“Let’s get the bodies cleared, get April buried, and finish the job,” I said.
Solemnly, everyone nodded. Clouds rolled in, occluding the sun. The wind whipped hard. There was a bitter chill in the air. Ian knelt beside April. Jamie turned and headed back to the tractor; he pulled off his gloves and dashed them to the ground. The men moved off behind him. I looked up at the sky. A hawk passed overhead. I turned and followed Jamie.
Chapter 14
By the end of October, the first snow began to fall. Though apple picking had ended in tragedy, the bounty harvested lasted a long time. Ethel had us all cranking out apple sauce and canning vegetables. In addition, Grandma’s house yielded a treasure trove of supplies from the mundane, like rice and sugar, to the more exotic, like Kevlar vests and a stash of board games for children. We were ready to begin our hibernation.
Mother Nature determined she would not make things any easier on us. When winter arrived, it was clear it meant to stay. The Farmer’s Almanac predicted a harsh winter. Lake effect weather dropped feet of snow on us. It was good on the one hand because it seemed unlikely the undead could get far in the deep snow. On the other hand, we were going through wood at such an alarming rate that we had to adjust our habits. There would be no more comfortable nights roaming about the cozy cabin. Frenchie, the girls, and I had taken to wearing at least three layers at all times and lived most of our life in the living room in front of the fireplace. We spent the next several weeks in quiet hibernation.
On Thanksgiving morning, however, Jamie came by. He decided we needed turkey. That meant, of course, a hunting trip was in order. Ian, who planned to come by later, was due for a rotation in town so that left Jamie and me with the task of hunting down a Thanksgiving feast. We left at the crack of dawn.
“How long does it take for a human body to decompose?” I asked Jamie as we hiked through the shin-deep snow into the forest behind Grandma’s house.
There was a fresh snowfall that morning leaving a powdery, almost sand-like layer of snow on top of already accumulated inches. In the early morning sunlight, the snow picked up a prism of rainbow colors. It was peaceful and quiet in the woods save for the swishing sounds of our feet in the snow and our chatter.
“Now what makes you think I would know that?” he replied.
“Seems like something a medic should know.”
He chuckled. “I think it takes a year if the body is exposed to the elements. If it’s in a grave or a house or something like that, it will take longer. Depends on the environment.”
“Then, theoretically, by spring there could just be a bunch of rattling skeletons walking around.”
“That’s a pretty gruesome image,” Jamie replied.
“No worse than a rotting corpse walking around.”
“True,” he replied and then motioned me to be silent. “There,” he whispered, pointing to some fresh turkey tracks in the snow. He looked around. “I bet they are in the field picking at the wheat,” he whispered.
The tracks on the ground seemed to lead two directions—toward the field and toward a thicket of mountain laurel.
“I’ll check there if you want to check the field,” I offered, pointing to the thicket.
“Sure, just watch your ass—which looks cute in those Carharts by the way—and yell if you see anything—anything.”
Flashing him a smile, I rolled my eyes, and we went off in different directions.
Jamie passed over a rise toward the field, and I followed the turkey tracks toward the thicket. After I’d gone a short ways, the tracks disappeared. I looked up into the pines to see if they had roosted, but I couldn’t see them anywhere, and I was not much of a tracker. I turned to go when movement coming from the thicket caught my attention.
I snapped the safety off the hunting rifle and knelt in the snow.