"Good," the kid said from behind, cutting her off. "Real good."
Bright stars exploded in her head, cutting off the rest of what she had been going to say. WHAT... she thought, as she crumpled to the floor. She was dimly aware of the sound of gun fire, before she passed out.
Hank Nelson entered the room just as Alfred clubbed Jessie in the back of the head with the machine gun. Alfred quickly reversed the gun and aimed it at Hank.
"Hey!" Hank yelled in surprise, and then looked fearfully to the gun in Alfred's hands. "Hey, don't kid, I'm on..."
Alfred didn't let him finish. He squeezed the trigger and in a split second Hank was cut in two by a hail of bullets.
"Fuck you," Alfred spat, as Hank fell to the floor. Two men appeared in the doorway behind him, Alfred whirled around cat-quick but lowered the weapon once he recognized them. "Pick her up, let's go," he ordered. The two men quickly did as ordered, and followed Alfred out into the hallway. They passed John's lifeless body in the corridor, where Alfred had let it fall, after he had snuck up behind him and clubbed him in the back of the head as he had Jessie. He had slit John's throat, almost before he had hit the ground, and so he had made no sound whatsoever. Alfred kicked an empty paper coffee cup, resting by one of John's outstretched hands, out of his way as they trotted by.
Outside, in the late afternoon air, the sound of gun fire reverberated through the Streets. It was audible now, even inside the building. Alfred mowed down a group of seven people with the machine gun, who had been crouched fearfully just inside the doorway to the building, as he came upon them. None of them had the chance to return fire, or even turn around, and Alfred, followed by the two men, trampled over their bodies as he pushed through the doorway and out into the street.
The South side of the city was in the grip of a battle that had begun two blocks away, when Willie himself had taken out the patrolling guard, and then quickly rushed through the barricade, toward the War Memorial.
All was not going as planned however, as a heavily armed group in the County Court House building had pinned them down before they had been able to take the War Memorial, and that had allowed the people in the War Memorial, to react.
As a consequence Willie's group was rapidly falling in numbers, and although he did not wish to, he would have to drop back, or risk losing all of his men if Al didn't show soon. He had just started to draw back, when Alfred came trotting out of the television station, in a deafening roar of gun fire. The kid had done it, Willie realized, as he saw the two men running behind him, carrying a slumped form in their arms as they ran. He could see even from the distance of the two hundred yards that separated them, that the form was female, and he was quite sure that Al knew better than to bring him the wrong woman.
As Willie watched, one of the men carrying the woman was cut down by gun fire, and Alfred quickly picked up the fallen mans’ burden and continued forward. Willie was torn, Alfred had to make it through in one piece with the woman, or Luther would have Willie's balls, he had told him as much, and Luther didn't bull-shit.
The gunfire from the Court House, and the War Memorial was restrained somewhat, but they apparently had more than a few shooters who could aim well enough to miss the woman. When they were less than a hundred feet away, the kid went down, and the remaining man struggled to get the woman over his shoulders and continue on. Willie hesitated, only an instant longer, and then leapt up and sprinted for the man. Chips of asphalt flew all around him as he ran. The War Memorial crowd was trying to stop him from reaching them, he realized. But gunfire was nowhere near as bad as Luther, so he kept on, marveling that he hadn't yet been hit, as he ran the last few feet and grabbed the woman's body along with the other man.
He felt the man behind him go down just ten feet from the safety of his small band of disciples, and he felt as well the ripping of his flesh, as three rounds caught him in the back. He stumbled the last few feet pushed forward by the impact of the rounds, fully expecting to finally drop dead as two men rose from behind the barricades to take the woman's body.
He had done it, he had reached safety, he realized, and he had also caught three solid rounds in the back doing it. That made him happy, as he wanted nothing more than to lay down right here on the pavement and die, it would feel so good, so right, he thought, as he began to ease toward the road. His hands were clasped across his stomach. What's left of it, he thought. He could feel his insides trying to squirm out through his fingers.
