"Fuck!" she said when she saw that there was no other door.
She had no choice but to run to the end of the shed-like structure and hope there would be a ceiling access or she could break a window into a cleared area. There was a deep shelf running the length of the building with an open portion at the end, where she thought she could hold them off for a while. It wasn't hope as much as it was refusal to give up and admit that her time may have come.
Zombies were already filing through the door, and she could hear the runners screeching as they tried to get past the slower ones. She looked at the shelf and realized it was plywood on a frame that hid a stairway. Where it led—if anywhere at all—was a mystery. What wasn't a mystery was what would happen if she didn't take the plunge down into the blackness of the stairway. A lot of the buildings in this area had lost their power a few days ago, much like a switch was thrown and all at once everything went black. She knew that power was still on somewhere, as she could see the glow in the night sky.
She hit the stairs fast, holding the two-by-four in front of her like a shield. The entrance under the building was nothing but a screen door that held back a darkness that was thicker and more daunting than anything she'd ever seen. The button of the door depressed under her thumb just as two zombies rolled to a stop at the base of the stairs. One of them was still mobile but the other just wiggled its head, its body no longer able to operate.
Sharon struggled to move the paralyzed one's leg just enough so that she could get the thin piece of aluminum and glass between her and the zombie struggling to its feet. It wore a pink sweater and a patterned, calf-length skirt; its hair hung in strings that barely covered the hole where one of its cheeks had been. With pale, red eyes locked on Sharon, it hissed.
Sharon struggled to open the door just another inch, but its leg was pressed up against the face of the stair, stopping the door from opening any more than it was. She stomped on the knee, trying to break the leg but knew she wouldn't have the force to break such a large appendage. Pink Sweater was lunging, and Sharon's focus went back to the two-by-four that she tried to get between them.
Three more bodies tumbled down the stairs and slammed Pink Sweater up against the wall, holding off her attack and shaking up the paralyzed one on the ground enough to free its leg so the door suddenly opened. Sharon bolted through the door and slammed it shut behind her, locking it but knowing it wouldn't hold them for long. She could hear the door already starting to give way as she made her way across the dark cellar.
Absolutely no light glimmered within the space, but she did feel a cool draft on her face. It smelled and felt more like a cavern than a basement. She knew nothing about spelunking, but something told her that her escape would be at either end of the air stream. What mattered was determining which one was the right one.
She turned left into the flow and tried to focus her thoughts on her face, where she could feel the breeze best. The benefit of feeling the air also meant she could sense where pillars and posts might be. She had to stay focused and purposeful, and not allow herself to do it as second nature. To take things for granted or to assume would get her killed.
She held her board out front and low so that it would pick up on any threats that might be hiding down there. She was still in the cross-trainers and athletic shorts she was wearing when all of this occurred, so she was very conscious of her bare legs. She would trade her shoes for some steel-toed hikers at the first opportunity; the last few days had been nothing but trying to suck in enough wind to run again. She hadn't had a full night's rest or a solid meal; it was all snatch-and-grab food every day, all day since it began.
A blue glow of night sky up ahead showed her a potential escape, and the crashing of glass and aluminum signaled her potential demise. She knew they couldn't see down there any better than she could, but in what seemed a vacant area, they would be able to follow her trail like bloodhounds.
If there had been any light, Sharon would have seen a large vacant area with a massive number of pipes and wires running along the ceiling and going into the buildings above. If she could have slowed down long enough, she would have smelled sewage gasses seeping from old forgotten pipes and improper venting—all of which did nothing but confuse the creatures pursuing her. That didn't prevent them from filling the subterranean chamber with reeking dead and stumbling flesh.
The scent of decay and released bowels threatened to choke her as she approached the bluish glow that was coming down from the ceiling. Sharon could feel the rush of air fill the entire chamber in its hurry to flow down into the underworld. The opening was mostly large cast-iron pipes, spaced far enough apart for her to fit. If it led nowhere, she could brace herself for a much needed breather. She jumped and grabbed the pipes, hoisting herself up and into the small vertical shaft that led to the roof. She looked back down when she heard the rustling of moving bodies beneath her and realized that, once again, she had barely escaped with her life. Now to find her friends and the mysterious bald guy who had helped them.
#
"If we just stay calm and quiet, the zombies should forget about us and pass on by," the man said to the group of strangers he had rescued.
"Yeah, after they're done eating my best friend," Marcy stated, not accusing anyone but very distraught. In the past four days, they hadn't seen so many Z's in one spot; it was almost as if they were summoned there. "Why are there so many here?"
"I don't know. Maybe they're running out of food and gathering where ever they smell m— well, who knows what motivates them."
"If anyone can survive that horde out there, it's Sharon," Gordon stated.
"What the fuck do you know, you piece of shit? You never liked her and treated her like shit. What was that about Gordon? Was it because she's black or simply a little too thick for your tastes? Forget it; I don't even want to know what goes on in your petty brain," Marcy spat, knowing that she was lashing out but still harboring a lot of truth in what she said. The room fell into an uncomfortable silence for several minutes.
