Mad Swine (Book 2): Dead Winter (2 page)

Another dangerous business: trash removal. The days of leaving your full cans out on a Friday before work and returning in the evening to pull in the empties were long gone. We had to take our trash outside the walls and any trip outside the community walls was serious business. Perhaps I’d take my trash with me on wood patrol and kill two birds with one stone.

Dry cereal wasn’t too bad with the frosting on top. I swallowed it down without giving it much thought. My stomach was satiated for the moment. Each day my body is adjusting more to limited rations. I would actually have welcomed some of the MREs we soldiers were always grumbling about. Compared to dry cereal, the MREs would have been like gourmet meals.

The coffee was done. I poured it into my favorite Chicago Bears mug. Unfortunately, I had nothing to add to it. I used to be a cream and sugar guy, but now I had to settle for black. I shuddered to think that soon coffee would be another distant memory as well. Thoughts like that one disturbed me. There were so many things I’d taken for granted when the lights were on, so to speak. I never considered not being able to stop and pick up some coffee grounds or milk. Toilet paper had been the first thing to go. I dreaded having to take a shit now. I’d been wiping my ass with sheets from my wife’s severely outdated
O
Magazine
. For the first time in my life I had paper cuts on my backside.

The coffee was bitter but I drank it anyway. Whatever was left in the pot I’d take to Ray Colon over at the command post. He liked my coffee; in fact, he was the only one with the taste for my swill. It was probably the one thing that he didn’t bitch about. Well, my coffee and his dog, Cody. He loved that dog more than my coffee, but just by a little.

After I finished most of my coffee I poured the rest into the cowboy pot. These days nothing could be wasted. I went to the fireplace and took up my poker. I stabbed at the smoldering embers that still clung to life, separating them and their combined heat. I banked the embers by dumping ash on top of them.

At the closet I pulled on and zipped up a dark green fleece sweater. I wrapped a black scarf around my neck and slipped into my quilted arctic Carhartt coat. The elbows of the dark brown coat were stained but the shell was unmarred and holding up nicely to my work and the elements. Finally, I slipped on a pair of work gloves. They weren’t ideal for the cold, but they protected my hands well against cuts and scrapes…as well as fingernails.

Although I’d been scratched a number of times by different crazies over the last three months, I’d never been bitten. Of the men who were on our only supply mission at Kappy’s, I was the sole survivor; the other brave men were now resting peacefully on Harper’s Knoll. My immunity to the infection was legendary around the community. I had to constantly remind people, however, that I was not immortal. Bullets, knives and various other weaponry could still penetrate my flesh, spill my blood and otherwise put me in the ground. Still, I was the logical choice for most missions outside the walls and I never shirked my duty in that respect.

I grabbed the cowboy coffee pot and went down the short flight of stairs to my front door. I put the coffee pot down long enough to retrieve my weapons. I undid my belt loop and slid the sheath of my Esee Junglas onto my right hip, and secured the scabbard to my leg with a length of cord. With my left hand, I grabbed up my
Gränsfors Bruks
splitting maul. Its thirty-one inch handle gave me good reach and the five and a half pound head, which was currently covered with a thick brown leather sheath, was devastating against flesh and bone.

My SKS rifle leaned against the wall beside the door and I longingly eyed my most trusted weapon. It had served me well in the early days of the outbreak. Although I still had some ammunition for it, I had given strict orders that no firearms were to be used without my consent or in the case of extreme emergency. In fact, I had ordered everyone to turn in their rifles and shotguns, as well as their ammunition to the CP. Only posted guards and patrol leaders would be allowed to carry firearms, and only with a limited supply of ammunition. If they needed to shoot, they’d have to aim carefully or risk running out of rounds.

The war with Providence had put a large dent in our already meager supply of ammunition. Residents taking pot shots at the shuffling and moaning things outside our walls, either in frustration, anger, or both, also played a role in depleting our stores. Now, the majority of residents who left their homes carried impact weapons. This required a whole new methodology of training. Taking over for Brian, Katherine had done an excellent job in preparing people to use knives, clubs and other improvised weapons. After the war, Kat was a changed woman and I felt guilty about what she’d been forced to become. But I used her skills and her newfound coldness, regardless. And there was no one else I’d rather have covering my back; I trusted her completely with my life.

Turning away from my SKS with a sigh, I opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. The winter cold attacked my exposed flesh immediately and without mercy. My nose and ears felt the first bite of the below zero air. Immediately I set down the coffee pot and splitter and tugged my watch cap out of my coat pocket. I snugged it down over my head and ears with satisfaction.

Thick flakes of snow tumbled out of the sky. It was a light dusting but the snow was starting to stick a bit on the ground. We had recently recovered from fairly heavy downfall just weeks ago. We’d managed to clear the sidewalks and streets with little effort; another advantage to our gated community is that our association owned its own machinery for maintaining the grounds. The arsenal of vehicles at our disposal included two plows attached to two large Ford F150 pickup trucks, one Cat Mini-dozer, and several riding mowers with flatbed trailers to tote rakes, shovels and other gardening necessities. The downside, however, was that we used up the remaining fuel cleaning up that last moderate winter storm. If the snow continued to fall and accumulation was more than two or three inches, we’d have to rely on manpower and shovels to dig ourselves out. That would cost a lot of energy. I’d have to allow double rations for those who took up a shovel and Samantha would be beside herself.

I hoped silently that this was just a passing dusting.

With the cold nipping at my face and drawing tears from my eyes, and fat flakes of snow drifting from a clear blue sky, I made my way down the hill upon which my house sat. Instead of heading to the CP as I originally planned, I turned in the opposite direction, toward our main gate. I wanted to conduct a quick check on our perimeter and gauge the morale of our frontline defenses before I debriefed the council this morning.

