“Roger that, Six.”
CHAPTER 8
“Your soldier has more than just a back that’s been thrown out,” Regina Safire told McDaniels when he returned to the fifth floor. “He has rather serious spinal compression fractures, and he needs medical attention.”
McDaniels looked to where Jimenez lay curled up on the floor. His armor and backpack had been removed, and his flight suit had been pulled down, exposing his torso. He wore a white cotton T-shirt underneath. Leary was nearby, leaning against the wall, arms folded across his chest. Jimenez looked up at McDaniels with pain-filled eyes.
“It’s not so bad when I’m curled up on my side, major,” he said.
“Because his spinal column is unloaded and isn’t carrying much weight,” Regina said. She knelt beside Jimenez with the contents of the building’s first aid kit strewn about her. McDaniels knelt beside Jimenez.
“You father examined him?” he asked.
Regina shook his head. “I did. My father’s skills are mostly in research now. Up until a few years ago, I had my own practice. I’m a pediatrician.”
“Ah.” McDaniels looked up at Leary. “I need you on the ground floor. Take Derwitz”—McDaniels pointed to the enlisted man guarding the barricaded glass doors leading to the elevator bay—“with you to relieve the first sergeant and Rittenour. You know how to detonate the charges in the stairwell?”
Leary looked wounded. “Of course I do, major. I’m still operational, you know.” The implication behind the statement was clear: I’m not a staff weenie like you, major.
McDaniels ignored the potential jibe. He jerked his chin toward the fire door.
“Hop to, troop. Report once you’re in position.”
“Hooah.” Leary straightened and tugged on the straps of his backpack, repositioning it on his shoulders. He walked toward the door and snapped his fingers at Derwitz.
“Off your ass, specialist. We got work to do.”
Derwitz clambered to his feet with a weary slowness and joined Leary at the door, tightening his helmet strap as he walked. Leary slowly opened the fire door and stepped into the stairwell, scanning for threats. Derwitz pushed in after him, and gently closed the door behind him.
McDaniels looked down at Jimenez. “Can you still move?”
Jimenez swallowed and nodded. “Yes sir.”
“He shouldn’t,” Regina said. “Without a set of X-ray to refer to, there’s no telling how bad the compression fractures are. If any of the disks are severely compromised, the injuries could increase. He could even be left paralyzed.”
“I can still fight, Major,” Jimenez said. “I might not be able to run or march, but I can still point my weapon at a stencher and shoot it.”
“I don’t doubt it, Jimenez. But if there’s a way we can try to make you comfortable, then we’ll do it.” He patted Jimenez on the shoulder. “You just hang in there, troop. We’ll be relocating to the twenty-seventh floor. So you just rest for the time being, all right?”
“Yes, sir.”
McDaniels rose to his feet and turned toward the unguarded fire door. “How is your father doing, Miss Safire?”
She gathered up the contents of the first aid bag she’d gone through and put them back inside the red backpack. “He’s doing as well as anyone could under these circumstances. He’s stressed, and wants to get out of here. When are we getting out of here, by the way?”
“As soon as my commanding officers can get a resource available, we’ll be pulled out,” McDaniels said. “Until then, we’re on our own. But we seem to be secure.”
“I heard a gunshot a while ago. What happened?”
McDaniels debated on whether he should tell her, then opted for the truth. It was probably less risky that way. “There was a zombie in the stairway. It was one of the people who worked here. I guess at some point he was bitten, and he crossed over. It was trying to get at some people who are barricaded on the twenty-seventh floor, and we put it down.”
Regina kept packing the bag. “And that was the only one you saw?”
“Yes.”
“But if there’s one, there’s more, right?”
“It makes sense to live life like that’s how it is.” McDaniels walked closer to the fire door, the AA-12 cradled in his arms like a favored child.
Regina finished packing the bag and got to her feet. She put the backpack on a nearby file cabinet. Jimenez slowly rolled into a sitting position, and she knelt down to help him.
“You shouldn’t be moving around,” she chided.
