It scared Deckard as well. The way Fowler’s body had jerked when Deckard had shot him had been ugly. He had flopped over, like a slab of rubber, and the memory clung in Deckard’s mind. How easily that could have been me, he thought as he slalomed up the block, dodging in and out among the creatures that charged out into the street when they saw the Jeep coming.
He had petted Sundance at least twenty times in the last day. It amazed him and frightened him in equal measure how such a simple thing had put him so close to death. It had him second guessing everything. Was the steering wheel contaminated? Had the door handle been covered in Com-cells? Was the air polluted with spores? Was he sucking in disease with every breath?
A cold shiver struck him.
“As long as we have a vehicle, we should carry bleach,” he said. “And gloves, masks, and all that kind of stuff. You never know…Christ!”
The sun was setting on the third day of the apocalypse, making the shadows of the buildings long and deep. A man covered head to toe in layers of black blood had come stumbling out of one of these shadows and Deckard had to choose between side-swiping a van parked on the side of the road or running him over.
He chose the van. There was a jarring, screeching crash that crumpled the cover of the wheel housing and smashed the side mirror into the passenger window, which exploded all over Chuck.
Metal tore against metal for a second, and then they were past both the van and the monster. “Sorry,” Deckard said for the second time.
“Ain’t nothin’,” Chuck answered, brushing away little diamonds of glass from his blue chambray work shirt. “What’s a little attempted murder between friends?”
Deckard wanted to spit out a snappy comeback, only the image of Fowler’s rubbery body flopping to the floor appeared fully formed in his mind. Fowler had been a friend and Deckard had blown his brains out onto the floor. He hadn’t just attempted murder, he had succeeded.
For the remainder of the drive, he kept silent. Only when he finally saw the Hartford City Hall did he speak. “Shit,” he said.
Although the interior with its tall, glass-ceilinged atrium was beautiful, the exterior: a three-story rectangle made of grey stone, was rather dull in comparison. What made it horrible were the thousand zombies climbing all over it, trying to break in through the many windows to eat the people trapped inside.
2—The Hartford Quarantine Zone
Dr. Lee heard the ruckus below her. It had grown in tempo over the last half hour, ever since the mayor’s wife had foolishly pulled back one of the curtains on a lower floor window.
Thuy had given strict instructions. She had even carried out a class in light, sound and aroma awareness. All for nothing, it seemed. The attack commenced minutes later. They went for the one window, at first. Thankfully, its lower panes stood six feet off the ground and the beasts were stymied.
Then they began pyramiding, clawing over each other to get at the clean-blooded people inside. When one fell, others crushed him under foot and then they were inches closer to the window. More fell, or were pulled down, and soon the beasts were at the glass, and minutes later they were fighting their way inside.
Thuy had advised building a secondary wall of furniture around the office, which was being attacked. “A passive defense based on using their weaknesses against them is the proper course of action. Fighting them with guns, at this point, will only bring on a general attack.”
“What the fuck do you think is already happening?” the mayor demanded. “They are attacking, already. We need to hold them off long enough for your friend to arrange a rescue.”
He meant Courtney, who had taken over the communications room—it was actually the Communications/ Community Initiatives/ Legislative Affairs Room and the only real piece of communications equipment in the room that worked was the newly reinstalled CB radio. Still, she claimed the room as her own and had been hard at it for three hours trying to enact some sort of a rescue.
When talking with this or that government official, she used Thuy’s status as “the only scientist” who could possibly come up with a cure for the zombie disease as her opening bid in her quest for a rescue. When that didn’t work, she wasn’t above trying to parlay Thuy’s position on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list to the same effect.
When it came to a rescue attempt, the State Department gave her a guaranteed “maybe.” From FEMA, she got a: “We’ll put you on our list.” From the Department of Homeland Security, she got a: “I’ll have to get back to you when we can arrange that, but it won’t be before tomorrow afternoon.” And from the FBI, she had her worst response: “Tell her: she’s not going anywhere and should just sit tight.”
