by Sikes, A. J.
Mahton brought up the rear, trailing a few meters behind Reeve, who stayed back from Jed about the same distance. He wasn’t sure how he’d get the guy to trust him, and hoped he’d figure it out soon. He didn’t like the feeling of having a guy behind him, locked and loaded and out for blood.
And with a hard on for taking me out.
Up ahead, Sergeant Gallegos waited at a set of stairs that ended where a second floor landing should have been. The landing had been blown apart recently. Blast marks and stains showed where charges had been set.
If it wasn’t for the stink of piss, Jed figured this would be a good place to hole up. Overhead, a window let the day’s weakening light into the stairwell, casting gray shadows across everything. Debris from the ruined floor and walls filled the stairwell, but Jed could tell it had all been positioned to make a path up to where the landing used to be. Jed was about to suggest they move the debris to make a barricade.
Sergeant Gallegos changed his mind.
“They can climb just fine, and we know this won’t keep us safe. But it’s the best we can do. You’re part of the Stable now, Welch,” she said, looking up at the ruined landing
“You’re hiding out up there?” Jed gaped at the splintered wood and broken stone above them.
“It’s what we got. Ain’t worth a damn if the suckers get in here again. But if the col-labs show up, this’ll give us more time than if we’d stayed on the ground. C’mon.”
She kept her M9 in her left hand and used her right to steady herself on the stairs as she climbed over and around piles of splintered wood and crumbled cinder blocks. At the top of the stairs, she paused to holster her weapon and then grabbed at a pipe running up to the ceiling above the second floor. Jed hadn’t noticed the pipe because it was painted the same color as the wall.
Finding supports with her feet, Sergeant Gallegos moved up the wall like it was second nature. Her movements were fluid and practiced, and Jed couldn’t resist a smile as he watched her ascend. She used the restraining bands that held the pipe in place as hand holds and to push herself higher with her feet. When she was above the second floor, she stepped her foot to the window sill and leaned away from the wall to look outside.
“Clear,” she said over her shoulder before she shifted her weight left and made a sudden swing back to the right. With a grunt, Sergeant Gallegos flung herself across the open space above the ruined landing. Jed held his breath, seeing her suspended in midair and knowing she was going to fall. But she didn’t come crashing down. She went into a roll on the remains of the second floor, just beyond where the landing had been.
One by one, Reeve and Mahton followed their leader, until it was just Jed on the stairwell trying not to get sick from the reek of piss while he stared at the pipe on the wall. His M4 felt like a lead weight. The others threw some trash talk his way, but just for a second. Reeve and Sergeant Gallegos moved out of sight, weapons up and ready. Mahton stayed back, keeping watch out the window. He took a knee by a doorway and waved a hand for Jed to get on the pipe.
“It’s clear now, but that doesn’t mean we got all day, Welch. You don’t haul ass, it’s going to a long and lonely night downstairs smelling like piss. Until they come in and find you.”
Jed looked at the pipe, then at Mahton. He let his M4 hang on its sling, stepped up to the wall, and reached for the first hand hold. As he put his foot on the lowest support, about knee height, an animal shriek sliced into the silence around the building. It was followed by another, and then a chorus of the cries came to Jed’s ears.
“They always do that around this time of day,” Mahton said as Jed repositioned his left foot, preparing for the jump.
The climb up the pipe hadn’t been anything like he’d feared. By the time he got the rhythm of moving his hands and feet from support to support, he’d already reached the second floor. Mahton told him to go a bit higher before he jumped.
“You’re too low. You’ll just scrape your chin on the edge if you try it from there. Check the hash mark.”
Jed had to lean back from the pipe before he could make out the mark. The others had scratched a line across the pipe and written GO HIGHER in black marker above the line.
“How’d you know?” Jed had asked.
“Gunny Pacau tried it from there.”
Jed didn’t miss how Mahton’s voice went low and still as he spoke.
