Surviving the Dead (Book 4): Fire In Winter Read online

  Table of Contents:

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY ONE

  TWENTY TWO

  TWENTY THREE

  TWENTY FOUR

  TWENTY FIVE

  TWENTY SIX

  TWENTY SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  FORTY-EIGHT

  FORTY-NINE

  FIFTY

  EPILOGUE

  COPYRIGHT

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  SURVIVING THE DEAD BOOK FOUR: FIRE IN WINTER. Copyright © 2014 By James N. Cook. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the author and Amazon.com.

  FIRST EDITION

  Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

  Epub Edition ©MARCH 2014

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  Also by James N. Cook:

  No Easy Hope

  This Shattered Land

  Warrior Within

  The Passenger

  Surviving the Dead Volume IV:

  Fire in Winter

  By

  James N. Cook

  The weight of lies will bring you down,

  and follow you from town to town,

  ‘cause nothing happens here, that doesn’t happen there.

  So if you run, make sure you run

  to something and not away from,

  because lies don’t need no aeroplane,

  to chase you down.

  -The Weight of Lies.

  The Avett Brothers

  I felt the power,

  of death over life.

  I orphaned his children,

  I widowed his wife.

  I begged their forgiveness,

  I wish I was dead.

  I hung my head.

  I hung my head.

  -I Hung My Head

  Johnny Cash

  ONE

  It’s a hell of a thing, the threat of war.

  It eats at you. It dwells in your mind. You find yourself constantly worrying over events you can’t see or touch, much less control. Frustration builds because you have no choice but to trust distant strangers with the handling of things no one on this blighted Earth is possessed of sufficient wisdom to manage. But that was where I found myself, all day every day, sweating with anxiety over an enemy I couldn’t see, couldn’t root out, couldn’t kill. And it wasn’t just me, it was everyone. Every survivor in the country waited anxiously as the new President was sworn into office, insurgents and loyalists alike.

  And now, wherever there was a spark of voltage equal to the task of powering a device, people bent their ears to HAM radios, or laptops, or cell phones, or plain old AM/FM, waiting to hear what the President was going to say. She had a huge responsibility, this new Commander in Chief, to ensure the continuity of the most powerful nation the world had ever seen. And, less glamorously, to destroy its enemies. Enemies that had taken root on what was once solid American soil.

  The Midwest Alliance.

  The Republic of California.

  The flotilla.

  Insurgents.

  Marauders.

  Slavers.

  Famine.

  Disease.

  Nuclear winter.

  Lions and tigers and bears. Literally.

  And that was just here at home. The international situation was just as volatile, and just as likely to erupt into violence. Consequently, every eye in Hollow Rock was staring with rapt attention at either a bank of televisions set up in the VFW hall, or for a few beneficiaries of recent improvements to the electrical grid, in the comfort of their homes. Wherever they watched, they fidgeted, and worried, and listened.

  But not me.

  I was too busy running for my life.

  “Where the hell did that horde come from?” Eric shouted as we sprinted along, two squads of troops running close behind.

  “Good question. Why don’t you go ask them?”

  He made a hiss that could have been irritation or laughter or both. “Something tells me they’re not big on conversation. This is a problem, Gabe. The weather is turning to shit, and we’re a long way from home. What do you want to do?”

  I looked over my shoulder, pumping my legs in the ankle-high snow. The burn in my thighs reminded me that in just a few short months I would be forty-one. My body seemed to think it was older.

  “Running seems like a good idea. We should stick with that for now.”

  “Funny, Gabe. Real funny.”

  A voice called out from behind us. “Hey, you guys realize we’re running away from the transport, right?”

  I looked back to see Staff Sergeant Ethan Thompson hustling to catch up with us, his men fanned out in a loose skirmish line behind him, Sanchez and his squad bringing up the rear. Towering over them all was the dark, massive figure of Sergeant Isaac Cole, grinning broadly despite the army of ghouls converging on us.

  “I know,” Eric shouted. “There’s an opening up ahead, over by the pawnshop. Let’s head that way and see if we can get clear.”

  We pounded ahead, breath coming in short bursts from the sudden exertion. Snow fell around us in great smothering curtains, whipped along by a howling wind. It stung our eyes like needles, forcing us to blink against the bitter cold. My goggles bounced against my chest, but I didn’t bother trying to putting them on. There was no time, and the distraction might result in a fall. Better just to keep moving.

  It was mid-morning, but the sky above was a dull, barely visible brightness through iron gray clouds. The storm had moved in quickly, and if it kept getting worse, we would be facing whiteout conditions—proof positive winter hates us and wants to kill us all.

