by Brett, Cal
She breathed with relief as she saw that it was a steel door set into a concrete wall. She hoped this would hold them back while she found Robbie. She prayed he had not already succumbed to the undead horde. She turned and ran back to the main lobby. She wasn’t sure where to start but she knew she had to get out of sight of the mob in the garage.
Robbie was out of time. He heard the slapping steps and moans of the crowd following him reach the last landing and knew they would be at the bottom in seconds. With no other choices, he ducked into the utility room and locked the door. He backed away as quietly as possible, taking cautious steps, knowing if they heard the slightest noise, they would easily tear down the flimsy wall between them. The wall was clearly only intended to be a decorative barrier for any guests who wandered down this far. It only had drywall on the outside and was framed up with metal studs. All of it would crumble if the mass of undead pressed their weight against it.
He stood still and controlled his breathing to keep quiet. He hoped they would forget why they came if he stayed silent. He heard the things scuffling into the last parking level and begin to thump against the wall. It rattled each time one bumped against it and soon they seemed to be packed in tight. He only heard moans and the sounds of dead shoulders sliding along its surface. He prayed it would hold.
After a few minutes, the echoes of footsteps and moans of the undead seemed loud enough to cover up his small movements so he began carefully exploring the room. He had looked around some before but hadn’t examined it closely since he intended to come back with Kelly. The back wall was concrete and likely part of the foundation of the building. There were some small alcoves but they were too narrow to get through and mostly blocked by metal conduit and fuse boxes.
He walked around the room twice but saw no way out, so he sat down against a row of metal pipes. For a while, he stared at the wall and listened to the shuffling scraping sounds of the creatures in the parking garage. He wasn’t sure what to do other than wait.
‘Wait for what?’ he thought. ‘A miracle,’ he decided. It seemed better than the alternatives of ‘die from dehydration’ or ‘zombies come crashing through the thin wall and eat him.’ Perhaps, his mind kept working, it would be better to fling open the door and try to fight his way out while he was still strong - before he was dehydrated and hungry and weak. But this just seemed like a quicker and more painful way to die.
Kelly stumbled backwards not believing what had just happened. “Dammit Rob!” She cursed angrily under her breath, “what the hell did you do?!”
She ducked into one of the small conference rooms along the hallway to get out of sight of the creatures banging on the garage door and to get her head together. Leaning against the wall, she sank to her knees and put her face in her hands. They had survived this long by sticking together, by acting together and by always being there for each other. Through bad, terrible and worse they had been side by side, but they had literally been living within feet of each other for the last few years.
The short time they had been safely tucked away in the condominium building had been a breath of fresh air. They had been able to be safe and alone, really alone, for the first time in years. Kelly was able to work on the garden, read a book and lay in the sun on the roof without worrying about being eaten alive for the first time in forever. Robbie had been able to get out and explore, go on short scavenging runs and even do some trading with the Baldwin sisters. They slept together at night but she had begun to really enjoy that he wasn’t always within arm’s length, all day every day, and they weren’t living in a perpetual state of fear.
This comfort had made them lazy, she decided, and might get them killed. The thought that Robbie may already be dead raced through her mind and she quickly pushed it away. “He’s not dead,” she told herself again. “Maybe in trouble, well definitely in trouble when I find him,” she let out a nervous giggle, “but not dead. Definitely not dead.”
She ran through the list of places he could be in her head, but kept coming back to the garage. She dreaded it but knew that’s where he was. Otherwise, why were the garage doors open? How were the lights on? If Robbie were ok, he would have come upstairs as soon as he got the lights on. He would gloat about it. She could imagine his face.
“Ok, he’s in the garage,” she said to herself, “…need a plan.”
Kelly knew she couldn’t fight her way through the dozen or so undead banging around the upper level. “And how many were on the lower levels?” She stood and began to pace as she thought it out. “First, I have to stop the leak. I need to figure out a way to close those garage doors. Then I can figure out a way to kill off the ones inside. Robbie will have to hold on until I can get that done. He can do that much at least.”
An idea suddenly popped into her head and she bolted back out into the hallway and sprinted towards the main lobby.
The concrete floor was cold and felt moist so Robbie stood again and paced the room. He wasn’t looking for anything. Just pacing to keep moving and keep warm. He stopped at the wall he thought must be on the west side facing the river and rubbed his cold bottom. The wall looked to have been freshly painted before the end but cracks and flakes had begun to appear as time, moisture and cold did their work.
Near the corner, he noticed a faint line of shadow at the bottom of the wall. Sliding over, he saw that it was from a thin four foot by four foot shape protruding slightly from the wall and painted over, making it nearly invisible. Wondering if it might be some sort of electrical access, he knelt and began picking at the paint until he was able to pull several strips away. The white latex came away easily revealing a metallic steel plate set into a recessed steel frame. He pulled out his knife and began cutting around the edges of the plate revealing a small dimple on one edge. Digging the paint and gypsum from the dimple he discovered a finger sized key ring attached.
