by Ben Reeder
“Doesn’t feel that way,” I said. “Feels like I got kicked in the gut by a mule.” My abdomen hurt in front and in back, and Dr. Crews hadn’t had much to work with in the way of anesthetic. I hadn’t been the ideal, stoic patient, either.
“If you can complain, I think you’ll make it. You’re about as bad as my other patient,” she said.
“So, McKay’s going to be okay?” Amy asked. Her face brightened as she waited for the answer.
“She’ll live, but I’m not sure how much use she’s going to get back in her left arm. If I had access to a physical therapist for her, and all the facilities I needed, I’d say she’d get almost eighty percent. Now, though?” She paused and shook her head. “Now I can’t even begin to guess.”
“How long am I going to be laid up?” I asked as I pulled my new t-shirt down.
“Technically, you can get up now, but I wouldn’t recommend it.” She frowned at me as I tried to push myself up. With Amy’s arm under my shoulder, I was able sit up. Getting my feet on the floor was a minor victory of its own, and walking to radio room felt like winning a marathon. The Spitfire radio terminal weighed less than twenty pounds but as I lugged my prize to the workbench in the room, I felt myself flagging. By the time I got it out, I had to have Amy carry it to the one of the three Humvees that they had been using to ferry people and equipment between the armory and St Mark’s. The fourth one had taken the other two rounds that had been fired at me.
“So, we have our radio,” Amy said as I followed behind her. “What now?”
“I need to find a satellite and get the antenna aligned. So I need a rooftop.”
“You need to get to the roof?” George asked from the driver’s seat.
“Beats setting it up in the parking lot,” I said as I climbed into the passenger seat.
“I’ll get you up there then,” he said over the truck’s rumble. Amy climbed in the back and pulled the door closed. He pulled out of the garage and gave the big diesel some gas as we pulled clear of the gate, taking the turn a little wide to make sure the trailer hitched to the back cleared the fence. Outside, the first hints of dawn were starting to creep into the sky ahead of us. Bodies littered the road, infected that fell victim to the front grill of the Humvees or their tires. As we drove along, I could see the not-so-dead ones shuffling around on side streets. We passed one that was facing east with its head tilted back. I watched it as we came up on it, and it turned away from the sunrise and began to wander toward one of the houses. Others seemed to be doing the same thing.
“Where are they going?” Amy asked, saying aloud what I had been wondering.
“Out of the sun,” George said. “You don’t see many out when the sun’s up, not sure why. Some folks think it’s because they’re allergic to it or something. But they’re not vampires. I’ve never seen one of ‘em burst into flames in the sunlight. Near as I can figure, they just don’t like it.”
“Maybe it’s something to do with the melatonin and serotonin thing Ruth was talking about,” Amy offered. “I think melatonin’s the one called the darkness hormone, something about too much light keeping people from getting enough of it.”
“Blue light,” George said with a short laugh. “My wife used to wear this pair of yellow glasses every night before bed. She said they were supposed to block blue light and help her sleep hormones.” More and more infected were moving off the streets, and I wondered if the stage one ghouls were the same way. Moments later, we were pulling into the parking lot beside the church. I got out and walked the short distance between the Humvee and the gate into the walled courtyard beside the cathedral. George led us to the door into the kitchen and pushed me toward a chair at the table.
“I can walk,” I said as he put his hands on my shoulders and gently pushed me into the seat.
“I know you can,” he said, completely ignoring my protest otherwise. “But you lost a little blood, and Doc Crews said to get plenty of fluids and high protein foods into you. She gave me a list, and you’re not moving from that spot until you eat.”
“Spinach, beans, orange juice and meat,” Amy said. “I really want to see him try to choke down a can or two of spinach.”
“I can help with the food part,” I said as I tried to get to my feet.
