“Actually,” Ronni gave the young man a level gaze, “if this goes well, that old-timer is going to teach
me
how to snowboard. I’ve never done it. Always wanted to but just never had the chance.”
The young man flushed and handed them their papers. Chad and Ronni headed through the small gate and began the long hike that would take them to their ultimate destination.
They were about an hour into it when Chad pulled up and grabbed Ronni by the shoulder. She instantly went for the knife on her belt, but her dad gripped her wrist. She looked up at him and he gave a slight nod of his head.
To their right stood an amazing buck just off the main path that had once been an old logging road. The deer had a huge rack and Ronni counted five points on each side. They stayed still for several heartbeats until the animal finally bounded into the woods and vanished from sight.
By midday, they had reached an elevation where the ground was dusted with snow. They reached a fork and veered left towards the area where the old ski lodge would be waiting. While the lift had long since fallen to time and disrepair, the building had been maintained by a group of survivors that now acted as hosts for some of the surrounding communities. With money no longer used, people who stayed in one of the cabins and used the slopes would bring supplies and put in some work tending to whatever needed doing in exchange for staying.
Chad and Ronni were both carrying bundles of candles and several other items that were part of a list sent down the mountain every few months. Chad had marveled at the system in place during the first few trips.
“What’s that, Dad?” Ronni asked. She was pointing to the left where the embankment dropped off suddenly and the view of a valley unscrolled for what seemed like miles.
Chad stopped and shielded his eyes from the glare of the little bit of sun managing to burn through the gray sky above as it reflected off the coating of snow. He eventually spotted the curl of smoke rising into the sky. He pulled out his map and checked. He knew the mile marker they had passed and was quickly able to figure their approximate location and traced a line with his finger. There were no known settlements listed as existing in that general area.
“Maybe some travelers passing through?” Chad mumbled as he folded up the map.
“We should go check it out.”
Chad shot a look at his daughter. He knew that taking this “little detour” would chew up two days of their vacation. Also, if they did not report in within the forty-eight hour window, they would be listed as missing. He was about to say exactly that when Ronni shrugged her shoulders.
“It’s probably nothing. I just thought it might be fun to do something adventurous.”
Chad thought it over before he replied. “How about we check in and then, when we come back, we can see if it is still here. We can inform anybody heading out to pass along the information and that we will likely be four or five days late on our return.”
“You are getting so old!” Ronni snarked.
Chad frowned. “I thought that you wanted to go snowboarding and just have a laid back vacation together.”
Ronni looked back out across the valley. She spun back to her dad with a mischievous grin on her face. “They might be some of those Outland traders we keep hearing about. Supposedly, some of them have solar battery chargers and iPods with music loaded on them.”
Chad felt the crease in his forehead deepen. This was so unlike his daughter. It was Ronni that had gotten so mad about their having to move around so much back in the old days. Still, he had to admit, he had heard some of the stories about the merchants that specialized in the next-to-impossible-to-find items. And while he doubted that he would find a solar powered iPod, he had heard rumors that actual bottles of Jack Daniels as well as single-malt scotch had been dealt by some of these wanderers.
There had been a stigma that had its origins in the early days. Way back when the whole zombie problem started, there were some catastrophic events in some of the larger cities that had nothing to do with the undead. Fires raged; chemical and petroleum plants were some of the worst. It was not long before rumors began to circulate about how some of the nuclear plants had gone Chernobyl. That began a ban on items from the eastern side of the nation. Chad laughed, considering San Onofre was not too far away. Still, fear was easy to muster back then and that had caused a ban on traders known to delve in items scavenged from out east. He doubted that Lynchburg, Tennessee had anything by the way of nuclear power in the area, yet Tennessee was part of the quarantined zone. That had effectively meant the end of Jack Daniels.
“I guess it can’t hurt.” Chad gave a shrug of his shoulders. “After all, it’s your weekend, sweetie. Whatever you want, that is the plan.”
Ronni gave a squeal and clapped her hands. For that moment, she was not the grown up woman, she was his little girl. They shifted their gear and resumed their hike to the check-in point of the resort. The deep trench laced with spikes and the wall with watch towers set every fifty yards or so was the only thing that gave away the fact that danger still lurked and the undead remained a nuisance.
Still, things had really gotten ordinary the past several months. The zombies were almost all concentrated into the large herds. Lookout posts had replaced cell towers as the communities in this region of about a hundred square miles banded together to keep eyes open for any such problems.
Some of the smarter types had put their heads together and made these huge, portable noisemakers. Any herd that came within view of the perimeter towers was easy to spot and the noisemakers were deployed to divert the raging rivers of the undead that tore through the area from time to time. Life was almost normal.
As they checked in and were given their cabin assignment, Chad wondered if maybe all those years of living on the edge had changed him and his daughter. Were the two of them nothing more than pair of adrenaline junkies? He was pretty sure the answer to the question from his perspective was a solid no, but he was having doubts about Ronni all of a sudden.
“We got cabin twenty-three!” Ronni hissed as they headed up the trail that led away from the main lodge and out to the dispersed cabins. When Chad did not say anything in response, Ronni punched him gently in the shoulder and shook her head. “That is the last cabin all the way out by the lake. All we need to do is skirt the shore and we are actually just to the south and east of that valley. We could hike out there and nobody would have to know.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Chad shrugged.
