Peter knew the hotel was on Peachtree Street. He was trying to remember what buildings were east of the Westin, but he couldn’t get his thoughts to summon the information forth. He felt trapped, unable to look away yet sickened to be watching as the landmark building disintegrated and spread itself across the even more historic street.
It was an Atlanta joke, one it often took tourists or newly arrived transplants years to fully appreciate, just how many streets in the city contained the word ‘Peachtree’. There were a lot of them. Peachtree Circle, West Peachtree, Peachtree-Dunwoody; it was like the city’s planners over the decades had thought it was the best possible name for a thoroughfare. But this was the actual Peachtree street, the first one. The only one about which you could just say ‘Peachtree’ and have another native know what you meant without further clarification.
“It’s just a street.” Peter told himself, though he knew it wasn’t. It was a piece of Atlanta character, just like the collapsing building. He watched with a sick feeling twisting his insides as the stricken structure went out of view behind an intervening building. But the sound when it slammed into whatever was across Peachtree to the east was the loudest accompaniment yet.
It wasn’t really the actual volume level so much as it was the duration. The impact, the sound of the Westin hitting the adjacent building, seemed to go on and on. It was like hundreds of distinct impact events were rolling together in a single long sequence of sound. Peter could feel the sound like a physical presence, on his face and hands, and he realized the glass doors in front of him were shuddering in their frames. The bass of the event was enormous.
He could no longer see what was happening to the Westin. A huge cloud of dust was boiling up in the dawn-lit sky. It was as if a gigantic sandbox had been dropped straight into an even more gigantic vertical fan. The dust of the destruction was spreading, rolling out as much as it was up, carrying with it a cacophony of breaking concrete and snapping steel.
“Wow.” Swanson said from behind him.
Peter stepped away from the glass doors. He glanced around. Most of the soldiers in the apartment were awake and either sitting up or standing so they could see what was going on. Peter felt some of the eyes fixing on him as he turned from the glass, and forced a casual shrug.
“Show’s over. Nothing we can do about it. Sack back out.”
Candles continued to look out the glass, holding the blinds apart, and a few others lingered for longer looks at the cloud of hotel remains, but most everyone else took the advice. Peter picked his way back over to the kitchen and resumed his spot in the corner of the counters, leaning back so he could see the living room. He knew from experience his attention might drift if he sat down, so he needed to stay on his feet.
“So, coffee.” Peter prompted as Crawford rejoined them and lit another cigarette. He idly wondered what would happen if she ran out of the cancer sticks while suffering from caffeine withdrawal. It would probably be either amusing as hell or seriously dangerous, depending on who she focused her ire upon.
“Sure.” Roper said, sounding a little dazed. He pulled a pot out of the cabinets and started filling it from the sink.
“One of you loan Roper a lighter so he can get the stove going.” Peter said.
Crawford dug through her pockets immediately, coming out a moment later with a cheap purple lighter that was half empty. “Here, my backup.”
“So sarge, you were a Marine?” Swanson asked quietly as he dropped his cigarette butt into the bowl that was serving as ashtray.
“Am.” Peter corrected automatically, though a part of him wondered if a zombie plague would be enough to do what wars, politics, and over two hundred years of a constantly changing world had been unable to end. He found the thought of no more Corps bothered him more than the notion the country might be done for did, and wondered if that made him unpatriotic. “I just draw a pension instead of a paycheck now, that’s all.”
“Right.” Swanson said, tiredly shrugging instead of launching into one of the halves of the argument that Army usually supported when discussing the ‘once a Marine, always a Marine’ concept. “Ever seen anything as fucked up as this?”
Peter had to jolt his train of thought to consider the question, tearing himself from the irrelevancy of whether or not his pension check was going to be sent next month. It probably didn’t matter; what good was a check if the banks were closed? Or if the stores were too?
“I’ve been in Afghanistan and Iraq, with us and half the first world militaries bombing and shooting them down to bedrock searching for Saddam, Bin Laden, suicide bombers, whatever. I’ve spent months sailing around in ships off the coast of whatever the current flash point was at that time, waiting for it to either calm down or boil over.
