by Betts, M. E.
She bid him good day and headed with Daphne back into the commons. They smelled the aroma of breakfast being prepared en masse--the rich, thick smell of ham and bacon frying, the warm, hearty fragrance of oatmeal and cinnamon. The tables were being populated, one by one, with early morning diners filling their bellies before going on to perform their daily functions.
The two sat down for a light breakfast of oatmeal and canned fruit before making their way to the eastern building. Upon entering the public area of the building, they saw that the mammoth exhibition hall was being used as an extremely large workshop. Dozens of workers paced the massive floor, where the items being tended to included moderately-sized yachts, wind turbines and generators. To Shari's right, a handful of workers were busy installing solar panels and a small wind turbine onto the roof of one of the yachts.
They walked down a cordoned off walkway running down the length of the workshop. The walkway eventually led to the lakeside exit and the path leading to the marina. Shari and Daphne stepped outside into the cool, bright early September morning. A cascade of water from a fountain trickled down a wall to their right. Seagulls swooped and arched in the sky, riding the brisk lake breeze. The waves crashed into the retention wall, echoing through the nearly dead city. The surface of the blue-green lake glittered brilliantly to the east, as far as the eye could see.
"Lake Michigan really can be beautiful," Shari remarked.
"Yeah, it can be," Daphne agreed, "but that lake effect can be a real bitch in the winter. It's one of the few things I remember about those first years here in Chicago."
"As long as they get enough of that alternative power that we saw up and running," Shari said, motioning back toward the vast workshop,"heating this place over the winter shouldn't be a problem, at least enough of it, if not the whole complex. It beats our original plan of looking for an abandoned cabin in the North Woods, living like hermits."
"Yeah," Daphne muttered, "for you, it does."
"Wisconsin was a long shot," Shari said.
"We made it this far, didn't we?" Daphne countered.
"I don't know," Shari said, shaking her head. "I don't think anything could make me regret coming here. This is the kind of place that I would have hoped existed, if hoping were something I still did."
"I know," Daphne said, "and believe it or not, there's a part of me that feels the same way. But for me, this arrangement is going to take a lot of getting used to."
"Understandable," Shari said, lighting up a smoke as she and Daphne strolled down the lakeside path. Three young men exited the building, settling onto the stone benches overlooking the fountain near the entrance. Shari felt their curious stares, but while she could hear their voices, she couldn't make out the conversation.
"Everyone wants to know about us new kids," she muttered with a faint smile, her gaze scanning the lakefront, the nearby museum campus, and Navy Pier in the distance. She and Daphne stood silently while she finished smoking. Shari looked around, noting that a solid lane of Lake Shore Drive had been cleared from the north wall of the convention center, where a makeshift wall blocked the highway as it ran between the north and south building, to the intersection at Roosevelt Road to the north, where the Field Museum sat between the highway and the lake. She couldn't help but to marvel as she thought, These people really got their shit together early on.
"Let's head back in," she said, snuffing her joint out on a rock. As they neared the stairs leading into the building, one of the young men spoke to them.
"Welcome to the neighborhood," said the tall, narrow twenty-something.
"Thanks," Shari said as she and Daphne passed them and opened the wide glass door leading into the workshop.
"Everyone's talking about you guys," the young man told them just before they entered the building.
"Not all bad, I hope," Shari said.
"Not all," he replied, "but it depends on who's doing the talking."
"We just got here," Shari said, concluding just before she slipped into the building, "so they might not want to jump to any conclusions about us."
They walked back through the workshop, noticing Hugo toward the far end, deep in conversation with one of the workers.
"This place is like a playground for him," Shari said. "Give that boy a year, tops, and he'll be running this workshop."