“You already went and got yourself shot,” George said. “What makes you think you’re safe in a kitchen full of knives and hot surfaces? Sit your ass right back down.” I let myself sink back down into the chair and forced myself to sit still while they cooked. Somewhere along the way, my eyes closed and I dozed off, because the next thing I knew I was jerked awake as my right leg twitched. I let my head droop again, and before long I was greeted by the sound of a bowl being set on the table. True to the list she’d quoted, Amy and George had put together a full meal from a combination of MREs and canned goods. To my surprise, even the spinach tasted almost as good as chocolate and I was scraping the bottom of the plate too soon for my stomach’s liking.
Once the food was gone, I slipped out of the kitchen and found the radio. Someone had unloaded it from the truck and left it near the front of the pews. Inside the box was what I needed almost as much as the radio itself: the instruction manual. I had used the Spitfire radio terminal before, but it had been a few years.
“Welcome to the exciting new world of military radio,” I said under my breath as I moved to the nearest pew and sat down. “Your AN slash PSC5 Spitfire Radio Terminal and You will provide you with hours of entertaining reading as you learn about exciting topics like frequency presets, COMSEC key loading and other military abbreviations.” Like most military manuals, this one was very dry. My head started bobbing before I’d gotten to the bottom of the first page.
The next time my eyes opened, I was looking up at the cathedral’s ceiling. The light was streaming in from the stained glass windows in the front of the church, and somehow that was important. When I stretched, my belly reminded me that a bullet had just gone through it with a pretty sharp jolt of pain and my yawn turned into a sharp exhale of discomfort. Sitting up was an expedition to new kinds of suffering, so I turned on my side and pushed myself upright with my arm. Facing the east end of the church, I realized why the pretty colors at the front of the church were important. That meant the sun was on the west side of the building. Judging by the angle of the sunbeams, it was well past noon.
“You don’t snore as loud as mom says you do,” Amy said from behind me. Twisting too far in either direction didn’t seem like a good idea, so I stood up and turned around. At least that seemed a little easier than it had been a few hours ago. Amy was stretched out on the pew behind me, with her pack and weapons stacked at her feet. She had one of the books we’d traded for open on her chest, one finger stuck between the pages to keep her place. My gear was stacked neatly on the pew in front of me, with the notable addition of an ammo box and a stack of magazines next to the M4.
“Maybe getting shot fixed that,” I said. “Crap, I slept too long.” I grabbed the manual from beside my pack and sat back down. The light lasted through the last page, but I didn’t beat sunset by much. I unpacked the radio by lantern light, and by the time I got it ready to go, night had fallen. I followed George to a small circular stairwell hidden in the south wall, and we found ourselves climbing onto the tower roof, one of the highest points around. Finding a working satellite took me almost an hour, but the signal came in strong and clean, and I loaded in the COMSEC key.
“Jayhawk, this is Magic Man,” I said into the mic. “Come in, Jayhawk.” I waited, imagining a hundred terrible possibilities with every second that passed.
“Hoo-ah, Magic Man. This is Jayhawk, it’s good to hear your voice. You just made me a million dollars.” Nate Reid’s voice was a little tinny over the radio, but it was still the enthusiastic rumble I remembered from hours of talks at his kitchen table.
“Never bet against me,” I said with a smile. “Speaking of people you shouldn’t bet against, did Maya make it there yet?” My h
eart started pounding in my chest as I waited for him to answer.
“She made it in this morning,” Nate said. “And she brought about 300 house guests with her. Plus your cat.” I laughed, so relieved that I wasn’t sure how I kept from either deflating on the spot or exploding.
“Yeah, watch out for Leo…he’ll tear you up something fierce,” I said. “I guess you heard about me and Keyes.”
“Yeah, Shaw’s right hand. You don’t do anything halfway, do you?” he asked.
“Well, if you’re going to do something, do it well,” I said. “So, right now, I’m pretty much radioactive. After this, I’m going to find a hole, pull it in after me and go dark for a couple of weeks. So, if Maya’s around, Amy and I would like to talk to her.”
“Roger that,” Nate said. “I have someone on their way to get her. Since you’re off the reservation, there’s something we’d like you to do.”
