“Epcot,” Wilcox thought aloud as he closed the door behind them. “It looks like the inside of that big ball thingie at the Epcot Center in Disney World.”
Rick pointed through the glass. “LT, look down there.”
At the base of the concrete floor, perhaps sixty feet past the farthest turbine, a ladder ascended up past the catwalks into the darkness.
“How far up do you think that goes?”
Androwski thought for a moment. “We’ve got to be past the edge of the kitchen module down here; otherwise, the power plant would be in the middle of the kitchen. These geothermal plants must have some kind of exhaust, right? Maybe that’s a maintenance ladder for the exhaust tube.”
“Which means it’s a way out,” Stenner proclaimed.
“Not necessarily, but we have to check anyway. I’m having a hard time believing that if this is a nuke bunker, they would want a tube that leads to the surface. Radiation could get down here through that tube.”
“Not if they have filters,” Wilcox chimed. They all looked at him. “Well, how is everybody gonna breathe down here if everything is locked down? There must be some way of getting filtered air down here right? I mean, doesn’t that make sense?”
The other three men began to nod. “It does,” agreed Rick.
“Stenner, Wilcox, get back to that open office and look for blueprints, specifically maintenance tunnels, piping, and wiring diagrams for this entire plant.”
“Roger that, sir,” responded Stenner. “Let’s do it, kid.”
Wilcox pouted. “I’m twenty for Christ’s sake, when do I stop being the kid?”
Stenner opened the door to the corridor with a smile. “When we find somebody—” The door came crashing backward as a dead man pushed through it and grabbed Stenner by the wrist and tac-webbing. Before Stenner, the SEAL, or Rick could react, the thing had an inch of steel blade sticking out of the top of its cranium. Wilcox had pulled his combat knife and thrust it up under the creature’s chin with a backward stab, perforating the brain and skull. The thing stood stock-still and Stenner pushed it away. It slumped to the floor, never having made a sound. Wilcox checked the corridor then put a booted foot on the zombie’s head and ripped out his knife. He raised his eyebrows as he looked at Stenner smugly. “Am I still the kid?”
“My hand to God,” Stenner announced, raising his hand, “he was like a friggin’ ninja.”
“Kid’s afraid o’ his own shadow and you’re tellin’ me he smoked one of ‘em up close? With a knife? Huh. Willy the kid.” Dallas chuckled and shifted his huge frame in the chair he dwarfed, rearranging cards in his hand.
“I shit you not. You got any fives?”
The Texan looked at his hand, then over the cards at Stenner. “Go fish. So we gots us a way out then huh?”
“Looks that way. We checked out the maps n’ shit and they’re telling us that the ladder leads to a series of small rooms with more ladders and it goes all the way to the surface, to a hatch or door. The top of it looks to come out in some small concrete outbuilding or something.”
Bob sat up on his cot and flexed his hand. “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”
“Back from the dead,” Dallas joked and immediately regretted it. “I mean…well, you know what I mean.”
Bob smiled. “Don’t sweat it, big guy.” He flexed his hand again. “Feels better. Anna really knows her stuff.”
“Damn skippy,” agreed the young woman as she strode into the room with a glass of water and some pills. “Take these and call me in the morning.” She handed him the antibiotics and the water then sat down next to Dallas. “So what now?”
“Now I ask for sixes.” He looked at Stenner eyebrows raised. “Got any?”
Stenner made a face and passed the Texan two cards.
“No, you dumb redneck, what do we all do now?”
Dallas was stumped. “Huh?”
“We got across the country, got the geeks, and got them here. Now what?”
“Dunno. Ask Andy.”
“The scientists aren’t done with their work,” Bob said, undoing the strap that held him to the cot. “Thanks for this by the way.”
“Dint want ya surprisin’ me if’n ya decided t’ die.”
“Good thinking.” He stood. “I’m staying here regardless. I’ve got no place else to go. We have food and guns and they can’t get in. Here’s as good a place as any and besides, I can keep the rigs running.”
