“Let’s go talk to this person who thinks he’s in charge. I feel like making a deal today.” I slung the bat over my shoulder and was out the front door before they could stop me.
Some days, you have to fake it till you make it.
It was fun to see the soldiers surprised when I walked out, leading their unit out of the dorm.
“Who’s in charge here?” I looked around, appraising the men, trying to figure out who was the best one to approach.
“That would be me, ma’am.” The sergeant eyed me warily. “What can I do for you?”
“As I understand it, you want the keys to all the buildings. I have them, or know where the others are, but I also have access to the generators. I know how the solar panels are built, so I’m an asset you’re gonna need to run this place.” I popped a piece of gum into my mouth for effect.
“Well, ma’am, that’s all well and good, but I’m with the United States Army, and we’re taking over this campus to help house the civilians that have survived. What is it that you’re wanting?” The sergeant crossed his arms and started tapping his foot.
“Want? I want you to go find another place to take your civilians. We’re just fine taking care of ourselves, but since I know that isn’t going to be possible, I want to run this dorm. I get to choose who comes in and out. I make sure that things go smoothly since it’s our home, and you’re the one needing it. I think that’s perfectly fair.”
“Miss, I’m sure you’ve heard before that the army doesn’t negotiate with terrorists, and that includes spitfires like yourself.”
I raised an eyebrow at his description of me, when the Stacy was the redhead.
“There’s some merit to what you say, but the army always runs things efficiently. We might need someone to run public relations and keep things on an even keel, though. The go-between to the civilians and the army, would that be okay with you?” He seemed to be waiting on a response from me.
“It is for the moment. Let me show you where things are and which buildings I’ve been to so you don’t have to do as much work. How many people are you bringing here?” I would take what he would give me, and maybe when I needed something later, he would be more willing to work with me.
“We have a couple hundred people at this point, but there are still pockets of people that we’re coming across who need a safer place to stay.”
The sergeant turned to his men. “Let’s go ahead with setting up a perimeter. In close at first, and as we can, we’ll get something stronger and more permanent farther out. The sooner we can get moved in the better, because we’re getting backup troops first thing in the morning.”
“Yes, sir,” they chorused in response to his orders.
The units started to move out, while the sergeant motioned for Specialist Jackson and Doug to follow him.
The next few hours passed quickly as they brought in the ‘civilians’, and I helped settled them into their new quarters.
I took control in helping to assign everyone to make things a little easier. We needed to split up the families into one dorm. The single women and small children without parents were paired up with someone who could watch over them. The men and soldiers, I put in the dorm the farthest away from the others to help keep a semblance of something that could work. It was going to be a lot to juggle over the next few days.
Each person or group was interviewed. I asked what they liked to do, their hobbies, and what they’d done before the ZITs happened. By the time I was done, I had groups of cooks, gardeners, laundry duty, childcare and security. Even the sarge seemed impressed when the last truck of the day was brought in and everyone was fed, settled, and locked in for the night. The only ones allowed outside after dark were the sentries that were going to keep this a ZIT free zone.
I had been so alone over the past few weeks, but it was still hard to make the adjustment that I didn’t need to keep all of these people safe. It was a far cry from the way things had been with Jeff and Abby.
With all the different units working to get a fence up, it was finished before dark. It wouldn’t hold up to a horde of those things, but it would keep them away from the main group. The assembly of floodlights was being built when I returned to the dorm.
I hadn’t even made it in the door when Stacy started in on me.
“River, you need to come with us. You can’t stay here where you don’t know anyone. Dillion has already lost so much, he can’t lose another person that cares about him,” Stacy pleaded desperately.
“No. I know he’s almost like your kid, but Stacy, this is the only place I’ve known for several years now. I get a chance to make a difference and do things my way, as long as the army likes what I’m doing anyway.” I glanced in the direction of Specialist Jackson as he came through the door.
“Look, it’s your choice.” He came over to sit on the couches. “I have a large family, and they’ll welcome anyone that comes with us. You wouldn’t have to worry about the army, but I understand. You have amazing leadership abilities, and I know that you can do fine in both places. Just think about it, okay?” he offered.
I looked at the sleeping boy next to Stacy on the couch. “I’ve fallen in love with him, but I need…No, I want to stay here. I’ve never had a home, and this campus is the closest thing to one for me. When this zombie thing is over, you’ll only be three hours away.”
“You make it sound like everything’s going to be fine. I don’t want to lose you, River. You’re the greatest friend I’ve ever had.” Stacy got up and started pacing the floor in front of me. “There isn’t anything I can do to change your mind?” she pleaded.
“No. And look, Doug said that they’d only be gone three weeks. If things don’t work out, you can come back or I can come to you then, okay? Can you handle three weeks?” I reached out and stopped her so that she had to face me.
I put a smile on my face, but it was laced with sadness.
“Sarge will keep her safe, I promise.” Doug tried to make Stacy feel better. “That’s the best we can do, and hope that this world goes back to a semi-normal place. We should all get some sleep.”
