The two men felt utterly alone. They were traversing a lonely stretch of state highway in a somewhat remote part of southwestern Illinois. They were walled in by thick rows of trees lining the highway. Behind them lurched the hungry biters. The only way forward was the seemingly endless stretch of highway ahead of them.
“We can’t get there fucking soon enough,” Dave swore.
“You’re telling me,” Harold ‘Locks’ Washington shivered behind him.
“What time is it?”
Locks flipped on his flashlight to illuminate his watch. “Ahhh!” he cried as a biter lunged out of the darkness toward him just feet away. “Punch it!” he yelled at Dave and then used a foot to kick the biter back and away from his reversed position where he sat on the back of the ATV.
Dave gave the quad some gas, gunning it farther ahead of the biter herd.
The biter stumbled near Locks and fell onto the pavement. Just as it was about to get to its feet, the rest of the massive crowd of biters following the ATV reached it, trampling it. A screech from within the herd, turned to a gurgling groan that eventually faded to the continuous sound of chattering teeth.
“That fucking teeth chattering is going to drive me nuts,” Dave swore. “So what time is it?”
Locks attempted to check his watch again, this time successfully. “Just after two. What time you think we’ll be there?”
“We stay on schedule, and we should be there in about an hour…two at most.”
“Good,” Locks nodded.
“Bad thing is, with this cold, and at this time of morning, that hour or two will seem like ten.”
“Don’t talk about it,” Locks groaned. “You think they’ll be there when we arrive?”
“They sure as fuck better be,” Dave said. “You know, in my opinion, which obviously counts for shit around here, I think that once you’ve done this, you shouldn’t have to do it again. You should be exempt from doing the stick draw. I mean, shit, we got enough people now. There’s no reason to have the ones that already risked their goddamn lives out here over and over again.”
“Wouldn’t have done me any good,” Locks said.
“Yeah, well, no offense, but I’m not exactly thinking about you.”
“Thanks,” Locks snorted.
“Hey, I said no offense. Guy’s gotta look out from himself in this bunch. I mean, sure, it sure as hell don’t hurt to have a couple extra sets of eyes on you, but it’s hard as hell to find any trustworthy people in this outfit. And if you’re lookin’ for a friend, you’re shit outta luck. Best you can hope for is someone who will take out a biter for you when you got your back turned…or at least tell ya it’s coming.”
“At least we’ll be exempted from the fight later on,” Locks offered as consolation.
“Yeah, well, that’s the fun part if you ask me. But nobody does, so I just do as I’m told and hope to see another day.”
CHAPTER 12
“There are a lot of biters out there,” Josh radioed urgently. He sounded worried. “And they’re getting around the perimeter fencing. There must be at least a hundred, maybe more.”
Michael looked at Ms. Mary. “Did he say they were getting ‘around’ the perimeter fencing?”
“Sure sounded like it,” Ms. Mary nodded.
“Guess I’d better check it out,” Michael nodded. “Wonder if part of the fence came down. Wouldn’t surprise me after the beating it’s taken. Between being smashed with vehicles, the biters constantly pushing on it, and general lack of maintenance, I guess we should count ourselves lucky it has stayed up at all. Can you finish up inventory while I run upstairs?”
“Sure thing,” Ms. Mary saluted faithfully – the consummate trooper.
“Thanks,” Michael smiled at her. “I’m sure it’ll only take me a minute or two at most. Be right back,” he ambled away toward the stairs.
He found Josh on the fourth floor, staring out one of the north facing windows. Andrew Franko was at a window on the other wall to his left. Jack Franko and Josh’s own son, Justin, were at the window to his immediate right, all of them also looking outside.
Josh turned around upon Michael’s arrival.
“Just a big herd of biters?” Michael asked.
“Mmm hmm,” Josh nodded, turning back to the window, the worry evident in his tone.
Michael seemed unconcerned. “Wonder why they’re out at night?” He pondered aloud. “Maybe because the moon’s not out.”
“You’d think that it would be the other way around,” Josh said. “It’s harder to see with no moon, so you’d think they’d have stayed inside tonight.”
“It’s also harder for us to see them with no moon,” Michael pointed out. “They might think that makes for better hunting.”
“Huh,” Josh scoffed. “If only they were that bright. We’d all be in a world of hurt. Maybe they’re just disoriented. Who knows? Could be related to having been out in the cold too long, or lack of food, or something to do with the syndrome evolving. Maybe it’s taking a new turn in how it affects its host. Or there could be a laundry list of other things that are causing them to act differently.”
“But what about the fence?” Michael adjusted his position at the window for a better view. “You said they were getting around it. How? From what I see here, which I’ll admit, isn’t much, it still looks intact.”
“It is,” Josh nodded. “But take a look over there,” he nodded toward where Andrew Franko stood at the northwest window.
Michael and Josh walked over to where Andrew stood. Andrew moved aside to make room for them to see out.
