by Wade Ebeling
Panic forced Daniel back into action. The longer they stayed here, the longer their odds became. He stored away his shame for later use and ran back for the rifle, tucking away the pistol in his waistband as he went. He quickly changed magazines in the gritty felling AR-15, thankful that it had landed in the dirt with the open receiver facing up.
He brushed away the stubborn clumps as he returned for the traumatized girl, who still lay atop the spongy mass of dead bodies. The poor girl was rubbing at her eyes, which were closed, red-tinged tears running freely down her dirty face. Daniel slung the rifle, stooping to help the bloodied girl sit fully upright. The girl, in turn, grabbed at Daniel’s arms and shirt, pulling him down to his knees. She then tried to climb onto his lap, refusing to let go.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” was all Daniel could manage, stroking the matted brown hair on her head, which was now buried into his chest. She appeared to be seven or eight years old, and was very thin for her age. His arms naturally cradled the oddly silent girl. Addresses her softly, he said, “Can you move? We have to go…now! Can you walk?”
The girl, despite the brutality of what she had seen, held out her hand and managed to groan out a weak, “Yes, I can walk.”
Daniel recognized her now that she was looking at him. “Alright Leslie, let’s go. Your name is Leslie, right?”
“Yes,” Leslie groaned again. “Who were they? I…I can’t see...”
“Later…I’ll tell you later. You just have a little blood in your eyes, honey. We have to go this way,” Daniel replied soothingly. “Here use my sleeve for now. We have to get moving, alright?”
Standing up made the little girl dig her nails in to stay attached. He helped Leslie stand up, surprised to find that she was looking quite stable on her feet. He offered her his free left arm, the right now holding the rifle shakily. Leslie grabbed ahold firmly, scrubbing her face with his shirt. They started walking in the direction of the looming concrete piles, stepping over and around dead bodies as they meandered their way towards the railroad tracks. Once they were at the locked gate, Daniel had Leslie grab ahold of the fence for balance, then crawled under.
“Come on, Leslie. I’ll help you.” Daniel whispered the firm promise.
After he had grabbed Leslie’s arm, and pulled her through the gap, Daniel caught the quick, flashing movements of people running out from the R.V. field. Unceremoniously dumping the girl on the ground, Daniel tried to bring the rifle up in time. He saw the two forms turn away and run back to the south.
Jumping the fence and sprinting into the center of the tracks, Daniel stared out into the gloom ahead of him. The girl started crying again. He could not see anything moving, or hear anything other than that of the wailing girl. Daniel was certain about one thing, whoever had come running out had seen what direction they were going.
“Come on! We have to move!” Daniel yelled, before jumping back over the gate and sweeping the girl up into his arms.
This time he carried Leslie, only putting her down to get through the crane wreckage. Once inside the building, he dropped her into the leather recliner and threw a blanket on top of her. He rushed back to the door, shutting it as quietly as he could before locking it, plunging them into absolute darkness, which made the girl squeal out in fear. Daniel felt his way over to the wire spool table and lit two candles. Picking one up, he made his way over to a near shelf, grabbing a bottle of vodka and some clean rags from their box. He went back to the table, setting the items down beside Leslie, who gave him a curious look.
“We have to clean that blood off with some vodka. I think some of those people had some kind of…disease. Put this on anything you think they might have touched. Clean yourself up good! We cannot stay here long. Okay? They will find us eventually. Did you see ‘em back there? Well, they saw us! I’m going to pack a bag as fast as I can. You get cleaned up, and I will come back to check on you in a couple minutes. Alright? Don’t worry, it’s not that bad, but we have to get out of here! Please hurry up!” Daniel found that he was nearly screaming at Leslie, unintentionally of course. “I’m sorry. It’s gonna be okay, honey. We will be just fine. We just have to get out of here first,” Daniel lied.
Snatching up the dirty man’s sea bag from one of the shelves, Daniel started throwing Items inside. Food and bottles of water went in first, then anything else that he could get ahold of. He put the sea bag down beside the backpack and turned to face Leslie, seeing that the bottle of vodka had gone untouched. Turning his attention back to Leslie, Daniel saw that she had a glazed over look on her face. He could tell that she was in no condition to move again, and was most likely in shock from having just been attacked and having to watch all those people die.
He opened the bottle, doused a rag with the strong alcohol and started wiping the girl’s hands and face. “Is that a little better?” Daniel asked consolingly. She just sat there passively as he scrubbed her exposed flesh.
After mulling the question over for a minute, finally deciding that Daniel was indeed known to her, and seemed trustworthy, despite his asking dumb questions, she asked, very quietly, “Are we going to be safe, Uncle Danny?”
“Of course! I just…I just gotta get us moving again is all,” Daniel tried to laugh, despite her words stinging into his soul. “Can you stay here for me? Don’t worry, I’m not leaving. I just have to go check something out. I’ll be right over there. No worries, m’kay?”
Leslie nodded, took the rag from Daniel and started wiping her own face; she figured that this is what he meant for her to do. Daniel pulled the rifle back around to the front and started climbing the ladder up to the roof access hatch. He pushed it open a few inches and looked out through the crack. All he could see was the backside of the buildings parapet.
