“I can’t feel my wrists man. Can you loosen up these cuffs some?” Randy asked one of the guards who’d seemed the most approachable. He spun around and shoved his bound wrists towards the man
“How about you just sit down and hope your hands don’t rot off?” The guard replied before pushing him hard into the hallway wall face first. Randy felt the cartilage in his nose go crunch. He took the hint and settled down to sit with his back against the wall while blood flowed freely out of his nostrils onto the front of his shirt.
Zoey ran over to him and started patting his nose with her shirt trying to stop the blood flow. She was crying and asking him if he was ok. Doreen started standing up to come over as well. One of the soldiers pushed Doreen right back down on the ground and got in her face telling her to stay down. When that soldier got finished with Doreen he walked over and grabbed Zoey by the shoulder. The pissed off looking soldier shoved her down on the ground beside Doreen. He told them both to sit there and shut up or he’d hurt their dad a lot worse.
“Everybody just needs to calm down.” Randy said. He gave Kelly a hard look. She had that look in her eye like she was ready to try knocking someone off a truck again. Probably the guard who’d gotten in Doreen’s face and dared to toss Zoey around like she was nothing. If Randy could get his hands loose, he’d happily join her in beating the living crap out of that guy. However, in their current situation they really needed to start using their brains more than their hearts. Realizing he’d actually managed to get everyone’s attention he continued.
“You guys have a job to do and we respect that. We’re not going to be a problem. Just tell us what you need us to do.” Randy said. He tried to say it as sincerely as possible but unless these guys were complete idiots, they’d read between the lines really quickly. He doubted he could earn their trust at this point but if he could just set them at ease a little bit one of them may slip up enough for them to make a move. What said move may be was completely lost on him. Unless Zoey was able to grab a pistol and shoot four grown men dead before any of them could pull a weapon. As far as Randy knew all Zoey knew about pistols was that she wasn’t allowed to touch them.
“Hey babe.” Kelly said.
“Yeah.” Randy answered.
“When we get out of this mess the first thing that we’re doing is teaching all the littles how to handle a gun.”
“Works for me.” He whispered back. God, he loved her. Randy and the family sat in the hallway waiting to see what would happen next. It was dark outside and inside. One of the men had dropped a couple of red glow sticks on the floor so they could watch the prisoners and make sure none of them tried anything. What exactly they were supposed to try was beyond Randy. He thought about asking them if they knew anything they should be trying. So far, his best effort had amounted to poking some dude in the belly with his head while getting beaten up. If they wanted to keep an eye on someone it should probably be Kelly. She was the one who’d managed to kill a guy while handcuffed in the back of a pickup.
“Listen up!” The current soldier in charge said in a loud whisper. He waited to make sure everyone was quiet. Even though everyone had already been quiet when he started talking.
“Here’s the deal. We’re moving out to a tower across the street. It’s two blocks and a large parking lot away. In normal times we’d all stroll over and be there in like five minutes. This is how we’re going to do it. I’m going to let Gunny know that we’re on the way and I’m going to take an adult and one of the little kids with me. We’re going to take off your handcuffs so you can carry the little kid. When we get to the tower you set down the little kid and we put the handcuffs back on you. Once we make it, we’ll let you know over the radio to send the next group. We’ll keep it up until we’re all at the tower. Any questions?”
“Why can’t we all go at once?” Randy asked even though he knew the answer already.
“Large groups of people moving are more likely to attract Zombies than small groups. Since you’re still alive I’m going to assume you already knew that though. Any real questions?”
“Is there a bathroom in the tower?” Kelly asked. The guard told her he wasn’t sure which led to them using the facilities in the restaurant one final time. Once that was done, they were paired up by the soldiers and told to get ready. The soldier with the radio walked down the hall and had a quick conversation with Gonzalez to let him know they were on the way. He came back in with his gun pointed at Randy and had one of the other soldiers take off one side of Randy’s cuffs.
“Grab the girl and let’s go.” The soldier ordered indicating Randy should pick up Zoey. “Remember I will shoot you in the back if you screw around. We’re allowed to deliver you dead or alive.”
With those cheerful words in mind Randy hefted Zoey into his arms and they went out the side door of the restaurant. The soldier had been pretty vague about which way to go once they got outside the building. It occurred to Randy as he was getting poked in the back by the barrel of a gun to direct him which way to walk that by separating them into groups it also kept any individual group from trying to escape while making the move to the tower. Randy would have to somehow incapacitate the soldier guarding him and then manage to get himself and Zoey to safety knowing his wife and the rest of his kids were screwed. If he could’ve figured out a way to do it, he would’ve gone for it. He could put Zoey somewhere safe then try and get back to free the others.
He was considering if he should just start screaming his head off and try to attract a bunch of Zombies when they made it to the parking lot bordering the control tower. Randy almost tripped before noticing they were walking over a smashed section of chain link fence that used to surround the parking lot. He’d never known Kissimmee even had an airport. He assumed this was one of the small regional or private ones that were dotted around the area.
