This Shattered Land - 02 (29 page)

“No
way did you just do that blind.”

I
smiled back. “One way to find out.”

I
reached out and knocked on the door a few times. Silence. I raised a boot and
tried breaking down the door. The jamb broke, but the door would not budge. Finally,
I strapped the barrel of my gun around to my back and pushed hard against the
door. The body on the other side slid backward. I poked my head inside and
almost gagged on the stench. I stepped out for a second, took a couple of deep
breaths, and looked back in. The corpse lay on the floor of a bathroom leaking
red and black ichor from an exit wound on the back of its head. I stepped
further inside and noticed that someone had tied the thing’s arms behind its
back. That was strange. I kicked it over onto its back to make sure it was
dead. The bullet had gone through the creature’s nose and sinus cavity, and
bored a hole through the lower part of its brain on the way out. A lucky shot.

A
quick glance around showed me the usual things you find in a toilet. I stepped
over the corpse and opened the medicine cabinet.

“Um,
Eric?” Sarah said.

“Yeah.”
I replied, looking over.

“Shouldn’t
we finish searching before we start rooting around for things?”

I
frowned. “What else is there to check?”

“I
think there was a door in the kitchen that leads to a basement, and we haven’t
checked the barn or set up a perimeter yet.”

When
I shut the door to the medicine cabinet and saw myself in the mirror, there was
a bright avaricious gleam in my eyes. I have to admit there was a big part of
me that actually liked finding abandoned buildings and houses and searching
them for anything useful. After all, what else was there to get excited about
at the end of the world? Every once in a while I would score something really
nice, and when I did I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. I looked down and
shook my head. I would have to be more careful. Getting distracted like that
was a damn good way to get myself killed.

“Okay.
You’re right. Let’s get to work.”

It
took us another hour to finish searching the property. The basement had a water
heater, a workbench, and an impressive array of tools, but nothing that was of
any use to us. We left the corpses where they lay for the time being and went
outside to check the barn. It had actually been converted into an oversized
garage, complete with a cherry picker, a large air compressor, arc welder,
cutting torch, and several work benches lined with tools and buckets of old car
parts. The gutted remains of a ’68 Camaro Super Sport squatted on blocks in the
middle of the dirt floor. 

“Looks
like someone had a hobby.” Sarah said.

“And
good taste in cars.” I replied.

Sarah
glanced over at me. “Really? That piece of junk?”

“What,
you got a problem with classic Chevy’s?”

“No,
not really, aside from the fact that it’s not a Ford.”

I
rolled my eyes. “Oh lord, another purist.”

Sarah
punched me on the arm, and moved her rifle around to her back so that she could
climb the ladder leading up to the loft. It didn’t take us long to search it,
there was nothing up there but a bare plywood floor and old cobwebs. We left
the barn to walk a circle around the tree line, but other than a few bare-boned
skeletons scattered about, we found nothing worthy of note. I turned in the
direction that I knew Gabe was watching us from and waved him over. Sarah and I
sat down on the sagging front porch to wait for him.

Birds
chirped in the trees, and a gentle wind stirred the grass in rippling waves. It
reminded me of the time my father took me fishing on Lake Michigan one summer
when I was in high school. The wind over the lake caressed the water with the
same kind of steady patience. After a few minutes, the wind shifted and the
fields went still. Several tall peaks that bordered the valley stopped the
breeze in its tracks and redirected it around the farm. The valley went silent.

That
has probably been one of the hardest things to get used to about life after the
Outbreak—the silence. Before the world ended, one could almost always hear some
kind of sound that indicated the presence of man. The humming of power lines,
the distant roar of aircraft flying overhead, cars moving along roads and
highways, there was always
something.
But not anymore. Sitting on that
porch with Sarah, the only thing we heard was birds, crickets, and our own
breathing. Without the ever-present drone of humanity at the fringes of our
hearing, the ambient noise of the forest was like a dark weight pressing down
on us, pervading and oppressive, reminding me of everything that had been lost.

“Much,
but not all.” I muttered, staring down at the ground between my feet.

“What’s
that?” Sarah asked.

I
looked up and smiled self-consciously. “Nothing, just thinking out loud.”

“Oh.”

We
gazed off across the yard again. Out of nowhere, as per usual, Gabe appeared
like an apparition. One second all we see is a field of tall grass, and then suddenly
there is a big dark haired guy with a sniper rifle glowering at us.

“How
the hell does he do that?” Sarah said.

“Dunno.
Shit like that makes me glad he’s on our side, though.”

Sarah
chuckled, and got up to go greet Gabe.

“Find
anything interesting?” He asked when he reached us.

“Three
dead in the house. One suicide, one walker, and one hell-if-I-know. A few more
out in the fields, probably infected.” I said.

  Gabe
nodded. “I’m not worried about anything in the field, we’re not going to be
traipsing through that crud any more than we have to. Too much danger of
running into a crawler. Those other three still in the house?”

I
nodded.

“Well,
I guess we’ll have to remedy that. Sarah, you want to go ahead and get Tom up
here? Eric and I can take care of the mess.”

“Sure.
Have fun guys.” She smiled and waved as she walked away.

“Yeah,
lots of fun.” I drawled. I noticed that Gabe was watching Sarah’s departure
with rapt attention, and a dull dread began to settle into my gut.

“Hey
Gabe?”

“Yeah?”
He said, not looking away.

“You
want to stop drooling and get your eyeballs back in your head?”

Gabe
turned to me and scowled. He opened his mouth to say something, then stopped
and closed it, looking away.

“Come
on. We got work to do.”

It
occurred to me that I hadn’t tried the front door to see if it was unlocked.
When Gabe stepped up onto the porch and turned the handle, it didn’t budge.