“Damn,” he whispered, before opening the hatch all of the way and climbing the ladder until he was standing on the top rung. Using his shins as a brace against the hatch’s frame, he stood as tall as he could, to see over the roof top.
Standing in the circular clearing were at least eight of the sickly-looking workers; all of them were staring right back at him. He only got two shots off before nearly losing his balance, having to duck back down to grab ahold of the hatch’s edge to save from falling. He thought that, maybe, he had hit one of them before the men had a chance to scatter to the four winds. Daniel climbed back down the ladder, locking the hatch as he went, a sense of inevitability coming over him.
“What are you shooting at?” Leslie squeaked, her hands over her ears.
When he had made it back over to the chair, Daniel sat down on the spool next to Leslie. “They…found us,” Daniel answered her, as if even he did not believe the implications. Grabbing the vodka bottle, he tipped it up to his lips, hands shaking nearly uncontrollably.
“How many?” Leslie wailed, dark eyes wide in terror again.
Daniel set the bottle down, after taking another mouthful, and said honestly, “Too many.”
As if to emphasize his point, loud bangs and thunks rang out from large chunks of concrete being hurled at the building.
This noise traumatized her senses, and Leslie looked right at Daniel’s soul, eyes and voice pleading, “Don’t let them get me.”
“I won’t,” Daniel sighed, “I promise.”
Daniel put the bottle into his left hand and drew the pistol out with the right.
More bangs sounded on the door, different bangs; the rhythm of a makeshift battering ram.
Corinne’s dead face came to him, and Daniel did not feel the anger that had once accompanied this vision. He did not know what the feeling he was having was, but he felt belittled by it. It was like he owed her an apology, but had never gotten the chance to say it. He now understood what needed to be done.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Daniel put the warm gun against Leslie’s temple.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Daniel closed his eyes, thinking only of his lost family.
……..
The W
arehouse was lost. Like a rat on a sinking ship, Bob Donner was the first to realize it. He knew the second he saw all those men charging over the fence what had happened. The D.o.C. had set the workers free; this was something that they had agreed not to do.
Now there were hundreds of irradiated disposables running amuck, contaminating everything that they touched. Bob knew there was no hope of organizing a proper defense, especially after seeing the APC’s go up in flames. The reign of Bob Donner had officially just come to an end as quickly as it had begun. But no matter, he thought, he had prepared for something like this; or rather, Troy had.
Making his way through the ransacked bazaar, Bob and his three guards were trying to implement this escape plan. One of the three guards with him went to open the eastern rolling door, pulling feverishly on the chain fall, while Bob and the other two climbed into his new truck, leaving the doors open.
As Bob got in the black truck, he looked back towards the housing section. Marisa Donner was trapped on the far side of the building from him, dozens of rampaging workers between them. Bob got in and started the engine; she knew the plan. A wave of gray jumpsuits crashed through the rolling door, now opened just wide enough for the truck to go under. Bob gunned the engine and the truck lurched forward, his third guard, and his wife of the past four years, were both abandoned the instant the truck doors slammed shut.
Bouncing out of the narrow opening, scattering those smart enough to get out of the way, and running over those that weren’t, Bob then crashed the truck through the fence gate. Numerous gunshots rang out as he wrenched the wheel to the left, squawking the tires, until he was heading northbound in the southbound lanes of Klondike Avenue. Bob sat up and laughed wildly for a moment, but his guards, sitting on the bench seat behind him, did not.
A short mile later, Bob barked, “Get ready!” to his remaining flunkies.
Turning the truck into the parking lot of an old strip mall, Bob arced around to the corner, where he backed the truck up to a hole in the retaining wall. Everyone climbed out, making for the hole, while Bob put the keys in his pocket.
“Grab what you can outta the garage and load it up,” Bob ordered, while tucking his greasy, long hair behind his ear and dropping the tailgate. “We got, like, two minutes…tops! I gotta get some shit from inside…”
Bob left his guards to fill the bed of the truck with stashed supplies from a nearby detached garage, while he made his way around to the front of the house it belonged to, climbing the porch steps and opening the unlocked front door when he got there. Clicking a flashlight on, he made his way down a short corridor, turning left into the kitchen and then again to descend a narrow flight of stairs.
The basement was small, old fieldstone foundations forming the low walls. Bob lit a candle sitting on a large wooden table in the center of the room to see by. He then grabbed a silk-lined canvas pouch, which had started its life as a small, formal purse and was currently stuffed full of gem-encrusted gold jewelry, placing it next to the light where he could see it. Moving around the stained wooden table, he then slid a bunch of stainless steel instruments into a small blue suitcase, zipping it shut after a few more knives and various tools had been tossed in from around the room. He picked the pouch and suitcase up, sighed heavily, and then put them back down.
Turning around, Bob approached a naked blonde woman, who was chained in the corner.
“Well this is it…Looks like our time is over, sweetheart. Tell you what, why don’t I leave you something to remember me by…How’s that sound?”
Terry Spanelli started to whimper.
Chapter 28
“I don’t want to die,” Leslie said, eyes brimming with tears.
Daniel faltered.