“Gotta do what I gotta do. Major, I can cover the door from here easy. You go ahead and hit the latrine or whatever,” Jimenez said.
“I’m good, Jimenez.”
“Seriously, sir. I can do this.” Despite his obvious pain, there was a set of commitment to Jimenez’s face. McDaniels considered this for a moment, then shrugged.
“Okay, Jimenez. You’ve got the door. The first sergeant and Rittenour will be coming up in a moment, so don’t shoot them, all right?”
“Roger that, sir.”
McDaniels took the opportunity to visit the men’s room and relieve himself and washed up at the sink with hot water. He wondered for how long their good fortune would last? Heat, power, hot potable water, food... realistically, if nothing changed, they could hold out for months. They weren’t in that tight of a spot. Of course, no wanted to stay and watch the Big Apple fall before the walking dead. As soon as they could, McDaniels wanted everyone out.
He regarded his reflection in the mirror and noticed the bags forming under his eyes. He held his hands up and watched them. They weren’t quaking, but they weren’t rock-steady, either. He resolved to ensure the soldiers all got some rest once they relocated to the 27th floor, starting with the two Special Forces troops, Rittenour and Leary. They’d been on the sharp edge for days, and they doubtless needed recuperative sleep.
The restroom door opened, and McDaniels automatically grabbed the AA-12. First Sergeant Gartrell walked around the privacy wall that separated the restroom proper from the doorway. He held up his hands and cocked a brow.
“Don’t shoot, major.”
“Stop fucking around, Gartrell. What are the circumstances down below?”
Gartrell strolled over to the row of urinals and did what he had to do. “Same as before, only with Leary and that poindexter from the 160th keeping an eye on the door. Leary’s got what it takes, but not so sure about the other guy. Oh well. If he doesn’t, he’ll be the first to go, I guess. Looks like Jimenez is royally fucked up?”
McDaniels nodded. “Safire’s daughter thinks he has spinal compression fractures.”
Gartrell grimaced. “That guy’s got to be in a world of hurt, but he’s holding up pretty well. Hard core, if you ask me.” Gartrell finished his task and flushed the urinal, then headed for the sinks. He washed his hands and took quite some time doing it, soaping them up mightily and using water so hot it turned his hands red. He looked up at the mirror and caught McDaniels watching him.
“It’s like I can’t stay clean enough,” he said, as if confessing some grievous sin. “I’ve been out in the field for weeks without a shower, and I can’t tell you how bad I want one right now. I don’t think I’ve come into real contact with any of those things, but I still feel filthy. Like I’ve got bugs crawling all over me.” He stood up straight and looked away from McDaniels’ reflection, turning his blue eyes toward the man himself.
“Jesus, major. You got someone’s brains all over your armor and BDUs.”
McDaniels looked down at his front. True enough, he was speckled with small, rust-colored droplets of dried blood and gore. He snorted and shook his head.
“From the zed up on twenty-seven,” he explained. “It was the company CEO, I’m told. Guess he did work himself to death.”
Gartrell unstrapped his helmet and placed it on the marble countertop. He attacked his face and scalp with hot water, rinsing himself off thoroughly.
“How’d you
like the shottie?” he asked while working his fingers across his scalp.
“Awesome weapon. Great to have handy when going up against deadheads or locked doors. Glad I had some hearing protectors on hand, though.”
“Listen, you think USASOC’s going to be able to pull us out of here? Because I’m having some trouble coming up with a Plan B.” Gartrell straightened up and pulled a handful of paper towels from the dispenser to his left. He dried off his face and head, then handed the damp towels to McDaniels.
“Use these to wipe down the front of your uniform. Go on, I don’t have any cooties that haven’t been treated already.”
McDaniels took the damp towels. “Thanks.” He turned toward the mirror and started wiping down his battle dress utilities and body armor. “USASOC’s going to do whatever’s necessary to get us out of here. After all, we have Safire, and he’s the genius.”
“Oh hell yeah, they’ll come for him. It’s the rest of us dogfaces I’m worried about.”
