The lieutenant’s secondary mission was to hold the bridge leading across the Des Plaines River into the suburb of Riverside until they had evacuated as many people from Lyons as possible. But this bridge was where the lieutenant had already been forced to pull the majority of his remaining forces back to, giving up all but a sliver of the Village of Lyons. This tiny bridgehead made it incredibly difficult to create a secure rendezvous point where citizen evacuees could gather and be loaded into army transports. Adding to this dilemma was the fact that the lieutenant didn’t have near enough such transports to haul the number of residents currently sheltering in their homes to a safe location. And even if he did, earlier in the evening, his troops had found that area residents were hesitant to leave. They feared that even armed troops would be unable to protect them from the widespread number of biters now roaming the community.
The lieutenant had to admit that their fears were well founded. He couldn’t even keep his own soldiers safe. How was he supposed to keep residents safe? And now, as he waited for the remnants of his unit to finalize their preparations to evacuate the suburb, he tallied his unit’s losses.
They’d suffered nine killed, some of which had been partially consumed to some degree by biters. He had one entire truck filled with the remnants of those killed. Another 14 of his troops had been bitten by Carchar Syndrome carriers. These soldiers were now marked as infected and were added to his casualty list.
The radio in his nearby command vehicle squawked. The lieutenant walked over, leaned inside the vehicle, and grabbed the radio receiver. “Go ahead,” he answered sternly.
“ETA, eight minutes,” a voice on the other end of the radio responded.
“Copy that!” the lieutenant responded, setting the radio receiver back inside the vehicle. He turned and yelled, “Let’s MOVE people! Go! Go! Go! Let’s get this show on the road!”
He watched his troops scramble to make their final preparations from behind the defensive perimeter around the bridgehead. Army-fatigued soldiers in winter coats loaded the last of their supplies, and then themselves, into a half-dozen army transports and an equal number of smaller but more heavily armed vehicles.
Every so often, the chatter of automatic gunfire would erupt from somewhere around the perimeter. The lieutenant heard a scream and saw one of his troops topple to the ground beneath the attack of a biter. Another soldier pulled the biter from atop his injured comrade and shot it several times.
The lieutenant’s thoughts drifted to the task of evacuating his infected soldiers. He didn’t know for sure what would happen to them once they were out of harm’s way, but he had a pretty good idea. The situation unfolding around the Chicago area, and now starting to envelop the rest of the nation, was making it increasingly difficult to care for and protect those not carrying the Carchar Syndrome. The military was struggling to maintain law and order in many larger cities across the country. And the citywide systems that kept those massive urban areas functioning were starting to falter under the strain of the biters, the number of which was growing exponentially, now freely roaming their streets. So how were these systems supposed to care for those who were infected?
If there was a cure, it would be one thing. There would be some sort of reason to get these bitten people to a place where they could receive treatment. But right now, for Lieutenant Jefferies, taking them along on their retreat was mostly a way to maintain some semblance of order among the ranks and maintain morale. What were the other options? Just leave the bitten and wait for them to infect others? That would only increase the ranks of the enemy they were fighting. Kill them? That would destroy morale among his still uninfected troops. It could even risk a complete mutiny when those who had been fighting alongside one another were faced the difficult task of executing their fellow soldiers.
But with no cure, well…
More radio chatter ended his contemplation of the macabre subject.
It was another ETA – four minutes this time.
The lieutenant looked around his staging area. Everything appeared ready. Biters were approaching from all sides and his reorganized troops holding the perimeter were now firing at will.
“Fall back! Let’s roll! Rear units keep up covering fire until we’re across the bridge!” the lieutenant yelled into his radio headset to command the last of his troops still holding the bridgehead.
He climbed into his armored Humvee, closed the door, and instructed his driver. The vehicle rumbled to life and moved out to lead the other vehicles in the convoy. It punched its way through several approaching biters and turned onto Harlem Avenue headed for Interstate 55.
Chapter 2
“Biters everywhere!” Wendell’s high-pitched, almost scream-like warning came down the hallway. Moments later, Charla could see him tear out of the stairwell at the end of their hall. He ran toward where she was waiting, head poked curiously, yet fearfully from behind their condo door.
They’d just finished dinner when they heard what sounded like a scream from one of the condos below them. It didn’t sound like the sort of utterance of pain that went along with a stubbed toe. Nor was it the exacerbated tone that accompanied a broken dish or the loss of a favorite sports team. It wasn’t even the shriek that might inadvertently spasm forth at the discovery of a mouse, cockroach, or similar creepy-crawly. This was a prolonged, guttural cry of agonized pain.
In the moments following the utterance, Charla and Wendell had waited. They listened intently, trying to detect any other audible clues that might help them in their deductions regarding the situation that had befallen their neighbor. But there were none.
After a minute of such silence, and several wide-eyed ocular urgings from his wife, Wendell reluctantly volunteered to go investigate. It was obvious he didn’t want to. But he also didn’t want to play the meek and timid husband, content to hide in the secluded safety of his warm and cozy home while someone was being brutally assaulted. And the thought that their neighbor, the strong and strapping Chris, with his bold and ever-flexing body and rugged demeanor, was likely just waiting for the opportunity to show Charla how manly he was, was what really urged Wendell to action.