Before he knew it, they were in front of the door to the tower. The soldier who’d marched them over rapped gently on the door with his bare knuckles. It was opened from the inside and Gonzalez ushered them inside. Once inside Gonzalez cuffed Randy back up and then sent the soldier with them to stand watch upstairs where the radio was in case command called. Gonzalez had Randy and Zoey sit down in the corner of the room at the base of the tower to wait for the others.
“You know you’ve got some dead bodies in the corner over there.” Randy pointed out to Gonzalez.
“You want to join the pile?” Gonzalez asked him.
“No, I’m good. Just figured I could help you move them or maybe we could sit somewhere not facing the pile of dead bodies.”
“Yeah. Why don’t you go ahead and shut up or I’ll have you gagged so I don’t have to listen to you.” Gonzalez said without a trace of humor or compassion in his voice. Randy nodded and kept his mouth shut. He didn’t doubt for a second that Gonzalez would happily carry out his threat.
A few minutes later there was another soft rap at the door. Gonzalez opened it up and Kelly came in holding Doreen. Gonzalez repeated the process of having her cuffed and then sitting down in the corner with Doreen. Randy smiled at her but kept his mouth shut.
“You know there’s a pile of dead bodies over by the stairs?” Kelly asked Gonzalez a few seconds later.
“Mano. Shut your puta up or I’m going to knock both of you around some. Callate. Damn!” Gonzalez stood up and took a few steps towards them before he seemed to change his mind and sat back down again.
“Sorry.” Kelly said. She didn’t look sorry though.
“Hey. You know why you and your husband were in the first two groups to come across?” Gonzalez asked looking at them both to see if either had an answer. “See. I figured the first two groups had the best chance of making it over here alive. The demonio they may not notice two or three small groups but by the fourth if there’s any of those man eaters around they’ll notice. My specific orders are to get you and your wife up to Atlanta. The kids they were a little vaguer about. So why don’t you just sit there nice and q
uiet and see if all your kids make it or not. If you can’t keep your mouths shut, we’ll go with the gag idea. Got it?”
Kelly nodded miserably. The fight had been taken out of her now that she knew the main reason her and Randy had been sent across first. She stared at the door willing there to be a knock. As if produced by the strength of her willpower alone there was a gentle rapping on the door and Caitlyn walked in escorted by another soldier. Caitlyn was holding Ali’s hand. At a warning glance from her mom and dad she refrained from pointing out the messy pile of corpses they were being forced to stare at.
A final rap on the door and Kelly was able to breathe again. Randy caught himself trying to stand up to go welcome Myriah and her guard into the tower. He assumed that would be another action Gonzalez would disapprove of. He didn’t have to sit and stare at dead bodies for very long though. Gonzalez had them all walk up the stairs. At the top he locked them in the breakroom with two of the soldiers. They did get to remove the cuffs from their wrists. One of the soldiers produced a bag of tie wraps and used them to tie Randy’s, Caitlyn’s, Myriah’s and Kelly’s feet together though.
“Ok. That should keep your hands from falling off. Sit down and keep your mouths shut. We’re waiting for your ride to show up. Once it does, we’ll get you loaded up, and you’ll no longer be my problem. Open your mouths and my men here are now under orders to start with the pistol whipping. Now lay down and get some sleep.”
Randy looked at Kelly and sighed. They pushed the two couches together then crowded into the makeshift bed to try and get some rest. Kelly and Randy shut their eyes, but they were both busy trying to figure out a way out of this mess. A way that didn’t end up with them dead and their kids enslaved. What they needed was some sort of miracle at this point. Their attempts to come up with a plan quickly giving way to the prayers of those who are starting to lose all hope. The desperate promises to god if only he’d help them out.
Looking up Randy saw the two guards were sitting up alertly on the other side of the room. The guards held their weapons ready keeping a watchful eye over them prisoners. That observation sent him back into the prayer mode of planning.
Chapter 10: Sentinels
“Wake up.” Kyler rolled away from the prodding finger and whispered order. He’d been in the middle of a dream where his mom had actually survived the Zombie bite. In the dream she’d taken him on a boat to a cabin on a small tropical island. The island was surrounded by crystal blue water. The tranquility of the dream was shattered by the prodding he was getting in the real world. Dazed and saddened to be dragged back to reality he swam up through the murky depths of his unconscious to see what was going on.
Rodriguez was kneeling beside his cot poking him with his finger while looking over towards the window in the room that faced down on the street. He poked at Kyler again to wake him up and narrowly missed poking out his eye.
“What the hell man? What’s going on?” Kyler asked. He was a little freaked out by the look on Rodriguez’s face. The guy was typically pretty unflappable, so it was disconcerting to see him acting like a kid who’d just snuck out of his room to watch Chucky and then decided they needed to sleep with mom and dad afterwards. Rodriguez put his finger to his lips in the universal gesture for telling someone to shut the hell up and pointed at the window. Kyler got up to walk over and look out.
“Sit down. There’s like three Zombies out there but they’re acting weird man.” Rodriguez whispered.