“Well, I’ll have to check my busy social schedule,” I said. “I have golf with the President, then the regatta at the yacht club after lunch. I’ll see what I can do. But who’s this we you’re talking about?”
“Mr. Stewart,” another voice came over the handset. “This is Colonel Shafer. Son, I already owe you more than one drink for helping us back in Springfield. Way I hear it, there’s a few Marines and civilians who owe you and Maya their asses, too. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to add to the tab.”
“What do you need, sir?” I asked, forcing a dozen questions to the back of my mind. “Bear in mind, I have a teenage girl with me, so firefights are right out. And dances. Especially dances.” Amy slapped at my arm at that and I gave her what was supposed to be a stern look.
“No, I’m pretty sure no one is going to be shooting at you. We just need you to go retrieve some data about the Asura virus. Should be pretty much Marine proof. All you need to do is go in, grab anything pertaining to Project: Home Shield and get your ass back here.”
“I can do that,” I said. “Where am I going?”
“It’s an old COG installation from the Cold War. USAMRIID intercepted a partial message about Home Shield routed from someone in the OEM, but it was cut off before anything really useful was transmitted. All we managed to get was the sender’s coordinates,” Shafer said. He relayed them to me and I repeated them back. “Shouldn’t be too hard to find.”
“I’ll go check it out, sir,” I said.
“I appreciate it, son. When you make it here, we’ll have a beer and I’ll tell you how we ended up here. But there’s a fierce looking woman here who wants to talk to you. You have yourself some good luck, and we’ll see you soon.”
“Dave?” Maya’s voice came through the handset before I could reply.
“Hey, baby,” I said. My belly felt like I was on a roller coaster ride the second I heard her voice, and I felt my mouth stretch into a smile. “You made it.”
“We did. Porsche and Cassie and Bryce are okay, too. Sweet Goddess, I miss you. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, love,” I said. “A little worse for wear, but nothing life threatening. Unless you count teaching Amy to drive.” Her laughter fell on my ears like the song of an angel.
“You’re braver than I thought,” she said. “So, Amy’s okay, too?”
“Yeah, she’s doing even better than me. Though her vocabulary has gotten a little more…colorful of late. Evidently I’m a terrible father figure that way.”
“What will they think at the country club? Such a scandal.” I laughed and made sure she could hear it. “I don’t know where she learns such shitty language.”
“No idea. Must be from me. Look, I’m sorry we couldn’t go straight to Nate’s. I tried to send Amy with the train, I really did. But, unlike her mother, she’s a little stubborn.”
“It’s okay, sweetie. Just get her here safe. Let me talk to her.” I handed the handset to Amy with a shake of my head.
“Mom?” she said, suddenly sounding very much her age, and very much like a homesick teenager. I stood and walked to the edge of the roof, looking west at the darkening sky. George came up to stand beside me, and for a moment or two, neither of us spoke.
“I take it you two are going to be moving on,” he finally said. I nodded. “It’s a shame. You’re good in a fight, and after last night, a lot of folks down there think you’re some kind of hero.” He gestured down at the cathedral below us.
“Believe me, I’ve got clay feet. In fact, I could use your help with something, if you didn’t mind making a bit of a trip.”
“Right now, son, you could ask most folks here for just about anything and they’d do it for you. Some of those men and women you-“
“We,” I interjected.
“Okay, some of the men and women we rescued last night had family here. We owe you and your daughter a lot.”
“Wait until you hear the whole story before you go canonizing me,” I said before I laid out the quick and dirty version of the situation we had found at the Manson family farm. “I told him I was going to come back and check on the kids in a week or two. Truth is, I never intended to leave those kids there.”
“If you were looking for someone to take those children in, you found it,” George said. “The only problem you’re gonna have is narrowing it down to just one family.”
“I need more than that. I need someone to go get them. Someone who will be willing…and someone who can…take those kids by force.”
