Marcy Dam
“You’re certain this is the place?” Ramirez asked. She crouched behind a decaying lean-to and surveyed the dam. She and the others had reached the western shore of Marcy Pond just after dawn. A soft, orange light rested on the tops of the trees, painting everything in ruddy hues.
“It looks like a construction site,” Westlake murmured, from behind her. He wasn’t wrong. The dam itself wasn’t much more than a skeleton, with water rushing through and over it from the Marcy River. Piles of salvaged timber and scrap metal dotted the shore of the pond, and there were several porta-potties and weather-damaged trailers scattered around the demolition area.
Ptolemy, laying stretched out nearby, peered through Ramirez’ binoculars and said, “The government scheduled the dam for demolition a few years ago, after Hurricane Irene damaged it. They had just started on it when the apocalypse preempted the schedule.”
“How inconvenient for them,” Westlake said. “Where’s this cabin?”
“It’s not a cabin as such,” Ramirez said. “But it’s just there, along the trail, back up near the treeline. See it?” She gestured, and Ptolemy handed Westlake the binoculars. He peered through them.
“That’s a cabin,” Westlake said, fixing on the building.
“They call it an interior outpost.”
“It’s a log cabin, Ramirez. It’s a goddamn Abe Lincoln log cabin.” Westlake handed her the binoculars back. “Don’t see any signs of life, though. You sure she’d risk it?”
Ptolemy looked at him. “Like I said, she would because she does not know that I know. There is a good chance that we can catch her by surprise, but only if we act quickly.”
“So, what are we waiting for?” Hutch asked, from behind a nearby tree. “An engraved invitation? Let’s go knock on the door and say howdy.”
“I would not advise it. Sayers’ father was a collector of military memorabilia, before he passed away,” Ptolemy said, his voice pitched low. “Most of it functional.”
Westlake frowned. “Meaning?”
“Weapons,” Ramirez said.
Ptolemy nodded. “Guns. Explosives. And the knowledge to use them to best effect.”
“You make her sound like Rambo,” Westlake groused.
“That would be an apt comparison.”
Westlake shook his head but didn’t reply. Instead, he looked at Ramirez. “What do you think? Forget it and move on?”
“No.” Ramirez got to her feet, one hand on her weapon. She thought of Frieda and Dunnigan and the others. The screams as people raced for the safety of the lodge. She let the anger fill her. Anger was good. It kept you moving when the world got tough. “Feel free to stay here, but I’m going in. I want to know what the hell is going on, and the quickest way to do that is to kick in her door and ask, like Hutch said.”
“Now we’re talking,” Hutch growled. He heaved himself to his feet as well.
“What about the rest of us?” Westlake demanded.
Ramirez ignored him. “Ptolemy, Labrand, you two will stay here to keep an eye on things. You see anything, give us a signal. Kahwihta, you stay with them. No, don’t argue.” Ramirez gestured to Attila. “There’re walkers all over the mountains. You and Attila are our early warning system.” Finally, she looked at Westlake. “You and Calavera follow me and Hutch. Keep low, don’t make any noise. Once we get to the cabin, see if you can circle around it. Use the trees for cover. Hutch and I will go in the front.”
Ramirez kept her eyes on the cabin as she made her way past the lean-to. She paused and then darted for the trailer, Hutch following. No alarm was raised, so no one had seen her. Calavera and Westlake came next, keeping low.
Ramirez’ heart was thumping as she moved around the trailer, keeping herself pressed flat to the corrugated metal of the wall. Tumbleweeds of scattered papers danced across the ground. There were hard hats and hi-vis vests scattered everywhere. She wondered what had happened – had the workers been attacked, or was the debris simply the result of no one being around to pick it up?
She dismissed the thought as the front of the cabin came into view. This close to the river, the pulse of the water was omnipresent, drowning out all other sound. She turned to Hutch and saw that he was about to step on a thin wire, stretched from a nearby log pile to the edge of the trailer. Attached to the wire were several tin cans – a crude alarm system.
She flung up a hand, and Hutch froze. She gestured to the wire, and Hutch gently pulled his foot back – and stepped on a broken plank. The rotten wood snapped beneath his weight, nearly pitching him off balance. He grinned helplessly as she rolled her eyes in consternation. Luckily, the noise from the river seemed to have hidden the sound.
Ramirez turned back to the cabin. There was still no sign of anyone. Sayers might have already been and gone. But they had to be sure. She took a breath and stepped out into the open. If anyone was in the cabin, they would be able to see her clearly.
“Sayers,” she called out. She waited, listening to the river. Her hand dropped to her weapon. “Sayers, I just want to talk.” She heard the lie in her voice even as she said it. She didn’t know whether she was planning to shoot Sayers or not, and that scared her a little bit. She pushed the fear down and forced her hand away from her gun.
There was no reply from the cabin. No sign that anyone was home. Ramirez took a step forward. Hutch covered her from the edge of the trailer, his Stoner aimed at the cabin. She caught a hint of movement out of the corner of her eye – Westlake, or maybe Calavera, circling towards the trees.
“All right. I’m coming in.” Ramirez started towards the front steps of the cabin. As she drew close, she slowed. There was something off. The ground wasn’t quite–
Ramirez leapt to the side even as the soil-covered boards beneath her feet gave way. The boards had been placed carefully, so as to give the impression of solid ground – they were anything but. Crouched on the side of the hole, she heard a strange sound emerging from within it. She risked a look and stiffened.
Crawlers. Walkers that had lost the use of their lower halves, either due to spinal damage or, well, just plain lacking legs. Four of them, at the bottom of the hole, five feet down. The mangled zombies moaned and scrabbled at the sides of the hole with ragged arm-stumps, but were unable to haul themselves up with no hands. So instead they gnawed the air mindlessly. Ramirez felt her stomach lurch as she considered what might have happened had she not noticed the ground shifting beneath her feet.
