Aftermath (Book 2): Chicago Calling

by Duncan McArdle

  Gerry sat there, able to speak but no longer wanting to, anger filling his insides as he realised he’d been lied to so long ago, by a man he went on to gift a rifle to, the same rifle they could have used to their advantage the day before.

  “You son of a bitch”, he eventually spat out, somewhat literally.

  The words were met by a swift rap of Harvey’s baseball bat up the back of the man’s head, soft enough to keep him conscious, but hard enough to make a point. John stuffed the gag back into his mouth, and then knelt down in front of Brock.

  “Let’s try with you now”, he said to the man in front, who was sweating more than ever, despite the cold. “Tell me something I don’t already know, and better yet, something useful, or my friend here is gonna’ have to beat it out of you”.

  John stared into the man’s eyes for a few moments more, reinforcing his point, before eventually removing the gag.

  “It was just a raid I swear!”, the man blurted out, to which his boss began angrily mouthing various words in a vain attempt to speak through his own gag.

  “We thought you’d be an easy hit, just like the others, thought you’d be a good last stop on the way!”, Brock continued.

  “On the way where?”, John asked, lowering his tone as he sensed the man was more than willing to spill on just about anything.

  “To Chicago, we were headed to Chicago!”, Brock insisted.

  John stepped back from the man, standing up straight to ponder what he was hearing. Chances were that it was the truth, that they had no real reason to target the camp, other than it being on the way to Chicago. It was unlikely that there’d have been an ulterior motive, and it was almost certainly just some freak coincidence that it’d been these particular men – the same ones John had met before – to do it. But knowing only what was probable and most likely didn’t fill John with confidence.

  “The others, you said the others, who were they?”, he asked, continuing the questioning.

  “What? No… they were just, you know, biters!”, Brock replied, backtracking as he began to sense the do-gooder attitude coming out from inside John, the same sort of attitude that might not have appreciated the more truthful answer; that they were other innocent people the group had targeted.

  Harvey once again brought the bat up, this time along the back of Brock’s head, catching him slightly and sending his head lurching forwards, the sound of pain coming out from his mumbling lips.

  “Don’t make yourself useless to me”, John said, “Things are gonna’ get bad for you if you’re useless to me”.

  “They were other people”, Brock blurted out, “Like you… they had camps, most of ‘em small, some bigger…”, he said.

  “And what, you killed them?”, John asked bluntly.

  Brock hesitated, looking down at the ground rather than in John’s direction.

  Harvey gripped his bat and readied his aim.

  “Yes!”, Brock yelled, whimpering now more than ever, “We killed them”, he cried.

  John just stood there, shaking his head, unable to avoid imagining the chaos this small group had inflicted upon so many people, all of them having belonged to a species that was already close to extinction. Slowly he made his way back over to Gerry, and removed the man’s gag once more.

  “You rat-faced son of a bitch!”, Gerry blurted towards Brock.

  “HEY!”, John yelled, slapping Gerry’s face back towards him. “You’re talking to me, not him”, he said firmly.

  “Oh yeah, and what the fuck do you want to know?”, Gerry said through gritted teeth.

  “Why you left the bridge”, John replied. “You had that place locked down, I bet you were earning plenty from people passing, why’d you have to leave it and come out here?”.

  “Well see that’s pretty simple”, Gerry replied, a sinister smile spreading across his face. “There’s a whole world filled with people to rape, kill and steal from Jimmy, not good to get tied down, you know?”, he said, laughing maniacally.

  John looked down at the ground and smiled slightly, even managing to exert a chuckle of his own. In the most calm, composed and grounded manner he could muster, he reached down to his belt and began withdrawing the blade that had served him so well these past few months.

  “You know”, he said to Gerry, who was now watching the knife as it was slowly withdrawn from its holster, “I crossed your bridge twice, and Andrew, the guy your man here thought he shot yesterday, he crossed it twice too, and I didn’t pay a single god-damn dime. And this?”, John said, poking hard into the gunshot wound on Gerry’s left arm and sending him into a world of wincing pain, “This I did with the rifle you gave me”, he said, fully laughing now.

  “Yeah? So fucking what?”, Gerry asked.

  “I just thought you should know”, John said, the laughter abruptly disappearing from his voice, just as he gripped the blade in his right hand and stood up tall in front of the man.

  “Oh, what now Jimmy? You gonna’ cut off each one of my fingers, maybe pull out some hair till I tell you where we stashed everything?”, Gerry asked.

  “No”, John replied, looking down at the bandage they had wrapped around the gunshot wound the day before, “I don’t want you here using up any more of our supplies”, he said.

  Suddenly Gerry’s eyes widened as he realised what was about to happen, and his face went completely white.

  “Oh”, John said, “And it’s John by the way”.

  With that, John thrust the blade forwards embedding it deep into Gerry’s heart, severing just about everything in front as the serrated edging did as much damage as was physically possible, before emerging back out through the rear of the flimsy chair. Gerry didn’t speak, most likely because he couldn’t. He simply sat there, slowly exhaling, his eyes softly closing as blood gushed out from his chest, and the soldier to his side whimpered and yelped.

