“To Hell with it,” Ron said. “I’m just going to walk out there and talk to them. Y’all come with me,” he told his little family. He was taking a certain chance, he knew, but these men, despite their guns and personal armor, did not give off any of the vibes that had warned him away from other men over the months since the dead had come to replace the living.
He called out to the pair as he and the others came out of the shadows. One of the men tapped the other on the shoulder and they stood, stiffening just a little, but then relaxed again as they saw Ron and the others as a family unit. Drawing close, Ron could make out the two and saw that it was not two men, but rather two women very well dressed against possible attack by the dead. Like everyone these days, they wore clothing in layers to protect against possible bite wounds. Their bodies bristled with weaponry; firearms and bludgeons and blades. Both carried AK47s which remained at their backs. Their hands, however relaxed, still managed to hover over holsters that held pistols—a .38 on the hip of the smaller of the two women—a redhead he saw as he drew up to her, and a 9mm Glock on the belt of the heavier woman, whose raven hair which was cut very short stuck out from beneath her baseball cap. ‘Charlotte Knights’ it read on a tattered patch on the front.
Before he could say anything else, the brunette woman spoke to him.
“You’re Ron Cutter,” she said.
Neither Cutter nor Jean could hide the surprise at the words.
“The Colonel told us you might show up,” the smaller woman said, her voice high and very much like the girl they could see she was now that they were close to her. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old, at the oldest.
“I…we need to speak to him,” Ron said.
And with that, the larger, heavier woman reached out and rapped on the door she was guarding. It opened without a sound to reveal an armed man standing just inside.
“They want to go up,” the brunette said. “To talk to the Colonel.”
“OK, then,” came the reply from the hulk-like figure standing in the doorway. He was dark-skinned, a hue almost ebony. He was, in fact, the blackest man Ron had ever seen. “Come on in and go up the stairs.” He smiled. “You’re going to be climbing thirty floors. And the staircase is really steep. I’m not an engineer, so I can’t say why they made the damned thing that way. You’ll bust a lung going up, if you don’t pace yourself.”
Jean and Ron just looked at one another, then shrugged. No one asked for their weapons. No one asked for any of their party to wait behind. The man at the door just motioned for them to come inside, and they did just that.
The black guy at the bottom of the stairs nodded politely to them and they began to climb.
**
“I haven’t done anything this stupid since the last day,” Ron said. He stopped at the landing on what they saw was the 16th Floor.
“And what stupid thing was that?” Jean asked.
Oliver just looked up at the man who had become his father. He couldn’t imagine him having done anything stupid. He had long since grown to love both Ron and Jean and could not think of them in critical terms.
“The day things finally fell apart. When the dead overwhelmed us.” They stood together on the small square of concrete and steel, peering up the impossibly steep staircase. The place was well lit with fluorescent lighting. They could feel cool air all around them and realized that the place was air conditioned. Oliver had already mentioned as much.
“I had been trying to get my wife and daughter to be with me,” he continued. “You both know I’ve talked about that before. But she had started divorce proceedings months before and…she wouldn’t discuss it. She believed it when the government said they were going to put things right and protect everyone.” He sighed. “Anyway…that last day, when the office was overrun and the streets were full of deaders…I decided to go there, to rescue them.”
“A lot of people did stuff like that,” Oliver reminded him. “That wasn’t so dumb.”
“Yeah, but I did some crazy shit. I had bought my daughter a teddy bear. Her birthday was coming up. I was so stupid that I went back to my apartment and grabbed it and took the damned thing with me across town. I almost got myself killed taking that stupid toy to give to my little girl.” He looked off into space, thinking of her, that small nose like his mother’s, her big eyes and brown hair like his.
“They weren’t there, though, were they?” Oliver asked.
