by Howard, Bob
He saw the motion in the darkness before he heard the groans, and no matter how ready he thought he was to confront the infected, he wasn’t prepared to see what had been a female trying to figure out how to walk up the stairs. It was an effort, but it was slow enough for Tom to regain his composure. He stepped forward and aimed the pike toward the forehead of the infected. One quick thrust, and the pike pierced completely through the head. Tom had to pull hard to keep from losing the pike as the infected fell back into the darkness.
There was a shuffling and dragging sound somewhere in the darkness ahead, and Tom had no idea of the layout of the station, so he didn’t know where it was safe to put his back. He decided the only way to confront the problem would be to bring it to him. He let out a low whistle, thinking there was at least some hope that he wouldn’t draw too many at one time.
There was an answering groan from somewhere straight ahead, so he aimed his flashlight there. Another infected was shambling toward him. This one was, or had been, a man. His head was tilted to one side, and it seemed to be looking down at the floor, but it had definitely responded to the whistle.
The landing that Tom had stopped on had two outside walls, and there was a shorter set of stairs that went down toward the left, but this infected was approaching from the other side of a metal railing instead of a wall. It was a bit more of an open appearance, and Tom’s eyes were beginning to adjust to the light. He could see that he was looking out over a larger dining room, and on the other side of an island was a restaurant sized kitchen. Meals could be passed over the island to the dining room. The infected was coming from the direction of the table as if there were no stairs around to the left.
The infected dead man finally reached the railings that had widely spaced ranch style metal rails on it. Firemen probably sat with their legs hanging over those rails many times. Now it was the only thing separating Tom from the gaping jaws of a dead fireman. Tom felt sorry for the men and women in this station who had probably sacrificed their own lives trying to help others in the early days of the outbreak.
Tom stood back for a moment to give the infected the opportunity to lean through the railings, exposing his head to the pike. This time Tom would be stabbing downward from above. He raised the pike in front of him with both hands wrapped around the handle and started to jab downward, but just as the pike was about to find its mark, his arm was stopped as something came up under his armpit. He was so intent upon the infected man trying to climb up between the railings that he forgot there were just a few stairs going down to his left.
The infected that had caught him off guard was closing in on Tom just as Tom’s arms came down from well above his head, and the result was that he had the infected in a headlock with his left arm. It wasn’t the worst thing that could happen because he was protected by the heavy material of the fireman’s coat and the gloves, but the infected in the headlock was snapping and biting at anything it could reach with its face, and right now it had its teeth firmly clamped onto the front of Tom’s coat.
Tom’s first reaction was to recoil and just push the putrid smelling creature away from him, but his common sense told him that this thing was no match for him. Tom tightened the headlock to stop the wild movements of the infected then put a gloved hand on its forehead and pushed and turned at the same time. He expected the loud snap as the bones in the neck were shattered. He didn’t expect to rip the head free from the body. He also didn’t expect to see the face on the head acting like it didn’t matter. It continued to snap at the front of the coat and the gloved hand while the body dropped to the floor.
Tom couldn’t throw the head away fast enough or far enough. He pushed it through the air and out across the dining room. When he looked down the other infected had pulled itself up between the railings and onto the landing and was taking aim at Tom’s unprotected ankle.
By now Tom was reacting without thinking, which is what he was good at as a baseball player. He didn’t try to pull his ankle back. Instead, he put his weight on that leg and lifted his left leg in the air. He brought his left foot down hard on the back of the infected dead’s neck. For the second time he heard neck bones breaking, but the neck stayed attached. With his left foot holding the head in place, Tom stabbed downward with the pike and shoved the steel tip through the side of its head.
Tom had a dazed look on his face as he remembered where he was and looked around at each of us. He was searching our faces for understanding and found plenty. Kathy reached over and put her hand on top of his.
“Tom,” she said, “we’ve had to kill a few of those things, but we really haven’t gone out of our way to get into close quarters combat with them, especially in a dark building. You must have been terrified.”
Tom looked grateful to hear a human voice interrupting his story. Reliving this part of the journey seemed to be taking more out of him than the rest. Then he got a thoughtful look on his face and asked, “Have you ever gotten fed up with it……so tired of the whole crazy thing that you just say to hell with it and just marched straight into it? That’s what I did. I just said they could come and get me if they wanted, but there wasn’t going to be anymore cat and mouse games.”
Tom said he pulled his pike free and walked the remaining steps to the main floor. He walked through an open door to the big engine garage, passed the second fire engine, and found the unfortunate infected that had fallen down by the pole. He unceremoniously stabbed it through the face with the pike, just as yet another infected came toward him from the shadows. Tom lifted his right foot and sent the infected flying by kicking it solidly in the chest. Tom was stalking it even before it hit the floor, and once again he quickly ended its miserable existence.
There was a row of windows in the big doors to the engine bay, and there was still some light coming down through them. If he had been sitting in the front seat of the fire truck that was parked inside, he would have been high enough to see out through the windows. They were level with the windshield of the huge truck. He could see the back of the engine outside, but he couldn’t see up on top of it where Molly was waiting.
