This Shattered Land - 02 (17 page)

“Who
knows, maybe you can go back for it someday.” He said, smiling.

“Sure,
and right after that, pigs will fly, beer will grow on trees, beautiful women
will fall out of the sky, and the rivers will flow with whiskey.” I replied,
grinning at my own joke. 

Gabe
laughed, his deep baritone echoing in the hills around us. “Hell, I’d settle
for any one of those things right about now. Especially women falling out of
the sky.”

“You
fella’s about ready to go?” Tom called from the end of the narrow pier.

My
smile faded. “Yeah, ready to go.” I called back.

We
walked to the end of the dock where Tom and Brian had lowered Gabe’s fiberglass
canoe into the water. Nylon lines tied it off bow and stern to a couple of
cleats fastened to the pier. Gabe and I climbed down the ladder next to the
dock and placed our packs in the center of the little boat. I checked the small
outboard motor to make sure it was in good working order while Tom handed down
a large plastic gas can. Gabe stowed it next to our packs, then reached up to
take a couple of oars from Brian.

“You
guys be careful out there, you hear?” Tom said.

“Always
are.” I replied, giving my best reassuring smile.

Brian
knelt down on the dock, concern evident on his face.

“How
long are you going to be gone?” He asked for at least the sixth time.

“Not
more than a couple of days. Maybe three at most. Don’t worry, bud, we’ve done
this before. We know what we’re doing.”

I
reached up and ruffled his hair. He smiled, and playfully shoved my hand away.

“Just
be careful.” He said.

“We
will, don’t worry.”

Gabe
stood up, and shook hands with both Tom and Brian. “Ya’ll look after Sarah, and
try not to burn the place down before we get back.”

Tom
smiled as he stood up, thin crow’s feet crinkling around his eyes. “We’ll do
our best. Bon voyage, gentlemen.”

Brian
untied the canoe from the dock and tossed down the thin nylon line. Gabe and I
used our oars to push away from the dock and row out into the center of the
river. The temperatures were getting warmer during the day, and the river had
swollen a good bit since the last time we’d seen it. The current was swift and
strong as it carried the canoe along to the southwest. We steered without
having to expend too much effort. Gabe used his oar as a rudder, and I rowed
and pushed us away from large boulders and tree limbs jutting up through the water’s
surface. The trees around us had finally started sprouting leaves, their
branches forming a thin brown canopy above us dappled with patches of green. Bright
sunlight filtered down through the spidery tangle of limbs. I was grateful for
the warmth, but saddened by the fact that by now there should have been broad
green leaves blocking out the sun and providing a cool, shady respite from the
heat that had yet to show up. I hoped the weather would continue to warm up,
and that the forest I had loved for so long would turn green and verdant again.
It had been too long since I had seen the mountain country bloom, and I
sincerely hoped I would get to see it again before saying goodbye the
Appalachians.

  In
a couple of hours, we reached an oxbow that descended down into a narrow
valley. Gabe steered the canoe alongside the rocky shore. We tossed the oars
into the boat along with our other gear, and used handles along the gunwales to
carry it up the sandy embankment. It would be faster to simply stay on the
river and brave the rapids that wound southward, but we would face the danger
of capsizing the canoe, and that was a chance that we simply could not afford
to take. About ninety minutes, and a couple of thousand four-letter words
later, we grunted, heaved and tugged the canoe out of the forest and back down
the riverbank on the other side of the oxbow south of the rapids. I let out a
sigh of relief as we settled down and paddled away from shore.

Another
hour or so later we rowed ashore again to begin the weary task of carrying the
canoe a mile and a half over land to the eastern bank of Lake James. It was a
lot of effort to go through, but we would avoid having to cross the old
hydroelectric plant that dammed up the river and formed the lake. Thankfully, the
ground we crossed sloped downward, and the forest was much thinner due to the
larger population of people that lived here prior to the Outbreak. The sparse
foliage made for much easier travel on foot. Using nylon mooring lines to lash
the bow of the canoe to our shoulders, we dragged the little boat along behind
us, the smooth underside of the canoe sliding easily over the sandy ground and
making the walk to the lake almost pleasant.