“No. They weren’t. The door was unlocked. The car wasn’t gone. No gas in it. But they weren’t in the house. For some reason, I thought that they might come back so I locked the door behind me and holed up there for a couple of days waiting for them. But they never came back. Last thing I did was put that damned Teddy bear on the kitchen table and close up the house behind me. Just in case my little girl did come back with her mom. At least they’d know that I had been there.”
Ron stared up the stairwell again. He could hear the muffled sound of footsteps and voices from above them.
“Let’s keep climbing,” Jean said, anxious to break the moment.
Several minutes later, they arrived at the 30th Floor. Another guard was at that landing waiting for them, a small two-way radio in his gloved fist. He spoke into it. A simple “They’re here.” And then he smiled at them.
“They’re waiting for you,” he said, his face looking not unlike some of the surfer types Ron had met on a trip to California years before. His features were young and unmarked, his skin ruddy, hair blond where it showed beneath his helmet. The kid was wearing a bright yellow climbing helmet, and Ron wished he had one just like it.
And without another word, the kid opened the door for them and the trio walked onto the 30th Floor of the Trust Building.
“Damn,” Oliver said.
“Good God,” Jean added.
The place was well lit, not just by the sunlight streaming in through the big windows that were in every office, but by the electric lights that were illuminating even the most isolated corners. Floors were covered in carpeting; walls were bright and painted; the rooms were filled with furniture unmarked by the passing of time or the creep of moisture that had not been allowed to enter the place.
“It looks the way things used to look,” Oliver said.
“They have electric power,” Ron muttered. “How in the hell?”
Suddenly, his steps muffled by the carpeting, Colonel Alastair Dale was striding toward them from the far end of the hallway. His hand was out long before he got to them and he took their hands, one after the other, in succession.
“Good to see you, Ron.” The Colonel introduced himself to Jean, whom he had never met. And he bent at the waist like a gentleman to address Oliver. “And you, too, Oliver. It’s been a while.”
“Yessir,” Oliver replied. “A long time.”
“Well, then,” he said to them all. “Let’s go sit down and have an early lunch. I know you have some questions.”
So Ron, Jean, and their adopted son followed the soldier down the hall until they came to a makeshift dining room. Seated at a long table of polished mahogany was the rest of the armed crew they had seen moving efficiently down the street that morning. They were a mix of men and women, young and old, of three races, at least. They were sitting, relaxing, eating food Ron had thought he might never see again.
The smells met them at the door.
“Is that steak?” Jean asked.
“Are those fresh vegetables?” Oliver was wide-eyed at what he was seeing.
“Yes, that’s steak, and no those are not fresh vegetables, but frozen. We do have fresh vegetables now and again, but those are frozen, I’m afraid.” The Colonel ushered them in as the people inside stood and spoke up. Time passed as they were all introduced, one to the other.
When, at last, Ron could speak, the first thing he asked was about the frozen food. “How do you keep frozen food? That…well, that would take a huge generating capacity. Something far beyond what I’ve seen people do ar
ound here.” He looked up, feeling the push of cooled air on his head and face. He could scarcely believe what he was experiencing.
“Well, it’s this building only,” the Colonel admitted. “This place has quite the diesel generator. Powers everything that’s needed here. Lights. Air conditioning. Freezers. As long as the diesel holds out, this place remains fully powered. And there’s enough diesel to keep the system running for at least another six months.” He indicated that they should take their seats. “And we’re hoping it won’t take that long, at all. Maybe another few weeks, at most. Then we can make use of the fuel for other things,” he added.
One of the women with the Colonel put plates overflowing with food before Ron and his company. There were generous steaks, home fries, green beans, baby corn, and yeast rolls with melted butter. “I’m sorry there’s no variety, but we’re all having the same thing,” the Colonel said with barely a jot of sarcasm.
“My God,” Ron said. The three of them dug in, all but shoveling the food into their faces. As they savored the flavors, they turned to one another from time to time, their eyes locking. Oliver was grinning from ear to ear between bites of steak and vegetables. The boy was so intent on consuming the food that he never even noticed that there were bottles of catsup and steak sauce sitting on the table in front of him.
