Slow Burn (Book 8): Grind (10 page)

Fat raindrops tapped on the barn’s tin roof. More Whites found their way inside through the wide, open door. Some turned enchanted eyes at the pseudo antiques that lay in every direction. Others turned back to the open doorway, warily watching the clouds bring in the storm.

Up in the loft, the pile of boxes had reached a height that satisfied the semi-Smart One who’d put himself in charge.

The other three infected worker bees with us became distracted with the influx of rain refugees downstairs and the head guy smacked a couple of them in the head to refocus their attention. When he looked at me with a raised hand, I drilled him with a look that dared him to slap. He glanced at my machete, and he turned away.

Perhaps that was a rule in the social structure of the naked horde: the guy with the biggest knife is the boss.

The smart White mounted the first level of boxes at the base of the pyramid we’d built and looked at the four of us to be sure we understood what was to come next.

Imitation time.

One of the other Whites jumped up beside him.

The head guy stepped higher and the last two Whites figured it out. They climbed onto the pyramid. The head White, full of expectations, looked at me and waited for me to join in.

I climbed onto a sturdy metal thing on the lowest level of the pyramid, but on the opposite side of the loft railing. The others took that as a cue to race to the top of the rickety construct. When the Smart One was just reaching his hand up to the doorway through the floor above us, and the others were shouldering each other to be the first to follow him through, I pushed on a big box two of them were standing on.

The pyramid swayed.

A White grunted, surprised.

The guy at the top looked down and spat an angry sound at me. 

I pushed with all my strength. Rusty metal on the other side of the pile crunched. Boxes crumbled and the pyramid of dusty antiques fell onto the railing.

A White fell with a scream, hitting the rail and spinning down to the barn floor.

The loft railing held the weight of the leaning pyramid for a moment, giving me just enough time to jump off the box I was on.

The old wood creaked and gave way. Most of the pile and the other three Whites went over the side with a crash of wood, metal, glass, and screams.

A billow of dust and straw flew into the air, filling the barn and making everyone cough.

I stepped close to the edge of the loft and looked down at my handiwork. Junk and jumble, bodies and blood. Whites moved and groaned. Maybe a dozen were off their feet. At least half of those wouldn’t be getting back up. Already, the uninjured Whites on the perimeter were eyeing their downed comrades.

I didn’t need to see any more of that sort of thing. I turned away.

The rain on the roof grew into a steady pounding of big drops that drowned the sounds of dying growing from below. I looked back up at the doorway into the attic. If I was going to get up there, it was time to figure out how.

The tree growing up through the corner of the barn looked to be the easiest way up, with caveats of course. The loft sagged the most on that side. The wood all around that corner looked to be the most rotted because rain came in so easily through holes in the roof above, where sheets of tin were missing.

So as long as I didn’t fall through the floor with a mound of rusty shit, it looked easy.

I scanned the second floor for another way. Besides the door above me—a door visible to every White in the barn, hence bad news for anyone upstairs if the Whites saw me go through it—the tree in the rotted corner of the barn was the only way.

So screw it.

Across the creaky, sagging boards I went, testing the strength of each before I put my full weight on it, hoping the floor’s groans would be masked from the Whites below by the noise of the heavy rain. I came to a point where an exceptionally large mound of junk blocked my way. I had to climb over, taking care not to let any piece of jagged, rusty metal cut my legs.

It was slow going.

When I reached the other side, the rain outside had all but ceased, and I cursed myself for not having made the transit across the loft more quickly. I was hoping the heavy rainfall would hide me from view outside the barn when I started my climb through the tree’s branches. Given that the tree was partially in and out of the barn, Whites outside had the ability to see me, and any adventurous ones could follow.

I stepped onto a fat limb, reached outside the barn through missing boards, and grabbed a wet branch to pull myself up. Fat drops of rain started to fall again. Before I could thank my luck, a howling wind drove the drops sideways and brought more sheets of rain with it.

I scrambled out through the gaps in the wall and dragged myself onto a tree limb. I didn’t waste time to look around to see who might be watching. The rain was so heavy that I could see little besides gray and ill-defined shapes.

With my machete still in hand—where else was I going to carry it, being naked and all?—I awkwardly climbed. I didn’t have to go far, just up three or four thick branches, until I was able to lean over and reach the edge of a hole where a large sheet of tin had blown off the roof.

