“Absolutely!” he replied with fake cheer. “Beats the alternative. They were going to kill us. Probably still will after today.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
Parker walked us through it while he prepared for the rest of our group to arrive.
He had been trapped in the city after it went into lockdown. He should have been home with his wife and kids but he had been too dedicated to his company. He had agreed to be a part of their onsite business continuity team for the promise of a large year-end bonus. By the time he realized the days of bonuses were gone it was too late. He had been captured by patrolling soldiers while eating uncooked noodles looted from an Asian restaurant.
Brooke had lived downtown with her parents. They were traveling abroad when the shit hit the fan and she was left on her own in the city. She had been taken from her apartment while the soldiers conducted building searches.
Both had been interned in the city jail with hundreds of other citizens. Being that they had no real skills to contribute they were waiting their turn to die. Then just two weeks prior they were taken along with dozens of others to the Government Center where they were given a choice. They could live comfortably in their assigned coffee shop or be tossed over the wall to the zombies.
“This is one of a dozen coffee shops that was reopened and staffed with two-person teams twenty-four hours a day,” Parker said.
“Why?” I asked.
“I already told you,” Brooke said.
“For me? In case I showed up here?” I asked incredulously.
“That’s why they opened so many. They had no idea if or where you’d show up.” Parker said.
“What were you instructed to do with me?” I asked.
“Just give you a message,” Brooke said. “They have someone named Daisy and are holding her in the Government Center. If you want her back you have to go there and turn yourself in.”
“That’s it?” I asked.
“That’s all she said.”
“She?” Richard asked.
“Are you sure it wasn’t an older man who kind of looks like me?” I said.
“She was definitely not a man and she didn’t look like you,” Parker said.
The rest of Richard and Donny’s people had emerged from the basement and were making their way towards the coffee shop with obvious glee in their eyes.
“Brooke, looks we are about to experience our first rush of business. You want to give me a hand behind the counter?” Parked asked.
I waited until the coffee shop was filled with wide-eyed survivors before I also went behind the counter. “Hey, Parker, why didn’t you two just leave when you had the chance?”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he said as he filled another large coffeepot with water. “They were watching us.” He pointed toward the ceiling to a mounted camera. “Plus they sent soldiers to check on us every day. Though that stopped a few days back.”
I walked over to the camera. I wasn’t some kind of technical expert but even I could tell the camera wasn’t active and probably hadn’t been for months.
“Didn’t you ever wonder why they sent soldiers to check on you if they could just see you through the camera?” I asked him. He gave me a blank stare and then glanced at Brooke who was pouring coffee for the newcomers. Then I understood. He didn’t want to leave her. “You say the check-ins stopped a few days ago?” I asked.
“That’s right,” Parker replied.
“I think it’s safe to say they aren’t coming back. Especially after I turn myself in. You guys will be on your own,” I said.
“You are actually going to turn yourself over to those wackos?”
“The things we do for love. Am I right?” I asked.
Parker smiled and stole another glance at Brooke. “It’s not like that, George. She reminds me of my family. I just want to keep her safe.
“Where will you go from here?” I asked.
“The city is our oyster, I guess. As long as there is running water and power. We should be able to hold out until summer. Safer in the city than out of it.”
“That’s for sure,” I said. “Listen, since I will be going I was wondering if I could ask you a favor. It’s a big one.”
“No need to ask. They can either stay with us or we’ll get them set up somewhere. Whatever they want. I’ll take care of it,” Parker said.
“Thanks, that means a lot to me. They are good people and they’ve been through a lot. I owe them a pretty big debt.”
“If what you say is true and those soldiers are gone, it will be us that owes you a debt,” he replied.
“Also,” I said as I grabbed a refill, “there may be some people straggling in later from my first group. If you are still here can you let them know what happened?”
“What am I supposed to tell them?”
“Tell them I said thanks for everything and that I am sorry about Marybeth. Tell them to stay safe and stay alive. Tell them to live here in the city or head south but not to follow me.”
“I’ll let them know but there is no guarantee they will listen.”
“Understood,” I said.
“If you really plan on going further into the skyway you are going to want this.” He flipped a handkerchief to me. It smelled like it had been dipped in a bucket of cologne.
“What’s this for?” I asked.
“Trust me, you’ll find out soon enough and be glad you have it.” Parker said.
I thanked Parker and went back to the seating area where the subbasement group had congregated. I explained everything the best I could and covered their options. Almost everyone immediately determined they would be staying with Parker and Brooke. The lone exceptions were Richard and Wendy.
Wendy said nothing as she sat watching me from the back of the room. I had seen that look before in the eyes of Tessa when she thought I had been responsible for a handful of Swanson tragedies. I would be happy to leave her behind.
Richard ask me for a private word. “If you don’t mind, I will be tagging along with you. I’m kind of curious to see this thing play out. I need to know if we are really going to be safe from those soldiers if we stay in the city,” he said.
“What about your people?” I asked. Truthfully, I didn’t mind the prospect of a little company for my trip to the Government Center.
