Harvest of Ruin (Book 2): Dead of Winter Page 13

  “Holy shit, man, did you get shot?”

  “Yeah, asshole, now get the ammo cans and get in the fucking Jeep before whoever they were come to finish the job they started!”

  “Asshole? That’s kind of harsh, don’t you think?” Bjorn asked with a grin. “I have feelings, you know.”

  *

  “The ability to scavenge enough supplies isn’t the only thing that gets them in,” Tar stated, reverting the conversation back to the original vein. “There are plenty of opportunists that could easily steal and murder their way into that kind of supply. We need to set up some kind of psychological test to see who would even deserve the opportunity.”

  “We started to talk about that last time we spoke. I’ve come up with some ideas on that,” Linda replied. “There should be no legitimate reason anyone wanting entrance into Donner would be unwilling to allow an interview.”

  “So we bring them in and question them? I don’t like the idea of letting anyone get a good look at what we have going in here.” Tar was looking at her as if she were out of her mind.

  “I’m not talking about the where yet, just the process. I think I would lean more towards an unarmed group going out among them to speak,” Linda spoke thoughtfully. “Or park an RV near each barricade to do the interviews.”

  “Well, I don’t think people going out and unnecessarily putting themselves at risk is a good way to proceed,” Tar began. “Remember, we have what they want. We don’t need them. Hell, as far as I’m concerned, they are more than welcome to pack their shit up and shuffle off into the sunset. The RV thing isn’t a bad idea though, I’ll give you that.”

  Tar lit the new cigarette that had been nestled between his pointer and middle finger since he retrieved it, taking a deep pull off of it. He could see the look on Linda’s face indicating that she did not agree with his assessment of the refugees.

  “Look, hard facts, Lin, we didn’t ask them to come. They want to come inside our walls and share in what we have. That being the case, it’s our way, or the highway, literally. If they don’t ask “how high” when we say “jump,” they can hit the fuckin’ road.”

  Linda knew he was right, but couldn’t see turning away good people because they were too scared of losing one another. She also knew that some of the refugees had faced terrible hardships and tragedy on the road prior to their arrival. She was afraid that the whole process might cause some problems; at the very least, she was sure it would re-open some fresh wounds. She wasn’t ecstatic about it, but at the very least, the plan would set the ball in motion to taking people inside. They could work out the fine details at a later date.

  “So, to get this ironed out a bit, we offer those who are willing to be interviewed first priority in the integration process?” she asked.

  “Yeah, and if we like what they have to say, we send them off to gather supplies, if not…then what?” Tar asked as he turned, leaning over the sink to gaze out into the snowy yard.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I mean is, what happens when we send a person or a group away? What happens if a whole lot of red flags are raised in the interview and we tell them that we don’t want them in here; in fact, we don’t want them squatting on our doorstep either. What happens when they see a family moving off to gather supplies, or worse, returning with them?”

  Linda hadn’t considered that possibility.

  “I—”

  “Do we kill them?” Tar asked. “What happens when we banish them, send them on their merry way and they rape, rob, and murder the others out there?”

  Linda was at a loss as far as this line of inquiry. She had so concerned with making sure no one else died unnecessarily that she never considered the fate of the “bad-apples.” Tar continued smoking in silence until the cigarette burned down to the filter. He charred out the ember and downed the remnants in his coffee cup.

  “I’m not opposed to killing them,” he said at length. “But, I reckon you’d take issue with it.”

  Linda had no response to his blunt statement, so she simply nodded in protest of the idea. Tar nodded in return.

  “So what then? We can’t imprison them. That’d just be a waste of our resources?”

  “Send them south,” Linda said, the root of an idea coming into her head. “It’s the most defensible of all the entrances, with cliffs and mountains on either side for miles. They would be hard pressed to make it back to one of the other barricades, even if they wanted to. We tell them if they come back, they will be killed.”

  Tar was not a big fan of the idea. There would be nothing to stop a determined person from making their way back to town to one of the other barricades. What happened if the exiles banded together? There were too many variables to consider. As much as he disliked the idea, he was at a loss in coming up with an alternative, aside from summary execution. Instead of arguing, he remained silent as she spelled out the rest of her idea. Finally, as she finished laying out her plan, Tar was left with only one question left to be asked.

  “So, Lin, who will be doing these interviews?”

  “You and I, of course,” she responded quickly, as if she knew the answer to this question long before it was asked.

  “Lin, I’ve got a lot on my plate now with the barricades, the patrols, and all the rest.”

  “I am the best one for the job, as far as the women and children are concerned. If you can think of someone else to talk to the men, someone that you’d trust implicitly, then go ahead, name away. Besides, you need something to do while your shoulder heals.”

  Tar knew he was trapped. He couldn’t think of a single person, aside from the sheriff, that could sniff out a lie as good as he. And even the sheriff was a bit too trusting for Tar’s liking. Besides that, part of the Sheriff’s job for the past twenty years was having the expectation of innocence and proving otherwise. Tar held no such notions.

