This Shattered Land - 02 Read online

  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 TWO: THIS SHATTERED LAND Copyright © 2012 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 © JULY 2012

  Author’s Note

  Two years ago, writing was something that I only dreamed about doing. I thought up story ideas and bored my wife for hours going over them in endless detail. One day she got sick of listening to me and put down her cell phone to fire a level stare at me across the couch.

  “James,” she said. “I’m not listening to any more of these story ideas until you write one of them down.”

  I started, “But babe…”

  “Zip it.”

  “I know but…”

  “Zip it.”

  I frowned. “Fine.”

  Then she screwed up. She went and bought me a Kindle.

  I don’t think I talked to her for three months. Or maybe she didn’t screw up, maybe that was her idea all along. Either way, I learned about the world of independent publishing, and my life hasn’t been the same since. In short, you can blame my wife for my newfound love of writing. If not for her, I probably never would have sat down to write No Easy Hope.

  Thanks, Babe. You win again.

  Where will this whole writing thing take me? I have no idea. But it will be a lot of fun along the way. I hope you come along for the ride.

  Once more we hear the word

  That sickened earth of old:

  "No law except the Sword

  Unsheathed and uncontrolled."

  Once more it knits mankind,

  Once more the nations go

  To meet and break and bind

  A crazed and driven foe.

  -Rudyard Kipling

  For All We Have and Are

  Chapter 1

  Unexpected Guests

  The spring thaw was late. Normally by May, the Catawba River would be running swift and swollen, and tearing at the soft red clay bordering its banks. That was not what we saw looking down at the riverbank. The river had shaken off the sluggishness of winter, but it still ran steady and calm across the Carolina mountain country. Gabriel was not happy about it. He scratched his thick black beard and frowned at the muddy brown water.

  “Do you still think heading over to Marion is a good idea?” I asked.

  Gabe shot me a sidelong glance and deliberately stopped scratching his beard. The whole face-scratching thing is something that my overgrown friend does when he is agonizing over a decision.

  “You want those supplies as much as I do.” Gabriel said.

  “True, but do you think we can get there with the river like this?” I replied. “It gets pretty shallow in places, and I don’t want to have to walk back here through miles of forest if we lose the canoe.”

  “I’ve gone farther downstream when the river was lower.”

  “Right, but it’s been over two years since there was anyone around to keep the waterways clear. Who knows what kind of junk is waiting under the water where we can’t see it?”

  Gabriel’s scowl deepened. He had already considered that, and it did not bring him any closer to making a decision.

  “Well, what do you think we should do? Do you want to chance it, or do you just want to go ahead and leave for Colorado?” He said.

  I crossed my hands over my walking stick and rested my chin on my knuckles as I stared across the river. The trees around us, and over on the far bank, were still brown, bare and lifeless. We should have seen brightly colored little green leaves budding along the tips of branches by now, but the long, cold nuclear winter was reluctant to loosen its grip.

  “More than anything else, I want caffeine,” I said, smiling, “but we also need medical supplies. I don’t fancy the thought of going all the way to Colorado without a plentiful supply of antibiotics and painkillers.”

  Gabe nodded and adjusted the rifle sling on his shoulder. “Well that settles it. We’ll take a couple of days to get ready, and then we go.”

  Gabe turned and trudged back up the steep embankment, stepping carefully along the narrow walkway of rough-carved terraces topped with cracked and broken flagstones. The sun washed the valley in brilliant golden light, but it did little to warm the chill mountain air. It was early May, and the daily temperatures were still hovering around the mid-forties. Normally it should have been hot, humid, and miserable by this time of year. The thought renewed my irritation at the Middle Eastern countries that decided to make a bad situation worse by launching nuclear weapons at one another whilst the dead rose up and devoured the world. As if things were not bad enough without a cloud of radioactive crud filtering out the sun’s warmth.

  The two of us huffed and puffed our way up the ridge to the south, and then began the three-mile hike back to our mountaintop cabin. The weight of my pack and rifle felt familiar and comfortable, where once they had been an annoyance. I had grown used to walking long distances, to constantly scanning my surroundings for signs of the undead, and to never letting my eyes rest on the same spot for too long.

  We reached the top of the ridge and followed the path south along the crests of hills that were once part of the Appalachian Trail. The bleached white bones of several corpses littered the ground along the way, most of them the remains of undead that either Gabe or I had put down over the last couple of years. In the days since I first drove my old grey Tundra up the mountain, we had spent a great deal of effort keeping the area around our home clear of the undead. Regular patrols and constant vigilance were a necessity. The long winter months that were just beginning to wane had made things both easier, and harder. The freezing temperatures immobilized the dead, making them easy targets and all but eliminating their constant threat, but it made virtually every other aspect of life in the high country brutally difficult. Now that it was warming up, we had to deal with both the cold and the walkers. As if we didn’t have enough problems.

