“I’m OK. I just got to thinking, you know, about before.”
“Keep that up, you will go crazy. You can’t think about before. You know that.”
PTSD. Crazy. Traumatized. We all are, we all have it. How can you watch the death of almost everyone you loved? OK, for most of us, everyone we loved? How can you watch civilization, or most of it, crumple around you in a month and not go crazy? The Snap, we called it. For a minute, for half an hour, whatever it took, sometimes you just grew so goddamned bitter and angry and felt such a deep sense of loss you broke down and screamed at the world. For some, they broke and never came back. Walked off and were never seen again. Someone like Jacob, he went off into his own world of denial. Thinking this whole thing was a dream. For others, like Jonesy and Ahmed, growing up in the ghetto and in the middle of a war, life honestly wasn’t much different now. Maybe better. They could shoot who they needed to shoot without repercussion, and for the most part, no one cared what color your skin was or which side of the war or city you’d been on. Just that you were alive.
Brit, she was the same story. I knew she had been a straight 4.0 student. Smart as hell. All she cared about now was living life in the right here and now, because the Zombie Apocalypse had stolen her future. Like it had stolen everyone else’s.
On point, Jacob held up his fist, dropped to one knee, cut his hand sideways then pointed forward. People, not Zs. We all dropped down and took up firing positions, a quick hasty ambush set up along the road.
We heard them long before we saw them. Horses. HORSES. At least two, coming along at a trot. No one had horses anymore, or more like no one used them for transportation. If a horse got within a hundred meters of a Z, it bolted. Flat out took off running like its ass was on fire, regardless of who or what was on its back, and often ran until its heart burst from exhaustion. Back in the secured zone, I heard, they still used them for farming, but out here they ran in wild herds that were impossible to come near. They had gotten even wilder and ran from humans, too, now. I would kill for a freaking horse to ride, instead of walking.
“OK, time to earn my leader’s paycheck.” I stood up out of the grass and stepped into the road, weapon pointed down but safety off.
“HALT.” I spoke forcefully, and the two enormous horses slowed but kept plodding towards me until their riders could get a good look at me, then they were reigned in. Two men sat astride them, shotguns pointed in my general direction, threatening but not directly so. They looked like just about any post-plague refugees—secondhand clothes, heavy leather jackets to keep off Zombie bites, chaps to guard their legs from bites, heavy gloves. These guys were cleaner than most, but damn, they smelled. Something I hadn’t smelled in a while. Yep, these guys were farmers. Manure clung to their heavy rubber boots. Their noses were immune to the smell, but it burned my nostrils as they got closer.
“Mighty presumptuous of you to be telling us to halt on our own road. We’ve got no tolerance for scavengers here. Though from the looks of you…” He eyed my uniform, with the American flag, the black and red Z patch on my right shoulder and the Task Force Liberty patch on my left shoulder. I saw his eyes read the “US ARMY” stenciled on the front of my black armor.
“Your road? I thought this was a county road.”
The older one, a grey-haired dude with a scarred face, laughed out loud. “Ha! A scavenger with a sense of humor!”
“We’re not scavengers.” I lowered my weapon and put it back on safe. “Nick Agostine, United States Army Irregular Scouts.”
“Irregular scouts?”
“Yessir. We work for the Army, but we aren’t actually in the Army.”
“Funny line of business. So, I suppose you’re just scouting out here all by your lonesome? Good way to get killed.”
I whistled once, low, and the rest of the team stood and stepped out onto the road. Five of them stayed on guard, weapons pointing out or back down the road. Jonesy stood next to me, M-4 looking like a toy in his massive hands. What good that would do if the frigging huge horses decided to trample his ass, I don’t know. The two horses were gigantic and stood rock still. The riders seemed more taken aback than the horses but they recovered quickly.
“I see,” said the older man, who introduced himself as Dave. “Well, maybe the rest of the world is catching up with us. Knew it would happen eventually. Hang tight while we dismount and talk for a spell.”
Dave, his brother Alan and their families lived on a fortified farm a mile inland from the river. We had come across people like him before; tough farmers who had busted their asses to fence off a couple of dozen acres, fortified their houses and generally held their own. Farms that were a combination of small fortress and house stood off in the fields, usually farther from. What was unique about these guys was the horses. They didn’t even flinch when we came near them, just flared their nostrils. The two of them were out on what he called “Z patrol,” basically riding around a few miles from the farm, looking for stray undead that might have stumbled their way.
“So what’s with the horses? How come they aren’t running screaming, actually letting you ride them? How do they handle being around Zs?”
“They hate ‘em, but not like normal horses. I had a hobby horse farm, imported these guys from Belgium. These two were bred for war. They were bred to carry a man in full armor and they make a hell of a plow horse. You can ride them into a crowd of Zs and they will stomp flat anything in their way.”
I eyed them enviously. To ride instead of walk!
“Are they for sale?”
“Not on your life, Sonny.” Alan leaned a little closer to his shotgun and kept a wary eye on the rest of the team.
“OK, but can they breed? Do you have foals?”
“Ayup. Got four foals and a couple of yearlings on the farm, another two on the way. Maybe we can do some horse trading, eh, Sonny?” Dave seemed to find this uproariously funny and laughed out loud.
Brit stood stroking their noses while I called in to LTC Jackass. His immediate response was for us to “seize the horses” when I explained to them they were Belgian war horses, definitely not afraid of Zombies. I told him to piss off, then suggested maybe we could buy them. After his usual temper tantrum bullshit, we finally got him to agree to look into the Army contracting to buy horses from the farmers in the future. I could imagine the Colonel pissing all over himself with happiness. The man who brought mobility to the army again! It would get him promoted, for sure. I bet he was already walking around in his stupid Stetson hat and spurs like some demented 19th century Cavalryman.
“Sounds like a real winner you got for a boss, there,” commented Dave as he spit some tobacco juice out on the road and climbed back in the saddle. He had swapped Jonesy some fresh jerky from his saddlebags for a can of dip.
“You have no idea. When time comes to actually trade with him, make sure you have people watching your back. It’s all about him, and what’s good for him.”
He nodded his head as Alan snapped at his reins and started plodding off. “It always is with people like that, isn’t it?”
Chapter 7
I was hungry again, but I’m always hungry. Most people left alive in America are always hungry. We have been for years. Even when I get enough food, and I usually do now, I’m still haunted by the ghost of hungry. That first two years, when there was no food anywhere. Stores looted, farms trampled and torched, refrigeration gone, no food distribution system, animals like deer and cows hunted almost to extinction. I’ve eaten deer, possum, cat, dog, rat, mice, woodchucks, pigeon, just about anything with meat on it except for humans. The Zs were just an added burden. How many people got eaten by zombies because they had to leave a safe hideout for food? Thousands. Millions, maybe. Hunger will drive a man to do just about anything, including risking a zombie attack just to get something to eat. Matter of fact, I think most of the ammo expended in the last few years wasn’t aimed at Zs but at other people, fighting over food.