They crossed the skywalk over Lake Shore Drive, entering into the south building. They explored the interior of the building, most of which was the cavernous commons. There were, however, various meeting rooms and private areas. The center had apparently been hosting some sort of sci-fi convention as its last pre-zombie function. Throughout the parts of the exhibition hall not used for the commons, Shari was seeing posters, replicas, and cardboard cutouts of popular characters from futuristic folklore. Behind one panel that never was, apparently one that had been zombie-related, a quote was splashed across the wall in large red letters on a white background. It was a Philip K. Dick quote reading, The cries of the Dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.
"Terrible, indeed," Shari concurred, "though the cries are nothing compared to the bite."
They stopped to gaze through a large window on the third floor, where they could see Soldier Field and the Field Museum down Lake Shore Drive. Far off in the distance, in the direction of the Loop and its towering high-rises, gunshots could be heard, ringing out into the subdued city.
As they continued to look out the window, the sound got to be closer. After a moment, Shari saw a figure on a bicycle racing down Lake Shore Drive. As the operator of the bicycle passed the Field Museum, approaching Soldier Field, the low rumble of motorcycle engines could be heard. The sound ricocheted through the southern boundary of the Loop, and a moment later the pursuers exited the eastern border of lifeless steel and concrete giants. They raced onto Lake Shore Drive and past Grant Park in pursuit of the bicyclist, who was now close enough for Shari to identify as a male.
The unknown man's hunters began to close in on him as he reached the northern blockade that sealed off the highway between the northern and eastern buildings. Rather than be cornered, the man on the bike turned and headed north once again, this time taking an exit ramp leading from Lake Shore Drive to Museum Campus Road. He passed Soldier Field for a second time, pursuers on his tail and firing .44 rounds at him.
Upon reaching the Shedd Aquarium, he turned right, swerving sporadically as he traveled down a bridge toward Northerly Island, attemptingto avoid the gunfire directed at him by the 3 motorcyclists. He passed the marina and reached the island, making a right as he approached the parking area of the Adler Planterarium. At that point, he disappeared from Daphne and Shari's view, obscured by the northern end of the hulking lakeside building to their east. Shari lowered her binoculars, turning to regard Daphne.
She uttered the word, "Lakefront," and they both took off in the direction of the eastern building housing the workshop. As they ran through the Commons, they came across Neil.
"Do you know whether or not Maximus knows about the situation by the marina?" Shari asked him.
Neil shook his head. "I'm not rightly sure," he said. "Why? What situation?"
"Someone got chased over there by some sadists on motorcycles," Shari said. "Surely someone had to have heard all the noise?"
Neil spoke into his walkie-talkie. "Maximus," he said, "do you know of anything going on over by the marina?"
"Yeah," Maximus' voice crackled from the receiver, "I'm on my way."
Shari, Daphne and Neil headed toward the east building, gazing northward down Lake Shore Drive as they crossed the skywalk. The three sadists appeared to be retreating, taking a left at Grant Park to return to the Loop from whence they had come. The three continued on to the workshop, where the workers were apparently none the wiser to the situation. They reached the glass entrance, peering outside.
They saw a team of roughly a dozen security personnel surrounding the mystery bicyclist. He was dripping with lake water from his sh
ort swim across the width of the marina to the shore, with soaking wet, oily strands of hair partially obscuring his eyes. His arms were lifted, palms up, to show his cooperation. Still panting and short of breath, he smirked at the guards who surrounded him, an unhinged expression in his eyes. Maximus exited from an alternate door farther south, Dacee beside him.
"Who are you?" Maximus demanded.
The bicyclist laughed, a gently rippling, carefree titter. "Merlin," he said. "But what's in a name anymore, my friend? We can all rename ourselves now--I know Merlin could. What about you? What would you rename yourself?" He laughed again, his greasy, tangled dishwater blonde curls brushing the tops of his shoulders. His features were fixed in a perpetual smirk, with unfocused, blue eyes.
Maximus shook his head. "You know what? Fuck it. On second thought, I don't give a shit what your name is. What I'm interested in learning is what the hell you're doing here."
