Blade replied promptly “Understood Captain.”
Crystal changed frequency, “Gunny come on up we will join you at the intersection. There are still a few stragglers eyes sharp.”
“Vill do. Good vork Captain.”, Percy responded.
“I do love it when a plans come together”, exclaimed Crystal as they surveyed the ghost town in front of them.
“So what is the plan from here Captain?”, Blade requested.
Crystal sighed, “Well Blade I am going to take the next five minutes and revel in the moment. I suggest you pat yourself on the back for a job well done.”
Blade's question was a lot more involved and both he and Crystal knew that. Up until now all their planning and weeks of training and work have been focused on the trap and luring the dead from town. The prize was in front of them. Topping it off no one has slept more than a catnap here and there in the past 30 some hours and breakfast this morning was energy shots and protein bars. None of them were in any shape to clear the houses and buildings.
Crystal finished considering the options, “OK Blade moments over. I'll take Bill, Jason, Percy and three volunteers and we'll clear the Lexington hotel up the way and we'll use it as our command center. It looks like they tried to set up something over at the mega store across the street. When we are done with the hotel we'll investigate that as a base for our salvage operation. You take the rest of the men and fan out across town and make sure the streets are clear. Just the street no one enters a building until they have eight hours of sleep and we have a plan.”
“I need three volunteers to assist the Captain. The rest of you are street sweepers..”, Blade called out.
Willis raised his hand, “I would like to tag along Cap if you'll have me.”
Crystal squinted at Willis, the familiar 'Cap', was reserved for a select few personnel, “Mr. Byrne can you vouch for him.”
“Willis is a good man you can trust him.”, Blade acknowledged.
A brother and sister pair Kelvin and Althea Jones were next to volunteer and the seven loaded into a truck and headed to the Lexington. Blade divided up the remaining militia across the city.
At the Lexington Hotel Crystal laid out a quick reconnaissance plan, “Bill you take Willis and the Jones' past the left wing and we'll take the right. Keep track of which rooms have unwanted quests. We'll see you around back.”
As Percy, Jason and Crystal headed out Percy anxious to be a soldier again took point. As they passed each room they tapped on the window to see if any dead responded. Halfway down a body lay motionless nearly hidden in the shrubbery.
“Percy Stop”, Jason commanded, “Captain I think we have a lurker here.”
The three of them moved around where they could get a better look at the body and Percy asked, “Vhat is a lurker?”
“Every once and a while we come across a Dee that for lack of a better explanation has gone dormant, but when they revive they are just as dangerous as any of the dead. More so if your to close when they come to.”, Crystal explained, “You two drag it out by the feet I'll stake it if it makes a move.”
Jason and Percy each grabbed a pant leg and pulled the body out from bushes. It was a man possibly in his early fifties, as suggested by the balding head and graying hair. Dangling from his mouth was the remnants of some small animal he had crawled into the bushes for. His upper body was in rough shape. He had taken numerous bites to his shoulders, upper arms and neck. His right ear had been completely chewed off and only the lobe remained of his left. No trauma to the skull was evident and yet it showed no signs of moving. Crystal prodded his head and body with her baton and still got no reaction.
“I say better safe than … hello, there you are”, Crystal remarked as the creatures eyes fluttered open and Crystal drove the spike of her baton through its eye socket.
“Okay lets get moving. Jason you take point.”, Crystal directed.
The hotel had two wings each coming off the central lobby in a V shape. Each wing had twelve rooms, six on each side of the wing. It didn't take long for each team to check the rooms and meet at the back of the hotel where there was a large courtyard and pool.
Crystal called out, “How many did you find Bill?”
“We had three hits. You?”, Bill replied.
“Six. Someone took the time to chain the doors shut. Let's head back to the front and grab the bolt cutters from the truck. Willis you take point, Kelvin, Althea watch the rear.”, Crystal directed.
Back at the front of the building Bill and Willis went to the truck for tools. There were only four dead that could be seen in the lobby. One was a rotund little women in a navy blue polyester suit. Her name tag identified her as Betty, Assistant Manager. There was a tall man that was having a lot of difficulty moving. His legs appeared to have taken several bites and his abdomen had been eaten out. With no stomach muscles it was impossible for him to stand upright. The last two were a pair of young girls. One about six or seven and the other probably a couple of years older. They had been dressed in pretty white summer dresses, white stockings and white shoes. Pink ribbons were in their hair. Their matching outfits were now stained black with dried blood and given the position of the wounds on the mans legs they were probably the ones that had attacked him.
Crystal laid the plan to clear the hotel, “Althea you good with this? You seem a bit distracted.”
Althea nodded, “I'm good Captain. It is just the little girls they give me the willies. I never had to deal with one that was a child before.”
In short order Bill and Willis had the chains off and the locks jimmied. The dead were pressing themselves against the doors so hard that Kelvin and Jason were having a hard time keeping them closed. Bill and Willis quickly shifted to help them out.