He gently pulled the ring causing it to give slightly before it seized up. Robbie pulled harder. He could feel it flexing but it seemed stuck. Probably rusted over the years, he thought. The ring was only large enough for one finger and the knife was too large to fit in as leverage so he slid one finger in, wrapped his other hand over it to improve his grip and bracing his legs against the wall for leverage began to pull again.
The narrow ring stung his finger as he put his full weight on it. He gritted his teeth and hoped the metal ring would release the catch before his finger broke. It held. A few seconds later the pain in his finger was such that he could no longer bear the weight. He let go with a grunt and crumbled to the ground cradling his reddened digit. He lay curled up for a minute until the white, hot pain began to recede.
As he lay sprawled on the floor massaging the blood back into his hand, the sound of grunting and scraping on the outside wall increased. Something, whether it was his struggles or another stimulus, had stirred up the things in the garage.
“Shit.” He whispered knowing they were just as likely to knock down the weak barrier accidentally as they were to do it intentionally. Probably more likely the former. Just get them riled up enough in an enclosed space and they would start crashing into the walls like bulls in a ring. He sat back up and took hold of the tab again.
Before he started, he wondered if this would be a fool’s errand. “I’ll probably get it open,” he thought, “and find it’s just an electrical junction box.” He looked at it again, not looking forward to the pain of pulling at it any further. “But if I don’t, I’ll never know and I’ll die here.”
Using the knife he dug out more of the paint from the small hole where the ring connected to the inner locking mechanism. Then he reached up and grabbed the ring again. He could hear the things outside growing more perturbed as he began to pull. They scraped and thumped loudly along the wall outside as he struggled with the pin.
The ring suddenly jerked back an inch with a grating squeal. The unexpected movement sent Robbie sprawling backwards. His finger remained lodged in the ring and he yowled in pain as it e
xtended before it broke free. Landing with a thump he writhed on the floor, cradling his injured finger, mewling as the blinding pain overwhelmed him. It was a few moments later when he was able to breathe again, and looked up with tears running down his cheeks.
The wall to the garage was vibrating as hundreds of hands pounded against it. The press of bodies caused the hollow drywall and steel structure to groan as their weight began to bend it inward. Robbie knew it wouldn’t last long. He cursed himself for yelling, even though his finger still screamed in pain.
Knowing he didn’t have long, he scrambled to his knees and crawled back to the small metal door. He prayed it would at least provide a space large enough to hide before the wall caved in.
Robbie saw that the ring had popped back into place when he released it. Cradling his injured right hand, he grabbed it with his left hand and drew it back. It resisted at first, causing terror to bolt through him.
The pounding on the wall turned from the sounds of slapping against a flat surface to crunches as fists and knees started to break through. He pulled again on the pin and it suddenly gave. Hearing the lock click, he quickly pulled the plate open before it could lock again.
Kelly charged through a glass door marked SECURITY. She had been in the office before when they had cleared the building, but with the lights on it was much less intimidating. A salmon colored counter top divided the room in half. The front was likely intended as narrow public waiting area. She imagined people coming in to report lost pets or pay their parking fees. Ignoring the “Employees Only” sign, she circled around behind the desk and through the door. Out of habit, she stood in the dark for a moment before flipping the light switch on.
As she remembered, several rows of security monitors were mounted onto one of the walls but they were all dark causing her to wonder if they were working. On the desk underneath, she tapped on a keyboard and moved a mouse around hoping to bring them to life but nothing happened. Then she spotted a power strip and pushed the power button off, and then back on.
The room came to life. The flat monitors blinked and several hard drives began to growl as they woke from their long sleep. For a long moment, the screens flashed and went on and off as their connected computers cycled through their rebooting processes. Finally, a timer appeared showing a count down. It was a long minute, but finally whatever they needed was complete and most of the monitors lit up.
She sat down in the office chair, pulled up to the desk and went back to work. The mouse and keyboard were familiar and yet, having not used such tools in several years, they also seemed strange and alien. She hoped she could remember how to use computers well enough to navigate through to find what she needed. Her first problem was that the PC had gone to a blue screen and was prompting for a user log in and password.
She jumped up and began searching for something that might help her reset the password. She opened every drawer and looked in every file cabinet. There were stacks of manuals and warranty books but she found nothing. She slammed back down in the chair shouting, “Crap! Crap! Crap!” She spun around scanning the room for something, anything to give her a clue. Finally she turned back to the monitors and figured she would at least try a few passwords.
Robbie looked inside the opening and found a narrow space lined with pipes and large colorful wires. To his surprise a metal ladder was bolted to the inner wall. Glancing in, he saw that the ladder went up the thin shaft into darkness. A crash behind him reminded him that he didn’t have extra time to consider his options. He squeezed through the opening, dragged his legs in and flopped upside down into what could barely be considered a crawl space. By the time he righted himself and reached out to close the metal door, he looked over to see there were dozens of holes in the sheetrock wall. Grey arms, legs and even a few putrid heads had punched through and were desperately trying to get passed the dusty gypsum barrier.
