by Chris Lowry
There went the element of surprise if there were people inside.
Waldo drew back his boot and slammed it into the doorknob. It took two more kicks before the metal ball broke free and clattered to the ground.
Waldo jerked the door open and ducked his head around the edge.
No one shot at him. He slid into the door and disappeared in the darkness to one side.
Lt knew he was setting up a cover field of fire. Then Crocket slipped in with him and they waited.
Thirty seconds later, the roll up door trundled open with a rattle of rusty chains.
Lt still couldn’t see his men, which was a good thing. Meant they were staying on the side of the door, making minimal targets in the light as it flooded the inside of the warehouse.
Danish gave an all clear signal, but kept his weapon aimed inside.
Lt led Doc, Jake and Steph toward the new opening in the wall, Babe following them. They reached the entrance and scrambled inside.
“Textbook,” Lt called out to Waldo.
He stepped out of the shadow, a gun barrel placed against his head. The man behind him was dressed head to toe in black, tinted goggles under a riot helmet hiding his eyes.
“Drop your weapons,” the man said, his voice muffled under the baklava over his mouth.
They heard other weapons click in the darkness as several figures stepped out of the shadows. All dressed in black. All with MP-5’s aimed at them.
Lt held up his rifle in one hand, raised his other in surrender.
“Shit Doc,” he sighed. “You got me.”
CHAPTER
“I had nothing to do with this,” Doc mumbled.
“You have three seconds to tell me what you’re doing in my camp,” a voice called out of the darkness.
“Hands are up, John Wayne. Let’s not turn this into an OK Corral situation.”
“That was Wyatt Earp,” the voice shot back.
“I ain’t planning to write a book about it,” Lt said. “Just want you to know we’re friendlies. Nobody needs to shoot nothing.”
“You broke into here. Kicked in the door. I’ve got a right to stand my ground.”
“Nobody is saying you don’t,” said Lt, hands still up. “Fact is, if the boot was on the other foot, I’d damn sure be thinking about it just like you.”
“Then tell me why we shouldn’t?”
“You hear much from the outside?” Lt asked.
“We looped in.”
“Cause I’m Lt. William Bonney.”
“Billy the Kid?”
Lt grumbled and shifted his weight.
“I suspect you’ve heard of my boys and what we’ve been doing to fight the Licks.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe then you know that killing us ain’t in the best interest of humanity and such.”
“I’d be in my rights though,” the voice still hid beyond their sight.
“Of course you would,” said Lt. “Ain’t nobody denying that is a fact. You have a right to defend what’s yours. The thing is, I been out there making hell so you could keep what’s yours away from the Lick.”
There was no answer. Lt let his eyes adjust to the dim interior. The one man was still holding Waldo, but the others hadn’t moved.
He could see a wall fifteen feet further in. It ran the length of the building and all the way to the roof, turning the space by the roll up doors into a long narrow corridor.
His eyes shifted over the men in black, standing as still as statues. None of them shifted their weapons, no rattling of the gear that weighed down the vests they wore.
He studied Doc’s profile, as he stared at their captors too. His eyebrows were crinkled in confusion.
Lt’s eyes settled on Waldo. The gun was still gun pressed to his temple, but he shifted his body to one side, his hand hanging down near the groin of the man holding him. A quick punch or grab and squeeze could either get him free or spread his head across the swept concrete floor.
Swept concrete.
Lt’s eyes travelled as far as the light would let them. The inside of the building was swept and maintained, no dust or debris inside, a far cry from the derelict exterior.
“How many of you are there?” he called out.
The men still not moving.
He locked eyes with Waldo and mouthed a countdown. One. Two. Three.
Lt shifted right and lifted his rifle toward the man holding Waldo.
At the same time, Waldo punched back with his fist and dropped to the ground.
The man howled, and collapsed next to Waldo, cupping his groin and mewling.
Waldo scooped up his rifle and aimed it at the men in in black.
“Hold it!” Lt yelled and took two quick strides toward Waldo.
He kneeled down on the chest of the man on the ground, while Babe, Danish and the others fanned out, weapons trained on the darkness.
“How did you know?” Doc stammered.
“Know what?”
“That they wouldn’t shoot?”
“Show ‘em Babe.”
Babe stepped forward with his stick, drew back like a bat and swung into one of the helmets.
