by John Ringo
His Puerto Rican accent was thicker than that of Luis Rodriguez, but his English was fluent. So was Flora Rodriguez’s, when she chimed in.
“There’s no open area worth talking about anywhere in northern Lake County,” she said, standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “Not that I know of, anyway.”
For the first time since they started watching the TV news, Andy’s husband spoke up.
“Yeah, there is.” Tom’s heavy face twisted into a smile of sorts. “In a manner of speaking. You should head for one of the tank farms.”
Flora frowned at him. “Tank—what? Farms? What are you talking about?”
Unlike Tom, neither of the Rodriguez men nor Pedro had ever worked in an oil refinery or chemical plant. But because of the jobs they’d held, they were all familiar with the facilities. Northwest Indiana was one of the nation’s major industrial centers, concentrated especially in steel making and all types of chemical production.
“He’s talking about those big storage tanks,” said Lujis. “You know—those white cylinders you see all over the place. There’s a huge tank farm not far from here, part of the BP refinery in Whiting.”
“God, no!” said Tom forcefully. “The last place you want to be in a catastrophe is right next to an oil refinery.” He leaned forward in his wheelchair and point at the TV screen.
“That’s what our grandson Jack calls a zombie apocalypse. Give it a few days—hell, give it a few hours, for all I know—and that big refinery less than two miles from here is going to become a catastrophe of its own. I doubt if anybody’s still in control over there and I’m sure and certain they didn’t have time to shut down the refinery properly. Sooner or later, something’s going to blow.”
He swiveled his armchair and rolled to the side window, looking to the southeast. “Go for the tank farm down by Cline Avenue. It’s even bigger—must be a mile long, half a mile wide—and it’s not close to anything dangerous. Get on top of one of the tanks in the middle of the farm. You won’t be visible from the roads and you’ll have a clear line of fire for at least forty or fifty yards in any direction, and hundreds of yards if no other tank’s in the way. For all practical purposes you’ll be on top of a steel castle with sheer walls that no naked mindless zombie can climb. The only access to the roof is a narrow winding staircase. That’s easily defensible anyway, but if it was me I’d cut off the bottom ten or fifteen feet of the staircase with a cutting torch and substitute ladders for that stretch which you can haul up when you’re not using them.”
He wheeled back around to face the room. “Make sure you pick a tank with a fixed roof, though. Some of ’em got floating roofs. You can stand on those, more or less, but there’ll be vapor leakage.”
As he’d talked, Andy’s apprehension had steadily grown. “What’s with this you-you-you bullshit, Tom?” she demanded. “You’re coming with us.”
Her husband shook his head. “Get serious, woman.” He gestured with his hands toward what was left of his legs. “I didn’t think I could make it even in the woods, although I was willing to try. How the hell do you think I’m going to get up on top of an oil storage tank? They’re more than fifty feet high. My legs are useless and I weigh close to three hundred pounds. Just go, will you? Face it—I’m done.”
Andy knew there was more at work here than stoic practicality on her husband’s part. Thomas Kaminski had been an outdoorsman and hunter his whole life, until an industrial accident had taken both his legs off at the knees a decade earlier. He still maintained his shooting skills at a firing range and went fishing from time to time, but those activities were a pale shadow of what he’d been accustomed to. He’d been in a state of depression ever since—which now seemed to have become suicidal. There was no way he could survive on his own in the crisis that had engulfed the whole world, and he knew it as well as she did.
“I said, cut the bullshit!” she snapped at him. “We’ll figure out something.”
“Won’t even be that hard,” said Freddy Rodriguez. “You still got plenty of strength in your upper body, Tom—I’ve seen you lift weights so don’t bother arguing about it—and those spiral staircases have solid handrails. I weigh about two hundred and fifty and I’m pretty damn strong, if I say so myself. Between you working your way up on the rail and me hoisting your fat butt, we’ll get you there.”
