Текст книги "Deadland's Harvest"

Автор книги: Rachel Aukes

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

Chapter XXIII

All of Camp Fox squeezed into the galley the morning we left. It was standing room only in a room made to seat twenty comfortably. Weighted down with food and gear, I followed Jase as he weaved through the crowd. I noticed Hali squeezed his hand briefly as he walked by.

Maggie, who now had a scout assigned to her twenty-four/seven, eyed us with her usual glare of disdain and suspicion. Thanks to her, zeds had proof that we were still here, and their numbers were growing. Her little tirade guaranteed Camp Fox would remain under siege until we starved. I craved to put a bullet between her eyes.

Even so, she wasn’t the hardest to deal with in the room this morning. Everyone else watched with hope. They put all of their faith in us to save them. If our gamble failed, everyone would starve to death because of us. Those were the ones I really avoided eye contact with, as their gazes followed us silently through the room.

On the island, we chose a deck boat instead of the speedboat since we could load a lot more extra fuel on it. The .30 cal was useless, and we only had to be faster than the herds. The speedboat also couldn’t hold nearly the amount of supplies a larger boat could. And boy, did we fill that boat. After all, we had to be ready to live on the river for up to a couple weeks.

Tyler and several scouts had speared the zeds on the land by the Aurora so we could load and get out. Even then, hands reached up from below the surface at us. A vision that would no doubt haunt my dreams for the rest of my life.

While I strapped down our food and gear, Clutch and Jase tied the leftover deer organs to the sides of the boat. Vicki had saved the deer organs “for a rainy day.” The sweet, iron smell of deer innards was strong and unpleasant but not as bad as I would have expected. Vicki had devised a cellar system on barge Four that helped preserve food, and surprisingly the deer had only the slightest smell of decay.

I pulled out one more item from my backpack, unfolded it, and strung it up on the flagpole at the back of the boat. The wind was just strong enough today that the American flag flapped proudly in the breeze. I sat back and admired it. “I think we’re all set.”

Griz tossed me a life vest.

I looked at it and scowled. “It’s going to be harder to shoot with one on.”

He shrugged his vest on like it was body armor. “We play it safe. No unnecessary risks.”

“As soon as you know the herds are moving on, get back here as soon as you are safely able,” Tyler said.

I gave him a salute. “Aye, aye, captain.”

His eyes narrowed with the hint of a smile before he turned and climbed up to the deck.

Kurt had spent much of his childhood boating and water skiing, so he was our pilot. He was also the only one who hadn’t volunteered. Tyler had assigned him to the Pied Piper team since we needed Kurt’s experience with boats.

We had a perfect team for the mission. Jase had eagle eyes, so he sat at the bow along with Griz, who was a master at strategy. Clutch and I, both crack shots, sat across from each other behind Kurt to have our sides covered. Wes, our mechanic, sat near the motor to keep an eye on our six. I also suspected the engine vibration comforted him as he couldn’t swim and really disliked water.

“Everyone ready?” Kurt asked.

A chorus of yeses replied.

He backed the boat from the shoddy dock that had been hastily constructed our first days on the towboat. Wes had a long stick to push away any zeds close to the motor. Kurt piloted the boat slowly and smoothly, and I appreciated that his nerves didn’t relay through the controls.

Things started to feel real when we pulled around the side of the Aurora and the herd came into sight. I felt like we were the stars of a sold-out concert. Kurt pulled the boat around, and we moved away from the river barge and toward the zeds.

The boat rocked gently in the river current as Kurt piloted it forward, into the U-shape of zeds on the surrounding land and bridge. The zeds looked like extras in an old-time horror film. Filthy, they were all the same shade of brown-gray. Most were emaciated. Many sported fresh boils and old injuries.

“Don’t get too close,” Clutch warned. “We don’t want zeds to start dropping in on us.”

It was like someone had wound up the zeds. What had been slow shuffling before became a frenzied dance as we approached. When we approached the center of the U-shape, their moans reached a crescendo.

“That’s close enough,” Griz said, sounding nervous.

