The Last Bastion (Book 2): The Last Bastion

by Callahan, K. W.

  Chapter 3

  The half-block portion of Brookfield, Illinois, where the citizens had formed a neighborhood social club known as the Block Enders or “Blenders” for short, was abuzz with activity. There was a flurry of organized chaos as the seven households – comprised of 13 adults and 9 children – rushed to ready their vehicles for departure.

  The Blenders were preparing to abandon the safety of their cozy homes to attempt an exodus from Chicago. An increasingly bleak situation was wreaking havoc on the city. The Carchar Syndrome continued to spread unfettered, exponentially increasing its reach across not only Chicago, but nationally and worldwide with each passing week.

  The syndrome, the exact cause of which remained a mystery, and for which there was still no cure, slowly turned its hosts into non-communicative, meat-craving creatures. These beasts cultivated hideously long, razor-sharp teeth that assisted them in fulfilling their ravenous desires for which they seemed to have an insatiable appetite. These Carchar carriers – which most people were now referring to as “biters” – roamed with little purpose other than to feed or to further spread the syndrome, continually adding to their ranks when they weren’t ingesting the flesh of potential new hosts for caloric needs.

  Sixty-six-year-old, Michael Trove, de facto head of the Blender group and symbolic patriarch of this extended family, had a friend who owned a secluded plot of land containing a small cabin in the southwest part of Illinois. The spot was nearly four hours from Chicago. But as the situation in the Chicagoland area continued to deteriorate, the Blenders had unanimously, although not without reservation, voted to vacate their homes in an effort to reach this western outpost. They hoped that they could hold out in this isolated spot until the government got the situation in Chicago under control or finally found a cure for the Carchar Syndrome.

  It was approaching 11:30 on the night of the Blender’s planned departure. And with only 15 minutes until their appointed time to reconvene in the Trove basement for final instructions, the Blenders were making last-minute adjustments to the vehicles they’d packed full of supplies. People were cramming stuff into backpacks, coolers, suitcases, and in some instances, garbage bags. They were stuffing these bags into already jammed vehicle trunks and cargo areas, squeezing them in around other supplies, and mashing them into place with no room to spare. Others were cinching tight the supplies they’d loaded atop luggage racks or strapped to vehicle rooftops. The convoy of vehicles was so loaded down, there was hardly room left for occupants.

  The group was straddled with this bounty of goods due largely in part to a neighborhood program, led by Michael Trove and Ms. Mary (a grandmotherly type who loved gardening and growing her own food). During one of the many Blender happy-hour conversations at Manny and Margaret Simpson’s home (the designated Blender “clubhouse”), ideas for ways to cut costs had been bounced around. It was during this discussion that the idea for a communal food pantry had come up. The idea had grown into an investment club of sorts, except rather than stocks and bonds, it was decided that food, water, and other supplies would be the chosen areas of investment. All the Blender families put in a set amount of money each week. Then, whenever a great deal on longer-lasting or freezable supplies – whether it was toilet paper and toothpaste or pork and pasta – was discovered, the group loaded up on goods using money from the available slush fund. The purchased food was stored on shelves or in several freezers located in Ms. Mary’s garage since she was already using the space for her homegrown canned and dried goods.

  But this evening, even without these additional supplies, the amount of goods gathered from Blender homes, and that included food, water, toiletries, medicine, clothing, tools, fuel, and other accoutrements, was sizeable in itself.

  As Michael Trove pulled his large SUV away from the front of Ms. Mary’s garage, where he and his adult son Patrick had been packing it with supplies, it was apparent that the Blenders weren’t the only ones active at that time of night. The pat-pat-pat of automatic gunfire was occasionally audible and co-mingled with the regular thumping sound of choppers thundering overhead or jet fighters ripping across the nighttime sky. These were often followed by what sounded like the far off rumble of explosions.