Pedro Vargas weighed in then—and did it just the right way. “You got to come with us, Tom. We need you. You’re the only one of us was a hunter and really knows how to use a rifle. Me and Luis—Freddy, too—we all got guns, sure. But they’re pistols and shotguns.” He nodded his head toward the far wall. “I don’t think Jerry’s got a rifle, either. He’s never gone hunting that I know of.”
Jerry Haywood and his wife Latoya were neighbors who were also planning to come on what they’d all intended to be an expedition into the forested hills in southern Illinois. Jerry was a security guard for one of the nearby casinos and Latoya worked in a factory that manufactured cardboard containers. They were both around Freddy’s age—forty or so—and had two teenage children, a boy and a girl.
As if on cue, the doorbell rang. When Andy’s grandson Jack went to open the door, she could see the Haywood couple standing on the porch beyond, along with their daughter Jayden. All of them looked worried.
“Come on in,” she said.
Jerry started talking before he even got through the door. “You see the news? There’s no way we’re going to get down to Shawnee.”
Behind him, his wife said, “Hell, we ain’t got no chance of getting out of Lake County, much less the whole state of Indiana.”
“Yeah, we saw,” said Freddy. He gestured toward Andy’s husband. “Tom thinks we oughta set up on top of one of the oil storage tanks.”
Jerry stopped abruptly, frowning. “That’s…maybe not a bad idea.”
Latoya was frowning too. “But can we all fit? There’s what? Fifteen of us, right?”
“Probably be more than that,” said her husband. “Assuming our son comes back with his girlfriend and her father. Which I figure he will if Ceyonne’s dad don’t decide to just shoot him instead.”
Andy chuckled. Ceyonne Bennett’s father Jerome was a cop for the city of East Chicago, and while he was generally an even-tempered man he had the same attitude on the subject of daughter’s boyfriend that most fathers of seventeen-year-old girls did.
Luis looked at Tom. “So what’s the answer? Can we all fit up there?”
“For Chrissake, there must be at least twenty tanks in that farm,” Tom said. “Even the smaller ones are eighty feet in diameter—and I think most of them are a hundred and ten feet across. Figure out the math.”
Freddy’s business as a mechanical and electrical contractor made him at ease with basic mathematics. It didn’t take him more than a few seconds to come up with the answer. “He’s right. Even an eighty foot diameter tank gives us about five thousand square feet on the roof.” He glanced around Andy and Tom’s house. “This is what? A third of that?”
“We got fourteen hundred square feet on the main floor and another thousand or so in the basement,” said Tom. He’d been a machinist most of his life and he was proficient with numbers himself. “So we’d have twice as much space even on one of the smaller tanks. If we pick one that’s a hundred and ten feet across, we’re looking at…” His eyes got a little unfocused.
Freddy came up with the answer before he did. “Damn near ten thousand square feet.”
Latoya was still frowning. “Yeah, fine—but there’s no roof.”
Tom shrugged. “We were planning to live in tents and those two big vinyl tool sheds, weren’t we? What’s the difference if they’re on top of a steel tank instead of dirt and pine needles in a forest?”
“Can’t drive tent stakes into steel,” Jerry pointed out.
“No, you can’t. But we’ve got lots of tape and every kind of glue you can think of.” Tom nodded toward Freddy. “Best thing, though, is just have Freddy weld the stake
s to the roof of the tanks.”
Luis Rodriguez looked alarmed. “You want to weld stuff to a giant tank full of gasoline?”
Freddy smiled. “Relax, Dad. I’ll be using oxy-acetylene, not arc welding. And all I gotta do is tack weld the stakes. We’ll get some strong winds up there in a storm but tornadoes hardly ever come this close to the lake.”
He pursed his lips. “Now that I think about it, though…Tom, what happens in a thunderstorm? Does lightning ever strike those storage tanks?”
“You better believe it does,” said Andy’s husband. “Refinery workers stay the hell off of ’em in a thunderstorm. The tanks do have lightning energy distribution systems—basically, pointed steel rods connected to copper alloy cables running down the sides of the tanks into the ground. To be on the safe side, though, I think we’ll want to also weld on some sort of lightning rod too—better attach it to the staircase—and figure out some sort of insulation to put all the tents on. Rubber matting, if we can scrounge some up—we’ve got some in the basement—and whatever else we can think of. And I’d strongly recommend that in a thunderstorm everybody crowds into the two vinyl sheds and stays out of the tents.”
