The Frozen Garden

The day after the bronze bull was blown up with a pressure cooker, Jon, Jack, and Pam returned to the old, formerly abandoned farm. Pam wanted to collect the rest of their hidden gear and supplies before it got any colder and Jon still wanted to bury his wife, Sam.

“Let’s take the deer cart,” said Jack. “We should be able to haul all the stuff back to the house. And I wanna get a body count on those cult members before we do anything else.”

Jon was pulling the cart first – Jack and Pam guarded the front and rear respectively. “How did you figure out that you could blow up that bull?”

“I wasn’t one hundred percent sure,” said Jack, breathing on his hands to keep warm. “But I knew from police reports and some dark web surfing that these guys would usually pull the bull over a fire pit and build a massive fire beneath it. I realized the stuff inside the bull that I thought was dust and rocks was actually bones and ash. So, I just rigged the pressure cooker with some stuff I borrowed *ahem* from the state police supply. Laws of physics did the rest.”

“Do you think they were gonna burn that young woman they brought into camp – what was her name again, Pam?

“Kelly,” said Pam. “She lives in the southernmost part of our neighborhood, close to the highway.”

Jack suddenly raised his fist, motioning for them to stop. Jon and Pam instinctively crouched down. It was still hard to see through most of the woods even though the leaves were turning color and falling off the trees. Jack signaled to move off to the side and take cover. Jon used the cart as part of his concealment as he looked ahead through the trees. Something was moving.

Jon spotted a group of feral pigs about seventy yards down the right trail fork greedily consuming the fruit on the ground under a wild pear tree. He was about to stand, thinking that obviously the swine were the source of the movement – when suddenly Jack jumped up and disarmed the man approaching from the left fork. Jack had him face down on the ground and cuffed before Jon realized what was happening.

With a quick whistle, Jack signaled for Jon and Pam. “Search him,” said Jack as he quickly scanned the rest of the area and resumed holding his rifle barrel to the man’s head. “And pick up his rifle that he dropped back there.

“Ankle knife,” said Pam as she rolled the man onto his back.

“Tattoo of a bull on his arm,” said Jon. “Looks like one of cultists survived.”

“Get bent!” the man said with a growl and rolling back over.

Jack’s rifle butt slammed into the back of the man’s knee with a crack, and now he was howling instead of growling. “Get him on his feet,” said Jack. “He can limp back to the farm. Let’s go douchebag.”

Jon went back for the cart and slung the man’s rifle over his shoulder. Hopefully there weren’t anymore survivors to deal with.

The group stopped just short of visual range of the barnyard and Jack put Cult Dude back on the ground face first. “If he tries to get up, knock his ass out,” said Jack as he headed toward the farm.

The barnyard looked like a war zone in the middle of an all-American farm. Pieces of bronze bull littered the ground for a hundred yards at least. Jack even found a piece impaled in the sliding door of the barn. The woodshop though, got the worst of it as the structure itself burned to the ground, leaving pieces of metal equipment poking up like skeletons from a scorched earth.

Jack made a final sweep of the immediate area and headed back to Pam and Jon. Cult Dude was motionless and bleeding from the side of his head. “Problem?” asked Jack.

“Uh, nope,” said Jon with a chuckle. “Remind me not to piss off your wife.”

“No problem at all,” said Pam while wiping off the butt of her rifle and winking at Jack. “How about you, lover? All clear for us to move forward?”

“Oh, it’s clear alright. Roll this guy into the deer cart and let’s go. Maybe he can tell us where all the freaking bodies are.”

Jack zip-tied the unconscious Cult Dude to a fence post and joined Jon behind the barn. The bodies of Sam and the other unfortunate soul were still under the tarp. The men shared a knowing look of grief as they lowered the corpses into the shallow grave Jon had dug the day before. Without a word they filled in the dirt and covered the grave with as many rocks as they could find. Jack knew he came very close to losing Pam just a few months ago when the guy beheading people had made it into his house. He felt like a pitiful excuse of a man, a cop, and a husband after that day. He was sure the same thought was going through Jon’s head too: How could I have let this happen?

Pam walked behind the farmhouse taking care not to step on any sharp pieces of metal from the exploded bull. There were odd marks in the burned ground every so often. Like stuff was being dragged. She made her way to the small hill where the remains of a wagon and a couple old barrels disguised a small entrance into an old forgotten root cellar. It was dumb luck that Jack and Pam had stumbled onto it a year ago with the grass being so tall. But now it housed some of their supplies away from prying eyes. After checking her surroundings, Pam crawled into the cellar. Something skittered over her arm on its way out of the hole and she stifled a scream. Damn rodents… Her flashlight shone on the sealed container. She knew Jack had gotten in here last night to get what he needed for the pressure cooker. That meant only two backpacks were left – one with some ammo and the other with some freeze-dried food. Pam slung the ammo onto her back and carried the food and her rifle back toward the barnyard.