It was extremely dark outside, especially with no moon out. All Michael could really make out were the shadows of dark forms moving in a line along the river’s retention wall. The concrete retention wall rose about three feet above the ground. This served as a river-facing wall, which was roughly ten inches wide and continued from the remnants of the 47th Street Bridge, all the way to the base of the tower itself. Where the tower’s metal perimeter fencing joined with this wall, the biters were climbing up onto the ten-inch-wide concrete wall’s ledge to skirt the edge of the steel fencing. In the process, the biters risked a 20-foot plunge into the icy depths of the Des Plaines River below. But the apparent danger didn’t seem to be hindering their progress. The biters seemed to prefer the ease of mounting the wall and circumventing the fence compared to trying to mount and then climb overtop the perimeter fencing. Climbing the perimeter fence was a task that took far more skill and agility due to the lack of handholds and the pointed nature of the fence top which tended to snag on clothing and skin.
Michael had never seen biters do something like this before, and it surprised him. In fact, he’d never even seen biters attempt this sort of maneuver, and frankly, it amazed him that they had somehow reasoned out this new entry route.
But Michael wasn’t that concerned about the breach.
“Humph,” he snorted with a frown. “Wonder how they figured that out?” he pondered aloud.
“Don’t know,” Josh said. “Pretty amazing…for biters that is. Didn’t think they had it in them. You think we should start shooting them?”
Michael shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. They don’t know we’re in here. And even if they did, it wouldn’t matter. I say we just lay low, ride out the night, and see if they move on. If they don’t think there’s any food in here, they have no real reason to stay. And even if they do, it doesn’t really matter. Even with that many of them, they won’t be able to break through our barricade since they don’t know how to mobilize their manpower…or should I say biter-power. We sit tight in here, don’t make a lot of noise, and don’t shoot at them, and they’ll probably just get cold or bored and eventually move on. I’ll bet you that by morning, they’ll all be gone, unless they can’t figure out how to get back out the way they came in.”
“Reminds me of the monkey that reached into the cookie jar. He could squeeze an open hand inside the jar, but once he grabbed a
cookie and made a fist, he couldn’t get his hand back out. He sat there for hours trying to remove his hand. Proved that he was smart enough to get the cookie, but he wasn’t smart enough to let the cookie go to get his hand back out.”
“Hopefully these things are smart enough to let go of the cookie,” Jack Franko said from his position at a nearby window.
“Let’s get downstairs and tell the others to kill any lights they still have on and tell them to keep quiet. Hopefully that will help get the biters on their way again,” Michael instructed. “Then we won’t have to waste any of our ammo on them, and we won’t have more bodies piling up outside. Come springtime, we could already be facing a real problem with the stuff that has accumulated around this tower.”
* * *
“Halt!” came the command as the two strangers materialized from the blackness of night. A spotlight flipped on from a wall above them, illuminating the two figures.
“Who are you?” a voice from atop the wall called as the strangers shielded their eyes from the blinding light.
“Name’s Lance,” the thin, patchy-bearded young man, still holding his hand before his eyes, called back. “And this is Max,” he tilted his head to the side toward the dirty, yet attractive woman next to him, her hair frizzled and witch-like after going days without washing.
Both were breathing heavily and sweating even in the sub-freezing temperatures.
“What do you want?”
“We need to talk to whoever’s in charge,” Lance said. “There are biters…tons of them,” he pointed behind him between gasps for breath. “They’re close…and they’re headed this way.”
“What are you doing out at this time of night?” Eric asked.
“We were camping in the woods. We’re trying to make it to St. Louis. I just happen to stumble upon this herd of biters when I got up to take a piss. We barely escaped.”
Eric ran a hand through his short-cropped hair and shot a wary glance toward Marta who had been assigned to join him on the night watch. He wasn’t sure exactly what to do. They’d had problems with outsiders before. And he wasn’t approved to make decisions on who was admitted into the town.”
“Cover me,” Eric told Marta as he moved forward on the platform on which they stood. He began lowering a rope-wrung ladder over the top of the ten-foot wall that had been built to block the city street leading into the center of town.
“Right,” Marta said in her thick Polish accent. She chambered a round in her rifle and clicked its safety to the “off” position.
Eric stepped back and watched warily, pulling a .38 caliber handgun from behind him. Max, followed by Lance, climbed the ladder and hefted themselves over the top of the wall and onto the small platform.
Eric quickly moved to pull the rope ladder up behind them.
“All right, Marta, go ahead,” he trained his handgun on the two new arrivals while Marta slung her rifle over her shoulder on a strap and began patting the strangers down.
After a few seconds, she pulled a handgun from Lance’s back waistband. She handed it to Eric, who took it and shoved it in his own waistband.
“Any other weapons on you?” Eric asked Lance and Max.
“No,” Lance shook his head. “That was it. We’re lucky we had that on us. Biters cut us off from our camp and all our supplies. I carry that piece with me at all times. We came across a couple biters on the way here. Would have been screwed without it.”
Eric pulled Lance’s gun back out and checked the cylinder. Three rounds had indeed been fired.
“They’re clean,” Marta told Eric, stepping back from her inspection.
Eric jammed Lance’s weapon back into his pants. Once he was done with this, he unclipped a radio on his belt. “Come in, Richard.”
Eric waited almost ten seconds, the radio held out in front of him, his gun still held in his other hand.