“Lets try to let them out one at a time. The little girl is in place try to open just enough to let her out.”, Crystal commanded.
As the girl began to squeeze through the separation of the two doors Crystal swung her baton and gaffed her like a fish. Althea quickly grabbed the child's arm and they slid her out and tossed her to the side. Walker Betty was the next to come out, but this time it took both Percy and Althea to get her free from the doorway. Kelvin was keeping the big guy distracted at one door while Jason and Bill let the other door open enough for Crystal to snag the other girl. Crystal ordered everyone back from the doors and the big guy stumbled out. Crystal easily tripped him and Percy drove his knife into its skull.
Bill and Willis pulled the truck up close to the doors and ran extension cords from the inverter in the truck and setup some flood lamps to illuminate the dark hallways. While they were busy with this Jason and the Jones' took their flashlight to check out the lobby and Crystal and Percy went to search the managers office. As they stepped into the office they found a body nearly stripped of its flesh.
“Something is not right here Gunny, we don't want to run into what ever did this.”, Crystal commented.
The body was little more than a skeleton. One leg was missing entirely and even the skull was largely stripped of flesh. The head was turned to the side and the lower jaw had fallen away. The only sign of animation was the foggy blue eye moving back and forth from Percy to Crystal.
Crystal knelt down and cautiously examined the body. Finding a remnant of its shirt there was a pin on it that identified him as the Manager Ronnie. Looking at the bones some of them had been crushed and others scraped clean. Tooth marks and perforations were all over the body. When done with her examination a quick jab of her baton ended Ronnie's days.
Finished with her examination Crystal stood up, “This reminds me of the time coyotes got at one our calves. Human teeth did not make these marks. Whatever did this was contained to this office. Lets make sure there is not a dog door or something where feral dogs are coming in from.”
The body was located behind the check in desk which had a thick glass partition that protected the night shift clerk. Attached to this was the managers office. With a signal from C
rystal, Percy flung open the door to the office which was illuminated by the exterior window. Two dog beds were in the corner of the room and the bodies of two desiccated dobermans were in the beds. The office had its own bathroom and the dogs had knocked the lid of the toilet to get at the water. That supply had run out a long time ago, but not until Sable and Sadie had consumed their owner.
Crystal let out a sigh of relief, “Whew I'm glad it was this simple. I feel a little silly imagining we had a pack of feral dogs to worry about.”
“Not silly at all Captain. This cost us nothing, ignoring a danger would cost lives.”, stated Percy.
Bill came in to let them know the lobby and hallways were clear. They divided into their teams and using the master keys found in the managers office they began to clear the rooms. For the most part the nine rooms that had dead were occupied by only a single person. The one exception was an older couple it looked as if the wife had taken a bite to her arm and when she passed she ripped out her husbands throat as he slept.
In another room there was a middle aged woman in a wedding dress. From the note she left behind she identified herself as Maria and she was to marry Hector Espinosa. He had been bit and died on their wedding day. They had reserved the room in the Lexington for their wedding night. When Hector died Maria checked into the room and swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills so she could be with Hector.
When all the rooms were clear Bill and his team set to work pulling out the bodies and setting up the hotel as their command center for the final stages of clearing the city. Crystal took Jason and Percy across the street to the mega store to use it as a base for their salvage operation. Apparently before the town fell someone had the thought to setup a care center there. Temporary fencing had been pulled in from Lexington construction. It was more meant to control traffic than keep out the dead, but it was something. A large tent was partially erected, but it was obvious that whatever they had planned was interrupted.
“Captain I see lights in the store”, Jason reported.
“Looks like they are headed to the back lets see if their getting in through the loading dock.”, Bill answered.
Rounding the corner they spied a loaded shopping cart at the freight door. As they cautiously approached the door two men exited with a second shopping cart. One Hispanic with a small revolver in his hand, the other was a lanky, freckle faced redhead pushing the cart.
Jason had his weapon drawn as well when he greeted the men, “Hold on there friends wheres the fire.”
“Hey back off this stuff ours, fair and square.”, countered the redheaded man.
The Hispanic man raised his pistol to punctuate the point causing Crystal to step forward and defuse the situation, “Stand down no need for any of that. We just want to talk.”
Jason holstered his pistol and after a moment the other man pocketed his pistol. The redhead decided to sneak his hand to the handle of his knife. Quick as a cobra Crystal swung her baton onto his wrist with an audible thud.
“I said, stand down”, Crystal barked.
The man winced and rubbed his wrist, “Alright Missy no need to get your panties in a bunch.”
“You will call her Captain Innes. The Captain just cleared this town of the dead, so you show some respect.”, Jason rankled.
The man gaped at the pretty blonde woman, “Well color me impressed. Captain I owe you an apology.”
The man put out his hand, “Lupton Pittman. My com-padre here is Juan. He hablas English real good, he just don't have much to say.”
