“Shit Devon, this thing does twenty-five miles to the gallon and has over three-hundred horses under the hood, you really think we’re gonna’ need more than that?”, John reasoned.
“I’m just saying man”, Devon laughed, “I’d rather have the thing that could drive straight through the supermarket than park up outside. But hey, it’s your pick”.
John chuckled. Having driven a Focus RS – albeit without the extra weight of armour plating, passengers and weapons – on a track day Michelle had bought him a for a birthday present a few years prior, he was more than aware of the kind of power it could deliver. “Yeah, I think it’s gonna’ have to be this one”.
“Alright alright”, Devon said, picking up his things and heading over to the Ford, which had been painted in a uniform shade of black used to hide the vehicle’s once much brighter shade when moving around, “Who else is coming?”, he asked, opening up the trunk and dropping in his bag and rifle.
“Well, I knew I wanted you”, John started.
“Flattered”, Devon cut in, with a quick tip of an imaginary hat.
“But I wasn’t sure on the second, so I asked Geoff to send whoever he recommended”.
With almost unbelievable timing, the sound of footsteps immediately presented itself from the rear. Both men turned to inspect the new arrival, their silhouette on full display due to the final few wisps of sunlight that the day had to offer, until the unknown entity was close enough to the cars for both John and Devon to get sight of who their meaty, tried and tested companion would be for this no doubt treacherous trip.
“You gotta’ be kidding me”, John said, “Danny!?”.
-
Chapter 7: Best laid plans
“Absolutely not”, John said immediately and without hesitation, his finger pointing directly at the approaching, smiling face of the overly-enthusiastic Danny as nithe younger man approached.
“What!?”, Danny asked, throwing his hands up into the air in the most over-exaggerated manner he could manage, “What’s the matter?”.
“You’re not coming on this trip”, John said, turning away and walking over towards the car, where Devon had already made his way.
“Why not?”, Danny asked, “I saw which way they went, I can shoot, I can run, I can-“.
“You’re a kid”, John shouted back without breaking his stride.
“I’m twenty”, Danny replied in a slightly less enthusiastic tone.
“That’s still a kid”, John continued, arriving at the rear of the Focus and loading his things into the trunk alongside Devon’s.
“In this day and age, twenty is practically a senior citizen!”, Danny insisted.
“The kid’s got a point”, Devon joined in, laughing slightly.
With that, John turned his attention to the handsome man on his right. He was confident he could keep Danny from coming on the trip in a one-on-one argument, but not if Devon was all for it.
“You’re kidding?”, John asked.
“C’mon Parker, he’s gotta’ learn sooner or later right?”, Devon asked, “And I seriously doubt he’ll get a better set of teachers than two ex-military men who’ve spent more time out there than in here”.
“He can learn from us any time, he doesn’t need to go outside to do it”, John argued, “The kid’s glorified bait for god sake”.
“Least I’m glorified I guess”, Danny laughed, rounding the rear of the vehicle just in time to come into earshot of John’s last comment.
John sighed heavily, “Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, it’s just-“.
“Don’t worry about it”, Danny smirked, “You can make it up to me on the trip”, he added, before getting into the rear left seat of the Focus so quickly John didn’t have a chance to stop him.
“Least he didn’t call shotgun”, Devon pointed out, himself now closing up the trunk and making his way over to the passenger side door.
John shook his head, half out of anger and half out of fear. But at least now he was able to say his team was assembled.
On trips like these, it was an almost unwritten rule that someone with vast experience of the local area came along for the ride. Out in the countryside, your only task was to avoid wrecks and navigate the occasional pack of undead. Here in the city, taking a wrong turn into a closed off street could lead to death if followed in by a herd, two things that were all too common in somewhere that had seen as much as Chicago. Accordingly, John had opted to drive, at least for the beginning of the trip, while Devon took care of navigation.
Before himself getting into the vehicle however, John carefully performed a final inspection. Slowly he rounded the exterior of the Ford Focus RS, investigating the machine like an animal circling its prey, looking for a weak spot to pounce on. The car’s once hunkered down suspension had been re-raised to accommodate the inevitable number of bodies that might fall between the wheels. Every nook and cranny had been either taped off, or covered with thick metal plating, to prevent blood and other semi-liquid substances making their way in and clogging up the mechanics. The fuel tank had been replaced with a larger one and filled to the point of overflowing. Every step had been taken to ensure this once family-friendly hatchback stood the best possible chance of getting both itself and its occupants back to this spot, preferably all in one piece.
Content with his choice, John clambered into the driver’s seat.
“So where are we headed?”, Devon asked, having only been briefed on the essentials regarding the trip.
“Well”, John began, before realising he wasn’t actually the best qualified person to answer, “Danny?”.
Danny immediately leant forwards, more than a little happy at having already been called upon. “They headed out just past Greek Town, least that’s what it looked like last I saw them”.
“Past Greek Town?”, Devon asked, looking down at his map to confirm his suspicions, “There isn’t much past there except residential buildings, a hospital, few stores and gas stations… oh, and the United Center”.