Good, he thought, very fuckin' good. Very, very, good. So, how come I'm not dead? he asked himself.
Takes longer, his mind whispered, this ain't a friggin' movie.
Okay, fine, he reasoned, this ain't a movie. But how come it don't hurt even, huh?
Shock, his mind told him.
Well fuckin' fine, but...
Two of his men squatted and quickly picked Willie up, just as his eyes slipped shut. "His gut's is hanging out, Tommy," one complained, gagging.
"Shut up and get going, we ain't leaving his body here, no way."
The two men ran off down the street, and deeper into the north side of the city, carrying Willie's body between them as they ran.
EIGHT
Frank
Frank crouched low, looking over the layout of the Jeffery's farm along with the others, from a thick stand of trees that came up to within one hundred yards of the rear of the house. The barn and the twin silos were even closer, maybe two hundred feet, he estimated.
A heavily bearded, biker type stood on the rear porch of the farm house, casually picking his nose, while simultaneously, drinking a can of beer. His machine gun resting against the porch railing less than two feet from where he stood.
"That guy's got to go three hundred pounds," Frank whispered, as he watched him.
As if he had heard him, the biker suddenly tossed his thick greasy hair out of his eyes, and looked out toward the woods, directly, it seemed to Frank, where they were hiding. Frank held his breath and waited, mentally kicking himself as he did. If he had heard him though, he certainly didn't act like it. He suddenly crushed the beer can in one fist, threw it out into the yard, where it joined countless others, turned heel and walked to the opposite end of the porch. Once there he lowered his wide bottom into a rusted green metal deck chair, and propped his feet up on the rail of the porch as he lit a cigarette. The machine gun still rested against the rail on the opposite end of the porch, perhaps twenty feet away, Frank saw.
"Piece a work, ain't he?" Gary whispered, to no one in particular.
"That he is," Jeremiah whispered back.
A foggy belch, along with the hiss of an opening carbonated beverage, could be plainly heard from the rear porch in the quiet mid-afternoon air.
"Real pig too," Jimmy whispered, "if he drinks enough we might be able to just walk over to those silos."
"That'd be nice," Frank whispered back.
"Gonna have to try for it soon," Jeremiah said, "maybe now's the best time, he ain't got his rifle. Might not get a better opportunity."
They had spent over an hour crouched down in the trees hoping for a good opportunity. Trouble was, Frank thought, we still don't know if there's anyone inside the house. The biker was the only one they had seen so far, and he had not ventured into the house once while they had watched him, so they had no idea what to expect if they tried to move on the silos. There could be, Frank thought, a whole house-full of re-enforcement's just waiting to come out of the rear of the house. Jeremiah was right though, he realized, they had to make a move soon, either that or wait for night fall, and none of them wanted to do that.
"Lets’ do it," Frank grunted decisively as he slowly stood up. The other three men stood up with him.
At first the biker type seemed not to notice them as they slowly walked from the woods. The way his feet are propped up, Jeremiah thought, he might not be able to see us. Two steps later though, the biker suddenly jumped up and began to sprint for the machine gun at the opposite end of the porch. All four
of their machine pistols chattered at once, and before he had made it more than ten steps, he was cut down. Frank ran as hard as he could toward the silos behind Jeremiah. Jimmy and Gary brought up the rear. They all dropped to the ground once they reached them, and scurried around behind them.
Although the silos protected them from the gun fire they expected, they also blocked their view of the house. They heard nothing, no doors suddenly slamming open, no footfalls, but that didn't mean they weren't already closing the distance to the silo, Frank knew.
"Gonna check," Frank grunted, as he belly crawled around the side of the silo so he could see the house. No one was in sight, and he could make out the prone body of the biker behind the spindles of the porch railing, where it had fallen. Frank stared at the house for a few minutes longer, before he crawled back around the silo.
"Looks good," he whispered, "can't be certain, but nobody's come out yet."
"We have to check it though," Jimmy said, "no telling for sure until we do."
"Yeah," Gary agreed, "I don't want to get inside this silo and then find out that we were wrong, that there is somebody in there."