"Well, as you may have noticed," Merlin said, "I was being chased. Now, I may be lacking in some departments, but when it comes to survival, Merlin wants to be an alive Merlin. What fun would it be for Merlin if I were dead?"
Shari saw Maximus make a very slight movement backward, away from Merlin. "The fuck are you on, you freak?"
Merlin feigned indignance. "What makes you think I would do drugs?" He snorted, then threw his back, howling with laughter.
"What's in the duffelbag, Merlin?" Dacee asked.
Merlin stopped laughing, but still smirked as he pointed his finger at Dacee. "You'd like to know, wouldn't you?" he said. "But how about this--how about you don't worry about the bag? How 'bout I'll be on my way, now that those guys are gone, and you can forget that Merlin was ever here?"
Maximus shook his head. "Nope," he said, "too late for that." He motioned to the guards. "Take him inside," he said. "Lower entrance." One of the guards handcuffed Merlin while the others trained their assault rifles on him. They took him at gunpoint to the entrance Shari and the group had used upon their arrival, the one that circumvented the public areas of the building. Shari presumed that he would be taken to the roof, as she and her friends had been.
"Excellent," Neil said, rolling his eyes. "Good to know there's always a livewire to come along and casually fuck your shit up, no matter how much you have your shit together."
"Yeah," Shari said. "I think it's safe to say that duffelbag is full of what we think it's full of. And that means--"
Daphne finished the sentence for her. "It means a bunch of pissed-off sadists who are going to want their stuff back."
"Things are going to get real at some point," Shari said, "it's just a matter of when. I'll be in my room cleaning my leather, if anybody needs me."
It was close to dusk when Maximus found Shari on the roof, dressed in her kevlar and leather finery. After thoroughly cleaning and disinfecting her armor, she had spent the rest of the day soaking up the layout of the facility and its barricaded perimeter, or at least the parts of it which weren't off-limits.
"Getting a feel for the place yet?" Maximus asked her as the last of the sun's rays glittered through the mass of buildings to the west.
"Yeah," Shari said. "At least a general idea, sort of."
"So how was it you came to be aware of what was going on earlier?" Maximus asked her.
"Daphne and me were walking around," Shari said. "We happened to have a good view of the situation from the concourse. Do you mind if I ask what happened with that Merlin guy?"
"He dragged a shitstorm over here, that's what happened," Maximus muttered. "The duffelbag was filled to the gills with drugs. Cocaine, heroin, pills. He robbed those guys blind, and now we're screwed. Letting him go won't help us, since he'll most likely run as far away as he can with the drugs. Those three shitheads on the motorcycles saw him swim over here, and unless they find him somewhere else, they're unlikely to believe us that we just sent him packing. They'll be here to fuck out shit up, unless we deliver him to them."
"They'll fuck our shit up anyway," Shari said. "Just a matter of when. If they got as close as they did, then they'll be back one way or another. Only thing to do now is prepare for the confrontation."
"Yeah," Maximus said. "It's coming, sooner or later. Merlin also mentioned how there was a settlement at Navy Pier. Well, still is, technically, but they were overtaken by sadists. According to Merlin, we're next. That's why I came to see you. Neil tells me you're interested in working security, and I need all the help I can get."
"Security is what I would most prefer," Shari said. "I can't see where else I'd be of much use. I'll admit, I didn't know jack shit about guns or survival before Easter, but the crash course I've gotten since then seems to have done me pretty well. Daphne and me, we've been out there. We've seen people struggle to survive only to be kicked when they're down by other so-called human beings. I want to make those fuckers pay. It's the only thing I can think of to do with my life anymore."
"I hear you were a librarian before this," Maximus said. "How did you make the decision to go out into the world the way it is?"
"Survival of the species," Shari said. "I decided a long time ago that this wasn't going to all be for nothing. Something good has to come from it, but that won't happen without people like me enforcing it. There may be no real law anymore, but there's my assault rounds and the tip of Daphne's dagger. No one will be able to pick up the pieces if someone doesn't protect them long enough to do it."
