by Ts Alan
James and John were surprised at the bundle he carried over his shoulder as he emerged from the escalator onto the main concourse. With all the “negotiating” they heard they thought his adversary had been eliminated. The three of them made a cautionary exit, well aware that the explosions may have drawn more half-mutes, but day had become night and half-mutes did not roam the darkness.
After giving her a cursory exam—she appeared in good health, though a bit undernourished—J.D. laid her across the rear passenger seat, and then closed the door. He signaled to John they were departing. John revved the big diesel engine of the MTV truck in response. He had repaired it. The truck had only needed a battery jump from the Humvee. Today had been a good day. There was ham dinner for Christmas, resolution to the mysterious girl, and a truck full of MREs. There really is a Santa after all, he thought, until Krampus in the back seat awoke. No bad deed goes unrewarded!
***
The ride back to the armory would not take very long and upon arrival J.D. would place her in the capable hands of Doctor Richard France, former government virologist and molecular biologist, and designer of the Trixoxen virus, who post apocalypse had become the armory’s medical physician, and remained throughout a pompous ass.
J.D. had hoped to arrive home without any incident, but before he and James had completed half their trip, their prisoner awoke, whereupon she began kicking J.D.’s seat back, screaming expletives and demands of immediate release with noncompliance resulting in bodily harm to the reproductive organs.
He turned to her, pulled off his sunglasses to reveal his mutated eyes, and told her to shut up or he’d gag her.
A resounding, “Fuck you!” was given as a response, with no apparent fear or revulsion at the sight of her captor’s black eyes.
J.D. was not going to get into a juvenile argument or exchanging expletives. He had given her an option, and she had refused it.
“Lieutenant, would you please pull over,” he requested of James.
J.D. pulled out a roll of camouflage cohesive wrap from his medic’s bag. The Humvee came to a stop. The truck that John drove pulled up behind them.
J.D. opened the rear vehicle door. He grabbed the girl’s secured feet and abrasively pulled her out the door.
She resisted him and his efforts to wrap her mouth by trying to bite him, but they were futile and short lived. Having secured her mouth, he picked her up, swung her over his shoulder like a sack of Ready Mix, and went to the back of the truck. Opening the rear hatch he secured her in the cargo bay behind the rear seat.
The rest of the trip back to the armory was much more pleasant.
***
J.D. was not kind when he dragged her from the back of the truck and carried her over his shoulder through the armory for all to see. She feared for her life and had been afraid that her capture was purely for his sexual gratification and amusement.
He had taken her alone to a large room and then roughly put her face up on an examination table.
With knife drawn he warned her plainly, “Do this my way and save yourself a lot of discomfort. Do it your way and I guarantee you will bring a world of hurt upon yourself. Understand?”
With anger in her eyes she venomously cursed him from under her gag, and then tried to kick him in the groin. J.D. knew why she was being belligerent and defensive. However, he was not that kind of man to do what she thought he was going to do to her.
J.D. put a firm, pinning hand to her chest, stuck the knifepoint under her chin, and asked, “Now do you understand?”
She had no choice but to capitulate. The freak with the weird irises was bigger and stronger than she, and he had already proven he would go to extremes to take what he wanted. She nodded she did, but promised herself she was going to shove that knife of his into his guts—with a twist!
J.D. rolled her to her side and cut the plastic tie from around her hands, which had been secured behind her back. He then sat her up and told her to raise her feet, and then cut them free.
“Where the hell is France?” he asked himself, as he looked around. He yelled out, “France…! France!” He turned his attentions back to the girl. “You can take the gag off. But no screaming and no trying to escape. Just sit there.”
Again, he yelled out for Doctor France, but received no response.
“Now,” he addressed her, and then was suddenly interrupted by his daughter running toward him from the opposite end of the large room.
She came to him and grabbed onto his legs. “Dawd. Dawd, Dawd… Dawd!”
“Cat,” he responded firmly. “You know you’re not supposed to be up here. This place is for sick people. Why aren’t you with mom?”
“I am.”
“I’m sorry, Cat. I don’t see mom.”
“Mawm get exam. She with Elty Ryan and Dokee Frans.”
He knelt down to his daughter. “With Doctor France?” he asked with disbelief. “But mom doesn’t like Dick. She wouldn’t go see him. You must be mistaken?”
“Dawd,” she cried, disappointment in her tone. “Caitlin no lie. I good cat.”
“Of course, you are, Cat. But—”
Caitlin pointed at the girl. “Is she sick, Dawd?” she asked, interrupting her father’s sentence.
“I don’t know, Cat. Maybe. That’s why we’re here.”
Caitlin tugged on her father’s shirt and whispered in her ear.
“I don’t know her name,” he responded. “I don’t know if she’s a good cat or a bad cat.”
Caitlin turned her attentions to the dirty-faced girl sitting on the examination table. She smiled at her and then curtsied.
“My name is Caitlin. My dawd call me Cat. What your name, pease?”
“Katherine,” she told the curious child, returning the smile. “My dawd calls me Katie,” she told the child, but not mockingly.
“Would you like be my friend?” Caitlin asked.
