This Shattered Land - 02 (8 page)

Gabriel
chewed on a strip of dried meat and thought about it for a moment. “I want you
to study Eric’s notes. He’s made maps of supply caches, and places with things
we haven’t needed to scavenge yet. You need to know where all the resources are
around here. Where the best places to hunt and fish are, and where you can find
wild edibles.”

Sarah
nodded. We finished the rest of the meal in silence. The mood in the cabin
became stifling, so I spent a couple of hours outside chopping firewood to pass
the time. Swinging a splitting maul is good exercise, and I figured it would
save Tom the trouble while I was gone for the next couple of days. Besides, the
night was growing colder, and I am a firm supporter of the old adage, ‘he who
chops the wood warms himself twice’.

I rolled
the firewood to the cabin in a rusty old wheelbarrow. Brian helped me stack it
on the front porch while Tom watched us through the window with a troubled
expression on his face. I knew that expression all too well. I had seen it
looking back at me in the mirror plenty of times.

Figuring
that Tom needed some time to think, I offered to do a little knife fighting
practice with Brian. The boy smiled and ran down to the bunker to fetch a
couple of plastic training knives. While he was gone, Sarah pulled a chair up
next to her husband and put an arm around his shoulders. They leaned their
heads together, holding hands. Tom kissed her on the forehead, and pulled her
close. It made me remember my own parents, how they would sit next to each
other on the sofa and smile at me while I played on the living room carpet as a
little boy. I had to swallow a few times against the lump in my throat when I
turned away. Brian emerged from the bunker and brought over the two red plastic
knives, extending one to me hilt first.

“Okay,
let’s go over some basic blocks and strip tactics.” I said, falling into a
fighting stance. Brian followed suit as we circled one another.

“Remember,”
I said, “don’t use the same tactics against the living and the dead. The dead
don’t feel pain.”

Brian
nodded and shifted his stance a bit, putting more weight on his left side. The
momentary distraction let me lunge in with a strike at his mid-section. Brian
saw it coming and managed to swing a forearm around to deflect the attack,
nearly knocking me off balance. Before I had a chance to recover, he executed a
deft little spin move and dropped his weight while aiming a reverse slash at my
knee. I hopped out of the way, but only barely. A grin spread across my face.
The kid was fast and devious, a natural fighter.

“Nice
block. Blocks are great, but they are not fight-stoppers. This time, try to
strip the knife out of my hand.” I said. Brian nodded.

I
lowered my center into a crouching stance and scuttled forward. Brian gave
ground and circled.  A quick fake to the right, then a drop step to the left
drew his attention. My training knife flew out toward the fingers of his knife
hand, then abruptly switched direction to hurtle toward a point just above his
hip. He sidestepped the stab by a fraction of a second and brought his free
hand underneath mine in the same motion. Gripping my wrist, he brought his
knife hand down with a hammer fist strike at my blade just above the thumb. The
thumb is the weak point of your grip, and if you put leverage against it in the
right direction, you can easily strip a knife or a gun out of someone’s hand.
Brian’s strike demonstrated that principle by smashing my knife to the ground.
A fraction of a second and a quick snapping motion later, the tip of his weapon
stopped just short of my throat. I nodded my approval.

“That
was a kill. Nice work.” I said. Brian beamed back at me.

I
heard clapping off to my right, and turned to see Gabriel leaning against the
shed with a half-smile on his tattered face.

“Not
bad, kid. You’re pretty good with a blade.” He said as pushed of the wall and
walked over to stop in front of Brian, kneeling down eye-to-eye with the boy.

“Your
mother told me that today is your birthday.”

Brian
shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. That stuff doesn’t really matter anymore.”

Gabriel
frowned at him, and placed one hand on his shoulder. Brian’s arm looked
painfully thin and frail under Gabe’s scarred hand.

“Your
birthday is still important, son. Here, I got something for you.”