McDaniels shrugged. “I’m sure they’ll take all of us if they can get to us.” He paused, and looked up at Gartrell’s reflection in the mirror. “Gartrell. We need to bury the hatchet. We’ve got a lot of people who are depending on us, and I’m going to need all the help I can get. I need you to respect my rank and fall in line.”
Gartrell finished drying his face and tossed the paper towels into the waste basket. He put his hands on his hips and regarded McDaniels critically for a moment, then moistened another handful of towels and handed them to McDaniels. The ones he had been using were stained a dark russet.
“I’m always mission first, major. You know that.”
“I do. I just want to make sure we’re going to get along. The rest of the troops need to know who’s in charge.”
“Yeah, I get that.” Gartrell’s eyes were hard, and he kept his gaze locked with McDaniels’. “Here’s what I’ll do, major. You stay focused on the mission and don’t do anything dumb, I’m cool. But you fuck things up like in Afghanistan, I’m going to insert my twenty-five years of experience leading soldiers in the field. How’s that?”
McDaniels thought about it, then nodded. “Thanks, first sergeant.”
“No problem, sir. So tell me more about this cafeteria on twenty-seven?”
“If we have to hole up here in New York City, it would be tougher to find a better place. Maybe inside the Federal Reserve or Rikers Island, but even those wouldn’t be a hell of a lot better than what we have here. The building’s big, but it’s not like it’s the Chrysler Building. We can still move from top to bottom if we need to. And there’s enough food upstairs to keep three hundred folks going for at least a week or so. I figure that we’ve got at least two months of provisions, and that’s with the power going out and half of what’s upstairs spoils in a week.”
Gartrell grunted. “I like the way that sounds. But if no one gets us off of Manhattan island in the next couple of days, they never will.”
McDaniels sighed. Gartrell was right. Whatever caused the dead to reanimate wasn’t going to remain localized. Infected people would travel before they sickened and died, then rose again from wherever they had succumbed to the disease. And the cordon sanitaires that had been erected hadn’t been put in place in time, nor were they very effective in the first place. He had seen how the dead had overrun the barricades and attacked the officials manning them. To think the communities to the north would have better luck was asking for a bit much.
“Let’s try and stay positive,” he said anyway.
The skin around Gartrell’s eyes crinkled as he smiled. “Optimism wasn’t part of my advanced individual training, major.”
“Then adapt to the circumstances.”
“Roger on that. When do we move topside?”
“ASAP. I have to put in a call to USASOC in less than forty minutes. We have to figure out how we’re going to get Jimenez up there. He’s not going to be able to walk twenty-two flights of stairs, and I doubt we can carry him that far and not knock ourselves out.”
“Elevator?”
“Too risky. Plus Earl the Maintenance Guy shut them down. Would be very off-putting to have the doors slide open a few floors too low, and find about a dozen stenches waiting.”
Gartrell picked up his helmet and regarded it idly for a moment. “Hey, what about a freight elevator? Less chance of it making an unscheduled stop, right?”
McDaniels frowned. “There’s a freight elevator on this floor?”
“Oh yeah. Right past the elevator bay, there’s another door, across from the mailboxes. Locked from our side, but we checked it out during the initial recon. The bay was empty, but there was an elevator there. Judging by how wide the door was, it must be the freight elevator. It’s got to go all the way up.”
“Show me,” McDaniels said.
The freight elevator was in a smallish room off the corridor that was accessible through a set of double steel doors. They were supposed to be locked, but one of the doors had been left slightly ajar; McDaniels figured this was done by the nightly cleaning crew so they wouldn’t have to swipe in and out. And like the other elevators, it was switched off.
He called up to Finelly on Jimenez’s radio and asked him to ask Earl if the elevator went all the way to the 27th floor, and if it was in a secure area. It was in the same corridor as the fire escape, and Earl confirmed that it could go straight up. And he was in possession of a fire key, which meant he could summon it directly if required.
But the question remained, was it empty?
“Only way to find out for sure is to call it up,” McDaniels told Gartrell.
