7

Coatzacoalcos, Mexico

Eight Months Earlier.

The situation on shore doesn’t look promising, but the view in front of them on the water looks worse. The water along the shore is dotted with burning hulks of various sized boats. It looks like a fisherman’s naval battle occurred and many of the fishermen died.

Two Mexican military boats come screaming through the water at them, and a loudspeaker from one yells
ALTO! ALTO!

George brings his boat to a stop and cuts the engine. All of the men raise their hands in the air as the approaching boats pull up.

“
Estás Mordido
?
Estás infectado
?” is called out to them.

“We aren’t infected.
N
o hables español
,” George calls out hoping the soldiers don’t open fire.

“Move to back of boat,” a new voice calls from the loudspeaker in broken but understandable English.

The patrol boats pull up to each side of George’s Viking yacht, and as large as his boat is, both of the patrol boats are just as large. There are seven guns trained on the four men from the back decks of the two flanking boats, and all of the men holding the guns look ready to use them. More likely, they are ready to use them again as it seems they have had a busy day.

“Turn in circle,” the voice orders and all four comply. “Clap hands.”

Now the orders are getting strange, and the four men glance at each other but still do as they are told and start clapping their hands.

“Jump up and down,” the voice now calls.

George is certain someone is screwing with them now, but the four men still comply and begin jumping up and down with their hands in the air.

Frank looks the most ridiculous, because the towel he is wearing falls off as he begins jumping. Each of them expect the soldiers to start laughing at the gringos that they made jump and act like fools, but the guns remain aimed at them and no smiles or laughter erupts from the performance.

“Is only you on boat?”

“Yes, only the four of us,” George calls back.

“Throw dock rope. We will board your boat.” That statement comes out quite clearly as it must have been issued many times over the years.

George grabs the stern line, tosses it over to the closest patrol vessel, and drops the fenders over the side used to protect the boat from damage when docked. Then he moves to the front to throw the bow line over. The other three remain in the back with their hands in the air. George returns to the others and raises his hands again while his boat is secured to the patrol boat.

Frank is allowed to climb up to the patrol boat while the soldiers motion to George, Keith, and Jack that they must remove their towels and shorts as well. They take them off and are ordered to spin around once again before being brought aboard the other vessel.

“They had to check you for bites,” a man says in clear English as he walks up.

“We figured as much,” George says in return.

“My name is Thomas,” he says.

“You can put hands down now,” the soldier that was talking over the speaker says as he walks up as well.

“There is no one else on your boat, correct?” Thomas asks. “If you lie they will kill you.”

“No one else is on board,” George says, and the others nod in agreement.

“
B
uscar el barco
,” the soldier commands, and the armed men board George’s boat to check its interior.

“You have no more clothes on board?” the soldier asks looking curiously at George.

“We had to leave quickly and our clothes were ruined. We have nothing else to wear.”

George intentionally leaves out any mention of radiation. These men are on edge as it is and are obviously ready to kill anyone that is a danger to the area.

“
C
onseguir que la ropa
,” he says to another soldier that walks off.

“They are getting you some clothes to wear. It’s a good thing you stopped as quickly as you did,” Thomas says. “As you can see by the burning boats in the water, not everyone is following orders today.”

“Or not everyone is able to follow them,” George replies.

“Who are you, and where are you going?” the soldier asks.

“My name is George
Beauchamp, this is Keith Roach, Frank, and Jack,” he says as he nods in each person’s direction. “We are going to a house I have on the west bank of the Coatzacoalcos River.”

Thomas and the soldier speak to each other for a while in Spanish. His men return from George’s Viking, one of them says
Todo claro
and nods before walking away. Another soldier walks up carrying t-shirts and pants for the group. The man in charge speaks with Thomas again, while George and the rest start getting dressed. Before they are done, he says
Good luck
before shaking their hands and walking off. The second patrol boat cruises off after the
all clear
is relayed to them.

“Once you are dressed you can get back on your boat and continue toward shore and into the river,” Thomas says before filling them in on what has been happening in the few moments they have left. “The infection first made it to shore here early yesterday by boat, and they started shooting at anyone that didn’t respond quickly. Captain Alvarez says the uniforms you are wearing should help you get by any other patrols, although not speaking Spanish could get you killed anyway. The infected can’t speak, so if someone doesn’t understand you they might kill you rather than take the chance. The infected people also can’t clap or jump, which is why you were put through that humiliating ritual and you were stripped down to search for bites.

“The city is probably lost because one of the patrols let someone in that had been bitten on the buttocks and wasn’t stripped down. He made it to shore and attacked five people before he was killed. Four of the five people ran off after they were attacked, because they knew they would be killed by the soldiers. That is how the disease started spreading through the city. If your house is on the west bank as you say, you might have some time. They blew up the bridge that crosses it, but eventually someone will be infected and cross on a boat or the infection will reach that side over land.”

“You don’t have much faith that this thing can be stopped,” Keith says.