“You’re right. It’s been a long day and we’ve got a lot of people to feed first thing in the morning.” I got up, holding my bat at my side.
“Let me carry him upstairs for you,” Doug offered as Stacy started to pick Dillion up.
“Nope. Can’t let you do that, bro. No boys allowed upstairs. River’s rules. I got it.” Stacy placed a kiss on her brother’s cheek and scooped up the sleeping boy.
“Night, boys,” I called out, casually swinging the bat around. “See you in the morning.”
The stairwell door closed behind us.
“Stacy, I’ll be here in case Darren comes looking for you. Do you think the army will tell him anything if he tries to find you?” I knew she didn’t want her brother to know anything about Darren.
“You’re right. It’s just…I keep losing people, and I don’t want you to be one of them.” I held open the door for her to carry Dillion through.
Angela
It had been a few days, but Hulk had recovered enough to contribute to the decisions we needed to make about our survival. Todd and Hannah weren’t any help, and I trusted Hulk to make levelheaded decisions.
The back stairwell didn’t have a lot of the infected, and I had made a run up the stairs, hoping there were extra supplies.
It was empty of real people, and the only dead ones were in rooms and stayed there as long as I didn’t make any loud noises. I hit paydirt in the break room, where there were lots of extras in the fridge that were still good. I put as much as I could in the large bags that we sent patients personal items home in.
When I left the room, trying to balance everything, that was when it got tricky. An infected was standing right in front of me, grabbing hold of the bags in my arms. The only thing I could do was push it and the bags of groceries away, allowing me to use the chair leg.
It was a wasted trip because
several more came out to join the first one, and retreat was my only option.
I led them on a chase, holding the door open and standing behind it. I was able to push them back enough with the weapon until gravity took over and they fell down the stairs.
What I thought was an hour had really been ten minutes, and the infected had stopped coming through the door. I cautiously loosened my hold on the doorknob and pulled the door closed behind me.
Clearing the floor seemed like the better option than trying to gather the food, only to be involved in another fight. A growl down the hallway led me to a room where the person had been strapped to the bed. They had turned, and weren’t able to break the restraints to follow the others.
A stab through the eye later and the poor soul was finally at peace. I didn’t want to assume that there weren’t any others, and so I went room to room, checking them to be sure.
Now that it appeared to be safe, I went back and collected the food that had been spilled in our scuffle. I wasn’t going to take the chance that we would need more supplies and have to do this again, so I put them all in the laundry cart and rolled it in front of the closed elevator.
Leaving it there, I went to the nurse’s station to find the list of extinction numbers for each floor. I called hoping that one of them would answer the phone in their room.
“Hello?” Hannah’s voice asked cautiously.
“Hannah, it’s me, Angie. I made it up here and cleared the floor, but there’s no way I’ll be able to make it back to your floor. The elevator is working. Go out there and pull the stuff holding the door open away, then I can push the up button and be able to get in. In theory at least,” I instructed her. “Can you do that?”
“Yes, I–I think so,” Hannah stammered.
“Okay, I’m pushing the button right now.”
“Hulk’s moving the stuff. The door is shutting.”
“I’ll wait when it opens in case it goes to a different floor first.” The light lit up, and I nervously moved my weapon.
It opened, and was miraculously empty. I shoved the cart inside, along with an extra chair if I had to stop them. If this was going to be the only trip to this floor, I would need their med carts and IVs as well.
Making sure that the door was wedged open, I ran through and threw anything that could be helpful into another laundry cart.
I picked up the phone again.
“Hannah?”
“Yes, are you safe?”
“At the moment, but I need you to push the button so that the elevator comes directly to your floor. Did you do that?”
“Mmm…he did it.”
“I’ll be there in just a minute, but be prepared.”
Hanging up, I raced in and pulled the cart holding the door. I wanted to think I was safe, but so many other things could still go wrong.
The door opened on the fifth floor, and Hulk’s face was a welcome sight.
“Oh, thank God.” I practically jumped into his arms in relief.
“Hey, now. It’s okay. You did an amazing thing and survived.” He patted my shoulder awkwardly.
A few sniffles later, I wiped at my eyes and straightened. “Sorry, didn’t mean to lose it like that, but it’s such a relief. I got lots of food.”
Seeing that I was alive, Hannah and Todd ventured out of the room and came to help.
“I think we should put this stuff in the room with us, just in case something crazy happens. We can stay in there for a while.”
“Great idea,” Todd agreed, almost running back to the room.
“I think we should leave a light of some kind in the window. If someone is looking for survivors, then they’ll know we’re alive. It’s something we can do instead of just sitting here,” I suggested. Since I had just brought back food, the others were agreeable to anything I asked.
This might be the end, but not if I had anything to say about it.
I was stingy with our resources, but I was pretty sure that when I went to sleep, Hannah and Todd were sneaking stuff. What I’d gotten a few days before should have lasted all four of us a month if we’d rationed it. We were down to a last meal, but I’d gotten to the point where I almost didn’t care if it meant staying in the same room with these two any longer.
