Mad Swine (Book 2): Dead Winter (26 page)

“Food should be ready soon,” Lara said.

“Hmmm. Not really hungry.” Her fingers massaged my scalp and I felt my eyes suddenly heavy. “I could use a nap.”

“Okay, close your eyes. I’ll wake you in an hour.”

Her fingers continued to massage my head, and then she found my temples. All of the voices and chatter just faded into the background; unintelligible noise. In no time, I was asleep and didn’t wake until morning.

It was already morning when Lara woke me. Apparently, Brian had not scheduled me for watch duty. I’d been so exhausted I don’t remember even waking during the night. I sat up and scratched my head, then rubbed my hands across my eyes.

“Batteries recharged?” Lara knelt down next to me and was finishing packing a few odds and ends.

“Absolutely.” I stretched my arms out above my head and immediately regretted it. “I’m just a bit sore from last night, though. This old man is out of shape.”

“This old man is sexy,” she said and winked at me. She looked much refreshed herself this morning. I loved when she let her hair spill over her shoulders. That was sexy.

“Control yourself, lady. There are kids around.”

She chuckled and nudged me off the sleeping bag. “Brian is looking for you. Time to get up, old man. Duty calls.”

Getting my feet under me was a struggle; it seemed as though every muscle in my body ached all at once. Swinging the splitting maul like Conan and falling hard after slipping in dead dog blood were bound to take their toll. Luckily, Lara thought the grunts I made as I stood were just part of our shtick.

“Do me a favor, Lara. Can you check in on Wesley? You know, don’t be so obvious, but make sure he’s okay.”

She nodded and put on her serious face for the moment. Having rolled my sleeping bag, she paused in the process of attaching it to my back pack. “Was it a good idea to bring him with us?”

“It was his choice and it doesn’t matter what I think.” I was suddenly sensitive; this was not a topic I intended to discuss again. Probably because deep down I knew it had been a bad idea to let an eleven year old make such a tough decision. “Just see if he needs anything, okay?”

She nodded and went back to her task. As I wandered through the room trying to find my brother, I realized that Lara and I had just had our first fight. Well, not so much a fight, as an argument. Well, not really an argument…a moment of tension, I guess I’d call it. Already, I wanted to go back and apologize.

Resisting the strong urge to turn around, I found Chandra and asked if she’d seen Brian. She told me he was in the lobby. I thanked her and made my way through the lobby, this time using the front entrance from the emergency room. I had no desire to pass the chapel and dead doggy room.

I passed through the glass doors and found Brian staring out of one of the windows that faced the front porch. Standing next to him, I followed his gaze. Outside, the ground was covered with snow. During the night, the snow had begun to stick.

“Any idea how deep it is?” I asked.

He shook his head but said nothing. After a moment he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered me one. I took it and accepted the lighter when he handed to me. After lighting my cigarette and dragging on it deeply, I exhaled smoke. Immediately I was lightheaded. At least I didn’t cough.

“The snow stopped about an hour ago.” Brian dragged on his own cigarette and sighed out a cloud of smoke. He turned to look at me finally and said, “We need to put down four more miles this morning. Are you up for it?”

“Of course.”

“Then why are you walking like an old man who just fell out of his favorite La-Z-Boy?”

I almost forgot that Brian had eyes in the back of his head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine.”

Brian smirked but said nothing. He resumed his post staring out at nothing while he finished up his cigarette. He crushed it beneath his boot, and then picked up his back pack from one of the lobby chairs. Placing the pack on the desk in the center of the room, he pulled out his map and spread it out in front of him.

“Take a look,” he said.

I crushed my smoke and went to him. He pointed at the map and said, “Here’s where we are now.” The traced his finger along Route 20 about four inches. “Here’s where we’re going.”

“Seems like a straight shot. Can’t be any harder than yesterday, except for the snow on the ground. Why do you look worried?”

“I don’t look worried.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Well, whatever you call that look you have on your face right now, what’s the problem?”

“This place is like the Ritz, dude. The place we’re going next…it’s like a homeless guy’s cardboard box. It’s going to be cold and we’re going to be somewhat exposed. We can’t put up barricades like we did here.”

That was something I didn’t need to hear. “I thought you said there would be no problems with shelter.”

“It’s not a problem, I’m just telling you what to expect. Calm yourself down before you start acting like Mom.”

“If it’s not a problem, why bring it up?”

“I’m just saying we’re going to need to be more alert next time. We’ll need two people on watch and they’ll need to be outside. Be prepared for the whining; it’ll be just like the new boots joining the platoon.”

“Let’s just get everyone moving and we’ll deal with it when we get there.”

“Yes, sir!” Brian barked, snapping off a salute. His smile dropped when he saw I wasn’t laughing. He said, “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you, what do you think about Chandra?”

Talking about relationships in the middle of an apocalypse may seem like a crazy thing to most folks, but this was the world we lived in now, so this was as good a time as any.

“I think she’s a very nice girl. She’s got a good head on her shoulders, she’s loyal and I trust her.”

“Jesus Christ, dude, you make her sound like she’s your girlfriend’s ugly sister. Wait, let me guess, she has a nice personality, right?”

I shook my head. “Why do I even bother? Look, if you like her and she likes you, go for it. Now let’s blow this joint.”

* * *

The morning was mild with almost no wind. As it turned out, the ground was covered with about a half an inch of snow, but it was such a light dusting that it disintegrated beneath our feet as we continued our journey along Route 20. According to Brian, our next shelter was an abandoned farmhouse just four miles ahead. If we made time like yesterday, we expected to be there by midday.