I peeked inside and didn’t see anything except more hoarded trash and dark shadows. I whispered as loud as I dared, “I’m coming in. I’m not one of them. Don’t shoot.”

A shadow with a rifle at his shoulder stood up from behind a mound of refuse. In a familiar voice, it said, “Null Spot the Farmer, Dumb as a Pumpkin, Annoyer of Zombies.”

“Hello, Murphy.”

By the time I woke, the rain had blown past, leaving a blustery blanket of gray cold in the sky. The last stragglers of the naked horde were slowly flowing north, following the path of the main body. The barn below us had cleared out, as did the neighboring farmhouse. Or so we guessed. It looked empty.

Peeking out of the barn between a gap in two warped boards, Murphy softly said, “I think it’s safe to talk now.”

I rubbed the crusty bits out of my eyes. “Thanks for letting me sleep.”

“You had a long couple of nights.”

Looking around the attic, I said, “I can keep watch if you need to pass out for a while.”

“I’m good.” Murphy stood up, stretched, and walked over to look out through a gap to see a different side of the barn. “How many do you think you killed with the combine?”

Feeling proud about the numbers and a little bit sickened by the parade of carnage, I said, “I don’t know. Seemed like thousands.”

“Maybe.” He pointed through the gap between the boards. “Lots of bones out there in the field. I’m guessing you didn’t get Mark.”

“No.” I told him about the house where I thought they were holed up the first night. “I thought maybe if I chased the horde with the combine, I’d disrupt things enough that I could get to the Smart Ones wherever they were hiding.” It was one of those things that became true in retrospect. It fit the facts closely enough.

“You hungry?” Murphy came over and sat down beside me.

“Yeah, I think all I’ve had to eat over the last few days are some Dr. Peppers I found in the cab of the combine. And some jerky.” The memory of Moe’s stench came back to me and I shuddered. Some corpses smell worse than others.

Murphy dug a couple of candy bars out of his bag. “Start with those.” He handed me a bottle of water.

“Thanks for following,” I said. “Thanks for keeping an eye on me.”

Busying himself with something inside his backpack, he said, “You need to find a way to work through your shit, man. What you’re doing isn’t healthy for you. I mean you don’t think your luck is going to hold out forever, do you?”

Yeah. I wanted to think that. At the same time, I didn’t feel lucky at all, but skillful. I was a quick, decisive thinker. I kept a cool head, most of the time. I did the things that had to be done when they had to be done, no matter how gruesome and cruel. Maybe that made me a little bit special. “I just need to kill Mark.”

“And that’s gonna make it all better?”

“Better enough.” I’d already sold myself on that lie. I wasn’t going to back away from it.

Murphy pulled another candy bar out of his bag. “I’m saving the canned soup for supper.”

I stuffed a big bite into my mouth and chewed on the stiff caramel. “It’s not all that different than Pop-Tarts. You know, when you think about it. Mostly sugar and fat.”

“Whatever it is, you need all you can get,” said Murphy. “I don’t want you turning into a skeleton again. Now let’s get down to business. Do you have a plan to kill Mark? Because what you’re doing so far isn’t working.”

“Yeah.” I laughed. “I’m kinda making it up as I go along.”

“No shit? I hadn’t guessed that.”

Ignoring the sarcasm, I said, "The Smart Ones that run the show keep mostly to the center of the horde. They post guards at night. They've probably got some loose command structure with Smart Ones scattered all through the horde. Getting to them is going to be hard.”

“You think maybe when they’re on the move, you could just sort of tag along with the horde and walk right up?” Murphy waved a hand at me. “You do look like one of them.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Maybe that’ll work. Maybe if I can shadow the leadership for a while, hiding in plain sight among the stupid ones, I can pick off Mark when he goes off to take a dump or something.”

“Could work.”

"The things that worry me are these." I pointed at my boots and hefted my machete. "All the Whites in the horde go naked, completely naked. I’m sure by now they’ve got the calluses on their feet to make that work for them. I don’t, so trying to keep up with them barefoot is a plan that won’t work. Eventually, my boots will give me away. Then there's the machete. They see knives as a status symbol or intelligence badge. The ones with knives tend to be in charge of the stupider ones. If I wander around shadowing the leadership with my machete in hand and don’t have a band of Whites in tow, that might look suspicious too.”

"You could gather up a posse again like you did when you filled the combine with diesel,” Murphy suggested.

“So you pretty much followed me the entire time?” I asked.

