by Jeff Olah
He estimated that three of those crazed individuals were now inside. He’d yet to see them, although as they crashed one by one through the large picture window in the chief’s office, their sound was unmistakable. The low monotonous growling that had been muffled by the walls of the station over the last several days was now filling the interior of the building.
Even in the dark, placing a location on the trio wasn’t hard to do. From one area of the building to the next, their slow pronounced movements and reckless behavior acted as a virtual GPS for Frank’s mind.
He pictured them breaking through the window and then struggling to find their way out of the chief’s office. They could be heard slamming into walls, overturning office furniture, and finally progressing out into the hall. Moving from one area to the next, the sounds of destruction quickly moved away from the opposite side of the station and out into the lobby.
As their lumbering footfalls grew close, Frank watched the doors. He held his breath and pushed back into the block wall, hoping to fade into the pronounced darkness. And as the sliver of moonlight disappeared from between the doors, he knew someone was standing on the opposite side. He couldn’t yet see them, but he could hear their deep labored breathing.
. . .
On their second pass, Ben slowed the truck and turned to Ethan. “So, we good?”
“Yeah,” Ethan said. “But I’d like to try something else this time.”
“What are you thinking, plow right through the front doors? Rip the place apart, grab whatever weapons are left, and then drive away?”
Ethan smiled. “Well… we’re gonna need the front doors intact for what I have planned, but I really do appreciate your enthusiasm.”
“Okay, so?”
“Let’s go around to the back and pull right up to the doors. We can pop the locks and use the truck to seal off the entrance.”
Ben paused briefly and then just shrugged. “Okay, sounds good to me.” He let off the brake, wheeled into the parking lot and backed to within three feet of the rear doors.
Griffin moved quickly from one side of the truck to the other, looking through the badly stained windows for any wayward Feeders. “It looks clear, but that may not last long, so let’s get in there quick. And let’s do this right—I’m done running, at least for today.”
Retrieving a tire iron from the cab, Ethan stood at the rear door alongside Griffin. He turned to the others and spoke quickly. “I’ll pop the door and Griff will go in. If it’s clear, we’ll all fall in behind—check out the rest of the building. Stay close and be alert. Ben will back the truck up even with the building and then he and I will come inside.” Back to Griffin, he said, “Ready?”
Gripping the twenty-four-inch metal pipe in his right hand, Griffin nodded. “Let’s go.”
Ethan opened the rear door and stepped out. He went to work on the set of double doors as Griffin stood beside him, scanning the lot.
Wedging the blade end of the tire iron in between the doors, Ethan leaned back. He was careful not to apply too much pressure—he still needed the thick glass panels intact. With the blade less than an inch from the lock, Ethan slowly increased the pressure with which he torqued back on the tire iron.
“How’s it look?” Griffin asked, his voice coming out higher than normal.
“Thirty seconds, maybe less. Why, you have somewhere to be?”
“Just think that our luck has got to run out at some point. I’m dog tired—we’ve been runnin’ for five days straight. I think we could all do well with at least one solid night’s sleep, and this is as good a place as any.”
“Sleep?” Ethan said. “What’s that?”
Ethan cranked down on the tire iron and giving it one last tug, pulled the lock apart. The left side swung out as Griffin stepped to the side and slowly pulled it open.
Standing back and craning his neck around the blood smattered door, Ethan looked inside. Two feet away was Officer Ralph Tompkins, motionless and lying in a dried lake of his own blood. He was awkwardly positioned and missing a large chunk of his skull. Beyond that, the building was dark and empty. At least as far as he could see. He nodded to Griffin and then looked back at the others. Held up his hand and whispered, “Hold up, just until he clears the hall.”
Griffin moved around the door, stepped around the body and then paused. He closed his eyes for a moment, allowing them to adjust to the darkness. It was quiet. Deadly silent. Opening his eyes again, he held the two-foot section of pipe, moved quickly to the next set of doors, and reached for the handle. Pulling the door back, he quietly looked through into the adjoining hall.
Before stepping in, he paused momentarily, leaned back, and slowly closed the door. Turning back to Ethan, who’d already stepped into the building, Griffin shook his head and hurried back. “We’ve got two, maybe three just past that next set of doors. I think you and I can take care of it. Have the others hold off for a minute.”
“Okay,” Ethan turned back to Cora and said, “What’s left in the gun?”
“One round, not much good.”
“Okay, stay here and only fire if you have to. They get past us and you guys drive out of here… good?”
“Good.”
Following Griffin to the doors, Ethan switched the tire iron to his left hand and stayed along the right side of the hall. “I’ll go in, take out the first one. Wait until I swing on him before you go by me. Don’t want you taking a shot that was meant for them.”
Holding the door back, Griffin waited as Ethan moved through. A pair of Feeders stood at the opposite end of the hall twenty feet away. They turned and began staggering away from the lone jail cell as Ethan raised the tire iron over his head.