Leaving the space was the only way to keep the peace, so I went to the other area, trusting that Hulk could handle the two idiots.
It had only been a moment when Todd was shaking my shoulder, screaming. “They’re dead, they’re dead!”
“What? Who’s dead?” It took me a second to realize the significance of what he was telling me.
“Hulk and Hannah. They took the elevator down and had just called me to bring them up, but they were overrun. I could hear the groans on the phone. I didn’t push the button and now they’re dead!”
“Seriously? Why would they do that when I was asleep?” I got up to look out the window, and saw there were infected wandering around outside the door.
“Where did those come from?” I whispered, trying to get him to quiet down so the things would walk away.
“The elevator still came to our floor, and when I saw that it was going to open, I ran in here.” Todd looked at me like I could just fix the mistake he’d made.
“Hello.” I waved a hand in front of his face. “I can’t kill all of those. We’ll have to stay in here and try to take them out one by one.”
“What about food?” He didn’t even seem upset that they were dead because of poor planning.
“If you and Hannah hadn’t been sneaking into the supplies, we would still have food. Now we’ll have to use the IVs we had stored in here and hope for the best.” I hunkered down, out of sight, trying to plan our next move.
Knowing that Todd wouldn’t help me, I started watching the doors, and when only one or two of the infected were near, I would open the door and take one out. Then when they’d calmed down and wandered away to look for someone to eat, I’d try to get another one cornered and killed.
When I heard shots coming from outside the room, I thought I must be dreaming.
Someone had seen our light and were taking out the last few infected. It was the army, and they had real guns.
The door opened, and they came in asking, “Are you sick?”
“No, we’re fine, but would love to get out of here,” I answered, not knowing what was going to come out of Todd’s mouth.
“Who killed all those ZITs?” the female officer asked.
“I’ve been trying to take them out one by one. We had the floor cleared, but the other two of our group decided they could make it to another floor and back. They didn’t, but they let more infected onto the floor.” I didn’t have time to get sad at the thought of their deaths.
“You made it, so they thought they could as well,” Todd piped up from behind me.
“Anyway, how is it looking downstairs?” I was going to ignore anything that Todd had to say, and hope that a soldier would put him out of his misery.
“We’ve cleared a path, but we need to block off an area where they’re coming in from the other building.”
“I can help with that. I’m Angie, and this coward is Todd.” I grabbed the pack I’d made of important stuff for when we got rescued.
“I’m Patti. This is Rick, Len, and Tom. Is that your weapon?”
“Yeah. It's a leg from the chair that broke off, but it works really well if you aim for the ZITs eyes. Granted, a gun would probably do more harm, but it was all we had to work with. Did you clear some of the other floors already?” I asked, knowing that this would be the best chance to collect the medical supplies that would probably be needed in the near future.
“We cleared out the stairwell, but we were trying to find the floors that were the least overrun. We were hoping that it was where the light was coming from. Why, are there others survivors trapped somewhere?” Patti asked, taking charge.
“Not that I've seen in the weeks we've been here. There were a few more of us, but they made s
ome stupid decisions and didn’t make it. If possible, I need to collect some supplies when we get to the ER.” Even though Todd had been calling himself a doctor, I wasn't sure he was capable of inserting an IV if the situation required it.
“That shouldn't be a problem if we can get the hallways partitioned off. We’ll stop the flood of infected from coming inside, and now we just need to find a way to keep them from the cleared areas.”
“There should be gates that pull down, separating the different sections. It's how we cordon off the hospital during an active shooter situation. The gates don't have to lock, but if we can get them down, it should stop the ZITs from the other buildings from coming to this one.”
“You stay behind us, and be prepared to move when we move.”
None of the soldiers offered to give either Todd or I a gun, which in Todd's case, was probably just as well.
We followed their lead and were able to close the gates, closing off the various sections of the hospital from the ER wing.
They continued to lead us out to the ER and into a war zone of burning ZITs, followed by freedom on the other side of the bridge.
My first reaction when we went to the doors was to cringe at the bright sunlight, but there was no time to adjust because the massive amounts of ZITs were closing in on us. We only had a small window to make it to the truck before we joined the masses of dead people.
When we finally climbed into the vehicle to drive to their headquarters, it was the first time in weeks when our safety was in someone else's hands, and I could let down my guard.
Lieutenant Patti came in to inform us that we would be joining the rest of their group at one of the nearby college campuses. I was excited until I realized that Stacy and Dillion had left campus to go to my house. I would have to wait and see if Patti's team could make a rescue attempt to find my kid.
“Once we get checked in, I’ll find out if that area has been cleared yet. If it hasn't, we’ll volunteer to go over and see for ourselves if we can find them. I'd love to take you with us, but I doubt the sergeant will allow it. Let’s eat breakfast and see what our next mission is.”
Against Zombies Box Set, Vol. 1 | Books 1-4 Page 36