I didn’t blame him. I was practically frozen, and it wasn’t just because of the cold air. My hands trembled, and I gripped my rifle to me like it was my lifeline.

Kurt cranked on the CD player, and the previous owner’s choice in music—Motor Boat City’s “Pontoon”—blasted through the speakers. If the smells of deer organs and visuals of uninfected humans weren’t enough to snag their attention, they couldn’t ignore the noise. We hadn’t had time to rig up louder speakers, but the stock speakers seemed to be doing the trick. Dozens of zeds tumbled into the water, pushed in by zeds behind them.

“Think we got their attention?” Kurt asked.

“Yeah,” Clutch said. “We don’t want them to keep falling in the water.”

Kurt brought the boat closer to the western bank and turned the boat toward the south and cut the engine, letting the current do the work. As we drifted past the Aurora, the deck was empty and I could see no signs of inhabitants, though I knew everyone was watching from the galley.

Back on the towboat, we had debated for less than two minutes whether to lead the herd south or north. Leading them north seemed counterproductive. Leading them south meant that we had to lead them past the Aurora, but it was the direction they seemed naturally inclined to head.

The plan was to lead the herds far enough away—at least twenty miles—from Camp Fox and then hide in a cove until they had all continued in their migration. We had no map of the river, so it would be all guesswork, and we were counting on Kurt’s experience to help navigate the river. We’d loaded up enough fuel to run for at least three days straight, but the plan was that we wouldn’t need much.

We used paddles to keep the boat close—but not too close—to the western bank, so that the zeds from the east would work their way across the bridge to the west. Without the engine, the music blared even louder. Wes had rigged up a second battery so we wouldn’t drain the primary one.

Jase stood up and shaded his eyes. “It looks like they’re all following. Even the ones way in back are moving. Cash, you were right. They’re just like lemmings.”

I leaned back on the white vinyl seat. Thank God. We’d been counting on the zeds sticking with their herd mentality. That once a critical mass moved, the rest would tag happily along. Zeds weren’t very bright, to say the least, and it wasn’t too hard to outthink them. Except what they lacked in brains, they made up for in numbers and ferocity.

Unfortunately, no matter how simple and foolproof the plan was, when you’re surrounded by a hundred thousand zeds, it just might not matter. Predictability can fly out the window. Griz and Jase relied on prayer to make the difference. The rest of us were relying on luck.

The current carried us faster than the herd walked so Kurt started the engine every thirty minutes or so to bring us back to the herd. It was a slow process. Two hours later, we were barely a mile south of the Aurora. At this rate, it would take us an entire day to get the herd out of the sight of the towboat and its barges, and a few days to get the herd back on their migratory path.

When the sun reached high in the sky, Kurt lifted the boat’s sunshade. The music dampened the constant moaning. Wes had long since fallen asleep, his snores filtering through the wide-brimmed straw hat covering his face. If I closed my eyes and ignored the smells, the boat ride was almost tranquil, and I could pretend it was just another day on the water, in a world where the outbreak had never happened. There was a sense of safety in the boat, knowing that the zeds couldn’t swim out to us. When I opened my eyes to a landscape filled with zeds, with zeds reaching out to us as they stumbled along the riverbank, reality soured my daydream.

For lunch, we each had a can of tuna and some flatbread. We didn’t carry water. Instead, we carried carbon-filter straws made for camping, and drank directly from the river. Every time I leaned over the side of the boat to drink, I had a near panic attack from imagining hands reaching up and grabbing me. Fortunately, the only thing out of the ordinary was a faded beer can floating by.

We chatted, but small talk was hard ever since the outbreak. Without sports, politics, and celebrities, there were only so many things a person could talk about that didn’t dredge up the topic of death or zeds.

I stared off at the treetops that lined the Mississippi. “This river has a lot of levees and little islands,” I mused.

“It shouldn’t be too hard to find a good hiding place once they get back on their migration,” Griz said.

“The landscape can change within just a few miles. Let’s hope there will be cover available when we need it,” Kurt cautioned.

“Hey guys. There’s a lock and dam coming up. We’ll be there in a few hours at this rate,” Jase said as he pulled out his binoculars.

