Dead Air (Book One of The Dead Series)

by Schafer, Jon

  Although he still pulled a time slot every other day on the air, he enjoyed his time away and was happy to pursue other interests. The first days after locking down the building had been hectic, to say the least, but it had been something new and different for him. And while he wouldn't admit it to anyone, he did admit to himself that trying to survive the dead coming back to life was the most fun he'd had in years with his pants on.

  And off, thinking about that day with Susan.

  All his life, Tick-Tock had yearned for adventure, something to take him away from the day-to-day boredom of being an average guy, doing an average job. He’d joined the Marines years ago to break out of the humdrum nine to five life he found himself being pulled into and to see if he could find something new and stimulating in the physical and mental aspects of being a Marine. At first it had fulfilled him, with the travel and adventure, but even that turned boring as it evolved into a regular cycle of training.

  Tick-Tock had volunteered to go to the First Gulf War to try and break this cycle but ended up serving his entire tour in Saudi Arabia and not seeing one minute of action. When he came back home and wore his dress uniform with all its badges and awards, he was almost embarrassed by the Been There ribbon that signified he had been in the FGW.

  He had been seriously contemplating moving to Alaska in search of excitement, but then he heard of the first outbreak of the HWNW virus in Little Rock. Even though the media played the story down, he had a feeling that this was it, a life-changing event that would test his survival skills. He had been right.

  The action energized him and made him feel as if he finally had a purpose in life. He was all set to barricade himself inside his house in Largo when Steve proposed that he throw in with him. It took Tick-Tock less than half a second to weigh the options and decide that it would be an even greater challenge to hold an entire building as opposed to his own little house.

  Although the situation in the bank building had now stabilized, Tick-Tock had not grown bored yet. He knew that eventually he would move on and was using the down time to consider his options when he went forth to explore the new world. He had the MRAP to use for transportation if he decided to take it but didn't feel right leaving all the people in the bank building with only whatever cars and trucks they could scrounge up to use when they had to go out in search of food and diesel fuel. They needed the heavy armored car to get around in more than he did, and besides, with all the abandoned military equipment lying around out there waiting to be picked up, the MRAP paled in comparison to what he knew he could find.

  Putting out his cigarette, Tick-Tock picked up the book he had been reading on sailing and turned to the chapter on tacking into the wind.

  Besides, he had another form of transportation in mind.

  ***

  Brain turned the .45 caliber pistol over in his hands before pulling the slide back and letting it slam forward. Pointing the Colt toward the corner of his office, he squeezed the trigger like Heather had taught him to and heard the sharp click as the firing pin shot home. Smiling at the sound, he couldn't believe his luck at coming into possession of the weapon. He knew it wasn't good to dry fire his pistol but couldn’t resist doing it this once. Until that morning, he had been relegated to having to borrow a rifle or a pistol from one of the others whenever he needed one, but that had come to an end due to his new best friend, Tick-Tock.

  That morning, Brain had gone down to the MRAP to cover Tick-Tock as he ran up the engine and cleaned the .50 caliber machine gun. Standing atop the walkway to keep a lookout for any of the dead that ventured too close, Brain watched with interest as Tick-Tock field stripped the weapon and reassembled the heavy machine gun.

  Brain could grasp how most anything mechanical or electrical worked, so when Tick-Tock was finished, he stated proudly, "I could do that."

  To which Tick-Tock instantly replied, "Then switch places and show me."

  Brain only fumbled once when setting the barrel in place but Tick-Tock talked him through it. When the weapon was reassembled, Tick-Tock showed Brain how to load it and then let him fire it. Swinging the machine gun around in the gunner’s hatch to point back over the rear of the MRAP, Brain could see two of the walking dead heading toward them from the open air dining area where a large crowd of the dead usually gathered. Drawing a bead on the two Z’s, he squeezed the firing lever and was startled by the jarring of the weapon against his hands.

  "Too high," Tick-Tock called out to him. "Adjust your aim and try again. Just use Kentucky windage for now and I'll show you how to adjust the traverse another time."

  Re-aiming, Brain squeezed the lever again. This time, he saw the heavy bullets smash into the two dead bodies shambling towards them. Pieces flew off both targets. To Brain's amazement, one of the zombies was literally cut in half.

  His ears ringing from the noise of the .50, Brain could barely hear Tick-Tock coaching him, "Good shot, but always keep in mind what's beyond your target. That thing will blow right through a concrete block wall."

  Brain looked past the motionless dead bodies and could see where his burst had travelled across the parking lot behind the bank building and smashed into an office building. This .50 is no joke, he thought as he looked at the destruction he had wrought. This is too cool.

  Happily, he called out, "What next?"

  "You fired the weapon," Tick-Tock said with a laugh. "Now you get to clean it."

  After Brain had finished, he closed up the MRAP and joined his mentor on the walkway. Tick-Tock looked at him speculatively and said, "You know Brain, I always used to think that you were kind of a shit bird, but you're all right." Holding out a Colt .45 he added, "Here, I found this under one of the seats the other day. I guess we missed it when we went through the hog the first time. Take care of it and keep your eyes open when you fire it."

