Chris busied himself with getting the rest of the door re-barricaded. There was loud banging on the door from the biters who hadn’t been scalded.
“Wonder how long they’ll keep that up?” Charla said.
“No idea,” Chris shook his head, working to maneuver a small bookcase. “Now that they know they’ve got a food source in here, they’ll probably stick around…especially as they start to get hungry again. It looks like they’ve already consumed most of Paul.”
“Well, that didn’t work out too well…did it?” Wendell sneered, not giving up on his critique of their failed endeavor. “The best laid plans and all that.”
“Back to the drawing board, I guess,” Chris did his best to appear un-swayed by Wendell’s piss poor attitude. “I guess we learned one thing, though.”
“Yeah? What’s that?” Wendell inspected a patch of red skin on his hand that had been burned by the hot water.
“It sure looks like we’re the only ones left alive on this floor. That, and if we want to leave, we’re going to have to find another way to do it.”
“Leave? Why would we want to leave?” Wendell scoffed.
“Well, we might not want to right now, but eventually we’re going to run out of food. And when that happens, we’re going to have to figure out something.”
“Brrr,” Charla shivered. “Cold in here.”
Chris walked over to the stove and turned the knob to one of the burners. The ignitor clicked, but nothing happened. Chris sniffed the air, searching for the scent of natural gas. “Shit,” he said after a moment. “Gas is off. He walked over and turned on the kitchen sink faucet. It sputtered for a few seconds, spitting out a combination of pressurized air and a little water, and then went silent with a slow hiss.
“Great…just great,” he sighed. “Looks like the water is off too. We’ll really have to start making it count now.”
“Sure glad we wasted three pots on those biters out there,” Wendell shook his head sadly, grimacing as he sat down on the sofa. “Damn arm,” he sighed.
The pounding continued in the hallway as the biters beat on the condo door.
“I have a feeling that’s going to get old fast,” Charla said to Chris, nodding toward the door.
“I have another idea,” Chris said.
“Oh no,” Wendell said from the sofa. “No more ideas. You almost got us killed out there with your big idea. You want to try something? Go for it. But you’re on your own. You’re not endangering me or my wife again,” he stood and walked over to where Chris stood near where the kitchen and living room met. “We’re fine here. We have food. We have extra water. And we’re safe from the biters for now. In a few days, if help hasn’t come by then, we can look into other great ideas. But for now, we’re content to sit right here and ride this thing out. And as for you,” he poked a finger into Chris’ chest, “well, in my opinion, you’re just another drain on our resources, and a rather dangerous one at that.”
Chris looked down at the finger Wendell was jabbing into his chest, and then back up at Wendell. Wendell stopped with the poking but kept on with his little tirade.
“Your ridiculous banging on the balcony last night got us both hurt. And your little stunt out there in the hallway didn’t pan out too well either,” Wendell looked at his slightly burned arm. “We’re lucky we made it back in one piece. So if you want to stick around, that’s one thing. I’m not going to ask you to leave with those biters out there.” Wendell knew it was really up to Chris whether he wanted to leave or not anyway. “But you’d better just calm the hell down and start listening to me since it’s my food you’re eating, my water you’re wasting, and my roof you’re sleeping under.”
Charla watched with baited breath, afraid to say or do anything that might exacerbate the tense situation.
Chris clenched his fists, then his teeth to keep from talking, and then nodded his head silently.
“Will do, boss,” he said at last as he walked around Wendell and over to the balcony’s sliding glass door. A substantial amount of gunfire was occurring across the parking lot outside. “Will do,” he said again softly.
Chapter 13
“Hon’! Biters! Lots of ‘em!” Caroline Trove called to her husband.
Michael broke from where he was unloading the last of the Blender vehicles that they’d pulled up to the fenced perimeter of Hofmann Tower. The rest of the Blenders closed ranks to fill the gap Michael left in the fire brigade that was moving supplies from the vehicles into their tower bastion.
Michael moved to the corner of the fenced perimeter where his wife was currently serving as guard and lookout. “Ho-ly crap,” he breathed softly to himself as he scanned the situation around them.
Biters were approaching from almost every direction. And it wasn’t just a few scattered biters here and there. There were multiple large groups containing several dozen biters or more moving down Joliet Avenue, 39th Street, and across the far side of the parking lot between Hofmann Tower and the condo complex across from it.
“We’ve gotta move, people!” Michael called to the rest of the group still toiling in their early-morning work to get as much of the stuff they’d brought with them out of vehicles and inside the tower. “We got biters on the way!”
Josh had been able to take down most of the biters in the small group earlier that morning before they’d ever gotten close. His scope-fitted .22 rifle had enabled him to kill one and injure three more. The other two had fled in fear once they’d seen what happened to the rest of their small herd. But the groups of biters now approaching numbered close to a hundred or more. And as Michael watched, it seemed like even more biters were filtering through the trees and buildings around them.
He quickly realized that trying to defend against such numbers outside in the open wouldn’t work. Since the biters weren’t concentrated all in one area, instead being spread out around a nearly 180-degree radius, the Blenders just wouldn’t be able to keep them at bay.
