This Shattered Land - 02 (21 page)

I
nodded. She was referring to Gabe’s M-40, a sniper rifle used by the Marine
Corps for many years. It is a great deer rifle, and the silencer keeps it from
drawing a swarm of infected with every shot.

“I
hope he gets something,” I said, “it would be nice to have a surplus of meat
before we leave for Colorado.”

A
few minutes later, I heard the rattling of a chain at the main gate and I got
up to see Tom dragging a field-dressed buck behind him. Gabe and I walked out
to help him bring the carcass up to the cabin.

“Nicely
done, man, nicely done.” I said, as we hauled it up onto a table.

“Got
him about an hour ago.” Tom said, smiling. “This should keep us in stew for a
couple of weeks, don’t you think?”

“You
think we have time to preserve some of this meat before we leave?” I asked,
turning to look at Gabriel.

He
crossed his arms, and reached up one hand to scratch his beard, considering. “It
might push us back a day or two, but it’ll be worth it to have the extra food.”

“Awesome.”
I said. “Tell you what, if you work on that tomorrow, I’ll head down to the
river and bring back the supplies. Tom, you mind helping me out with that?”

He
shook his head. “Not at all. Honestly, it’ll be nice to get away from the cabin
and stretch my legs a bit.”  

Gabe
nodded. “Alright, sounds like we have a plan. Let’s make it happen.”

I walked
into the cabin and grabbed a set of carving knives from the kitchen. By
nightfall, we had the carcass broken down and wrapped up in pieces of parchment
paper. Gabe fired up his big smoker and threw in a few cuts to cook overnight.

The
work reminded me of a time in my life when I thought that hunting was stupid
and wasteful. Why bother shooting an innocent animal when all you had to do was
pop on over to the grocery store and buy yourself a cut of steak? That was a
fine sentiment back in the days when there was still such a thing as grocery stores.
Nowadays if you want meat, you have to go out and kill it yourself. Call me
crazy, but I think it makes a hell of a lot more sense to kill game animals
that have a fighting chance than to raise an animal in a pen for no better
reason than to eventually slaughter it. I don’t have anything against deer, and
I don’t wish them any ill will, but I do get hungry, and venison is a plentiful
source of calories. Calories are life. It’s that simple.

For
dinner, Gabe cooked up the wild game that Brian and Sarah caught the day
before, and we all happily ate ourselves miserable. After we cleaned up, I
spent a few hours writing down a record of the last couple of day’s events, and
updated my maps to indicate the supplies that we did not take from Marion. The
rational part of my mind wondered why I bothered maintaining the maps at all,
considering the fact that we would be leaving in a few days. I’m not entirely sure
how to explain it, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was somehow
important for me to document sources of supplies.

The
next morning, Gabe enlisted Brian and Sarah’s help making venison jerky while
Tom and I took the cart and set off to retrieve the supplies we cached by the
river. The cart is a curious looking contraption that began its life as a motorcycle
trailer. Gabe used his ingenuity and an acetylene torch to reduce its weight by
twenty pounds, raise its ground clearance, install shock absorbers and spring
suspension, and add a yoke to the front that can be pulled by hand or hitched
up to a harness. I wasn’t too sure about it the first time Gabe showed it to
me, but now that I was actually pulling it, I had to admit it worked every bit
as well as my overgrown friend advertised. Using the harness Gabe designed for
it I could barely feel the weight behind me. The harness itself has a single
pin attachment on the front that, when disengaged, allows the wearer to drop
the harness and raise a weapon on a moment’s notice.

The
hike to the supply cache took us a little over an hour. The clear sky and cool
temperature put Tom in a talkative mood, giving me a chance to learn a little
bit more about him. I knew he had a contractor’s license before the Outbreak,
but I was not sure what kind of work he specialized it. As it turned out, he
earned a living remodeling houses and renovating strip mall properties for new
tenants. He was a fair hand at just about any work that involved building
things from carpentry, to roofing, to electrical work.