Pedro made a face. “They’re not that big!” he protested. “Ten by eight feet, that’s all.” Being an electrician, he was just as handy with arithmetic as any of them. “That’s one hundred and sixty square feet—for fifteen or sixteen people.”
“Subtract me,” said Tom. “No way me and the wheelchair will fit. I’ll just have to take my chances in a tent.”
His expression was simultaneously lugubrious and self-satisfied. Imminent likely doom for the cripple, just as I foretold.
But Andy let it go, for the time being. At least Tom was now agreeing to come with them. Thunderstorms were a problem for another day.
“Still a tight fit,” said Pedro.
Jerry Haywood shrugged. His expression no longer seemed worried, just resigned to the inevitable. “Yeah, it’ll be tight—sitting room only, and some of us will probably have to stand. But thunderstorms don’t come around all that often and they don’t last long when they do. It’s better than being fried by a lightning bolt coming down a tent pole.”
There was a sudden commotion that drew everyone’s attention back to the TV screen. They’d been showing images of jammed-up highways from a helicopter, but now the scene was jumping around wildly.
“Get them off of me! Get ’em—aaaah!” The camera swung around and they got a glimpse of the pilot. He was writhing in his seat and was apparently trying to tear his clothes off. A hand appeared from the side, holding a pistol. There was a shot to the back of the pilot’s head that splattered blood and brains all over the cockpit window.
An amazingly calm voice now spoke—presumably belonging to whoever had fired the shot. “He turned. I hope one of you knows how to fly this thing.”
“You idiot!” shouted another voice. The image on the TV screen now flittered every which way, for a few seconds, before it went blank.
A moment later, the image of the two announcers returned. Both of them were still sitting behind their desk.
“Apparently we lost the chopper,” said Karen Wakefield, shakily.
Her partner Bob Lubrano rose abruptly from his chair. It turned out he was wearing blue jeans beneath the suit jacket. “To hell with this,” he said. “I’m out of here.”
A moment later he was gone. Wakefield stared after him for a short time and then brought her eyes back to the camera. “What about you, Ken?” she asked.
A voice came from somewhere—presumably belonging to whoever was operating the video equipment. “Where else is there to go? I figure we may as well keep working. But it’s your call, Karen. If you leave there’s no point in me staying.”
She took a deep breath and let it out. Then, nodded firmly.
“We’ll stay, then. The show must go on and all that.” She even managed to smile at the audience.
Andy picked up the remote and turned off the TV. “Let’s get moving, people. Tom, we got everything we need? The U-Haul’s already loaded and so’s Freddy’s truck. But we still got some room in the pickups and the van.”
Her husband tugged at his beard. “Well…we outfitted for camping, not perching on top of a storage tank. So…yeah, I can think of some things we could use.”
“Where are we going to get them?” asked Luis. “If it’s anything from Cabela’s or Home Depot or Lowe’s, forget it. Those places were already madhouses a week ago when we did our shopping. Today…”
Tom shook his head. He’d come to the same conclusion. “Yeah, I know. The Wal-Mart and all the supermarkets will be impossible too. What we need are places that nobody’ll be thinking to stock up from—or loot, by now, probably—so we can get in and out.”
“What about cops?” asked Latoya. “Seeing as how—don’t lie about it!—you’re talking about us looting too.”
Tom scowled at her. “Damn it, Latoya, I’d be happy to pay anyone who asks for money. But nobody’s going to be tending any stores today, you know it as well as I do. What choice do we have except to break in? Speaking of which—” He eyed Freddy.
“Typical white guy,” said Freddy, grinning. “Wants the Puerto Rican to do the breaking and entering.” He pointed a thumb at Jerry Haywood. “Why not get the Negro to do it?”
Haywood grinned too. “Me? I’ve never been arrested once in my life. My cousin James says I’m a discredit to the race. Well, would say, except he’s serving time himself. I’d feel sorry for him if he weren’t such an asshole, because good luck surviving a zombie apocalypse in Miami Correctional Facility.”
