The Last Bastion (Book 2): The Last Bastion

by Callahan, K. W.

  “At least they were warm,” Jack conceded.

  “Ah…there it is,” Andrew shined the light on the other file cabinet.”

  “Is this one empty?” Jack asked.

  “Let’s find out. Here, hold the light,” Andrew handed the flashlight to Jack and then walked over and opened the file cabinet’s top drawer. “Shine the light inside,” he instructed and then peered into the cabinet. “Yup,” he slammed it shut and pulled out the other two drawers in turn. “All empty.”

  “Hey!” Jack said suddenly. “Did you see that?”

  “See what?” Andrew asked.

  Jack shined the light over toward the window. “I just saw a light blinking on and off outside.

  Lights at night tended to stand out dramatically against the blackness into which the city had been plunged after the power had failed.

  Young Jack aimed the flashlight out the closest window and began flashing it on and off in a sort of SOS type pattern.

  “Stop! Quick! Kill the light!” his older brother instructed in a hissed whisper.

  “Why?” Jack asked, following his brother’s instructions.

  “It could be bad people!” his brother hissed.

  “But it could be good people too, people who could help us! We could be heroes!” Jack hissed back. Then he said, “Wait, why are we whispering? It’s not like they’re going to hear us.”

  Both boys left the cubicle and wandered over closer to the window.

  “I think it was coming from that condo building across the parking lot,” Andrew said.

  Jack turned on the flashlight again and then began clicking it on and off in a way similar to the blinking light he’d seen. “What do you think they’re saying?” he asked as he continued to click away.

  “Who knows if they’re saying anything at all,” Andrew shrugged. “Heck, it might just be a biter doing it.”

  “They can’t use flashlights,” his brother looked at him in the darkness. “They’re not that smart.”

  “Who said they’re using it? Maybe their just hitting the button or stepping on it or something…like a baby playing with a toy,” Andrew suggested.

  “Or maybe it’s people trapped by biters trying to signal for help,” Jack offered.

  “Or maybe its soldiers sending signals to see if people are still alive around here.”

  “Keep flashing. Maybe it’ll get us the heck out of here.”

  “To somewhere with power.”

  “And video games!”

  “And good food!”

  “And heat!”

  “At least we know we’re not alone,” Andrew said.

  “I don’t see it anymore, do you?” Jack asked.

  “No. I wonder if they left.”

  “Boys? Where are you?” a familiar voice called in the blackness from over by the stairwell.

  It was Michael.

  “What’s taking so long up here? File cabinet too heavy for you young bucks?”

  “We were just…” Jack started, but his brother interrupted.

  “…just cleaning out the cabinet,” Andrew lied. “We’re almost done. We’ll have it down to you in a couple minutes.”

  “Okay,” Michael called. “Sure you don’t need a hand?”

  “No…we’re good!” Andrew called back.

  “We’ll go down to dinner as soon as you have it down,” Michael assured them. “I think we’re having hot dogs.”

  “Sounds good!” Andrew called back.

  “Why did you lie?” Jack hissed to Andrew after they heard Michael go back downstairs.

  “We don’t know what those people out there want,” Andrew whispered back. “It’s better just to leave it alone. We’ve had enough trouble lately. The last thing we need is for Michael and the other adults to risk their safety by trying to help those people…whoever they are. You saw what happened to the Mendozas and to the Hines family. Do you want that to happen to the others? Or to Mom? Or to you?”

  “Huh uh,” his brother mumbled.

  “Well then, just keep your mouth shut about those lights, whatever they were. Hell, you want people running out there on a rescue mission based on what we saw? What if it was just a biter stepping on a flashlight? We could be responsible for people dying for nothing. Let’s just do what we’re supposed to do, take this stupid file cabinet downstairs, and go eat our hot dogs. This sure isn’t turning out to be the adventure I thought it’d be,” he huffed.

  “For me either,” his little brother griped as they maneuver the file cabinet out of the cubicle.

  * * *

  “See anything?” Chris asked.

  “No. And I think the batteries in this flashlight are starting to die,” Charla sighed.

  “We’ve been at it for almost twenty minutes, and we haven’t gotten any response. Maybe we should call it a night.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Charla said sadly. “I was really hoping we’d catch their eye, but I don’t even know where they are in there. If they’re staying on one of the floors without windows, they wouldn’t have any idea we’re even attempting to make contact.”

  “Well, we can always try again tomorrow night,” Chris said hopefully, in as upbeat a tone as he could muster. It was obvious that even his unshakable enthusiasm was starting to fade.

  “If we can last that long,” Wendell said from his spot on the sofa behind them.

  There were multiple heavy thuds on the condo’s front door and then the sound of cracking wood as the biters outside continued their ceaseless battering.

  Chris rushed over to the front door with a flashlight of his own in hand. Clicking it on, he inspected the door.

  “The wood around the lock is starting to splinter,” he explained to the others. “We’ll be lucky if it lasts the night, even with all this stuff we’ve piled in front of it.”

  He pushed some of the furniture back up against the front door where it’d been shoved back slightly.

  “How much food and water we have left?” he asked.

  “Enough for a couple more days,” Charla said.

