The Romero Strain (Book 2): The Dead, The Damned & The Darkness

by Ts Alan

  As he stepped to the blocked entry, he kicked something. On the floor was a discarded MRE pack. The girl must have dropped it when she fled, but the displaced food seemed oddly out-of-place.

  If the girl had fled straight ahead to the Seventh Avenue/West 32nd Street exit, the lost MRE should have been more toward the middle of the hall. From his vantage point J.D. could not see if the gates had been closed and secured at the exit’s header, but he needed to confirm if she had escaped that way. As stepped from the barricade a noise from behind drew his attention. A lower panel that made up the wooden barrier had dislodged and fallen free. It was too much of a coincidence.

  He peered through the hole. The passageway was unobstructed. He knew someone had cleared it, for to the left, where the three banks of escalators were located, the wells were filled with porter carts. Then he heard a clatter deep within the darkness. The adrenal began to pump in him again as he made his way down the dark stairwell. He wasn’t chasing her so he could kill her; he was chasing her for the thrill of the hunt. The exhilaration of this pursuit was different from the hunter/prey searches he did for Stone’s men. This quest was for fun and curiosity’s sake. J.D. hadn’t felt such a rush since he was pursuing Barkley through the thickets at Norrie-Mills.

  At the bottom the exit had also been walled. However, it was loose. He didn’t have to push on the board too hard for it to come out of its recess, but it did not fall clear. It seemed like something on the other side was blocking it. The board was clearly free of its framing. If it wouldn’t fall forward, perhaps it could be pushed aside, J.D. hoped. He gripped the board’s edge and pushed it left. The board slid away, revealing a mound of porter carts haphazardly lumped atop one another. The girl must have hastily attempted to use them as a secondary deterrent and to keep the board propped in place.

  The carts had not been stacked high and could be easily be crawled over. However it would leave him momentarily vulnerable. He moved across them as covertly as he could. No attack came. J.D. had now entered the lowest concourse, which was the LIRR level of Penn Station.

  He activated two Cyalume ChemLight sticks and tossed them ahead of him into the wide corridor. He had no choice but to use them as an aid to give him the visual acuity needed to effortlessly navigate. He listened and looked. The scent of must and stale air stung his nostrils. It was dank and damp from lack of ventilation on this level, unlike the one above, and signs of structural deterioration from water seepage were clearly evident by the debris that had fallen from the ceiling and was now scattered upon the floor.

  There was no fetidness of decaying flesh. No signs the dead had overrun the lower level. There were no bodies, at all, like there had been on the upper level. Perhaps then, he thought, it was possible for someone to have taken refuge and survived the ravenous hordes of the living dead.

  He looked down the hallway toward the intersecting corridor. Silence and darkness, with the exception of a few vermin, was all there seemed to be, and eerily reminded him of some ancient and lost underground city he had seen in a documentary on the History Channel. He tossed out a few more ChemLight sticks. However, before he pushed on, he knew it prudent to call James and give him a situational report. J.D. told his lieutenant that he had found the girl’s path of escape and if he could not locate her within twenty minutes he would head back.

  J.D. cautiously made his way past the LIRR Waiting Room and the tracks it served to the intersecting corridor of the lower level concourse to where the LIRR ticket windows and food court were located, tossing out ChemLight sticks to mark his path, and using the halogen flashlight on his machine gun to lead the way. He had wished he had brought his M4. It had a Trijicon optical sight that was superb for dark conditions. His rail-mounted light gave away his position.

  Right. He felt the need to go right. The right was also the shortest part of the concourse corridor before him. To his immediate right was the long row of Long Island Rail Road ticketing windows, after which came Tracks Raw Bar & Grill. Bordering the restaurant—separated only by two archways to Track 17 and Track 19—was McDonalds, the last storefront on the southeast side, across from the entrance to the Broadway-7th Avenue subway line.

  He kept close to the wall of ticketing casements as he made his way east to the entrance of Tracks Bar. The grill-type roll-down security gate to the tavern had been retracted and secured, and the inner wooden doors were closed. He peered through the grillwork searching the black depths of the interior. As the halogen light pierced the establishment’s heart his instinct to go right paid off. In the far back past the long bar area, there were a large number of bar stools and other items stacked in the booths along the walls that formed a makeshift protective barrier. It appeared that someone had constructed this in an attempt to further obscure any interior view from the closed blinds of the south entrance windows and door. The rear doorway also had obstacles placed in front of it.

  J.D. would not be able to gain access to the pub by way of the main entry. He had not brought bolt cutters with him. If there were another corridor that led to the back entrance of the pub, it was not via the way he had traveled. The entryway next to the pub led down to the platform of LIRR Track 17. This appeared to be the only way that might lead to the back entrance. After tossing a light stick through the archway—it bouncing on the bottom steps and rolling onto the platform below—he immediately noticed a portable outdoor lantern resting on the bottom step. He scanned the stairway’s header with his flashlight. There, too, one step below him was another lantern.