The first moved in quicker than he’d anticipated and lunged forward as Ethan twisted right, dipped his shoulder, and swung hard. The rounded end of the tire iron contacted the beast just below the jaw line and pushed its head awkwardly back and to the right. Its neck now obviously broken, it appeared to be staring straight up at the ceiling and as Ethan swung a second time, it fell backward to the cold linoleum.
As Ethan moved in to finish the job, Griffin stepped around him and kicked the trailing Feeder in the chest. Giving himself a bit of room, he moved to the left, grabbed the badly disfigured former postman, and shoved the metal pipe into his ear. The body dropped to the floor just as the doors to the lobby parted, revealing a third attacker.
“I’ll get this one,” Ethan said. “Check the lobby.”
As Griffin stepped aside, Ethan swung quickly, sending the Feeder face first into the metal bars of the jail cell. He stepped to the right and grabbed it from behind. Holding onto a handful of hair, he repeatedly slammed its face into the metal bars.
Allowing the third body to drop to the floor, he held the doors to the lobby open and nodded to Griffin. “So, how’s it look?”
Griffin appeared out of the dark corner at the opposite end of the lobby peering through another set of doors. “Uh, I can’t really see anything from here, but it doesn’t sound like we have any more company.”
Ethan stood in the doorway. “Okay, let’s get the others and secure this place. You may just get some sleep tonight after all.”
Turning back into the hall, something off to the right, inside the jail cell, caught his eye. Something moved. Something or someone was in there. And as he turned to face the cell, there was a voice. A familiar voice. “Ethan?”
13
“Frank?”
Out of the far corner, the tall slender man appeared. He walked slowly and held his lower back. His face was drawn and he looked much older than Ethan remembered. Although other than his troubled expression and a few obvious stains, he appeared rather ordinary—almost untouched by the events of the last five days. Sliding his jacket on, he stood inside the cell door and began to frown.
“Ethan, you need to get into the chief’s office and get something in front of the big window next to his desk. That’s how those things got in.”
; He looked back at the man who he’d known since before he could ride a bicycle and shook his head. He was confused. By so many things. “Frank, how did you, I mean have you been here the whole time?”
“Yes, but we can catch up later. You need to get that window taken care of. Right now.”
“Show us,” Ethan said.
“I’m locked in.” Frank grinned. “Don’t ask, it’s a bit of a story. Just get that window taken care of. There is a large trophy case in the hall outside the office that should do the trick. Slide the big desk in behind it and we should be okay.”
Looking from Ethan to Frank and then scanning the floor inside the cell, Griffin was confused. “Wait, you been in here since the beginning? And haven’t gone looking for help?”
Frank moved back to the cot and sat down. “Go, take care of that window. Then you can let me out of here. Trust me, I’m safe.”
He wasn’t exactly sure why Frank was here or why he was locked in a cell, but that would have to wait. First things first.
Ethan asked Cora to help Ben pull the truck up against the building. He and Griffin then relocated Officer Tompkins’ body into an adjoining room and showed the others inside. Moving to the opposite corridor, they quickly sealed off the opening in the chief’s office, and finished up by checking the rest of the building.
Back into the darkened hall, the others had already introduced themselves, fetched the keys from the opposite wall, and opened the cell door. Frank was standing in the threshold when Ethan walked through the lobby.
“Yes,” Frank said. “Since just a few hours after—” He stopped speaking when he saw Ethan. Smiling, he walked over, opened his arms wide, and threw them around Ethan’s neck. He hugged Ethan hard as the others fought away tears. And Ethan let him. Because there were three things Ethan knew about this man.
Ethan knew that the former handyman had lost his wife many years ago.
He knew that since the loss of his wife, Frank had never gotten close to another human being.
And he knew that this was probably the only time in Frank Jarvis’s long life that he put his arms around another man. That wasn’t him; he didn’t need people the way others did. But maybe tonight he did. Ethan didn’t know exactly what had taken place in this building over the last five days, but it didn’t matter. Frank needed this.
And as Frank pulled away, he looked embarrassed. Out of sorts. Void of his usual calm and collected demeanor. But not for the reasons Ethan imagined.
“So,” Frank said looking around, “I’m sure you’re all wondering why I was locked in there and the keys were sitting fifteen feet away.”
Griffin stepped around Ethan, slid down the wall, and sat on the floor. “I’m betting there’s a pretty good story behind it.”
Frank nodded. “Yes, I’ll tell my story, but first I need to thank you all. If you hadn’t shown up when you did, I’m not sure I would have lasted another night.”
“Frank,” Ethan said, “I’m sure you would have been fine. You’re the toughest person in this town—my dad can confirm that.” As the words left his mouth, he lowered his head and looked away.
Frank was confused. “Your parents, they okay?”
Carly stood with her back to the wall, only half in the light spilling in from the lobby. “We really don’t know anything at this point.”
Frank turned from Carly to Ethan, raising his brow. “What… what do you mean?”
Nodding, Ethan said, “Haven’t been able to reach them or Emma. I got a few messages the first day, but nothing since.”