“How’s the lock look?” Clutch said from behind Kurt.

“Nuh-uh,” Jase said. “It looks like it’s blocked by a big boat.”

“Damn. I was hoping we’d get lucky and the lock would be clear,” Kurt said.

“Can we get through another way?” Clutch asked.

“Doubt it,” Kurt said.

Clutch muttered a string of profanity, his words echoed by complaints and curses by every single one of us. When she wasn’t being a bitch, Nikki had told us how various crews had opened all the locks after the outbreak to travel the river easier. We’d been counting on having a wide open path. With a lock blocked, we quite literally had nowhere to go except back.

I looked at my watch and tried to mentally calculate our location. We’d been on the river for nine hours. I bit my lip to keep it from trembling. “We can’t be more than four or five miles from the Aurora.”

“That’s not far enough,” Griz said and turned to Clutch. “What’s the plan, Sarge?”

Goosebumps flitted across my skin. Once we reached the lock, we’d be fucked. The zeds would close us in. We couldn’t turn back without bringing the herds with us to the Aurora. There were no islands or outcroppings of trees to lose the zeds in.

Clutch’s lips thinned as he looked at the herd and then ahead toward the lock. After a moment, he spoke. “We keep going.”

Tension throbbed between my temples as I wracked my brain for ideas, but there were few options in a wide open river. We passed a couple outcroppings of dead trees, which would offer some cover, but we were still dangerously close to the river barge. An hour later, the game changed when we could see which boat was blocking the dock.

The Lady Amore was sitting sideways in the lock. It looked like it had tried to shove past the smaller boats and logs jamming up the lock but had gotten itself stuck. Without Sorenson to captain the riverboat, it looked like Sorenson’s remaining crew lacked the skill to navigate through the open locks and around dams.

“Oh, hell,” Jase said.

Clutch made his way toward the front of the boat where Jase was. “What is it?”

There are zeds all over the lock. It looks like they’re dropping down onto the boat.”

“What do we do?” Kurt asked.

“Our primary objective is to deter the herd,” Clutch said bluntly. “Everything else has to come second.” He turned to Kurt. “Will that small grouping of islands and trees over there work to hide us?”

Kurt bit his lip as he thought for a moment. “It should. It’s nice and close to the lock, so as long as we get there without them seeing us, it may work. Why?”

“Because the riverboat is going to draw their attention from us,” Clutch replied.

Kurt frowned. “There might be people still on board.”

Clutch narrowed his eyes. “The Aurora is counting on us.”

“He’s right,” Griz said quietly. “We’re not far enough away. If we turn around, we could lead them right back to the Aurora. The Lady Amore will distract them enough that they’ll forget about us and then keep going. It’s the only way.”

Clutch unsheathed his knife. “Turn off the music, Kurt. Griz, help me cut the meat loose.”

As the pair started to cut the cords holding the deer organs onto the sides, Kurt shook his head as he started the engine and turned the boat around. “I don’t like this. It’s not right.”

“And exactly how do you expect us to rescue anyone in that lock?” Clutch asked as a chunk of deer meat plopped into the water.

“It’s not right, but tell me what in this godforsaken world is right,” I added, frustration bleeding over my compassion.

“They wouldn’t have saved us,” Wes said from my right. “Besides, we’d all die if we tried to help them.”

Kurt remained silent. He piloted the boat against the current, bringing it in between a small island and a group of tall dead trees with their trunks underwater. I peered into the trees on the tiny island. A zed’s hollow gaze leveled on me, and I shivered. It walked to the edge of the bank and stopped at the water’s edge. It didn’t growl or try to come closer. It only watched me inquisitively.

Kurt dropped the anchor before spinning around to face Clutch. “What now?”

“We wait.”

And that’s exactly what we did.

We had nowhere to go. As long as the herd was still here, we couldn’t go north without drawing their attention. The south was blocked by the lock and dam. We had to ride out the herd. An occasional scream blasted through the groans of the herd, and I winced each time. I focused on breathing in the smell of the river water and tried to imagine I was in a different world, one without zeds, but the relentless sounds were an iron maiden to any daydream. I curled up into a ball and covered myself up with a blanket as I watched the zed watching me while everyone on board the Lady Amore was eaten alive.

