He immediately shined his flashlight’s beam down the open hallway. But it wasn’t the sight of anything horrifying that caused the group to recoil – it was the smell.
Upon first inspection, the hallway appeared devoid of biters, but the smell that issued from within was repugnant.
“Ugh…my god,” Patrick put his free arm up to cover his nose. “What IS that?”
The smell was overwhelming. It was a combination of raw sewage, rotting garbage, and death.
“Oh…I think I’m going to be sick,” Charla stepped back.
“Hold on,” Michael shrugged out of his pack. He set it down on the stairwell landing to open it. “Here,” he said after a moment of rummaging. He handed out face masks to the group. “I thought we might encounter something like this…maybe not quite so bad as this. These will help.”
The group quickly donned the masks.
“Better than nothing, I guess,” Patrick said, his voice muffled through the medical-style protective mask.
“Okay,” Michael got his pack back in place. “Let’s make this quick.”
“Quick but safe,” Chris added.
“Right,” Michael agreed.
Inside the condo building’s fourth-floor hallway, the group quickly came to at least one of the reasons for the smell. A human body – or at least the remnants of one – lay in the hallway about 15 feet from the stairwell door. Now, it was mostly just a pile of decomposed skin and bones. The lengthy strands of hair attached to the skull informed the group that the person had apparently once been a woman.
“Teams of two,” Michael breathed quietly through his mask. “Charla and Chris, me and Patrick. You two take that side of the hall, we’ll take this one,” he said to Charla and Chris. “One condo at a time. Don’t rush, but don’t dawdle either. And remember, we don’t fire our weapons unless we absolutely have to.”
The foursome split, first clearing, and then quickly scavenging the first two condos on the floor. Their searches took them just minutes, and they turned up relatively little in terms of useable supplies. It appeared that the particular condos they’d selected had largely been picked clean of their food.
After concluding their searches, they met back out in the hallway.
“This smell is killing me,” Patrick moaned. “These masks aren’t helping at all.”
“Okay,” Michael ignored his son’s complaint. “Let’s move on.”
The group moved down the hallway to the next set of condos, meeting with similar results.
“Found some batteries, a couple candles, and some toilet paper,” Chris said after they’d finished with the second set of condos.
“Better than we did,” Michael said. “Which condo had the hanging sign, Charla?”
“It was down toward the end of the hall. Probably last one on the left.”
Michael nodded. “Okay. Let’s clear the rest of this floor. I’m not betting we’ll find anything since it looks like this place has been pretty well picked clean. But we’re here, so we might as well do what we came to do.”
It took the teams about ten more minutes to clear the rest of the floor and make it to the unit where one of the signs requesting help, visible from Hofmann Tower, had been hung from its balcony. The other condos they’d searched had been empty except for one where Chris had made the grizzly discovery of four bodies, three of which appeared to have been consumed by a biter. The fourth body appeared to be the biter who had consumed them. The biter’s cause of death was not readily apparent.
Michael tried the condo unit’s entry door. It was locked. Michael pounded a gloved fist against the door. “We’re here to help!” he called loud enough to be heard from inside the unit, but not so loud that his voice might carry to another floor.
He paused, listening and waiting for a response. Getting none, he pounded again. “Hello! We’re from the tower across the parking lot! We want to help you!”
Again, there was no response.
“Chris? Want to try kicking it in?” Michael asked the most physically fit person in the group.
“I’ll give it a shot. Give me some space.”
The other three backed up, giving Chris room. After several well placed kicks that had the doorframe cracking under the strain, Chris backed up and rammed the door with his shoulder. The door gave way under the force, bursting open with a loud crack.
The others instantly had their lights and guns aimed inside the open condo unit.
“Don’t shoot! We’re coming in!” Michael called, leading the way inside.
The stench that hit him turned Michael back almost as fast as if he’d been greeted by a hail of gunfire.
“Ugh,” he turned, bending and ripping his mask away and then retching.
The others in the group recoiled, stepping back and away from the freshly opened condo.
“Oh man! I didn’t think it could get any worse,” groaned Patrick.
The waft of stench flooded out into the hallway.
Michael pulled his zippered coat up over his mouth and nose to assist the mask that was failing in its efforts. “Come on, let’s make this quick.”
Without another word, Michael darted inside the darkened condo. It took the team but moments to discover a sad scene. On the living room sofa lay what had not long ago been a man. In fact, at first, Michael thought the man was sleeping. But upon closer inspection, it quickly became obvious that the man was dead. Inside the bedroom, beneath several blankets mounded atop her, was the far more deteriorated remains of what the group took to once have been the man’s wife.
“Poor guy,” Chris shook his head. “Not only was he facing starvation, but he must have been so terrified of leaving the safety of his condo that he lived in here with his dead and decaying wife.”
“Uh…disgusting,” Patrick shook his head. “I don’t know what’s worse, dying from starvation or having to live with this smell.”
“This poor bastard apparently had to do both,” Charla shook her head sadly.