"Look, I've made some hot water; would any of you like some tea?" their host asked.
"What the fuck? Tea? We're out there running for days and you're in here sipping tea?" Marcy snapped, not ready for even basic conversation at that point.
"No, I mean, I just got here. I lost my entire family and almost my own life before I made it to the compound," the bald man said.
"Compound? What compound?" Gordon asked.
"Yeah, I wondered about that when I didn't see a radio with you. Lieutenant Reynolds of the Hot Springs Police Department has set up a safe haven that's doing quite well. She's very smart and realized almost immediately that there would be no evac sites and actually got a jump on the apocalypse."
"Apocalypse … is that what they're calling this?"
"Well, there really is no they, there's just us. And yes, we have recognized it as the apocalypse. I'm Craig, by the way," he said as he handed Marcy a cup of steaming tea.
"So why are you out here?" Gordon asked as the rest of the group chose to stay silent and rest as much as they could while they had the chance. "I mean, if you were safe there, why are you here now?"
"To be a part of the recovery and benefit from the safety of the compound, everybody must contribute. I've been assigned to the rescue effort. I'm here to help those who are trying to get to the compound. After you rest and the streets clear, I'll guide you to an extraction point and you all can join with the other survivors," Craig said as he handed out tea to the rest of the group.
"I hope you like Chai," Craig said with a smirk, as if it truly mattered.
Marcy had just spent the last few days not trusting her own eyes and she didn't trust Craig either. However, for the first time, she did feel relatively safe. So safe her eyes started to get heavy and she felt she could actually sleep. She downed her tea only to have Craig refill it as he did for the others. The sweet natural spices of the Chai were penetrating her muscles and causing her body to relax.
It tasted sweet, as if honey had been added with a bitter almost chemical undertone.
Marcy vaguely remembered one of her group mumbling "Oh god, he drugged the tea" before her eyes closed heavily and her breathing became rhythmic.
#
The chimney was large for a mechanical run and looked as if it might have been from the old coal furnace days, but it was tight for a muscular girl like her. She didn't have to pull on the pipes as much as she had to inch her body up a very small foot at a time. She could tell that the cavern behind her was already filled with corpses. The chimney was the natural vent for the lower level, causing the putrid stench of the undead to be pulled away and allowing fresh air to come to her.
Her hand felt an opening in the wall covered with a thin, tin vent cover that fell out onto a flat area as the pipes continued upward. She debated about staying in the safety of the run but decided she could always come back to it; there might be something there that she could use as a weapon. She couldn't hear anything from above, so she moved forward and found herself in a flower shop that had been trashed in some type of altercation. It was getting harder and harder to find places that didn't show signs of zombie strife. Tables were turned over and dirt was spread across the floor from broken clay pots and bags of fertilizer. The windows looking out to the street were shattered, with about half of the glass on the floor and the other half still in the frame.
Nothing moved within the store so, keeping low, she crept to the back door, assuming it led to the same T-shaped alley that she had just escaped from. Putting her ear to the door, it sounded like a thousand bodies all trying to moan at once. She was in a wide-open area with two doors on one wall and single door on the other. One of them had to be a stairway up or an entrance to something other than an open-air flower store to hide in.
She searched for something she could use and settled for a round-edge spade that had a flat blade cut into the shape of a half moon. She was actually quite impressed with it and considered it a sign that things were going to be turning around for her real soon. She scavenged under the counter and came up with an open box of granola bars, the cheap kind with bunches of fruit and sugar mixed in, but she didn't care.
She walked over to a door that had a cheap, smoked glass window in it and turned the tarnished knob, hearing the ancient mechanism click with the faintest of metal-on-metal sound. Past experience dictated that she not let the zombie—if there were any—come to the door before she opened it; best to open quickly, and close quicker if it was occupied.
She flung the door open while retaining her grip on the knob, scanning the room quickly. An orange flash and the faintest of bumps on the other side caused her to pull the door shut. She let out a sigh and slowly opened the door, unable to stop a smile as the freed cat curled up around her feet, meowing as if she had food. She watched the cat for a second as it moved over in front of a cabinet that had its doors closed. She opened the cabinet and found several cans of high-end cat food. She pulled the pop top and suddenly realized that she hadn't eaten in a very long time. Holy shit, she thought as she read the label. Better for you than Spaghetti O's. She set the can down for the cat and then opened another for it. The rest she shoved into her pockets as best she could before going to check the other doors.
As soon as she put her hand on the knob of the third and final door, she could tell something was behind it. Unlike the other two, it did not have the smoked glass window and was a simple series of five horizontal panels. Looking at the hinges, she could tell that the door opened out so she readied her spade and quickly opened the door while hiding flat against the wall behind it. Two zombies came out; one was an older woman who looked as though she'd had half of her face eaten and, from the looks of the younger girl with her, Sharon could tell who had done it. Blood completely smeared one side of the younger girl's face and onto her T shirt—a gruesome contrast to the giant, embroidered, Monarch butterfly emblazed on the front of it.