  “Movement.” Gabriel said, breaking my reverie.

  My thumb flipped the safety to semi-auto as I brought my rifle up and scanned the surrounding trees for infected. None appeared. Gabe moved to my left and melted silently into the edge of the forest. I followed suit. The bare birches and pines provided cover while we waited, tense and alert. Gabe raised a hand and slowly pointed toward the crest of the hill ahead of us. The scope on my rifle magnified three figures as they detached themselves from the far edge of the old two-lane highway that intersected with our hiking path and scurried across the ridgeline at a brisk trot. Gabe watched them through his little binoculars until they had disappeared from sight before turning to look at me. I met his gaze, no doubt matching his surprised expression with one of my own.

  Those were living people.

  The undead do not move that fast, nor do they carry packs or firearms. Gabe had been living here since the beginning of the Outbreak, and other than me, he had not seen another living soul. He stood up and moved off in the newcomer’
s direction, and I followed. There was no discussion necessary. Gabe and I knew each other well enough to guess what the other was going to do before he did it.

  I shadowed Gabriel’s swift, silent movements as best as I could through the dense Appalachian woodland. It was soon obvious that the people we pursued were either laying a trap for us, or they were absolutely terrible at covering their tracks. Their trail would have been easy for a blind man to follow. They took no care to avoid breaking tree limbs, overturning rocks, disturbing moss and lichen, or leaving behind obvious footprints in the muddy ground. Gabe and I tracked them for the better part of two hours until they stopped at a campsite in the shadow of a steep overhanging ridge. Looking at their camp through my scope, I could see that they had a couple of tents, a fire-pit, a small steel drum converted into a makeshift grill, and the beginnings of a log cabin. They had dug the necessary footings for it, and the first layers of carefully trimmed logs lay neatly interwoven over top of one another. The trio of survivors started taking things out of their packs and organizing them into little stacks on an old white plastic folding table. Gabriel looked back at me and motioned me forward. I took my time, working my way down to his hiding spot as quietly as I could over the thick carpet of pine needles and dead leaves that covered the slope.

  “What do you think?” He whispered.

  “Not sure.” I replied. “They’re awfully close to our place. They might have noticed our cabin.”

  “I don’t think so.” Gabe said.

  “Why not?”

  “Cause if they did, they would have either tried to rob us or make contact with us by now. Besides, this terrain is too steep for the infected, they can’t get up here. It’s a good spot to set up a permanent camp. I’m willing to bet that’s what they’ve decided to do here.”

  “How can we be sure?” I asked.

  Gabe shrugged. “One way to find out.”

  I glared at him for a long moment, and then heaved a sigh.

  “Alright, fine. Guess it had to happen sooner or later.”

  Gabriel smiled and clapped me on the shoulder.

  “Hey, it was your idea to be the diplomat.”

  “Just keep your eyes peeled.” I grumbled, staring down the hillside. “I’ll leave my rifle here, but I’ll keep my pistol. If they so much as twitch wrong, light ‘em up. Got it?”

  Gabe’s grin vanished like the moon behind a storm cloud. His expression grew deadly serious. He dropped his pack and took out a tubular black case with a Nightforce scope inside. When equipped with long-range optics, Gabriel’s SCAR 17 functions well as a rough and ready sniper rifle at distances less than six-hundred yards. His marksmanship would protect me from all but the most swift and violent of assaults. I took off my pack and stashed it along with my rifle in a thick tangle of brush near Gabriel’s position. A quick glance told me that the three people down the valley from us had not yet detected our presence.

  Gabe used a rangefinder to calculate adjustments for his scope, and soon would no doubt put on his ghillie suit to better blend in with the hillside. Regardless of where our new neighbors might decide to take cover and shoot at me, Gabe would be able to pick them off quickly with aimed fire if necessary. After quietly moving far enough away from Gabriel’s hide so as not to draw any unwanted attention to him, I gave up all pretense of stealth and trudged openly down the muddy slope. Two of the people at the bottom of the hill noticed me coming and snatched their weapons up from the table. As I drew closer I could see that there was a man, a woman, and a young boy who looked to be maybe eleven or twelve years old. The man pushed the boy behind him and brought the stock of his rifle to his shoulder.

  “Hello the camp.” I shouted, waving to them and trying my best to sound jovial.

  From their perspective, all they saw was a lone figure dressed in Army surplus combat fatigues winding his way toward them through close stands of tall trees. There was plenty of cover if they started shooting, but I was fervently hoping it would not come to that.

  “Stop right there!” the woman shouted, taking aim with a lever action rifle.

  I didn’t stop, but I slowed to a shuffle and began edging behind the thick trunk of a giant maple tree.

  “Take it easy, folks, I don’t mean you any harm.” I said. “You’re the first survivors I’ve seen in a long time, I just want to talk.”

  “Where did you come from?” The man demanded, “How did you find us?”