“Come on,” Michael said. “Let’s get the hell outta here. I’d say we should look for food but…”
There were retching sounds from the others at the mention of food in their current environment.
Patrick quickly led them back out into the hallway.
“We’ll take a quick look at the fifth floor, since that’s where the other banners were hung,” Michael said. “Hopefully the smell isn’t so bad up there.”
“I wouldn’t hold my breath,” Chris said.
“I sure as hell would,” Patrick retorted.
The fifth floor wasn’t much better.
There were the decomposing bodies of several biters in the central corridor. One biter was still alive, but just barely. In fact, she was in such bad shape that she couldn’t even get herself off the floor to attempt an attack. She just kind of lifted her head and snapped her teeth as the team approached. A well-placed boot to the head as Michael passed, put her out of her misery.
As the group conducted their search, they found more remnants of former occupants in the first few condos they checked. In one unit, there were the remains of two small dogs, the majority of which appeared to have been consumed.
“Jesus. What a shit show. Wonder who ate the dogs, their owners or the biters?” Patrick asked.
“Good question,” Michael agreed.
Similar to the fourth floor, any sort of useable goods were also in short supply on the fifth.
When the team got to the end of the floor, and the two condos with the banners hung from their balconies, they found both units empty.
“They must have given up waiting and made a break for it,” Chris shined his light around one of the deserted condos.
“But to where?” Charla pondered aloud.
“Who knows,” Michael answered from the kitchen where he was quickly flinging open empty cabinet doors. “Wherever it was, it looks like they took any extra supplies with them.”
“No surprise there,” Patrick said from where h
e was inspecting a hallway closet outside the bathroom. “Jeez, you think you ever get used to a smell like this?” he asked, regarding the stench that seemed to permeate every inch of the condo building.
“Hard to imagine,” Charla stood from where she’d been bent going through the drawers beneath the bathroom sink.
“All right people, looks like a bust here, too. Let’s move on,” Michael rounded up his team.
“I say we just give up,” Patrick said.
“Let’s check out the sixth floor,” Chris offered. “We never got to make a full search of it when we were living up there. There might still be some good stuff left.”
“Since we’re here, I suppose we might as well,” Michael agreed.
A minute later, they had made their way upstairs.
“Seems like so long ago when I was here last,” Charla breathed softly through her mask with a hint of sadness.
“I know,” Chris agreed.
In the hallway, they passed the nearly decomposed body of Paul Richardson. He was mostly just bones now. Beside him lay the deflated, but still fur-covered carcass of what once was a cat.
“Guess poor Paul finally found Buttons after all,” Charla noted as they passed.
“More like Buttons found him,” Chris replied.
They encountered several more dead biters but no live ones.
“If these things weren’t so stupid, they could be a lot more dangerous,” Patrick observed. “They couldn’t even get out of this building once the stairwell doors were closed so they just starved to death.”
“They’re dangerous enough as it is,” Chris said.
The sixth floor was slightly more promising, offering more in the way of items that could be put to use inside the tower.
After filling their packs, and collecting several partially-filled propane tanks from outdoor grills, the team was ready to depart.
“I’m going to radio the tower and let them know we’re okay and getting ready to head back,” Michael told the others.
“Oh,” Chris said suddenly as though he’d forgotten something, “while you do that, I want to grab something real quick.”
Before anyone could protest, he hurried off back down the hallway toward Charla and Wendell’s condo.
“Tower, come in,” Michael spoke into his radio.
“This is tower, go ahead,” came Josh Justak’s voice.
“We’re getting ready to depart the condo building. ETA is about three to four minutes. You ready for us?”
“We’ll be ready,” Josh confirmed.
“Copy that,” Michael re-affixed the radio to his belt.
Chris was back a moment later.
“Everyone set?” Michael asked.
“No, I was hoping to stick around and enjoy some more of this pleasant atmosphere,” Patrick replied sarcastically.
Everyone secured their packs, and Patrick and Chris each hefted a propane tank.
Michael led the way back down the stairs. At the base of the stairs, and before they entered the building’s foyer, he said, “Everyone kill their lights.”
Everyone did as they were told, shoving flashlights into their coat pockets and packs.
Once they had their gear securely stowed, Michael led them out into the foyer. There, they paused again at the entry doors. After a quick scan of the outside, Michael prepared to move, but a squawk from his radio stopped him.
“Go ahead,” he answered.
“We got biters coming in from the north. If you move fast, you can probably beat them here,” Josh informed them. “But be careful.”
“Copy. Cover us,” Michael said and then quickly pocketed his radio. “All right, team; you heard him. Let’s move,” he led them out of the condo building and across the parking lot toward Hofmann Tower.
It took the four about 30 seconds, guided solely by moonlight, to cross the parking lot and get back to the tower. They made quick work of the perimeter fencing, Patrick and Chris first dumping the propane tanks they carried on the other side before hopping the fence. Then Chris assisted Charla up and over while Patrick helped his father.