Chapter XXIV

I’d hid and waited zeds out plenty of times, but this time was the hardest. Kurt was right about one thing. It felt wrong to sit by while people were slaughtered. I racked my brain for solutions, but it came down to the fact that Clutch was also right. There was nothing we could do for the riverboat. We were too late by the time we’d first seen it. Anything we did now would put both our lives and potentially every Camp Fox life at risk. The mission had to come first. The Lady Amore’s demise was our wild card. We needed it to distract the herds from both us and the Aurora.

We waited while the zeds that fell onto the riverboat gorged themselves on its occupants. No one spoke, not even when I could hear someone screaming for help. To better hide our scents, we covered ourselves with blankets, which also helped to ward off the cold. Only our heads peeked out so we could watch for any approaching zeds, but the blankets did little to muffle the sounds.

The zed on the riverbank just stood there and stared, strangely not in a frenzy to reach fresh food. Its gaze seemed more curious than vicious. Still, I would’ve preferred to kill it, but it would have been a waste of a good arrow since the zed couldn’t reach us. Instead, I kept a close watch on it while the sun set.

When sunlight morphed into moonlight, the lone zed remained easy enough to spot. Its jaundiced eyes reflected light in the dark akin to a cat’s. Fortunately, unlike cats, zeds’ vision sucked at night, making their eyes a giveaway to us, as long as the moon was bright.

Clutch assigned shifts using hand signals, but I don’t think anyone slept. The constant moans of the herd cut through any imagined sense of safety. It sounded like a madhouse orchestra, with every instrument out of tune, and every note a screech. For the first time, I could almost commiserate with Maggie. I wanted to scream at the zeds to stop. They were driving me mad, but I was sane enough to know it would do no good. Instead, I focused my hate on Maggie, blaming her for our situation—even though I knew she wasn’t to blame. If she hadn’t gone nuts, someone else would have broken eventually. Still, hating her helped ground me.

Sometime during the night, we huddled together for warmth, rotating as we went on and off night watch. Each of our breaths made a tiny white puff in the night. It had to be below freezing because frost built on the wispy edges of my hair.

By morning, we were all snuggled together in the center of the boat, except for Clutch who’d taken the final night watch. Kurt copped a quick feel under the blanket, but I pretended I didn’t notice. Even though I wanted to kick him in the nuts, there were just some things a woman learned to deal with when outnumbered ten to one by men in the field.

I opened my eyes and found Clutch watching me. I smiled, and he returned one of his all-too-rare smiles before turning back to watch the river. Suddenly warmer, I closed my eyes, making sure his smile stayed imprinted in my memory. There were too many bad memories in my head already. I had to work hard to keep the good ones. I spent the next several minutes dreaming of our cabin and snuggling with Clutch. He gave me that smile before kissing me and pulling me to him.

Unfortunately, Kurt’s groping ruined the fantasy. When his fingers crept to my inner thigh, I decided I’d rather be out in the cold than under a blanket with him, and I shimmied out with a grumble. His finger looped around my belt, but I gave a sharp heel to his stomach, and he let go with a grunt. Clutch cut Kurt a hard look before giving me a questioning look.

I replied by focusing my smile completely on him and sitting next to him on the frost-covered seat. Cold wetness seeped through my cargos and into my bones. I shivered, and Clutch wrapped his blanket and a cold arm around me. He was shivering too, and I snuggled into his embrace. I found my breathing found a pace with his, and I placed my hand over his steady heartbeat. He leaned toward me and pulled me possessively closer. Feeling a rare peacefulness, we watched the sun rise over the trees.

Behind us, the zed on the water’s edge had disappeared at some point before morning. We’d gotten lucky that the herd had followed us along the western bank of the river. If they’d taken both sides, we were just close enough to the eastern bank that we could’ve been seen or sniffed out.

I figured we deserved the luck. All too many times, we’d been unlucky, and it had become expected. Statistically, things were bound to go our way once in a while. But when they did, like now, it felt unnatural and worrisome. Not that I was worried enough to not savor our temporary fortune.