Downstairs, one floor below, everything had looked normal to Wendell at first. He heard nothing wrong. He saw nothing wrong. He sensed nothing wrong. He walked the length of the hall, and the situation remained status quo. But as he walked back toward the stairwell, he heard a soft, almost indiscernible wheezing coming from inside unit 508. He paused, listening, just outside the door to the unit, which he now realized was cracked open just a hair.
He could hear sounds coming from inside the unit, almost like someone murmuring, but he couldn’t discern any words. He put his eye to the crack in the door, but all he saw was the beige paint of an interior wall. He placed his hand on the door and then paused, unsure whether he should announce himself or just go inside. The resident could need his help. They could be hurt. But if they were hurt, someone might have hurt them. And if someone had hurt them, that someone could still be inside. And if Wendell called out a greeting of some sort, that person might hurt him too. But if he didn’t call out, he could walk in upon a situation that wasn’t meant for his eyes. Maybe the scream was just a part of some sort of wild sexual encounter. He could stumble into something that would indelibly etch his brain with all sorts of obscene carnal activities, things he would never have imagined in his wildest dreams. They might even ask Wendell to join them. How embarrassing! Nothing he would want to recall each time he saw this neighbor on the elevator or in the mailroom.
He stood, unsure of how to proceed. Then he thought of Chris upstairs. What would Chris do?
Well, if it was some sort of sadistic sex scene, the guy would probably just barge in confidently wearing that broad smile of his, ask for a beer, and sit down to watch. Hell, he might even join in.
And if the person inside had been attacked, Chris would swing into action, super-hero style, incapacitating the bad guy before performing first-aid on th
e injured victim.
Wendell stood, continuing to contemplate his dilemma, hearing nothing.
The quietness emboldened him. Maybe nothing was wrong at all. But if it was, he wanted to assist whoever might be hurt inside. He took a moment to collect himself and then pushed the door open wider, wide enough for him to stick his head inside. What he saw in the condo’s hallway was almost enough to make him vomit. On the floor, in the center of the hall, was a woman, probably in her late-fifties, maybe early sixties. Crouched over her, its back toward Wendell, was a figure. It was on its knees, bending over the woman, its head at her exposed abdomen where it was feasting on entrails it was ripping from inside her eviscerated gut.
Wendell looked away from the figure knelt at the woman’s waist and up to her head. There was blood around her neck and face. It looked as though she had been bitten severely somewhere in this general area. Wendell couldn’t tell exactly where, due to the excess of blood. What he did notice however was that the woman’s eyes were open.
Wait – had he just seen her blink? Was she still alive?
Suddenly there was movement at the woman’s side. It was her arm. It was reaching out toward him. Her lips were moving too. They were trying to speak, but nothing was coming out. But her movement must have been enough to distract the biter feeding from her entrails. It slowly turned to look back at Wendell.
Wendell stood frozen. He wasn’t sure what to do. There was no helping the woman. She was beyond help. He locked eyes with the biter – what had once been a youngish man. But Wendell didn’t get a very good look at his face. All he could focus on were the teeth, those long, sharp, bloody teeth, gleaming in the light and giving the biter a fiendish Nosferatu sort of appearance.
Wendell tried to move but couldn’t. It was as if some unseen force was holding him in place. His feet had become loaves of lead, his arms, 100-pound weights. He couldn’t swallow. He could barely breathe. He was afraid that if he moved, no matter how slightly, the biter would come for him.
But the biter didn’t. It turned back to its ready-made meal. The easy meat.
Unlocked from the biter’s trancelike gaze, Wendell backed slowly away from the door. And as soon as the biter had disappeared from view, Wendell turned and bolted back toward the stairway.
Screw competing with Chris. Screw what a pansy he’d look like to his wife or anyone else. All Wendell could think about was getting back inside his apartment, the door securely locked behind him. And as he ran, he kept flashing back to those teeth, those horrifically jagged, blood-dripping teeth.
As he reached the stairwell, the door was already propped open, which was unusual, but Wendell didn’t question it. Instead, he charged through the open door, blasting directly into someone just stepping onto the top of the landing.
Wendell was immediately taken aback by another person’s presence in the stairway. Most everyone in the building utilized the elevators. And he was immediately concerned about whether he’d hurt the person.
Wendell moved to assist the person who he had just knocked down a half flight of stairs and who seemed to be in a dazed state. Wendell couldn’t blame her. In his rush to escape, he’d plowed right into her at close to full speed. Wendell could envision all sorts of injuries – broken bones, lacerations, missing teeth – teeth. Horrible images of the biter back in unit 508 flashed to mind again.
As he jogged down several steps, he stopped short of the landing on which the injured woman lay. It appeared as though she was attempting to recover her wits. It was then, as she shook her head and looked up at him with glazed eyes, that Wendell noticed her teeth, more of those hideous razor blades, jutting from her mouth.