Angry now, she took the steps two at a time and made to kick the door in, but then stopped. First the alarm, then the deadfall, there was no telling what was on the other side of the door. She’d been a part of enough tactical entries to know a closed door was more dangerous than an open one. She rocked back on her heels, drew her sidearm, and sidled around to the opposite side of the door.
Ramirez caught Hutch’s eye and signaled to the doorknob. Hutch nodded. He lifted the Stoner and fired. One shot, but a good one. It blew off the doorknob and the door sagged outwards. Ramirez tensed, waiting for whatever surprise was on the other side to go off. But nothing happened. Slightly disappointed, she leaned over and pulled the door the rest of the way open. Still nothing. Taking a deep breath, she stepped inside.
The wire was strung across the doorway, just above eye level. She caught sight of it at the last moment, and it gave her enough warning to duck beneath it. She followed it with her eyes and trailed it to the trigger of a sporting crossbow, mounted on a tripod arrangement to her left. “Jesus tap-dancing Christ,” she muttered. Sayers wasn’t playing around.
Ramirez looked around. Sayers’ cabin was Spartan. No luxuries anywhere. Only a table, some chairs, a bed, an old-fashioned ice box, and a small shelf with a few books. Moving carefully, she drew the hunting knife strapped to her thigh and cut the wire, disarming the trap. Then she unloaded the crossbow and set it aside.
Briskly, she checked out the kitchen and the bathroom. Neither were boobytrapped. She went back to the front door and signaled Hutch. “It’s clear,” she called out. “Let the others know.” That done, she started searching for something – anything – that might answer the questions she had. In the end, all she found was a folded map of the Adirondacks, with circles drawn on it around Mount Marcy and the lodge, and notes written in the margins. The notes were all numerical in nature. She was staring at them in puzzlement when Ptolemy cleared his throat behind her.
“It is a cipher,” he said. Kahwihta and Westlake had come in as well. Calavera stood outside, looking down into the crawler pit with Hutch. Labrand had shimmied up onto the closest of the trailers and was keeping an eye out for the locals.
Ramirez glanced at Ptolemy. “I know. I’m trying to figure out what type. I don’t suppose you know?” She extended the map in his direction. Ptolemy took it, with some hesitation.
“I do. I made it for her.”
“Can you read it?”
Ptolemy looked around. “Where did you find it?”
“On the shelf. By the books.”
“Out in the open?”
Ptolemy frowned. Ramirez read his sudden unease on his face. “She left it out for someone to find. For you?”
“Perhaps.”
Before he could say more, the air was split by a sudden loud noise – an airhorn. It took Ramirez a moment to recognize it. It had been so long since she’d heard one. The airhorn blared again, and again. She pushed past Ptolemy and stepped out onto the porch, scanning the treeline.
“Can’t see nothing,” Labrand called down. He had his rifle up and was peering through the scope. The airhorn sounded again. It was close by, but where?
Ramirez felt a sudden prickle of apprehension. There was only one reason to make so much noise out here. “Shit,” she said. Inside the cabin, Attila began to growl.
Labrand swung his rifle around, back the way they’d come. “We got company!”
The airhorn had done its job. A walker stepped out of the trees, swaying slightly. Then another and another. In moments, almost a dozen of them had appeared. Attila began to bark. A twig snapped on the other side of the cabin. Ramirez turned.
The dead man hissed and took a tentative step forward. He was dressed in country club casual, but the clothes had seen better days. “Calavera,” Ramirez called out, in warning. As if that were a signal, the zombie sprang for the big man like a chimpanzee full of methamphetamines.
Calavera spun and smashed the dead man from the air with a blow from his fist. The zombie hit the ground and flailed like a crippled crab, unable to right itself before Calavera stomped on its head. But there were more of them on the way, wearing tattered business suits and tennis outfits. They boiled out of the trees like angry insects, lurching towards the cabin.
Hutch swung his Stoner up and fired, dropping the closest of them. “We need to go, now,” Ramirez said, drawing her pistol. “Labrand! Cover us!”
The gunshot took her by surprise. It plucked at the porch rail, sending splinters into the air. Ramirez flinched back in surprise. Another shot sent Labrand scrambling off the side of the trailer. “Sniper,” he shouted, clutching his hat.
Two more shots tore divots from the ground, sending Hutch hopping back. He swung his Stoner around. A third shot smacked into the weapon, nearly tearing it from his hands. He almost fell into the crawler pit, but for Calavera’s quick reaction. The masked man caught Hutch by his colors and swung him away from the pit. “We must get inside,” Calavera shouted as he all but tossed Hutch bodily onto the porch.
Ramirez nodded. “Labrand, come on,” she shouted. The cowboy hurried towards her as a rapid series of shots pursued him onto the porch. Ramirez was the last one in. She paused in the doorway. There were more than two dozen walkers plodding towards the cabin. She kicked the door shut and looked at Ptolemy. “Is there a back way out of this place?”
“The windows,” he said. But as he moved to open one, the glass spiderwebbed from another bullet and he fell back onto the floor, eyes wide, glasses askew. “I am mistaken. Not the windows.”
“A trap,” Ramirez said. She slid down the door into a crouch, suddenly overwhelmed by the enormity of her mistake. “She suckered us.”
Westlake peered out one of the front windows, and for a moment she thought he was going to say “I told you so.” Instead, he gave a weary smile and said, “Yeah. So, what do we do about it?”
“Nothing,” Sayers said, her words leavened with static.
Ramirez looked up, spotted the walky-talky in its solar panel charging station, and lunged for it. She snatched it up. “Sayers. What are you–”
“Shut up, Ramirez. You’re only going to get one chance – so you better listen.”