“Those
are valuable skills.” I said, at one point in the conversation. “I imagine
you’ll find plenty of work when we get to Colorado. The government is calling
for people with construction experience to help with rebuilding efforts.”

“What
about you?” He replied. “What did you do before the Outbreak?”

I
laughed, and adjusted the harness on one shoulder where it was beginning to
chafe.

“I’ll
give you three guesses.”

Tom
smiled. “Were you a cop?”

I
laughed even louder. “No way man, I was definitely not a cop.”

Tom
nodded. “Okay then, were you in the military?”

“Nope.
Strike two.”

Tom
frowned and thought about it for a few minutes as we walked.

“Let’s
see,” He said, “you know how to shoot, and you seem to know a thing or two
about combat.”

“I’ll
give you a hint.” I said.

“What’s
that?”

“Gabe
taught me nearly everything I know about fighting. I never did it for a
living.”

Tom’s
eyebrows went up. “No kidding? Damn, remind me to pay more attention to his
range lessons.”

We
walked about a half mile further before Tom spoke again. Suddenly he looked up
and snapped his fingers.

“I
got it.” He said.

“Let’s
hear it.”

“You
were a firefighter.”

That
one got me laughing harder than before, and I had to stop for a few seconds to
keep from falling over. Tom scowled at me.

“Well
what the hell did you do, then?”

“You’re
going to be pissed when I tell you.”

Tom
held his hands out in irritation and gave me a sideways stare.

“I
was a financial analyst.”

Tom’s
mouth dropped open. “Seriously? You gotta be shitting me.”

“Nope.
I was a cubicle dwelling, number crunching, starched shirt and silk necktie
corporate salary worker. At least until my grandmother died.”

I
felt my smile leave my face as I straightened up and started walking again.

“I’m
sorry to hear that.” Tom said.

I
shrugged. “Don’t be. She didn’t miss anything.”

We
were silent for a few moments, our footsteps and the sound of birds calling to
one another the only noise in the peaceful forest. Boughs of tall hardwoods and
pines soared overhead and shaded us from the midday sun as we hiked. The trail
began to slope steeply downward, and we made faster time as we got closer to
the river.

“So
what happened after your grandmother passed?” Tom said.

A
few seconds went by before I responded. My thoughts drifted back across the
years, and I felt a sharp pang of loss over what my life had once been.

“Grandma
was rich, and I was one of her two surviving relatives. She split her money
between us when she died. After that, I didn’t have to work anymore.”

“Well,
that was nice of her. I assume your folks had passed by that point?”

I
nodded. “They were killed by a drunk driver about a year earlier.”

Tom
shook his head. “Damn, man, that’s tough. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah,
well, like I said before. They didn’t miss anything. It was pretty tough when
it happened, but it beats how most folks went out during the Outbreak.”

“That’s
true, but it still sucks that it happened to you.”

“What
about you?” I said, “You have any family other than Sarah and your boy?”

Tom’s
expression darkened. “Yeah, I did. I don’t think most of them made it, though.
I got a brother that lived out in Arizona. If there’s anybody else in my family
that survived, he’s probably the one.”

“Why
is that?”

“He
owned a gas station by the side of the highway out in the middle of freaking
nowhere. Had enough guns to outfit a small army. He liked being out in the
desert country, always was a bit of a loner.”

“What’s
his name?” I asked.

“Charles.”
Tom said. “But everybody called him Chuck.”

“Arizona
isn’t too far from Colorado, you know. Maybe we’ll see him when we get there.”

Tom
looked over at me and smiled. “I doubt that. Chuck never cared much for
crowds.”