Robbie swung the door shut and, with a click, the key locked back into place. The space was completely dark but he felt safe enough for the moment, so he leaned back against the pipes and massaged his still aching finger. It hurt badly enough that he wanted to yell but he bottled it up in deference to the undead, whom he could hear clattering and crashing into the control room.
A few dark minutes later, Robbie decided sitting there wasn’t helping so he reached back with his good hand and found the ladder. It took some doing in the small space to quietly get himself untangled and turned around, but he was finally able to orient himself so he was standing facing it. He could hear the things banging around in the utility room as he took hold of it, stepped onto the rungs and began to struggle upward.
He found that the small space worked to his advantage since it was too painful to use his right hand. Bracing his back against the far side he was able to move up slowly just using his left hand and both feet. The metal pipes and fittings were sharp and painful as he climbed through the darkness but he kept moving. He took his time, feeling his way ahead as much as he could and trying not to panic in the total darkness.
He tried not to let his imagination run away with the muted sounds and groans, echoing up the shaft, from the creatures rampaging through the room below. He could only pray that they didn’t get through the small door or that something worse wasn’t waiting in the inky blackness above him.
A few minutes into the slow climb, he noticed the glow of a green light ahead. He could tell it was small but in the total darkness it shone like a lighthouse. Growing closer, he could see it was a just a tiny LED indicator, still it cast enough light that he could see it was near the top of the shaft. The shape of the shadows revealed something solid a few feet above it. He hoped it was some sort of hatch to get out of the narrow crawl space.
His elation at having escaped the undead faded, as the pain in his finger extended out through his entire hand and spiked with each heartbeat. The shaft, which was warm to begin with, seemed to be getting hotter. He could feel sweat draining down his back and over his face. He wished there was some way to get his heavy jacket off. The sweat slowed him further as he had to stop every few rungs to wipe his eyes and the ladder seemed to become more slippery.
A few times he had to stop, hold himself in place with his legs and back, while he dried his palms on his pants and waited for the pain in his finger to die back. He wasn’t sure how far he had come in the darkness but the green glow, still seemed small and far away.
Chapter 19
She pulled the keyboard towards her and her eyes went wide. “No fucking way!” She exclaimed as she snatched up a bright pink sticky note that had been hidden underneath the carriage. On it was written the log in name and password. She quickly keyed in the code and watched as the monitors went from blue to black.
Rows of small rectangular images appeared on the screens. Kelly used the mouse to choose one of the images and it increased in size to show a picture of the lobby. Looking closer she realized it wasn’t a picture but a live video feed.
“Yes!” She shouted and, after some experimenting, she figured out how to control the images with the keyboard and mouse. She excitedly began scrolling through the images of various places in and around the condo. Some cameras were either not working or blocked, but some were functional enough that she was soon able to see that the images were grouped by location. She spun through several angles of the front of the building; looking down at the street, the sidewalk in both directions, the front door from the right and left side, and so on. Finally she found an outside view looking down at the front entrance to the garage.
The gate was up as she suspected. She watched as several undead stumbled out of the opening but were replaced by others lurching inside. She suspected the noise of those still banging on the lobby doorway was attracting them. “Ok, what else we got,” she said, switching to another image. This one of the inside of the top parking level. A group of a dozen or more creatures were still huddled at the doorway where she had recently left them. A few seemed to have lost interest and were bumbling a
round the large open area.
“Well, I found your cars ladies,” she declared as she spotted the two vehicles matching the brands on the realtors’ key fobs. Scrolling to the next camera she saw an image that she guessed was one floor down, since there was a giant sign that read Parking Level 2 painted on the concrete wall. When she saw the next camera showed the garage door at the rear driveway entrance, she exclaimed “Fuck me! Did you have to open all the doors, Rob?!”
She continued flipping between cameras as she descended further into the parking lot. She became more hopeful seeing that each level only had a few undies stumbling around. ‘The fewer the better,’ she thought, ‘it’ll make it easier to take them out.’ But her heart sank when she reached the bottom floor.
Several hundred of the creatures were crammed into the space. They were shoulder to shoulder like surging music fans in a mosh pit. In the center of the group she saw what looked like the remains of a wall. A few sections of broken drywall, wiring and insulation hung from an incomplete line of twisted metal studs. The creatures were pushing and shoving each other back and forth through the gaps.
Inside the area she could see what looked like banks of electrical panels, but couldn’t see past them to determine what might lie beyond. If Robbie was in there, she prayed he had found a way to hide.
Robbie groaned and pushed himself up. At each rung he desperately wanted to stop but determined that he wasn’t going to let himself die stuck in an electrical shaft, he willed himself slowly and painfully upward. It seemed an eternity. Rivers of sweat burned his eyes. His right hand was so swollen that it sent excruciating bolts of agony up his arm every time he bumped something. He didn’t know how he did it, but he finally found himself at the top, near the green light. He saw the ceiling was concrete, over which ran wrapped cables bolted into metal channels.