Authors: James Cook
“I’m fucking losing it. When the Outbreak happened, I went into denial. I didn’t let myself think about how bad things were going to get. I ignored the suffering all around me. I didn’t let myself be angry, or sad, or frightened, or anything else about it. I just went numb, because that is what I had to do to survive. Now, in the middle of winter ironically enough, the ice inside of me is thawing. I think about all the people who died horrible, agonizing deaths and I want to scream. Every time I kill an infected, I want to cry for the person that they were, and will never be again. I think about all the creature comforts I had before the Outbreak, and I feel guilty for missing them. I remember all the women I slept with over the years, and I think about how nice it would be to fuck something other than my hand for a change. For all of that, the thing that is driving me out of my goddamn mind the fastest is the knowledge that there is no fucking end in sight. As long as we are stuck here on this God forsaken mountain,
this
” I gesture at the cabin walls around me, “is all that our lives will ever be.”
I walk to the kitchen, place my fists on the counter and stare down into the sink.
“I have to get down off this mountain, Gabriel. I don’t know how much longer I can do this. Survival isn’t enough. Humans are social animals. For better or for worse, I have to try to find other survivors. I have to find some semblance of society to join, or I may as well jump down the side of the mountain and join all of our little friends down there that we busted against the rocks. At least I’ll have some company.”
I hear Gabriel’s chair creak as he stands up from it. The door of the wood stove squeals as he opens it and tosses in a couple of fire logs.
“I know what you mean.” He says.
He is calm. His movements are deliberate, efficient, and strangely graceful. Not like me. There is no nervous energy to him. No buzzing, thrumming, maddening tension. If you did not know him as well as I do, you would never see the subtle signs of his desperation. There is a tightness in his shoulders that was not there before. An intensity and pressure in his eyes. Gabriel is a sniper. He is an expert at self control, he is disciplined, careful, patient, and deadly. I know that venting my frustrations does nothing to improve our situation, or my friend’s mood for that matter, but I can’t help it. My mouth has become a whistling steam valve that bleeds off the boiling anxiousness eating away at my sanity.
“I’m having a hard time of it myself.” Gabe says, heaving a sigh. “I think this past Christmas is the last time I can remember being in a good mood. I’m tired of being cold all the damn time. I’m tired of living behind a fence, and sleeping in a hole in the ground. I was never a social butterfly before the world went to hell, but as least I always had the option. I could drive into town, get a beer at the tavern, listen to conversations, laughter, arguments…I could be around some fucking
life.
Up here, we aren’t really living. We’re just waiting to die.”
I turn around and lean back against the counter.
“After the spring thaw, then? No more doubts, no more arguments, no more ‘Maybe we should just stay where we are, we have a good thing going, at least we’re safe up here?’ We are really going to load up the trailer and get the hell off this mountain?” I ask.
Gabriel nods. “I’ll start getting back on the HAM radio a couple of times a day and see if I can get any news. You should keep writing. It seems to help you, when you write.”
“It does. I think I have written as much as I can from my perspective alone, though. If I am really going to tell the story, I need to start including things I learned after the fact. Things I did not see firsthand. Maybe I could get you to make a few contributions. You may not have a gift for writing, but you need to tell your side of the story too.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
Gabe stares into the fire and settles back onto the floor with his legs crossed beneath him. He looks like a brooding gargoyle hunched over in the middle of the room.
“It’s going to be hard, you know, getting to Colorado. God only knows what we’re going to run into between here and there.” He says.
I nod and move closer to the fire. I was away from it for less than a minute and I can already feel the cold penetrating my clothes. The stove warms my hands as I hold them over its dark iron.
“I know. It was certainly not a fucking picnic just getting up here. I’m willing to take the risk, though. You’re cool and all, but I don’t know how much longer I can go on just having one person to talk to.” I reply.
He glances up at me. His smile is grim and brief before he turns his eyes back to the floor. “No more doubts then. After the spring thaw, we go west.”
I nod. “We need to agree on a load out.”
Gabe groans and rubs his forehead.
“Not this argument again. For Christ’s sake, the trailer can haul a lot of gear. If you don’t want to drag it, then just fucking cover me, and I’ll pull it to Colorado.”
I laugh at the mental image of Gabriel harnessed up like a Clydesdale with our aluminum cart trundling along behind him.
“Gabe, just because there is room for it doesn’t mean we need to bring it.”
It is an old argument between the two of us by now. Gabe wants to haul half of his damned armory out west, and I think we should bring only what we need to survive. I favor a strategy of packing light and moving quickly, scavenging what we need as we go along. Gabriel wants to pack up the trailer and bring as much weapons, food, ammo, and tools as we can possibly fit into the thing. Like most arguments between us, it will probably end in some kind of compromise that doesn’t make either one of us happy, but that we can both live with.