  Michael just prayed that the streets and highways would remain open until their convoy was clear of the Chicago area. They’d already been witness to a group of biters infiltrating their block earlier that evening, one of which had gotten into the Franko house where it had attacked Christine Franko, the single mother of two young boys. Thankfully, the boys had been at the Trove house playing video games with Patrick Trove, the 24-year-old man-child, and only child of Michael and Caroline Trove. Christine had escaped the attack unharmed, but she had certainly been rattled by the incident.

  In addition to the three Troves, Ms. Mary, Christine Franko and her two boys, and the young Simpson couple of Manny and Margaret, there were three other families joining the Blender convoy. There was Josh and Julia Justak, with their nine-year-old son Justin. There was Juan and Suzana Mendoza with their two children, eight-year-old Jeremy and ten-year-old Natasha. And then there were Monte and Victoria Hines who were straddled with four children, five-year-old Rebecca, seven-year-old Sarah, nine-year-old Patricia, and eleven-year-old Anthony.

  Michael parked his hulking, and now fully-loaded SUV in the street, checked his watch, and climbed from the driver’s seat. “Let’s go!” he called to anyone within earshot. “Time for final instructions!” he headed for his house where the Blenders were to reconvene at 11:45 p.m. before their wagon train departed for its journey west.

  It was 11:47 by the time everyone was finally gathered in the Trove basement. Adults were anxious and jittery, and they spoke in strained whispers about the trip that lay ahead. Kids were excited and overtired, jabbering about topics such as how Santa would know where to find them in their new location and whether he would deliver their presents there or at their regular homes. The youngest children tried their best to look alive, but their yawns and glazed eyes gave them away.

  “If I can have everyone’s attention!” Michael Trove announced. “The sooner we can get rolling, the better.”

  He waited a few seconds for the crowd to end their conversations and the kids to calm, hushed by parents.

  “Is everyone packed and ready to go?” he asked.

  There were nods and soft murmurs to the affirmative.

  “Good,” the white-goateed Michael, who bore a slight resemblance in facial feature to the singer Michael McDonald, nodded. “Are there any more questions, before we get started?”

  “How should we line up the vehicles?” Monte Hines asked.

  “I’ll lead, since I know the way. We’ll use side streets, cutting through Brookfield and Riverside to link up with Harlem Avenue in Lyons. That’ll take us in a straight shot to the highway. Patrick can bring up the rear in his vehicle since we’re using that as extra transportation. We’ve left space inside his SUV should one of you encounter an issue with your vehicle along the way. Other than that, the order of vehicles doesn’t really matter to me. Just fall in line and do your best to stay close. We don’t want to get strung out all over the place.”

  “What if we need to stop for some reason?” Juan Mendoza asked.

  “If you need to stop, flash your bright headlights, but don’t honk your horns. Honking could call undue attention to us, and that’s something we don’t need. Whether it’s biters, looters, or the authorities, with all that’s going on, I really don’t want to have to stop unless it’s absolutely necessary…at least until we get a good distance from the city.”

  He looked around the room. “Any other questions?”

  The basement was silent except for several of the Hines children picking at one another.

  “Stop!” whined Becky Hines whose older sister, Sarah, had just given her arm an evil tweak.

  “Oh yeah, this is going to be a real fun trip,” Monte Hines muttered with a frown. “You’re in charge of getting these
kids to sleep as quickly as possible once we’re on the road,” he leaned over and whispered in his wife’s ear.

  “Okay,” Michael nodded. “This trip ought to take around four hours should everything go as planned. Remember, stay close, pay attention, and be safe. Don’t go doing anything stupid, and don’t try to play hero. I don’t want to risk the safety of the entire group because someone wants to stop and help a stranger change a tire or something. People could be playing all sorts of roadside tricks to get the unwitting to stop and then rob them. We’re not trying to be cruel, but remember, you have your children with you, and their safety comes first.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” Josh Justak grinned jokingly. “I think we’ve got it.”

  “I’m serious,” Michael Trove said. “You all are as close to family for me as you can come, and I don’t want to lose you…not one of you.”

  He cut his words short, not wanting to let his emotions get the better of him.

  “Now let’s roll,” he said determinedly.

  Chapter 4

  “Leaving?! What do you mean, they’re leaving?” Wendell peered out disbelievingly from the kitchen as Chris came inside from the balcony.