Therefore, Michael pulled his wife Caroline and his son Patrick from their positions at the corners of the tower’s fenced perimeter to help unload the last of the supplies.
“One minute!” Michael called over the sounds of heavy breathing and the occasional grunt or groan from his people as they hurriedly hauled the remainder of the supplies inside the tower.
Thankfully, most of the Blender vehicles were mostly empty by this point in their efforts. And while the tower’s lower level was awash in supplies, some stacked in piles as tall as Michael himself, it was a relief to have the stuff safely inside. Otherwise, it’d still be sitting in their vehicles out in the open parking lot where it was at risk of being stolen by looters or marauding gangs of vigilantes.
Michael jumped in to help Patrick carry a gas-powered generator inside the tower.
By the time he got back outside, he was amazed at how quickly the first waves of biters had closed the distance between themselves and the group. At least two dozen were now less than 50 yards from the perimeter fencing and closing the gap fast.
Suddenly there was a commotion toward one end of the tower perimeter. It was at the south end where the other entrance to the tower was located. A lone biter had made it to the perimeter fencing and partially fallen over it.
Michael ran over to where the biter was struggling to right itself. Its leg had become ensnared upon the stomach-high fence where the fence’s spiked posts protruded several inches past its top cross-section. It lay fallen, twisting awkwardly as it tried to extract its ankle from where it had become wedged.
It snarled and snapped its teeth at Michael’s approach.
Michael drew his .45, aimed at the center of the biter’s back, and squeezed the trigger.
The biter instantly fell still.
Michael turned, weapon still and hand, and walked quickly back to the front entrance to the tower.
“Everyone inside!” he called. “Let’s go! Let’s go!” he commanded sternly. “Another few cans of food aren’t wort
h your life!”
The rest of the Blenders grabbed what items they could carry with them and hurried back inside the relative safety of the tower as biters began to reach the perimeter fence.
Once inside, Michael helped the others get the front door shut and their barricade back in place. His mind was racing with a to-do list that he was trying to prioritize. He was torn. Half of him wanted to send people upstairs to fire from the upper floors to clear the biters outside. But he was concerned that this would only draw more biters to the tower. The other half of him wanted to focus on securing their position and their supplies inside. He decided that maybe the biters outside would move on to easier pickings if he and the Blenders just held out quietly inside the tower for a while. So he decided that getting situated inside the tower should come as their top priority, at least for the moment.
“Okay people,” he directed. “Josh! Patrick! Christine! Grab some of the tools we brought and help me ensure that these barricades are as secure as they can be. If those biters get past the fence, we’re going to have a boatload of them trying to push through these two entrances. The rest of you, start hauling the most important supplies, guns, ammo, food, water, medicine, the generators, fuel, and the camp stoves, upstairs. We want as much of this stuff off the first floor as possible just in case the biters break through our barricades.”
“How high should we take them?” Ms. Mary asked, already looking exhausted.
“The higher the better. We’ll be able to barricade and hold the stairs easier than the two entrances down here, so get them up at least one flight.” He helped Josh slide the scaffold plywood back before the door and screw it in place with a battery powered drill he’d brought. “Once we have everything upstairs, we can re-evaluate and decide whether it’s necessary to go any higher.”
Ms. Mary turned to get started with the others.
“Hey…Ms. Mary,” Michael called to her in a lowered voice. She turned back to him. “You take it easy,” he reminded her. “You need a break, you take it. Right?” he smiled. “You let the young bucks take the heavier stuff.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Ms. Mary exhaled heavily with a smile and a weary-handed salute.
But Michael had no illusions. He knew Ms. Mary. He’d seen her work in her garden too many times. And he knew he was going to have to keep a regulatory eye on her to ensure she didn’t overdo it.
“Remember people, work hard, but work safe,” Michael called, making sure that those already headed up the stairs with bags and boxes of supplies could hear him. “We won’t be taking anyone to the hospital if they get injured,” he reminded them.
The rest of the group continued with their supply hauling effort. This time, their pace was less frantic. Hauling heavy containers of food and water inside was hard enough work, but lugging them up a flight of stairs was far more difficult. Little nine-year-old Justin Justak was by far the most energetic. His enthusiasm for the work at hand counterbalanced his inability to carry anything much heavier than 20 pounds. He raced back and forth up and down the stairs, making three trips in the time it took the adults carrying heavier items to make one. The adults constantly admonished him to slow down and take it easy, but the only thing that slowed him down was his having to dodge the adults bearing bulkier loads coming up the stairs.
Once Michael and his assistants felt they had the entrance sufficiently secured, they joined the effort currently underway to get the entirety of their supplies up to the tower’s second floor.
Michael left the hauling of the gas-powered generators upstairs to Josh, Patrick and Andrew. The pieces were heavy and awkward, but after some moaning and groaning, they managed.
“Man, it’s dark as crap up here,” young Andrew Franko shook his head as they stumbled along with the generator, finally setting it down against one wall on the second floor.
A single, battery-powered camp lantern acted to illuminate the space. But with the floor’s windows having been bricked over years ago, and with no electricity running to the structure, it didn’t help much.