The head sailed off into the corridor, bouncing on the floor twice before spinning to stop next to the wall.
Steph gave a small scream.
“How did you know?” Jake asked.
“Get out of the light,” Lt told him. “There’s still one more out there.”
Jake ducked out of the light of the doorway and aimed into the darkness.
“They weren’t moving,” he explained. “Mannequins.”
“That was a big chance you took with our lives,” Jake muttered.
“Yeah, I did,” said Lt. “You still out there? Don’t shoot.”
“I haven’t yet! Don’t hurt my friend,” the voice sounded flustered. “Or I’ll kill all of you.”
“You got any bullets?” Lt snorted. “I figure if you had bullets one of us would be dead already.”
He ripped the gun off the fallen man who had grown still and silent under him as he caught his breath, and checked the magazine.
“Empty!” he shouted in triumph. “Danish, check those others.”
“I’ll shoot him!” the voice screamed.
“I bet you won’t,” said Lt.
“I don’t want to get shot, Lt.”
“He ain’t gonna shoot us Danish. He would have done it.”
Danish ducked and ran. He plowed into one of the men in black, wrestled the gun loose, and checked it.
“Empty.”
Lt helped the fallen man under him up, set him on his feet and held him straight.
“Now why don’t you come on out here and let’s figure this out,” said Lt.
They heard footsteps shuffling in the darkness. A short skinny man with a shining bald head slipped into the light from the open rolling door. He held an impotent gun in shaking hands as he stared at Lt.
“Don’t hurt my friend,” he licked his lips. “Please.”
Lt held the man up by the black tactical vest.
“Ain’t nobody else getting hurt,” his eyes were narrow slits. “Yet. Crockett, get us some light in here.”
“I can help with that,” said the short man. He reached the wall and pulled a cord.
Blinds that covered the skylights drew back as he yanked on the rope, bathing the corridor in milky sunshine.
“Son of a bitch,” said Lt as light washed over the rest of the room.
CHAPTER
The fifteen foot corridor stretched the length of the building. The areas around the roll up doors were surrounded by black clad mannequins set up on rolling dollies. Beyond them was a camp.
Tents lined the wall, shacks built from scrap and garbage, sheds with walls made of frayed and faded blue tarps. People huddled in front of and inside them.
The short bald man blinked his eyes fast in the sunlight.
“Please don’t hurt us,” he pleaded.
Lt studied
the camp.
People were coming out of their tents, drawn by the light, as if it was a signal.
The froze at the sight of the armed men still be the door.
“The door is open,” the man beside Lt said in a gravelly voice. “They’ll see us.”
The bald man made a tentative motion toward the door.
“Can we- just- please- down, please.”
Lt caught Crocket’s eye.
“Do it.”
Crocket reached up and rolled the door down with a resounding clang.
The shadowed twilight washed over the corridor. The people inside were silent, watching as Lt considered.
“It’s a pretty good set up you got here,” he turned to face the bald man. “What’s your name?”
“Burmage,” the man answered fast.
“Burmage?” said Doc and stepped closer to the man.
The big blinking eyes watered as they fluttered, staring at the man in front of him.
“Webber?”
Then the two men hugged, slapped each other on the back and broke away. The bald man sobbed as he held on to Doc’s upper arm with one hand.
“I take it you know each other?” said Waldo.
“We worked together,” said Doc in wonder. “I thought you left.”
“I did. But we came back after.”
“Are there more of you?” Doc indicated the hundred or so people milling about the corridor watching them.
“This is all we have.”
“What kind of work did you do together?” Lt squinted at the two men. “You a Pede to?”
“Pede?”
“Doctor,” said Doc. “He is. We were in the same area of research.”
“Two doctors after the world ends and neither one of them a medic,” Babe muttered.
“Yeah, that don’t seem right, does it,” Lt said back. “We can’t have two Doc’s running around. Things are going to get confusing.”
“Why aren’t you in the lab?” Doc asked Burmage. “There would be more room inside.”
“We can’t get in,” he said.
“How long have you been here?” Lt interrupted them.
Burmage shrugged.
“Time is a little different now,” he said with a rueful shake of his head.
“Who can see us out there?” Jake growled. “Who was watching?
Burmage glanced at the doors, as if whoever was out there had x-ray vision and could see through the metal.