The path the snow blowers had cut over the sidewalks reminded me of a snow maze, like the one Jack Torrance failed to navigate successfully at the end of the movie,
The Shining,
only on a much smaller scale. Snow at least two feet high crowded my knees as I navigated my way toward the main gate to the north.

Seeing the snow like this brought back memories of childhood; digging snow forts and walls of snow from behind which I could launch assaults on my neighbors and friends. Our community was like one big snow fort and anyone outside our walls was the enemy. The difference now is that people didn’t just get a face full of snow; people got dead.

As I made my way down Churchill I could still see the scars of the early days of the war with Providence. Alan Kearny’s front porch was scorched and blackened from soot. Maggie Worth’s front windows were shattered and the wood just below was charred black where a gas bomb had exploded. Maggie’s windows had been boarded up, but the place was empty now—Maggie was a resident of Harper’s Knoll, another casualty in the war.

All along our outer walls, especially the southern portions where much of the early fighting was focused, I could see pockmarks and chipped brick that was left by small arms fire. Two feet of the southeastern portion of the wall was shorn up with two-by-fours. New brick and mortar had been hastily applied to patch the chink in the wall’s armor. Even from this distance I could spot the lighter colored brick and cement that didn’t quite match the original, aged wall.

We had lost a lot of people on both sides in a war where no side could claim victory. Providence had gotten the worst of the punishment, but we also suffered dearly. Although superior in number, Providence could not knock down our walls, although they did try—and some might argue, succeeded—but only briefly. Randall Oaks also had the advantage of defending our community, while the larger Providence had sent its men and women to die needlessly.

The leaders of Providence had relied heavily on what they thought was their greatest advantage: their numbers. Their strategy in the beginning was to send waves of their residents at our walls with the intent to make us cower behind the brick barriers under their superior gunfire. They then intended to breach our gate and flood in, guns blazing, taking no prisoners. Instead, our shooters along the wall picked off their men and women from one hundred yards away, thinning their numbers before they could reach the gates and effectively stopping their advance cold.

Over the following five days they continued to form up and attack in numbers only to be halted by our snipers. They attacked at dawn, at high noon and even at night. They tried to hit us from various directions, at one point even splitting their forces and attacking from the south and west simultaneously, hoping that by forcing us to defend multiple sectors at once they would weaken us, giving them the hole they needed to break through our defenses and breach our walls. But Brian and Kat were ready for Providence at every turn and made them suffer dearly with each attack. And while their forces grew weak and demoralized, our men and women were bolstered by our victories.

However, those celebrated victories were short-lived. Although they had lost many men and women in their first suicidal attacks, the leaders of Providence eventually learned valuable lessons and they exploited our weakness. And it only took one man with a rifle and scope to turn the tides against us. Providence deployed a sniper in the grain tower of the abandoned farm to the south of our gate, giving them high ground and the advantage they needed. Their sniper wreaked havoc on our citizens. With a clear line of sight into the southern portions of our community, the Providence sniper commanded our movement with well-placed shots.

We were prisoners within our own walls. Our movement around the grounds of our community was severely limited and going out to take care of daily business could end in death. We had to quickly change tactics; we tried to give our people the tools they needed to move under the constant threat of the sniper. We trained them to keep moving without pause and to always look for the nearest cover. The days of walking freely down streets were over and our residents were forced to favor dark, out-of-the-way spots to move around. This made defending our home almost impossible.

While their snipers kept us busy, Providence leadership continued to plan their next attack. No longer the haphazard bunch that blindly attacked in large numbers, they began to deploy small squad-sized groups against our defenses. These groups brought new weapons to bear against us: improvised artillery. Using flammable liquids and small containers, Providence began to rain exploding death down over our walls. Molotov’s of various sizes and makes, but each one bringing fire beyond our walls.

At first our fear of fire drove us out into the open. Our walls, which had kept us safe by keeping our enemy out now kept us inside, with fire to consume our flesh. As our men and women tried to put out the flames, Providence snipers engaged us, killing all who tried to fight the fire. We had no good defense against their shooters. Each time their sniper shot, we peppered his location with bullets, wasting precious ammunition and only buying our brothers and sisters minutes to douse the fires before they burned out of control.

Finally having enough, Brian formed a plan to deal with the sniper. It was dangerous and had zero probability of success, but we were tired of sitting around waiting to die. We were tired of being prisoners within our own walls. As Brian laid out the plan to our leaders, each shook their head, realizing it was a suicide mission, but also each knowing that as long as there was a chance it could work it would be worth the sacrifice. In the end it was my decision to make, though.

The plan was for Brian and Bob to lead a team outside the walls. They planned to exit our western border and make a long flanking maneuver across the road to the abandoned farm. Their plan was to burn the grain silo to the ground, eliminating the high ground and rendering the snipers ineffectual. It sounded simple, but we all knew that Providence would keep tight security around their best advantage in this war. They would fight to the last man to protect the grain silo.

Knowing the risks, I ordered Brian and Bob to pick their team and take the objective. I sent them under the cover of night, relying on the dark to move unseen by the sniper. In turn, our patrol would be unable to see any crazies that might be lurking about.

An hour after they scaled our western walls, we heard the first shots. From my front deck I watched through my binoculars as the flames began to consume the tower. At my command, our shooters along the walls opened fire, shooting blindly to the southeast, hoping to create confusion among Providence’s defense and allow our men to escape in the commotion. In the end, the team accomplished their mission, removing Providence’s only advantage in the war and once and for all knocking them out of the fight. But the patrol paid dearly with their lives. Only one man made it back home alive.