“They aren’t really my people. I threw in with them when everything went to shit. I was hurt and on the run. They took me in, showed me the way downstairs. They lacked leadership and I guess I felt I owed them but they have Donny. If they listen to Parker and Brooke they’ll be fine.”
So it was settled. We were to be travel buddies. I suspected Richard had reasons other than curiosity for coming along but I didn’t press it.
Richard went to say goodbye to his group. There were tears and handshakes. Many of them insisted on hugs which I could tell Richard wasn’t comfortable with. Sometime during the commotion Wendy slipped away. Nobody noticed until we were just about ready to leave and were waiting for Parker to get another handkerchief for Richard. “Where do you think she went?” I asked.
“Who the hell knows? She was in rough shape before and then you went and killed her husband,” he replied. “Hopefully we never see her again.”
As we walked out of the coffee shop and into the skyway the survivors from the basement followed us out softly singingLean on Me in our wake. I thought it was beautiful but Richard was oddly morose. He didn’t even look back. It could’ve been sadness I was reading on his face but it felt more like shame.
The lights went out as we moved from the Cooke Building into the Northpoint Center. There was power in the city but evidently not enough to keep the juice flowing in every building. Everything about this situation felt like a trap so Richard and I agreed we would do our best to navigate through the darkness without using our flashlights. I was walking point with my tommy-gun at the ready. The skyway was like a graveyard, cold and unwelcoming. Sounds like phantoms echoed through the
shadowy corners of abandoned shops and restaurants. Some of the stores were looted but most were not. Someone was attempting to maintain control over the city.
Halfway through the Northpoint Center we encountered our first directional dilemma. We could proceed on through the skyway to the next building or go through the ground floor of the Northpoint and come up to use the skyway on the other end. The first way would take longer but we would be able to see without using the flashlight. The second path was shorter but sketchy because it involved going down the escalator to the ground level. It was black as pitch down there with a powerfully bad smell emanating up to the second floor. I held my nose as I turned to Richard, “Go the long way?” He agreed without argument.
We followed the skyway past an Italian restaurant. The place was desolate but the sign by the door still offered a Wednesday lunch special of lasagna and salad for only $6.99. The sign was stained with something red which could have been sauce or arterial spray. We didn’t stop to investigate.
Around the corner, up a short flight of stairs and through a set of glass doors we walked until a howling blast of cold winter air greeted us like a punch to the face. The sudden change in weather took us by surprise as we passed a taco stand and a hamburger joint. The reason was clear a moment later. The skyway that connected to the next building was gone, destroyed in some kind of explosion. A gaping hole was all that remained. The structural damage was old so whatever happened went down quite a while ago.
The edge of the building was a dangerous mess of exposed rebar and jagged bits of cement. I looked down at the remains of the skyway below with a shudder and wondered how many bodies were buried in the rubble. A quick scan told me there were no zombies so at least no one was continuing to suffer the agony of being undead. But the bad news was we had no way to get to the other side.
“What do we do now?” Richard asked.
“We go back to the Northpoint Center and try getting into the Auriga Tower through the main floor, another skyway connects from the other side.”
“What if that one is blown as well?”
“Then we walk outside, Richard. Either way we need to go downstairs unless you want to jump from here.”
“What about that smell?”
“I guess we get the chance to solve that mystery,” I said with a smile.
Richard shuddered but didn’t argue. I didn’t blame him. It was fucking cold out.
We retraced our steps down the stairway, past the Italian restaurant and through the hall until we stood once again at the top of the escalator and peered into the black abyss of the main floor. We both strained to listen. There was definitely something making noise down below. To me it sounded like the pitter-patter a shitload of tiny paws might make. We didn’t hear voices but that meant nothing. I knew from experience that people and creatures could be silent if they tried. I wasn’t worried about zombies but I’d had my fill of bad people.
“What if something is down there?” Richard asked. He didn’t look scared, exactly, just tense like he was getting ready for anything. But I was scared so I was glad he was with me.
“You mean zombies?” I said.
“Yes.”
“There aren’t any down there,” I told him.
“How can you be sure?”
“You’ll just have to trust me.” He nodded but didn’t say anything. For whatever reason Richard did trust me.
Wrapping the handkerchief around my face to cut down on the smell I took the lead again and started walking down the large metal steps of the escalator as quietly as possible with Richard on my heels.
When I was halfway down that scrabbling noise grew more intense as though our footsteps were agitating the locals. I couldn’t take the darkness any longer so I switched on my flashlight. The beam illuminated the floor below me. It took me a moment to realize the floor appeared to be moving. It was another few steps before I realized it was teeming with rats.
A high pitched squeak escaped my lips as I fell back into Richard. The floor seemed to freeze in place as the rats took notice of us. Hundreds of tiny eyes sparkled in the light of my flashlight.
“Holy shit,” Richard said, breaking the trance. The rats let out a collective squeal that sounded a lot like a human scream as they dashed for cover out of the view of my flashlight. “Never seen so many fucking rats in one place,” Richard stammered.
“Must be something down there that’s bringing them in,” I said as I continued down the escalator and stepped into a horror show.