Finally, a voice answered, “Go ahead.”
“Yeah, sorry to bother you, but we got two newcomers down here at B Street. They say biters are headed this way. What you want me to do with them?”
“Go ahead and bring them in. I’ll talk with them.”
“Copy that,” Eric holstered his radio but not his weapon.
Marta had also re-trained her weapon on the strangers.
“All right,” Eric motioned to the newcomers as he waved his weapon at a ladder leading down from the platform on which they stood. “Let’s go.”
Eric led Lance and Max down the metal ladder. Marta covered the three with her rifle until they were all safely on the ground. She remained behind to secure the post while Eric took the new arrivals to see Richard.
The town of Riverport was snuggled up against the Illinois River. Its tiny downtown, just several blocks square, sat on a sort of peninsula created by a sweeping curvature in the river’s course. When the Carchar Syndrome hit, the town’s position made it somewhat more defensible from attacking hoards of biters.
Near the tip of the peninsula, River Drive bordered the curvature of the river. An elevated sidewalk along the river side of this street made for scenic views out across the water while also acting as a levee to protect the town from flooding. On the opposite side of the street was a block of buildings that formed one end of the town’s square. The town’s remaining population had blocked off each end of this street where it curved away from this portion of town. They had erected large metal walls that stretched from the buildings, across the street, and over to the raised river walk.
Large, mostly brick, mostly commercial, two and three-story structures ringed the city square in this section of town. Two streets – B Street and C Street – entered the square, running north and south and connected with River Drive. Running east to west through the northern portion of the square was 1st Street.
This layout formed an H-shaped pattern of streets that was bordered by multi-story brick structures. By building walled barricades at each street entry point into the town’s square, the residents effectively created a more B-shaped fortress. The remaining population could live in and more effectively guard this part of town compared to living in individual housing units sprinkled across town.
Near the south end of this enclave sat the town hall. In front of the brick, Greek revival style structure was a small park. The park had walkways that formed a cross pattern and led to a large fountain in the center of the square honoring the town’s veterans.
The majority of the town’s remaining populace took refuge in the second stories of the square’s commercial buildings. Many of these structures had been converted to small apartments over the years. And the old armory building, which sat on the southwest corner of the square, provided a safe location for storing most of the town’s remaining supplies in addition to serving in its weekly town meeting capacity.
Lance and Max followed Eric through the darkened streets and across the now untended park grounds. They passed the memorial fountain, melted snow and rainwater frozen solid inside its lower basin, and walked up the steps leading to the town hall.
Inside, Eric guided them past a wide stairway leading to a second floor mezzanine, and down a hallway to an office set toward the rear of the building. There, he knocked twice, paused, and then opened the door and entered.
The two newcomers followed him through the door.
Inside, the office was brightly lit. Blackout sheets hung over two windows to keep light from potentially drawing biters at nighttime. The office was sparsely furnished. There was a desk in the center of the room. Two leather-backed chairs sat before the desk. A corner file cabinet and a small end table with a withered plant atop it finished the list of sparse office furnishings.
A bearded man, who looked like he’d just woken up, sat in a black office chair behind the desk. He stood as Eric led the strangers into the room.
“Richard,” he greeted them somewhat tersely, extending a hand.
“Lance,” Lance shook hands.
“Max,” Max shook Richard’s hand in turn.
>
“Please,” Richard gestured to the two seats before the desk, “have a seat.”
“Thank you,” Lance and Max both said as they sat.
“Looks like you two could use it,” Richard nodded at the unkempt and rather exhausted looking travelers.
“For sure,” Max sighed tiredly.
“So tell me,” Richard seated himself as Eric moved to lean against one wall, keeping a wary eye on the two fresh arrivals, “what brings you to our small town?”
Lance answered for them both. “We were camping in the woods a couple miles away.”
“What caused you to break camp in the middle of the night?” Richard asked.
“Biters…a whole shitload of them,” Max answered this time, pulling her frazzled hair away from around her face. She bound it behind her head using an elastic band she pulled from around her right wrist.
“How many?” Richard asked, more interested now.
“Hard to tell in the dark,” Lance said. “A bunch. More than we’ve seen in a long time. We made it out just in time, but we lost all our stuff.”
“Yeah,” Max said. “Pretty much got out with the clothes on our back. Not that we had much to begin with.”
“Awfully cold to be camping, isn’t it?” Richard pressed.
His town had been troubled by outsiders showing up out of nowhere in the past. He’d grown wary of such people. They usually turned out to be scavengers looking to steal whatever they could get their hands on.
“Damn right it is,” Lance nodded. “Wasn’t exactly by choice. We saw this place on our map, and we were headed here to see if we could bunk down for a night or two. But we ran out of daylight before we could make it. We don’t like traveling in the dark. Have to use lights to see, and lights attract biters…and other people. When we got hit by the biters, we didn’t have anywhere else to go, so we figured we’d come here. We didn’t realize that you all were this well set up. The biters were probably about a half mile behind us when we arrived, and we figured we’d better let you know they were headed this way as soon as we got here.”
The Last Bastion (Book 3): The Last Bastion Page 13