  “Leaving,” Chris shrugged. “Cops, troops, other people with guns, they’re all packing it in, shipping out, ain’t sticking around, beating it the hell outta Dodge, turning tail and runnin’,” he emphasized the last word with wide eyes.

  “What? Why? They can’t. It’s their job to protect us!” Wendell shook his head in astonishment.

  “Well, looks like it’s our job now,” Chris snorted. “’Cause they gone,” he said in an exaggerated southern accent.

  “But those, those, those things are still out there,” Wendell stuttered, pointing toward the condo’s front door. “I can hear them lurching around, bumping into things.”

  “Yup,” Chris nodded his agreement regarding Wendell’s assessment of the situation.

  “You act like this is all some sort of joke!” Wendell shook his head incredulously at Chris.

  “No joke,” Chris said matter-of-factly. “Just the way it is. Now we’ve got to deal with it,” he walked back to the kitchen to rejoin Charla and Wendell.

  The group had been forced into the kitchen, an interior space with no windows, by the gunfire that had erupted late that night in the streets outside their building. The occasional stray bullet could be heard thumping into their condo building’s brick exterior.

  In the kitchen, they’d sat mostly in silence. The tension was broken only, much to Wendell’s chagrin, by light chatter between Chris and Charla. They’d sheltered in place in this portion of their condo until almost midnight. But eventually, Chris had been drawn out to investigate the situation outside by the absence of the same gunfire that had forced them to take cover.

  “So what do we do?” Charla asked.

  “Guess we’re just going to have to hold out inside for the moment,” Chris said.

  “Oh, that’s just dandy,” Wendell wanted to say, but he kept his mouth shut, praying that the military units in the streets below were just pulling back to regroup or give it another whack in the morning.

  Chris moved from the kitchen over to the front door where he looked through the peephole. “Yep…biters are still out there,” he returned to report to the group. “Just saw one pass by.”

  “What are they doing?” Charla asked quietly.

  “Hard to tell,” Chris shook his head. “Probably still eating on our neighbor, Paul. I’ll bet they enjoy being out of the cold and having their bellies full. But that means now they’ll probably be looking to spread the syndrome.”

  “How do you figure?” asked Charla.

  “I saw it on the news,” Chris explained. “They said that once the biters have fed, they start looking to spread the syndrome to new hosts. So we’ll have to be careful.”

  “We needed to be careful hours ago,” Wendell muttered, shaking his head forlornly. “Instead, we were out looking for a stupid cat. And look what it got Paul and Diana.”

  “There’s nothing we can do about that now,” Charla patted his leg where they sat on their tiled kitchen floor.

  “They say that the biters are most dangerous either when they’re hungry or looking to spread the infection,” Chris went on.

  “Wouldn’t that mean that they’re most dangerous pretty much all the time?” Wendell frowned.

  Chris, standing across from Charla and Wendell on the other side of the kitchen, tilted his head to one side, considering. “I guess it would,” he nodded at last.

  There was another lengthy pause in the conversation. Finally, Chris said, “Either of you own a gun?”

  “Yeah right,” Charla scoffed. “Wendell hates guns. He’s been an anti-firearm advocate ever since he was in college.”

  “Darn,” Chris sighed. “I’ve been meaning to get one, just never got around to it. Got a chainsaw, but it’s downstairs in my storage locker.”

  “Not going to do us much good there,” Wendell interjected.

  “I’ll admit, you’ve got me there,” Chris nodded. “But it wasn’t exactly an item I could keep on my bedside table. Not going to help much with the…ladies,” he shot a slightly embarrassed look toward Charla and grinned sheepishly.

  “I wouldn’t know,” Wendell said with a tight-lipped frown.

  Chris pulled out a kitchen drawer, rummaged through it, and then closed it again.

  “What are you doing?” Wendell asked in an almost accusatory tone.

  “Just looking around,” Chris pulled open another drawer.

  “For what?” Wendell shot back shortly.

  “Something to defend ourselves with,” Chris noticed a wood block containing various sized kitchen knives set on the counter.