“I
wonder how much longer the dam is going to hold up down there.” Gabe said at
one point, nodding his head southward toward the old hydroelectric plant.

“I
have no idea. Honestly, I’m surprised it lasted this long. I guess the people
who worked there opened the floodgates enough to let the river flow through before
they evacuated.”

We
walked a little farther in silence, and then a thought occurred to me. “Hey, do
you think there might be someone still alive there?”

Gabe
shrugged. “If they are, there ain’t much we can do for ‘em. I’m not taking this
canoe anywhere near that dam, and I’m sure as hell not going to try to walk
through the front gates. Place is probably crawling with infected.”

“Yeah,
you’re probably right.” I said, growing thoughtful. “Still, though, do you ever
wonder how many people survived the Outbreak? Maybe a few hundred thousand, you
think?”

“Could
be more than that.” Gabe replied. “There were over three hundred million people
here in the U.S. alone before the Outbreak. If even one percent survived, then
that’s about three million people. Problem is, I doubt that as many as one
percent made it longer than a few months. If the dead didn’t get them, then
starvation, disease, exposure, or plain old human violence towards his fellow
man probably did.”

I
pondered that for a few minutes as we trudged along. “Okay, so let’s say,
hypothetically, that one percent of three hundred million survived. How many of
that three million would have made it as long as us?” I asked.

Gabe
stared blankly ahead for a few seconds before responding.

“Back
when I worked for Aegis, we had briefings where the CDC lab rats would come in
go over different outbreak scenarios with us. One time, they had a guy come in
to talk about the Phage. He showed us a map of the world and went through the
different ways that a major outbreak could play out.”

Gabe
went quiet for few moments, remembering. I waited for him to speak again,
fascinated. He had never told me about this before. Over the years, he had
always been reluctant to broach the subject of his work with Aegis, and rarely
talked about it.

“What
it boiled down to was,” He continued. “if the Phage got loose somewhere rural,
or isolated, it would be a hell of a lot easier to contain than if it broke out
in a heavily populated area. The infection spreads exponentially once it gets
out. The more people you have around, the worse the problem gets, especially if
they don’t know how to fight it.”

“I
remember.” I said.

Images
of cities burning, hordes of infected slaughtering millions, and the mass panic
that consumed the populace in the wake of the Outbreak flashed through my mind.
Sometimes I still had nightmares about it.

“Yeah,
I guess you do.” Gabe said, his gaze sharpening as his mind came back to the
present. “Anyway, the worst case scenario was an outbreak in a major city with
a large population, especially one that was a major land transportation hub.
There were seven cities in the U.S. they thought would be the worst places for
an outbreak to occur; New York, L.A., D.C., Chicago, Philadelphia, Phoenix,
and…well, I’ll let you guess the last one.”

“Atlanta.”

Gabe
nodded. “That would be the one.”

We
were quiet for a few minutes before Gabe spoke again.

“So
back to your original question.” He said, “The little guy who did the
presentation ran the numbers by us for worst case scenario survivability. I
think they were trying to impress upon us the gravity of the situation.”

I
turned my head to look at him. “How bad was it?”

“After
six months, ten percent or less survive. After one year, the numbers go down to
one to two percent. After two years, about three quarters of one percent, and
the numbers only get lower from there on out.”

“Jesus.”
I said, my voice down to a whisper. “I knew it was bad, but less than one
percent…that’s billions, man. Billions of people dead, and the whole damn world
burned down with them.”

Gabe
nodded solemnly. “I know. I didn’t believe it when they first told us that,
didn’t want to believe it, but damn if the Phage didn’t prove ‘em right.” A
short, bitter laugh escaped him. “And now here we are, the last of a dying
race. Sometimes I wonder if there are enough people out there for humanity to
have a chance at coming back.”  

“Only
one way to find out.” I said.