Jon and Jack met Pam as she crossed in front of the farmhouse, and out of earshot of the now awake Cult Dude. Jack whispered as he took the heavy ammo pack from Pam and slung it on his back.

“See any bodies back there?”

“None. Did you see the drag marks near ground zero?”

“Yeah. Obviously, the bodies or body parts were moved. I didn’t figure they were moved far though.”

Jon was staring back at their prisoner. “What are we gonna do with Cult Dude?” Jon knew what he wanted to do with him, and any other of those men he found. As far as he was concerned, Baldy was directly responsible for setting up the boobytrap that killed Sam – but every last one of those bastards was obviously okay with burning people alive in that bronze bull and they would’ve killed them all last night if they had found us first.

“There’s a good chance that these guys know our neighborhood,” said Pam. “I figure that’s how they found and grabbed Kelly.”

Jack softly grunted in agreement and walked over to the fence post. “How many of you are left?” Cult Dude smiled.

Jon suddenly ran up and butt-stroked him across the mouth. “Answer!” Cult Dude looked down and spit the blood out of his mouth with a half-smile.

Jack motioned for Jon and Pam to follow him into the barn. “Okay, we can probably guess one or more survived the explosion. We can’t take him with us. But we might be able to convince him to talk. I’ve got an idea.”

Pam loaded the deer cart with the backpacks and Jack threw in some rope and an old feedbag from the barn. Jon added the pickaxe he used to dig Sam’s grave.

Jack cut off a long piece of the man’s shirt and tied it around his mouth. Jon kneeled on the back of Cult Dude’s injured knee as Jack cut him free and then bound him with a fresh zip tie, hands in front. Pam put the feedbag over his head. “Okay, douchebag. Let’s go,” said Jack with a grip on the man’s arm.

Jon could really see his breath now as he pulled the cart. He almost reached in his pocket for his phone but cursed to himself for stupidly forgetting he didn’t have it because all unprotected electronics got fried a few months ago. Wish we could check the weather. Then again, it didn’t take a weatherman to tell that if it was this cold now, it would likely be freezing by morning.

Jack led the group down the trail to the wild pear tree Jon had spotted earlier and pushed Cult Dude to his knees. Without a word, Jack tossed the rope over a large branch. Pam held one end of the rope as Jack wound the other end around the man’s hands and knotted it securely. Jon removed the man’s boots and socks, and zip-tied his ankles together. Cult Dude started to resist as Pam and Jack hoisted him to his feet by pulling the rope.

“Last chance,” said Jack as he removed the feedbag and the gag. He was rewarded with a spray of bloody sputum. Jack wiped his face, put the gag and feedbag back on, and nodded to Jon.

Jon had picked up a couple of squishy pears and squeezed them to a thick pulp. As Jack and Pam lifted the man a foot off the ground and tied off the rope, muffled screams of pain pierced the icy air. Jon quickly smeared the pears on the flailing bare feet, taking care not to get kicked in the mouth himself.

Pam threw the man’s boots in the cart and the three of them started heading home. The man had stopped flailing as he was wearing himself out. At about seventy yards, Jack stopped and looked back while waving the others to keep going. He waited about twenty minutes and was about to catch up with Jon and Pam when he heard the familiar grunts of the feral pigs they saw yesterday. About five minutes later, the big boar started licking and nibbling on Cult Dude’s toes. The screams stopped about twenty minutes later as Jack caught up with Pam and Jon.

The next morning was indeed freezing cold just as Jon had expected. Unfortunately, it had also been dry. No one had been able to catch rainwater in a week, so most of the people walked to the center of the neighborhood where a small natural pond had freshwater. Everyone knew by now that it had to be boiled first.

Jon escorted Pam to the pond since both of their homes needed water. Jack guarded the home front. Quite a few people were gathered for such an early hour, but no one seemed to be approaching the water’s edge and a murmur was percolating through the crowd. “It can’t be that frozen,” said Jon as they slipped through to the front, buckets in hand.

“Oh damn…,” Pam whispered.

The frozen pond was serene and might have been calming any other morning except for the deadly garden of bodies in various stages of rigor mortis poking up through the thin layer of ice.

Jon and Pam went home. “We found where the dead bodies were dragged off to,” said Jon, dropping his bucket at Jack’s feet. “I think we’re gonna have much bigger problems than we thought.”