Putting his foot on a line of conduit, he pushed himself higher. The shrieks and cries continued outside, and Jed had to fight to stay focused. He was hanging off a pipe nearly forty feet above the floor now. If he missed the jump, he’d be joining the Gunnery Sergeant wherever Mahton and the others had laid him to rest.
Another scream joined the raging howls outside and Jed knew it was a human voice he was hearing.
“Someone’s out there, man. Someone in trouble.”
“I know, and if you don’t make that jump, you’re going to join them. Sergeant G and Reeve are in the hide by now. I should be with them, but I agreed to hang back and make sure your sorry ass didn’t fall out. Now c’mon, Marine. Time to jump, so jump.”
Jed stretched his right foot out to meet the windowsill. He tested it for pressure. Sure enough, it was strong and would hold his weight. But if he slipped—
“Let’s move it, Welch. One . . . Two . . . Th—”
Jed rocked to his left and swung back to the right, shoving with all his might and forcing himself to just look at the broken floor where he’d land.
Don’t look down, don’t look—
The air went out of his lungs as he connected with the floor. He shot his arms forward and grabbed for the shredded carpet as he felt the weight of his legs dragging him back into the open space above the stairwell.
“Shit! Shit—”
Mahton grabbed onto his wrists and hauled backwards, yanking him onto the floor. They landed together and Jed scrambled to his left to get farther onto the landing. He rolled up against the wall in a pile of debris.
“Said you’d make it, didn’t I?” Mahton said from behind him.
“Don’t make me do that again, man,” Jed said. “Please tell me you got another way up here.”
“Nope. Not really anyway. And don’t let Sergeant G or Reeve hear you saying shit like that, rah?”
“Yeah. Okay,” Jed said between breaths. “Rah.”
They got their feet under them and moved away from the ruined landing. Mahton led the way down a hall, past rooms full of shattered furniture and detritus of old barricades.
“Looks like people tried to hold out up here for a while,” Jed said as they went deeper into the second level of the building.
“Yeah, lotta good it did. The things came in from the roof. You’ll see.”
Jed kept quiet as they moved. Mahton didn’t seem up for chit chat, and the more Jed focused on where he was, what he was doing, and who he was with, the more he felt like he was finally doing the right thing with his life.
End of the fucking world and I figure it out. Ain’t that just me.
What’s that scripture again? From Matthew. It doesn’t matter when you go to work in the vineyard, just as long as you do it?
Mahton took a left into a hall that t-boned the one they started in. He paused half way around the corner and motioned for Jed to hold up.
“Wait on my word. Watch our six. When I say clear, you come running.”
Jed nodded and rotated where he stood, sighting down the hall and letting his muzzle drift left and right, from one open door to the next. A metallic scraping sounded from the direction Mahton had gone. A beat passed and Mahton’s muffled voice came around the corner.
“Clear. C’mon, Welch.”
Jed spun on his heel and went around the corner with his weapon up and ready. The hall was a dead end with a mound of metal office furniture crammed into the space, stacked floor to ceiling. It even went up into the empty space above the ceiling tiles. Mahton’s head poked out from the bottom left corner.
“C’
mon,” he hissed.
Jed dropped to all fours and scrambled through the opening as Mahton retreated. The makeshift tunnel was tight, and Jed’s gear seemed to hang up every second as he struggled to make it through. Then he was out and Reeve was yanking him forward with a grin on his face.
“FNG Deke made it. I figured I’d seen the last of you, but I guess you’re more Marine than you look.”
Jed mumbled his thanks, even though he could tell Reeve still didn’t quite trust him. The scraping of metal on metal had Jed turning around onto his ass. Mahton and Sergeant Gallegos were muscling a heavy desk back into place in front of the tunnel. With a shove, they jammed it forward, sealing them all into the hallway space behind the barricade.
“That’s high speed,” Jed said.