“Should we get a generator going for some additional light?” Josh asked after they’d worked for about half an hour.
“First things first,” Michael said. “We got everything from downstairs?” he asked the group.
There were answers to the affirmative as the Blender remnants formed up around the lantern’s soft glow.
“Good,” Michael nodded. “Now before we get ahead of ourselves, I think we should post guards downstairs in case the biters manage to breach our defenses. Do I have any volunteers?”
“We’ll do it,” Andrew Franko volunteered himself and his younger brother Jack.
“Thanks boys, but I want two adults for this job,” Michael said. “No offense.”
“Aww,” they hung their heads in disappointment.
“Don’t worry, I’ll need you for other duties here shortly,” he reassured them.
“We’ll do it,” Manny Simpson volunteered himself and his wife Margaret.
“Perfect,” Michael nodded. “Both of you arm yourselves, and if you think there’s a chance, even a small one, of those biters starting to work their way inside, you come get someone. In fact, here,” he rummaged in a bag set among the piles of supplies. He pulled out one of a handful of small walkie-talkies he’d brought, turned it on, and handed it to Margaret. “I thought these might come in handy for us to communicate back and forth between our homes in Brookfield. But they should work well here in the tower for us to communicate between floors. I’ll keep one clipped to my belt. That way, you can reach me at a moment’s notice. Remember, don’t wait until the biters have broken through, and don’t try to fight them on your own. They get a hand, even a finger through that barrier, and you call me. With the numbers they have out there, once they get through they’ll be pouring in like water into the Titanic, and we’ll be sunk for sure.”
“Got it,” Manny and Margaret nodded in unison as they turned and headed back downstairs.
Michael continued addressing the rest of the group. “With all the biters out there, it looks like we could be here for a while. And I don’t think it’d be a good idea to waste fuel running a generator for lighting on this floor when we have plenty of natural light upstairs on the fourth floor. But before we make any decisions, we should probably get a better feel for the layout of this place first. Then we can decide how best to defend our position, where we should set up camp, and where we should locate our supplies. While it’s going to be a bitch, the higher we go, the safer we’ll probably be from biters. But let’s get the lay of the land first.”
Michael shivered as he began to cool down from the physical labor that had kept him relatively warm so far. “Jeez, it’s freezing in here. Getting the layout of this place will also help us pick out the best spot for bedding down at night.”
“A spot that is hopefully a bit more comfortable and a heck of a lot warmer than sleeping downstairs last night,” Christine Franko snorted.
“This tower doesn’t seem to hold much heat. Having the glass on the front door broken doesn’t help,” Josh Justak added. “If we get a chance, we should probably try to seal it up better at some point.”
“But that would mean removing the barricade in front of the door to get to it. And right now, with all those biters outside, I don’t think it’d be a wise move,” Michael pointed out. “I’d rather deal with the cold than deal with the biters.”
“True,” Josh agreed.
“And we may have broken windows on other floors to deal with first,” Ms. Mary added.
“Well then, are we ready?” Michael asked.
The group confirmed that they were.
“This place is so cool,” Jack Franko whispered to his brother and Justin Justak. “It’s like some sort of awesome fortress or castle or something.”
“Yeah,” the other two breathed aloud, gazing around them. “Coooool.”
The group was already largely familiar with the tower’s first four floors, the d
imensions of which in the light were larger than Michael had first estimated. By his best guess, they measured roughly 40 feet by 40 feet.
The first floor, or “entry” level, contained a small, enclosed office toward the rear, river-facing side of the space. There were several sizeable, and currently empty, display cases ringing the level’s perimeter walls that Michael had missed in his first scans of the area. And an assortment of office furniture – desks, a file cabinet, several trashcans and lamps – was sprinkled haphazardly around the first floor. Some of these items had been used to barricade the tower entrances. The only light on this level came from the two glass fronted entry doors, the barricading of which meant that little natural light managed to find its way inside.
The stairwell leading to the tower’s upper levels was set against the structure’s north side. Other than its entrance, the stairwell was enclosed from the rest of the level by a wall. The group found this to be a positive aspect of the tower’s design. It made the stairwell far more defensible and easier to block off should it prove necessary.
There was a second stairwell, accessed by a door at the rear of the first-floor office, on the other side of the tower. This stairwell backtracked between floors, reversing course at a small landing halfway up before continuing to the next level. The stairwell eventually led all the way up to the fourth floor, with exits at all the levels in between.
Regarding the office stairwell, Michael noted, “We’ll keep both its entry door as well as the door to the office closed in case the biters breach the tower entrances. Since they aren’t good at opening doors, it will at least hold them off until we can retreat and reorganize at a higher level.”
Up one flight, on the second floor, there was more old furniture, consisting mostly of dusty folding chairs. The floor was completely open and unobstructed by walls. There was a small stage, complete with podium, at the floor’s south end, and the group took this space to have once been used for meetings and other large gatherings. Beside the stage were two small restrooms, one marked “men”, the other was marked “women”. Both had handwritten, “Out of Order” signs affixed to their doors.
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