Job for me now was to stay out of their way. They had a fire to fight. If they needed more equipment, and police for traffic, they’d ask. I’d get it started their way.
“Command to dispatch?”
“Dispatch on, Command.”
“We’ve got heavy flames from the roof, A and B side. Give me a second alarm. Start police and two ALS ambulances. We believe we have three children inside.”
My stomach dropped. I balanced up the job as I spoke. “Command reporting heavy flames from the roof, A and B sides. Giving you a second alarm. Starting police and two ALS ambulances. Possibly three children inside,” I said.
“I have your ambulances started,” LaForce said.
“Second alarm assignment?” Milzy said. He wasn’t asking. He wanted to make sure I had it ready to go. I looked at the flow. Command needed another two engines and a truck. I rattled off whom I knew to be next in. Milzy nodded, “Send ‘em.”
I sent them.
“It’s a listed vacant,” DeJesus said. “Talked to RG&E. No gas or electricity running.”
“Someone had a candle lit,” I mumbled. Cold night like tonight? Probably several candles.
Radio squawked with life. It sounded like Darth Vader on the opposite end. It was the air tanks, the mask, their breaths, in and out. “Command, we’ve got two. Two. Bringing them out now. Both breathing. Repeat both breathing.”
“Command to Dispatch.”
“Command, go ahead,” I said.
“Engine Five is extracting two patients from the vacant. Start a third ambulance as a stand-by.”
“Engine Five is extracting two patients from the vacant. Third ambulance for a standby, being started, sir” I said.
All I kept thinking about was the initial report. It had been for three people inside the house. Three. Where was the third? Hiding under a bed? Inside a closet? Unconscious along a wall? In the bathroom?
“Truck Ten to dispatch. Truck Ten has a hole in the floor, second level -- just past the stairs. We are unable to get around it. We cannot complete a search.”
I hit an alert tone. “All city companies, Truck Ten reporting a hole in the floor on the second level. Unable to conduct a search. Command copy?”
“Command copies,” the deputy chief said. “Command to Truck Ten.”
“Truck Ten on for Command.”
“Truck Ten, patients are saying the third child was last seen in a crib in an upstairs bedroom to the left of the stairs.”
“Truck Ten copies. We’re attempting to make our way now to the bedroom.”
“Command copies. Command to Rescue?”
“Rescue on, go ahead Command.”
“Your location, sir?”
“First floor, inside the structure. We see the hole. It’s a big hole, Chief.”
“Command copies, Rescue.”
The poker game forgotten, Milzy worked on a portable dry erase board. It mapped out where all the engines and trucks were stationed in the city. Proactive. He knew that at any moment the phone would ring. The Deputy Chief would want to move companies around. Can’t leave parts of the city bare with so many pieces of equipment tied up on a house fire. He used a grease pencil to scratch off the units on scene and jot down on the right what equipment was left.
Police dispatchers got paid for what they did. They did it over and over every night, and the lot of them had to have carpal tunnel. Fire dispatchers were paid for what they know.
“Truck Ten to Command.”
“Command on, go ahead Truck Ten.”
There was a pause. We all waited. “Sir, we’ve got the third victim.”
There it was.
Victim.
Not patient.
I felt helpless. I knew the firemen did, too. At least they were there and active. I was sitting on the other side of the radio. My lip quivered some, so I pursed them tightly. I wasn’t going to get emotional. I managed to hold it in. There’d be time later, after my shift, on the drive home, but not now.
“You good, McKinney?” Milzy clapped a hand onto my back. He knew. We all knew. A baby had just died in a fire.
“Oh, yeah. All good,” I said.
He used his grease pencil on the board. Maybe he was keeping busy so he didn’t have to think about what just happened. I pulled up a map on one of the other terminals, plopped the address in and stared at the vacant house. It was daytime in Google. A street view. No fire trucks, no police cars, no ambulances, no fire, no dead baby.
# # #
“The gate.” It was Dave.