Tom stood by the last infected he had killed and rotated in a circle. He had his head cocked slightly to one side and was breathing slowly and quietly. There were no more sounds coming from the garage. He went down on one knee and looked under the firetruck. There was a wall on the other side of the truck, so there were shadows, and he wasn’t entirely sure, but it looked like there was a pair of legs near the front tire. When he had walked into the engine bay, he had walked so quickly and quietly that he hadn’t drawn the attention of one more infected that was standing up by the front of the engine.
The infected moved toward the back of the truck but was making really slow progress. Tom moved fast to the side of the fire engine and used handholds to scale up to the top. Once he was on top he stepped over stowed gear and moved to the back. He looked down just as the infected stepped around the side of the truck and started to cross behind it. Tom drew the pike back like a spear, took aim and threw the pike so hard that the weight and force of the strike took the infected completely off its feet and flipped it to the back wall of the engine bay. His ability to throw a baseball through a doughnut hole made it an easy shot, but even he didn’t expect to see it launch the infected so far after it hit.
Tom used his vantage point to look around the rest of the engine bay. He shone his flashlight at every suspicious shape or shadow, but only saw the three he had killed. He added them up and figured there could easily be more. He still had to check the kitchen, and his guess was that the men’s bunk room would be somewhere on the other side of the kitchen. There was also likely to be an office on the first floor. There was still plenty of work to do.
Even though he had lost so many friends who were soldiers or police officers, he had learned from their training and from their mistakes. So, before climbing back down from the truck, he went forward to the area above the cab. He laid down across the cab and listened. Sur
e enough, there was movement below him.
He hooked his right foot through some ladder rungs and slowly lowered his face over the edge. He wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought he remembered seeing the windows were up when he had climbed quickly to the top of the truck. Upside down his blood was going to his head, so all he could hear for sure was the steady pounding of his own heart. His hair was hanging down ahead of his face, so whatever was moving around was going to see it before Tom’s eyes were low enough. He hoped he was moving slowly enough to make a difference. Tom thought he was ready for it, but when the infected slammed its face up against the glass, he almost lost his foothold on the ladder. The infected couldn't get him, but Tom was still scared enough to get angry again.
Tom hadn’t bothered to retrieve his pike, but there were more on top of this second truck. He didn’t worry about being quiet, preferring to draw anything into the open that may have heard him. He took a new pike, and standing on top of the cab he reached down and slipped the point under the door handle. With just a touch of leverage and a little help from the infected that was ramming against the door, the door popped wide open, and the infected dead fell face first to the floor.
Because the infected aren’t terribly coordinated, it took several moments for it to get itself untangled from its own legs, but just as it seemed it was going to gets its feet under him, a second infected fell out of the truck and landed on top of the first. Tom mentally kicked himself for assuming there would only be one. This time he just dropped the pike onto the head of the one on top. Gravity and the weight of the steel tip did the trick. One wasn’t moving, and the other one was pinned under it. Tom shone his flashlight into the cab while he looked in from above, and there weren’t any more. There were rear facing seats behind the front seats, and there was gear stowed between the seats as if the truck was just about to respond to a call. Tom could only guess about the final moments inside the fire station, and he knew that somehow the infection had gotten inside the building.
Tom dropped down to the floor and pulled the pike out from between the ears of the infected that was keeping the other on the floor. Then he pushed it through the head of the second one. He was starting to feel fatigue and relief set in at the same time, but he knew that could be dangerous. He didn’t waste time thinking about it and headed for the first floor area beyond the dining room.
He found an office up by the front door of the station, but he could easily see that it was empty. The kitchen was a large open affair, but there were two doors to deal with. Still feeling the pent up rage that he had felt earlier along with the feeling that he was almost done, Tom unceremoniously yanked open the first door. The door opened into the largest pantry he had ever seen, and there were crates of FEMA food supplies stacked wherever there was room. There were cases of bottled water, and medical supplies. If he could stay alive clearing the last rooms, Tom knew they would be safe for a little while.
Tom moved to the second door, steeled himself and yanked it open. He had to laugh at himself because it was just a small bathroom and sink. That left one more room to go, and it was a room where he fully expected to find company. He looked around the corner into the dining area and only saw the three infected he had killed when he came down the stairs. He crossed to the door of the men’s bunk room and started to just yank it open the same way he had the others, but he told himself this was not the time to blow it. He had survived so far, so stupidity wasn’t going to cause him to mess up.
He laid his ear against the door and listened. It was totally quiet but even through a closed door, Tom could smell that musty smell that lingers on long after something has decayed. The infected dead that had been walking around in the building since the world had ended had their own smell. This was that after smell.
Tom eased the door open and could see more clearly than he had expected. This big room had two large windows with mini-blinds and curtains, but the blinds were up and the curtains were pulled back. He looked around and saw the remains of two large Dalmatians and one man. The dogs were both on dog beds, and the man was sitting in a chair with a 45 caliber pistol on the floor next to him. There were no infected in the room, so Tom figured it wasn’t a stretch for him to assume the man had given the faithful dogs a merciful end, and then he had chosen to escape the madness in a split second. Tom wondered at least for a moment if he would have made the same choice if not for Molly. A moment was all it took. Tom decided he would want to fight for life as long as he could.