“Rigs?”
“Yeah, I’m an IT guy, remember?”
Dallas looked confused. “Eye Tee?”
“Yeah, I’m the dude who makes the computer thingies work. They need me here.”
“True, but they don’t need us,” Anna countered. “Deal me in. Dallas, are we staying or going?”
“Whatever Rick says, but I don’ see him stayin’. He’s got Sam t’ think about.”
It was Bob’s turn to look confused. “Who’s Sam?”
“Rick’s kid. She’s back on Alcatraz with Rick’s dad and a buncha other folks.”
Stenner dealt three hands and picked up his cards, shuffling them. “That’s crazy. It was luck. Pure, blind luck, that we got this far and I only came halfway with you guys. You’re signing up to be a banquet if you try to go back.”
Rick, Androwski, and a limping Seyfert came in the room just then. “Who’s having a banquet?” demanded the injured SEAL. “Is there steak?”
“Dammit, Jersey, shut it with the meat talk, I’m droolin’ now! Stenner was tellin’ us we’s gonna die if we try t’ get back home.”
“Shit, Hillbilly, we’re probably going to die here. And you’re all assuming we can get out of this bunker in the first place. We need to recon that ladder and where it goes before we make any decisions.”
Rick looked at Seyfert. “I’m not dying here. I’ve got responsibilities back in California. However worried I am about Sam and my dad, I haven’t forgotten how much they must be worried about me.” Rick looked at Androwski. “You’re mission commander now, Trent, so what you say goes…for military personnel. I’ve taken orders and bled just like everyone else. Please don’t give me an order I can’t follow.”
Androwski shook his head. “I won’t. I never for one second believed we would make it here alive. We did. If we made it here, we can make it back. Well, you can.”
Everyone was looking at Androwski now. “I’m staying and I need at least two more soldiers to stay with me.” He looked at his SEAL buddy. “Seyfert is wounded, so he should stay, but he’s also the best trained and would be an excellent asset on your journey back to Alcatraz. Also, we need to report back to the commander that we were successful in getting the scientists here and that they are working. Rick, I trust you and your group with my life and that means something coming from a guy like me. That having been said, Commander McInerney will want to hear the intel, including intel on the Triumvirate and this spook guy from a sailor, preferably one he knows. I think Seyfert should heal for another week and then go with you back to Alcatraz.”
Stenner sighed. “So I’m staying here with you and Wilcox?”
“We need to plan, but yeah, I think Rick’s group and Seyfert will go back and the rest of us will stay here. I’ll prepare a brief that Seyfert can take with him and all of you will memorize it, in case he doesn’t make it.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, LT.”
“John, look at yourself. You’re full of holes.”
“Yeah, but none of them came from a Lima and I’m still kicking.” He stuck his foot out and winced. “Mostly.”
Androwski smiled. “I would like to keep Anna here too, but I wouldn’t think for a moment she doesn’t want to get back to Nebraska, then California.”
“Everybody wants me,” Anna assured him and flipped her ponytail with her head. “I’m so popular.”
“You’re a damn fine medic. You’ve kept us alive.”
She harrumphed. “I was training to be an EMT when the plague sprouted, but
honestly, I’d never seen any wounds like you guys have had until you got them. I did one ride-along on an ambulance and then the dead rose. This is all learn-on-the-fly stuff. Oh and sorry, but I’m going back, too.”
“There’s a plane,” Bob blurted out. “At least there’s supposed to be one.”
Androwski blinked. “A plane?”
“Yeah, it’s supposed to be a big one.”
Rick turned toward him “Wait…what?”
“When they pulled out all the big mucky-mucks, the soldiers were all talking about how they didn’t have time to get to the secondary airfield. They pulled all the big money folks out of here on helicopters that were supposed to go to a primary airfield and the soldiers were bitching about how the planes there were all small, but the one at the other field was a big one. Major Mello was talking about getting to it if we had to and said it would carry everyone here. He just didn’t know where to go once on the plane and thought we would all be safe in the bunker.”
