Aftermath (Book 2): Chicago Calling

by Duncan McArdle

  “One down”, Lester said to himself, as the second of the group turned its ugly head, attracted by the sound of its friend falling to the floor.

  Just as the creature managed to lock eyes with Lester, a sick smile spread across the axe wielding man’s face.

  “Today’s gonna be a good day”, he said, pulling the axe free of the decimated body below, and firming his grip with both hands.

  Chapter 10: Soar

  “I think it’s landing”, John said from the back of the Ford, a vehicle that now housed six gawking eyes, each of them trained on the white object in the distance.

  This was the first time anybody had seen anything more than a car or truck move in the past few months, and even as they watched the small Cessna seem to slow – indicating it may now simply be taxiing along the runway – their gaze never wandered, right until some additional movement began to surface.

  Out of every nook and cranny, every open hangar door and every section of grass long enough to hide their presence, small figures began to emerge, masses of the undead appearing out of nowhere.

  “Jesus”, came Sonja’s voice from the front of the F150, “There’s hundreds”.

  “Yeah, and it looks like they’ve noticed”, John added, noting an important change in the plane’s speed.

  The light aircraft appeared to have gained momentum, and as the trio continued to watch the events on the runway unfold, an air of discomfort spread at the sight of the Cessna leaving the ground once more, now airborne and heading right in their direction.

  “Do we signal them?”, Sonja suggested.

  “And say what?”, John replied. “They could be dangerous, and better equipped”.

  “But they have a plane!”, Sonja insisted, “You have any idea how useful that could be?”.

  “For what?”, John replied, again in a dismissive manner. “You’re seeing what we’re seeing, there isn’t a runway left that won’t be just as overrun as this one”, he argued.

  Back to the side, the plane continued to fly straight towards them, itself now rising into the sky like a majestic bird, until its engines came into earshot, and John heard a noise he knew to be a very, very bad sign.

  “Oh shit”, he said.

  Sure enough, when it was just a short distance away from being directly above them, the aircraft began to kick and splutter, and before long was dropping height at a significant rate.

  “Back up, back the truck up!”, John yelled, to which Sonja immediately complied, slamming the machine into reverse and throwing the group backwards in a flurry of engine roar, nobody but John knowing what was going on, but nobody wanting to disobey an order barked in such a horrified tone either.

  Immediately after clearing the area, all three sets of eyes locked back onto the Cessna once more, as they watched it continue to lose altitude. Even now as it plummeted downwards, there was something elegant about seeing such a magnificent piece of machinery cut through the air in such a fluid manner, partaking in a form of transport that had been all but lost since the end. That was of course, until it came crashing down nose first into the concrete, right where the Ford had been parked just seconds earlier.

  Much to everyone but John’s confusion, the crash caused no flames, no great plumes of smoke or huge fireballs that engulfed the plane completely. Instead, the aircraft had quite simply exploded, millions of tiny pieces spraying out across the interstate, causing an almighty crashing noise and sending shivers down the spines of everyone in the Ford, but bearing none of the familiar orange and yellow colours that Hollywood had trained them all to expect.

  Within mere moments, the scene went quiet once more, this time eerily so. Throughout the carnage in front certain key shapes began to become visible, some much less well received than others. First and most important on the list, were two bodies, each still in their seats, trapped amidst the mangled and crushed cockpit and bearing little to no signs of movement.

  Immediately all three scavengers disembarked, and Sonja began running towards the wreck mumbling words of disbelief as she tried to comprehend the situation. John followed close behind, gun in hand, ensuring he was ready just in case things turned any more sour than they already had. Harvey meanwhile walked over much more slowly, his own gun also drawn, and little concern for the wellbeing of any potential survivors evident on his face.