“You need to think about what we’re going to do once we reach Colorado.” He replies. “Just making it out there isn’t the end of it. We will need weapons and lots of ammo if we are going to survive beyond just a couple of years. There are millions, hundreds of millions, of undead out there. The human race is outnumbered at least a thousand to one, and that’s just here in the U.S. alone. Not to mention all the fucked up marauders, murderers, and assorted evil bastards that managed to survive. The undead will not be the only, or even the greatest, danger that we are likely to face. When it comes to that kind of combat, fighting the living, we are going to need options. We can’t run away from everything. There will be times when we will have to stand and fight, and when that happens, I don’t want to be stuck with just a damn .22 pistol to defend myself with.”
I glare at Gabriel for a moment, and then sit down in my chair.
“I never said we should just bring the .22’s.”
I generally favor ammo that is light and plentiful, and the guns used to fire it. Gabriel being the giant of a man that he is, prefers weapons that can drop a bull rhino from four-hundred yards. I freely acknowledge the range and stopping power of powerful ordnance such as the 7.62mm and the .338 Lapua magnum, but that shit is heavy, and so are the rifles that fire it.
“I understand, and agree,” Says Gabriel, “that light ammo is a good thing when it comes to putting down the infected. If all you’re worried about is a head shot from within a hundred yards, then that stuff is great. What you need to understand, Eric, is that living people are a lot harder to hit than one of those stumbling shitheads, and that heavy ammunition does a lot better job of stopping a living person in their tracks than those little plinkers you like so much. I had to learn that particular lesson the hard way, just in case you forgot.”
I hold my hands out, palms up in a placating gesture.
“Okay, fine, you win, we need to bring some heavy hitters. Balance that thought against weight concerns and come up with an efficient load out that doesn’t break my freaking back when it’s my turn to pull the damn cart. You are, after all, a solid sixty pounds heavier than me.”
“When I get finished rigging up that cart, you will barely feel the weight. Trust me.”
“My father always told me never to trust anyone that says ‘Trust me.’”
Gabriel frowns at me, then gets up from the floor and sits down in his chair. The chair creaks in protest under his bulk. Both of us have lost weight since the Outbreak, but Gabe is still at least two hundred and fifty pounds of solid muscle. I imagine that if it were not for all of the dried venison and beans that we stored up for winter, he would have lost a lot more weight than he has. So would I, for that matter. The last time I stepped on the scale, I was a hundred and eighty-seven pounds. That is about twenty pounds lighter than I was when I got here, and even then I was lean. My body has burned up what little fat I carried, and a significant amount of muscle mass, trying to keep me warm through the harsh winter.
Speaking of, I have seen winter in the high county many times, but none so bitter as this one. Winter set in very early this year, and judging by the weather over the last few weeks, it may last several weeks longer than normal. Gabriel has a theory about that unhappy fact that I find immensely disturbing.
Nuclear winter.
As if we didn’t have enough problems.
The wind outside has died down, and the sun is getting low on the horizon. Darkness comes quickly in the high country. The pile of wood beside the stove is too low to last the night, and the snow piled up against the side of the cabin is not going to shovel itself. I stand up and start to pull on my boots.
“We should bring in some more wood and shovel that damn snow before nightfall. I don’t want to be out there after dark, it is too freaking cold at night these days.”
Gabriel gets up from his chair and grabs his boots.
“I hate it when the sun goes down. I got nothing else to do but huddle under a blanket in the dark, and wait until I’m tired enough to crawl down into the bunker. I know it is a safe place to sleep and all, but I look forward to the day when I can sleep above ground without having to worry about getting eaten.”
I stop lacing my boots for a moment and look up at Gabriel.
“You really think that’s ever going to happen? What with the world being the way it is, now?”
Gabriel shrugs, and the ghost of a smile crosses his face.
“A man has to have something to hope for, doesn’t he?”
I stare down at my hands for a moment. They are dry to the point of being cracked and bleeding. They used to bother me, but I have grown used to the pain and barely notice it anymore. I am always amazed at the things I can grow accustomed to when I have no choice. With every day that passes, I grow more convinced that suffering, and strength for that matter, are all a matter of choice. I will wake up every morning, probably for the rest of my life, and face mortal danger. Do I let that stop me from trying to live? If I do, then I’m as good as dead already.
“I guess you do. Either that, or you just give up. Maybe that’s what hope really is. Having something to look forward to.” I reply.
“You looking forward to shoveling some snow?” Gabe asks as he opens the door.
Frigid wintry air blows into the cabin, bringing with it the smell of cold and the earthy, iron scent of the frozen mountains.
“No, but it needs doing.” I reply.
Gabriel smiles, and the shadows around his eyes seem to lift for a moment.
“Story of my life, amigo, story of my life.”
I laugh at that as we step out into the frigid twilight.