We
reached the river basin, and I breathed a sigh of relief when the house where
we stashed the supplies came into view. It was just past noon, and we were
already halfway through with the day’s work. I parked the cart near the doorway
to the basement and pulled the pin on my chest to drop the harness. Tom helped
me load all the supplies into the cart, and I was surprised at how much room we
had left over when we were finished. The cart did not look very big, but it
could hold a lot of stuff. We ate a quick meal of dried meat and flatbread,
washed it down with cups of hot tea, and then started hauling our new gear back
to the cabin. The walk back was a bit more of a challenge due to the uphill
slope and the extra weight in the cart, but it was nothing that I couldn’t handle.
The only time that it became difficult was on the steeper uphill portions. Tom
pushed the cart from the back when he could tell that I was struggling, and we
managed to make good time getting back. As we walked through the gate, Gabe
stood up from in front of the smoker with a self-satisfied smirk on his face.

“How’d
the cart work for you?” He called out.

“It
sucks.” I yelled back. “This thing is freaking terrible. Did you put it
together when you were drunk?”

Gabe
laughed, and pointed a pair of tongs at me. “You’re a liar, Eric Riordan, a
miserable damn liar.”

Sarah
helped us unload everything and carry it down into the bunker so that she could
sort it out. We put it into a few piles and divided it up according to whom it
was for. Tom looked over the new rifles that I brought back, and let out a low
whistle.

“This
is some serious hardware you got here.” He said.

I
nodded. “Those two there are for you and Sarah. They’re more reliable than the
M-4’s you’ve been training with, but they work pretty much the same. Got plenty
of ammo too.”

In
a rare stroke of good luck, it turned out that the flash hiders on the M-6’s I
found were compatible with the suppressors we had on hand. We had over a dozen
of the things, but we only ever used four or five of them. Gabriel had insisted
that we take the suppressors with us to Colorado as trade goods, and I had to
admit that his logic was sound. We had spoken with many people over the HAM
radio in the course of the last year that had armed themselves with firearms
left behind by retreating military units. A good M-4 or M-16 compatible
suppressor would fetch a high price from one of the trading posts that had been
set up in recent months.

“So
what are we bringing with us?” Sarah asked as we worked.

“Well,
Gabe and I actually went back and forth over that for a while.” I replied. “We
have differing philosophies when it comes to packing for long distance travel.”

“How
so?”  

“Gabe
wants to travel heavy and bring as much gear as we can carry. Think Oregon
Trail. I think that we should travel light, focus on speed, and scavenge what
we need as we go along. After arguing about it for a few months, we came to a
compromise.”

“Okay,”
Sarah said, sounding dubious, “and what would that be?”

“The
cart.” I replied. “If we can’t fit something in there, or in a backpack, we
don’t bring it.”

“You
did see how much stuff we packed in there today, right?” Tom said, frowning.
“That thing wasn’t even full. You mind telling me exactly who is going to be
pulling that thing once we run out of gas?”

“I
imagine we all will, at one point or another.”

Sarah
laughed. “We might have to arrange for some of the heavier items to suffer an
untimely demise when my turn comes around.”

I
shot her a smile, and went back to work.

The
next few days passed much faster than I would have expected. I found myself
looking forward to the start of our journey less and less as the reality of leaving
the cabin began to sink in. The little mountaintop fortress had been my home
for the last two years, and I put a lot of sweat and blood into making it a
good place to live. It seemed like such a shame to leave everything behind, but
that was exactly what I had to do. What we all had to do.

When
the day finally arrived, we all got up early as the pre-dawn gray was just brightening
into amber and gold over the wide, graceful peaks on the eastern horizon. Gabe
and Tom ran a quick diagnostic on the MUV and connected the cart to the trailer
hitch. The MUV is an old Honda Big Red that Gabe made significant modifications
to for the journey ahead. Ten five-gallon Gerry cans stood in orderly ranks in
the vehicle’s bed lashed to mounting brackets with short bungee cords. They contained
all of the treated fuel that we had carefully conserved for the last couple of
years. After all this time, any gasoline we scavenged would most likely be
inert. There was a slim chance that we might find something usable in the underground
tanks at gas stations, but I was not going to get my hopes up. I fully expected
that once we burned through the last few drops of treated fuel, we would have
to make our way on foot for the rest of the trek.