Jase and Griz joined us next. Jase grabbed my arm. He had a huge grin on his face as he pointed toward the lock. I looked and my mouth opened. I grabbed Clutch’s hand but he was already looking, too.

The herds were moving on!

My heart nearly leapt from my chest and I squeezed Clutch’s hand. A line of zeds had begun to head south, and the ones left around the lock were following. It would take them a long time, but their trajectory was clearly the opposite direction of the Aurora. I hadn’t looked earlier because I was afraid of what I’d see. I grinned like a little girl as I snuggled in between Jase and Clutch and we spent the next several hours watching the exodus in silence.

By lunchtime, I was starving. Clutch had finally given the okay to eat. Last night and this morning, we couldn’t risk the smell of food getting out. While we waited out the herds, we crunched as quietly as possible on nuts and some kind of flatbread cracker that Vicki invented. Even after letting each cracker sit in my mouth to get soggy, they still crunched. With every bite, I grimaced, wishing Vicki sent something mushy along, but I was too hungry to go without food, and so I kept crunching away.

It wasn’t until nearly six hours later that Griz and Clutch broke the silence.

“Don’t hate me for saying this, guys, but I think we ought to check out the riverboat,” Griz said with an almost pained expression, like the words hurt to say them.

“Too dangerous,” Clutch replied. “I can still see the back of the herd. Too much noise could draw their attention back this way.”

“There might be survivors,” Kurt said.

“There will definitely be zeds,” Clutch countered.

“Just think of how much food and supplies are on that boat,” Wes chimed in.

“And how many zeds do you think are on that boat between us and any supplies?” Clutch asked.

“You’re lead on this mission, but what’s the harm in just going in near enough to scout it out?” Griz said. “As long as it’s stuck in the lock, it could be an emergency food run if it’s not too heavily damaged. Besides, we can’t head back to the Aurora yet, not until the herds are further away.”

We all watched Clutch hopefully. While I trusted his judgment—his gut was never wrong—a part of me imagined the Lady Amore as the Titanic and that we could rescue any survivors who remained. Since the outbreak, nearly everything we did revolved around simply surviving. The chance to save even one person from the zeds brought hope that we could eventually win this war. Even though the realistic part of my brain pointed out the hopeless odds of surviving a zed herd.

Clutch sighed. “All right, but we wait until we are sure the herd can’t see, smell, or hear us. So, dig in. We have at least a couple more hours to wait.”

And the waiting continued.

Three hours and forty-seven minutes later, Clutch broke the silence. “Okay. We’ll go in slow and keep to the east bank. We can’t do a thing to draw the herd’s attention, got it?”

We all came to full attention. No one smiled because we all knew that going near anything where zeds had been a day earlier was dangerous.

“It’s the right thing,” Kurt said as he climbed into the pilot’s seat.

“Before we go, take five,” Clutch said. “We’re not heading into that clusterfuck half-cocked.”

After we checked and double-checked our weapons, Kurt started the motor, and then reached back and pulled up the anchor. He kept the motor at idle as he weaved through the trees that had camouflaged us all night. The wind was out of the northwest, so any noise from the boat was carried harmlessly to the southeast.

Once clear of the trees, Kurt cut the engine, and we rode the current toward the lock. We all searched for survivors as well as for zeds. No zeds remained on the ledges, but I could already make out at least a hundred on the top deck of the riverboat. Kurt kept the boat on the eastern edge, so the tall, concrete lock served as a wall between us and the migrating herds. Even though they were now several miles away, we’d all long since learned that one of the secrets to survival was to be overly, obsessively careful. The other secret? Having a shitload of luck.

“Careful not to get caught in the lock,” Griz said.

“Trust me, Sarge. I know what I’m doing,” Kurt replied.

I’d almost echoed Griz’s words. The riverboat blocked the entire opening to the lock, with smaller boats and debris lodged around it. Kurt pulled the boat closer and slowed to a stop.

Any hope I had of finding survivors, or at least access to food and supplies, was quickly drowned. The riverboat was filled with zeds. Through the windows, we could see zeds standing shoulder-to-shoulder. “We’re not going in there,” I said quietly. “Any food or supplies is a lost cause.”

