This Shattered Land - 02 (33 page)

John
let out a bitter, mirthless laugh and took another pull from the tequila. I
could tell from the glazed look in his eyes that he was starting to feel the
effects.

“Anyway,
my tour ended a year later, so I took my walking papers and came back home to
the States. The memory of what happened that day in Kangwon Province was
burning a hole in my brain, and I knew I had to tell someone about it, or I was
going to go out of my damn mind. A few months after I got back, I drove up to
that cabin over yonder to visit my Grandpa. He’d fought in World War One, and
the two of us always had a pretty special bond. I knew I could tell him
anything, and be absolutely sure that he would keep it between the two of us,
no matter what. Grandpa could tell something was bothering me the minute I
walked through the door. He knew I wanted to tell him, but I just didn’t know
where to start. We made small talk for a little while, and drank a little
homemade wine until I worked up the nerve. Once I started talking, it all just
came pouring out of me. I had kept all that pain and confusion bottled up
inside me for so long…I don’t know. It’s like I was starting to crack, up
here.” He tapped a finger against one grey temple.  

 “I
told him everything. All of it. I kept expecting him to laugh at me, or yell at
me to stop yanking his chain, but he didn’t do that. He just sat there quietly
and listened until I was done. I wasn’t sure what he was gonna do, but what he
told me after I finished my story was about the last thing in the world I expected
to hear. ‘Johnnie, I ain’t never told nobody about this before,’ he says, ‘but
seein’ as you done been through the same thing, I figure now’s as good a time
as any.’”

The
old man took another hit from the flask and lit another cigarette. His words
were starting to slur a little as he talked.

“Grandpa
told me about a night in France when the Germans in the trench across from them
started screaming and yelling and shooting at anything that moved. Grandpa had
seen men die in agony many times, but the screams coming from that trench were
unlike anything he had ever heard. Next thing he knows, the krauts are pouring
over the top and running like madmen across no-man’s-land. The machine gunners
cut them down, but some of them just wouldn’t drop. They made it all the way
across and tumbled down onto the guys waiting at the bottom of the trench. They
shot them, they stabbed them, they did everything they could to kill them, but
nothing seemed to hurt the bastards. One of them attacked a man standing next to
my Grandpa. He rode him to the ground and took a bite out of his neck. Not
knowing what else to do, Grandpa picked up an entrenching tool that he had
sharpened up so that it was like a kind of axe, and bashed the things head in
with it. When that killed it, he started running up and down the lines shouting
to the other men. ‘Aim for the head!’ he yelled, ‘Smash their fucking skulls
in! That’s the only way to kill ‘em!’ He stayed on the move for the next few
hours in cramped, mud-filled trenches, sometimes fighting so close that he
could smell the rot on the walker’s breath, but finally they managed to put
them all down. During the night, they noticed a few of their comrades who had
been dead for hours start to get back up. They made the same horrible moaning
sound that the dead krauts had, so the soldiers put two and two together and
killed them before they could hurt anybody. An intelligence officer came around
the next morning and rounded up all the soldiers that had been bit, and all the
ones who died from their wounds. Grandpa asked what was going to happen to the
fellas that got bit, and the officer told him that they were being taken away
to receive special medical attention.”

John
snorted. “Yeah, I can imagine what kind of ‘special’ treatment they gave ‘em. Probably
the kind that comes from the barrel of a Colt 1911.”

The
old man drained the last dregs from the flask and flicked the butt of his
cigarette away into the night. “Now let me tell you something folks. Ya’ll
should feel real special because other than Grandpa, you’re the only living
people that I ever told that story to. I realize I’m committing an act of
treason by telling you about it, but somehow I don’t think I have to worry
about the Feds coming to arrest me.” At that he broke into phlegmy, wheezing
laughter that ended in a coughing fit.  

No
one spoke for a few moments. I think we were all too stunned to say anything.

“That’s
one hell of a story.” Tom said, breaking the silence.

“Yeah,
I reckon it is. It’s true though, every word of it.” John replied.

Tom
nodded. “I don’t doubt it. Just makes me wonder how long the Phage has been
around, you know?”

“If
the military knew about the Phage back in World War One, then it’s pretty safe
to assume that the conspiracy to keep it quiet was as old as it was widespread.
Not to mention well funded.” Gabe said.

John
sighed. “Yeah, I imagine it was. Not that it matters too much now.”

“Still,”
I said, jumping in, “why not just tell the public? I mean, there were plenty of
epidemics and disasters before the Outbreak that people managed to survive
without descending into anarchy. Wouldn’t it have been better to simply
tell
people how to prepare for an outbreak of the Phage rather than hide the possibility
that it could happen? Maybe I’m just a crazy liberal, but I think that with the
right education and awareness, people could have learned to cope with the
threat of the undead just as well as anything else.”

John
shrugged. “In my experience, the government always worked from the assumption
that people are a bunch of panicky, stupid sheep. Sad thing is, for the most
part they were right. That being said, I do agree that things might not have
gone so bad a couple of years ago if people knew what it was they were up
against.”

“And
how to fight it.” Gabe said.

John
glanced at him at him and nodded.

“Well
guys, this is all very fascinating,” Sarah chimed in, “but at this point it’s
academic. And I’m tired. It’s been a long day, and I want to get some rest.
Anybody want to volunteer for the first watch?”

“I’ll
do it.” Brian said, sitting up quickly.

Sarah
smiled at him, “No honey, you need your rest.” She turned and focused those big
blue eyes on the rest of us. “So how about it? Any volunteers?”

Tom
got to his feet. “I got it, babe. You get some rest, you’ve earned it.”

She
smiled and pulled him down by his arm for a kiss. “Thanks sweetie. Wake me up
at midnight and I’ll take over, ‘kay?”