Thuy found it all so ridiculous that she decided to find her own way out of Hartford. The only problem was she couldn’t find her own way out of the Hartford City Hall building.
Gunshots began to ring out on the floor below her as the zombies breached the window. Emotionally wrung out, Thuy had retreated to what she knew: books, data, research. She had been sitting behind a desk, poring over maps in the Records Office, but at the sound of the guns, she turned off the lights and went to the window. Carefully, she pulled back the layers of material which kept light from escaping into the evening and appraised the attack on the building.
Perhaps a hundred zombies had been trying to force their way into room G3-Human Recourses. Now, with the guns blazing away, hundreds more of the monsters were charging from all over. “I told you so,” she said to herself with a sigh.
She went to find Courtney, who was red-faced and bristling into the CB mike: “No, I am not the Chief of Staff. I am his secretary. Yes, Marty Aleman is my boss. This isn’t so tough to understand. He’s requesting a helicopter…” She paused as Thuy shook her head.
“It’ll be soon,” she told Courtney. “Twenty minutes, maybe thirty if the mayor’s people don’t panic.”
“Then it’ll be twenty,” Courtney said taking the mike and knocking it against her forehead in frustration. “Son of a bitch…no, I’m not talking to you, sir. Let me call you back. I have a situation here.” She clicked off the radio, sighed, and stared at the wall across from her. “What are we going to do? How are we going to get out of here?”
Thuy’s lips drew down as she said: “I haven’t been able to come up with anything beyond the most primitive: a fire. We might be able to escape in the confusion as the building burns down.”
“It would take a pretty big fire and that would mean there’s a good chance that we will die from smoke inhalation or be overcome by the heat.” Thuy’s only answer to this was a barely perceptible shrug, which caused Courtney to lean back in her chair as she realized Dr. Lee thought death by fire was an acceptable risk. It didn’t say much for their chances.
Courtney’s heart sunk. “How do we do it? Start the fire I mean?” she asked, listlessly, unable to get excited over the prospect of participating in something that would likely lead to her death.
“It won’t be hard. We will need to gather all the flammable material we can, pick a door and light it up.” It sounded like a crappy plan even to Thuy. “We should find Mr. Evermore and enlist his aid.”
Jerome was neck-deep in the battle in room G3 where the bodies of the undead were piling up like cord wood and the scent of spent gunpowder could be smelled down the hall. In a lull in the fighting, Thuy explained her plan, only to be greeted with outrage by everyone present.
“Why the hell would we want to burn down our only refuge?” the mayor demanded. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re winning this fight.” Everyone present, including Jerome, nodded in agreement. The mayor, buoyed by this show of support, went on: “And I, for one, don’t think it’s wise to chance those streets.” He pointed out into the growing darkness, where the moans of the undead hung in the air as if the wind itself was in agony.
Thuy stepped closer to the mayor and whispered: “It seems like a bad bet now, but it’ll be worse soon when you run low on ammo. Have you done a count
of your ammo and have you seen how many of them there are?”
The mayor hesitated, appearing, just for a moment, like a scared little boy. The moment passed and he said: “We’ll save burning down the building around us as a last resort.”
“That’s a decision arrived at through fear,” Thuy remarked, loud enough for everyone to hear. “I will prepare the combustibles for when you come to your senses. Mr. Evermore, I will need your help.”
Jerome hesitated. He thought that Thuy was crazy for even considering torching the place. First off, the building was made out of stone! Sure, there was framing and dry wall and carpets and such, but he couldn’t picture the fire being big enough to amount to much. And even if it did, fire was an unpredictable weapon that would burn friend and foe alike.
“No, I don’t think so,” he told her. “They need me here. Sorry.” He twitched out a quick smile and then bent to the task of reloading his weapon, taking his time as if it were more complicated than it really was.