“The stadium?”, John asked, knowing full well that the country’s largest stadium would have almost certainly been the evacuation point for those nearby, “That place has gotta’ be crawling with the dead?”, he asked.
“More than you can imagine”, Devon confirmed, “That’s one of the worst points for people getting horded, there’s millions of ‘em”.
“So there’s no way they’d be there, right?”, John asked.
“Well”, Devon began, “It’s a lot more likely they’re holed up in one of the stores, within easy reach of the hospital for medical supplies, but not too far from downtown so they can come scope us out”.
“Then we’ll check those first”, John instructed, happy to have the first part of the plan in place, but knowing that every extra stop they made would lead them closer and closer to the stadium itself.
“And if we don’t find them in any of those?”, Danny asked slightly more feverishly from the back.
“Then I’m gonna’ thank my lucky stars you chose to come on this trip by your own free will, and that I didn’t make you”, John pointed out.
With the first glimpses of sunlight now appearing outside, John turned the key in the ignition of the Focus RS and felt its surprisingly meaty sounding engine rev up. Taking a deep breath – an action he was certain he wasn’t alone in doing – John put the vehicle into gear, and slowly crept out into the night sky of downtown Chicago, where just a few feet away, the wall was being opened up for their exit.
* * *
Just over eighty miles north, in the similarly darkened streets of Milwaukee, a small amount of light could be seen – albeit only from above – on the rooftop of the waterfront art museum’s multi-story car park. Its source was a series of candles and lanterns, and a single fire burning happily in the centre of a circle of silhouetted figures, all of them in high spirits as they passed around various items of food, water and spirits.
“So tomorrow morning huh?”, as
ked Sonja, a smile evident on her face as the words came out.
“Tomorrow!”, came a number of excited voices from the other side of the circle.
“Any of you got any plans for what you’re gonna’ do first?”, Sonja asked.
“Shower!”, came one voice, to laughter from the others.
“Eat something that didn’t come from a can!”, came another.
“Get a good night’s sleep!”, said a third.
“Jesus guys, you’re making this place seem like a hellhole!”, Sonja laughed, “But hell, I can’t blame you for looking forward to a few home comforts”, she said with another smile as she rose up to her feet and dusted off her hands, “I’ma go check on the others”.
Due to the difference in light across the car-park’s rooftop floor, it was difficult to see what exactly lay ahead. But having been here for as many months as she had, visual navigation really wasn’t particularly necessary. Walking in the rough direction that she knew would lead to the south-east corner of the building, Sonja stretched her hand out to her left to grip the waist height concrete wall running around the perimeter, and ran her fingers gently along its surface, until her eyes began to adjust, and a figure emerged out in front.
“How you doing out here?”, she asked of the individual ahead, themselves shrouded in darkness, with only the occasional over-enthusiastic flicker of the camp fire illuminating their key features.
“What? Oh, fine”, replied a man in a somewhat timid tone, as if disturbed from a staring contest with the night sky. “How are they?”, he asked.
“More excited than anything”, Sonja laughed, “And with some pretty high expectations of what’s waiting for them in Chicago too”.
The man didn’t respond, continuing instead to look out into the distance.
“Everything alright Andrew?”, Sonja asked, knowing something was clearly troubling the man.
Andrew Phillips was not a brave individual, nor was he particularly strong, intimidating or any of the other qualities most commonly associated with the type of person who would guard a handful of their fellow survivors using a rifle atop a darkened parking structure. But he was smart, resourceful, and by now knew the outside world better than most, despite his hesitance to ever head back out into it. Andrew stood at over six-foot-tall, but was a skinny, bespectacled man who preferred slacks and tucked in shirts to the more common new-world attire of torn t-shirts and tattered cargo pants. He could handle himself with a gun – thanks in no small part to training from a friend – and knew perfectly well how to handle the dead, in fact by all accounts he was reasonably well suited to the rough and tough, undead-infested world as it was today. But that didn’t make him any more comfortable making the decision that was currently running through his head.
“Not really”, he finally responded after much contemplation.
“What is it?”, Sonja asked.
“It’s that damn boat, the one we’re sending tomorrow”, Andrew replied.
“To Chicago?”, Sonja asked, shocked it would be causing him the slightest of concern, the group having now orchestrated many more before it, by this point managing to transport almost the entire population of their smaller camp without issue, “What about it?”.
“There’s room on that boat for Sarah and Hannah”, Andrew explained, referring to his wife and daughter, both of whom had remained in camp with Andrew rather than head over to Chicago, “And I know it’s for the best if they go”, Andrew continued, “But I also know that I need to be back here, to help run this place”.
“Yeah”, Sonja agreed, “I was thinking about this too”.
“You were?”, Andrew asked, “Any ideas?”.
“No ideas I’m afraid”, Sonja replied, “But you know as well as I do that the sooner they get over there, the better”.
“Yeah”, Andrew conceded, “I know”.
“Sorry Andrew”, Sonja added, before turning and beginning the walk back to the campfire, knowing she’d need to turn in for the night soon, with Lester – the third member of the group running this camp – due to finish his shift on duty downstairs in a few hours.