  “Do you have backpacks or bags that could serve as backpacks?” Chris said.

  “How many?” Charla asked.

  “At least three,” Chris clarified.

  “I think I could come up with three,” Charla nodded in the darkness. “Why?”

  “We need bug-out bags.”

  Wendell snorted. “Why do we need bug-out bags? It’s not like we can bug out of here.”

  “If those biters out there break through the door, we have to be ready to make our last stand. And if somehow we manage to get past them, we need to be ready to move, and move fast.”

  “But move where?” Charla asked. “We can’t go to the tower because it’s surrounded by biters. And I have no idea where else we might try.”

  “We could go to my condo,” Chris suggested. “It’s not a long-term fix, but we could lock ourselves in there. I have a couple more days’ worth of food. Maybe by then, help will have arrived. Either way, I think it’s best to be prepared. We don’t want an opportunity to present itself only to miss it while we scramble around packing or end up fleeing only to get to a place of safety without any supplies.”

  “Good point,” Charla agreed. “I’ll go look for the packs now.”

  CHAPTER 17

  “Yo, Witz! How much shit you think they got stashed in there?”

  “Hell if I know!” the beefy 30-year-old with a buzz cut that exposed a receding hairline called back.

  “You think it’s worth taking a shot?” his buddy, Steiner, questioned. Steiner was of similar build and age but sported a far fuller head of hair. The rest of their ranks toiled around them to load supplies into trucks just outside Lyons.

  “Yeah, but we have to get through the biters before we can find out. And if they put up any sort of defense, we could loose some people in the process.”

  “What do you care? Won’t be your ass on the line. That’s why we rounded up these assholes in
the first place. They do the heavy lifting,” he nodded to the men who were finishing their work cleaning out the remnants of a neighboring fast food joint and drug store. “Plus, we need food, not ketchup packets, napkins, toothpaste, and drugs.”

  “I guess,” Witz shrugged. “Drugs sure as hell don’t hurt, though,” he sneered. “So how many people you think they got in there?”

  “Who knows?” Steiner said. “I counted three abandoned vehicles out front. Maybe five, six people. Doubt they have many weapons. And they seem pretty stupid. I mean, anybody signaling out their window at night these days is either stupid or desperate. And I say that they’re probably a little bit of both. That works in our favor. Even though they got that tower to hole up in, we get inside and its all over. It’ll make for a great base. I’ll bet they don’t even have a gun. If they did, wouldn’t they be tryin’ to shoot the biters around them so they could get out of there?”

  “Beats me,” Witz shrugged again.

  He turned to look behind him as several of their men stopped their looting work to fire at three approaching biters. Two of the biters they took down struggled to get back to their feet after being shot. The men walked over casually, handguns drawn, and fired at the wounded biters’ heads as they struggled to right themselves, finishing the job.

  “I’m up for taking a stab at the place if you are,” Steiner said. “It gets too nasty, we move on. No skin off my teeth.”

  “The tower it is,” Witz nodded with a grin. “All right you assholes!” he called to the men working around them. “New target! Finish up, and let’s roll!”

  * * *

  Most of the group wasn’t even up yet. The sun was just beginning to rise on the start of the Blenders’ third full day inside Hofmann Tower. But Michael was already busy working up on the third floor.

  Josh and Julia had relieved him and Caroline from their watch duty at six, and while Caroline had headed straight for bed, Michael knew there was no way he was going to be able to sleep. With the sun soon to rise, and so much still to be done around the tower, his mental checklist wouldn’t allow for rest.

  Therefore, Michael had come upstairs to work on the project he’d left off on last night – the tower’s refrigeration unit. The fridge that he was working to rig up wasn’t anything fancy. But considering the circumstances, and the time and supply constraints involved, it was the best he could come up with as a spur of the moment fix. And in all honesty, he was pretty darn proud of what he’d developed.

  Using the two file cabinets that Jack and Andrew Franko had brought down from the fifth floor, he’d punched several, multi-inch-diameter holes in the bottoms of the second and third drawers. Next, he’d cut out the rears of the upper drawers in each cabinet. Then he’d backed the two cabinets up to two of the windows that still opened on the third floor. With the windows open, he cut plastic from heavy-duty garbage bags and duck taped it around the windows’ edges. He then taped the other ends of the plastic sheets to the open backsides of the two file cabinets, creating a sort of air duct from the window that fed cold air directly into the cabinets. This way, he could move the Blender supply of refrigerated foods from the clumsy and hard to sort through coolers in which they were currently stored into easy-to-organize file cabinet refrigerators. For the top-drawer freezer portion of the “file-frigerator” as Michael had termed his invention, he planned to use bags full of ice and snow he’d seen up on the rooftop. This would keep the food items extra cool if by chance the weather warmed without warning.

  Finished with his work, Michael stood in the darkened third floor, among their stacks of supplies, hands on hips, admiring his completed project. He was excited about the success of his efforts and looking forward to showing the others once they arose.

