Looking at the box truck I knew what work I wanted to have done, but I wasn’t sure if we had the know how to do it. Even if we could figure it out, we would have to be like the A-team to get it done before tomorrow. That thought brought the A-team theme song into my head, where it stayed for the rest of the day. Sometimes I really hate my train of thought.
“We’re in position.” I heard Jane say in my ear.
“What do you see?” Asked Jack.
“Nothing good.” Amanda said. “There are about twice as many as we had thought. They are stacked up about three or four deep in front of the row of shops.”
“Just standing?” Jack asked.
“Yup. I don’t get it. It looks like they are just waiting on some cue to start banging away on the building. There are a few roamers here and there but damn near all of them are just standing there.” Jane said.
“Guys, can you make out what shop our people are hiding in, if there are actually people over there.” I asked.
“I’m pretty sure that they are in the shop to the far left of the building. Fidelity Investments.” Jane said, and Amanda chimed in right behind him. “I agree.”
“What brings you all to that decision?” Jack asked.
“All of the shops are fronted by windows. Fidelity is the only one that has file cabinets shoved in front of their windows.”
“That would kind of be a big give away wouldn’t it?” Sass said, and I heard Jane’s answer. “Mama Bradshaw sure did raise herself a charmed son, handsome as hell and pretty smart to boot.”
“Jobs over guys. Bring it on back home. We have some talking to do.” I said.
“They’re on the move, tracking them back across the access road and crossing over towards the interstate.” Jack said, his eyes never left the binoculars as he spoke.
“I assume you have been putting together a plan.” Sass said.
“Me or him?” Jack asked.
“Charlie.” Sass said.
“I have an idea; I just don’t know how doable it is.” I said.
“The truck?” Jack asked.
“Yes. The truck.” I said.
“You have that damned A-Team song playing in your head again?” Jack asked. I couldn’t see his face, but it sounded like he was smiling.
TWO
I wasn’t asking for a lot of alteration to the vehicle, but what I wanted would be enough to keep us busy. I wanted the two front doors wielded shut and a hatch cut into the roof of both the cab and the box. I wanted the hatches turned into doorways that could be opened from the inside. We would also need a ladder inside the box to get out through the roof. That in itself would be a chore to do but then we get to the hard part. I wanted the hand control for opening the back ramp of the box truck to be extended. I wanted there to also be a control at the opening in the roof of the box and another in the front of the truck as well. This would give us the ability to be out of harm’s way and still be able to drop the ramp. To make this happen though we would need somebody that could do wiring. Having three military people in our group upped the odds that one of them would have learned something about being an electrician at some point. I was also sure that Jane would have been the kind of guy that worked on his own bike. As it turned out I was right. Jane and Amanda both knew how to do electrical wiring.
It took most of the day, but with the five of us and Shawn working together we got the truck finished. All the modifications I wanted were done as well as fortifying the box walls and cutting out some holes to give people in the back a few shooting lanes in case we got surrounded. Jane even installed railing around the top of both the hatches to help us keep our balance while going up or down. The truck was far from perfect, but I was proud of our work.
“So, do we go tonight?” Sass asked.
“No.” Jane said immediately.
“Why not?” I asked.
“We aren’t ready yet.” Amanda said.
“Yeah, I still have some preparations to make before we go. They should be fine for another night. I say we go tomorrow morning.” Jane said.
“Sounds good to me.” Jack said.
“Amanda I’m going to need your help if you don’t mind. The rest of you get some sleep. It’s going to be a fun morning.” Jane said.
As Amanda and Jane wandered off I said goodnight to the others and went to my tent. Once inside I wished that I had never bothered. Veronica was waiting for me. Veronica wasn’t happy.
“What’s the truck for?” She asked before I could make it into the tent.
“There is, what we believe to be, a group of people stranded in the Fidelity building over in K-mart’s parking lot. We’ve modified the truck, so we can go get them out.”
“We? So, you’re telling me that you are going over there with them?”
Here in lies all the problems of relationships. She asked me a question that she knew would get me in trouble either way I answered it. I could tell the truth and that would put us hip deep into an argument or I could lie, in which case she would call me on it and then we would have the fight. Either way, we were about to have the fight that she wanted to have.
“Yes, I am going with them.”
Her eyes flashed at me as I dared to tell her the truth. “Why are you going?”
I could have told her that it was my job, but she would tell me that no, in fact, it wasn’t. I could have told her that it was a responsibility that I had volunteered for, but that would start a whole new fight. I could tell her that it was something I felt in my heart that I had to do. I could say that I didn’t feel as if I had a choice in the matter, but she would argue that I did have a choice that I could choose her over my guilt. Every road I could take led me to fightsville. All of the answers I considered were true, but I decided that I would go with something that really seemed to sum it all up in three short words.