“Yup,” answered Murphy.

“Why?”

“Are you complaining?”

“No.” I was a little offended. I didn’t need a babysitter. “I guess not.”

We finished our afternoon breakfast in silence and were preparing ourselves to leave the barn when Murphy said, “I’ve got a Null Spot idea.”

“I’m listening.”

"I'm regretting telling you already, but it might help us with two of our problems simultaneously, and the more I think about it, the more I like it.”

“You’ve got my attention.”

“We’re all in agreement that the Survivor Army is probably based up at Fort Hood, right?”

Shrugging, I nodded. I turned and walked over to the door in the floor, the one the Whites had been building a pyramid of boxes to get through.

Pointing at one wall, Murphy said, “The ladder’s over there. I pulled it up behind me.”

I opened the floor door and looked around in the barn below.

Murphy fetched the ladder. He said, “How far do you think Fort Hood is from here?”

“Fifty, sixty miles I guess?”

“How far do you think the naked horde moves in a day?”

I sat down on the edge of the hole in the floor, dangling my feet. “I don't know. I suppose if they wanted to they could go fifty or sixty miles in a day, if that’s what you’re thinking. But I’d guess ten or twenty depending on what kinds of food or distractions they find along the way.”

“What if we wanted to lead the horde to Fort Hood?” Murphy asked.

Finally understanding what he was getting at, I said, “You mean, lead them there and let them fight it out with the Survivor Army? Dude, that’s a genius idea. There’s no downside. And it at least partially solves those two problems we’re going to have if our plan is to go live happily ever after in College Station.”

Murphy chuckled. “I don’t know about happily ever after, but maybe for a while.”

“Doesn’t matter I guess, but with the Survivor Army and the naked horde around, whatever is going on at College Station isn't going to last. Once one of these bunches gets there, it's all over."

“Exactly,” confirmed Murphy. “The question is, how do we lead the horde to Fort Hood?”

“Don’t know.”

“While we’re thinking about it,” he said, “I think we maybe drive for a while, get out in front of where your buddies are headed, and wait for ‘em.”

“Bad idea.”

“Maybe in the city,” Murphy disagreed. “Out here you can drive away when you see ‘em. I know where a truck is.”

“Whatever.”

In the distance, along a barbed wire fence a group of stragglers nestled under some trees. Farther away, a line of them walked toward an unknown destination, not in the direction the whole horde left in. In ones and twos, others strode aimlessly as though in having become detached from the main group, they’d lost their way altogether. I wondered if those solitary stragglers were the docile, stupid ones, in need of close supervision.

We were outside, standing against the rear wall of the barn when Murphy pointed east. “That truck I told you about. It’s a couple of miles that way.”

“And it’ll start?” I asked, skeptical and looking for an excuse to unwind our tacit agreement.

“I told you, man,” Murphy shook his head, “I got inside, the keys were in there, the back seat was loaded up with stuff like the dude was going to go somewhere but never left.”

“You said you turned it on.”

“No.” Murphy frowned. “I said I turned the key, and the dash lights came on, and the fuel gauge said the tank was full. I didn't start the engine.”

“So the battery could be nearly dead,” I said. “It might not have enough of a charge to crank the starter.”

“Is that what happened when you started up the engine on the harvester?” Murphy shot back.

I shook my head.

“You got a better idea, then?” Murphy stepped away from the corner of the barn and looked around. “You see another combine sitting around, maybe?”

“Be cool, dude.” One of us needed to say it. We were both tense and grouchy from not enough sleep. “I’m just trying to understand what we’re dealing with.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Murphy with a sudden grin. “Just because we’re planning on going over to find that truck doesn’t mean something won’t go wrong along the way. Hell, the truck probably won’t even be there anymore.”

That was the irony of the little tiff we were cultivating. I laughed darkly.

“You know what I’m talkin’ about, right?”

I nodded. I did indeed. The virus had a way of finding its way into every plan and ruining it.

“It’s cold as your mama’s titties out here.” Murphy exaggerated a shiver.

“And?” I asked, trying to recall how much I’d told Murphy about The Harpy.

“And we need to get you some clothes,” said Murphy. “I’m tired of seeing your dong hanging out every time I look at you.” Murphy took off at a jog toward a line of trees and bushes across a trampled field behind the house.

I followed.

He looked over his shoulder at me. “You’re gonna get frostbite if it gets any colder.”