“What plane? Where is it?” demanded Rick.
“No idea. I bet I know someone who does though.”
Montgomery Street, San Francisco
“Jesus, how could you have been so stupid!”
“I didn’t hear you saying jack shit about truck alarms!”
“You’re the goddamned mechanic!”
“Shut it both of you, we already have company.” A third man pointed down the street with his battle rifle. “I don’t want a swarm of them on us before we finish. Dave, you stay with me.”
A woman and a kid of about fifteen jumped out of the pickup truck. “Sure, Tony.” The three others ran toward a convenience store with an intact front window. The door was locked, but one of the men produced a crowbar and they were inside, with flashlights on the ends of their weapons shining.
They weren’t being as quiet in their search as Tony would have liked them to be, but the backup alarm had already given them away. “Two behind,” warned the boy and he raised a suppressed pistol.
Tony held his hand up. “Save ammo.” He passed the boy a red fire axe from the back of the truck and he picked an aluminum baseball bat for himself. “Just like we practiced.”
The boy nodded and they moved toward the undead. They split up, using hand gestures, each grabbing the focus of the dead eyes of a different creature. The humans separated the things, backing off when they were close. Tony slugged his with the bat. He wrung his hands together afterward. “Stings every time with these damn metal bats.” The creature did not get up. The other, smaller dead man was stalking Dave, who stuck his axe out like a pole arm, thumping the creature in the chest and forcing it back a few steps. It faltered only slightly, however, and then began its relentless pursuit of the meal in front of it. Tony bashed its skull in from behind.
“Done and done.” He looked down the street. “Oh shit.”
Dave turned around, his eyes grew wide, and he ran to the store. “Now, guys! Take what you’ve got and we go now!”
Tony smiled and got in the driver’s side of the truck. “Who the hell has a backup alarm on an F250?” He shook his head.
The three looters ran from the store, carrying various boxes and bags, all of which they unceremoniously tossed in the back of the truck. One man ran back and closed the door, marking it with blue spray paint. He got in and Tony threw the truck in drive. One of the men leaned to the side to look out the front window at the oncoming horde. “Holy shit, I knew we should have brought some soldiers.”
“We’re all soldiers now,” the woman replied.
Tony smiled again. “Amen, Abbey, amen. Buckle up.” He did a three-point turn, the alarm sounding very loud. The noise seemed to catalyze the zombies and they upped their gait. There were hundreds now and they were coming from several directions.
One of the men in the back began loading a revolver in his lap. “Friggin’ things come out of the woodwork when a mouse farts.”
“Then don’t fart,” Tony bandied. His statement was punctuated by a thud against Dave’s door, fists beating hard and fast against the window.
Dave screamed and moved as far left as his seatbelt would allow. “Runner!”
The glass spider-webbed before Tony could pull away. The infected latched onto the truck and began pulling itself into the rear. It began to scream as it fought to get in, a hideous clamor that raked spectral fingernails down Dave’s spine. The thing gained access to the bed and launched itself at the rear glass.
“Abbey, deal with him.”
Tony jammed on the brakes and the infected man slammed into the rear of the cab, stunning him. It was the impetus Abbey needed to pop open the rear sliding window and aim her pistol at the prone form. The creature stood and Abbey fired one round, hitting it in the throat. It grasped the wound and gurgled and Tony picked that moment to floor the gas pedal, throwing the infected from the rear of the truck onto the street.
Abbey closed the slider. “Shit, I missed his noggin.”
“At least he won’t be fast anymore,” Tony remarked. He looked forward and slowed the truck. “Jesus.”
“Oh man, we are in some shit now,” breathed Dave.
“You said it, kid.” The street was thick with undead, plodding their way toward the truck from the north. Dozens were coming from the other cardinal directions as well, pulling themselves from smashed store fronts, alleys, under and inside crashed cars, from collapsed barricades, and broken front doors.
An industrious zombie had taken Tony’s second of indecision to latch itself onto the large exterior mirror of the truck and it pressed its face to the window in an attempt to bite the driver. Vile fluids smeared across the glass.