“Friends of mine, Army guys like you, told me about the Mog in the 90s, said it was a real third-world shithole even before they started running missions that shredded buildings and blocks. So that sounded no fun, even before all hell broke loose. But you know what this really reminds me of?”
“What’s that?” Crawford asked, sounding like she almost even was interested in the answer.
Peter smiled without humor. “I was part of the relief mission the US mounted after the tsunamis damn near leveled Japan. This is like that, just without all the water. Whole towns abandoned, buildings crumbing and burning, cars wrecked and resting in the damndest places.”
“But no zombies.” Swanson said quietly.
Peter sighed. “No, that’s new even for me. For everyone, I expect. Even if you love horror movies, I doubt anyone really ever expected to see shit like this.”
“Yeah.” Swanson shrugged. “So, what’s gonna happen you think?”
“What, with the zombies?”
“Well, with everything.” Swanson said, his face resolved into a tired, matter-of-fact expression. “Zombies, government, all of it.”
Peter hesitated, then decided they were past platitudes and lies, of omission or otherwise, in an effort to keep morale up. Modern soldiers were rarely the simpletons and ‘whatever the CO says’ types that had been a little more common even as recently as the 80s. Anyone who was still alive, especially in the middle of downtown Atlanta, probably had an idea how bad it was.
“I don’t know.” Peter said with a shrug. “I like to think it’s only this bad here, but I just don’t think so.”
“It’s gotta be just Atlanta, or maybe Atlanta plus a couple of other cities like us.” Roper said, though the wistful hope in his voice was obvious.
“The cellular network is down, but that’s not all that surprising with the power out.” Peter said.
“Yeah, and buildings collapsing.” Crawford said, a touch sourly. “A lot of the antennas for this part of the city are atop buildings like the Westin.”
“But it’s the radios that concern me more.” Peter continued after a moment. “Georgia has a lot of bases, so there shouldn’t be any shortage of units who can respond to what’s happening here.”
“McPherson is in East Point.” Swanson said with a nod. “That’s only, what, twenty or twenty-five minutes away depending on traffic?”
“McPherson was closed last year.” Roper objected.
“Not completely.” Swanson shot back. “There’s still some guys there. I mean, not as many as there were, but some.”
“Regardless,” Peter said, stepping in to forestall further bickering, “Clay is about the same distance away in the opposite direction. And we know Clay is, or at least was, operating in support of the Guard units that we know were activated. And everyone’s off-air.”
“You think they’re all dead?” Crawford asked. She was eying the stove with a cross expression on her face.
“Crawford, if you don’t stop watching the pot it’s not going to boil.” Roper spoke up.
“Fuck you. Hurry up.”
“Physics bends for no man.” Roper grinned.
“Shut it.” Peter said. “It’ll be ready when it’s ready. Keep smo
king until it is.”
“I’ve only got one extra pack.” Crawford said, sounding even more querulous. “And I’m down to three smokes in this one.”
“Keep smoking.” Peter repeated. “We can do some scrounging in some of the other units tomorrow, today, whatever.”
“It’s not tomorrow until you’ve slept.” Swanson said.
“You slept.” Crawford said tightly.
“Yeah, but not enough. That just made me feel more tired.”
“Getting back to the radios.” Peter said, suppressing the desire to sigh, “Clay should be talking to us, and even if they’re not at least the other units in the city should be looking for contact. But everyone’s gone, so if they’re not dead then they’re ineffective.”
“Fuck.” Crawford said, lighting another cigarette.
“Yeah, it’s not good.” Peter agreed without humor. “And even if something has fucked over Clay and the local units, higher should have had time to route reinforcements here by now. I mean, fuck, there’s Hartsfield and the runways at Clay, there shouldn’t be a shortage of landing strips for infantry, at least, to be stuffed into a transport and sent here.”
“So everyone else is dead.”