  “When does this nonsense start?” he asked in a near groan.

  “Tomorrow morning, nine o’clock sharp at the east barricade…bring a lunch,” she chirped back with a big smile on her face.

  Tar walked Linda to the door, knowing he’d been somehow manipulated into accepting the responsibility of interviewing the men. He couldn’t help but appreciate the doctor’s heart, even with her plate as full as it was, being the only doctor. She was busy trying to collect what little humanity was left in the world, to ensure its safety. Next thing you know, she is going to be insisting we send rescue missions to animal shelters, Tar laughed to himself as he watched the young doctor trudge through the snow that covered his walkway, walking off in the direction of the Heartland Clinic.

  *

  Yenagant tugged on the reigns of his horse, Petal, pulling her up abruptly on seeing a disturbance among the houses ahead. He and his brother Tissooah were returning from helping their neighbor, Carlos, fix a section of stockade fence. Now as they approached the small huddle of squat brick buildings jutting from the hard-packed dry earth, the sounds of terrified shouts and arguing could be heard ahead.

  “What is it, Yen?”

  “I’m not sure, Ti,” he said absently as he dismounted from the mare and slid his rifle free from his pack-roll behind the saddle.

  Over the past few days, the tight-knit community had heard news of rioting and murder running rampant through the surrounding, primarily white, towns and cities. No sign of the chaos had as of yet touched the reservation, but seeing the signs of chaos ahead, Yen had a nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach. Ti dismounted alongside him. Not having brought his rifle, he slid a buck knife from his pocket and flipped it open. They walked through the scrub brush to the rear of their yard and cautiously lashed the horses to the chain-link fence that encircled their property. As they peered through the side yard, to the roadway and the houses beyond, they could see a man on horseback with a crowd gathered around him. Even from this distance, it was obvious that the man was Walker, one of the tribal elders. Yen let out a sigh of relief, seeing no immediate
danger and the brothers returned to their horses.

  Yen and Ti got along well for brothers; their five-year difference in age was enough separation so that there was no direct competition between them. Their father had abandoned the family when Yen was six, and their mother had to return to work, leaving Yen responsible for a bulk of his brother’s care. Once Ti had turned sixteen, the two had become inseparable, with both sharing the mantle of man-of-the-household. Yen looked at his brother as his closest friend, and Ti looked at him as both friend and father figure. The two mounted back up and the two rode around the block to meet up with Walker and see what all the commotion was about. As they approached the throng of people, it was obvious that there was a serious problem; heavy black smoke rose into the cloudless azure sky from beyond the Bottle Hollow Reservoir, in the direction of Roosevelt. Most of those that lived on the reservation either worked or tried to find work in Roosevelt. Calamity there could mean bad news for many of the Ute. As they neared, Walker’s voice cut through the air and became increasingly clearer, sounding even over the racket of the horse hooves clopping on the blacktop.

  “We don’t know yet whether they are headed in this direction. Joseph is out scouting and will be back soon.” Walker switched between Ute and English when necessary for the benefit some of the older people gathered around him. “As soon as he returns with some information, we can tell you more.”

  Murmuring and worried pleas could be heard from the gathered throng as the brothers came forwards. Yen tipped his hat to Walker who returned the gesture with a wink and a nod in his direction. The one reference that many in the crowd kept making mention of was the story of “Two Grandsons.” Yen vaguely remembered the tale. Like many of his generation, he was more interested in video games and girls than he was in his tribal heritage. It was a tale about a cannibal eating a young boy while his brother cowered in a tree. From what he could remember, there was some reference to magic in the story, but he couldn’t remember the specifics or how it ended, nor could he figure out why so many people were mentioning it suddenly.

  “Is Roosevelt burning?” Ti called to Walker over the murmuring crowd.

  “It looks like the gas station is on fire,” Walker responded. “Joseph will be back with info—”

  He was interrupted as the furious sound hooves came to them, echoing off the brick houses clustered all around them. A minute later, as they waited in pensive silence, Joseph came roaring into the developed area of the reservation urging his mount to leap the short chain-link fencing that encircled many of the homes. They could see the man was yelling but not hear the words. As he neared, the bright red of a wound could be seen on his leg, soaking his pants in crimson from the knee down. Martha, Joseph’s mother, started towards the young man to fawn over his wound but he ignored her entirely, trotting the horse directly over to Walker.

  “We have to flee,” he said to Walker.

  “What is wrong, Joseph? What’s happening?”

  “I—I don’t know, cannibals maybe…thousands of them. We have to run.”

  No one moved at his words, shock and confusion greeted his statement. Renewed murmurs about “Two Grandsons” rumbled through the crowd, mainly among the older folks. Seeing no one move to act Joseph, wide eyed, looked around at the assembled crowd and screamed at their blank faces.

  “We have to run! Gather your families, get in your cars or on your horses, and run!”

  He wheeled his horse around, moving back to his mother and dismounted to help her up. The crowd sat in stunned silence and all assembled looked to Walker for an answer, although it was clearly splayed across his features that he was as clueless as they.