"It don't make sense," Jeremiah said, "that they'd put the guy out here alone... Not if it's really important anyhow."
Frank looked at the silo. It looked like an ordinary see-it-any-day-of-the-week sort of silo. He had seen hundreds just like it back in Seattle. He looked down at the base of the silo. The base was just concrete. Could be Peter's lied, his mind whispered. It might be just an average ordinary silo, and he didn't feel like getting his ass shot off for an average ordinary silo. The door however, was around the front, and like it or not, they would have to be reasonably sure the house was empty before they entered, or they would be trapped, he realized, like fish in a barrel. "Lets’ go," he decided, crouching low as he ran around the silo toward the house.
The house was empty. The house was completely empty. No people, no furniture, no nothing. The only thing that was in the house were three cases of beer piled just inside the rear door, that matched two on the rear porch, apparently to keep the biker type happy. Along with a deep midnight blue Harley sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, its chrome winking, even in the muted light falling through the windows of the kitchen. Other than that it was completely empty. They searched the attic, basement, and found nothing. After the quick search they trotted past the body on the rear porch, and back out to the silo.
"Here goes," Frank said, as he shot the padlock off the silo door they had hidden behind. He turned the knob and the door swung open. The door was not lead lined, Frank noticed, the pristine interior of the silo was empty. No silage, and definitely no missile, and no false bottom either, the floor was solid concrete, they crawled around the perimeter and checked on their hands and knees to make sure.
"Other one," Frank said, "it must be in the other one," he finished, and bolted toward the other silo, with the others close behind.
The second silo had a small key-pad installed into the solid metal door, with both a green and a red indicator light. The red indicator light was pulsing steadily.
"Bitch, what do you make of it, Gar'?" Frank asked.
"Looks almost like a simple house alarm type setup," Gary responded.
"I wouldn't try shooting it off, Frank," Jeremiah cautioned, "could be maybe it would set off some sort'a warning."
"Believe me I wasn't entertaining the thought," Frank responded dejectedly, even though he had been thinking of doing just that. "Does anyone have any idea on how we can get in?"
The silo was connected to the barn, or at least to Jimmy, who had been looking it over, it appeared to be. "Through the barn maybe?" he offered, "looks to be connected to me."
They circled the entire barn twice, before they came back to the double sliding front doors. From a distance they had appeared to be ordinary doors, but up close they could tell that they were not. They looked to be better than ten inches thick, and that was only what they could see. The sliding mechanism was only for show, the doors either swung inward, or outward, it was hard to tell, but they definitely did not slide. The windows were likewise fake. Within ten feet they had been able to tell they were nothing more than painted replicas. The weathered wood siding was also a sham, Gary discovered, after he kicked the side of the barn in frustration. One rotting board had fallen to reveal the thick concrete shell of the building beneath.
"Well, one thing's for sure," Gary said, "there's something in there, or they wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of disguising it so well." He stepped back and stared up toward the roof of the deceptive building. "Might be maybe another way in though," he said, gazing upward.
The other three men stepped back and looked up as well.
"Through that air vent you thinkin'?" Jeremiah said.
"Might work," Frank agreed.
Jimmy's eyes flew open. "I saw a ladder, one of those aluminum jobs around the back," he exclaimed.
"I saw that myself," Frank agreed, as he followed Jimmy around the building. They were back in a few minutes carrying the long ladder between them. Jeremiah helped set it up, and then began to climb it toward the top.
The others were positive, at first, that Jeremiah would come tumbling back down the roof to the hard ground.
The roof pitch was steep, and once he had left the ladder he'd had a bad moment or two before he gained his balance. "Don't worry, I ain't goin' to fall," Jeremiah assured them once he regained his footing, "I climbed my own barn roof more times than you could shake-a-stick-at, and this one ain't near as steep."