“I want to.” I said to her. She didn’t explode. She didn’t go off on some yelling tangent. That was still a few weeks down the road from where we were at this point. Instead she asked me, “Is Shawn going?”
Really? Is Shawn going? This was my future. I would forever, in Veronica’s eyes, be judged against a guy who got scared and decided to simply ignore the world around him. He chose to put blinders on so he wouldn’t have to be scared like that again. I would hear “why can’t you be like Shawn?” over and over and over. I wanted to answer back “because I’m not a coward.” But I knew where that would lead.
“No, Shawn will not be going.” I answered. I was still trying to act like all of this was just normal conversation while my mind was efficiently breaking apart the different aspects of what was, and wasn’t, being said while trying to help me navigate into calmer waters. The only problem was that it seemed Veronica was bound and determined to dump me into the rapids and watch me flounder for my life in front of her. I was tired. I didn’t want this. “Yes, I am going. Yes, I know that makes you mad. No, you can’t change my mind. Yes, I am sure. Can we go to sleep now?” That is what I wanted to say. I wished that it could be that simple.
“Charlie, I don’t think you should go either. I don’t think you’re ready for this. Look what happened to you the last time you left. You just got out of that wheelchair today.” She said this to me with her worried look on her face.
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.” I said sitting down onto the sleeping bag. Veronica spun on me, her anger alive and ready to lash out.
“Don’t you dare say that to me!”
I will admit I was completely confused by this turn of events. “What?” I asked looking into those angry eyes of hers.
“Don’t you dare tell me not to worry. How am I supposed to not worry about you if you go out there?”
“I’m going to be inside the truck with Jane, Amanda and Sass. I will be perfectly safe, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Yeah, just like last time. All you were doing was going over to the interstate to set off a car alarm. You didn’t come home until the next day and you had a
concussion and an ankle that was a hair from being broken. If it wasn’t for Amanda…” She trailed off and I found that I had no words in me to fill that void. She walked over to where I was sitting and flopped down beside me. She wouldn’t look at me and I knew that she was just a breath away from crying.
“The night we first arrived here you told me that you didn’t know how you felt about me.” I said. She looked up at me and nodded. “Should I assume that you have a better idea how you feel about me now?” With an evil little smile, she punched me on the shoulder.
“You dork! How do you think I feel about you?!” She said as she spun around and pounced on me, pushing me back onto our bed and landing directly on top of me.
“I think I’m in more danger in here than I could ever be out there tomorrow.” I said laughing and she, surprisingly, laughed back at me.
“If you get so much as a bruise tomorrow I will be happy to show you how right you are.” She said as she kissed me and I found my hands sliding slowly up her back.
The fight was over or maybe it had just been averted for the moment. She didn’t want me to go, I knew that. She didn’t want to see me hurt again and I understood that as well. She feared me getting infected and that she would have to watch me turn as a result. She wanted me here. She wanted me safe. But that was something I couldn’t do. That was a person I couldn’t be. I had a lot to make up for. When I close my eyes I still see him, hanging there, he never falls but he speaks. He always speaks to me.
As I slid Veronica’s shirt up and over her head and felt her warm skin against mine I heard Jim speak to me again. He never has much to say, only two words.
“Your fault.” I heard him speak from the dark.
“Your fault.”
THREE
“We ready?” Jane asked from the lift.
“As ready as we’ll ever be I guess.” I said. Sass was already in the front of the truck and Amanda was mounting her gun onto the roof of the box where she would be for the majority of the operation. Only Jane and I were still on the roof. I walked over to the lift and nodded to him that I was good, but he wouldn’t lower us to the ground. Instead of pushing the button to drop us down he looked into my eyes then looked over my shoulder. I spun around and saw Veronica standing there looking at me. It looked as if she was about to cry again and I felt like even more of a creep than I had the night before. I opened my mouth to say something and she kissed me.
“Watch yourself. Come back to me in one piece.” She said quietly before raising her head away from mine.
“I promise.” I said. Then she looked over my shoulder to Jane and said, “You keep him safe!”
Jane gave Veronica a salute and said, “That’s the plan, mam.” He flashed her his goofy smile and she actually laughed at him. I thought to myself, could this be it? Could she finally be coming around and understanding that this was the person I have to be? Had she finally decided to support me? I hoped that was the case, but I didn’t count on it.
“Be back so quick you won’t even miss us.” I said as Jane pressed the down button and we dropped to the parking lot below.
“Ahhh, what a touching moment.” Jane said to me as we descended from the roof.
“Make fun all you want, I’ll take a kiss over an argument any day of the week.”
Jane frowned at me, “If all you needed to get those panties unwadded was a kiss I could have gave you that yesterday.” He gave me his goofy smile again and puckered up making kissing noises.
“Seriously, we need to find you a woman mate.”
Jane laughed, “Well Captain Jack, it’s been a while since you came by for a visit.”