He
nodded. “No problem.”

“Dad,
can I stand watch with you?” Brian asked.

Tom
shot his son a withering scowl. “What did your mother just say?”

Brian
sighed in irritation. “Look dad, I know you guys still see me as a little kid,
but I’m getting older and I’m not a weak little puppy, okay? I just want to do
my part, I want to help. How am I ever going to do that if you keep treating me
like a baby?”

Tom
looked like he was about to make an angry retort, but Gabe jumped in. “You know
Tom, the kid has a point.”

Tom
shot him an angry glance. Gabe held up his hands in a mollifying gesture. “I’m
just saying. He’s handled himself pretty well so far. Maybe it’s time to let
him start taking on some responsibilities.”

Tom’s
anger faded as he mulled it over. “You know,” He said after a moment, “you
might have a point there.”   

Brian
perked up, looking hopeful.

“Alright,
you can stand watch with me.” Tom said, pointing a finger at his son, “But only
until eleven. Then you have to go to sleep, understood?”

“Yes
sir.” Brian said, nodding.

“Sarah,
wake me up at dawn.” Gabe said. “I’ll take the watch tomorrow night.”

She
nodded. “Alright. You have any idea what we’re going to do about all those
walkers down there?” She said, pointing a finger toward the ground.

Gabe
shrugged. “We’ll figure something out in the morning. Just put in your earplugs
and get some rest.”

The
din of the infected was a steady, irritating roar below us. Without hearing
protection, none of us were likely to get any sleep. Thankfully, we all carried
a few pairs of foam earplugs with us at all times, just in case. It was Gabe’s
idea, and as usual, it was a good one.

“I
apologize ahead of time folks, but I snore like a sumbitch.” John said. “Don’t
suppose anybody has a spare pillow or a blanket they could lend on old man, do
ya’?”

I
took the wool blanket out of my pack and tossed it to him along with the ground
mat I usually put under my sleeping bag. “Use that however you want, I only
have one pillow, and I’m not sharing.”

The
old man spread out the ground mat, laid down on it, and then rolled his jacket
up into a ball under his head after he shook the blanket out over his legs. “Much
obliged, friend, much obliged.” He said as he settled in to go to sleep.

I
wasn’t entirely comfortable having a stranger in our midst, but with the dead
milling about below, it was unlikely that he would try anything during the night.
After all, he would need our help if he expected to get down out of this barn
anytime soon.

I
watched Tom and Brian take a seat near the edge of the loft. The fading light
of Brian’s wind-up lantern silhouetted them against the starry night sky. They
talked about something that I couldn’t quite hear with my earplugs in, but
their voices made for a nice contrast to the croaks of the undead below. I was
a little worried I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep, but exhaustion eventually
trumped noise and I drifted off.

*****

Sarah
shook me awake just before the sun cleared the eastern hills. Gabe was already
up and moving. I looked out over the edge of the loft, and the sky was mostly
grey that brightened into a thin line of orange and yellow in the distance. The
air was damp and heavy. A thin coat of condensation covered my sleeping bag,
and glistened on the grass below. Sarah looked worn out with heavy bags under
her eyes and worry lines creasing her mouth.

“The
dead are still down there.” She said. “I was hoping maybe they would wander
off, but they didn’t.” She shot a meaningful glance at Rollins, who was still
snoring loudly.

“Well,
he did warn us.” I said.

“So
what are we going to do about all those corpses down there?”

“What
we always do. Distract them, create some breathing room, and then get the hell
out of Dodge.”

I
unzipped my sleeping bag and got to my feet. My back was painfully stiff from
sleeping on the bare wooden platform without my ground mat. Stretching one way
and then the other loosened it up a bit while I looked around for my gear. It
was right where I left it next to my pack. I buckled on the harness, checked my
rifle, and joined Gabe at the edge of the loft. He stared down into the horde,
no doubt turning over different plans to get everyone out of this barn and back
on the road.

“We
need a distraction.” He said, not looking up.

I
nodded. “Got any bright ideas?”

Gabe
laid a hand on the axe at his belt, then turned and pointed at a spot on the
roof at the back of the barn. “I hoist you up, you cut a hole to crawl through
the ceiling, and then you rappel down to the ground. Meanwhile, everybody in
here makes as much noise as they can to keep the infected’s attention. You get
them to follow you a little ways off, and then double back here and we haul ass
up the highway.”

I
nodded and looked out over the edge of the platform. The horde was not that
large, maybe fifty or sixty ghouls strong at best. Most of the infected were
inside the barn beneath the loft, and the few that were not struggled just
outside the entrance thrashing and heaving at the tightly compacted bodies in
front of them. I doubted that any of them still lurked outside the walls or at
the back of the barn. 

“That’s
actually a pretty good plan.” I said. “One little flaw, though.”

Gabe
scowled. “What’s that?”

“You
want me to rappel down. Where’s the rope I’m going to do that with?”

Gabe
reached into a pocket on his vest and produced a pair of hundred-foot lengths
of para-cord. I looked at them, then looked up at him.

“You
have got to be fucking kidding me.”

Gabe
smiled. “Come on man, you know I wouldn’t mess with you on something like this.
I’ve used this stuff before, and it’ll hold
my
big ass. A single strand
is rated for five hundred pounds. We’re going to be using double that. What are
you these days, about one-eighty, one-ninety?”

“One
eighty-five.” I mumbled, staring at the cord. Gabe was right. Para-cord looks
small, but it is extremely strong and durable. Two lengths used in tandem would
be more than enough to support my weight rappelling down the barn. The problem
was, I didn’t have a rappelling harness, much less a figure eight with a
carabiner or a Grigri.

“Okay,
so assuming I believe this shit won’t drop me and kill me, where am I going to
get a harness? You got one in your pack?” I asked.