  The pawnshop grew closer with painful sluggishness, step by agonizing step, like running in a nightmare against an invisible force bogging down my legs. The horde was a hundred yards behind, but the cacophony of moans made it feel like they were breathing down my neck. I shifted my rifle around to my back and opened up my str
ide, gaining speed and outpacing the men behind me. I may be getting older, but I have long legs, and I can run with the best of them when I need to. I reached the pawnshop first and nearly fell over as I slid around the corner.

  Up ahead, a dark, shuffling mass surrounded the edge of the parking lot directly in my path. I skidded to a halt and stared, squinting against the wind, hoping against hope I wasn’t seeing what I was seeing. For a moment, a shrill little part of me protested, railed against reality, told it to go away, desperately hoping it wasn’t a wall of infected out there but something else. Something innocuous like a low fog, a tall snowdrift, a herd of buffalo, a pile of crashed vehicles, an abandoned police barricade, anything but an impenetrable swarm of the walking dead. That hope died quickly when a thunder of moans rolled through the air.

  “Hold up!” I roared over my shoulder.

  The other soldiers rounded the corner at a dead sprint, heads down, legs pumping, leaning on each other to keep from falling. I stood tall and held my arms out. “Goddammit people, STOP!”

  They heard me and obeyed, feet scrambling for purchase on the icy ground. A few of them fell cursing in the snow.

  “What’s the problem?” Eric shouted.

  I stepped aside and pointed.

  “Ah, shit. Not good.”

  “Schmidt, get up here with the ladder!”

  The young soldier dropped his pack, unzipped it, and quickly fished out the item in question. He undid the lashings on a three-foot telescoping plastic pole, then tossed his pack onto the roof.

  Constructed of eight-inch aluminum struts and quarter-inch steel cables, the portable ladder could be coiled small enough to fit inside a half-empty assault pack. Its companion, the telescoping pole, had an S-shaped metal hook fastened to one end.

  Although only three feet long when collapsed, the pole expanded to twelve feet. To use it, you simply looped one end of the steel cable around the hook, extended the stick to the rooftop, put your weight on the bottom rung, and everybody climbs up. The last man will have a tough time of it, being that there is no one left to hold the cables taut. But it’s nothing a fit, well-trained soldier can’t handle.

  Schmidt—a tall blond kid whom Eric always called by his first name, Justin—quickly deployed the hook ladder, set it’s sharply-pointed end firmly into the ice covering the roof, and planted his boot on the bottom rung. “All set,” he said.

  “Hicks, Riordan, on me.” I ordered. “Everybody else, up the ladder.”

  The wind shifted direction to the north, driving the thick veil of snow away from my face and making it easier to aim. Hicks and Eric fanned out on either side of me, rifles leveled. The ACOG scope on my M-4 seemed to move of its own volition, the crosshairs coming level with the nearest walker’s forehead. I squeezed the trigger and felt a small jolt as sixty-eight grains of 5.56mm lead alloy ventilated a dead skull.

  Without thought, my hands moved a few inches, my shoulders shifted, half a breath expelled itself, another squeeze, another muted crack. Before the walker hit the ground, my eyes were already tracking toward the next target. While my body went to work, the rest of me drifted. I heard grunts of effort behind me as the troops climbed the ladder, urging each other to go, go, go. Eric’s rifle cracked rhythmically on my right, while to my left, Hicks’ M-4 pelted my shoulder with expended shell casings.

  I racked up a score of seven before the walkers grew close enough to see clearly, veiled as they were by the snow. They emerged from everywhere, surrounding us on all sides, hundreds of them, no escape in any direction. The roof of the pawnshop was our only option.

  My sights centered on a young ghoul, no older than fourteen or fifteen when she died, still somewhat recognizable as the person she had once been. Her clothes consisted of sturdy hunting attire, the kind of thing a long-time Outbreak survivor would wear. What was left of her hair was cut short, and her shoes had not yet fallen apart. She must have died recently, maybe a couple of months ago. From the missing gouges of flesh on her face and torso, it was obvious she hadn’t died easy. I squeezed the trigger, the bullet did its work, and she collapsed.

  “Eric, you’re up!” Justin shouted.

  “Okay, falling back.”

  Eric moved his rifle to his back and leapt for the ladder. I shifted to cover his lane, focusing intently and increasing my rate of fire to compensate. The weapon seemed to operate on its own, unthinking in its precision, guided by steady hands. Sometimes I wondered if it was me doing the fighting, or if all the years of combat had created a separate, symbiotic consciousness. An unconcerned, disconnected thing with all the necessary muscle memory and mechanics to get the job done, but none of the baggage.

  Or maybe, after two decades of violence, killing had simply become as unremarkable as taking a piss.

  Justin called out again, and I motioned to Hicks. Without a word, he lowered his weapon, executed a neat little heel-to-toe pivot, took three graceful running steps, and went silently up the ladder. He did everything silently, that guy. I could count on one hand the number of times I had heard him speak, and even then only in one or two word sentences.

