by Mark Clodi
Near sundown Sarah hustled the kids downstairs again to use the bathroom and get ready for bed. She scanned the street again carefully and only let the kids use the upstairs bathroom while she stood watch over the hallway and stairs with her trusty baseball bat. No problems. They even ate in the master bedroom instead of in the attic. While they ate Sarah tried the cable channels. This was an eye opener, most channels were off the air and Sarah could not help but think of the old adage, ‘Three hundred channels and nothing is on’, that stopped when she hit the news channels. Nothing could have prepared her for what she was seeing. New York, Beijing, Moscow, Buenos Aires, Houston, Denver, LA, Seattle, Tokyo, the list of cities scrolled on and on, every place that was anyplace looked to have been hit. Live footage was rampant on some of the channels and what she saw disgusted her. Sarah sent the kids back into the attic at sundown, with instructions to go to sleep if they could. She pulled the heavy drapes tightly closed, kept the bedroom door open and watched until she could stand it no more. Everything was lost, everything. This was the end of civilization; nothing would ever be the same again. People had come to life as flesh eating zombies.
No thoughts of Max entered her mind as she helplessly wondered, “What can I do? What can I do?”
Chapter 44
Max was ready to try the light rail tracks. Anything to get home to his wife and kids. Juan and Hank were going to take the doctor and nurse up to the warehouse store where their own family and friends were holed up and form some sort of an enclave to protect themselves. At first they were insistent that Max go with them, but eventually they understood that he had to go find out about his family. As for the warrior kids, they too, had their own way to go and nothing any of the adults could say would deter them. From Max’s point of view they kids wanted to do the same thing he did; check on their families, save them if they could. Stewart let Michael keep the revolver Max had taken off the man from the apartment, Tom handed his pistol over to another one of the kids as well. With two guns and their hand to hand weapons the kids at least stood a chance, plus they had experience going for them, they knew what to expect. Max and his group would be leaving first, today in fact to try and make it to Max’s house by the evening, the rest, well it was obvious to everyone that the wounded boy, Jacob, was going to die. Nothing the doctor did for him worked. The rest of the group was simply waiting on death to collect yet another soul before they moved on.
Once Stewart had the car loaded and ready to go, with another spare taken from a compatible car, the two groups looked at each other and said their goodbyes.
“Hank, Juan, we will try to make our way to your warehouse once we get my wife, we know where you are holed up at.” Hank, nodded.
Juan, answered with his characteristic ‘Si’, his face full of worry he added, “Vaya con dios.” And made a sort of cross in the air over Max.
Turning to Michael and Whitney, Max said, “You guys stay safe, there is not much I can say to you, just stay safe and keep the kids safe. I know you will so this is useless advice.” Max shrugged, “Pointless huh? I wish we could all stay together, we can’t though; everything needs to be done right now, so we can salvage what we can.” Looking at everyone they were leaving behind Max wondered if he would see any of them again. He had a strong urge to give up going after his family and just join with the group, guilt at that thought forced him to smile and get in the car. As he waved goodbye to the others he thought of something he had heard not too long ago, ‘Duty compels’. All the people involved seemed to have a duty of some sort to attend to and they were all doing it until it was proven to each of them that their obligations no longer existed.
Tom, Stewart and even Steve were going to go with Max, they vowed to see this through to the end, and to the end they would see it.
“You know,” Max began as Stewart drove to the closest light rail station, “I feel like I am making a bad decision here, maybe we should stay?”
Steve laughed, “Not hardly. You know how pissed off Sarah would be if you did not come to get her? I have had to listen to you vent about her spats of anger the last three years, something like this, well Max, it could destroy a marriage.” Tom and Stewart, simply added their “no’s” to staying, agreeing that they had to see it through, with Stewart adding, “We can always come back, if this works out it won’t be that hard to get back here. Besides I think we might need Hank’s help to get those plows at some point anyway. I am more worried about Michael and Whitney.”
Max turned his face to the window and said softly, “Yeah, me too.”
The light rail was a good idea, the group made more progress in an hour than they had the previous day. They came across a problem only a half hour into their trip there were numerous bridges over streams, roads and bike paths, which the car could naviagte, but over the Platte river there was a problem. The bridge was fine, however a light rail car sat upon it, and there were people in the car. It looked like they were human, they had one door forced open and were using it to go in and out as Max watched. They carefully edged along the tracks, thirty feet above the river below and approached the police car. One man approached while three others looked around for zombies and covered him, all the men had rifles. As the man got near the car he called out, “What do you think you are doing?”
Stewart, who had rolled her window down, called back, “We are trying to get through to the station in Arvada.”
“Power’s off, the cars don’t move anymore, we pushed this one up here after disabling the brakes. The zombies have a hard time getting to us, we can see the better ones and pick them off, the slower ones tend to fall into the river.”
“Yeah, good thinking, the heat has to be killing you though. We’ll go around, take a side street back over to get rail line.” said Stewart.