  After traveling nearly a hundred feet along the darkened platform and ascending the opposite stairs, he emerged in an adjoining passage and to the establishment’s rear doorway. There was also a long pedestrian walkway that led away from where he emerged and ran in a westward direction. An inlaid decorative tile sign on the passageway wall read, ‘Hilton Passageway.’

  There was no reason not to breach the entry. He knew if he left it for another time there was the possibility that whoever had shot at him, would flee and seek safer shelter elsewhere. Besides he needed to know who this elusive person was. He just couldn’t let it go.

  He was about to strike the glass door near the lock mechanism with the stock of his machine gun to break the glass enough to reach in and unlock the door, but he stopped. If he did it would be loud and he would lose the element of surprise. He needed a rag or something to deaden the sound, but he had nothing. Then, on the off chance, he decided to see if the door was actually locked. It wasn’t. Then J.D. got a suspicious feeling that the door was purposely left unlocked for a sinister reason. He knew the girl was a survivor and a fighter, and highly doubted she would accidently forget to lock it. He also knew that the doorway he stood before was the most vulnerable point of entry from an occupant’s standpoint. It had to be a trap.

  J.D. pulled the door back ever so slightly, just enough to give a narrow gap between it and the doorframe. He scanned the opening. He had been correct. He found an attached thin wire. The door was booby-trapped.

  “Oh, you fool,” he whispered. “But I will not fall victim to one of the classic blunders—the most famous of which is never get involved in a battle of wits with the Man in Black, but only slightly less well-known is this: Never go in against a transhuman when death is on the line,” J.D. stated, bastardizing part of a well-known movie quote from the film Princess Bride. He fake laughed, “Ha, ha, ha,” as he snipped the wire with his multitool.

  Indeed, the elusive girl had been clever. The wired door had been jerry-rigged to a hidden M16 rifle. If he had fully opened the entry, J.D. would have been on the receiving end of a magazine full of 5.56mm caliber rounds.

  The makeshift table and barstool barricade had been easily pushed aside. Carefully and methodically he made his way through the dining area toward the bar clearing every possible hiding area, including the bathrooms that were in an alcove to his left. Moving ahead, several feet from the recess was a unisex/h
andicapped bathroom. This, too, proved to be empty, but upon the long countertop with its deep basin there had been signs that someone had been using it. A woman’s disposable razor, a can of shaving cream, and several bar towels sat to the left of the sink while two battery operated lanterns, one each on opposite sides of the countertop, sat under the large wall mirror.

  Another recess on the left, much larger than the first and opposite the shellfish prep counter, lay between the final booth and the bar. Entering, he discovered an office, a storage room, and a large kitchen that ran behind the bar wall. The office had been converted into a living area, camping gear adorning the space. It was unoccupied as was the storage room.

  He swept through the kitchen but found no one lurking under shelves or in any corner. There was only one other place within the immediate space where someone could hide, and that was the walk-in refrigerator unit. However, J.D. decided to leave it for last, opting to clear the rest of the establishment first.

  He made his way along the serving side of the long wooden bar. At the end of the bar, there was an area on the patron side that had been obscured to him from the outside front doors. Cautiously approaching with gun at the ready, he came to the boot of the long L-shaped bar. He quickly popped his head and weapon over the bar counter, but there was no one cowering or waiting to blast him on the other side.

  There was now only one place that the female in question could have taken refuge, and that was the cooler. He stood to its side near the handle side of the door. A slight smile suddenly came to his face. The last time he stood at a cooler he had discovered Army Master Sergeant Kermit Brown taking refuge inside, who would later become a team member and close friend.

  He knew that anyone who has been in isolation for long periods of time could suffer detrimental effects, both mental and physical, and could become agitated very easily and be extremely violent. Though he knew the girl had been pilfering MREs from the MTV, he had no idea if that was the extent of her trips to the outside world. J.D. had already been on the receiving end of her agitation twice before, so he knew his approach needed be gentle, until it was time not to be gentle.

  J.D. wrapped moderately on the door.

  “Hello. This is Colonel J.D. Nichols… I am in charge of the 69th Regiment Armory on Lexington Avenue. You may have seen our light shining in the night sky. We may not be Motel 6,” he jested, trying to lighten the situation by referencing a once well-known television commercial, “but we can offer you shelter, food, water, and a shower… However, since we’re a bit pressed, I’ll need an answer now, ‘yes’ or ‘no’.”

  There was no answer. The gentle approach had failed. He knew he needed to be more direct. “Let me make this clear. Vacate the cooler immediately,” J.D. said in a calm but assertive tone, “with your hands above your head where we can see them or we will make a forced entry.”

  He hoped the repeated use of “we” would encourage whoever that lay behind the steel barrier to rethink their position and surrender. He just hoped that whoever it was in the cooler didn’t have superior firepower.

  There was still no answer. It was possible that he had the wrong location, and this had been a futile attempt to get a corpse to surrender. Had someone made this makeshift bunker only to succumb to the plague or was the person behind the door still alive? “Nah,” he told himself. She was inside and it was apparent she would need to be forced out.