Despite his best intentions to remain aloof about what he was witnessing, Ron could not stop himself from digging into the meal. He sliced the meat and savored each bite of it. The steaks had all been cooked to medium rare and while that was his preferred method of cooking, he wasn’t sure if that’s the way Jean and Oliver liked their meat. His eyes glanced their way and he found that it really didn’t matter at all as they both attacked the meals with as much lust as Ron.
As they finished off their plates, Oliver sweeping the china for errant bits of gravy, the three looked up to see the Colonel approaching them. He had a tray in his hands, and on the tray were big dishes of ice cream.
“Motherfucker,” Jean whispered. “It can’t be real.”
“Oh, it’s real,” Dale said, placing the big tray down before them. We only have the basic three, he said. Each bowl was filled with a trio of generous scoops: chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry.
Oliver was first to draw one of the bowls close. He stared down at it for a second, seeing vapor rising in little wisps from the balls of cream. Then he dug at the frosty chocolate and put the spoon in his mouth. There was a moment of silence and then his shoulders began to shake as he cried.
“Oh, baby,” Jean crooned to him. She slid from her chair and kneeled beside him, holding him in her arms. “It’s okay to cry. I feel like crying myself.” And she hugged him, patting his back and running her hands through his hair, kissing his brow. “It’s okay.”
In a moment he stopped crying and a smile etched his face again.
“Go ahead,” Ron told him. “Dig in, son.”
**
Later, after they’d all eaten and the dishes were cleared away, the Colonel drew Ron aside as Jean and Oliver were led off to see what other amazing things were being preserved in this museum of what used to be.
The two men stood in a big office overlooking the city. The view was to the west and southwest. Ron could see more of the city from this spot than he had been able to observe from any other point he’d been, since the zombies had come to ruin the place. The fire was still raging in Wilmore. From there, Ron could see houses going up like dry sticks, sparks and smoke spilling high as the places collapsed. He pointed toward the conflagration that was raging not so far away.
“I had good safe houses over there,” he said. The accusation was in the air and he did not really have to elaborate.
“I know you did,” Dale replied, his accent clipped. The image of Field Marshall Montgomery from the movie Patton came to Cutter as he looked over at the man standing stiffly at attention beside him. The soldier’s eyes were on the fire. “It couldn’t be helped,” he admitted. “These old neighborhoods have to go. You know what it’s like in them. The brush has run amuck.” He raised his left hand, his index finger pointing skyward. “The trees and flowers are sucking up all of that carbon we’ve belched into the atmosphere the past 100 years or so. That’s why everything’s so overgrown. And after the past two growing seasons…well, it was all just a tinderbox waiting to go up. Those houses are nothing but mounds of firewood waiting for spontaneous combustion.”
“Is that why you’ve been burning down half the city?” Ron asked. His mind was on the supplies he’d stashed in the safe rooms he’d gone to so much trouble to create. Food, water, batteries, and guns, medicines and ammunition. It was all burned up, now.
Dale turned to his guest and nodded at him. “I know you don’t like to see it, but you know I’m right when I say those neighborhoods were just waiting to go up. It’s better to do it in a controlled way so that it doesn’t get out of hand when Mother Nature decides to do it herself.”
Ron bit off his reply. “Okay,” he said. “All right. Whatever you say.” He looked behind to see if anyone had entered the office with them or if any of Dale’s armed company was standing in the hallway as guards.
“Don’t be so nervous,” the Colonel said. “Have we made you feel unwelcome? Has anyone threatened you in any way?”
Ron shook his head. “No.” He had to admit it. “I just don’t understand.” He swept his arm to indicate the fires below and the building around him. “What is all this? What’s going on?”