Thuy wasn’t used to being told “no” by people she knew. Strangers were one thing, they hadn’t yet experienced her brilliance, but Jerome should have known better. They had spent the better part of the day together, plenty of time for him to realize her intelligence outmatched that of the mayor’s by a significant margin.
“If your only talent is in pointing a gun, then by all means stay,” she said, with ice in her voice. “Is there anyone here with the foresight to help me?”
No one said a word. Thuy threw her hands up in exasperation and stormed out of the room. When she found Courtney grunting and straining as she hauled a rolled Persian rug that weighed almost as much as she did toward the west side entrance, Thuy said: “It looks like we’re on our own. The men seem to think they know better. That looks extremely heavy. It is a cylinder. It can be rolled with far less effort.”
“Oh,” Courtney said, dropping the hefted end of the carpet with a thud. She went to the center of it and gave it a shove with her foot. The carpet rolled a few feet on the polished tile. She shoved it again—moving the carpet was easier, but it still wasn’t easy, especially without help.
Thuy seemed above physical labor. She walked slowly along next to Courtney with her eyes fixed on the far wall. “We will do this on our own,” she said. “It might take a little more time and effort, but the end result will be the same. You continue here and I will secure weapons and as much ammo as I can get my hands on. Remember, breaking out is only the first step.”
“I remember,” Courtney said with a grunt. “I just wish that woman hadn’t left us. We could have used her car.” She meant the “Warden of the Wall” who had stolen away when the zombie threat had begun to increase.
“I agree. It was short-sighted of her. After I get the weapons, I will see about transportation, though I fear getting keys to one of the cars in the parking lot will prove most difficult.”
Thuy was so fixated on the problem of acquiring carefully guarded keys that she missed the sarcasm when Courtney said: “Yeah, probably as hard as moving this hundred and thirty pound carpet.”
“Mhm? Yes, the carpet. Get it in place and don’t be shy about getting more. I’ll see you in a bit.” Thuy left her, heading back to down to the ground floor, where the battle was in full swing. As she had predicted, the number of windows being attacked had multiplied.
So far, the mayor’s people were holding their own; however, the pile of ammo in the center of the floor was noticeably smaller. Thuy went to it first and, when no one was looking, she grabbed three thirty-round magazines and shoved them into the waist of her pantsuit and hid them under the jacket.
When they were secure, she went to room G3. She didn’t stride to it with her usual self-important air, she walked along the wall, hoping that she looked “casual.”
Casual did not come easily for her, yet everyone was either too busy or too frightened to notice her. It didn’t really matter. There were no weapons just lying around and nor were there car keys left sitting out on desks. She went to room after room with no luck.
Eventually, she made her way to the west entrance where Courtney had built a substantial pile consisting of: drapes, carpets, paper and pieces of a desk that she had destroyed by hand.
Courtney wiped sweat off her brow and asked: “No luck with the guns?”
As Thuy showed up empty-handed, the answer was obvious. Out of deference to the situation and Courtney’s ramping fear, Thuy swallowed an acidic retort and said. “No, on both fronts. We might be able to get out of the building but we’ll be unarmed and on foot.”
“Crap!” Courtney seethed, kicking a drawer from the desk and sending it skittering across the tile. “What the hell are we going to do?”
“We can’t wait for them to run out of ammo,” Thuy said, slowly feeling the weight of decision heavy on her. “Our only choice is to light the fire. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to tell the others or they’ll be trapped.”
A grimace crossed Courtney’s face. “They’ll stop you if you tell them. You know that.”
“But they won’t stop you. I want you to light the fire while I go tell them. If they try to do something to me, something not so nice, promise you’ll leave regardless.”
Courtney said she would and then bent to the task of lighting the fire, starting with the reams of paper she had collected. They went up quickly and so Thuy hurried away, rushing to the other side of the building where the sound of gunfire was a storm of noise that pierced her ears.