  The Cessna’s cockpit was half the height it used to be, and was especially disfigured along the right hand side, where it had almost completely crushed one of the pilots. After having repelled the urge to vomit at the sight of the disfigured remains, and sensing that said individual was already a lost cause, Sonja instead turned her attention to the person nearest to her. The man in question was dressed in what could only be described as rags, and was so thin he appeared to be starved. Most importantly of all however, was the fact that he seemed to now be moving.

  “Can you hear me?”, Sonja said to the twitching body.

  “Fla…I….Se”, the injured man mumbled.

  “What? What is it?”, Sonja asked, making feeble attempts to inject a level of calm into her worry-filled voice.

  “Th… They”, he started again, “Everywhere”.

  “I’m gonna try and get you out okay”, Sonja said, evidently having determined that talking was pointless, and instead turning to John, “Give me a hand?”.

  “No”, mumbled the man again, “L… let me die, pl…please”.

  “But we can save you!”, Sonja pleaded, looking for the various points she’d need to move to release the man from the wreckage’s grasp.

  “No”, he replied, running his hand along one of the various sharp objects that had pierced through his chest when the plane had crashed, “N-nobody can be… s-saved”.

  With a final exhale of air, the unnamed individual in front of Sonja slowly ceased to exist. Blood ran freely along various parts of his clothing, and his muscles began to relax, until he was simply another one of so many dead that littered the world. Despite his condition, his eyes remained open, focused permanently on the wreckage he had spent his final moments inside of.

  “God damn it”, Sonja said, standing up and walking away from the crash site, a tear rolling slowly down her cheek.

  Soon afterwards, John stepped in to inspect the situation. Leaning into the cockpit, he noticed straightaway that there was a fundamental lack of pretty much anything of use. No weapons, no ammunition, no food and barely half a bottle of water between the two pilots. Judging by the figures of each, John quickly reached the conclusion that they’d ran out of supplies some time ago, and clearly had little experience with taking on the undead, instead opting to flee from them.

  A few steps away, a clearly uninterested Harvey was brushing shards of metal and glass to the side of the interstate in order to free up their path back to base. He’d realised early on that this was a lost cause, and so had instead chosen not to get involved, knowing it was unlikely to have a positive conclusion. This was perhaps now something Sonja wished she had done, as she found herself pacing around near the truck, her insides in turmoil at processing the sight of the survivor slowly passing away.

  “You alright?”, John asked upon returning to the Ford.

  “Yeah”, Sonja replied, unconvincingly, “Any idea what happened?”.

  “I figure they probably ran out of fuel, else there’d be fire”, John answered. “My guess is they’ve hit a few airports hoping to find something, and had the same not-so-warm welcome over and over”, he explained, “They just had to keep taking off”.

  “But they could have just gotten out further down the runway?”, Sonja asked, “They could have ran, or fought or-”.

  “Not everybody’s cut out for fighting Sonja”, John interrupted, “And some people, after all this time, they’re happy just seeing the back of this whole thing”.

  Sonja stared back at John, waiting for him to carry on with some kind of silver lining but quickly realising he was doing no such thing. Realising this, and that what John was saying
was indeed true, she nodded glumly.

  Harvey meanwhile returned to the Ford. He’d given a quick glance into the cockpit as he wandered past the crash site, but had otherwise been uninterested in the wreck.

  “Ready to go?”, Harvey asked.

  Sonja said nothing, but gave a rage-filled glare to Harvey, before turning back to face the truck.

  “I’ll drive”, John said before Sonja could climb in, “You’ve done enough”.

  Exhausted and unwilling to argue, Sonja walked a little further than planned, and entered into the rear of the truck’s cabin instead of the front.

  “C’mon”, John said to Harvey, “Let’s go home”.

  * * *

  Once John received the familiar two-thumbs-up response, guaranteeing him safe passage back to base, he gave the truck one final push, and then began coasting it towards the entrance. It was late afternoon by the time the group returned, and although the light was still with them, darkness didn’t appear to be far off. In the rear of the cabin, Sonja sat with her head leant against the window, sleeping. Thanks to a combination of her slumber and Harvey’s return to silence, it had been a relatively quiet drive back into Milwaukee.