The group then re-gathered their supplies and headed for Hofmann Tower’s main entrance. Just as they were getting to the barricade however, they heard gunfire erupt above them. They turned to see a pack of biters approaching from the tower’s north side. The biters were crossing the street about 40 yards away and making their way up the sidewalk leading to the tower.
“Let’s move, people!” Michael called, drawing his handgun and taking up a post to cover the other three as they squeezed their way through the entry barricade and back inside the tower.
Charla was the first through, followed by Patrick, who had to take a moment to try to squeeze his propane tank in ahead of him. Due to the rotund shape of the tank, it was just a bit larger than the gap the Blenders had created in the barricade. This resulted in a bout of cursing and re-arranging of the barricade structure by Patrick on one side and Christine Franko and Wendell on the other.
“Come on guys!” Michael called as the biters reached the tower’s perimeter fencing. “Let’s get a move on!”
Michael watched as Josh took down one of the biters on the other side of the fence. But Michael could count at least a dozen more now lined up along the fence, and more were still arriving behind them.
But Michael wasn’t too worried. He knew that the biters were largely incapable of getting themselves over the fence – that is until he noticed several of them working to mount the obstacle. He was surprised by what he saw, and he held off firing at the biters, wanting to see if somehow they had learned how to clear the fence. He watched as several of them struggled to find a foothold on the fence’s iron bars. Their feet slipped and slid awkwardly, but they continued with their efforts.
More shots rang out from above, and another biter fell.
Patrick was inside the tower now, and Chris was working his way inside behind him.
Michael continued to watch as one biter finally found a foothold and half flung, half fell over the fence. Other biters had moved to push on pieces of the fence that had been knocked down during the attack by outsiders and subsequently repaired by the Blenders. Several of them worked together on one particularly weak section, pushing on it. But they weren’t just pushing on it; it appeared that they were working together, using their weight in almost choreographed movements, rhythmically rocking against it to exact the greatest toll on the fence.
But Michael realized their actions must just be a coincidence. He knew that biters weren’t intelligent enough to use such a strategy.
Suddenly the section of fence on which the biters were working snapped free from the section beside it and fell to the ground. Several of the biters fell forward onto the ground with it. But they were up again in an instant, urged on by the meal Michael presented.
Michael aimed his handgun toward one of them, fired twice, and dropped the biter. Then he aimed at another, fired twice more, and put it down as well. But four more biters took their place, and more were coming fast.
Josh had killed several more biters from his perch on the tower’s fourth floor.
“Michael!” he heard the Blenders inside calling to him. “Come on! Quick! Hurry up! Get inside!”
Michael chose one more biter, one lingering in the background, a big black one in a blue work uniform. Michael aimed, but then the biter was gone. He’d ducked behind a car.
Michael was puzzled. Had the biter actually realized Michael was going to shoot him and taken action to prevent it? It was an impossibility. But it sure seemed like that’s what had happened.
Suddenly, there was a loud, half growl, half shriek from behind the vehicle where the biter Michael had been aiming at had disappeared. The sound of it sent shivers up Michael’s spine. And before Michael knew what was happening, the other biters were falling back, disappearing almost as quickly as they had come.
Michael watched for a moment, stunned and confused, and then turned and made his w
ay back inside the tower.
“What in the hell was that?” Patrick, who had been peering out from behind the barricade asked his father as Michael pushed his way inside.
“I have no idea, but I certainly didn’t like it…whatever it was.”
CHAPTER 10
“It’s freezing in here!”
“I know. You’d think they’d at least be able to run the generator once a week for this meeting. I mean, is that really too much to ask?”
“You know Richard, ‘We have to conserve’,” Jill said in a mocking tone to Ben, her husband of six years.
“Looks like Dan is stocking the woodstove,” Ben nodded toward one corner of the old armory building. “It’ll probably just be getting warm in here right about the time the meeting is over.”
“Just like last time,” his wife agreed.
The man shoving several sticks of wood inside the potbelly stove was tall and muscular. He wore a black goatee that matched his thick head of black hair that was several inches longer than his normal cut. Time and opportunity for haircuts had been greatly diminished in the Carchar Syndrome world.
“Poor Dan. He must really be missing running his bar at this point. He’s grasping at straws,” Ben chuckled. “Go from pouring whiskies and beers at the bar to pouring coffee and tea at these weekly meetings.”
“Guess it’s the desire to serve drinks in a communal atmosphere that comes naturally to him. He’s owned that bar since he was in his early twenties.”
“So how long is that? Ten years?”
“No, more than that. I think Dan is at least in his late thirties.”
“Really? He looks good for his age.”
“Yes, he does,” Jill agreed.
Her comment regarding Dan’s appearance drew a slant-eyed glance from her husband that his wife casually ignored. She liked making little comments like that. It kept Ben on his toes. He was the only one for her. She knew that. But letting Ben think that her eye might wander kept the competition for her heart heated in Ben’s mind. And a man focused on winning and retaining the love he’d already won meant that he had far less time for looking for love in other places.
The Last Bastion (Book 3): The Last Bastion Page 10