We were at the back of the last apartment. Dave was right. The gate was dead ahead. “Where are the rest of the zombies?”
“I didn’t keep count, but if there were seventy or so, we must have killed most of them, right?” Dave said.
I doubted it, but I said, “Yeah. We must have.”
Without ammo, the rifle was merely a bat. I held it in both hands. When I looked back, I saw that Palmeri was doing the same.
“Don’t forget your knife,” she said.
I looked to my hip. “Never. You ready? We’re not out of the woods yet.”
She didn’t smile. “I’m ready.”
# # #
Spade ran, bent forward, staying low. Dave, me and then Palmeri followed. We must have looked like giant ducks.
We reached the fence. I heard it, though.
The growing growl of a zombie moan. It came from behind us.
“Hurry,” Spade said.
He stood at the gate and waved us through. Only when I turned around did I see the fast zombies charging.
“Hurry, Palmeri,” I said. I don’t know if I shouted it. My head was off balance. I thought I might fall. Blood must have rushed to my head. Maybe from being bent over and running, or quite possibly just from being sick and tired of the constant fight during the last week or so.
She passed the gate, running hard, breathing heavily.
Spade rolled the gate closed. A zombie arm made it through. Spade did not hesitate. He slammed it between the fence poles, chopping off the protruding appendage just below the elbow. “Palmeri, hold the gate,” he said. “Hold the gate shut!”
She swapped spots with Spade. Did her best to keep the gate closed without having her fingers bitten. “Hurry,” she said.
Spade slipped off his belt, laced it through link on the gate, and then along the wall of the fence and buckled it. Tight.
“Unless they can unfasten that, it should hold them,” he said.
Don’t know why, but I smiled. It was as if we made progress by outsmarting them. Kinda felt like outsmarting a dog--throwing an imaginary ball and they take off after it. I wasn’t going to let that spoil the feeling. No. I wanted to relish the small victory. We deserved that much, that little. Showed that as long as the fuckers didn’t bite us, we could win. Survive… perhaps.
“Wipe that stupid smile off your face, McKinney. We’re not safe yet.” Spade spat a wad of shit out of his mouth, wiped his sleeve across his face and took off running along the side of the fence.
Just like that, my little victory was shat on.
The zombies had all made it to the gate. How fucking good for them. They stuck fingers through the links, and noses and tongues.
“Let’s go,” Palmeri said.
I pulled my knife from the sheath.
“Chase,” Dave said.
I jabbed the blade into an eye socket. Black goo oozed. Once I removed the knife, the thing fell to the ground. The others stepped on it. Two creatures looked up, as if they realized they’d just gotten a little closer to the top of the fence.
I killed another by stabbing a blade into its mouth, through the roof, and punching it up to the brain. Then, I used two hands to pull my knife free. This one dropped on top of the other zombie I’d just killed.
The zombies that had looked up before stepped onto this corpse as well. And again, looked up.
“Holy shit,” I said.
“Chase, we’ve got to go. I can�
�t even see Spade anymore.”
“Did you see that?” I said.
Palmeri had my arm. “Yeah. You’re a real fucking bad ass.”
She pulled me along, as we jogged to catch up with Spade.
I think my mouth hung open the whole time with my eyes wide.
There was something else about them, something I couldn’t quite remember. Something I should remember. Right now, I was just too mystified by what I’d seen. All I could think, all that just kept running through my mind was, What the fuck just happened?
Chapter Twenty-One
0628 hours
The sun wouldn’t be up for at least another hour. Maybe a little less. It was November, after all. The fire burned, but we were farther from it than before. As we ran along the side of fence perimeter, I saw flames. They didn’t rage and fight away the darkness anymore. In fact, they seemed to make everything around it that much blacker. It was as if the fire sucked out the light and left the area in shadows.
We came to the part of the fence where we needed to turn toward the river to go back to the boat. Part of me did not expect to make it back here and that had been a terrible realization I’d faced, buried and attempted to ignore the whole time we’d been at the compound. Felt as if I should drop to my knees and kiss the ground, thankful to be alive, safe and back.