Our group column spread out about an eighth of a mile in front of me, each team keeping good spacing between themselves and the next team. I resumed my position at the rear, enjoying the view that spread out in front of me. I was surprised by the beauty of some of the landscapes just miles from my own home. I must have driven this route several times in the past few years since buying my house, but I’d never really noticed the rolling hills or the stunning horizons.

Off in the distance on to the south, I saw specks of dark color that dotted the snowy field. After about a quarter of a mile it seemed as though the dark splotches were moving. I dug into my coat pocket with my free hand and pulled out a small pair of foldable binoculars. The tiny spectacles had been part of a bird watching kit I’d purchased for Katie when she’d become a Brownie.

Holding the binoculars up to my eyes while I continued to keep pace wasn’t working well so I halted. Lowering the binoculars to that I could get a visual on the specks with my eyes, I found them again, and indeed, whatever they were, they were moving. Looking through the glasses again, I honed in and focused. Suddenly I held my breath, trying to keep the binoculars steady. Through the glasses I saw a small group of people moving in from the south, coming directly toward Route 20. There were at least eight by my count, and from the awkward way they were moving, I knew immediately they were not living humans.

Jamming the binoculars into my pocket, I started running. My damn back pack and SKS kept trying to slip off my shoulder as I ran, and each time I took a step, the SKS barrel bumped the back of my head.

“We’ve got company,” I said when I caught up to my team. “Albert, push Ray. Everybody run forward. Come on, move quickly now.”

Although I could see fear come into each of their eyes, they acted quickly. Al took up his position behind Ray, who crossed his arms against his chest to keep them out of the way, allowing Albert to really get some speed. Araceli and Belinda both took up positions on Wesley’s flanks, and the boy untied Cody’s leash so that the dog could run beside him.

The sounds of our feet pounding the pavement must have caught Justin’s attention because he turned around to look in our general direction. He raised his hands, palms up, in a questioning gesture. Still running, the damn SKS pounding the shit out of the back of my skull, I jabbed my hand several times in the direction of the crazies.

Justin spotted the roving band of undead just as our two teams came together. “Shit!”

“Everybody form up!” I shouted. I pushed through to the front of our group and before I could call out, Lara’s team had already halted and I could see that Brian and Chandra had also become aware of our visitors. “Move up to Lara! Come on, faster people. Move, move, move!”

I was almost breathless by the time we formed up into our tactical arrangement, with Ray, Wesley and the more vulnerable members of our group at our center. I stood next to Lara, with Justin on my left and Brian and Chandra to her right. Again digging out my binoculars, I handed them down to Brian who took them and glassed the area.

After a few seconds he handed the binoculars to Lara and said, “They’re coming right at us, and they’re moving quite quickly.”

“Do we try to outrun them?” I asked.

“I don’t think we can.” Lara was still looking through the binoculars. “Do we really want these things following behind?”

Justin shook his head. “No way. I can’t walk and keep looking over my shoulder. I say we take them out.”

Lara handed the binoculars back to me. The crazies were close enough now that the glasses were no longer needed. She said, “There’s no time.”

Turning to the group, I said, “Spread out but stay in formation. Watch your strikes. We don’t want to hit friendlies.”

People started moving about to get ready. Brian put a hand on my shoulder and I turned to him. He said, “We can’t let them hurtle into the group. We need to engage them before they get too close.”

He was right. Letting those things plow into our numbers could prove disastrous. With little time to waste, I called out to Albert, Liam and Ian to join us. “We have to move fast, so listen up. We’re going to engage them out there. Try to isolate them, they’re easier to kill that way. Don’t let them get numbers on you. Understand?”

“Let’s move!”

Together the eight of us came forward to greet the undead. As we closed the distance, no more than fifty yards, I could see that I had undercounted their number. There were twelve or so, crowded together. We were spread out in a line as we ran to meet them. As we closed the distance, thirty yards, twenty yards, I noticed that the crazies remained in their huddled formation.

“They’re not breaking off,” Justin observed.

“What do we do, brother?” Liam asked. “They’re going to run through us!” He was at the center of our line with Justin and Ian, right where the undead were headed.

“Hold your ground!” Brian shouted.

Within seconds the crazies were upon us; Justin held out an arm and successfully clotheslined one of the front runners, taking him to the ground. The Tomahawk that he carried in that hand flew from his grip, but he still held the ‘hawk in his right, and he went to work.

Liam and Ian were struck by the mass of undead bodies, knocking them sprawling to one side. In a messy tangle, they went down, taking with them two or three of the enemy. I did not look back to assess their situation. Instead, those of us who were still standing reversed direction and gave chase to crazies that broke through our line.

They were moving quickly, but awkwardly, as if running was foreign to them. Just as I was within feet of the horde, I saw one of Justin’s Tomahawks fly past me, just missing me by six or eight inches. The hawk struck one of the crazies, but it bounced off and fell uselessly to the ground. The intended target stopped, and I took the opportunity to kick one of its legs as I passed at a run, knocking the thing down.

Brian reached the horde, and also succeeded in knocking another of their rank to the ground, leaving it for the men behind us. We continued to pursue the seven that remained; we were now just twenty yards from the road. In an attempt to take down as many as possible, I shoved one of the crazies from behind, the force and momentum of my action throwing him forward uncontrollably. The thing’s falling body created the domino effect I had hoped for, knocking down the two runners in front of him. My plan fell apart when one of the fallen grabbed at my leg, tripping me in midstride.

Even as I hit the ground, Liam, Ian and Justin passed me at full run, again engaging in the pursuit. Four of the horde remained and they had covered too much ground. There was no way they’d stop them before reaching the road. I had my own problems to deal with at the moment and I had to trust that the members of Randall Oaks would be able to fend for themselves. After all, I was not Superman, and I could not always be there to save them.