  “So”, John said, stepping away from the first body and over towards Brock, placing his knife back into its sheath, “What’s this stash he’s talking about?”.

  “You killed him!?”, Brock yelled in disbelief.

  Once again Harvey’s baseball bat wrapped the man across the back of the head.

  “Focus now”, John said, “I think I’ve made it pretty clear what happens to people that are of no use to us”, he continued, “Now tell me about the stash”.

  “It’s just…”, Brock began, “It was everything we had, everything we were taking to Chicago, everything we…stole”, he explained.

  “I see”, John replied, stepping away from the man and turning his back. “And where is this stash?”, he asked.

  “At the marina”, Brock replied, “In one of the workshops”.

  John turned to face the man, staring long and hard into his eyes, doing his best to decipher whether or not it seemed like he was telling the truth. John’s time in the military had never involved torture, or anything close to it, so he was now relying on his skills as a parent – often used to tell whether or not his child was lying – that were serving the most purpose here. Eventually, John came to a decision, at which point he looked to Harvey and gave him a nod.

  “Wait, wait! I told you the truth, I TOLD YOU THE TRUTH!”, the man yelled.

  “I know”, John said.

  Suddenly the bat swung forwards at full pelt, its solid wooden construction colliding hard with the side of the man’s head and knocking him instantly unconscious.

  “That’s why we knocked you out first”, John said, before once again withdrawing his blade.

  Chapter 27: Catch-Up

  “You got everything you need?”, John asked as Michelle laid down onto the sleeping bag.

  “I think so”, Michelle replied, looking around the tent for anything she might be missing.

  Even now, despite the conditions, there were bedtime essentials. John had insisted Michelle keep a knife with her at all times – due to her not having the experience, the training or the desire to use a gun – and it now sat to the side of her pil
low, just in case. In addition to this more defensive item, there was also a bottle of clean water, and a torch, with whatever battery was left inside. It was a common trio of items to be found in most of the tents, and gave anybody with them the ability to see, to fight, and to survive, should they ever need to do so on their own.

  “John”, Michelle said, her long blonde hair now up in a bun on the back of her head, pressing down softly against her pillow.

  “Yeah sweetheart?”, John asked, looking into her eyes, unable to ignore the faint sign of water building up.

  The two were locked in a stare for a moment, until Michelle broke the silence with three words that stabbed right at John’s heart.

  “I miss her”, she said, right before the banks burst and a single tear escaped from each eye.

  John’s mood lowered. He was crouched down by the entrance to the tent, ready to head out and take watch. But now he wanted nothing more than to stay there through the night.

  “Come here”, he said, after climbing further into the tent and sitting up next to his wife.

  Happily obliging, Michelle leant up off of the floor and tucked her head against John’s chest, just as more tears began to slowly drift out, now travelling sideways along her horizontally rested face, and then onto John’s hooded sweater. As soon as she was settled in place, John brought his arms around her, and began slowly stroking his right hand along the top of her hair.

  “I miss her too”, John said softly, “And I’m gonna get us all back together soon, I promise”.

  He lowered down slightly to plant a kiss on the top of Michelle’s head, resulting in the briefest of smiles from the saddened figure, before she once again returned to the subject at hand.

  “But what if when you get to her, she’s better off there?”, Michelle asked, “What if it’s safer for her there?”.

  “Then we’ll both go there”, John replied. “No matter how this plays out, we’re going to get through it, and we’re going to do it as a family”, he insisted.

  Michelle went quiet for a moment, thinking over John’s sentiment, but in her own mind finding that it created more questions than answers. After some time, she broke free of John’s loving grip, and sat upright, before facing her husband and putting on the closest thing to an assertive tone she could muster.

  “I’m coming with you”, she began, “When you go to Chicago”.

  “No you’re not”, John said plainly, meeting her gaze, “It’s too dangerous, and we don’t know what we’ll find there”, he tried to explain.

  With that, Michelle looked away and shook her head. It was the same thing she’d heard so many times before, and it was one of the many lines she was sick of hearing. Eventually, she turned back to face John.

  “If you get there, and you…”, she started before breaking off for a moment, tears once again welling up in her eyes. “If anything happens to you”, she mumbled, “I don’t want to be here on this world without you, without Hayley, without anybody…”.

  “You can’t mean that?”, John asked, his own voice now bearing the hallmarks of worry.

  “Would you want to?”, Michelle asked, “To keep on going without either of us around?”.

  John didn’t reply straightaway. Instead, he thought back to all the times he’d been strongest since the end, and quickly realised that they were all at moments when he was getting closer to reuniting with his family. In fact, any time he’d struggled with the idea of keeping going, it’d been them that had kept him on track, that stopped him from just giving up, and the one time he had come close, it’d been them he’d thought of throughout.

  “Fair enough”, John replied eventually, somewhat dodging the most recent question but nevertheless agreeing with his Wife’s request, which was apparently enough to satisfy her.