Spade held a finger up to his lips, as if we didn’t know by now to keep quiet. He might be an excellent shot, something of a leader, but right now, I was really hating his guts. I did my best not to return an eye roll. I kept my rifle in both hands, my knife back in its home. Staying bent forward, we crossed open area; the worst sound was that of shoes pulling free of the thick mud as we slogged our way through.
Spade stopped and stood up straight, with his arms at his side.
My stomach dropped and the muscles tightened. Something was wrong. He wouldn’t be stopped like that. He just wouldn’t.
“Boat’s fucking gone.” He shook his head, raised his arms, and then punched them back down to his sides. “The boat is fucking gone. And so is Spencer. Where the fuck is Spencer.”
Spencer had one job, which was to shoot the Captain if he tried to leave with the boat.
I was already doubled over. Vomiting made sense. I held it down, spitting out a mouthful of bile. “Dave?”
Dave was standing by Spade now, looking back at me. “Yeah, it’s gone. Mess of bodies on the ground I think. Too dark. I can’t tell for sure.”
Bodies?
Palmeri and I made it to them and the four of us stood there. We could hear the river, catching glimpses of the current when moonlight hit it right. Dave was correct; the grass around the empty slip was littered with something. Only thing that made sense was bodies.
I started running, but Spade grabbed my arm.
I shrugged it off. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“We don’t know what’s over there,” he said. “Look, I know you’re upset. This is bad. Okay, bad. But we can’t stop being smart because of our emotions. We need to--”
Fuck him. I ran toward the slip.
First lump I encountered was a zombie, as well as the second. I looked back. Palmeri and Dave scoped out the area as well, kicking over dead things for better views.
The corpses stunk. Sifting through a garbage dump in mid-July might have smelled better. Each new one I came across, I stopped before looking at faces, because I didn’t want to find…
“Dad? Dad!”
It wasn’t a yell, but more of a loud whisper. It came from my left. “Charlene?”
Something ran at me from the darkness.
I knew it was my daughter. I knew it, but I still stood, rifle in hand, ready to swing.
“Daddy!” Charlene said, dropped to her knees.
I let go of the rifle and fell in front of her. She wrapped her arms around me, burying her face into my chest. “Honey, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“Cash,” she said. “Cash, Daddy.”
“Char, tell me what’s going on? What happened?” I pulled her head away from me. Dim moonlight allowed me enough glow to see her eyes that were red and puffy. She’d been crying since long before now.
“He’s been shot. He got shot. It’s my fault.”
Her fault?
“Where is he?” I said. “Where’s your brother?”
She pointed back the way she’d come. “Over there. Allison has him. She’s with him.”
It’s my fault, ran through my head. I wanted answers. There were too many questions. No time to ask anything. Charlene and I were up, and running. I heard the others behind us, our feet pounding cold, muddy earth.
“Over here,” Allison said.
We’d entered a small forest. Charlene led us through pines and leafless maples. To the west, a purple and orange hue spread like a wavy line on the river, across the horizon. Morning was upon us. A new day, and off to a bad fucking start.
I stopped short. Cash lay on the ground with his shirt torn open. Allison sat by his head. Erway kneeled beside him. She used a cloth to apply pressure to the wound. A bullet wound.
It’s my fault, Charlene had said. If she shot her brother, it wasn’t her fault. It was mine. I let her have a gun. Fourteen and I armed my baby with a gun.
“It’s okay.” Dave rested a hand on my back. “Don’t hold it back, man. Don’t hold it in.”
I didn’t realize I was crying. My knees gave out, but Dave caught me and lowered me to the ground. Cash looked more than vulnerable. He looked peaceful. His skin was wet with sweat, pale, and blue from the cold. “Allison,” I said.
“We need to get the bullet out. There’s not enough light to do it here,” Erway said. “I don’t have what we need. A more sterile place would be better.”