“There is another cross-over in about two blocks, if you can get to the rail beyond us anyway. That bridge is pretty clear.” here the main pointed at a nearby traffic bridge, “Can you get the car off the tracks?”
“Ah, yeah probably.” turning to Tom and Steve, Stewart said, “Could you guys get out and pile gravel up alongside the tracks so we can hop the car over them easier? Max you stay in the car with your gun drawn, in case these guys are not so friendly as they look.”
The man with the rifle stayed about twenty feet away and watched as Steve, Tom and eventually Stewart shifted the heavy rail road rocks up along the tracks, making an impromptu crossing, eventually satisfied Stewart was able drive the squad car off the rail lines, over a curb and onto the street. Once Steve and Tom were back in the car, they merely waved to the men with the rifles and headed towards the bridge. A few blocks up they were able to get back onto the tracks where they crossed a road, resuming their bumpy trip.
Along the way Max asked about Steve's sister, she was the next person they were supposed to have gone after.
“We checked yesterday while you were out. Nobody.” said Steve curtly.
“Nobody? That is good, it means she got away.”
“Well her house was empty, not broken into or anything, she might have made it.”
Tom, riding in back with Max leaned over and whispered in his ear, “Steve's upset. She didn't call him or anything, so either she is dead or she didn't give enough of a shit about him to check on him. Either way...” Tom let his sentence trail off. Steve looked ahead stonily, not indicating he had heard anything.
Max thought about it for a moment and decided that there really was not anything he could say that wouldn't make things worse, so he kept his mouth shut and watched the houses for zombies.
The rest of the trip was easier going, in fact Max was growing more anxious, they could have made the trip the first day if he hadn't been shot! Stewart had opted not to follow the light rail into Arvada, but then the street started looking more clear so she pulled off onto one where the street crossed over the light rail. This turned out to be a good decision, the back streets were passable and they made better time in the early morning light. Alo
ng the way they spotted several zombies near the road and Max had the impression more were hidden among the strip malls and convenience stores they passed. He felt like he was sensing them where they remained hidden and could tell when their eyes were upon him. Soon enough the group was turning onto the street that led to Max’s house.
Chapter 45
Nancy smiled in anticipation upon hearing Jimbo’s report: Nobody was home at Max's house. This could be a case of the wife and kids hiding really well, heck the doors were still shut and probably locked, or the bitch could simply have taken her brood over to her mom’s to hide out. Getting in and checking the garage would let them know they might have hiders, maybe not though. Max struck Nancy as a kind of family guy, the kind who worked to live, not lived to work. Probably he had bought a house in the same neighborhood either he or his wife grew up in, probably within walking distance of the nearest family member. Still they would check the house over good when they got inside and anyone left would be zombified.
“Is that all Jimbo?” Nancy asked him, as she and the girls stood around in a semi-circle listening to his report.
“Eh, well mostly. It looks like some zombies have kind of been through here already, I did not see any sign of life and plenty of signs of death. Max’s house looks pretty clean, like no one was there from the get-go.”
“Did you try the doors? Look in the garage?” pressed Nancy
“Ah forget it Nancy.” interrupted Veronica, “We told him not to do that stuff, I am just amazed that he got back to us so quickly at all, plus he is not your lackey, or mine, let him do his job as he thinks best. I still say we should have given him one of the ones we picked up along the way.”
“What? No, no, I don’t need any help right now, I think we need to make the ‘military’ as strong as possible first then, worry about getting the executive a helper, then me, then Julie.” said Jimbo.
Along the way to Max’s house the group had grown from a group of five, plus Jimbo’s hidden ‘agent’ Bobby to a group of eleven, plus Bobby. The four main players, Nancy, Jimbo, Veronica and Trish were the only ones huddled at this meeting, Julie had become a fair administrator of the ‘troops’ and took her orders from Veronica as planned. Trish had risen to the occasion and become a sort of helper to Nancy, a vice president. Jimbo kept Bobby as a hidden resource, rationalizing that he was a spy and the other powers did not need to know ‘how’ he got things done, only that he did so. Jimbo felt the bond between him and Bobby was growing stronger, it was to the point that he could reach into Bobby’s mind and tell him things without even having him in direct line of sight anymore. In fact he could even sense Bobby’s location now, he knew the boy was up on the roof half covered by the same pine tree that the rest of the group was clustered near, about eight houses down from Max’s place. Not that Bobby needed to be close to hear, as far as Jimbo could tell the communication went both ways, right now Jimbo kept the line between them open, broadcasting everything to the boy.
“Yeah I am kinda getting dicked around on the assistant thing, I mean we got six new recruits and the armed forces got them all? It seems to me the balance of power is getting out of whack here.” Nancy sent a barely perceptible scowl in Veronica’s direction.
“Look Nancy we discussed it, you agreed, fucking move on with the past and concentrate on the task at hand. We are here because of you, we are doing what you wanted us to do and even you agreed we needed to bump up the ground forces a bit to deal with the gangs and humans roaming around. I have the people I need to take down one well defended house, is it my fault there is no one to take down? We will learn from this experience and change our future responses accordingly.” This was a rather long statement from Veronica, who Jimbo thought, was becoming the next Nancy of the group. She had insisted that only she and Julie make all the new zombies, so in theory the new recruits were all controlled by the armed forces.