“You are here instead of where you came from for a reason I think,” he says in response. “The day after this began, Alejandro Molina, the Mexican President ordered all available military personnel to the U.S. border to prevent anyone from crossing. Their orders were to kill any living thing on sight, and they followed the orders. Even the drug cartels joined in the fight to keep the infection from spreading south. Now, none of the border cities or locations are responding anymore. Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez, Nuevo Laredo, and Reynosa are all gone, that’s the entire northern border. Worse still, Mexico City has gone silent after the infection has been there for only three days.”

“That’s a long way from Coatzacoalcos, almost four hundred miles,” George says.

“Yes, but even farther from the border with the U.S.A., that is over six hundred and fifty miles. The disease didn’t spread that far over land in the last five or six days. The military men who were with me told me President Molina announced some infected bodies had been brought into Mexico City. They were taken to several Universities for research. The medical personnel there were being given the latest medicines to help prevent them from catching the disease. There was hope they might be able to do something to fight this thing, but then a report came out that a plane landed at
Benito Juárez international
airport in Mexico City. When the doors were opened the infected poured out. Someone got on the plane with the infection, and the disease spread to every passenger on board. Air travel is the only reason why Mexico City and the rest of the world are lost to this disease.”

“The rest of the world?” Jack asks.

Thomas nods somberly.

Captain Alvarez yells something quickly to Thomas and motions with his hands that the group should get back on George’s boat.

“He says they need to leave now. You should get back on your boat.”

“Are you working with them, Thomas, or do you need somewhere to go as well?” George asks as the others walk over to the railing to climb over the side.

“I was working with them to help translate, but they don’t need me any longer. They haven’t stopped to check if people were clear of infection all day. If your boat wasn’t so nice and you weren’t already undressed, they would have shot you too. They could have used your boat for patrols.”

“Do you want to come with us?”

Thomas turns and calls over to Captain Alvarez. They say a few things, and then wave and say
adiós
.

“I’ll come with you. There isn’t anything else I can do on this ship.”

And they both climb over the side into George’s boat.

*

George cruises his boat into the mouth of the river between the two walls built out into the Gulf to protect the land on shore from erosion. They have an hour left before sunset and should make it with time to spare.

“Do you really have a property here?” Timothy asks.

“Yes, I bought it a few years ago. If you weren’t sure I had a house here, why did you want to come with us?”

“I wanted to get away from the soldiers and what they are doing. I understand the point of trying to keep the disease out, but I can’t handle the way they are doing it.”

“How did you get hooked up with them in the first place?”

“I was meeting with Captain Alvarez at a cafe to discuss shipping and customs issues. We were near the beach when the boat ran aground that spread the disease here. Captain Alvarez is in charge of the soldiers and patrol boats, so he took it personally that an issue like that occurred when he just finished telling me my shipments would be well protected in this region. He offered to take me aboard his vessels personally—to show me what they were capable of. At that point we still didn’t realize things were as bad as everyone was saying. It seemed like just another disease that people worried over, like the swine flu. Four hours later I was on that same ship with him, and we saw three ships sailing through the waters along the coast that had only infected people on board. He fired on and sunk them all.

“After that he asked if I would remain on board to help with English translation if it was needed. He didn’t want to kill a bunch of Americans and start a war. Even by that point he had
hope
, we all did, hoping that there was another explanation for what was happening around the world.”

“You mentioned the rest of the world was lost when we were still on the patrol boat,” George says. “It isn’t the air travel that spread this disease, although I am sure it hasn’t helped. It is the fault of a drug called
Zeus
.”

“Zeus, yes, that’s it. I couldn’t remember the name earlier. That is the drug that was mentioned on the radio to protect the doctors in Mexico City.”

“The Zeus drug doesn’t protect anyone. It causes this disease,” George says with a sad and frustrated tone. “Keith received a letter from his son about that drug. I wish we still had a copy of it. It spoke about how it was supposed to protect people from harm, but there was something wrong with it. It didn’t mention worldwide distribution, but it was tested in Moldova and I would bet any overseas military would be given the inoculation as well. Even if no other nation used the drug, it could spread through our U.S. military installations alone.”

Thomas is quietly absorbing what George is saying when a rumbling explosion echoes in the distance to the north.

“That is somewhere in the center of town,” Thomas offers. “Do you have any plans beyond making it to your house?”

“Oregon,” Keith says in a confident manner surprising both Thomas and George.

“I wasn’t sure you spoke. You were being so quiet,” Thomas says.

“I just lost my wife.”

Thomas nods. “This disease is taking many good people, and I’m afraid it isn’t done with us yet.”

“She didn’t get infected. She had advanced stage four cancer, and our escape was too difficult for her body to handle. She would have lived longer if we could have stayed at home, but unfortunately that couldn’t happen. So in a way this disease
did
end her life.”

Thomas nods.

“Do you have any family? You must be from stateside,” George asks.

“My parents died a few years ago, and I haven’t settled down yet. There are too many beautiful Latin women down here for me to make up my mind. I have been living and working in Mexico and Columbia for the last eight years, so I’m an expat.”

“Columbia?” George asks.

“Coffee, not cocaine,” he replies and gives a knowing smile. “I moved down originally working for Lukafe Gourmet...well, it
was
a specialty coffee company. I branched out and got contracts with multiple producers and buyers, and the rest is history. I’ve been down here ever since and was working on some issues with Captain Alvarez about the coffee supplies.”