“Still think you’re gonna have more volunteers than you need, son. I was a coach and a science teacher for twenty years. I know what parents are capable of, both good and bad. Hell, I’ll go get those kids myself. Don’t you worry. We’ll get those children taken care of.”
“Then I owe you big time.”
“No you don’t. It’s the right thing to do,” he said and put a hand on my shoulder. Amy called out to me and I went back to the radio. In contrast to the smile on her face, her eyes were red and her cheeks were damp.
“Mom wants to talk to you again,” she said, ending with a sniffle. I took the handset from her.
“Maya?” I said.
“I’m here, baby,” she said. “Nate says we can’t talk too much longer. Thank you for keeping Amy safe. You make a good father.”
“I make a decent stand-in, yeah,” I said. “Maybe someday I’ll be a good dad. But the only parenting award I qualify for is ‘World’s Deadliest Dad,’ and I think Nate has me beat on that one. I know we don’t have much time left to talk. I love you.” The last sentence came out so desperate it hurt, and it sounded awkward in my ears, like I was trying to cram more into those three little words than they could ever hold.
“I love you, Dave Stewart,” Maya said, and I could hear the same awkward density in her voice. “You come back to me.”
“Not even the zombie apocalypse could stop me.” I signed off and shut the radio down, then started breaking the antenna down and stowing everything.
“So, what’s the plan?” Amy asked as I finished putting things away. I looked down at the coordinates Colonel Shafer had given me and did some quick math in my head. With one degree of latitude being about sixty nine miles, and figuring we were almost due east of Nate’s location, our destination was about four degrees north of us, which made it almost 300 miles away.
“We’re heading to South Dakota,” I said. I headed for the door to the stairs as I talked, and Amy fell in step beside me.
“South Dakota? Why?” Amy asked, her face scrunching up.
“Do you want the boring answer or the exciting one?”
“Give me the boring one first,” she said as we started down the stairs.
“We’re going to go find an old Continuity of Government facility that was being used by the Office of Emergency Management, and look for information about something called Project: Home Shield.” Once I said it out loud, it sounded slightly less boring than it had in my head.
“That was the boring answer?” Amy laughed behind me. “What’s the exciting one?”
“We’re going to get vital information that will help save the world…and fight ninjas. Because ninjas make everything more exciting.” George and Amy both laughed at that.
“We’re not walking all the way, are we?” Amy asked.
I shook my head. “No, we’ll have to find a working car or something. Preferably something with four wheel drive. The roads are too iffy.”
“Ya’ll are thinking too big,” George said. He opened the doorway into the cathedral and led us back through the smaller office and classroom area to the kitchen. “Grab something to eat, get some rest, and in the morning, I’ll show you two how to get around in this neck of the woods.”
“I don’t know how to ride a motorcycle,” Amy said as we stood in the showroom of Bill’s Speed and Sport.
“You’ll learn,” I said. Beside me, George beamed and handed me a handful of keys that he’d taken from behind the counter.
“I suggest you go with the dirt bikes,” he said. “And accessorize.”
Chapter 6
On the Road Again…
~ The quest for freedom, dignity and the rights of man will never end. ~ William J Brennan, Jr.
Amy goosed the throttle on her Yamaha and sped down the straightaway, then downshifted as she came to the curved end of the dirt track. The little WR250R angled into the curve, and my arms tensed as she let up on the throttle, then goosed it again for a split second. The heavily modified bike had dumped her a few times on the curve, but she pulled out without laying it down and sped toward us. At the last moment, she grabbed the clutch and braked, sliding to a dusty stop a few feet away. Clad in the armor and vest we’d worn out of Kansas City and the helmet she’d put the two blue Mohawk strips on, she was better protected than she would be in most bike jackets, and the combat boots and greaves had protected her from road rash when she’d dumped the bike before.
“I think I’m ready,” she said as she took the helmet off. “I felt it trying to lay over on the curve, but I kept it under me.” Her smile was infectious, and I had to nod in agreement.