A streak in blue jeans and a red T-shirt leapt from the side and Dave had time to yell that another Runner was close when the red-shirted man drew a machete and ended the hitchhiker’s misery with a blow to the side of its head. The newcomer spun and decapitated two more things and punched a third in the face, dropping it to the ground. He spun around and faced the driver, who lowered the window for a moment.
The newcomer had a yellow smiley face with a bullet hole in the head on his shirt. “Howdy!”
Recognition slammed into Tony like a runaway train. “Billy!”
“None other than! Do you want to hang out here, or should we take that left at Albuquerque?”
“Get in the truck!”
“Always the bossy one,” Billy harrumphed as, like the infected before him, he leapt into the bed of the F250.
The rear window slid aside again and Abbey looked at him through the open portal. “Nice to see you, kid.”
“Abbey! Hi! Let’s get out of here before you get eaten. Is that Dave up front? Hey, Dave! You made it to Alcatraz! Tony, the dead folks are thin if we move west up the 101. Lotta hills and they have trouble standing still on the hills.”
“Got it!” Tony banged a right and they thudded through a few zombies before they were clear. The going was slow, as the devastation from months of the plague and city neglect had taken its toll on the roads. Their average speed was about fifteen miles per hour, which ironically, was faster than when the city had been full of vehicles. Many of those vehicles were now abandoned or crashed into poles or buildings and Tony skirted them with practiced ease.
Billy stuck his head in the open window. “Hang a right up here on Fillmore, yeah, that’s it. Annnndddd, here we are! The Woodrow Wilson Elementary School.”
Tony blinked. “What? Here? Are you kidding?”
“Nope, let’s disembark, shall we? Got maybe ten minutes before they begin showing up. I’ll help you carry your stuff.” Billy got out of the truck and grabbed a box of food. “Uh, speed is of the essence people.” He began walking away from the school. There were no dead in sight.
The six scroungers got out of the truck and each grabbed a box or a bag and followed Billy.
“Uh, Billy, the school is behind us,” Dave told him.
“Um, yeah, I know.”
They followed him for another fifty
yards or so and he moved into a wide ditch between the north and southbound lanes of Fillmore Street. A black Cadillac Escalade was in the ditch. He opened the door. “Follow me!” The Escalade hid a culvert under the road and Billy moved through the SUV, opening the door on the other side, his friends following. “Close the door behind you there, killer.”
They walked down the culvert for fifteen feet when a six-foot grate made of heavy iron suddenly blocked their path and Billy put his box down. He reached into his pocket and brought out a small set of keys, thumbing through them until he found the one he was looking for. Unlocking the grate, he motioned for the others to move beyond and they did. It was dark.
“Do not panic, friends. It’s only a few feet more and we shall be bathed in light.” Tony got to thinking it was taking a damn long time from the grate to wherever they were going when Billy snapped a green chem-light, shook it, and held it up. A heavy steel door that looked like it should be in a prison stood in front of them. Billy brought out his keys again and found a big one. He unlocked the door and stepped through into candlelight. “Home sweet home.”
They were in a boiler room. A dirty, dingy, dank, boiler room. There was a welcome mat on the floor by a set of stairs and a single red rose in a vase on a table next to the mat. On an easel next to the mat, drawn in chalk, was a simple sign which read: Except Zombies! A green stick figure with its arms forward had a red chalk circle around it with a line through it.
Billy stepped on the mat. “Please wipe your feet.” He walked up the short flight of stairs and knocked on another metal door, Shave and a haircut.
“Who is it?” demanded a small voice from the other side.
Billy turned around, obviously embarrassed. “That’s not how it’s supposed to go.” He turned back to the door. “Richie, that’s not what you’re supposed to say.”
“Oh, yeah. What’s the password?”
“Ahem; I am not a zombie.”
The door made a rattling sound. “It won’t open, Billy.”
“Turn the key the other way, Richie.”
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