This Shattered Land - 02 (28 page)

That
night we made camp in the barn next to a farmhouse surrounded on all sides by
broad fields covered in waist high grass. It was nestled in the hollow of a
small valley with a clear stream cutting through the center. We spotted it from
the crest of a hill and decided it was as good a place as any to stop for the
evening. I parked the Honda in a small roadside clearing a quarter-mile away
from the gravel driveway before getting out to stretch my legs. Brian poured
everyone a cup of water, and we spent a few minutes figuring out how best to
make our approach to the farm. Tom argued with Sarah that he should be the one
to go with Gabriel and me, and that she should stay behind with Brian.

“Tom,
I want you to listen to me very carefully.” Sarah said, standing close to her
husband and staring him in the eye. “I am not some helpless little girl. I’m
not stupid, I’m not weak, and I don’t want you constantly putting yourself in
harm’s way because of all the misguided macho bullshit that you’ve been
spoon-fed your whole life. I can shoot, I can fight, and I know how to defend
myself. This is not Hollywood. I’m not going to run screaming at the first sign
of danger, or trip over invisible branches and crawl on my knees like in a
horror movie. I’m going to do what I’ve been trained to do. I will keep my eyes
open, my gun up, and my head on a swivel. Okay?”

Tom
sighed and shook his head. “Babe, you know it’s not like that. I just…” He
trailed off, holding his palms up in a helpless gesture.

Sarah’s
expression softened. “I know, honey, I know. If it makes you feel better, we
can take turns trying to get ourselves killed.”

Tom
broke a smile. “Alright, fair enough. I’ll stay here with the kid this time.”

Brian
sat up straight and leaned forward in his seat, one hand curled around the roll
bar.

“Actually,
I could-”

“NO!”
His parents barked in unison.

Brian
frowned, and slumped back into his seat. I turned away to hide a grin.

“We
ready to go?” Gabe rumbled, adjusting his ghillie suit. He looked like a
walking mountain of vegetation.  

“Just
a second.” Sarah said.

She
took Tom’s face in both hands and planted a firm kiss on his lips, and then
another one for good measure. I watched Gabe out of the corner of my eye to
gauge his reaction. He clenched his jaw and turned away, his gray eyes
smoldering and icy all at once.

Not
good.

Gabe
grabbed the M110 out of the trailer, and pointed out where he would take
position on a hillside overlooking the house and the nearby barn. Sarah and I
planned to fan out and approach the house through the field using the tall
grass for concealment. We checked our weapons one last time to make sure we had
rounds chambered and safeties off, and started toward the farm. Gabe took a few
steps into the tree line on the hillside and then promptly vanished from view.
No matter how many times I saw him do that, it always gave me the creeps. No
one should be able to just disappear like that, especially somebody as big as him.

The
batteries on our radios were dead, so making a coordinated approach was going
to be difficult. Sarah quickly moved out of view to my right as we crept
through the overgrown field. I felt an irrational urge to poke my head up and
search for her, but I firmly shut down that idea. The last thing I needed to do
was get my head shot off by some paranoid farmer with a hunting rifle. It was
bad enough that we were approaching with weapons at the ready; anyone who saw
us coming was likely to get the wrong idea about our intentions. If I saw a
bunch of gun-toting strangers sneaking up on my house, I definitely wouldn’t
greet them with a howdy-neighbor smile and a muffin basket. I wondered how we
would convince anyone we found there that we were not out to hurt them. We just
wanted to get some rest, put some food in our bellies, and then be on our way
tomorrow morning.

I
held my rifle steady just below my line of sight as I walked in a low crouch.
The grass began to grow shorter as the top half of the farmhouse grew larger
and closer. I had to belly crawl the last hundred or so yards to where the
driveway stopped in a wide D-shaped loop in front of the porch. I lay still for
a moment to listen, and heard only the steady, ocean-like rustle of wind
blowing over the tall fields. The house itself looked like it had seen better
days. The porch steps sagged, the roof was missing patches of shingles, and
about half of the faded white paint on the siding had fallen off to expose
rotten wood beneath. In spite of the stirring, rustling wind there was a kind
of silence that hovered over the house. The silence of a place that was once a
part of people’s lives, but now stood alone and forgotten, heavy with the
weight of time and neglect.