“The fuck it is,” Reeve shot back. “If that’s high speed, then my name’s—”
“Shut it,” Sergeant Gallegos said. “Mahton, show Welch around. Don’t forget the fire holes. Reeve, you got first guard in the art gallery. I’m in the gym doing my PT and then I’ll rack out. Mahton, you and Welch got the long shift up top. I rotate with Reeve at 1900. He’ll relieve you at 0100 until first light. Rah?”
“Rah, Sergeant,” Reeve and Mahton said together. Reeve lifted his weapon and marched down the hall, disappearing into a room off to the left. Angled beams of light came into the hall from the open doorway Reeve walked through. Jed could just make out sheets of paper fluttering along the walls in the room.
“This way, Welch,” Mahton said, motioning for him to follow.
Sergeant Gallegos gave him a half smile as he passed her. “Glad you made it,” she said.
“Oorah, Sergeant,” he said, feeling the words come naturally for the first time since he tried on a uniform.
He followed Mahton further down the hall. Splinters of wood lay scattered around every room or office they passed.
“What happened to the doors?”
“Kindling. We had a lot of bodies to burn on our first night here. This room here’s the gym. You can use it when you’re not on guard, but you’ll probably be sleeping then.”
Jed paused outside the room. Mahton held up a few paces ahead, but it was clear he wanted to keep moving. Jed took in the exercise equipment. The room had actually been a gym once, for the people who worked in the building. Free weights, a leg press and two treadmills filled the space. Jump ropes dangled from a rack on one wall, along with two sets of boxing gloves. A speed bag and heavy bag hung side by side against the far wall.
Sergeant Gallegos stepped by Jed and set her weapon and helmet on the floor just inside the door.
“Y’all got somewhere to be, rah?” she asked as she undid her vest.
“C’mon, Welch,” Mahton said. “We’re supposed to be on the roof, and I still gotta show you the layout.”
They moved in silence the rest of the way down the hall until they reached a closed door. “This is the barracks,” Mahton said as he opened the door. “Sergeant G has her own room down the hall. Me and Reeve bunk here. Guess you’ll be joining us. You can have that corner.”
He pointed to the near corner then waved a hand to take in the space. “Welcome to The Stable.”
They’d laid out two exercise mats along the far walls. Each bunk had a couple pillows on it that looked like they’d been yanked from office furniture. At the end of the bunks they’d set up desk drawers to serve as foot lockers for whatever personal items they still claimed. Jed saw a couple photographs, some chewing gum and extra boot laces. In the far corner they had stacks of MREs, most of them still in the cases.
“Where you’d get all the chow?”
“This survivalist dude. He lived a few blocks away from here and had this all loaded up on his truck. He was driving through the city looking for survivors when we spotted him our first day here. Tucker and them took him prisoner.”
“What happened?”
“His truck ran out of gas after we made the second supply run from his place. So we had to hump the last load. It was each of us carrying a case of MREs. The guy couldn’t keep up with us. I hated him when we first met. Just—he was one of those people who would always need someone else to save him. But without him, we’d have starved and run out of ammo.”
Mahton stepped further into the room, revealing a heavy desk and high back office chair just inside the doorway. A SAW mounted on a tripod filled the desk. It looked to be just right for someone sitting in the chair. Three extra cans of ammo were stacked on a second chair. With a fourth in the weapon, they were set up to hold off almost anything.
“Fucking hell. That dude had all this in his attic?”
“He scavenged most of it. Before this world went to shit, he probably spent most of his time with a joystick in one hand and his dick in the other.”
Jed and Mahton shared a short laugh, but quickly went silent. The survivalist guy may have been a lard ass who couldn’t keep up, but he’d secured enough chow and ammo to keep Mahton’s team alive for a good long while.
You never know who’s gonna show up and be the blessing that you need.
Jed’s mother used to tell him that all the time, back in Georgia. Before she threw him out of the house and sent him to New York to live with his grandma. He could still hear the cadence of her voice, the way she’d say everything like it was a warning.
Maybe that was why he ignored so much of what she’d told him back then. He’d let her down so many times and in so many ways.