“I told you before. Weeks ago. I thought that you and your family would come and join us.” Dale waited for a reply that didn’t come, and then continued. “But I noticed that you did listen to my advice to take the initiative with the dead folk.” The man smiled at Ron. “Best way to handle them, all things said. They’re not much upstairs, but they do seem to understand what’s going on when the zombies around them start having their heads blown to pieces. Frankly, they’re not much of an issue these days. I predict that in another couple of years, they won’t figure into the equation at all.”
“At all? What are you saying? People have stopped rising?” Ron knew that wasn’t true, but he wanted to hear the Colonel say it.
“Well, I exaggerate a little,” the Brit said. “The dead still rise, but it’s more of a control issue now. And only the very newest of them show the aggression we used to see constantly in dealing with them. They’ll still follow you, and they’ll still kill and eat you, if you’re stupid. But stand and fight and they generally turn and flee. You know I’m right. You’ve seen it.”
Cutter nodded.
“All I’m saying is that in a year, maybe two, things will be closer to normal. To the way things once were. We can regain some of the things we’ve lost. We can stop the losses that are occurring even now.” He strode over to the window and put his face almost to the glass, staring out at the city. His eyes were locked on something off in the distance, just beyond one of the older burned neighborhoods.
“But what is this?” Ron asked him, coming to stand beside the soldier, to look out on the world and try to see what Dale was seeing. “What’s this building all about? It doesn’t make any sense. I’ve watched it for days on end. No one is ever here, except for the bastard who used to fire that .50 caliber from time to time.” He was silent for just a second. “Did you and your men kill him? Take this place?”
For a long time the Colonel did not answer Ron. He stood, his nose almost to the window, staring at that point in the distance.
And following that steely gaze, Ron saw what it was: the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport. Or what was left of it. Cutter could see the flight towers and the runways. And looking, he realized that the runways had been cleared, were lying pale and gleaming in the sunlight. This much was evident even from miles away.
“I’ve told you before, Mr. Cutter,” Dale said to him. “But I’ll be more specific, now.” He turned and walked to a desk and settled down in a chair in front of it. “Please,” he said, poi
nting toward the seat beside him. Ron sat and faced the soldier.
“So.”
“All right, then. It’s like this:
“When things were falling apart and it was almost too late to save anything at all, I was ordered here. To this city. I was working in DC and they ordered me here. Why? Because of two things that are in this building. And those things are the computer systems and its servers, and a man who was still here maintaining it all.”
“What man?”
Dale cleared his throat to speak. But before he could stay anything, Ron blurted it out.
“The asshole with the .50 calibers? That guy?” His hands gripped the arms on his padded chair, digging into the black leather. He could smell the material—the real stuff and not some fake vinyl creation.
“He’s the last we had. He was in this place at just the right time to save himself. He’s the only thing that stands between us and losing about 100 years of digital technology,” Dale said. “A couple of times…well, he snapped. From the stress or the loneliness or the insanity of what happened. I don’t know and I don’t pretend to know.
“But it became my job to preserve this place as best I could and to ensure that he did his job.”
“And what job would that be?” Ron asked.
“Among many things, but one of the most important, is to maintain our global positioning system. Yes. The GPS. You know it still works because you keep one of the portable devices on you. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen you refer to it. The only reason it still works is because of this building and the man who this building preserves.”
“I don’t understand. What are you saying? I thought that stuff was operated from NASA. From places like Canaveral, Houston, and Vandenberg. Are you telling me that all the satellites that run GPS are preserved from this place?” His arms went out to indicate the building around them.
“As I said…it was all a matter of what was left at the time when everything fell to bits.” He nodded, his eyelids drooping as he thought of the odds. “On the roof are state-of-the-art satellite dishes. This was once the hq for one of the biggest banks on Earth. They had more in their system than just numbers representing cash deposits. The men who worked here had to transfer that wealth in an instant. They had access to information you wouldn’t dream of.
The Coalition: Part II The Lord Of The Living (COALITON OF THE LIVING Book 2) Page 10