Before Katie could answer, J.D. spoke, “I don’t think so, Cat. Katherine is only visiting.”
“But dawd. You make her stay. She no go. Pease, dawd. Pease!”
“Why is it so important that she stays?”
“Cause. She no afraid. She no afraid of Caitlin. She smile at me… Beside. Tomorrow Chrismiss. Pease, dawd. Make her stay.”
“Caitlin. Time for you to go get Doctor France for me. I’ll talk to Katherine. Maybe she will stay.”
She whispered in her father’s ear for a moment than hugged him and ran back the way she had come.
“Cute kid. Don’t see any resemblance though.”
J.D. got up in front of her face. “Is that supposed to be humor?”
“That’s not humor, that’s observation. Your daughter is kind and gentle; you’re just an asshole!”
“You brought it upon yourself. If you weren’t such an obstinate, petulant child you wouldn’t have found yourself gagged and tossed in the cargo hold.”
She slapped him in his face. He raised his hand in response and she cowered.
“Consider that a warning,” he sternly informed, as he lowered his arm and pointed his index finger at her. “Next time my hand will fly.”
“Why did you bring me here? What is it you want from me?!”
“Nothing,” a voice came from across the room. It was Doctor France. “Do not let the colonel bully you, miss,” he told her as he approached. “The colonel may appear to be brutish, but do not let his rough exterior and lack of charm frighten you. He is too much the gentleman to strike a woman, even one that strikes him first. Is that not correct, Mister Nichols?”
J.D. did not respond to the character assessment, but instead said, “And where the hell have you been? Didn’t you get the message I had a patient coming in?”
“Of course, I did. However, I was otherwise engaged with your wife, excuse me… mate. Besides since I was not notified tha
t it was an emergency, I thought it best that Mister Duncan and I finish my examination of Luci first.”
“Has something happened?”
“Need I remind you that because of your gene therapy meddling, Luci needs a weekly checkup and blood test due to her condition? Just routine. Everything is fine… Now, do you not have to be somewhere? Polishing your swords, browbeating your subordinates or searching for the children? I am fully capable of examining this patient without your supervision.”
“Polishing my swords. You’re real funny, Dick. I get the picture. Just watch this one, doc. She’s a firecracker. If you have any problems, I’ll be right outside the door.”
J.D. began to walk toward the door, when Katherine called out to him.
“Hey, asshole, what did your daughter whisper to you before she left?”
J.D. turned around and gave her a big smile.
“Poo. You smell like poo.”
Katherine smelled herself. The asshole had been right. She did smell, but not like poo.
25
The Girl in the Shadows
Katherine O’Hanlon, was a ballet dancer and was 24 years of age. J.D. took an immediate liking to her, though their first few interactions had been extremely adversarial. Besides the fact that she was thin, tall and beautiful, with long silken auburn hair, she had become an apt pupil. This was what J.D. liked most about her, her ability to quickly comprehend and learn every martial arts technique he imparted to her.
Katie had come to New York City from Milwaukee, Wisconsin after graduating high school to continue her ballet studies at The School of American Ballet at Lincoln Center. The fluidity of the movement, the freedom of expression, the technique, variations, pointe, adagio, these were all things that were second nature to her and helped her to quickly learn Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do techniques.
Her ability and stamina amazed J.D. In those aspects she reminded him of Bonita, a girl he once fell in love with in the Philippines when he was a teenager. Bonita had been a champion stick fighter and one that had not only bested him but also brought him into manhood. Katie’s feistiness and stubbornness, though, reminded him of Marisol, and this is why he was not attracted to her. However, there was nothing romantic in their relationship. This was a bond between student and teacher and a relationship of commander and subordinate.
Though her parents helped to support her, she still needed a job. She chose an occupation she was familiar with, waitressing. It was a job she had done during the summers when she was attending high school. She was at Tracks Raw Bar & Grill when the plague broke out. She had graduated by then from waitress to bartender. Being her first bartending job, she was given the morning/afternoon shift.
By 2:00 p.m. the day of the viral outbreak Katie and her fellow employees had been evacuated, taken into Madison Square Garden for safety and to be monitored. The underground of Penn Station and the surrounding blocks were sealed, preventing intrusion into the safe zone. But hopes of survival quickly vanished. The city’s power had failed; mass panic gripped the city while more and more people were becoming the living dead. Inside MSG, where the DoD had set up their headquarters, the situation had gone from under control to a Charlie Foxtrot by early evening, an Army acronym for cluster fuck. From the outside the undead had gathered by the thousands, only being held at bay by the resolute, valiant ranks of the 3-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team. On the inside civilians and soldiers alike were succumbing to the virus. By 10:00 p.m. that evening the military knew that the city was lost and an evacuation of military personnel and the uninfected civilian refugees was needed. As a final solution, to ensure the disease would not spread, all troops and civilians that showed any sign of infection were to be immediately terminated. However, as the order of eradication commenced, chaos turned to mass panic. Both infected and non-infected ran to escape their execution. Then, abruptly, the guns of the ICVs fell silent, allowing the undead to breach the inner security fencing. FOB MEDCOM was now being overrun from inside and out. In the pandemonium and confusion Katie escaped, fleeing to the only safe place she knew, back to Tracks.