  Gunfire erupted over my head as the rest of the troops opened fire on the horde, driving them back and buying me time. “You’re up, Gabe,” Justin said. I slipped my weapon to my back and motioned him up the ladder. “You first, Schmidt. Go on.”

  He frowned, but didn’t question me. While he climbed, I put my weight on the bottom rung to hold the ladder steady. He scrambled up quick as a monkey, propelled by strong young muscles nearly half my age. When his boots disappeared over the top, I began hauling myself upward. It wasn’t easy; the wind pushed me like a giant hand and the ladder swung wildly. By the time I was halfway up, I was hanging nearly parallel to the ground, shoulder pressed against the cinder-block wall, arms struggling against gravity and friction.

  With teeth gritted, grunting with effort, I kept climbing. My legs pushed. My hands moved purposefully from one rung to the next. Then, out of nowhere, my tactical sling drew tight around my chest and cut savagely into the skin of my neck. A brutal weight ripped at me, nearly peeling me from the ladder. I tilted backward like a seesaw until I could see my feet over my head. The hook above me bit deeper into the ice, knocking loose a tumble of white debris that barely missed my face. I held on desperately, growling through clenched teeth and craning my neck to see what had grabbed me. At the edge of my peripheral vision was a freakishly tall ghoul dangling from my rifle as if on a pull-up bar. It hauled itself up and tried to bite my back, but didn’t quite make it. I heard its teeth clack together on empty air.

  “Help!” I shouted. “I need help!”

  For the first time in a long while, genuine fear gripped me. The ghoul dangling from my back couldn’t reach me with its teeth, but its weight made it impossible to climb. The rest of the horde pressed closer, gaining ground despite the hail of bullets ripping into them. I strained upward, but couldn’t get the leverage I needed. The undead kept closing the distance, steady, unrelenting, mouths gaping wide. Their moans filled my ears, the stench of decay clung to the back of my throat. I let out an animal scream and hauled with everything I had, but made no progress. The rungs were slick with melted snow, making it difficult to get a grip. My arms began to tremble from the strain. The ghoul hanging onto me lunged up and down, jaws snapping mere inches from my back.

  And then I was moving upward.

  Two sets of gloved hands reached down and hauled on the ladder, but it was slow going. The ladder was small, only a couple of people at a time could reach it. The others crowded in but couldn’t get close enough to help.

  “Everybody get back!” Thompson shouted, exasperated. “Hicks, let go of the ladder and go kill some walkers. The rest of you too, goddammit. Cole, give me a hand here.”

  The hazy, bundled shapes of men shifted above me and the ladder fell back down. I almost lost my grip and shouted in terror, images of being ripped apart by ghouls drowning out all reason. The horde crowded close, pressing in
on one another, bottlenecked against the wall of the pawnshop. If I fell, I would be right in the middle of them, on my back, defenseless.

  I opened my mouth to scream but bit it back when the ladder lurched upward again. This time I could see the broad-shouldered outlines of Thompson and Cole pulling me up, hand over hand, slowly, gradually, cursing me for being so heavy. I set all my will and determination to hanging on, to not falling into that teeming, gnashing hell beneath me. My hands cramped, something burned angrily in my right bicep, a section of cable dug into my ankle hard enough to draw blood. But I held on anyway, squeezing tighter, ignoring the pain. An eternity passed, and then I could see over the edge of the roof. When I reached it, I shouted at Thompson and Cole to hold up.

  “What’s wrong?” Thompson asked, teeth gritted.

  “There’s a walker hanging from my back. If you pull me up, he’ll be close enough to bite me.”

  Cole let out a frustrated hiss. “Well, we can’t just fuckin’ hold you all day, man. What do you want us to do?”

  “I got this,” Eric said calmly.

  He walked over, drew his Ka-bar, sprawled on his stomach, and slipped the blade under my tactical sling. A few forceful sawing motions later, the strap split and the ghoul fell away, along with my rifle. The sudden release of weight sent Thompson and Cole over backwards, dragging me on top of them. We landed in a pile, cursing and pushing at one another. Eric’s hands gripped my back and helped me to my feet.

  “You okay, man? That was a close one.”

  “Yeah,” I replied, voice shaky. “Too fucking close.”

  SPC Derrick Holland’s voice drifted back to me, laughing. “You scream like a girl, Garrett.”

  He was still shooting at the walkers, back turned to me, yelling over his shoulder. I was trembling with spent adrenaline, hands cramped, breath coming in ragged gasps. That had been the closest I had ever come to being eaten by the undead, and it rattled me. My temper, constant danger that it is, sparked to life. I walked up behind Holland and leaned down close to his ear, pointing at the horde.

  “How would you like it if I hung you by your ankles over those fucking things, you little smartass?”