I now knew where all the people went. Bodies were piled in stacks five feet high. They were scattered around the large cafeteria-style seating area the way someone might prep for a flood. Only the walking areas were clear. The bodies on the bottom halves of the stacks were wrapped in plastic sheeting while those on top were uncovered save for the clothes they died in. Whoever placed them here had more bodies than they had supplies.
There were too many to count, enough to fill the entire space except for the walking paths leading to the exits. Richard and I moved through the macabre scene in slow motion, trying to get our minds around what we were seeing.
“Do you think they were zombies?” Richard asked as I stopped to investigate a corpse that hadn’t been wrapped. It had been a woman dressed in jeans with a jacket on. The body was in rough shape from decomposition but the cause of death was clear. Gunshot wound to the back of the head.
“My guess would be these folks had the Sickness but hadn’t changed over to full zombie yet,” I said. “Or, like Parker said, these were citizens killed for not being skilled enough to contribute. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the buildings have these makeshift graves. I hope Parker can find someplace that hasn’t been turned into unrefrigerated morgue yet.”
Richard took the lead and we continued through the remainder of the eating area and down the hall past a burrito stand and an art gallery. Then it was up another escalator and into the bank building. All without incident. We still hadn’t encountered a single soldier or civilian.
“Maybe it’s not a trap and everyone is dead or gone,” I suggested as we jogged through the skyway level of the Auriga Tower.
“From my experience with the Syndicate I am still betting it’s a trap.” Richard said over his shoulder. I stopped in my tracks. Richard jogged another dozens steps before he realized I wasn’t with him. He spun around with an anxious look in his eyes. His gun at the ready. “What’s wrong? Why did you stop?” he asked.
“The Syndicate?” I asked.
“What about them?”
“What is it? I’ve never heard that before. Is that a special group or something? The soldiers work for them?”
“Shit, I don’t know, George, when I was running around in the sewers with Donny and the others we captured one of the soldiers from up here. That’s what he called them. If you have another name for them we can start using it.”
“No,” I said absentmindedly. “Syndicate is as good of a name as any.”
We resumed our jog but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Was my father the leader of this group? Why the Syndicate? Sounded like a mafia outfit. I tried to remember any detail from my childhood that would connect my dad to something as global as the Sickness or a large syndicate. He had kept odd hours. He was gone for weeks at a time. He also seemed angry a lot but I was young so my memories could have been clouded with the bias of hindsight. But I did know one thing; when it came to my father anything was possible.
There had been no bodies in the tower or the bank building but the smell of decay was heavy. We had no desire to explore the main floors. They were likely just as full as the Northpoint had been. We stopped just before the entrance to the Government Center to regroup. The large open space was empty. The kiosks and the tiny food alcoves were all closed. The floor was dark with the exception of one of the information desks. Behind the desk a stocky man in a flowing blue shirt stood waiting. He was leaning on the desk with both elbows, striking a pose that screamed of endless
boredom. When he saw us coming he nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Ar-are you George McCloud?” he stammered.
“Who’s asking?” I said as I strode up to the desk with Richard in tow.
“It’s Brenden!” he said quickly. “I mean, my name is Brenden Hiatt. Please don’t kill me.” He started squirming like he had to use the restroom. He wiped his sweaty brow and kept stealing nervous glances from me to Richard.
“Hyatt like the hotel?” I asked.
“No, um, Hiatt like h-i-a-t-t. No association with the hotel.”
“How did you know my name?”
“I have this,” he said as he slid a flier across the desk. “That looks like you so I just assumed.”
“Let me guess. You were told to wait for me?”
“How did you know?”
“We ran into a guy named Parker a few buildings back. He ran it down for me.”
“Oh yeah, Parker, good dude. A little fussy sometimes. We used to work together. Then we were in the same holding cell for quite a while. Even had our own fake radio show.”
“Fake?”
He giggled, “It was just a silly thing we did to kill time. Sorry. I’m rambling. I do that when I get upset. It’s just that I saw your guns and they make me really nervous.”
“You must be nervous a lot these days,” I said.
“You don’t know the half of it! Well anyway I am to tell you to take the elevator to the fourth floor. You will find what you’re looking for up there,” Brenden said.
“Then what were you supposed to do?” I asked.
He looked confused for a moment. “I don’t really know. She didn’t give us any further instruction. Her men stopped checking in on me a few days ago. Kind of a bummer really. I’m almost out of food. It was terrible here. I had to hide under the desk a lot because someone was killing the soldiers whenever they came down. I kept waiting for them to kill me too but they never did. Like I said that ended a few days ago, I haven’t seen anyone since.”
That was strange. I wondered who it was but Brenden claimed he never saw anyone, just heard the shooting. I watched him for a long moment as he tried to calm himself down. I decided I trusted him. He seemed as guileless as a large puppy. “My advice would be for you to head over to the Cooke Building. Parker is still there with some survivors. You could throw in with them. I’m pretty sure those soldiers aren’t coming back.”
Running with the Horde (Book 2): Delusions of Monsters Page 29