Perhaps this distraction would work in his favor. He’d been hit with some bad news a few days ago and was struggling with how he could break it to his daughter. He had not wanted to ruin her birthday, and he thought that perhaps he would just wait until after the holiday season was past before he dropped this bomb. If this was a black market merchant’s camp, perhaps they would have some good booze. This was news best given over a stiff drink, and the homemade stuff that passed off as drinkable alcohol these days was truly awful.
***
The head rolled away and bounced twice before coming to a rest in the grass. There was a scream of anguish and George Rosamilia came around the corner of the house wearing full battle gear. He had a helmet and face shield, heavy gloves, arm and leg guards, and the body of Bill Pitts in front of him as a human shield.
“One of yours for one of ours!” George roared. He brought up a nasty looking blade and sawed it across the throat of Bill Pitts. A wash of red flowed down the front of his body and the man was shoved away as George turned to face Gable Matczak who was already coming down the stairs and stalking his direction.
Jody could not help but fixate on the body of Bill Pitts. The man had been a lot of things to Jody over the years. Hell, there was even a time when he considered the man an enemy. The relationship he’d had with the man was complicated. They had never really been friends, but there was always something about the man that Jody had trusted on some level. Even if he was being an ass, Bill Pitts had spoken directly and truthfully.
He looked back up to see Gable and George still considering each other. That was what Jody thought to be happening until the two figures dressed in full battle gear much like George came around the other corner of the house. They were moving up behind the man very carefully. Jody brought his crossbow up and sighted on the lead person. Taking a deep breath and holding it, he squeezed the trigger. Almost before the bolt had reached its target, he was already reloading.
The first person stopped in their tracks and then appeared to look down and try to brush something away. Of course those were simply the final firings of the brain as the bolt through the heart had been almost instant in its fatality. The second figure stopped, reflexively trying to catch the person who was now on their knees and would have been facedown if they had not been grabbed. Jody used that opportunity to line up his next shot. He fired, but the person had apparently figured out what was happening and dove for cover.
That little ruckus was not enough for Gable to turn away from George, and Jody had to marvel at the man’s apparent composure. George said something that Jody could not hear and then charged the man. Gable danced nimbly aside and if Jody would have blinked, he might have missed the quick slash that the curly headed man made on his much larger opponent.
When George skidded to a halt and spun, his protective vest simply fell away, there was even a dark stain where the knife had obviously cut the man down his right shoulder. George yanked the protective piece the rest of the way off and tossed it aside.
“I’ll rip your neck off, and dance down your tonsils!” George snarled. This time Jody heard the man clearly.
George charged again, and just as before, Gable side-stepped the lumbering behemoth and made another swipe with his knife hand. When George turned around this next time, Jody saw a bright red line across the man’s face.
“You know, the last time I actually heard somebody say that,” Gable spoke casually as if he did not have a care in the world. “it was the American Dream, Dusty Rhodes. I think he was talkin’ to the Four Horsemen. You almost sounded as cool, but I think you gotta put a bit more oomph into it.”
This time, George screamed and charged. Gable did not step aside from this one. He dropped to his knees at the last possible second and then rolled away, coming up to his feet. George was much slower turning around. When he did, there was a dark stain spreading across his belly.
George looked down and then dropped to his knees. He stared straight ahead at Gable as his hands came away from the darkness just a few inches above his belt. Even from as far away as he was, Jody saw blood dripping from George’s hands.
“Fuck you all,” the man spat, and then fell flat on his face with a meaty thud that sent a cloud of dust up around the now lifeless form.
“Okay,” Gable called as he stood up, “you want to come out and give up, or do you want to stay hidden and be considered a threat that either I or the man with the crossbow will have to kill on sight?”
“I’m giving up!” a voice called as a man stood up, hands in the air.
Jody advanced, his eyes still sweeping the area. He was not fool enough to think that this was the sum total of the people involved or responsible. From the way that the kids in the RV had sounded, this was an organized force. Plus, knowing Bill Pitts like he had, he was one individual that would not have been taken down by a couple of thugs and their lackeys.
“How many?” Jody finally called after he closed half the distance.
The single visible member of George’s crew looked over at Jody, but his lips remained pressed tight. Without another word, Jody fired his crossbow. The bolt struck the man in the upper thigh and caused him to howl with pain.
Jody closed the rest of the distance, his eyes no longer scanning for additional threats. Something in the back of his mind told him that Gable was likely more than capable. When he reached the man, he grabbed the end of the bolt and gave it a little wiggle. This caused the wounded individual to renew his screams.
“I will only ask you one more time,” Jody hissed. “How many?”
“N-nine!” the man wailed as Jody twisted violently on the shaft to emphasize his point.
Doing the math, Jody realized that left four people unaccounted for…provided this person was telling the truth. The one thing that was really bothering him was that he had not recognized a single one of these people up to this point. That had to mean something. Most likely, there must be some sort of settlement nearby. That was the most obvious source of these individuals.
“If you move so much as an inch from this spot, I will cripple you and leave you for zombie bait,” Jody said as he let go of the bolt and turned to Gable. “Did you see Jan?”
“Nope, and I went all the way around the—” he was saying when there was a yelp and a sudden crash from the second floor. Just as suddenly, a body came smashing through the window above where Jody and Gable were standing.
The two men dove out of the way, but unfortunately for the injured man on the ground, he was unable to react and ended up on the receiving end of most of the broken glass. He was fortunate in the fact that the falling body landed barely a foot away.
“Who’s the new guy?” Jan called down.