She had to yell to be heard. “I’m lighting the fire! You’re running out of ammo. You know that. You know it won’t last. So come with us and make a break for it, now before it’s too late.”
One of the men near the window pointed outside where the lawn of the building teemed with the undead. He cried: “We can’t go out there! Don’t you see them all? There are too many, you stupid bitch!” An angry murmur of agreement accompanied the outburst.
“Grab her,” the mayor said to one of his men. At a hundred pounds, she was literally half the size of the man who took her arm in an iron grip. “Get her lighter,” the mayor added.
Thuy didn’t have a lighter, but she still had the three magazines tucked into the back of her pants. They were quickly discovered. The man who had a hold of her growled: “What the fuck is this? Look what she had.” He held up the magazines.
The mayor’s face went stony. “We’re running out of ammo? Really? Or did you just hide it all? Someone find the girl she was with and bring her here.” Two men left and the rest eyed her coldly. Their animosity seemed to give the mayor permission to give in to his anger and fear. He came up to Thuy, grabbed her face in one hand and then shoved her back so that she fell hard to the tile.
This naked aggression stunned the men and the shooting grew less. Beneath it could be heard the faint sound of a horn blaring. Every head turned to the window. “There’s someone out there in a Jeep,” Jerome Evermore said. “He’s turning circles, getting the zombies to chase him.”
Thuy knew right away who was driving the Jeep: “Deckard, oh my God.” It had to be him. Who else would brave the city streets? And why? The mayor didn’t strike Thuy as a person anyone would risk their life for. It was egotistical, she knew, but she hoped she was that sort of person to Deckard.
She was correct in her assessment. It was Deckard who had the Jeep’s high beams flooding the night, its hazards flashing, and the horn blaring. He was a one-man parade and those zombies who weren’t already at the windows turned toward him, eager to feed.
With the room’s attention away from her, Thuy jumped up and tried to run; however, the mayor snagged her arm. “You know who they are?” he demanded. “Are they here for you?”
“They are and if you even think about getting in their way, they’ll carve you up.” She yanked her arm from his suddenly limp grasp and sped out of there. In the middle of the hall, she found Courtney and two of the mayor’s men. “Let go of her!” Thuy demanded using the full power of her authority, which
was basically nonexistent and yet the men let Courtney go.
Thuy thought they had reacted to her, but it was the mayor standing behind her waving them away. Once more he grabbed Thuy and whispered: “Take me with you. I can…” he stopped as the first true billows of smoke mushroomed up out of the fire Courtney had made. In seconds the great atrium that stretched sixty yards long was filled with dark clouds.
“There’s not enough room for you and your family,” Thuy said. “You saw the size of the vehicle.”
“I meant, just me. I can help you. I know people…people in high places. You’ll need someone with my clout in order to get out of the city.”
A spasm of disgust that couldn’t be helped slipped across her face. The foul man clearly didn’t care if his wife or his friends got eaten alive. It was sickening and there was no way she wanted him anywhere near her.
“No. You can stay here and run your city.”
His eyes blazed in fury and she thought for a moment that he was going to punch her, but suddenly searing black smoke enveloped them. He began coughing, while she dropped to the ground and scooted across the floor on her knees where the smoke was still only a haze.
She went to Courtney, who was also hacking and coughing, and dragged her down where the air was still at least partially breathable. There was no need to talk. They both knew their only chance was to head toward the fire and get outside before the smoke killed them.
The only question: how many zombies would be waiting to attack them? Ten or fifty, it didn’t matter. One would be enough to infect them if it got close enough.
They crawled toward the source of the appalling heat, where a murky and shifting orange light showed the pile of odds and ends that Courtney had built into an inferno. Fearing that their faces would blister away to bone, they turned to the side and skirted it, heading for a door that had been locked and blocked. Efficient and hardworking Courtney Shaw had seen to fixing that hurdle as well and she produced a key.
The Apocalypse Crusade 3: War of the Undead Day 3 Page 28