He
reached into his coat and pulled out a knife in a nylon sheath. It was a
venerable Buck Nighthawk. Brian’s face lit up in a smile as Gabe handed it to
him. All of his premature seriousness and maturity melted away, and for a moment,
he was just a happy kid again. My heart warmed to see it. I could almost
imagine him before the Outbreak, playing baseball in the park, or eating a hot
dog at a back yard bar-b-que. A boy his age should have been running around
playing with his friends and making mischief like kids are supposed to, not
learning how to kill a man with a dagger.

“I
can have it?” Brian asked.

“Of
course.” Gabe said, smiling. “Every fighting man needs a good knife.”

Brian
looped the knife onto his belt, and practiced drawing it a few times. The black
blade looked eerily natural in his hands. He turned and scampered back to the
cabin to show his birthday present to his parents.

“Dad,
look what Gabriel gave me.” He said, turning to the side so that his father
could see the knife in its sheath.

“That’s
nice, son.” Tom said, looking up from a map. “Did you say thank you?”

Brian
stopped and flushed, realizing that he hadn’t.

“Thanks
Gabe.”

He
belted out his rusty, grating laugh. “You’re welcome little man.”

I
pointed a finger at the boy. “He’s getting pretty good with those things.”

“I
know, I’ve been watching you two practice.” Tom replied. “Just remember son,
don’t use that knife unless you have to, understand? It’s not a toy, so don’t
treat it like one.”

“I
won’t dad, I promise.”

Tom
looked at his son for a moment longer, then gave a nod of satisfaction and went
back to studying his map. 

The
rest of the afternoon passed quietly. As the sun began to sink behind the
distant blue hills, I walked out to the sheer cliff that forms the entire
western face of the mountain the cabin sits on. A flat section near the edge
overlooks a vast panorama of undulating mountains rolling away toward the
western plains. Gabriel and I had placed a couple of Adirondack chairs there and
dug a rock-lined pit near the ledge. It was a good spot to enjoy the warmth of
a fire and watch the sun bed down behind the Appalachians.

Tom
brought out a folding chair and set it near the other two while I grabbed some
kindling. I got a fire going and took a seat in front of it, holding my hands
out to absorb the warmth. Gabe opened the bottle of Maker’s Mark he brought
with him and poured a few fingers into tin cups before passing them around. We
raised our cups in salute and took a sip. The whiskey was crisp and warm,
singing notes of caramel and oak on my palate and tracing a line of
slow-burning fire on the way down. I sat back and watched the daylight sink
behind the horizon.

The
sky faded from burnished gold, to smoldering orange, and finally to a deep,
dark blue that lightened shade by shade toward the eastern horizon. The blue in
the distance faded into black that grew and expanded until it devoured every
corner of the sky. Stars pierced the gloom in multitudes that glittered bright
and defiant against the empty curtain of night.

 “Sure
is a nice evening.” Tom said, starting his second whiskey.

“Yeah,
it is. Probably only about thirty degrees or so out here, but after this past
winter it’s downright toasty.” Gabe replied.

“Speaking
of, how long do you think this damn nuclear winter is going to last?” I asked,
looking over at Gabe.

He
reached up a hand and scratched his beard. “Probably another year or so, maybe
longer. If that Army fella you talked to was right and there were less than a
dozen nukes fired, it should be over in two more years at most. Problem is, it
ain’t just the nukes that caused the Earth to cool down. You gotta remember,
half the fucking world burned down during the Outbreak. Cities, forests,
factories, chemical plants, hell most of the Southwest all the way to
California went up like a Roman candle. I remember watching news footage from
KTLA, and Los Angeles was just one big burning firestorm. All that shit made
its way into the atmosphere too.” 

“So
what you’re saying is we’re probably stuck with these cold temperatures for a
couple more years, right?” Tom asked.

Gabe
nodded. “No sense in worrying about it. Not much we can do except try to stay
warm, and hope for the best.”

Tom
grew quiet thinking about that. An hour passed while we sipped the strong
liquor and watched the fire burn low against the far horizon. The temperature
dropped about ten more degrees, making me regret not bringing a blanket. I
threw a couple more logs on the fire to ward off the chill. The cabin’s front
door opened behind me and I heard Sarah’s light tread approaching the fire.

“Little
guy go to bed?” Tom asked her.