  Brain took the pistol reverently and stood there staring at it. For most of his adult life he had found his heroes in comic books and fantasy movies, never really learning how to relate to real people. Since being included in the lock down of the bank building though, he’d felt a change come over him. He saw in the people around him some of the qualities that he most admired in his fictitious super heroes and discovered that he wanted to be just like them. He realized that he no longer had to put on the air of false superiority to mask his own low self-esteem, all he had to do was try to be the best person he could be and work with the others instead of finding ways to hinder them.

  Giving Tick-Tock a sincere thank you, Brain checked the safety as he had been taught, and then slid the pistol into his waistband. For a second, he fumbled with it as it tried to drop through down his pants leg. Rescuing the weapon, he tightened his belt two notches and slid it home.

  Tick-Tock noted this and asked, "Losing a little weight?"

  "I've been dieting since this thing started," Brain confessed. "But this is the first I've seen that it's worked."

  "You oughta find yourself a scale," Tick-Tock suggested. "There's got to be one in one of the offices somewhere in this building. Just be careful when you go poking around."

  "I will," Brain assured him. Patting the pistol, he added confidently, "And if I run into anything, now I can handle it."

  Tick-Tock smiled and slapped the heavy man on the shoulder. "If you're not too serious about your diet, I'll buy you breakfast."

  Brain accepted and followed his new best friend into the building, walking with a bounce in his step that had never been there before.

  ***

  Steve looked over the parapet wall that surrounded the roof and down to the street below. After studying the scene, he raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes and checked out different parts of the city at one-block intervals away from the building.

  He estimated that the area directly around the bank building contained about two thousand zombies, while just two blocks away the streets were deserted. The only spot in their immediate vicinity that the dead seemed to avoid was the area between the building and
the parking ramp where the MRAP was parked. Steve found it interesting and had to assume that while the dead were dead, they weren't stupid. They seemed to know to keep away from the armored car, as Tick-Tock usually fired a burst at them with the .50 caliber whenever he went down to run up the hog's engine. That they didn't swarm the vehicle when Tick-Tock wasn't around, proved they couldn’t distinguish that it was a human doing this. In Steve's mind, it would be great if they could train the dead to stay away from any person carrying a weapon, but it didn't look like that was going to happen. He decided that the dead had learned to stay away from the thing that destroyed them, but still saw humans as food. They weren't avoiding Tick-Tock so much as they were avoiding the MRAP.

  Steve decided that, in a way this would help when they had to make their first run into the Dead Zone, as the city around them was now being called. Steve had talked with Tick-Tock, and after some research using maps and the Yellow Pages, they decided that their first priority would be to hit a fuel storage depot they located in Largo. Although the underground tank supplying the station was still a quarter full, he would feel better knowing that he had a couple of tanker trucks full of diesel fuel parked nearby ready to replenish their supply. Since the zombies gave the MRAP a wide berth, it would make it easier when he, Tick-Tock and Meat left on the first expedition into the city.

  Meat was included in the plan because he had worked as a long haul trucker years before and could handle one of the big rigs needed to haul the tankers. Heather had wanted to go, but it was decided that she should stay behind in case the mission failed. Steve wanted someone who could keep things going in the building in case he and Tick-Tock didn't make it back.

  Seeing how low the sun had dropped in the sky, Steve checked his watch and sighed. It never seemed like he had enough hours in the day to accomplish everything he wanted to get done. Although things were moving along at a steady pace, and there hadn’t been any major emergencies in the past few weeks, there were still dozens of things that needed to be taken care of on a daily basis to keep their small community operating. Everyone had assigned duties and usually followed through with them, but Steve felt responsible for everything that went on in the building since it was he that initiated its takeover.

  Before the dead walked the Earth to feed on the living, he had been active in his chosen career. Despite the world grinding to a halt, it seemed like he was just as busy now, if not more. One tangible difference was in the results of his activities. Before, if he made a mistake he could be fired, now he might end up dead or undead. Or even worse, he could cause one of his fellow survivors to end up that way. Every day he wondered if he was up to the new challenges that faced him.

  Shaking off his doubts, he turned his thoughts to the one good thing to come out of all of this.

  Heather.

  Steve had never been more content with another person in his entire life. If it all fell apart tomorrow, he knew he would die a happy man. He and Heather seemed to be tuned into each other’s thoughts and actions as if they had been together for decades, instead of just a few months. For the first time in any relationship, when Steve exchanged an ‘I love you’, he really meant it and knew that she did too. He found that Heather had an insight into things, and he trusted her opinion completely on matters dealing with their survival. And even his personal life.

  Steve remembered earlier in the week when Heather had found him sitting in the game room with all the lights turned off. She seemed to know exactly what was troubling him.

  "It's Ginny, isn't it?" She asked, as she leaned against the pool table.

  Feeling unfaithful for thinking about Ginny while he was with her, he didn't answer.

  "Men are so dumb," Heather stated with a slightly amused voice.

  "What do you mean?'' Steve asked.