“So, what the hell is happening? I watched the news early the first morning and then came here looking for help. Everyone was gone and those people—the crazy ones—chased me inside.”
“They’re not people,” Ethan said. “Not anymore.”
“Okay, so what is it?” Frank looked to Carly. “Why are those people… or whatever, why are they acting that way?”
“We don’t really know. The hospital was overrun pretty quickly the first day. We were in communication with the Centers for Disease Control for a few hours, although they would only say that we needed to do whatever was necessary to protect ourselves from the infected.”
“Infected?” Frank said.
“That’s what they were calling them. As a group, the CDC only referred to them as,” Carly held her finger in air quotes, “the Infected.”
“You say that they were referring to them as infected, what are the saying about it now?”
“They aren’t. We lost contact with the CDC and everyone else that first day. And then sometime later that afternoon, we received one last message. Something about us doing whatever was necessary to survive. I think I remember them calling this a Global Event.”
“Okay, so why hasn’t help shown up? Where is everyone?” Frank looked around the hall and into the lobby. “The chief and the others, no one was here when I walked in, well except for Tompkins.”
Ethan leaned in. “He was already gone by the time you got here?”
“Yes,” Frank said. “Looks like the poor kid just decided he didn’t want to deal with it.”
The group sat quiet for a long moment.
Then Frank moved away from the door and walked back into the cell. He picked up the wrappers and cardboard containers from his last five days and shoved the mess into a plastic bag. He looked around as every eye was glued to him and tossed the bag into the trash can. “Okay, so now what? I’m sure you all have figured something out; it’s been five days.”
“Wait,” Ethan said as a grin began to slide across his face. “We know that you came here looking for help and haven’t been outside since the first morning, but there is one thing that you still haven’t explained, and I think I know why.”
“What do you mean?”
“Okay, you grabbed the keys from Tompkins at some point and opened the cell… right?”
The others watched like it was a tennis match, their eyes darting from Frank to Ethan, and then back again.
Frank saw where this was going. He knew Ethan was having a bit of fun at his expense. He decided to play along. “Yes, I opened the cell door with Tompkins’ keys.”
“Right,” Ethan said. “So why were the keys laying in the corner fifteen feet away… but before you answer, let me guess.”
“Sure, have at it.”
Everyone was smiling at this point.
“If I know you and I think I do, my guess is that you locked the door after entering and then pulling the keys out from opposite side, dropped them. Then you had to watch as they slid into the corner.” Ethan held his hands in the air. “Am I right?”
“The first part, yes. I got the keys and locked myself in, but I didn’t mistakenly drop them. I tossed them into the trashcan on purpose.”
Shannon spoke for the first time, unable to hold back her question. “Why would you do that?”
“I saw what was happening out there and didn’t trust myself. I figured that if I kept the keys, I’d be tempted to walk out there before I should. I just thought that someone from the department would show up, tell me everything was handled, and then let me out. That never happened.”
Ethan leaned in and slapped Frank on the back. “Until tonight.”
14
The city was dark and quiet. They hadn’t seen or heard anything from outside the building in the last two hours. It was as if they were the last seven people on the entire planet, and for all they knew, they were.
The group had taken to arranging the blankets and sleeping bags around the inside of the cell. With the door open, they brought in what little food and water they’d scavenged over the last several days and placed it in the center. They sat around candlelight and spoke about their separate pasts and their current lives together.
Ethan spoke about waking up that morning and the confusion felt by most everyone. He recounted how he and David attempted to leave town, only to be blindsided by the massive fire truck and how they watched people they knew turning in
to what was being referred to as “Feeders”.
“Feeders?” Frank asked.
Griffin laughed. “Leave it to the media.”
The group told Frank about the first few brutally cold nights and how they had more than just the undead to worry about. They talked about how they slept huddled in the corner of the armored vehicle and the inability to actually sleep at all.
They talked about waking the second morning and attempting to find other survivors, while at the same time searching for a section of the city free of those things. About how they moved from house to house and apartment building to apartment building in search of food. And about never staying anywhere for more than a few hours.
“And the storm didn’t help,” Ethan said. “But then again, I guess maybe it did.”
“What do you mean?”
“For the last five days, we’ve been trying to leave. Mainly because of me. We’ve driven to the edge of town more times than I can remember. But not once has the pass been clear. So we’ve waited. And waited. It finally stopped dumping on us earlier today. We decided to push on tonight or tomorrow. To find out what’s out there. If there’s anyone left. And the whole time, there was someone. My dad’s best friend was right here under our noses. I guess it’s a good thing that storm kept us here.”
Frank smiled. “Yeah, and it only took you five days to come by here. I almost starved to death.”
“We tried,” Ethan said. “We tried.”
“I think I remember hearing you all drive by here at least a dozen times in the last few days.”
“We did—maybe even more than that. But this part of town has been way too crowded, well that is until tonight. We’d always planned on coming by to look for supplies, but our defenses were pretty much nonexistent.”
Frank peered out past the lobby into the adjoining hall. “Did you check the weapons locker in the back?”