“Yeah,
he knocked out in front of the stove reading a book. I left him be, we can put
him to bed in a little while.” She said as she put a chair down next to her
husband.

“Thank
you for staying with him, it was nice to have some quiet time.” Tom said and
reached out for her hand.

“No
problem.” She flicked a gesture at Gabe and me. “I figured you needed to do
some male bonding, or whatever the hell.”

“If
by bonding, you mean the careful and deliberate consumption of several fiery
libations, then you are correct ma’am.” Gabe said, his southern accent growing
thicker. “Care for some of Kentucky’s finest? It’s good for what ails you.”

Sarah
smiled. “You know what? I don’t mind if I do.”

Gabriel
poured her a couple of fingers and handed her a cup. She gave the amber liquid
a discerning sniff.

“Nice,
you guys have the good stuff.”

The
night wore on, growing steadily colder. My whiskey buzz grew into a low, steady
hum as the conversation between my companions grew distant. I thought about the
forthcoming river voyage to Marion, and found myself looking forward to it.
Canoeing had long been one of my favorite hobbies, although it now had a much more
serious purpose. Gabe and I had actually paddled the route we planned to take a
few times before the Outbreak, so we knew the way quite well. A significant
problem we faced was avoiding the rapids that poured down a series of steep
valleys to the east. That meant carrying the canoe over land a couple of miles,
a prospect that mitigated my enthusiasm. 

As
challenging as the short journey might prove to be, my inner scavenger was
chomping at the bit to scare up some salvage. One of the places we planned to
hit was a little boutique teashop located on the town’s small main street. Tea
might not sound like a commodity worth risking our lives for, but when you
consider that it is an extremely rare and valuable trade good, the logic
becomes a bit clearer. Other small groups of survivors we spoke with over
Gabe’s HAM radio over the past couple of years had told us about the trade
networks set up on a barter system all over the country. Some of those groups
scavenged, hunted, or farmed to provide for themselves, but many had come to
depend almost entirely on trade. I’m not sure how they managed to do that in
the two short years that had passed since the Outbreak, but somehow they pulled
it off. Small caravans of merchants traveled back and forth between these communities,
ferrying goods from one place to another. Apparently it was a good living if
you didn’t mind the hordes of walking corpses, or the merciless raiders that
threatened every mile of usable highway. 

Sarah
let out an especially loud laugh that startled me. I looked across the fire at
her, blinking blearily against the light. She had one hand in Tom’s lap, gently
kneading the muscle of his thigh and leaning into him. I turned my head to hide
a grin. It looked like someone was in for a very nice evening. I couldn’t help
but feel a little jealous, it had been a long time since I had touched a woman.
Well over a year, in fact. Sometimes I thought about Stacy, the girl I met at
the abandoned warehouse in Alexis. I wondered how she was doing, if she was
healthy and safe, and if she ever thought about me. If I happened to cross her
path again, would she be happy to see me? I shook my head at the thought. I had
no right to hope for that. She didn’t walk away from the relationship—I did.
Sometimes I wondered if I had made the right decision. My thoughts wandered
farther back to Vanessa, another ex-girlfriend, but I turned away from those
memories. I didn’t like thinking about her. After she got bitten by a ghoul and
turned, I had to put her down and bury her in my back yard. Not exactly a
romantic ending to the relationship.

As
I leaned over to refill my cup, a rock skittered down the side of the mountain
to my left. I stopped and turned my head, straining to see. Nothing but inky
black darkness stared back at me from the edge of the firelight. I waited a few
heartbeats, listening. All I heard was crickets and the crackle of burning pine
logs. I was just about to lean back and laugh at myself for being jumpy when a
harsh, gurgling moan ripped through the still night air. Several others
answered in rapid succession. The noise of our conversation must have attracted
them. For some reason, the dead act differently at night than they do during
the day. After sunset, they won’t start moaning until they are almost right on
top of you. During the day, just about anything will set them off no matter how
far away it is. Maybe it’s a sight thing, or maybe they have some kind of
nocturnal hunting instinct. I’m not sure. I just know it is one of the many
factors that make the undead a hell of a lot more dangerous at night than
during the day.