  Upon the entrance coming into view, it immediately appeared to have been a much less dull time back at camp, based on the presence of a series of dead bodies piled up just outside, and a blood soaked axe clearly visible, leant against a nearby wall. Lester however seemed calm and collected, a nod of greeting the only communication exchanged which as far as John was concerned, was probably a good thing. He liked to think that if something bad were to have happened, he might have got a bit more notice.

  The truck rolled into its usual spot at the far end of the ground floor, and then cut off its engine, returning the area to silence. Sonja woke at this point, and after spending a brief moment getting her bearings, climbed out of the Ford along with her companions.

  “Where you going?”, she asked of John and Harvey, who bad both begun walking over to the entrance.

  “To clean up some mess, you go on up”, John said back, “Get some rest, you’re on watch tonight don’t forget”.

  With that, Sonja nodded and then picked up the two nearest fuel tanks, before disappearing into the dimly lit stairwell nearby.

  “You look like you’ve had some fun”, John called from back over by the entrance as the pair approached Lester’s location.

  “Yeah, nothing major, few of ‘em came wandering by and spotted me, Lord knows how”, Lester said.

  “It’s probably the smell”, Harvey piped up, smirking.

  Lester greeted the comment with nothing but a fierce stare, to which Harvey’s demeanour immediately changed.

  “Or not”, he said, holding his hands up in apology. “Guess I’ll go unload the truck”, he said, before starting the walk back over to the Ford.

  “You want a hand with this?”, John asked of Lester, looking to the pile of bodies.

  “’Fraid so”, the large man replied.

  Like most other things that happened on any kind of regular basis at the camp, there was a plan in place for dealing with bodies. The group had secured a couple of wheelbarrows from a local hardware store not long after John and Andrew had arrived, and so had opted to use those instead of driving. In the past, a surprising amount of fuel had been wasted on transporting bodies by vehicle, even if only across the street, and then even more so on burning them. The wheelbarrow approach was much more efficient, and its only downside – that of time – was something they all had copious amounts of.

  “Get anything good?”, Lester asked of John, as the pair both headed for the two black wheelbarrows propped against the wall.

  “Some fuel, little bit of food”, John replied.

  “You don’t sound happy”, Lester asked of John’s tone.

  “Yeah, almost had something a lot better”, John said with a faint tone of disappointment.

  “Boat?”, Lester asked.

  John nodded silently, unwilling to relive the events that took him from being so close to a means of reuniting with his daughter, to so far.

  “Lemme’ ask you something”, Lester said.

  “Shoot”, John replied.

  “Let’s say you find one”, Lester began, “Who do you take?”.

  John paused. He’d played over the moment he was finally able to begin the short journey to Chicago by water at least a thousand times in his head, but not once had he been looking anywhere other than forwards, not once had he noticed who he’d been with. If he took his Wife, and Chicago turned out to be a trap, he’d be responsible for whatever happened to her. If he didn’t take her, and couldn’t get back, he’d have separated his family once more. Likewise if he took any guards with him, even if only Andrew, he’d be endangering the lives of both those he took and those he left behind. Finally, if he didn’t take anyone, he’d have a big problem if he got into any trouble.

  “I… I don’t know, yet”, John eventually replied, only now realising the answer as he grabbed hold of the nearest body, one that had been severed almost completely in half from the head down, and loaded it into his wheelbarrow.

  “That’s what I figured”, Lester responded, as he too threw a body – this one more assembled – into his own wheelbarrow, and began wheeling it alongside John out of the car-park.

  John was a little surprised at himself. He was rarely caught off-guard by anything, and normally had a plan in place for everything, but he’d been blinded by the upsides of getting to Chicago, and ignored every other aspect of it.