Tom approached the windows by moving along the wall as far out of sight as possible. He took the string from the blinds and lowered them so slowly that the infected outside wouldn’t notice. He pulled the curtains shut over the blinds and then did the same with the second window. When he was done, he retrieved the pistol from the floor and checked the number of bullets remaining in the clip. There were four rounds in the magazine, and a quick check of the chamber showed there was still one round there. He thumbed the safety on and checked a couple of desk drawers for more ammunition. The personal locker of someone named Tradd produced two full boxes.
Chapter 5
Outside Contacts
Molly called out from the living room and got our attention. She was motioning with her hand for us to get in there, and she was smiling like she had just gotten a present.
“Daddy, it’s Dr. Bus. I’m talking with Dr. Bus,” she said.
“It can’t be,” said Tom. “There’s no way it could be him. What are the odds?”
Kathy asked, “Who’s Dr. Bus, Tom? Do you know him?”
Without even asking we knew what Tom meant about the odds that Molly would make contact with someone he had known before the infected dead began killing everyone. We had all lost contact with our friends and family, some of us more than others.
There was an unspoken rule among myself, Kathy, Jean, and the Chief that we would talk about it when we felt like it, but there was a silent admission from each of us that we knew our families and friends were probably gone.
Tom still seemed to consider it a fact that Molly’s mother, his ex-wife, was still alive because they had only been about forty miles from an Army base, despite the fact that he had seen the Army do no better against the infected than anyone else. He probably felt that way because the soldiers he had been with were on the run on a river. He was sure that a fortified position at an Army base would be able to survive. Then again, he hadn’t been with us when we saw the Navy base at Goose Creek get overrun.
We all arrived in the living room and gathered around Molly. She reached up and put the headphones over her father’s ears and handed him the microphone. He keyed it and said, “Bus? Is that you? Over.”
He listened for a moment and then excitedly pulled the headphone plug out of the jack on the short wave set and switched it to the speaker. A man’s voice filled the room.
“……reading you loud and clear, Tom. I can’t believe it’s you and Molly. Allison will be so happy to hear that you’re alive.”
Tom didn’t wait for the man to quit talking. He couldn’t believe what he had already heard. “Bus, did you say Allison is alive? Do you know where she is? Can you contact her? Over.”
The man answered, “Yes, Tom, it’s really Bus, and Allison is here with me. She’s okay, too. I can go get her now. Just wait right there. Over.”
Tom looked like he was about to cry and Molly was grinning from ear to ear. She turned to the rest of us and said, “I found Dr. Bus. He said he’s been taking care of Mommy.” She looked totally pleased with herself.
The microphone keyed up on the other end, “Tom? Oh, my God, Tom it’s you and Molly?” The woman kept the microphone keyed up as if she felt like letting go of it would make her lose them again. We heard Bus telling her to say, “Over” and to let go of the switch.
“Over……over, Tom. Oh, my God.”
“Allison, it’s Tom,” he said as he wiped one hand across his eyes. “Where are you? Are you at the Army base in Huntsville? Over.”
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I looked at the others and saw that Jean and Kathy had both started crying along with Tom. The Chief had a big slap-happy grin on his face. I was somewhere in between because Jean was crying.
I noticed Jean glancing at Kathy, but Kathy avoided eye contact with her. I’m a man, but I’m not totally clueless. Jean and Kathy were crying because it was an emotional reunion, but there was just a hint of disappointment on Kathy’s face. She could see that Tom was still in love with his wife even though she had left him. She wasn’t the type to let jealousy run her life, but she allowed room for disappointment. I was sure she was happy for Tom, especially because of Molly, but I was also sure she had harbored some hope that she and Tom would be together. Knowing her, she would hide her feelings for his sake.
“No, Tom. We didn’t make it to Huntsville.” We could tell Allison had started to cry too, and they weren’t happy tears.
“It was bad, Tom. People were attacking everyone and biting them. They were eating people, Tom. I saw most of my family get killed, and I thought you and Molly were dead too. Molly, where’s Molly, can I hear her voice too? Over.” Allison was talking at a hundred miles an hour, but she was remembering to let him know when she was done.
Tom held the microphone down to Molly and keyed the talk button. “Hi, Mommy, over.” That caused us all to laugh. It was short and sweet, but music to her mother’s ears.
“Oh, my God, it’s really you, Molly. Where are you, Baby? Over.”
Tom started to reply, but the Chief put his big hand over the microphone in time. “There could be someone else listening, Tom. Just tell her it’s a safe place not far from where you were, and that this could be a party line. We don’t want to give away our position.”
Tom keyed up and said, “We started your way on the first day, but we didn’t make it twenty miles. We met some good people and wouldn’t have made it without them. Now we’re in a safe place, but still a long way from home. Over.”