I
looked around trying to catch sight of Sarah, but I couldn’t see her through
all the damned weeds. That was both a good thing, and a bad thing. If I could
not see her, then it was unlikely that anyone in the house could see her
either. The bad part was that I had no idea where she was, or how quickly she
could be there to back me up if I needed her. She was most likely hanging back watching
me, and if worst came to worst, Gabriel was a demon with that semi-automatic
sniper rifle of his. He’d had plenty of time to set himself up in a hide, and
was undoubtedly at that very moment watching the house through a high-powered
scope. My tactical situation was not going to improve, and nightfall was fast
on its way. Decision time. I weighed my options and decided to go ahead and
approach on my own. I crawled backward into the high brush and slowly worked my
way around the side of the house. My red-dot sight did not have very much
magnification power, but it was enough to see that no one was watching me
through the windows. I got to my feet and sprinted to the wall.

Keeping
my shoulder close to the siding, I raised my rifle and crept toward the back yard.
The only windows on this side were on the second floor, so I didn’t have to
worry about being seen from ground level. When I reached the end of the wall, I
pied out the corner until I was certain that no one was waiting for me on the
other side with bad intentions. That done, I swept the back yard and quietly
moved toward the back door. The door was shut, and blinds over the window kept
me from seeing inside. I tried the door handle. Unlocked. Hot damn.

I
turned the handle and cringed when the hinges squeaked as I opened the door.
Just then, I head the soft rustle of a booted foot stepping on grass and
whipped around with my rifle. Sarah waved to me from the same corner I had just
rounded. I took my finger off the trigger and motioned her forward. We stacked
up on the same side of the door, and I used a few simple hand signals to
explain how we would handle the entry. I pointed to myself, and then to the
left side of the doorway. Then I pointed at Sarah, and the right side of the
doorway. She nodded, and took a deep breath. Her hands tightened on her M-6 as
she adjusted the stock against her shoulder. I held up three fingers and shook
my hand a couple of times. Sarah nodded again. I counted down.

Three
fingers, then two, and on one we moved. I stepped quickly through the door and
swept left, keeping my rifle pointed in the same direction as my eyes. With my
peripheral vision, I saw Sarah do the same to the right. The room we walked
into was a shabby kitchen with a cracked linoleum floor and cabinet doors
standing wide open to expose empty shelves. A thick layer of dust covered
everything in sight, indicating that no one had been in the kitchen in a long
time. That was a good sign. Sarah ran a finger through the dust on a countertop
and held it up for me to see as she shot me a meaningful stare. I nodded and
gave her a thumbs-up. An open doorway led to the next room. This one was a
living room with moth-eaten furniture and a flat screen TV. The television sat
atop a modern metal and glass table that looked out of place next to the yellow
sofa, brown loveseat, and an old recliner that was roughly the same color as a
bowl of pea soup. The smell emanating from the shag carpet under my boots was
faint, but still carried the sickening reek of death.

I
cast a glance around the room, and saw splatters of dried brown crust splashed
on the walls, furniture, and floors. The remains of a skeleton lay in a broken
pile of blood-crusted clothing and bones in a corner near the front door. Sarah
saw it as well and turned to look at me, her expression grim. I pointed a
finger up the stairs, and then placed it over my lips in a hushing gesture. I
mouthed, “I got point.” and moved toward the staircase. Sarah fell in behind
me, watching our six. I grimaced as I looked up the stairs, dreading what the
next few seconds might bring. Going up a staircase is one of the worst things
you can do in a situation where people might be shooting at you. The best way
to handle it is to move quickly, and be prepared to make a split-second
decision whether or not to pull the trigger.