But that wasn’t what terrified Wendell most. Several floors below where this female biter now sat, there was some sort of commotion. As Wendell glanced down between the stairwell railings, he could see a gaggle of people clustered at the base of the stairwell. And as several of them looked up at him, Wendell instantly realized that these were not people at all, at least not the people they once were – they were biters, a lot of them.
Wendell turned around and tore back up the stairs to his own floor. “Biters everywhere!” he called ahead of him as he ran. He didn’t stop running until he was outside his condo door where he bolted inside and slammed the door shut behind him, locking it.
Charla was there to greet him, a concerned look on her face. “What’s going on?” she cried, reading the look of distress on Wendell’s face. “Who’s everywhere? What happened? Is everything okay?”
“Biters. They’re inside the building. Lots of them,” Wendell explained breathlessly. “They’re coming up the stairs. Call nine-one-one,” he gasped for air.
Charla stepped aside to watch as her husband moved a laughably small, waist-high bookshelf from a nearby wall over in front of the door. She looked on with folded arms and a stare that seemed to say, “You think that is going to stop someone from getting in here?”
But Wendell dismissed her non-verbal insinuations. “Call nine-one-one!” he emphasized more urgently this time as he grabbed his leather coat, putting it on as he walked across their condo. He opened the balcony door and went outside where he hoped to get a better idea of what was going on.
Charla joined him a minute later, coat on, cell phone in hand. “All I’m getting is a busy signal,” she told him. “I have a feeling we’re not the only ones reporting this.”
There was the distant rumble of helicopters, and a moment later, a wave of army choppers thundered past overhead in the nighttime sky. They were so low that Wendell feared they might hit the building.
He and Charla could see flashing red and blue lights in the streets of Lyons below their building. Several army vehicles were parked askew in their condo building’s lot.
“I suppose that with law enforcement and army units here, we just have to bide our time and stay put,” Wendell nodded confidently, although the tone of his voice was anything but. “We should probably put some more stuff in front of the door…just in case those biters make it upstairs.”
When they re-entered their condo, they could hear knocking on their front door.
“Shhh!” Wendell hissed. “Listen!”
They heard the knocking again.
“Well?” Charla eyed her husband expectantly.
He stared at her, unmoving. “It might be the biters!” he whispered, wide eyed.
“Ugh,” Charla’s shoulder’s sagged in a combination of disappointment and disgust at her husband’s timidity. “Biters don’t knock,” she shook her head.
“Wait!” he whispered, holding out a hand as she walked toward the door. “You didn’t see what I saw!”
Charla peered through the door’s peephole and slid the small bookshelf aside. Then she unlocked the door and stepped back as she opened it, revealing their neighbors, Paul and Diana Richardson.
“Please, come in,” Charla ushered them quickly inside.
The Richardsons entered looking worried. Their brows were furrowed and they seemed jittery.
Wendell rushed up, not to greet their guests but to relock the front door.
“Did you hear that screaming downstairs?” Diana got right to the point.
Charla and Wendell nodded in tandem as the foursome gathered in the living room.
“Biters…they’re in the building,” Wendell explained, finally having calmed slightly from his experience downstairs.
“What!?” Paul exclaimed.
“Oh…my,” Diana put a hand to her mouth.
“You’d better stay here for right now. It’s not safe to be going back and forth in the halls,” Wendell advised. “There were a bunch of them in the stairwell, and they were making their way up.”
“Have you called the police?” Diana asked.
“Trying,” Charla held up her phone. “No luck. Lines are busy. But it looks like there are police and soldiers outside, so hopefully they’ll have the building cleared if we just sit tight.”
“We can only pray,�
�� Diana breathed, a hand held to her chest.
“I think that if we…” Wendell began, but he was stopped by the sound of loud banging coming from outside in the hallway.
“What in the hell is that?” Paul frowned, turning around to face the door.
Charla went to the door and peeked out the peephole. Then she unlocked the door and began to open it.
“Don’t do that!” Wendell hissed, rushing over to the door behind her.
Charla opened the door just wide enough to stick out her head. After a moment, she pulled it back inside and shut the door behind her. “There are a couple biters down at the end of the hall. It looks like they’re trying to break into one of the end units. They’re beating on the door.”
“They seem smart enough to know where the food is, but not how to get to it,” Wendell said. “If it’s not a push or pull-open door, they have trouble operating handle mechanisms like doorknobs and locks.”
“Thank god,” Paul breathed.
“I wonder if they will learn?” Charla said, half to herself.
“Let’s hope not,” Paul answered. “I think we’ll be in bad shape if they figure out how to utilize tools or other devices. Even simple objects like rocks or hammers would be of significant use to them as ways to batter through doors and into buildings and homes.”
“Right now, it seems like they mostly rely on brute force,” Charla said. “But the doors in this place aren’t that strong, so that might be enough.”
“What about Buttons?” Charla heard Diane say softly to Paul. “If they find her, they’ll eat her for sure,” she choked, on the verge of tears. “We should have brought her with us.”
The Last Bastion Box Set [Books 1-5] Page 21