Clutch grimaced. “The riverboat is a no-go. Let’s head back to the levee.”

Kurt started to turn the boat around. Something thumped against the hull.

Griz leaned over the edge and then staggered back. “The water is full of zeds! They’re floating just below the surface. Get out of here!”

Kurt throttled forward, but the motor ground and then died.

“They’re getting tangled in the props!” Wes cried out.

“Grab the oars,” Clutch ordered. “No gunfire.”

We all lunged for oars. I dipped mine in the water to paddle and hit something solid. I pulled back and tried again. This time, something heavy nearly pulled the oar right out of my hands. I gasped and put all my weight into yanking the oar out of the water, and a zed still holding the oar reached for the boat. Every nerve was on edge as I twirled the oar free. I swung and cracked the zed’s skull, and it fell back below the surface.

My brow furrowed with confusion. Zeds couldn’t swim, but these hadn’t sunk yet. Then it hit me, and my heart thumped harder. These zeds were climbing on one another to get to us. “Jesus, how many fell off the lock?” Goosebumps covered my skin even as adrenaline sent a surge of heat through me.

Everyone was too busy dealing with zeds clawing at the boat to say anything except curse the zeds. We were making no headway, and more hands were grabbing onto the sides. We wouldn’t live much longer if we didn’t get out of there soon.

Frantic, I swapped the oar for a machete and hacked away any arms that managed to grab onto the boat as the guys continued to paddle. Every foot we made north was a battle against both the current and the relentless zeds. Even in the cold temperature, sweat ran down my face. My arms ached and I struggled to keep a firm grip on my machete.

After fifty feet or so, fewer zeds reached up the sides, and the boat moved more smoothly through the water. I swapped my machete for the oar and paddled upriver. With all of us rowing, it took only a few minutes to close the rest of the distance to the trees where we’d hidden last night. Once there, Kurt threw out the anchor and then collapsed on his seat.

“Jase,” Clutch said. “Do you see any zeds heading this way?”

Jase pulled out his binoculars and looked to the south, and then to the other directions. “No. It looks like the coast is clear.”

“Good,” Griz said on a sigh. “Wes, get that engine fixed so we can get the hell out of here.”

“You don’t need to tell me twice,” the older man said. He stepped out onto the deck and opened up the engine cover. Water splashed. “Agh! Help!”

I jumped over the seat and grabbed Wes by his belt. His arms were thrashing around while he reached out. A zed was trying to pull him into the water and had his head underwater already. Wes lost his balance, and it became a tug-o’-war as I tried to pull him back. His yells were garbled by the water. Others joined in, and we all tumbled onto our backs on the deck, yanking Wes back with us.

I jumped up to make sure we hadn’t brought the zed with us. “Holy shit, that was close.”

“Ah, hell,” Clutch muttered.

I turned around and saw the blood. “No.”

Wes lay on his back, looking up with utter terror in his eyes. He was holding his neck, where crimson covered much of his shirt. He coughed and blood leaked from his mouth. I fell on my knees. His lips moved, but no sound came out. With blood loss came lethargy. His features relaxed. He looked around to each of us, though his eyes couldn’t seem to focus. He reached up and touched my face.

He went to say something, but coughed and wheezed as he bled out on the deck. I knelt by him, my hand on his chest, offering what little comfort I could. There was nothing we could do. We waited until he lost consciousness, and tears caused my vision to blur, and I could do nothing but watch. I didn’t wipe the tears away. Griz and Jase recited a prayer. Even Clutch joined in, the first I’d ever heard him pray. I couldn’t find my voice.

His breathing became shallow until I could no longer feel it under my palm. His heartbeat disappeared seconds later. “He’s gone,” I said bluntly and without emotion, even though inside I seethed at the unfairness of it all. Jase tugged me back toward the main area of the boat, and Clutch stepped in. He swung his machete and then rolled Wes off the back of the deck. In the water, the zed tore into him like a piranha. My tears stopped, blocked by numbness, and I sat there, watching my friend be eaten by something that used to be human.