Crystal shook his hand, “Lupton we don't want to take your supplies. We're just relieved to find survivors. That's a lot of stuff you got here. Are there more of you?”
“There were a lot of us, but were down to twenty five uh twenty six now. There is a little girl real sick we gots to get this medicine back to her.”, Lupton replied.
“I'll radio for a truck we'll take you and your stuff back to your group. Where are we headed?”, Crystal requested.
Lupton smiled, “That's right nice of you. We're over at the High School. There are still some deadheads about around there, Juan and I had to sneak out past them.”
“I'll send a team to clear the way.”, Crystal affirmed.
“Lup leave it to you. You go out for food and medicine and come back with an angel of mercy.”, joked the handsome man seated in a wheelchair.
Lup grinned widely, “Pastor she ain't just an angel she's the whole Got Damn, pardon my french, cavalry.”
“Crystal Innes. Pastor?”, said Crystal stepping forward and extending her hand.
The Pastor accepted her hand, “Jim Staddler. Yes Methodist Pastor, of course membership has dropped off a bit of late.”
“Jim if you don't mind me asking how did you all end up here?”, Crystal asked.
“No secret to it. This thing took off so fast everything the authorities tried to do was like trying to put out a wildfire by pissing on it. The hospital got overrun with bite victims real quick. They decided to use the High School to hold some of the victims and folks coming in from outlying areas. I came here to see if I could help. Lup and Juan handled maintenance here at the school. Sue Anne there was the school nurse. Other folks here are either volunteers or family members of bite victims. When we came here nobody knew that if you got bit you died and turned.”, Jim replied.
Jim paused and Crystal waited as the pain of a bad memory washed over him, “We were housed in the gym to begin with. What supplies we had were pretty haphazardly thrown together. Most definitely we didn't have weapons. About half the folks in the gym were bite victims and when they started to turn we … we lost a lot of good people.”
Lup picked up the story, “If it weren't for wheels here none of us would have gotten out. He lead a group of them dead things away so Juan and me could move those we could to the cafeteria. We locked a lot of folks that were bit in the gym. I still hear the screams every time I get to close to that part of the school.”
Jim made light of his actions by praising others, “We'd of been up the proverbial creek without Lup and Juan. Any supplies we had were left in the gym. We gorged ourselves on the perishable food in the cafeteria. Then tried to ration the canned stuff. We kept thinking the National Guard, FEMA, somebody was going to come. Every time we started to run low Lup would grab Juan and somehow sneak out and find what we need. They had to start traveling farther out and it was getting riskier. We didn't know it, but little Brittany Rose's mother, Joan, was on anti-depressants. She must have rationed what she had, but when they ran out she couldn't handle it anymore. She went into a closet and slit her wrists. Brittany found her mother, but not until she had turned. Brittany got bit on the arm and screamed for help. We didn't know you could kill the dead, we just tied up Joan and tossed her out.”
Once again Lup stepped in, “Folks were scared after what happened in the gym and wanted to toss little Brittany out too. Sue Anne and the Pastor wouldn't have none of that. Sue Anne cut off the girls arm. That was two days ago. We didn't have any antibiotics and Sue Anne said we needed them to keep infection from setting in. Then we were heard all this commotion outside, shooting, horns blowing and music blaring. All of a sudden there was a whole lot less dead about. You kinda know the rest.”
Crystal gave the men the condensed version of her story of the past months, “To sum it up Lexington is on the far edge of the area we're focusing on clearing. You folks are welcome to come back with us it would be safer.”
Jim answered, “I can't speak for everyone, but I would guess after the last couple of months, away from here would be preferred.”
“We have a process. Our Doc will check everyone out, our council will get to know you better. I'm not sure how we handle that with a group this size, but we'll figure it out. You talk to your people and I'll make the arrangements.”, Crystal replied.
Bill, Hazel and a handful of militia that were left at the high school to maintain security and prepare the Lexington survivors for the move. The rest of the mi
litia involved in the Lexington campaign had come together at the command center setup in the Lexington Hotel. Most of the militia that weren't on guard duty chose to pick a room to get some sleep. In a small meeting room off the lobby of the hotel, Crystal sat down with Percy, Amy, Blade and Lup and Juan.
“The streets are clean. We took out three to four hundred around town. Mostly, got themselves trapped here and there. There were some just to crippled up to move very fast. I'm not saying we won't run into a few, but the town is clear.”, Blade informed them.
“We know there are a couple of hundred trapped in the High School gym and probably a huge number in the hospital. The hospital is our big prize, figuring a way to clean it out is priority.”, Crystal stated.
Lup was forced to comment,“You folks is nuts. There are going to hundreds, hell maybe a thousand in that hospital. There ain't no power you'd be feelin around in the dark”
“Maybe not so dark”, Juan allowed.
Dead States | Year Zero | Nebraska Page 19