  "Well, I don't know how much weight you put in your new girlfriend talking about your old girlfriend, but here goes nothing," Heather said. "If Ginny's alive, and I certainly hope she is, you can bet that wherever she's hunkered down she's already hooked up with whoever the leader of the group is. She's one of those women who latches onto the big man and rides it until the wheels fall off. I only met her once, but in that short period of time I knew she was attracted to Steve Wendell the station manager, not Steve Wendell the man. You're not old enough to be called a sugar daddy, but add twenty years to your age and that's what you were."

  Heather paused to let Steve deny it, and when he said nothing, she continued, "You talked about her enough before we got together that I know a lot of the things that you did for her. Bailed her out of financial jams, and even bailed her out of jail."

  Steve looked up in surprise that Heather knew about his putting up Ginny's bond.

  "My training sergeant was the arresting officer," she explained. "The only reason I even found out about it was because he was telling some of the other guys about this real drunk chick that he stopped on suspicion of DUI. They were laughing about what she said when the sergeant was giving her a field sobriety test. He commented that Ginny was so drunk she could barely stand up. She told him that you don’t have to stand to drive a car. When Sarge mentioned her name, I recognized it. This was after you had brought her to Seminole Lanes."

  "Guilty as charged," Steve replied. "Both her and me."

  "You got used, Steve," Heather pointed out. "It's that simple. You did your best to try and save her, but she made it impossible by going to Tampa that night. Now, you can sit here and mope around or you can come out into the living room and we'll invite Jonny and Marcia up for drinks and a movie. It's your choice."

  Heather left, and after reflecting on the reality of his relationship with Ginny for a short time, Steve got up and turned on the lights. He couldn't feel anger at Ginny for being who and what she was, but he was definitely done feeling self-pity toward himself for not being able to save her.

  The wind kicked up, sending a chill breeze across the roof. Steve checked his watch again, and saw that he should get moving. It was Heather's turn to cook tonight and he didn't want to be late. Taking one last look at the hordes of flesh eating zombies in the street below, he tried to reassure himself that, if they played it safe, the trip to get fuel should be no problem. Once they were a block or two away from the building it should be clear sailing. As long as everyone in the building kept their cool and didn't do anything crazy, they should be able to hold out for a long, long time.

  ***

  Marcia knocked on the door while carefully balancing the tray she carried in her other hand.

  "Mister Harrison? It's me, Marcia. I brought you something to eat." She waited for a reply, and when none came, she called out, "I'll just leave it out here and you can get it when you're ready."

  Setting down the tray, Marcia turned and walked away, hoping that Mister Harrison was all right. She’d always believed that you judged a society by how it treated its elderly and infirm, and she refused to find herself lacking in compassion for someone who was mentally challenged.

  Marcia had been bringing Harrison a meal a day since running into him as he came out of the bathroom over a week ago. She had noticed how haggard he was looking, and when she tried to introduce herself and speak to him, he had turned and almost ran down the hall before entering his office and slamming the door behind him.

  Seeing how thin and pale he was, Marcia had gone down to the deli and fixed some sandwiches for him. When she knocked on his office door to give them to him though, he had babbled incoherently about her not getting any of his gold and that he was going to call the police if she kept bothering him. Sternly, as if speaking to a child, Marcia told him she was leaving the food for him and that he better eat it. In a gentler voice, she then explained that he needed to stay healthy. She left after promising him she would bring him something to eat every day.

  Although Harrison never spoke to Marcia, she always found the food gone when she went to retrieve the tray. The previous day, she had even found a sticky note pasted to Harrison’s door w
ith the words 'Thank you' written on it.

  Today she received no note, and as usual no conversation, but she vowed that this wouldn't deter her. Little steps, she told herself. Just keep making progress and soon Harrison might become part of their little community.

  Brian Harrison listened intently at the door to make sure that the woman had left. Days ago, when she had spotted him coming out of the bathroom, he’d cursed himself for not being able to hold his urine until later that night when the hallways of the building would be deserted. He had spent the last month watching the comings and goings at the far end of the hall where the radio station was located, and he knew that the best time to emerge and work on his project or take food from the deli downstairs was between midnight and four AM. The reason for his unscheduled bathroom break had been the six-pack of beer he drank that morning and had regretted all day; when the urge to urinate made him break cover.

  Opening the door to his office a crack, Harrison peeked out to make sure that no one was waiting in the hallway in ambush, ready to bust in and rob him of what was secreted in his mind. Satisfied that it was safe, he slid the tray in and locked the door behind him.

  Harrison sat with his back against the door for added security, since the people running around the building still had keys and ate his sandwiches while calculating how much longer it would take him to break into the bank. He had slowly but surely been cutting through the lower pane of clear polycarbonate that made up the 'glass' in the door that led from the Galleria into the bank. His hands ached from scratching a groove in the hardened plastic with a sharpened screwdriver, making sure that his cut was along the frame of the door so that no one could see it. He had to be careful that the others in the building didn’t find out what he was doing, or they would surely rob him of his knowledge and then kill him so that they could keep the treasure for themselves.