There were two entrances to Tracks Raw Bar & Grill. The main entrance was located on the LIRR level of Penn Station adjacent to the LIRR ticket windows. The other was on the same level but was adjacent to a less trafficked exit of the NYC Transit Broadway/7th Avenue Line. She knew both entrances well, but thought if she could get to the back entrance she could lose anyone that may follow her in the maze of passages.
Katie heard the rapid patterns of machine gun fire all around. Bullets spattered into a column next to her, shattering the tiling, fragments exploding into the air. A piece, catching her in the cheek as she ran past, initiated a small trickle of blood. She did not pause; she knew her life could end if she did. She ran east toward the 7th Avenue/West 32nd Street exit. She had intended to make her escape using the underground passages that would lead her to a set of stairs into the Hilton Passageway and to the rear entrance of the restaurant. But as she approached it was blocked with a wooden barricade. She barely paused as she searched the structure looking for any weakness, but there was none. She turned to another entrance that was across the hall and directly behind her, but it too was blocked. She quickly scanned the large entranceway. There was a board that appeared to be partially loosened at the bottom right corner of where the stairway had been located. This was the entrance to the lower level that brought you to the intersecting corridor of the lower main concourse, the one that held the LIRR Waiting Room for Tracks 13–21. She pulled the wood away easily from its frame and the concrete wall it had been nailed to. There wasn’t much room, but she squeezed herself into the opening. The stairway had been filled with porter’s carts. They had been haphazardly tossed down the stairs to fill the well. She struggled to pull herself in, and was almost clear when someone or something grabbed onto her foot. Its grip was tight and it began to pull her backward. She struggled to hold onto a cart, pulling herself forward. She wriggled her foot, trying to maneuver it so that whoever was pulling would pull the shoe free. Suddenly she felt her body lunge slightly forward. It worked. She quickly pulled her leg in. It was barely enough. She felt frantic hands grasping at her, lightly touching her foot. She wormed headfirst down the stairs between the carts beyond the reach of those who had tried to pull her out. She hadn’t gone far when she realized that if she reached the bottom headfirst she might not be able to free the boards that surely blocked her exit. But it was too late; she couldn’t go back. There was only forward.
The well was dark and difficult to navigate. Though it had been only minutes it had felt longer as she weaved her way up, over, down, and around the obstacles before her. She no longer heard machine gun fire or the screams of the dying. She heard only an occasional noise at the top of the stairs, but nothing tried to come for her. It took her an hour of contortion-like manipulation to reach the bottom of the stairs. As she slipped through the last cart she slid into a hollow space. When the military had thrown the carts down the stairs they had not aligned properly to completely fill in the bottom. Though the space was tiny Katie had enough room to turn herself around. She was happy that she had chosen dancing as a profession. Her tall muscular build with her thin stature and agile flexibility had saved her life.
The boards had kicked away easier than she had anticipated. However, the prospect of crawling along the floor in the dark to her place of sanctuary frightened her. As the wood panel fell away a low luminescence lit the darkness. She crawled from the hole to find that the emergency lighting of the LIRR concourse was still operating.
She had not been able to roll down the security gate when the Army had escorted her and Theresa away. Theresa! In all the confusion and her flight for survival she had nearly forgotten about Theresa. She and her co-worker had been taken together into The Garden, but Theresa had become sick and the soldiers took her, even after pleading with the men to let them stay together. She knew her colleague was dead no
w. Only she was left, and she was determined to live.
The front doors were locked; she had been able to deadbolt them before she and Theresa had been hurried along, and she had taken the keys with her. She opened the wooden doors. Her familiar place was dark but comforting. She unlocked the large silver locks that hung on the side tracking and removed them. She rolled down the gate and locked herself inside.
The eerie light from the corridor filtered through the slats of the gating, casting a checkered pattern on the floor, lighting the entry way in a pale glow. She did not feel truly safe. There were things that needed to be done to help secure her immediate future. She headed toward the back of the restaurant.
When the news had broken about the pandemic that was sweeping across the city most of the employees fled for home, disregarding news reports that warned to stay indoors. Katie and Theresa remained, ignoring the co-owner’s insistence to leave. As Patrick departed, concerned over his family, he had given Katie the keys. The two girls had secured the rear entrance by locking the fully tempered heavy glass door and stacking bar stools and a stainless steel table in front of it. They had also closed the blinds to the windows that allowed a view to the Hilton Passageway. Though they had rolled down the main entrance gate and locked it, they had not closed the inner doors. If rescue were to come they knew they needed to be visible; if they closed the doors there were only a few panes of glass to allow someone from the outside to look in. They had waited several hours before the Army came and took all the people who remained in the lower levels of Penn Station to safety.
Katie had no idea how long she would have to stay underground and hidden away. Do the living dead die? They did if they were the type of zombies that were from the film 28 Weeks Later. But what if they weren’t those kind of zombies? What if they were the other kind that would only die if you shot them in the head?