“I didn’t say that.” Peter half snapped at Swanson before catching himself. “We just don’t know. It could be a matter of this . . . this–”
“Zombie uprising.” Swanson suggested.
“Total apocalypse.” Roper put in.
“Cluster-fuck.” Crawford finished.
“Whatever this is,” Peter continued firmly, “has just got the entire country bogged down trying to handle it. That everyone’s just busy, that’s all.”
“Well I hope like hell they’re doing better than we are.” Swanson said fervently.
“It’s boiling.” Crawford said, pointing at the pot.
Roper glanced down and grinned. “Not quite, that’s a simmer.”
“Fuck you.”
“Hey now, I can still change my mind.”
“So can I.” Crawford said darkly.
“Oh please, I’ve got three inches and about forty or fifty pounds on you.” Roper said, still grinning.
Swanson straightened and stepped away from Crawford, and sort of peeked around the edge of the wall at the end of the counter so he could still see into the kitchen. “Dude, don’t test her. One of her hobbies is MMA.”
Crawford grinned abruptly and left the cigarette between her lips as she started cracking her knuckles, slowly, one at a time. “You didn’t think I was going to go through life named Cindy Crawford and not be able to do something about it, did you?”
“Finish making the coffee.” Peter told Roper.
* * * * *
Darryl
Darryl awoke to the smell of meat and eggs being cooked. He sat up, his momentary confusion deepening as he registered he wasn’t in his bed. Or any bed. He was on a sleeping bag that had been stretched out behind the bar in the lounge. The bag was thin padding at best, and the concrete block floor beneath was hard and unyielding. It had left him stiff, and a little sore in a couple of places.
Glancing around, he heard the snores of others nearby. 2C was sprawled face down on another sleeping bag next to him, with Spider and Smoke beyond him in sequence. 2C was snoring so loudly Darryl was amazed he’d gotten any sleep at all with that going on next to him. His memory was waking up, as slowly as his body it felt, and reminding him of the events of yesterday. Of why he was here instead of back in his apartment.
Groaning, he saw the little pile of things that normally rode around in his pockets next to the sleeping bag. His boots formed the base of the stack, while the holstered Glock was right on top. Darryl scooped the gun up and clipped it onto the side of his belt, then gathered everything else into his arms and rose slowly. His muscles protested any movement after the period of inactivity.
He put everything on the bar top, then managed to pull his boots on one at a time without falling over. As he crammed things back into his pockets, wallet, knife, some spare change; he lingered over the phone long enough to see the time. Frowning, he glanced at the nearest window. It was blocked by a heavy curtain, but there was sunlight visible at the edges; not coming into the room, but visible as it fell upon the thick fabric from outside.
He had slept maybe four hours. As he fumbled a cigarette out of the pack he frowned slightly. Even more odd, he felt tired, but not like going back to sleep. He wasn’t sure why. Lighting the smoke up, he inhaled deeply and drew the first nicotine of the day into his lungs. It felt good, made him think this could almost be just another morning after at the clubhouse. After a huge and tripping party.
Snorting silently, Darryl stepped around the edge of the bar and picked his way across the sleeping forms scattered all across the floor. A few stirred as he went past, but no one really woke up. He made it to the door without stepping on anyone and crossed the hallway into the kitchen.
It was as busy as he’d ever seen it. Tamera, Monique and Vivian were busy at the counters and stove, while Jody was up on a wooden stepstool fussing around with the contents of a cupboard. Darryl could see flour and shortening on the upper shelf, while the bottom was packed full of a wide array of spices.
“Morning DJ.” Tamera said as she lifted patties of meat out of a cast iron skillet that probably dated back to the building of the house. The large stoneware platter on the counter in front of her had a pretty large pile of them already, but she had another of raw ones that were going in to the skillet as cooked ones came out.
“Damn, you looking fine today.” Monique cooed, winking at him.
“Leave the man be.” Jody said as she climbed down from the stool. “He just woke up.”