A
short time later we cleared the tree line and emerged onto a narrow rock-strewn
beach. Lazy sun-dappled waves lapped at the shoreline, sending little rocks and
pebbles tumbling along under their wake. Cranes took flight in the distance,
and ducks swam along the edges of the water near the shore. In the face of such
an idyllic scene, it was easy to forget that most of the world around
Appalachia lay in ruins, trampled under the rotten feet of the undead. I raised
a hand up over my eyes to shade them as I looked out over the water.

“Too
bad we didn’t bring our fishing tackle with us.” I said.

“No
time for that.” Gabe replied. “Let’s get moving.”

We
put the canoe into the lake and used the oars to push ourselves out into the
open water, following the contour of the shore and enjoying the scenery. Less
than an hour’s easy rowing saw us reach the far tip of the lake closest to
Marion town limits. We dragged the canoe ashore, threw in the oars, and stashed
the little craft behind a thick growth of bushes. The packs we brought with us
were the biggest ones that we owned, the idea being to maximize the amount of
supplies we could bring back.

Leaving
the canoe behind, we followed an old two-lane blacktop that would lead us
straight into town. The sense of relaxation I enjoyed during the pleasant ride
across the lake evaporated as we hiked due south. Old habits took over, and I
began scanning the forest on both sides of the road for signs of movement. Gabe
and I both left our trusty rifles behind, not wanting to carry the extra
weight, but we did bring our pistols with us. I had my Kel-Tec, and Gabe carried
his ever-present .45 caliber Sig Sauer.

The
road beneath us was cracked and pitted with large potholes scattered every
dozen yards or so. Already, nature had begun reclaiming the pavement for
vegetation. Sprigs of grass and tiny saplings grew between the breaks and
fissures in the road, hastening its destruction. In twenty years no one would
be able to tell there was ever a road here.

It
amazed me how quickly the work of mankind was being torn down and replaced with
natural growth now that there was no one around to maintain it. All of the
little pieces, parts, and functions of civilization that I once took for
granted lay in ruins. The world was not a perfect place before the Outbreak,
and the human race was guilty of some terrible things, but for all of our
crimes and ignorance, I don’t think we deserved such a harsh punishment as what
we got. I just hoped that those of us who survived could learn from the
mistakes of the past, and build something better for those who come after.

The
sun rose high in the sky, but a close canopy of branches overhead obscured most
of its light as they rustled and swayed in the gentle breeze. There was a time
when I enjoyed the sound of limbs jostling against one another, singing the
same old song this forest had sung for untold millennia, but when on the
lookout for walkers, it was just annoying. Background noise makes it hard to
distinguish the sounds of the undead approaching from the natural sounds of the
forest. The infected, for their part, pay the wind no heed at all. They only
have ears for the sounds of living flesh.

Just
as I was thinking this, we rounded a bend in the road and spotted several
infected wandering in our direction. We stopped and watched them.

“Shit,
man, do you think they heard us coming?” I asked.

“I
hope not.” Gabe replied. “I know their hearing is good, but I didn’t think it
was
that
good.”

The
undead spotted us. The ones that were still capable of doing so began to moan
and croak. I cursed under my breath as I drew my pistol and attached the
suppressor to the barrel. That moaning was going to attract every undead corpse
within half a mile if we didn’t put a stop to it, and quickly. I didn’t waste
any time. I jogged to within fifteen yards of the walkers and assumed a relaxed
shooting stance. The first infected was barely recognizable as the person that
he once had been. His face was almost completely gone, and his flesh hung in
tattered strips exposing white bone and desiccated muscle tissue. It surprised
me that as screwed up as he was he was still capable of locomotion. The Kel-Tec
made a muted crack, and he fell down to the pavement. I lined up on the next
one, trying not to notice the gaping hole where her intestines used to be, and
sent another supersonic projectile through her rotten skull. Five left. I shot
three more, and then holstered my pistol. No sense in wasting ammo when we
could simply take them out one on one. I drew my fighting knife and gestured
for Gabe to move up. He unsheathed his Falcata and fell into a fighting stance
next to me. I pulled the scarf around my neck up over my mouth and tied it
back, then slipped on my ski goggles. Gabe did the same.