Latoya was scowling at all of them. She had a lighter complexion than her husband, but at the moment her expression made her seem very dark indeed. “My husband is not breaking into anyone else’s private property.”
Tom shrugged again. “He’s going to have to help break into something, Latoya. The tank farm will be chained and locked up too, y’know. So take your pick.”
Freddy stood up. “I got more room in my van that Jerry does in his SUV, so I’ll go on the shopping spree. Unless it’ll take a cutting torch to get into the tank farm?”
“It’ll just be a chain and padlock,” said Tom. “The bolt cutter should handle it fine. Who you going to take with you?”
“How much heavy lifting will be involved?”
Tom mused on the problem for a moment. “Might be…quite a bit, actually. You better take our grandson. And you’ll need someone as a lookout—and he better have a gun, too. Zombies are starting—”
He broke off, hearing the sound of a motorcycle coming down the street. “Is that Eddie?”
Pedro was already looking out the window. “Yeah, it’s Eddie—and Ceyonne’s riding behind him.”
Tom nodded. “Good. We can send both of them with Freddy.”
Latoya now focused her scowl on Kaminski. “Why you want to send my son out to break the law?” she demanded.
“I don’t want him so much as I do his girlfriend,” said Tom. “I’m willing to bet she’s carrying—and she knows how to use a gun. There are advantages to having a cop for a father even if”—he smiled up at her slyly—“it probably makes your little boy nervous now and then.”
Latoya started to say something but her husband put a hand on her shoulder. “Let it go, hon. He’s right and you know it. There won’t be any way to get anything legally today—and so what? Ceyonne’s dad is the only cop I know pig-headed enough to still be on duty. Which I’m willing to bet is why he sent her along with Eddie.”
His son confirmed that guess less than a minute later, when he came into the house.
“Yeah, that’s what happened. Ceyonne’s dad—”
“The stupid fuck!” his girlfriend snarled.
“—says he’s got to stay on the job. Now more than ever, he says.”
“The stupid fuck!” she repeated.
Eddie Haywood shrugged. “That’s what he’s like. Anyway, he told me to bring
Ceyonne over here. He figures she’ll be safer with us than anywhere else.”
“Stupid—stupid—stupid!”
Ceyonne Bennett was a big girl, five feet nine inches tall, with a rather heavy build. She was normally attractive, in a round cheery-faced sort of way, but right now she just looked furious.
“He’s the only cop in East Chicago still on the job!” she said, half-wailing. “What the hell good does he think he can do on his own?”
Andy was inclined to agree with her. But there was no point in pursuing the matter so she got right down to business.
“We need you and Eddie to help Freddy and Jack go—ah—shopping. You got a gun on you?”
Ceyonne sniffed. “You mean go break into someplace and steal stuff. Yeah, I got a gun. Two of them, actually.” She moved her jacket to the side showing a small pistol in a holster in her waistband. “This isn’t exactly legal, since I’m not old enough for a concealed carry license. But my dad’s not totally crazy about minding the law. He’s the one got me the holster as well as the gun.”
She jerked her head backward. “And I got my nine millimeter in the saddlebag on Eddie’s bike. That’s got seventeen rounds to go with the six”—she patted the gun at her waist—“in this little .380. Ought to be enough, no matter what we run into.”
Jack Kaminski grinned at her. Andy’s grandson liked Ceyonne a lot. Andy thought he probably had a crush on her, but given that Ceyonne already had a boyfriend and was a year and a half older than he was—a big deal for teenagers—he’d never acted on it.
“Zombie apocalypse, remember?” he said to her.
Ceyonne blew a raspberry at him. “Zombies, my ass. They ain’t dead yet, I’ll make ’em so. When are we leaving?”
“Right now,” said Freddy.
“Better take one of the walkie-talkies,” urged his father. “Cell phones are still working, but who knows how long that’ll last?”
Freddy nodded. “I got one in the van already. You figured out where we’re going yet, Tom?”