Monique gave Jody a dirty look as she returned her attention to the pan she was working a spatula through, which was full of slowly solidifying scrambled eggs. The counter on her side of the stove had another stoneware platter with a mound of eggs already on it, next to a bowl that was probably full of more eggs awaiting their turn on the heat.
“You sleep okay?” Bobo asked from the table near the window. Darryl glanced over and saw Bobo studying him over the rim of a steaming mug of something, coffee probably. Mr. Soul was slowly working his way through a plate of food next to him, and the rest of the spaces at the table were filled with kids who were also eating. Darryl was surprised to see there was a mostly even mix of older and younger kids there, and that the bigger ones were attentively watching and helping the little kids with their food.
“Yeah, I guess.” Darryl said slowly, dragging on his smoke again and deciding to linger at the doorway until he finished it. He did, however, lean forward and grab a stray beer can out of the garbage can inside the door to use as an ashtray.
“Surprised you up without being rousted out.” Bobo said, his eyes laughing a little.
“There gonna be a lot of shit to do today.” Darryl shrugged, remembering Bobo’s comments the previous night. “Guess that on my mind.”
“What you drinking, DJ?” Jody asked, closing the cupboard and walking over to a counter that had several battered pitchers on it.
Darryl almost asked for a beer, knowing there had to be a lot left after the party yesterday had been aborted by more pressing issues. But he remembered his college days, struggling to run the court against sober guys, and decided at the last moment against it. “Tea I guess, if there any made.”
“No coffee?” Mr. Soul asked abruptly. Darryl glanced over, but the old preacher didn’t look up from his plate.
“Don’t got much of a taste for it.”
“Takes all kinds.” Mr. Soul nodded as he used his knife and fork to cut a bite out of the biscuit in front of him. Darryl saw it was a sandwich biscuit, with a patty of the meat covered in melted cheese between the two biscuit halves. Suddenly he was starving; it smelled wonderful.
“Here, tea.” Jody said, pouring into a disposable plastic cup. She came over and thrust it into his hands, then went to the table. “Who done e
ating? Mark, you and your brother is done, you just playing with your food now. Out, go back to them bedrooms and stay out of trouble for the next hour or so.”
“Can we go outside?” The seven year old asked as he agreeably slid out of his chair, leaving the remains of a biscuit behind.
“Hell no.” Jody shook her head. “Stay inside.”
“Awww.” Mark frowned, sounding as terribly put out as only a kid denied a wish could be.
“There be plenty of things we be doing outside pretty soon.” Bobo told the child. “Now mind what you been told in the meantime and go back into them bedrooms.”
The two boys ran out of the kitchen, squeezing past Darryl in the doorway and heading down to the ‘hookup’ rooms. Darryl sipped his tea, which was cool but a long way from being properly cold, then took a last drag off his cigarette and stubbed it out against the top of the can before dropping the butt inside.
“You want some of everything?” Jody asked him as she cleared plastic picnic plates off the table and dropped them into the sink.
“Uh, yeah.” Darryl nodded, moving to take one of the vacant chairs at the table. “There gonna be enough?”
“Oh we fine.” Jody said as she rapidly assembled a pair of biscuit sandwiches, then added a big scoop of eggs to the fresh plate she pulled from an open package. “Least for now. Big Chief, that damn fool, spent most of his time last night before we went out together getting stuff we gotta eat up quick or it’ll go bad.”
“He didn’t know no better.” Vivian pointed out as she finished rolling out a fresh batch of dough. “Men don’t know nothing about what a kitchen needs.”
“Amen.” Mr. Soul said, sitting back from his plate. “My beloved wife, bless her departed soul, fed me for over fifty years and I couldn’t tell you hardly anything that she needed to do it with.”
“Well, we got enough jobs to go around for everyone.” Bobo said. “Unless they got a better skill that needs doing, all the men gonna be busy working outside today. Then guarding, and probably some other stuff too. Same goes for the women; unless you better at something else, you elected to handle stuff the men ain’t doing cause they busy elsewhere.”
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