  “Joseph!” Walker called after the young man who had climbed back astride his mount, his reigns at the ready to spur his stallion into motion. “Can we weather it?”

  Joseph solemnly shook his head to the negative and rode off.

  “Let’s get home, Ti,” Yen said, easing his horse about and moving off as Walker began to speak.

  “Calm down, everyone, let’s all make our way home. When you get there, pack a bag in case we do need to leave, but stay inside—”

  Walker’s voice trailed into the distance as the men moved back around the block to their home. They rode straight to the front door rather than stabling the horses in the shed like they normally would and lashed them to a post that held the front overhang up.

  “Pack light, but be thorough, like when we go hunting,” Yen called to his brother as they moved into the little brick house.

  “Oh, you boys are home,” their mother said from the kitchen.

  “Mother, we have to leave, we need you to pack some clothing and some food,” Yen called to her as he moved towards his bedroom in the back of the house.

  “What are you carrying on about, Yenagant?” the concerned woman asked suspiciously.

  “Mom, please, do as I ask,” he called back, striding through the kitchen to his bedroom in the rear of the house. He grabbed his compound bow and quiver, his camping kit, a pistol, and whatever ammo he had for his guns. He threw it all on his unmade bed. His mother moved into the doorway of his bedroom.

  “Yen, please tell me what is happening. Are you in trouble again?”

  Yen couldn’t resist as a smile crept on his face. His mother always came to the conclusion that he was doing something bad and going to get in trouble for it. He had gotten caught stealing a candy bar from David’s Food and Drug when he was six years old. Even though he had learned his lesson and hadn’t stolen a thing since, his mother was unable to forget the transgression. That one incident had forever changed the way his mother viewed him. He shook the thoughts from his head and continued piling supplies on his bed as he spoke.

  “I don’t know, Mom. Joseph was sent to see what’s going on over in Roosevelt. He tells a frightening tale. I don’t necessarily believe it, but I am not about to risk our lives on it either.”

  *

  “Jen, drive!” Tim called down, as he slid through the moon roof, lowering himself as gingerly as possible into the rear seat next to Laura, who was already working his pants off to address his wound. The Jeep started pulling away, pushing easily through the gathering crowd of undead.

  “Turn right, Jen,” Tim called, not wanting to drive by the men who shot at him.

  “I got it, don’t worry,” she barked back, as they turned onto the snow-covered roadway.

  “You okay, Bjorn?” Will asked, seeing the man clutching his knee.

  “Yeah, I think so, just landed really hard on it.”

  “Oh, great!” Jen laughed. “Every guy is crying about their boo-boos. Don’t expect us to do all the work.”

  She smiled broadly in the rear-view mirror at Laura, who returned the smile, despite her hard feelings toward the pretty girl.

  “Don’t expect us to nurse you back to health, you’re all big-boys,” Jen continued before falling into self-induced hysterics.

  “Jen,” Tim grunted out as Laura cleaned his wound as best as she could.

  “Yeah, Tim?”

  “Can you just fucking drive the car, please?”

  “I think you’re going to be okay, Tim,” Laura said at last, easing his pants back up over the wound she had dressed with scraps ripped off of his T-shirt. “Looks like it went through muscle and came out the rear. Of course, I’m not a nurse, so take it as you will.”

  “Well, it sure doesn’t feel okay,” he replied, struggling to ease himself down on the seat.

  Jen blasted the heat, but those in the rear were still shivering from the cold coming in through the shattered rear window. They drove on for the remainder of the day and a couple hours into the night, wanting to be sure they left the horde of dead and the gunmen far behind them. Tim finally called for a stop after Jen nearly lost control of the Jeep on the snowy road after smashing into one of the undead she wasn’t able to steer around. After some discussion, they decided it best to find a structure to back to Jeep up to so that none of the things could crawl
in the rear window while they slept. They couldn’t keep the Jeep running for fear of carbon monoxide poisoning, so they sat huddled in the cold, dark interior of the SUV for a long restless night. The only one that rested well and warm that night was Luna, slid down the front of her mother’s shirt like a baby kangaroo. The rest of the group was up for the day, shivering before four in the morning.

  Since Luna’s birth, Laura hadn’t gotten more than four hours of uninterrupted sleep; she was used to the exhaustion. The little girl wouldn’t sleep in the bassinet or crib, and after endless nights trying, they had given up and co-slept with her. This meant that she woke up every time the child needed something. She hummed quietly to herself as she passed snacks around the car. The rest of the group, not so used to such deprivation, stared blankly out of the frosty windows into the darkness.

  “We need to hit a store,” Tim stated, drawing nods from the rest of the people in the Jeep. “Cold weather gear, real food, and something to cover that back window.”

  Jen turned the ignition and the motor roared to life. The daytime running lights flicked on showing a group of twenty to thirty undead standing in a large area in front of them. They all turned and started advancing on the Jeep as soon as the engine started and lights came on.

  “What the fuck!” Jen shrieked, snapping their attention to the scene in front of them.