This Shattered Land - 02 (38 page)

Up
ahead, brush stirred along the side of the highway. Eric and I noticed it at
the same time and stopped short. I pulled my .45 and aimed at the spot where
the tall grass shifted. Eric swept his rifle around the surrounding woods.

“Sarah,
back on the clock.” He said in a low voice. Sarah shouldered her M-6 and
covered our rear.

A
figure stepped slowly out of the brush onto the broken pavement, hands raised
in the air. I recognized his uniform immediately; he wore Army issue ACU’s,
black and green face paint, combat boots, and a dark green headscarf. The fact
that he had his hands in the air didn’t mean he wasn’t a threat. He could just
be a distraction while someone else flanked us. I kept my pistol trained on him
as he approached.

“That’s
far enough.” I called out when he was about twenty yards away. “Who are you and
what do you want?”

Eric’s
rifle lowered in my peripheral vision. “You have got to be kidding me.” He
said.

I
cast a quick glance at him. “The fuck are you doing?”

“I
think the mystery of who was helping us back there just got solved.”

The
soldier standing across from us broke a smile and lowered his hands. “That you,
Riordan?” He shouted.

Eric
smiled back and turned to wave a hand at the rest of us. “It’s cool guys, he’s
a friend.”

The
strange soldier walked toward us and Eric met him half way, stopping to shake
his hand and clap him on the shoulder. I halted a few feet away and looked on
in confusion.

“Care
to introduce us?” I said, eyeing the soldier’s weapons and lack of insignia. He
glanced over at me, and I noticed that his eyes were a strange hazel color,
almost yellow.

“Captain
Steven McCray, Army Special Forces.” He said, and held out a hand. “You must be
the famous Gabriel Garrett.”

I
gaped at him in silent shock. Eric laughed. I had a feeling things were about
to get interesting.

Chapter 12

Old Friends and New Enemies

Steve,
being the perceptive fellow that he is, noticed our rather shabby condition and
offered to lead us to a community of survivors he made contact with a few weeks
ago. We gratefully accepted. I tried to keep my game-face on, but the painful half-hour
march it took to reach our destination nearly did me in. Exhaustion and blood
loss conspired to wear me down with every painful step. The pills I took
lessened the screaming agony in my side at the cost of jumbling my thoughts,
and robbing me of any ability to focus. I began to stumble and weave as I
walked down the road. Sarah offered a shoulder to lean on, but I turned her
down. I wanted her to focus on Brian. The kid, for his part, soldiered on with
determination and grit, never once opening his mouth to complain. It was
obvious that he was hurting, but he kept it to himself. Tough kid.

 Finally,
we came upon the abandoned remains of a small machine manufacturing business
that obviously had seen better days even before the Outbreak. The squat brick
building and its gravel parking lot had been repurposed into—I shit you not—a
waystation for a stagecoach.

Yeah,
that’s right. A stagecoach. Like the freaking Old West.

A
large bearded fellow with a shock of long white hair trailing to his shoulders
stepped outside to greet us. He wore a pair of coveralls, steel-toed work
boots, a straw hat, and that’s about it. Huge slabs of muscle rippled under
darkly tanned skin on his arms and shoulders. His dour demeanor combined with
the shotgun in his hands gave mute but effective notice that starting trouble
with him would not be conducive to a long and healthy life.

“Captain.”
He said with a thick Scottish brogue, nodding to Steve as we approached.

“Declan,
this is a friend of mine, Eric Riordan.” Steve said, gesturing to me.

The
older man regarded me for a moment with an icy, appraising stare. “You look a
bit the worse for wear, lad.”

“Yeah,
getting shot will do that to you.”

Declan
grinned. “And who are these folk with ye? Do ye speak fer them as well?”

I
turned and looked at Gabe. He shrugged out of the harness connecting him to the
cart and stepped forward.

“I’m
Gabriel Garrett.” Gabe held out a hand. Declan regarded him for a long moment
before accepting the handshake. His eyes tracked to the dried blood streaking
down from Gabe’s wounded shoulder, then over to Brian’s bandaged leg. His
expression thawed noticeably when he saw the pain and exhaustion written on the
young boy’s face.

“Now
what happened here, lad.” The big man said gently, kneeling down in front of
Brian and leaning in to look at the wound.  

“We
were ambushed a couple miles back on the highway.” Gabe said. “Barely got out
of there alive.”

Declan
stood up and looked at Steve. “Was it those same bastards from the Leary
place?”

Steve
gave a solemn nod. “Yes, it was. Ronnie was the ringleader, but he won’t be
causing problems for anyone ever again. Him or his men, thanks to this group.”

Declan
shifted his gaze back to us with less suspicion and a strong hint of respect. “Well,
that’s a few flies out of the swarm then. I owe ye a debt of gratitude, aye.
Let’s get the lot of you inside then, see what we can do for ye.”

“I’m
afraid we don’t have time for that, Declan.” Steve said. “We picked up some
followers along the way back.”

The
old Scot stopped and thought for a second. “Aye, should have thought of that.
Ye said ye were in a fight. Noise and all that.”

“Can
you get them to Hollow Rock?” Steve asked.

Declan
nodded. “Aye, I can. How many followin’?”

Steve
shook his head. “Too many. I need to radio Wilkins and Grabovsky to draw them
off before they get too close to the fields.”

“Ye
do that then, Captain. The rest of you come inside and rest a bit while I get
the horses.”

Steve
set off toward what looked like a hastily built shack with a radio antenna on
top of it. Declan went into the machine shop through an open garage door. Gabe
and I exchanged a glance, then looked back at the Glover family.

“Well?”
I asked, looking at Sarah.

“You
sure we can trust that guy?” She whispered, tilting her head toward the guard
shack just as Steve closed the door behind him.