Sharon let them pass, allowing them to focus on the still eating cat, before she slid out from behind the door and, in one stroke, almost decapitated the younger one in back. A quick downward stroke sank into the older woman's skull, allowing her to direct its fall with the half-moon blade of the spade.
The cat took some time to look at her while she killed what Sharon assumed had been the feline's master before going back to its meal. For a second, she envied that cat's detachment and wondered if she could ever be so cool.
She ran up the stairs, closing the door behind her, and entered out onto the flat roof of the old brick-and-mortar store. The evening had set in, and what she beheld was a sight that left her at a loss for words. Beyond expectation—just two zombie-filled blocks away—stood salvation, illuminated for all to see. She collapsed at the roof's built up edge and sighed with relief at what stood before her; the magic kingdom, Avalon, her utopia … Oz. Before her stood cranes, trucks, and semi-trailers surrounding buildings and life. Above and beyond all of her dreams, there was still life and humanity who, unafraid of consequences, lit up the night and destroyed that which would see its demise.
Sharon opened a can of Beef Bouquet and forced it into her mouth with her fingers. A bottle of water and a little sleep before she went out to find her friends became her priority. They would be surprised to see she made it, that was for sure; it was definitely safer to stay with the group.
She settled down into a dark corner on the roof and closed her eyes, for once with the hint of a smile on her lips—a smile that would take a doctor to remove.
Chapter 6
Mud
"Mud? What do you mean, 'mud'?" Lisa asked Jesse when he mentioned what they found in the second locker.
"Well, it's a sheet rocking product that dries in a certain amount of time. It's powdered and when you add water it will dry solid within minutes."
"You have to be fucking kidding me. We break into high-end security lockers and all we find are ball bearings and sheet rock mud?"
"Easy Sand is actually what this brand is called. We haven't gotten into any of the security lockers yet; this stuff was here for the temperature, humidity, and air flow control."
"Thanks, Jesse." Lisa turned to a man in a black shirt with military-grade firepower hanging off of his shoulder in a three-point strap. "Who are you?"
"Lieutenant?" Tim interrupted from behind the man. "This is retired Captain, Mustafa Sidiqui; he was with the Green Berets and is much more qualified to help you here than I am. I'm better in the field, so if you are okay with it I'll lead the rescue while the captain stays with you."
"That will be fine, Tim; thank you. Well, Captain Sidiqui, this is our situation ..." Lisa said and began to mark out where the dead were coming from and what the complete mission objective was.
"We don't have enough ammo for those kinds of numbers, Lieutenant. A soldier shooting ten rounds a second will take almost eighteen days to shoot two hundred and fifty thousand rounds—and that doesn't account for reloading. With what we have, there is no way to do it with the number we have here." The captain began thinking and planning out loud. "Let's make a list of resources and go from there. What kind of time frame are we looking at?"
"Less than twenty-four hours."
A list was made and then discussed for almost a half hour before Lisa stood up straight and looked the veteran in the eye with a combination of dread and horror.
"It's the only way," Mustafa said, causing Lisa to remain silent. She had witnessed so much carnage over the last couple of days, but those numbers paled in comparison to what they were about to do. That much destruction of even dead humanity would leave no one unscathed.
"Mitch, find me some musicians—preferably drummers. Skit, we need to recruit more drivers. Jesse, bring me some of the bearings and mud. A lot of the bearings and mud."
#
Sharon woke a couple of hours before dawn to the purring of a cat in her lap. She was surprised to see that she had slept for eight straight hours.
Looking ove
r the edge proved that it was already too dark to see if there were any zombies still down there. She knew that they were still around because she could hear them moaning and shuffling—and it sounded like a lot of them. She could also hear some moving around on the building across the alley from her. That discovery wasn't good because, if she remembered correctly, that was the building where her friends were.
She walked to the roof's edge and looked down. In the moonlight, she could see the packed bodies as one writhing mass of murky, gray, squirming flesh that flowed from the door and out into the street. She squinted and tried to peer through the windows of the building across from her to look for movement. If they were still there, the zombies—packed so tightly they looked like wriggling sardines in a can—would make the trek to them virtually impossible.
She opened another can of cat food and poured half of the Savory Chicken on the ground for the cat before she started shoveling the rest into her mouth. She always thought there was no way she would ever eat pet food, but it was pretty good. The meat was tender cut and the gravy was low in salt. She wished she could heat it up and have some bread with it, but it was what it was.
A thunderous drum roll startled her, causing the last of her Savory Chicken to rain down onto the heads of the zombies below. A snare drum roll continued to increase in intensity as the intermittent flash from a strobe light illuminated in a slow singular pattern. The rapid tapping of a resonance beat seemed to have an effect on the zombies as they started to crowd and push to get into the building. Sharon was glad she couldn't see into the gloom below because she knew they were crushing each other in their urgency. She could smell it and hear a constant cracking, grinding sound that she never suspected the human body being capable of making. In the brief and occasional flash of the strobe, she thought she could see the zombies jerking erratically. Like a mosh pit at an acid rock concert.
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