“Come
on around back. That one’s unlocked.” I said.

Gabe
grunted and followed me to the back yard. He slung the rifle over his shoulder
and drew his sidearm.

“Ya’ll
cleared that basement, right?” He said, shining a flashlight down the stairs
after we entered the kitchen.

“Yeah,
it’s clean. Can’t say the same for the living room, though.” I replied.

I
followed him through the doorway and waited while he looked around. He noticed
the pile of rags and bones in the corner and walked over to have a closer look.

“What
the hell happened here?” He said, running his flashlight around the bloodstains
on the walls and carpet.

“I
think I might have an idea, but I want you to take a look upstairs before I run
it by you.”

Gabe
glanced at me and nodded. The stairs groaned under our weight as we climbed to
the second floor. I pushed open the broken door to the master bedroom and
stepped away. Gabe took a few steps inside, shining his flashlight around.

“Suicide.”
He said.

I
nodded. “That pistol is a thirty-eight. About the same size as the holes we
found in the skulls of those skeletons out in the field. Come look at this.”

I
motioned toward the bathroom. Gabe peered around the corner and whistled.

“Smells
like a damn slaughterhouse in here.” He looked down at the corpse, a puzzled
expression crossing his face. “Now why do you suppose this one is tied up?”

I
leaned against the wall and crossed my arms. “Here’s my guess.” I pointed into
the master bedroom. “That guy is responsible for the dead walkers in the field.
I imagine him and his family holed up here and did their best to ride out the
storm after the Outbreak. One day Dad comes home and finds that not only has
his wife turned, but she attacked their son and ripped him to pieces.”

Gabe
nodded solemnly. “That would explain the mess downstairs.”

“So
after that,” I continued. “He manages to tie up his wife and lock her in the
bathroom. Sometime later he decides that life just isn’t worth it without his
wife and son, so he grabs his gun, makes himself comfortable, and punches out.”

I
pantomimed putting a gun to my head and pulling the trigger. Gabe shook his
head and heaved a sigh.

“Damned
shitty way to go out.” He said.

I
nodded a silent agreement, allowing a few moments of pity for these people, but
only a few. Think about it too much, and it will start to eat away at you.

“Well,”
Gabe said, breaking the silence. “You want to move ‘em, or leave ‘em?”

“Why
leave them? Aren’t we going to use the house?”

Gabe
shot me a sidelong stare.  “Really? You want to sleep in here after seeing all
this?”

I
thought about that for a moment, and realized he was right. “Good point. The
loft of that barn is clear, we could all bed down there for the night.”

“Sounds
like a winner. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“Actually,
I think I’m going to scavenge around a little bit. I’ll catch up with you in a
few minutes.”

“Suit
yourself.” Gabe said as he started down the stairs.

Dust
puffed out from beneath my feet as I stepped into the room that once belonged
to the child of the dead man across the hall. I laid my harness on the floor
next to my rifle and extra ammo, then sat down on the bed and stretched out my
back. Gabe closed the front door behind him as he left, leaving me alone in the
silence of the house. I sat quietly for a while, soaking in the stillness.
Boards creaked as the afternoon sun began to fade and the air outside cooled. I
recognized the bikini model on the wall calendar, Kate something-or-other. She
had blond hair and an amazing rack. I wondered if she was still alive. I cast a
glance around the room, and decided to start my search with the dresser.

Nothing
in the drawers but clothes I didn’t need. The closet was full of comic books
and baseball equipment, a few trophies, couple of pairs of shoes. A quick peek
under the mattress revealed a rather diverse collection of porn magazines, but
nothing useful. The laundry room had some clothes that looked like they might
fit, and usable laundry detergent. I left it behind. We had plenty of that in
the trailer. In the master bedroom, I picked up the revolver from beside its
former owner and checked the cylinder. It was loaded except for the one spent
casing. I tossed it back onto the mattress and checked the rest of the room.
There was an old single shot rifle in the closet that I didn’t have any use
for, and two boxes of .308 ammunition. That we could use. I placed them on the
mattress beside the pistol and checked the drawers. Most of them were a bust,
but the top drawer on the dead farmer’s bedside table yielded four boxes of .38
caliber pistol cartridges. That was a good find. I could use it in the revolver
or in my Henry repeater if I ever ran out of ammo for the M-6.

In
the bathroom, I found an old-fashioned safety razor, two boxes of blades, and a
can of shaving foam. I ran a hand over my jaw as I looked at myself in the
mirror. It had been nearly ten months since the last time I shaved, and much
longer than that since my last haircut. Several inches of blond beard covered
the lower half of my face, and my hair was almost down to my shoulders. This
from a guy who used to pride himself on his immaculate grooming.

“You
look like shit.” I told my reflection.

The
razors, the pistol, and the ammo all came downstairs with me. I put them on the
kitchen table so I could search the lower part of the house unencumbered. As
usual, I didn’t even bother opening the refrigerator. Anything in there had
long ago rotted away to a stinking mush. I stuck to the cupboards and pantry,
and scored some canned food and a plastic container of rice. In one of the
drawers, I found some double-A batteries, a few candles, and a sharp pair of
scissors. That was it. Not much of a haul, but ammo is always useful, and maybe
I could talk one of my companions into using the scissors to cut my hair.

Right
as I was finishing up, I heard the MUV pull into the driveway, making an
incredible racket in the empty house through the thin walls. I wondered how
many infected it was going to attract. After stuffing everything into my pack,
I went outside to join the others at the barn. Everyone but Gabe had climbed up
into the empty loft to lay out their bedrolls. Old tall dark and ugly was busy
tending a fire in the driveway for the evening meal. I grabbed a metal bowl out
of my mess kit and ladled some of the hot water from the big pot into it.