“We’ve
fought on the same side before. He’s…pragmatic, but he’s solid.”

“Pragmatic?
What exactly does that mean?” She said, her tone heavy with suspicion.

“Listen,
I can explain everything later, but right now we need these guy’s help, unless
of course you happen to have a better idea?”

Sarah
shot daggers at me with her eyes, but backed down. “Fine. We do this your way.
For now.”

I
let out a sigh. “Listen, I’m not trying to fight with you Sarah. I’m in pain,
and I’m doped up, and I think I’m going to pass out pretty soon. Just trust me
on this one, okay?”

“We
trust you.” Tom said, shooting Sarah a reproachful glare. “You’ve proved
yourself to us in more ways than I have the words for. We’re with you.”

Sarah
had the good grace to look chagrined. “Sorry.” She said, looking down. “It’s
just…”

I
reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Your son got shot today. You
almost died. I get it, I’m about at my limit myself.”

She
looked back up and gave me a wan smile. Tom stepped forward and put an arm
around her shoulders while Gabe lifted Brian up in his arms. The boy looked
relieved to finally be off his injured leg.

“We
should go in and rest while we can.” He said, then turned and carried Brian
into the small factory. The rest of us followed.

*****

Going
for a ride in a bouncing horse-drawn carriage with a gunshot wound in your side
is not an activity I would recommend to anyone, for any reason, ever. I would
further contend that doing anything with a newly minted orifice ripped
violently into your flesh is a condition one should enthusiastically avoid
whenever possible. The painkillers in my bloodstream continued to dull the ache,
but the ride to safety was not a pleasant one. That being said, it still beat
the hell out of fleeing the undead on foot.

Declan
drove a pair of strong, healthy mares along an old gravel road that wound
through the dense Tennessee woodland on our way to a fortified community. We
hitched the cart to the back of the wagon with a length of para-cord and a
carabiner. Its well-oiled springs kept it from squeaking too much as we
trundled down the badly pitted road. Gabe and Sarah watched for trouble while
sitting on crates of canned goods Declan scavenged from abandoned towns along
his trade route. Gabe spent about as much time staring at Sarah as he did
watching for hostiles. Tom, thankfully, was too busy trying to distract Brian
from the pain in his leg to notice. I would have to talk to Gabe about that
soon; his infatuation with Sarah needed to stop before something bad happened.
If the former federal agent was half as smart as I gave her credit for, she
knew exactly what was going on. I just wondered who would be the first of us to
do something about it.

Steve
sat beside me in the back of the open-top carriage and briefed us on the
situation developing in the region we traveled through. A few reestablished
communities along the Mississippi River had worked together to lure the
infected away from towns equipped with large bridges and port facilities. A
resurgence of trade ensued, and the mighty Mississippi once again reclaimed its
place as a vital shipping route. Three towns in Tennessee repaired
hydroelectric plants enough to restore electricity to their grids, bringing a
limited array of manufacturing capacity back to the region. Not surprisingly,
the first thing repaired was a factory that bottled purified water. Without
public water and sewer systems, clean drinkable water was difficult and labor
intensive to come by. The factory ran three shifts a day under heavy armed
guard and shipped water to towns as far north as Missouri, and as far south as
northern Louisiana.

All
of this was very interesting, but what caught my attention the most was the
fact that there were several secure, fortified crossings established connecting
the east and west banks of the Mississippi. During the planning phase of this
trip, I spent many a sleepless night wondering how the hell Gabe and I were
going to get across the mile-wide river without drowning or ending up as ghoul
chow. Problem solved.

As
encouraging as that was, the river was still about a hundred miles to the west
and three of the people in my group had suffered gunshot wounds. We were in no
condition for a hundred-mile overland trek, and likely would not be anytime
soon. Gabe was right, we needed a safe place to rest and recuperate. It would
probably be July at the earliest before we were healed enough to endure the
hard travel that lay ahead. That left us with only about three months to cover
ground before the short post-nuclear warm season ended and the snows began to
fall. Our chances of reaching Colorado before winter set in were beginning to
look bleak.

“So
what I’d like to know,” I said after Steve concluded his speech, “is how the
hell you wound up all the way out here. Last I saw you, you were still
Sergeant
McCray, and you were heading back to Fort Bragg.”

Steve
let a half-smile crease one side of his face. “They gave me a field commission
when I got back to Bragg. Experienced operators are hard to come by these days,
so the brass decided I was officer material and handed me a butter-bar. I made
captain in about a year, promotions aren’t that tough to get anymore. Avoid
dying long enough, and you’ll shoot up the ranks so fast it’ll make your head
spin.”

“That
explains your rank,” Gabe chimed in, “but not what you’re doing out here. S.F.
doesn’t just send guys roaming the countryside willy-nilly.”

Steve
chuckled. “No, they don’t. The community we’re heading for established radio
communication with Bragg and the Springs about a year ago. Command asked for
volunteers to recon and collect intel on them.”

I
assumed by ‘the Springs’ he meant Colorado Springs. “Looks like you’re doing
more than just observing and reporting.” I said.

Steve
nodded. “One of my men took a bullet in the arm fighting some of those same
scumbags you ran into back on the highway. The wound got infected, and we
didn’t have the medical supplies on hand to treat him. Hollow rock has a
medical clinic and a doctor living there. I had to make a choice whether to
stay on mission, or watch one of my men die when I had the means to save him.”
He shrugged. “I made a command decision. It worked out pretty well.”

“Who
were those guys?” Tom asked. “The ones that attacked us.”

“Their
leader was Ronnie Kilpatrick, former Army Ranger and long-time Carroll County
Sheriff’s Deputy. He and his group of miscreants have been robbing, kidnapping,
raiding, and generally making life a living hell for everyone in this part of
Tennessee for quite a while now.”