“So do we bring it here, or to twenty-seven?” Gartrell asked. “If we want to bring it here, we need to get the key, call the elevator, wait for it to open, then blast the living shit—or un-living, I guess—out of whatever’s inside. Once it’s clear, we all pile in and ride it upstairs.”
McDaniels considered that. “Or I can head upstairs and have Earl call it up, Finelly and I do the same if it’s occupied, then come down and pick up you guys.”
Gartrell shrugged. “Either way. One of us would probably have to go up anyhow, I don’t think we can let that maintenance guy come downstairs without an escort. If this man has his kids up there, we don’t want to leave them alone.” He smiled crookedly. “At least your way, one of us won’t be quite so tired.”
“So very true, first sergeant. All right, I’ll hoof it upstairs. You get Jimenez as ready to travel as possible.”
“Roger that.”
The climb back to the 27th floor was uneventful, but McDaniels’ thighs were on fire by the time he knocked on the fire door. Finelly and Earl let him in.
“You’re looking pretty peaked, major,” the tall sergeant observed. “Thought you Jedi Knights were immune to things like, you know, physical exertion and all.”
“It’s been a tough day, sergeant.”
“Tell me about it, sir.”
McDaniels clucked his tongue at the NCO’s insouciance, but he killed his reply when he sniffed the air. He looked at Earl.
“You smoked?”
Earl looked chastised. “Uh, that a problem?”
“Hell no, Earl. But I’d love to bum a smoke off of you, if you don’t mind. Later,” he added, when Earl immediately reached for his breast pocket. “Let’s call up that freight elevator, clear it, and then head down to get the rest of our group.”
Earl led them to the freight elevator bay, and like its twin on the 5th floor, it was empty and silent. He slid a red key into a receptacle on the elevator door frame and turned it, then pressed the DOWN button. A motor started, and McDaniels heard the elevator come to life.
“Step outside, Earl. We’ll call you when the coast is clear,” he told the small maintenance man.
“Okay. You guys be careful.”
McDaniels shouldered the AA-12. “No need to worry about that.” He looked at Finelly, who formed up to his right, his MP5K at the ready. Both men had had the foresight to leav
e their hearing protectors where they belonged: in their ears. Earl scuttled out of the brightly-lit vestibule and slammed the metal door closed behind him.
“Safety off, booger-hook on the bang lever?” McDaniels asked Finelly.
“Hooah.”
Ding. The elevator had arrived. McDaniels held his breath as the door slowly slid open.
It was empty. Just the same, McDaniels slowly stepped inside and visually cleared it. The elevator was vacant and cool.
“We’re good,” he reported to Finelly. The elevator door started to close, but he stopped it with his foot. He pressed his radio button as Finelly knocked on the door and told Earl to join them.
“First sergeant, the elevator’s clear. We’re on our way down.”
“Roger that, major.”
CHAPTER 9
The massive MV-22’s rotors were winding down as the Marine aircrew went through their post-shutdown checklist. Their landing platform, the USS Wasp, rolled gently from side to side in the Atlantic as she came about, her bow pointing to the south. There was some heavy weather moving in, with winds approaching seventy knots and bands of rain so dense that the leading edges had been plainly visible on the MV-22’s weather radar. The Wasp was getting the hell out of Dodge, and the Marines that crewed the Osprey were thrilled. Theirs was the sole surviving aircraft Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263; the rest of the squadron had been lost to the stenches in Central Park. The two pilots and two enlisted crew chiefs kept their conversation all business as they secured the mammoth aircraft. Watching friends and coworkers die was not usually conducive to witty repartee, especially when they died after being overrun fucking flesh-eating zombies.
Still, the Marine aircraft commander was a little put out when one of the crew chiefs broke the monotony of the checklist. “Hey, we’ve got fuel coming aboard.”
“Say again,” the aircraft commander said over the intercom.
“I said we have fuel coming aboard. Hose has just been attached to the fast transfer port.”
The aircraft commander saw his frown was mirrored by that of the pilot sitting beside him as he rapidly shut down the Osprey’s main electrical bus. “Generator on standby, batteries on,” he reported.
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