Am I getting another chance here, to do what’s right? Maybe I’m supposed to be the blessing these people need. Or they’re the blessing for me.
“What happened downstairs?” Jed asked, remembering the way the lobby of the building had looked like an arena.
“They made people fight the things.”
“Fight? How the hell—”
“I don’t know, man. It’s the big one. Fucking thing can still talk, and it gives orders. We saw it with some guys in digies. That must be the Tucker guy you were talking about.”
“Wait a minute? What big one? Those things can’t talk. They can’t even—”
“It fucking talks!” Mahton’s cheeks flared red behind the dirt and grime, and his eyes told Jed not to question him again. Not on this score.
“Okay, okay. It talks.”
“It mostly spits and grunts,” Mahton said, leaning against the desk for a beat. He stood up again and paced while he spoke. “I saw it, though, and heard it. The fucking thing gives orders. It can make words. The other ones listen to it, like the shit it says is the most important shit in the world. It made a deal with Tucker and them. They brought it the first prisoners and it let the other ones fight them, like it was teaching them how to survive by killing.”
“Other ones? Like the other monsters?”
“Yeah, but some of them didn’t seem to get it, you know? Like they were ate up. So the big one had the col-labs bring in prisoners and they got into the ring down there. We were all up here hiding out. We didn’t know what they were doing until it was too late. By then—
“There were too many of them. We had wounded, and we were done, man. Just . . . fuck me, we were all done. I had nothing left that day.
“They set up the lobby for the fights. Fucking col-labs stood around and watched, and some of them—I swear, I ever see those motherfuckers, they’d better hope to hell they’re fucking dead already.”
Mahton paused to square himself away. Jed let him take his time, but he had so many questions eating him up inside.
“They cheered, like it was a fucking cage match. We could hear ‘em, like—” Mahton stopped, and then turned away. Jed could tell the guy was holding in a mouthful of crying and then some.
“Hey, man. We’ll get ‘em back. The people Tucker took. If they’re still alive out there, we’re gonna get ‘em back.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that, Welch. But I’m not holding out for a win on this one. C’mon,” he said, standing up and moving to the door. “Sergeant wanted me
to show you the fireholes. And we’re supposed to be on the roof. You need to see what we’re up against.”
Gallegos checked in with Reeve before she racked out. She’d done a few sets of curls. It hadn’t been a full workout, but it warmed her muscles. That was enough.
Just get the blood moving, keep the mind alive.
She stood in the doorway to the art gallery now, debating whether or not she should take the first shift and let Reeve hit the rack ahead of her.
Mahton’s drawings lined the walls. Reeve was staring hard at one of them in the opposite corner.
“Yo, Reeve. You good?”
“Errr,” he replied, turning on his heel and stepping into the room, where he had a better view of the window. She watched him walk and took in his stride. He moved like a robot, one foot in front of the other, eyes front, hands holding his weapon.
Finger on the trigger.
Gallegos pushed that thought away. It was a natural reflex for anyone standing guard in the gallery. The room only had one door and one window, which looked out over the street. If it came to it, and escape through the door wasn’t possible, whoever was in this room had only one way out.
And they were three floors up.
The art gallery was probably an old conference room. It was long and narrow, with the window at one end and a drop down projector screen at the other. The screen was covered in Mahton’s art now. Lines of charcoal and pencil formed what looked more like a child’s scribbling than anything Gallegos would have called art, at least back before the MOMA was overrun with suckers and blood splatters became the only brushstrokes left for anyone to see.
Their platoon had nearly met their end in that building. Only she, Gunny Pacau, and a few of their men got out alive. That was where Mahton had grabbed his sketchpad and a few pencils.
“It’ll keep me going,” he’d said. And he was right. Even though his drawings were all pictures of the sucker faces, it had been enough to keep him from falling apart. She’d seen him near the breaking point so many times, and each time he picked up a pencil, it’s like he went back to a time before monsters had eaten the world.