“The aliens, of course,” he said. “And there is a rival camp not too far from here.”
“Rivals?” Lt scoffed. “We’re all in this together.”
Burmage gave him a sad look, as if staring at a man who no longer understood the kind of world they were living in.
“If only that were true,” he said.
Lt ignored him. He figured he knew a lot more about what was going on outside than some nut who locked himself in a closet for the past year. At least that’s how long he thought, based on the set up of the camp inside.
“Why are they so quiet?” Danish asked.
Lt and Babe looked at him, but he was watching the people he could see in the corridor.
Pools of weak light drifted through the skylights and created pockets of brighter space punctuated by strips of darkness. Thin and emaciated faces drifted in and out of the half light, sunken eyes framed by stringy hair watched them in fear.
“They don’t know who you are,” said Burmage. “We don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?” Waldo whispered.
“What you want.”
“Tell him, Doc.”
“I’ll show him,” Doc said and started in the direction opposite the door.
Burmage startled with a squeak and fell in step with him. The rest of the squad followed, Babe walking backwards so he could keep an eye on the crowd.
They didn’t go far.
Doc led them to a solid brown metal door set into the wall, a big black box next to it. It was the only opening in the interior wall.
He tried the knob.
“We tried that,” said Burmage.
Webber nodded and tapped a code into the metal keypad next to the door.
Nothing happened.
“We tried that too.”
Waldo pushed the Doc aside and rammed his shoulder in the door.
Nothing.
He pulled back his boot and slammed it against the knob. It didn’t move. Waldo danced around, cursing and holding the bottom of his bruised foot.
“We tried everything,” said Burmage.
Steph pushed through the tiny knot of soldiers hovering in front of the door and ran her hands along the edge of the wall around it.
She pulled the lock blade from her pocket and clicked it open with a snap. Step set the point against the wall two inches from the door and used her palm to slam the blade through the drywall.
She carved down with a bit of effort, using her body weight to saw the blade through the sheetrock.
Powdered dust drifted to the floor as the men stared open mounted at what she was doing.
She reached the bottom, and moved three feet over to repeat the process. Lt slid his knife out of the sheath and held the blade out to Crockett.
The soldier joined Steph and sawed a line along the top, connected the two lines, then pried it out as she stepped back.
A doorway sized section of the interior wall fell away, showing pink fiberglass insulation, and another plywood wall beyond.
They ripped out the plywood, then Steph and Crockett sawed an opening into the inside of the wall.
“My Dad was in construction,” she explained. “Before.”
Lt patted her on the shoulder with the tips of his fingers.
“Good work.”
Steph beamed.
“Danish, get us some lights up in here. See if they have fire to make torches or something.”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Doc.
“All the systems are offline,” Burmage told him.
“Not these.”
Doc stepped through the hole in the wall and entered the darkness. They heard him fumble around for a few moments, grumbling. Then a soft click, and row after row of LED lights flickered on inside the corridor and the room behind the wall.
Gasps and cheers sounded from the assembled people around the tents, sounds of wonder and joy, almost out of place against such a medieval backdrop.
“Son of a bitch,” said Lt.
Doc stuck his head around the corner with a big grin.
“Let there be-”
“Babe,” Lt nodded him to check it out.
Babe used the tip of his stick to push Doc back away from the edge and leaned in, peeking first.
He stepped through and let out a whistle.
Lt hunched down to one knee to peer through the opening.
An open lab space stretched out in front of them, metal tables, workbenches, clear plastic boards with the remnants of markings on them. Debris littered the workbenches, soldering irons, tools, pieces of metal and chipboards.
“The lights still work because of our solar system,” said Doc as he glanced up at them. “They’re dim.”
“Brightest light I’ve seen in a long time Doc,” Lt told him.
Burmage wept, leaning against the door.
“Why’s he crying?” Waldo asked. “Lights are a good thing.”
“Inches,” Burmage sobbed. “We have suffered so long and this was inches away.”
“We can get people on the roof to clean the panels embedded up there,” said Doc. “We’ll get more power.”
Lt moved through the opening, followed Crockett.
“Waldo, Danish, hold this line,” he ordered.
The two soldier stood on either side of the door to act guard and keep the rest out.
“We want to see too,” Jake argued. “You wouldn’t be in there if it wasn’t for her.”