  “I live in a cabin a couple of miles from here.” I replied. “I was out scouting around and saw you folks cross the highway a few miles back where it intersects with the AT.”

  By the time I finished talking I was more than halfway behind the big maple. I knew that Gabriel had a good line of fire, and if things got nasty, I was just going to take cover and let the sniper do his thing.

  “Dad, what’s an AT?” The boy asked from behind his father.

  “Not now, son.” The man said irritably, and pushed the boy further behind him.

  I smiled and leaned around the tree a bit. “It’s an acronym. Stands for Appalachian Trail.”

  “What do you want from us?” The woman demanded impatiently, still pointing her rifle at me. Her voice and posture held a note of confidence and authority that was familiar in a strange sort of way. I regarded her, brows knitted trying to figure out what she reminded me of. After a moment I had it—she talked like a cop.

  “I told you, I just want to talk. If you don’t mind lowering that weapon, I’ll step out and maybe we can have a normal conversation like civilized people. What do you say?”

  The man and woman exchanged a look. Something imperceptible passed between them, and they seemed to relax a bit. The woman lowered her weapon, but kept it where she could bring it up quickly if need be. Smart lady. Maybe she really was a cop.

  “Okay,” she said, “come on out, but keep your hands where I can see them.”

  I did as she requested and walked down the hill into the clearing. I got to within a few yards of them and stopped, making sure to stay clear of Gabriel’s line of sight.

  “Mind if I put my hands down now?” I asked.

  “Not with that pistol on your hip.” The woman responded. “Take it out slowly and drop it.”

  I shook my head and chuckled. “Listen folks, I’ve been following you for miles. If I wanted to try something, I could have done it fifty times by now. If you want to keeps your guns pointed at me that’s fine, but I never go unarmed. Too many infected around here for that.”

  I slowly lowered my hands and reached one of them out.

  “I’m Eric Riordan.”

  No one moved for a moment. The man and woman exchanged another long glance.

  “I’m Tom Glover. This is my wife Sarah, and the little fella behind me is my son Brian.”

  The boy leaned out from behind his father and waved. “Hey.”

  The first of the adults to step forward was the man of the family. He was a couple of inches shorter than me, which put him at about five-foot ten. He looked to be in his late thirties, with salt-and-pepper black hair and intelligent brown eyes. Much like me, he had not seen a barber or the business end of a razor in a very long time. He was lean and spare, with the kind of dense stringy muscle developed from a lifetime of hard work. He shook my hand, but kept his weapon between us.

  “We’re not looking for trouble, but it’s been a while since we’ve seen anyone alive up here.” He said.

  I waved off his apology, noticing that Sarah still had her gun at the ready. “That’s alright, don’t worry about it. It’s a dangerous world out here, you can’t be too careful.”

  The boy stepped out from behind his father and pushed back the brim of his hat, appraising me with the same bright blue eyes as his mother. “How many of you are there?” He asked.

  “What makes you think I’m not alone?”

  “Nobody could survive up here by themselves for long. You don’t look starved, and your clothes are clean. Somebody has to be helping you.”
>
  I grinned. The kid was sharp. “You’re right. My friend Gabriel is back up the trail a little ways. He should be along shortly.”

  “Why didn’t he come with you?” The woman asked, her tone suspicious.

  A deep, rough voice called out from the hillside behind me. “Just wanted to make sure you folks were friendly.”

  We all jumped.

  Gabe appeared from out of nowhere, pushing back the hood of his ghillie suit and striding into the clearing. The tall, powerfully built ex-Marine wore a thick cloak of foliage and leaves, and carried his rifle with the large scope still mounted to the upper rail. A pair of piercing grey eyes stared out from beneath heavy black brows on a face that carried a painful collection of scars. Tom took an involuntary step back and dropped a nervous hand to the pistol on his hip. Gabe stopped in his tracks and held up a hand, white teeth contrasting with a black beard that widened into a smile.

  “Whoa now folks, I know I’m ugly, but that don’t mean you need to shoot me for it.”

  Nobody laughed, but after a few tense seconds they did at least relax their grips on their weapons a bit. Gabriel walked over to hand me his rifle and began extricating himself from his ghillie suit.

  “How did you get so close to us? I didn’t even hear you.” Tom said, a little shaken.

  “I’ve been sneaking around in the woods since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Got pretty good at it after a while.” Gabe replied, still smiling.

  I gave him an irritated glare while he rolled up his camouflage and strapped it to the bottom of his pack. I very much wanted to ask him what the hell he was thinking stalking down the hill like that and scaring these poor people half to death. When he finished sorting himself out, he put his gear back on and I handed him his rifle.

  “I have to admit, I’m surprised to see you folks. Eric and I haven’t seen anyone up this way since the Outbreak.” Gabe said.

  “We haven’t been here long.” Sarah said, eyeing Gabe suspiciously.