  “You aren’t planning on going out there, are you?” Wendell asked, a mixture of both hope and fear flowing through him. There was hope that Chris would indeed go out to face the biters. That could be a win for Wendell either way. Chris might end up killing the beasts lurking outside or they might end up killing him. In either case, Wendell was rid of a major problem that had inserted itself forcefully into his life. But the idea also scared him, because if Chris went out there, it could draw more biters, biters whose bellies weren’t full and who were looking for a fresh meal.

  “I’m not planning on going out there right now, but we need to be prepared whether we end up out there or they end up in here,” Chris pulled a large butcher knife from the block. “Hmm, this looks good,” he set the knife down on the counter and then slid a massive meat cleaver out of the block and inspected that. “This could work too,” he turned the cleaver in his hand, holding it up for the others to see, and then taking a few practice hacks with it. Then he set the cleaver down and knelt to open a lower cabinet door. He rummaged for a moment and came out with several frying pans. He held them up, inspecting them.

  “Are you planning on killing them or cooking for them?” Wendell asked Chris smugly.

  “I’m planning to do whatever it takes to keep them away from us,” Chris ignored Wendell’s pejorative attitude and set the pans on the counter. “Just thinking through some ideas right now. It’s important to remember, we don’t have to kill these things like in zombie movies to immobilize them. They’re more like wild animals. They apparently still feel pain. They can be knocked unconscious. They get scared. That side of them is apparently still human at least. I’m not against killing them if we have to, but if we can hurt them enough, maybe they’ll leave.”

  “I wouldn’t mind killing them,” Wendell frowned. “Especially after seeing what they did to Paul.”

  “You ever kill someone before?” Chris looked at him.

  Wendell seemed caught off guard by the question. “Well…uh…no,” Wendell conceded. “Have you?” he added as an afterthought.

  “No,” Chris shook his head. “I haven’t. I will if I have to, but I don’t really want to…even if they’re carrying the Carchar Syndrome. And I have a feeling that even if we
have to kill them, it might not be as simple as it sounds. These people…or whatever they are, aren’t the walking dead. They still jump, lift, pull, fight, claw, grab, and bite. I don’t think they’re just going to stand around and wait for us to slaughter them.”

  Chris left the kitchen where Charla and Wendell continued to sit in silence. The couple heard some noises coming from around the bathroom before Chris returned a minute later. His arms were full of metal canisters – hairspray, deodorizer, and disinfectant spray among them.

  “You going to do some cleaning while you’re here?” Wendell eyed Chris with a sneer.

  Chris set the canisters down on the kitchen counter. Ignoring Wendell’s less than helpful commentary, he produced a lighter he’d found on the living room coffee table and that Wendell used to light his many candles around the condo. Then he picked up one of the aerosol cans, took the top off, gave it a shake, and turned away from the others, holding the can up in front of him. He clicked the lighter lit in front of it, and pressed the spray button atop the aerosol can. A bright flash of flame illuminated the room for a split second before Chris released the spray button and the flame was extinguished.

  “Makeshift flamethrowers,” he grinned down at Charla and Wendell.

  Wendell sat open-mouthed, staring at Chris.

  Charla just nodded, smiling as she struggled to her feet. “Nice! Can I try?”

  “Sure,” Chris nodded.

  “I’ve never done that before,” Charla said.

  “Really?” Chris sounded surprised. “We used to do it all the time in high school. It’s kind of dangerous. You have to make sure the feed of aerosol spray stops and it burns out before you stop the lighter’s flame. Otherwise the flame could retract back into the can, and the can could blow up in your face.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Charla said sarcastically.

  “Here,” Chris moved around to stand behind her, having Charla hold the aerosol can but keeping his hand on hers to help control the spray.

  Wendell got up and wandered away, not wanting to watch. Instead, he walked out to the balcony to get some fresh air and see what was going on outside. As he exited into the chilly night air, he was just in time to see the last of the army units depart. They had been holding a position in front of the bridge spanning the Des Plaines River near where their condo complex parking lot met with the street.