What Jimbo suspected was that Julie was really not a factor in any of this. Last night Jimbo had kept an eye, or an eye of Bobby’s, on Julie pretty much at all times, she seemed like the weakest link and his observations only strengthened his convictions. Julie did nothing but take orders, she did not give any. Watching Veronica wash over the issue told Jimbo what kind of leader she might become. If she handled it internally and replaced Julie as her right hand man, well that would be good. If she continued to gloss over Julie’s part in her ‘army’ and did not bring one of the new recruits up to fill the position, that would be bad. Frankly Jimbo didn’t think Julie cared either way, he had her pegged as a zombie with a conscious and that the idea of what she had become was starting to wear on her. Would she, could she, kill herself? All the more reason to keep a set of eyes on her. The whole recruiting formula did not bother Jimbo at all either, he already had given Bobby instructions to grab any stray kids he found and ‘make them his’. Kids worked better, you told them to do something, threw a video game at them and they did it. Of course no new video games were being made and eventually Jimbo would run out of gifts. He shrugged, ‘I don’t need to worry about what happens in three years, today is all that matters.’
“What’s that Jimbo?” asked Trish.
Jimbo, not realizing he had spoken out loud, quickly said, “I hope we are not close enough for anyone to hear and are we going to get to anything today that actually matters? C’mon, lets set up our crew, go in and deal with the reality and not re-fight old battles. Again.” Jimbo went on to curse himself quietly, he was going to have to watch that, his internal dialog was having a tendency to come out of his pie hole too damn often in the last twenty four hours. He quickly looked up to make sure he had not spoken anything else out loud.
Veronica nodded her agreement. “Yeah, yeah, smart man Jimbo, you are right we need to get set up and go in, it is what? Seven in the morning? As good a time as any to head in. I will have Julie take four of the troopers to cover the sides and rear of the house, I will go in the front with two others, when it is clear I will send one out to bring you guys in, fair enough?”
The other three leaders said yes or nodded their assent and Veronica went off to discuss things with Julie who started moving slowly into position around the sides and back of Max’s house.
“Julie is going to be a problem.” said Jimbo, not quite meaning to voice what he was thinking.
“No shit Sherlock, I guess you are a master spy after all. What can we do about it?” said Nancy.
“She is…apathetic. I think she was religious or something before, you know, before she changed. Not real religious, but kinda borderline, went to church sometimes and stuff. Now she can’t resolve her old life with her new one. I think somebody should put her out of her misery and out of Veronicas.” added Trish.
“Well traditionally the intelligence department was responsible for assassinations, or rumored to be. As the executive branch I guess it is within my authority to order you to take her out Jimbo, just do it in a way that suggests it was an accident, okay?”
Jimbo’s laughter, brought a fresh scowl to Nancy’s face in response. “No fucking way am I going against ‘V’, you dumb bitch. She saved my fucking life and I won’t cross her without a better reason than that. ‘V’ can handle the problem, and she has too, it is her person, her problem. You really want me removing one of your assistances if the rest of us say they they need to go? No?” both women shook their heads ‘no’, Nancy with what seemed like regret, “That’s what I thought. See? I am on board with Veronica’s new reality Nancy, we can make this work. You? You are lucky you got to stay around at all after the shit you were pulling. My advice to you deary is to start rowing with the team and making decisions to help us all out before there is say…a military coup.”
The stunned look on Nancy’s face made Jimbo feel all the better as he turned his back on her and glided off into the night. Bobby, being placed on the roof within listening range, was there to relay the rest of Trish and Nancy’s conversation to Jimbo as he walked away.
“That son of
a bitch! I will kill him Trish, kill him with my bare hands!”
“Yeah, he has huevos, don’t he? Funny thing though, he is right, you know, you are isolating yourself and still behaving like a dictator, you need to start convincing us to be on your side, not expecting us to.”
“Et tu, Brute? I should have expected…” began Nancy.
“See? Here we have the perfect opportunity to build a bridge when I criticize you and you are going to go off on me? What you should be doing is finding out what I want to be on ‘your side’.” At this point Trish moved up so her lips were right next to Nancy’s, with Nancy’s right next to her and whispered something even Bobby could not hear.
The next thing Bobby heard was Nancy’s laughter followed by, “Is that all? Oh, God that is so fucking great. I think I will try working with you after all, my dearest ally.”
The two women left the shelter of the pine tree to go and check out Max’s house. Jimbo had worked his way across the street to watch Veronica enter with her two man crew. Julie had one zombie on each side of the house, and probably the rest were in back. As Jimbo watched he saw a slight movement in the vent above the garage. 'Attic', he thought, 'they are in the attic. I better make sure they are not touched before Max gets here.' He started across the street as the women began their assault on the front door, forcing it in quietly and entering into the house quickly.