Maximus snorted. "Lofty goals you have," he said. "Admirable, but lofty."
"Maybe I'll pull it off," Shari said, "and maybe I won't. But I'm compelled to do it, regardless. Working security here would be a good start."
Maximus nodded. "Alright," he said, "you made the team. Meet us at the lakefront in the morning, you and your friend Daphne. We meet up every day at seven, and that'll give you a chance to meet the rest of security. 'Til then, keep doing what you're doing. Get comfortable with the place, get to know your way around. Most of all, get ready, because there's a shitstorm brewing."
Shari squeezed her left eye closed, looking with the open one through the scope of her assault rifle. It was almost two weeks since she and her friends had arrived in Chicago, and the early autumn air was unseasonably warm. A light breeze rustled through the empty city, stirring the debris and fallen leaves. Shari had gotten to know the complex intimately, and she had learned to do it while wearing the heavy riot gear and shield issued to her by Maximus. After becoming familiar with the public areas, she had moved on to those marked as restricted. As she explored these forbidden parts of the convention center, she realized that they comprised the majority of the complex. She marveled at the massive sprawl of exhibition halls, meeting rooms, office space and foodservice establishments.
As she and Daphne worked to gain a working knowledge of the buildings, their former traveling companions worked at their own trades. Hugo quickly absorbed the knowledge and skills of those around him in the workshop. As a result, he was soon repairing, installing and building alongside his co-workers. Phoebe and the Professor were both tasked with helping in the effort to establish links with existing satellites, with their goal being to re-boot some form of telecommunications. As for Finn, he quickly bonded with the other orphans and nannies on the seventh floor, and had been living there full-time since the first week after arriving in Chicago. He still requested to see Daphne every few days, her child-like charm having struck a chord with the boy. She had been taking half an hour here and there when she had time to read to the boy from a military survival manual she carried with her.
Since the group had arrived at McCormick Place, its inhabitants had warmed up slightly to them, their fear and suspicion abating as they ceased to be strangers, and Shari and the others began to quickly merge into the community, not just through their work, but through progressively more social interactions with the other residents.
Shari was alone on the roof of the west building, contemplating how the structure could be reinforced, when she heard the unmistakable r
umble of motorcycle engines in the distance. She pointed her scope northward, in the direction of the sound. She couldn't see them, but from the sounds bouncing between the towering skyscrapers of the Loop, there seemed to be a lot of them approaching, perhaps dozens.
She took her walkie-talkie from her pocket. "Maximus," she said into the mouthpiece, "this is Shari. Do you read me? It's important."
After a moment, she heard his voice on the other end of the receiver. "What is it?"
"Civilians should get somewhere safe," she said. "Trouble's coming."
"How far?" Maximus asked.
"Minutes," Shari said, "but not many."
"Keep me updated," Maximus muttered.
She placed the walkie-talkie back into her pocket, raising the barrel of her AK to resume her observation of the situation through her scope. As the sound of the sadists' engines approached Grant Park down the highway, Shari heard her walkie-talkie crackling, taking it again from her pocket.
"Get down to street level on the corner of Indiana and Cermak," Maximus told her. "Hurry."
She took the stairs back into the building, then exited a heavy security door near the skywalk, entering the unprotected of the building. Since all of the stairwells were temporarily barricaded between the first and second floors, she had to drop a rope over a second-story railing, then shimmy down to the first floor. She threw the end of the knotted rope ladder back upstairs and headed toward the glass facade of the building, ignoring the few well-weathered, enfeebled undead roaming the lobby.
She pulled open a glass door, stepping out into the sun-drenched street and noting that two other security guards had also exited the west building and were making their way north down the street. She hurried to catch up to them, identifying one of them as Renee, the pale-skinned blonde she had met when the group had entered the convention center for the first time. The other was Lemar, who had worked security in the building since the 1970s.
"What's going on?" Renee asked as Shari approached.