Boom! Boom! Boom! The workers were almost in.
Daniel shook his head hard, trying to clear his thoughts. He couldn’t shoot the girl, but he couldn’t let those bastards have her, either.
He spun away from Leslie, snatching up the combat vest and rifle. He put the vest on, shoving a new magazine into the rifle afterward.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
“Get up!” Daniel shouted, shoving the sea bag into her hands. “Get ready to run! Stay right behind me, alright? You have to stay close!”
He stood Leslie up, but the weight of the bag was obviously too much for her.
Boom! Crack! Thump! The door was yielding.
“Just leave it! Stay right by my side!”
The door burst open, and three men stumbled inside, dropping a length of the crane arm.
It was point blank range, and Daniel could hardly miss. Eight rapid fire rounds had the men down and dying. Daniel did not stop there, however, and he charged out of the doorway, firing even as he stumbled over an arm, nearly rolling his ankle.
Now outside, Daniel snapped shots off at the scattering men. Several were trapped within the ring of concrete piles with him, making for easy targets, but many more had made it to cover. He stopped to see if Leslie was close enough to keep moving, when a deep ‘thud!’ shook the ground after something very large sailed past his ear. A chuck of concrete, hurled from the roof of the building, and big enough to cave his skull in, had narrowly missed ending him.
He fired twice at whoever was up there, just to make them take cover. Grabbing Leslie by the arm, he yanked her out of range of the stones. Running up the path to the pond, which was on flat ground closer to the road, Daniel encountered two men who had taken cover within the path’s steep walls. The men threw their hands up. Daniel had no time to slow down, so he shot them both.
He let Leslie move up the path ahead of him, shooting a few times to give any pursuers something to think about. Daniel caught up with her at the pond, quickly slinging the rifle and picking her up to run. Within seconds they had made it to the fence. Daniel pushed Leslie up, where she clung to the top rail. When he made it to the top of the fence, Daniel braced his legs painfully against the three strands of barbed wire, and grabbed Leslie’s wrists, heaving her up to him. He then hung her over the other side and dropped her.
Trying to awkwardly hop over the barbed wire, Daniel’s pant leg caught, flipping him upside down as cleanly as a rug pulled out from underneath him would have.
“Uncle Danny?”
“Uncle Danny! There is someone coming!”
Daniel wondered why he had been sleeping, dreaming of saving his daughter.
“There’s a car coming! It’s almost here!” Rebecca yelled.
No, not Rebecca, Leslie.
Daniel sat up, finding that he was on the hard driveway of the concrete plant. He must have knocked himself out cold falling over the top of the fence. What was Leslie talking about? A car? That couldn’t be right.
Headlights caught his eye, as the girl moved away from the road. She appeared to want to get back over the fence. The vehicle was almost on top of them. Certainly they had been spotted by now.
The car turned into the strip mall across the street from them, and then quickly drove around to the back corner. Just as the headlights had gone behind the building, Daniel got a glimpse of the vehicle. It looked identical to his.
Groaning, Daniel stood up and groggily checked the rifle. Leslie had come back over to him, as she had just spotted some men over by the pond. “You’re bleeding,” she said worryingly, “and those guys are coming back…”
The cut over his eye had opened back up, and blood coursed down his face, dripping from his chin. “It’s fine…Be quiet and follow me,” he whispered.
Unable to jog, Daniel walked as fast as he could across the street and parking lot. Worried that people would still be able to see them, he led them around the far side of the strip mall from where the truck had gone. Hiding behind a wheeled dumpster, Daniel saw his truck parked just past the back alley, behind a brown brick, Tudor-style house. As he watched, two policemen still in uniform, appeared from a hole in the back retaining wall. They stacked some heavy looking crates in the back of the truck, before heading through the hole again.
“Stay here!” Daniel said fiercely.
Leslie grabbed at his arm to stop him, but he easily slipped her gripped and dashed across the alley. After jumping the wall, he made his way to the street beyond the row of houses, intent on making his way around behind the men who had his truck. He picked his way through the cluttered roadway and sidewalk, looking for signs of movement. Turning into the driveway of the brown Tudor house, Daniel slunk into the shadows between and old sedan and a snarled fence. The two policemen came out of the garage, carrying cardboard boxes to over to the truck this time. Daniel braced the rifle across the hood of the car, waiting for the men to come back into view. He would be close, and he would have some cover. He let out a long breath to try and calm his racing heart.
A creak of wood.
Daniel looked to his left, a man half way down the porch steps was staring back.
“You!?” the man stated unbelievingly.
As soon as the words came out of his mouth, Daniel recognized the voice, long hair, and zit-filled face. It was Bob Donner.
Bob dropped some bags and raised up a pistol, no longer looking shocked, but angry. Daniel was caught flat-footed; his rifle was pointed the wrong way, and there was no way to swing it around, being trapped between the fence and car. He did the only thing that he could think of to get out of the way of the approaching gun barrel, he dropped to the ground, leaving his rifle across the hood of the car.
Bob shot once, then twice more. The bullets slapping into metal above Daniel’s prone body. He then moved back up the stairs, making for the open doorway, while shouting “Help! He’s here! Help Me!” as he went.