We were maybe halfway across the field when the clack of wood on wood startled me. I turned to see a screen door on the farmhouse swinging open. Whites were shouldering their way through. One was already off the porch and running across the muddy ground toward us. Or, toward Murphy since he was dressed and carrying a rifle, clearly a human of the tasty variety.

I swung my machete through the air as though I was chasing Murphy. Sometimes plans come together just that quickly. “Make for the trees,” I said. “I’ll lag back.”

“What?”

“Do it,” I ordered. I cocked my head at the coming Whites. “I’ll handle these guys when they run past me. When you get to the trees, get ready to shoot, just in case.”

Murphy sprinted away as I slowed, growing a gap between us. That was needed. The Whites had likely already seen us in close proximity. Some of them might already have made the connection between Murphy and me.

I needed to change that. My little plan depended on me selling my identity as a member of the naked horde.

I exaggerated my machete swings and grunted an angry monkey sound. Hopefully, that would do it.

I swung my machete a few more times as I looked over my shoulder. Maybe ten or eleven Whites were out of the house and coming our way.

I changed course a tad, wanting to be out of the direct line of the Whites chasing Murphy, just to be safe. If they were focused on him, my hastily conceived plan would work. If they were after me, then I needed some extra space and a whole lot of luck. As fast as they were coming, I couldn’t kill all ten before they overwhelmed me.

I slowed a bit more and looked around, knowing from experience I was focused too keenly on the most prominent threat. Too often, other dangers lurked unseen, ready to kill.

Other Whites were pretty far away, but none was coming toward us. Yet. If any of those coming out of the house started their screaming as they often did when they were on the chase, every infected golf ball head within earshot would come.

Everybody knows what the dinner bell sounds like.

The first of the Whites passed to my right with only a glance in my direction.

Good.

Two more Whites ran by, and I picked up my pace.

Timing it just right, I fell in at the end of the group of running Whites spaced out over thirty or so yards. The female in the rear shot a glance over her shoulder. I was of no interest to her. We were both infected and naked, obviously the slow ones.

I hacked her across the back of her knee, not at all interested in expending the effort to attempt a cut through her leg. That wasn’t going to happen anyway. I was a skinny, infected monster awkwardly swinging a nicked up machete, not a samurai with a razor-edged katana.

Her knee bent in a painful direction and she tumbled, hollering something.

A female White just ahead of us looked back at her fallen sister, slowing as she did. Maybe she was going through the mental process of deciding if the menu had just expanded. To her misfortune, she wasn’t paying me any attention. I ran by, cutting across the back of her knee as well.

She fell, far from dead, but not getting up.

Two down, with ease.

I was learning to take pride in the simple pleasures.

Two big guys were running side-by-side ahead of me, oblivious to what was going on behind them.

I sped up to get within machete range.

Our target, Murphy, disappeared into the bushes at the edge of the field, and the Whites ahead of me wailed a familiar, frustrated scream.

Damn.

Without looking, I knew that noise caught the attention of any Whites still around.

I swung my machete and caught one of the big guys on the calf. He stumbled.

His buddy slowed and glared at me with bared teeth as I ran by.

The uninjured White knew who to blame for what had just happened. He lunged toward me while raising his hands to attack.

I dug my heels into the soft ground, trying to stop in the shortest space of feet and seconds. I raised my machete and aimed it at the guy’s throat.

The White didn’t react fast enough. It probably never occurred to him I’d do anything but keep running. The White’s momentum drove my machete through his neck. He went limp, and I rolled to my right as his dead weight tumbled through the spot of dirt I’d just vacated.

Covered in smears of mud and leaves, I bounced back to my feet and ran to catch up with the next of my victims.

Three muzzle flashes from the hedge along the fence told me exactly where Murphy was. The three Whites farthest ahead of me fell—one wounded, two dead or getting that way pretty quickly from wounds to their heads. Damn, Murphy was a good shot.

The other Whites slowed. The taste of blood was in the air. Warm meat had just fallen at their feet. While they were thinking about what to do, I killed two of them. Murphy shot the other two.

Wearing a grin, I ran on toward the trees. As gruesome as it was, we’d just won another round.

“Hurry,” Murphy shouted. He wasn’t feeling the victory at all and that changed my mood instantly.

I looked back and heard the sound of stampeding feet. A quarter mile away, coming over a rise, three or four hundred Whites were running. They were coming right at us.