  J.D. looked at his watch. His twenty minutes were nearly up. It was time not to be gentle. He unhooked a M84 Stun Grenade from his vest and prepared to toss it into the cooler. This Noise and Flash Diversionary Device, as it was sometimes referred to, could produce a blinding flash of 6-8 million candelas and a deafening 180 decibels of sound pressure. A detonation of this device would incapacitate any potential threat inside for up to a minute.

  J.D. pulled back the handle on the refrigerator unit. The latch refused to free. Someone had jammed the interior release handle, preventing the door from opening. There was no way he was going to unleash his machine gun upon the door handle, not with the possibility of ricocheting bullets. It would have to be blasted open. He reattached the M84 to his vest and paused to think.

  He had no C4 explosive to render a small, directed charge, only a fragmentation grenade. A hand grenade was like using a sledgehammer to swat a fly, complete overkill. There would be collateral damage; the blast would be multi-directional. He had once called Corporal Drukker a nit in regard to foolishly wanting to use several hand grenades taped together to blow off the door of a heavily fortified U.S. Army command railroad car. Now he felt like the nit.

  He reached into his backpack and pulled out some Gorilla tape, and then taped a M67 above the door handle. So blind in his ambition to find out who was behind the door, he did not even give warning to the occupant of the pending explosion.

  J.D. squeezed the 14-ounce explosive device’s handle to release the safety pin pull ring, and then released his grip activating the time delay fuse. He quickly ducked around the cooler. He hoped he was protected enough not to be in the way of a high velocity fragmentation. He may have been hard to kill, but his mutations did not make him indestructible.

  The exploding grenade roared through the restaurant and its reverberating resonance carried throughout the underground hallways, and faintly rumbled to street level.

  ***

  James and John suddenly stopped work on the truck. The light rumble concerned them, and they were sure it was most likely connected to their colonel’s pursuit of the elusive girl.

  James immediately radioed his commander, but there was no reply.

  ***

  The door to the cooler was now ajar, but he was not about to fling the door open and go charging in, guns ablaze, like in some old John Wayne war film. He squatted next to the unit and cautiously pulled back on the exposed portion of the lip of the door, slowly opening it to try to peer inside without exposing himself. The noise of the mutilated metal door brought the answer he had been waiting for. A sudden eruption of gunfire pelted the inside of the thick door just above where the handle had been.

  “Well, that’s just rude and not very nice,” J.D. scolded the occupant with the attitude.

  A female voice immediately responded to J.D.’s condemnation. “I’m just givin’ it back, asshole!”

  He was surprised at the gunman’s sudden need for verbal exchange. He countered, “Well, who shot at whom first? It was you!”

  “I never shot at you. You’re stupid as well as an asshole!”

  “You have a filthy mouth! You should be ashamed.”

  J.D. always thought rude language from a woman was unbecoming and ignorant.

  “You shot at me last month,” he reminded her, hoping to reacquaint her with that lost memory, “by the overturned Humvee near the loading dock.”

  “That was you? Sorry I missed!” she yelled, and then rattled off another burst of gunfire.

  ***

  James and John had already entered the main hallway of the upper concourse when they heard the distinct sound of distant automatic weapons fire. The hallway toward the east was gloomy but not dark, for the eastern portion that lay before them cast light from the stairwell ahead. But the day grew short and the corridor would soon be black. Time was of the essence if they were to locate where the gunfire had originated.

  James once again radioed his commander. He awaited a response.

  ***

  J.D. had decided to sit, leaning his back up against the doorframe of the refrigeration unit, when he started his repartee with the girl who had taken up a defensive position inside.

  James’ voice came faintly over the radio. J.D. had forgotten he had put in earplugs just prior to releasing the grenade. He took them out.

  “Say again, Lieutenant.”

  “We heard explosions and gunfire,” came a concerned voice. “We’re on your Six. What’s your situation? Ov
er.”

  “Nothing to worry about, Lieutenant. I’m just negotiating. Think I’ll have a resolution momentarily. Hold your position. Over.”

  “Affirmative. We’ll hold. We’re at the top of an open stairwell leading to a lower level. Over.”

  “Out,” J.D. replied, and then turned his attention to the girl. “Okay. Last chance.”

  “What gives you the right?” she asked, and then squeezed off a few more rounds.

  “As you wish,” he told her, placing his earplugs back in.

  He unclipped the “bang-flash” that he had reattached to his vest, pulled the door open a few inches more and tossed the grenade in.

  Though the container muffled the sound of the explosion, it was loud even to his restricted hearing. He was sure that she, and anyone else that might be with her, was no longer a threat.

  He pulled opened the door. Plumes of smoke wafted out, and the strong scent of burnt explosive powder drifted to him and stung his nostrils. In the back slumped on the floor he could see the one who had been evading him. He cautiously approached; rifle aimed, and kicked the weapon clear of the apparently unconscious girl’s reach.

  Securing the girl’s hands and feet with plastic tie fasteners, he then picked her up and carried her from the restaurant over his shoulder. She was a survivor. She had faced the hordes of undead and lived. This was a girl who refused to give up her freedom and succumb to someone else’s will. He admired her audacity. She was a fighter, and J.D. knew with training she would probably make a great warrior.