  The world around them was so peaceful now, and it became even more so at night when the majority of the tower inhabitants were sleeping. Therefore, it alarmed him when he heard the sound of heavy gunfire ripping through the morning stillness, breaking out in close proximity to the tower. At first, Michael thought the shooting might be coming from Josh and Julia who had relieved him on watch duty downstairs. But it sounded like the firing was coming more from outside the tower than within it.

  Michael rushed to the stairs and hurried up to the fourth floor where its open windows would allow him a better view outside. The amount of gunfire taking place outside gave him hope that help had finally arrived. And when he looked out one of the windows facing out across the parking lot below, he was relieved to see an array of army vehicles parked haphazardly, men outside them firing away with heavy weapons at the biters surrounding the tower. But the men firing weren’t dressed in military fatigues. Instead, from what Michael could tell in the dim morning light, it appeared they wore regular street clothes and winter gear.

  Michael could see at least a dozen of these people, which both relieved and concerned him. It appeared that they had arrived to help, to free them from the hoard of biters currently surrounding the tower. But then what? Would they ask for some sort of payment in return for their services? Would they even ask? Or would they just take it?

  They were questions Michael couldn’t answer. All he knew was that these people were killing biters, and that was fine with him.

  He turned from the window and made his way, as quickly as his aged legs would carry him, down to the second floor. There he found the rest of the Blenders were currently rousing themselves from their slumber. But without any windows on this level, they had no idea what was happening outside. The sound of the gunfire in this portion of the tower was muffled but still very much audible.

  “What’s going on out there?” Ms. Mary greeted him by the stairwell entrance.

  “Not sure. A bunch of guys are out there shooting biters.”

  “Are they here to help us?” Christine Franko asked excitedly.

  “Don’t know,” Michael responded quickly. “Everybody up and ready! Grab your guns and extra ammo!” he called to the group. “I don’t know what these dudes are up to. Right now they’re killing biters, but be ready for anything. Manny! Run downstairs and get Josh. Take rifles and ammo, and head up to the fourth floor. Help shoot biters from the windows up there. The rest of us will split up between the first and second floors in case these guys try infiltrating the tower. Jack and Andrew, Justin, head up to the seventh floor. You know the drill. This is what we prepared for. Caroline, Christine, Ms. Mary, you all hold the second floor. Be ready. Just don’t shoot us if we have to retreat upstairs.”

  “Got it,” Ms. Mary nodded.

  “Patrick and Margaret, you two come with me. We’ll hold the first floor with Julia in case the biters try to make a push to get inside and away from being shot.” He looked around at the people scrambling to get out of their sleeping bags, and locate their weapons. “Load heavy and be ready for anything!” Michael called. “And most of all, be safe!”

  Manny blew past him on the way down to collect Josh. A second later, the radio Michael wore chirped to life.

  “Michael…Michael…come in!” he could hear Josh’s anxious voice on the other end.

  “I’m on my way,” Michael answered. “Manny is coming to get you,” he called into the radio over the increasing noise of the shooting outside. He could hear the sound of bullets thudding into the tower’s exterior walls.

  He hated not being able to see what was going on outside. Were the people out there taking out the biters? Or were they being overwhelmed by biters? At this point, he could only guess.

  Andrew, Jack, and Justin blew past him on their way upstairs. They made a quick stop off at the fourth floor for the oldest two boys to pick up handguns, an action only approved of by the adults for this sort of situation.

  As Michael made his way downstairs with Patrick and Margaret, he met Josh and Manny on their way up.

  “Who are these people?” Josh asked hurriedly.

  “No idea,” Michael shook his head, winded and breathing heavy. “But they’re killing biters, so I’ll ta
ke their help. Just be ready for anything. I don’t know if they’ll stop with the biters. Radio me if anything changes outside. I won’t be able to see much from downstairs.”

  “Right,” Josh moved past him along with Manny.

  Downstairs, Michael put some order to the situation. Patrick, you and Julia hold the office. Margaret and I will hold the main stairs. Any biters get in, you let them have it.”

  Bullets were pounding into the barricade they’d erected before the tower’s main entry door. Several rounds had broken through the plywood and left thin streams of light filtering their way into the lower towers level. “We should have made firing ports in those windows,” Michael nodded toward the bricked over arched window on either side of the main entrance. “Just taking out a brick or two would have been enough. Too late now, though.” He looked at his tiny group of defenders, one of whom was his son, but all of whom he loved like his own children. “Any questions?”

  They shook their heads in wide-eyed astonishment at the situation unfolding around them.

  “All right then, let’s go!”

  The radio clipped to Michael’s belt beeped. He yanked it off, pressed the “talk” button, and said, “Go!”

  “These guys are making progress!” Josh’s voice squawked through. “They’ve almost cleared the biters!”

  “Copy,” Michael gave the radio a vigorous nod. “Standby for instructions.”

  Upstairs, Josh and Manny were doing their best to differentiate between the biters and the people on the ground fighting them. It was much harder than they thought it’d be at that height and looking down on the scene of chaos unfolding below them. Biters were far easier to spot at ground level. Their telltale teeth gave them away up close. Even from a distance, you could still see a difference in the way they moved compared to normal people. But looking down from the fourth floor, in the morning light, it was much harder. Mostly, one was distinguished from the other by the guns they fired, or lack thereof.