It was arrogant thinking, of course. It is easy to bask in the warm glow of the things you value in life and think you are somehow special. That the rules do not apply to you, that you have something the others don’t, that you are smarter, tougher, more resilient than the rest. If you survive enough bad things, enough injuries and emotional trauma, it can make you dumb enough to think that nothing can knock you down.
We are all the heroes of our own stories. We all think we are the exception. And all too often, by the time we realize that there are no exceptions, it is too late.
God may give, and God may take away, but one thing He never does is apologize.
FIFTY-FOUR
Disasters always happen in threes.
I’m jumping ahead by stating that, but in this case, it’s warranted. The universe may be vicious and fickle, and life often seems like a random confluence of uncorrelated events, but there are some patterns too obvious to ignore.
When Sophia hit the seven-month mark, a few of the women from her old job conspired to throw her a baby shower. In keeping with tradition, my presence, while not expressly forbidden, was strongly discouraged. The platoon was not scheduled to go on another salvage run for two weeks, the baby shower falling squarely in the middle of this timeframe. So I stopped by Tyrel’s place a few days before and asked if he was up to a little freelance work. Being just as bored as I was, he readily agreed and suggested I see if Rojas wanted to come along.
Rojas and I had grown close during that time. We were LaGrange’s go-to point men, and after months of working together, had developed a kind of non-verbal shorthand that allowed us to operate quietly, efficiently, and most importantly, profitably.
I wrote a brief note on a wooden slat, wood being far cheaper to come by than paper, and paid a courier to deliver it to Rojas’ apartment. He sent it back that afternoon with a note on the back that read, succinctly, FUCK YEAH.
So the morning of the baby shower I woke up early, made myself a cup of instant coffee, and took a moment to admire my most recent purchase: the custom-forged spear I still carry to this day. Made from a length of hickory and a half-inch-thick piece of spring steel, it is sharp, perfectly balanced, and by that point in time, had already split the skulls of quite a few infected. It hung from a set of hooks over the fireplace, proudly displayed when not in use. I took it down, passed a stone across the blade even through it was not necessary, and slipped it into its harness.
“Where are you going,” Sophia asked sleepily. She sat halfway up in bed, her blonde hair falling across her eyes.
“Up into the mountains,” I replied. “Toward Woodland Park.”
“That’s pretty far. How are you getting there?”
“Tyrel hired a wagon to take us as far as Cascade. We’ll hike the rest of the way.”
“Isn’t Woodland Park still overrun?”
“Last I heard, yeah.”
She frowned. “Then why are you going there?”
“LaGrange knows a guy pretty high up in the Army. Feeds him info in exchange for a cut of our profits. His informant says they’re sending three whole companies to Woodland Park next month to clear the place out.”
“And you want to raid it before they get a chance?”
“Won’t be much salvage left if we don’t. I respect what the troops do, but they’re like fucking locusts. Take anything not nailed down and half the shit that is.”
“I thought they weren’t supposed to do that.”
I barked out a laugh. “They’re not. Doesn’t stop them.”
She put her head back on the pillow and sighed. “So when will you be back?”
“Tomorrow most likely. Maybe the day after.”
“I hate it when you leave. I like having you at home.”
I leaned down and kissed her. “I know. But the salvage isn’t going to come to me, and I’m not going back to being broke.”
“Be careful out there.”
“I love you, pretty lady. Enjoy the shower.”
She groaned and pulled the blanket over her head.
*****
Raiding Woodland Park was something we never would have attempted during the warmer months. There were just too many infected. However, by then we had learned how the cold slowed the infected down, and if the temperature got low enough, stopped them altogether. The icy chill and deep snowdrifts of winter made the raid feasible.
It was sunny and bright that morning, a cloudless blue sky stretching from horizon to horizon, the ambient temperature at just over thirty-two Fahrenheit. Not cold enough to freeze the ghouls, but enough to slow them to a crawl.
Tall snowbanks lined U.S. 24 leading out of the Springs, shoveled aside by snowplows commandeered by the federal government. They had opened the road as far as Cascade, which the Army had cleared out and thoroughly looted months ago. Beyond that, the road was impassable except on foot.
The wagon we rode in was one of a very few transportation options available to civilians. The months since the Outbreak had seen gasoline supplies dwindle, then grow increasingly unreliable as the untreated fuel civilians once consumed expired. The military seemed to have ample quantities available, trucked in from places unknown, but troops were not allowed to use it for trade. Of course, as with most rules imposed on military personnel, the moratorium against said activity did nothing to curb its occurrence.
As the road stretched under the wagon’s wheels, I stared at the mountains rising up on either side of us, snow-capped peaks ascending majestically, pine forests marching up the slopes in loosely-ordered rows. I thought if a man could find a flat spot near a source of water and wild game, a little space where he could grow vegetables in the summer, he could make a go of it out there. From what I had seen, the infected generally stuck to the lowlands, that being the path of least resistance. It was rare to hear of them climbing to the higher elevations except in pursuit of prey. Nothing a sturdy palisade wall around one’s home couldn’t fix.
When we neared the terminus of the accessible part of the highway, the driver tugged the reins to bring the wagon to a halt. Turning in his seat, he said, “End of the line.”
I looked at the snow piled ahead of us, a wall of it nearly eight feet high, and knew the next part of the journey was not going to be easy. “Thanks for the ride,” I said, grabbed my gear, and climbed out of the wagon. The driver grunted and said, “Be back tomorrow at noon. I’ll wait one hour. If you don’t make it, I’ll be back the same time the next day. After that, your trade expires and I leave with or without you.”
“Understood,” Tyrel said.
As the clip-clop of iron-shod hooves faded into the distance, the three of us put on snowshoes and began the long walk to Woodland Park. Tyrel went out on point since he was the most experienced mountaineer among us. Rojas watched our six, leaving me monkey in the middle. A half-mile of slogging over hard-packed snow saw the mountain pass widen. We arrived at the small town of Cascade, site of the North Pole Home of Santa’s Workshop, an amusement park billed as ‘A Vibrant Christmas Themed Playland!’
Only there would be no children or costume clad workers in Santa’s Workshop this year, no screaming voices on the rides, no smells of carnival food and hot chocolate, no magic shows, no hollow commerce. Cascade was under at least eight feet of snow, much like the highway ascending it. The towering granite walls surrounding the place ensured it would remain thusly encased until the spring thaw.
We passed the peaked roofs of houses and flat buildings and the triangular boughs of evergreens as we moved through town. The lower half of every building was invisible under a brilliant, reflective lake of white. But even with only half the town visible, the marks left by the Army’s visit were still plain to see.
Here, a mortar had shattered the upper windows of a three-story office building. There, bullet holes riddled the side of a tattered house. To my left, a fire had burned a restaurant until most of the roof collapsed, while to my right, a scorched black hole big enough to drive a car through marred the side of a pre-fab metal storage building. I wondered if there were any infected trapped beneath the ice, and if so, were they still conscious? I imagined their white eyes fixed and staring, hands outstretched, mouths frozen open in a silent scream, hunger gnawing at them while they lay motionless, unable to move. I shivered, and not from the cold.