I didn’t even bother looking around. We were in the woods, at the foot of the mountains, surrounded by the river and a camp filled with walking dead zombies. Where the fuck were we going to go that was more sterile. “You can’t do it here?” I said.
“I can. Just wouldn’t be the best place. As it is, there’s going to be a good chance he’ll get an infection without antibiotics,” she said. I hated her matter-of-fact tone, but was just was telling it like it was and not holding back. I respected it, but just hated her tone.
“Daddy,” Charlene said. “We have to save him. It’s all my fault! Mine!”
“It’s not her fault,” Allison said.
“Where the fuck’s our boat?” Spade said.
“Not now,” Palmeri said.
“What do you mean, not now? We could help the kid on the boat,” he said. “Where’s our boat?”
“They’re gone. Most of them dead. They were going to leave without all of you,” Erway said. She looked at me. “Your daughter tried to stop them.”
It’s why she thought it was her fault. I could see it in Erway’s eyes.
“The crewmen managed to get the boat out of the slip, ans headed further up the St. Lawrence,” Sues said.
“Okay, okay,” I said. I had nothing else. Nothing.
“He been bitten, or is that a gunshot?”
We spun around. Spade was fast, Palmeri, too. They had guns aimed at two strangers, who in turn had rifles aimed at us.
The men wore long beards and flannel under Carhartt camouflage coats with matching pants. They were dressed for the elements as well as for hunting. I’d put money on it that these were locals.
“Shot,” I said. “He’s been shot. Not bitten.”
They eyed us for a long moment. “Lower your weapons.”
“You first,” Spade said.
The men didn’t move. “We don’t have to. We know your guns are all empty. All of you used every bit of ammo fighting them zombies inside the fenced area back there. Ain’t got a single bullet left between the lot of ya.”
Seemed no point to arguing. They’d been somewhere safe watching us. Had seen us up against the enemy. Why they hadn’t helped…would I have helped? I’d like to think I would have. Good chance
I wouldn’t have, though. Damned good chance.
“Put them down, guys,” I said.
“Not until they do,” Spade said.
I hated to do it, take sides. “Guy’s right. We don’t have ammunition. You’re in a standoff with an empty weapon. How do you plan to win that? Put the guns down.”
Palmeri did as I asked, first, but Spade held out a few seconds longer. “Spade,” I said. I wanted him to understand that I wasn’t fucking around. My son was bleeding out over here.
Spade finally lowered his rifle.
As one, the two men lowered theirs. “We’ve got a camp. Not exactly close, but it’s better than trying to dig out a bullet here. Let’s get him transported,” the one guy said.
“We don’t know who either of you are,” Spade said.
“That’s enough,” I said. I wasn’t going to yell. Last thing we needed was to get all loud and rowdy, and end up attracting more zombies. We’d be fucked if that happened.
“Not going to be easy to move him,” Erway said. “Bullet’s in his side. If there isn’t internal bleeding, moving him could cause it.”
“And doing surgery out here won’t make him any better. You’re his father, so it’s your kid. Your call,” the man said.
I looked at Erway. “He has a point.”
I nodded. “I’ll carry him.”
No one argued. I walked on my knees closer to my son. I scooped him up the way I had a million times when he was an infant. Dave helped me up onto my feet. “I’ve got it now, thanks.”
“My brother will lead. You guys follow him. I’ll take the rear,” the man said. “We’ve got to move fast. There are herds scattered all around. Lot of them fast-running kinds, too. You know the ones I mean?”
We all did. “Lead the way,” I said.
Cash’s head, arms and legs dangled limp; dead weight in my arms. I’d spent the better part of yesterday with him on my back, arms around my neck. At nine, he wasn’t that light but light enough, I guess, and I was thankful. Carrying him this way, though, tugged at my emotions. I bit my lip hard to keep it all in check. I needed strength and the only way I’d get it was by not paying attention to what I was actually doing.
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