  “Thank you”, Michelle said, before leaning back over and placing her head back onto John’s chest, now smiling once more as she went back to envisaging the grand family reunion she’d played over so many times in her head.

  The two sat in silence for a little while longer, neither of them feeling the need to say a word. Both were simply happy to be in each other’s company, happy to be together after having spent so long apart.

  “I love you”, Michelle eventually said.

  “I love you too”, John replied, before placing his right hand atop his wife’s head, and once again gently stroking her hair.

  In that moment, despite the overwhelming presence of love, emotion and family, John couldn’t help but allow his mind to wander into a dark place. He began envisioning their arrival to Chicago, and the moment they finally found out whether it was the safe haven they’d hoped for, or a trap set up by some sick and twisted individuals. He thought of family reunions, and moments of incredible happiness, but he also thought of the horrifying possibility his family might be permanently erased from what remained of this cruel place. It was not a thought he appreciated having stuck in his mind, but it was now one Michelle was forcing him to consider.

  * * *

  “Evening”, John said, greeting Andrew a few minutes after Michelle had finally drifted off into slumber.

  Andrew briefly turned to check on the arrival, before resuming his watch. “Hey John”, he replied, happy to see a friendly face not only because of the comfort it brought him, but also due to it meaning his shift was coming to an end.

  “How’s it looking?”, John asked.

  “Quiet”, Andrew replied plainly, still looking off into the distance, “For now”.

  For some time, both men stood there atop the building, looking from the night sky above with its millions of glimmering stars, to the moon’s reflection in the lake just in front, and then to the greying, dreary streets of a city engulfed in darkness and death below. It was an incredible contrast that most would have found incredibly profound, but after all this time, both men had become almost numb to it.

  “What do you think we’ll do after this?”, Andrew asked after some time.

  John looked at the man, or at least at the side of his head, before smiling slightly, “Don’t you go getting all philosophical on me”, he joked.

  “It’s just”, Andrew began, “Whether it’s here, or Chicago, or anywhere else, sooner or later we’re gonna be secure, safe… settled”.

  “Yeah?”, John asked, wondering where his friend was going with this train of thought.

  “Well, what happens then?”, Andrew asked, “Do we just… survive? For as long as we can?”.

  “Isn’t that what we were all doing before this anyway?”, John asked.

  “Now whose being philosophical?”, Andrew said.

  John laughed, looking once again to his companion – whose attention was still solely devoted to the job at hand – before again glancing out into the night sky.

  “I don’t really know”, he said, in answer to Andrew’s original question. “Part of me thinks, we should be walling ourselves in with enough supplies to last us a lifetime, maybe a way to leave when we have to”, he began, drawing some nods of agreement from his friend. “But the other part of me thinks we have to do something about… this”, he added, nodding towards another member of the undead community, slowly ambling down the road in front.

  “Like what?”, Andrew asked, “Cure the infection?”.

  John shook his head. “I don’t think we’ve got the minds or the technology left to cure it, or even prevent it”, he said, “I think it’s just up to us to… remove it”.

  “That’s a lot of biters John”, Andrew said, “And a lot of people’s families and friends”.

  “I know”, John replied, watching as Lester appeared from the darkness below and swiftly took care of the approaching figure, whose presence had now triggered the motion-sensor light next to the two men. “I didn’t say it’s something I want to do”, John continued, “I just think it might be something we have to do”.

  * * *

  Having taken watch over a relatively uneventful night, John had opted to sleep throu
gh the day that followed, in the hope he might wake up refreshed enough not only for the next watch, but also to head out the following day. However, sleeping during the day was rarely an easy task, not least due to the hustle and bustle that the camp’s still large number of inhabitants generated, and so just a few hours into the afternoon, John stirred from his slumber.

  Looking up at the roof of his tent, he squinted slightly until his eyes had adjusted to the brightness, and then waited for his ears to confirm just what exactly had awoken him. Soon enough, he picked out the sound of struggling, and of numerous things clattering around above. Fearing the worst, John grabbed and holstered his pistol, and then rushed out through the tent’s exit.

  In the open air of the building’s penultimate floor, John was both surprised and terrified to find nobody around, not a single figure visible over the top of the many tents scattered across the area. Noting this, as well as the ever increasing noise coming from above, John quickly made his way over to the northern staircase, and sprinted up the steps two at a time.

  For each metre he traversed, more clues began to surface. From the scratching noises that pointed to something being shifted, to the groaning of numerous people, rather than biters, that meant something was being done as a group. But it was in fact to the vocal guidance of Andrew, becoming audible just prior to John reaching the final step that meant the worry all but disappeared from his mind, and he finally realised what was going on. Today, as had been decided in a prior meeting, was the day the bridge’s supports were being put in place.

  Arriving onto the rooftop, John’s latest suspicions were quickly confirmed. In front was a sea of people, seemingly just about every resident all gathered in one place for the first time that wasn’t due to some scare or impending attack. Even the guards had turned out, save of course for Harvey, who John imagined was on duty below, and Sonja, who whilst also on the top floor, was busy watching over the area out front from her corner-perch.