  The duo descended into efficient silence, and before long had completed three journeys, managing to shift the pile of bodies to the water’s edge just alongside the museum. Over time they had discovered that when placed here, the breeze would hopefully keep the smell away from the car-park, and the smoke would rise away from the residents. Upon dumping down the final arrival, Lester took out a small, rainbow coloured lighter – which John could only assume had not originally been his – and bent down to the nearest body.

  John meanwhile set about spreading a minimal amount of fuel – contained within a small plastic bottle that lived alongside the wheelbarrows – across the bodies. Despite the liquids immense value, it had become abundantly clear that a pile of bodies stinking out the air was never a good thing, especially when the sun was out. The group had come to the decision that if using wheelbarrows meant saving some fuel, they might as well use some of it to make the problem go away that much quicker.

  Having spread the final drop of gas amongst the pile, John watched as Lester’s lighter finally kicked into life, starting a small flame which quickly spread along the damp clothes, and began to engulf the bodies. The heat might have been a nice comfort for the relatively cool evening approaching, but neither man had any desire to stand there any longer than they had to. Instead, they each turned and moved towards the nearby water.

  This was the final part of the disposal plan, and involved the wheelbarrows being filled with water. Whilst clearing the remains of the massacre that had occurred on the day John and Andrew had arrived, a small ramp once used to launch boats into the lake had been discovered, and had since been used for this more unorthodox purpose. Carefully each barrow was submerged, and then pulled back to dry land, at which point the two men began crossing back over to the car-park.

  Upon arrival, each liquid load was then tipped onto any puddles of leftover blood, washing most of them away into the drains just outside. What remained however, had to be scrubbed by hand.

  “So”, Lester said shortly after tipping his water, before throwing one of the two brushes to John and then descending onto his knees. “Where you going on your next run?”, he asked.

  Chapter 11: Making plans

  John awoke the following morning with little on his mind, aside of course from the usual things that plagued him on an everyday basis. Andrew remained on watch, Sonja too, and so he had no chance of heading out for the day, so he’d decided to devote it instead to re
st and recuperation. As such John began the day by heading up to the roof to fetch his and Michelle’s daily portion of beans-for-breakfast, and then consuming them in their section of the campsite’s tent city. Afterwards, he readied himself for the mundane day ahead, and headed back to the roof.

  Rounding the final set of stairs, John emerged into the open air just as the last pieces of breakfast equipment were being tidied away, and the first few residents had arrived to begin their own days. Daytime activities at the camp ranged from sitting and talking to carrying out chores, and thus provided little entertainment for anybody on any real scale. As such, John and the other guards had taken to chatting with as many people as possible during their downtime. If nothing else, it appeared to be helping to humanise the guards, and stopped any kind of divide from forming.

  Over the next couple of hours, John made his way from group to group, person to person, chatting with everyone he could on their issues, his issues, and just about anything else he could converse about. The daytime temperatures were perfect by now, cool enough for everyone to spend their days outside, but not so cold as to push them back down below, so there were more than enough people to talk with.

  Before long, John had made his way round a good portion of the camp’s sixty-some inhabitants, and next set his eyes on one of the older members; a chirpy lady named Sandra, who was best known for being one of the regular cooks.

  “Well g’mornin’ son”, came Sandra’s thick Georgian accent as John approached.

  “Morning Sandra”, John replied, sitting down opposite her on a bank of chairs.

  “How you doin’ this fine day?”, asked Sandra.

  “Not so sure it’s gonna be fine”, John remarked as he looked up at the grey sky above, “But I’m doing okay all the same. How about you?”, John asked.

  “Oh, fine, just fine”, Sandra replied.

  Immediately John knew something was wrong. Never had he had a conversation with this particular person without her smile so much as forcing itself upon him. But today, she seemed somewhat tame, happy but not overjoyed, different. Suspiciously John raised an eyebrow and looked her over, but found no obvious indicators as to why her mood had changed. What he did notice however, was that Sandra seemed to shy away from making eye contact.