* * *
As the morning sun rose gloriously over Lake Michigan, the Milwaukee art museum car-park was illuminated in a truly beautiful shade of orange, all but removing any signs of the death and destruction that had occurred there for the past few months for anyone who hadn’t themselves lived through it. The car-park itself was far from the prettiest, but in that perfect morning sunlight, anything looked good, even now.
The camp wasted no time getting things done once the sun was up. Within moments the huge semi-truck blocking the front of the car-park – its lower area boarded up and barricaded with sheets of wood and metal to prevent crawlers from getting in – was rolling slowly away to expose the building’s entrance and exit, from which a fully laden F150 soon emerged, itself headed at low speed due to its much-overloaded current capacity. Having made its way clear of the exit, Sonja gave a quick hand gesture from the driver’s side of the Ford, and Lester immediately began rolling the truck back into place.
As well as both Sonja and Andrew, the Ford was also carrying Andrew’s wife and daughter, three residents form inside the camp’s walls, a plethora of different vegetables grown on the rooftop of the neighbouring building, and the usual weapons and ammunition required to safely escort such valuable cargo. Slowly the truck crept across the large street outside the car-park, and made its way cautiously towards the seafront, where it parked adjacent to the start of the concrete pier in front.
“Everybody out”, Sonja commanded in a low tone, keen not to arouse the attention of any nearby biters that might have made their way into town during the night prior. “Carry what you can please folks, the sooner everything is in, the sooner you all get to go”.
One by one each of the residents – including Andrew’s family, an elderly man and two younger women – disembarked from the tall truck, before turning and grabbing a hold of every last item they could possible manage.
“That’s it, you got it”, Sonja reassured them, herself and Andrew now in the process of patrolling the immediate area, rifles drawn and ready to fire.
Before long the group had made their way down to the pier, and so stood patiently, awaiting the arrival of their escort. It wasn’t long before the first sound of the humming engine of a small fishing boat became apparent in the distance, and a small dot grew bigger and bigger, eventually coming close enough to spot the waving hand of what the group assumed to be a Chicago camp guard.
Considering how sinister the world had become, you would be forgiven for wondering if the man on the boat wasn’t in fact some imposter, who’d managed to find a novel way of kidnapping a few people along with their valuable supplies. But, given how unlikely it was for someone to arrive at Milwaukee at exactly the right moment, coming from exactly the right direction, Sonja and Andrew felt it was a safe bet they had the right guy, and so gave the all-important order.
“Okay everyone”, Sonja began, “Grab your stuff, get ready to board, let’s get this done quick”.
Andrew meanwhile was going for a less public, and much less confident approach to a much smaller focus of people.
“Sarah, I promise, I’ll be there with you soon”, he reasoned to his already teary-eyed wife, her long brown hair swaying in the wind just enough to obscure her emotions from everyone but Andrew.
“I know you will”, Sarah replied, “I just wish you were coming with us now”.
“Me too”, Andrew’s daughter jumped in, herself exerting a more agitated tone that made it perfectly clear she had little understanding of why Andrew – the architect of the camp’s modern survival systems and agriculture – had to stay.
“You have fun with the other kids Hannah”, Andrew said to his daughter, “See if you can’t make friends with John’s daughter, I think he’d like that a lot”, he said with a semblance of a smile, however forced it may have been.
“Yes Daddy”, Hannah replie
d in a dulled tone.
“Everybody on!”, Sonja ordered, the boat having now docked alongside the group.
Straight away the passengers began clambering in, assisted by the guard who’d come over from Chicago, as well as Sonja and Andrew, who quickly passed supplies from the dock into those already in the boat. The system was a well-practised, well-oiled one, designed to reduce the amount of time anybody had to spend out in the open as much as possible, and was incredibly important for the camp’s survival. Although they’d managed to find the quietest, seemingly safest time of day to perform such a manoeuvre, there was never any guarantee that the next horde wasn’t right around the corner.
“Be safe”, Sarah gently called out back to the dock, her eyes locked onto those of her husband’s, both sets at this point streaming with tears.
“I will”, Andrew replied, “I’ll see you soon girls”, he added, just as the boat’s engine began to rev slightly, and the vessel pulled slowly away, towards the open water.
“Bye Daddy!”, yelled Hannah, with little regard to the idea of being quiet, though nobody there wished to tell her off for it.
“Bye sweetie”, Andrew mouthed back, waving slowly as he did.
Chapter 8: Maintenance
It took little more than thirty or so seconds for those remaining at the Milwaukee car-park to carry out the usual post-departure routine. Those outside of the building seeing off yet another boat of civilians quickly made their way back to the entrance, where the covering semi-truck was reversed out of the way, allowing entry to the guards before once more pulling back into place. It was a series of tasks they’d all become more than accustomed to, and that at least one of them was now realising might soon no longer be required.
“What’s the plan for this place?”, Andrew asked of Sonja, the two of them now disembarking from the F150 and heading over towards the non-barricaded stairwell.
“The car park?”, Sonja asked, “What do you mean?”.
Road to Grissom: Part three of the Aftermath series Page 6