The
stairs creaked and groaned as we made our way up, but there was nothing for it,
so we kept moving. I rounded the corner on the second floor landing and took a
few steps forward before turning to my right and taking a knee. Sarah fell into
place beside me with her weapon pointing down the narrow hallway in front of
us. Two closed doors waited on the right and three on the left, one of them only
a couple of feet in front of me. I forked a two-fingered gesture at my eyes,
pointed at Sarah, and then pointed at the other end of the hall. She nodded and
took a couple of steps forward to give me some space. I got to my feet and
tried the handle on the nearest door. It was unlocked. I pushed the door open
quickly and stepped into the room, leading with my gun. Nothing leapt out at
me. The room was as dusty as the rest of the house, so I figured no one had
been in there in a while. Neutral colors on the walls, a simple chest of
drawers, single bed, and a small bedside table. No pictures on the walls, no
decorations, no posters, nothing. Must have been a guest room. Sarah was still
watching the hallway when I stepped back out. When she glanced over, I gave her
a thumbs-up to indicate that the room was clear and motioned for her to
advance.

The
next room was another bedroom, and judging by the rock band posters, the bikini
clad models on a wall calendar, and the TV equipped with a video game console
in the corner, I figured it must have once belonged to a teenage boy. There was
no sign of anyone having been there in months, maybe years. Sarah opened the
door on the other side of the hallway to reveal a laundry room. A basket of
neatly folded clothing sat on top of the dryer, also covered in dust. Two more
to go. I tried to turn the handle to the last door on the right, but it didn’t
budge. Sarah reached over and tried the last one on the left with no better
luck. I stepped close to her and leaned in to whisper.

“We
take each room together. I’ll kick in the door, you break to whatever side is
open, I back you up. Finger off the trigger until you see a threat.
Understood?”

Sarah
nodded. She looked neither nervous nor anxious. Just focused. I gave her a soft
pat on the shoulder then moved into position in front of the door. Sarah
stacked up to my right, rifle up and ready to move. I took a couple of deep
breaths, checked my footing, and then lifted my heel and drove it down and
forward into the door handle with as much force as I could muster. The jamb
splintered apart and the door flew inward to bash against the wall behind it.
The noise was like a cold glass of water to the face in the silent hallway. By
the time I recovered my balance and got both feet back on the ground, Sarah was
already on the move. She paused for a fraction of a second in the doorway, and
then broke right. I came in after her and moved left. A queen-sized bed took up
the center of the room, flanked by two low tables, a dresser, and an open
closet on the left. A desiccated corpse lay on one side of the mattress. I took
a few steps closer to see if it was still a threat.

The
clothes hanging from its wasted flesh looked like the kind of thing a
middle-aged farmer would wear. Red plaid button down shirt, jeans, and white
cotton socks. A pair of well-worn steel toe boots sat neatly arranged at the
foot of the bed. A wide black stain of old body fluids ringed the corpse. Judging
by the lack of strong odor, this person had been dead for a long time. On
closer inspection, I noticed that there were a couple of holes in the skull
beneath leathery shreds of rotten flesh. One was a small entry wound,
accompanied on the other side by a larger exit hole. A nickel-plated revolver
lay on the mattress only inches away from one of the dead man’s skeletal hands.

“This
one’s done.” I said. “Let’s check that last room.”

Sarah
had already turned back to watch the other door while I checked the corpse.

“Waiting
on you.” She said.  

We
repeated the same set up as before. The right side of the door was too close to
the wall where the hallway terminated, so Sarah had to stack up on the left
this time. Just as I was about to raise my foot, a moan sounded from inside the
room and the door shuddered under a sudden onslaught. I motioned for Sarah to
back off a few steps, aimed high on the door, and stitched four shots down the
center a few inches apart. The suppressor on the end of the barrel muffled the
reports to a series of dull cracks. The first three found nothing but wood and
empty air, but the last one hit something on the other side. I heard a thump, a
rasping slide that moved down the door, and then a rapid series of louder
thumps. Sarah broke a smile.