The lift touched down and we carried our equipment to the truck. We rode the ramp up into the back of the truck then closed it and took our place against the far wall. I heard Amanda say, “We’re ready, take us in.” over the head piece that I was wearing. The truck roared to life and Amanda climbed the ladder and took aim at whatever targets the world around her would present.
As far as I know the ride over was uneventful. I heard Amanda shoot a time or two. Then I felt the truck lurch forward as Sass slowed it down. Amanda dropped back down into the box and faced us.
“Get out and over to the roof quickly, they are everywhere. I’ll have Sass slowly circle around K-Mart’s parking lot to try and drag some away.” She said as Jane began to climb the ladder. I followed Jane up and onto the roof of the box. Once outside everything was so bright again, I was momentarily blinded. Jane said, “come on man” from off to the right of me. I spun and, squinting my eyes to better see him, jumped onto the roof of the building. Amanda reappeared through the hole in the top of the box and drew aim on a zombie. As the truck pulled away from us I could hear her shooting and Sass honking the trucks horn. The horn was so weak it was almost embarrassing. I told Jane we needed to find one of those General Lee horns from the Dukes of Hazard. He laughed at me and gave me a thumbs up to the idea.
Once on top of the building Jane walked towards the back of the structure and set up shop directly above the store beside Fidelity. He took the backpack off of his shoulders and lay it on the roof in front of him.
“Alright, let’s get down to work.” He said, looking into his pack.
“What’s the plan?” I said. Jane looked up at me pulling what looked to be a very large pipe bomb out of his pack. “The plan is some retail reconstruction my friend. Ready to blow some stuff up?”
I looked at the large explosive he was now strapping down onto the roof of the building and said, “I’m usually not allowed to be involved in the explodey parts of our plans. What’s in those things anyways?”
Jane spoke without looking up at me. “A few household chemicals in the proper proportions.”
“Wait a minute. Did you just quote Tremors to me?” I asked almost shocked into silence by his sudden cinematic worldliness. Jane looked up at me this time and smiled, “Burt Gummer is a personal Hero of mine. He took one of those bastard worms down with nothing but his wife’s help and good old fashion United States military grade ammunition.”
“They most defiantly broke into the wrong rec room.” I said solemnly.
“Amen, and take some cover.” Jane said as he walked by me. I looked and saw that the fuse was lit. Deciding it would be in my best interests to not be here for this part, I followed him to the far end of the building and waited for the boom. The wait wasn’t long.
The explosion was loud. The building shook. The dead still around the building let out a mass roar of approval for anything that might possibly damage the building enough to let them get inside. The zombies that had followed the truck away into the parking lot gave a roar letting us know how pissed they were that they ran off after some red herring just in time to miss things getting lively back at the shops.
While I was busy counting all my fingers and toes Jane walked over to the front edge of the building and looked over. After a moment he looked back to where I was standing.
“Worked perfect.” Jane said. “The front windows aren’t even cracked.”
We walked over to the hole that now existed allowing us to look down into the shop below us. Jane reached into his back pack and pulled out a rope ladder which he hooked over the back lip of the building before throwing the rest of it into the shop below, followed by his backpack.
“You blew a hole in the wrong shop.” I said.
“Nope, it’s all part of the plan.” Jane said as he began to climb down into the store.
“The plan is to break into the shop that doesn’t have the people in it?” I asked as I followed him down into the store.
“Absolutely. You can’t blow up the ceiling of the store they are hiding in. Chances are you'd hurt them in the process.”
This made sense to me. The roof could fall on them or the explosion could just whoop em up. Whoop em up means, “hurt them in a way that I really don’t have the knowledge to describe.”
“Okay. I concede that it was smarter to blow up the ro
of of the building where they aren’t. But how are we going to get into the building where they are?”
Jane smiled at me. “I’ve already told you how; retail reconstruction.” He began pulling items out of his backpack. It was like Bat-Man’s utility belt. I almost asked him if he had knock out gas and a grappling hook gun in there, but I bit my tongue. This time he came out with two hatchets that he had apparently lifted from the Wal-Mart sporting goods department.
“These walls are just drywall and insulation. We should be able to hack our way through in a matter of minutes then we get our survivors up and out.”
It was a good plan. I did fear that he had seriously overestimated my ability to hack through drywall and insulation, but as it turned out, that stuff is amazingly easy to defeat in hand-to-wall combat. Within minutes we had a hole cleaved into the wall. I poked my head into the store beside us and saw a family standing across the building from me. They had that seriously freaked out look in their eyes and I realized that it may have been cool for us to try to figure out a way to let them know what we were doing out here. I could see the error we had made, but I also knew that it was much too late to do anything about it, so I stepped into the building and held out my hand.
A Good Distance From Dying_Book 2_Samantha's Song Page 11