Still, the three remaining men on the ground were apprehensive, until Jeremiah gained the top of the roof, and the large turbine-type air vent. He seemed to test the solidity of the mounting once he reached it, and then called, "Look out boys, she's comin' down." He twisted the round steel top, the muscles in his arms standing out, crouched down, and let the top fall free, as it came loose with a high squeal of metal against metal. The top tumbled end over end to the ground, the turbine still spinning, until it hit the ground and burst apart, no longer an air-vent, but a small pile of shiny scrap metal.
"Well, what you waiting for?" Jeremiah called down, a smile on his face. "She's open straight into the loft, come on."
The others wasted no time in climbing the ladder, and they dropped the six feet to the loft floor, as Jeremiah had, once they had crawled through the now open vent.
The interior of the old barn had been as extensively modified, as the exterior. The entire upper loft area still resembled an actual barn, but below that was where the real renovations had taken place. The entire one hundred foot by forty foot space was completely open, and steel girders now supported the weight of the structure, instead of the massive hand hewn beams that had once done the job.
Excluding the small loft, that had been left intact to facilitate easy access to the roof vents, heating ducts, and electrical conduits, eighty feet of the structure rose unobstructed to the ceiling from the concrete floor thirty feet below. There was no sign of equipment, military or otherwise in the building, it was empty, and the pristine off white of the concrete seemed to bear out the feeling they all had, that the renovation had been fairly recent, and whatever equipment that had been destined to be installed in the structure had not been.
"Looks more like an aircraft hanger than a barn," Jimmy said, as he stared down into the well-lit space. The building was obviously powered by some electrical source, but no tell-tale sound of a generator could be heard within the structure, and they had heard nothing outside that would indicate the presence of a power plant either. In fact the only sound in the building itself, was the low buzz of the florescent lights suspended from the steel girders.
"You think it's powered from the caves?" Gary asked.
"Has to be," Frank responded. "Unless there's a sound proofed building close by that we missed, and I doubt that," he finished, and shrugged his shoulders. The empty building echoed their voices, seeming to amplify them as they spoke,
Has to...has...Be...be, and that tended to make them speak in whispers, to avoid the eerie echoes of their own voices.
The barn was extremely oppressive to Frank. He had the feeling that a full scale war unfolding directly outside the building would not be heard, and it was almost as if the building ate the sound of their voices, or absorbed them into its walls after it bounced them around.
"I really don't like this place much," Frank said, vocalizing his apprehension.
"Me either... Lets’ see what we got, and whether we kin get into the silo," Jeremiah said, as he began to climb down a steel ladder to the floor below, "then lets’ get out of here."
"Sounds like a plan to me," Frank said, as he followed. Jimmy scrambled down next, and Gary followed at a slightly slower pace nervously clutching the steel rungs as he did, as though they would suddenly disappear.
"Hey, you comin', or what?" Frank called up teasingly, as Gary slowly descended. He regretted it a few seconds later as Gary turned his sweat slicked face to him. "Scared a heights a little," he said through clenched teeth.
"Sorry, Gary, take your time," Frank said apologetically, as he mentally chastised himself.
To Gary the thirty feet to the concrete seemed more like a mile, and until he finally set one foot on the cement floor, he had been convinced that the ladder would either suddenly fall away, or his own fear would cause him to lose his sweaty grip on the iron rungs, and he would plummet to the cold concrete far below. "Unreasonable, I know," he said with a shaky voice once he was standing beside Frank. "Unreasonable or not though, I never been able to shake it. Goin' up ain't much of a problem, but comin' down..." He finished, shaking his head, with more than a trace of embarrassment.
"I wish you'd told me, Gary you could have stayed up there, or outside, and I sure as hell wouldn't have kidded you about it, I feel like a real ass," Frank said, concern in his eyes.
"Oh sure, I stay outside and get my ass shot off, while you guys get to do the fun stuff," Gary said in a serious voice. "No thanks, we're stickin' together. I'll deal with the ladder, it ain't so hard going up, only comin' down," he finished smiling. They walked toward Jeremiah and Jimmy at the rear of the structure.
Earth's Survivors: box set Page 193