“They’re Zombies dude. They are weird. What are you talking about? Did you mix your medication with booze again?” Less than three minutes prior to this odd conversation Kyler had been swimming in a lagoon under the watchful eye of his mom. Deciding he wasn’t going to get anything intelligible from Rodriguez he pushed him out of the way and walked over to peek out the window.
At the window he angled himself so he could see out the crack in the curtains without being seen from below. In the street he saw the three Zombies Rodriguez had been talking about almost immediately. It wasn’t so much that the Zombies were acting super weird as that they were acting kind of normal. They were standing in a small group staring up at the window he was looking out of. They didn’t move or screech or bounce around or do any of the things he’d have expected them to do. They weren’t doing the sniffing thing or any of that. They were just standing there staring. Kyler carefully backed away from the window and slunk back over to Rodriguez.
“Yeah that’s messed up.” He told him.
They were sitting there at a loss as to what to do next when the door to their room slowly opened and the fire station NCO duck walked his way in. Kyler nodded at him then shot a questioning look at the window. The NCO duck walked right on over to the window and carefully looked out before walking back over to them. The look on his face matched the confused, frightened expressions on Kyler and Rodríguez’s faces.
“Yeah there’s another five doing the same crap in the back. Just standing there and staring. They’ve been there for like an hour. I came up here to check the front and make sure you two were keeping your heads down.”
“Heads down and keeping quiet. We good in here? Can they can get in? You want us all to go to a central space and go into lock down or what?” Kyler fired off the questions in a whisper. He was thinking fast about what they needed to do. One thing they couldn’t afford to do was make a bunch of noise then have to scrub the mission to fly in the prisoners. It didn’t sound like that would be well received by command. Kyler shrugged that concern off since he wasn’t really on-board with rushing the family of supposed war criminals along to the Senator to be massacred anyway.
“I’m going with leaving a lookout here and everyone else gathering in the rec room to nap until these things get bored and leave.” What the petty officer in charge of the fire station outpost was leaving out was what they’d do if the things didn’t leave.
“Ok. We’ve got a plane coming in tomorrow morning we have to run a meet and greet for.” Rodriguez chimed in. He’d been quiet up to this point. Probably busy trying to process this new and highly disturbing Zombie behavior.
“Who stays here and guards and who hangs out in the rec room?” Kyler asked. He kind of already knew the answer. With an apologetic grin the petty officer handed him a walkie.
“Two clicks every fifteen minutes if all is good starting at five minutes past the hour. Three clicks if there’s something you want me to come put my eyes on. Five clicks if we all need to go to battle stations. No need to wait the full fifteen minutes if we need to go to battle stations.”
“Thanks. I’ll try not to wait on pressing the button if everything goes to hell. When do I get relieved?” Kyler asked.
“We’ll send someone up in four hours. We’re going to stand the overnight watches so just need you to stay alert during the day. That way you’re fresh for the plane rendezvous in the morning.”
“What about Krantz?” Rodriguez asked. “He could come wandering back at any time. Pretty sure he doesn’t want to walk into those Zombies at night.”
“Yeah. Come with me. We’ll get you settled in the rec room then we can try hitting him on the radio. We’ll keep trying until we get him. He’ll have it off if he’s near where he could get heard by anything, but he may power back up on the way back. He told us to try him on the hour if we needed to let him know anything about the incoming plane or relay any orders or anything. He may be out of range soon so let’s hurry.”
Once Rodriguez and the petty officer had left the room Kyler worked on getting the cot into a position where he could easily look out the window without making himself visible. He was also racking his brain trying to remember the name of the guy in charge of the outpost. He’d told them when they first met, and Kyler just hadn’t paid very close attention. He’d always sucked at names and this time hadn’t been any different. Now he was worried if he did have to communicate verbally over the radio it’d get awkward.
Looking out the window Kyler decided he had worse things
to worry about than the possibility of an awkward radio conversation. There were now four Zombies standing out on the street and they looked like they’d moved forward about five feet. They were standing in a rough line staring at the station. He felt like they were staring through the window straight at him. He knew they shouldn’t be able to see him from where they were standing. He just couldn’t shake that creepy feeling like was being watched.
He continued to watch. For the first hour nothing happened. The Zombies continued to just stand there. Kyler began to become less concerned as he wondered if maybe this was just the final stages of the Zombies brains rotting thanks to the crazy high fever from the virus. What they were assuming was staring may just be the first symptoms of some sort of catatonic seizure. In an effort to de-creepify the situation Kyler made up names for the four Zombies that were currently occupying his time.
He named the old man missing an eye pirate Pete. The two disheveled kids who looked kind of similar he decided were twins named Heckle and Jekyll. The woman in gore covered yoga pants and a dirty sports bra he christened Susan Sommers. He was happy his obsession with Three’s Company reruns on Nick at Night was finally paying off. It turned out naming them didn’t do anything to make the Zombies any less creepy. The situation got exponentially creepier when for no apparent reason all of the Zombies took five more steps towards the station then simultaneously cocked their heads to the left as if they were all listening for some sort of signal.
Zombies! (Book 5): Greater Love Hath No Man Page 7