by Betts, M. E.
"What is it?" Shari asked as Hugo sat beside her, and the Professor to his other side.
"We've been trying to bounce a walkie-talkie signal off the moon for awhile," Hugo said. "That way, you can reach parts of the globe that would normally be way out of range."
"Yeah," Shari said. "I've heard that can be done. That, or you can bounce it off the ionosphere at night."
"We haven't tried that one yet," the Professor said. "It worked with the moon earlier, though. We talked to someone in Japan."
Those around them stopped talking, turning their full attention to Hugo's story.
"Cut the music!" Shari heard a voice hiss, while a small crowd gathered around.
"Holy shit," Shari said. "What did they say?"
The Professor shrugged. "His english was a little broken, but it basically sounded like there's nothing left there. I mean, no big groups of people. He said he hasn't seen anyone alive since summer, and he hasn't heard from anyone on the radio who's remotely close to him."
"How awful," breathed Brenda, a middle-aged former housewife from Texas who now served on McCormick security, her eyes glistening with tears. "To be all alone in this."
"It really makes me appreciate all you douchebags!" slurred a particularly inebriated woman in her early twenties near the back of the small crowd. She gathered the two males nearest her in a drunken hug.
The Texan smiled, rolling her teary eyes at the younger woman and the two young men beside her, who weren't far behind in their level of impairment.
"The more things change," the Texan whispered to the person next to her, "the more they stay the same."
Most of those gathered resumed their mingling, filling the lounge with light chatter.
"Keep doing that," Shari told the Professor and Hugo. "If we can contact enough people, maybe we'll be able to get some networking going one of these days."
Hugo nodded, sipping a soda. "Hopefully next time, we'll have better news."
Shari was on the west side of the complex a few days before Christmas, helping to install a wall of concrete blocks just inside the mostly glass facade facing Indiana Avenue. As they finished the eighth layer, she heard the crackling of her walkie-talkie, carrying Lemar's voice over the airwaves.
"Me and the rest of the scavenging team are stuck underground near Webster Park," he said. "We were headed back from the Loop when we heard what sounded like a shit ton of sadists headed our way."
"McCormick security, I need you all to take your positions," Shari said. "I repeat, McCormick security, take your positions. And I need all the civilians evacuated to the south building." She addressed Lemar again as she headed out the western-facing entry area and started northward, up Indiana Avenue. A light snow had begun to fall. "Did they see you guys?" she asked Lemar.
"I don't think so," he replied. "They started passing overhead a minute ago, and it doesn't sound like any of them are stopping."
"Headed this way, I presume?" Shari said.
"Yep," Lemar said. "I'm guessing at least in the dozens, but maybe a hundred or more. And there's something else."
As Shari reached the northern boundary of the west building, where Cermak Road ran east to west, she could see small crowds of undead already beginning to make their way southward toward the complex. Most of them weren't moving very quickly in the freezing weather, although a few seemed fairly fresh, able to move at a light, jogging pace. Shari wondered where they had come from, supposing that there must be far more survivors left in the city than were generally observable. How many are there alive out there? she wondered in a distant part of her mind.
"Something else," Shari repeated. Her ears began to pick up the sound of the motors approaching from the north. "What is it?"
"There was something we heard above ground, just before I radioed you. And I don't mean a motorcycle."
"Like what?" Shari asked.
"Something unusually big," Lemar said. "We didn't see it, but I'm guessing from the sound that it was some sort of truck. I wish I could tell you more. It should be in your snipers' line of sight any second now."
"Alright," Shari said into her walkie-talkie. "Radio back if there are any developments."
"Will do," Lemar responded.
Shari paused, remembering the incendiary rounds Anthony had given to Hugo. She raised her walkie-talkie again. "Hugo," she said, "do you still have those dragon's breath rounds?"
"I have them stashed with the shotgun," Hugo said. "You want me to go get them? It should only take me a few minutes to get to the Lakeshore Drive entrance."
"Yeah," Shari said. "If we can manage to stop this truck headed our way, we can probably roast the fuckers inside. But when you get there, radio security so they can meet you at the entrance. I don't need you trying to come out here in your civilian gear."
"On my way," Hugo's voice crackled from the speaker.
Shari placed the radio in her pocket, hurrying across a narrow throughway that led to the north building. She grasped the keyring attached to one of her belt loops, unlocking a steel security door and taking the inner staircase to the roof. As she stepped outside, she noticed that the wind had died down almost entirely, and the light snow had intensified. The city was quiet and still, insulated by the quiet, heavy snowfall.
She made her way to the northern edge of the roof, grabbing her sniper-modified AK. She gazed through the scope, looking down Lake Shore Drive. Near Grant Park, roughly a mile and a half to the north, she could see the lines of motorcycles and ATVs preceding an orange snow truck. Sections of heavy-gauge metal had been applied to the truck, covering the side windows and most of the windshield. The wheel wells were well protected with metal plating as well, with additional strips stretching from one wheel to the next, thereby protecting most of the undercarriage from the sides. A large V-plow was attached to the front, preventing the snipers from shooting the under side of the car from the front. The motorcycles began to part to either side of the street, an unzipping effect, and each one sat idling as the armored snowplow passed and continued on to McCormick Place. Shari raised her walkie-talkie.
"How's that evacuation coming?" Shari asked.
"I have all the children here already," Dr. Liu's voice said from the speaker, "as well as most of the other vulnerable ones. Most of the able-bodied grown-ups have made it here, and the last few will be arriving within the next couple minutes. I sent a few people out to comb the north and east buildings, check for stragglers."
"I have Maximus with me," Dacee's voice said from the radio. "I'll keep an eye on him, but I thought we would use all the fire power we can get."
Shari paused, ambivalent about the prospect of Maximus roaming free. She knew, however, that Dacee was right. They could use all the help they could get, especially when it came to skilled shooters.
"Okee-dokee," she said, eying the approaching truck. "Daphne, what's your location?"
"On my way to Lake Shore Drive now," Daphne replied. "Just got my riot suit on."
"Do what you can for now to keep order in there," Shari said. "Wait there 'til you hear word from me, because we'll need you out here at some point."
"You're the boss," Daphne muttered into her radio.
"Hugo, I need you to hurry with those rounds," Shari said. "Are all my explosives people in place?" She heard a round of affirmative respondes from her radio. "Alright," she said, "wait for word from me. It won't be long."
In the south building, Dr. Liu paced a long, relatively narrow common area, attempting to calm the residents. He had particular concern for those he knew to suffer from high blood pressure or heart issues.
"Are you feeling okay, Mrs. Taylor?" he asked a 91-year-old woman seated on a bench, the convention center's oldest resident.
"Yes, dear," the withered, white-haired woman replied, her vibrant, green eyes locking his gaze. "This old gal survived the horrors of World War II London. I'm faring better than some." She nodded down the way, where a young woman sobbed quietly, sitting on the floor wit
h her knees drawn up to her chest as she leaned against a wide, concrete support pillar. Even from the distance, about 30 feet away, the doctor could make out the visible signs of heroin withdrawal. He started toward her, instinctually thinking to help, when a chain of thoughts occurred to him. Heroin...drugs...Merlin! He raised his walkie-talkie.
"Shari, does anyone know if Merlin is accounted for?"
"I don't know," Shari said. "I assumed whoever was working security had him evacuated with the rest of the north building."
"Oh, fuck," crackled a third voice over the speaker. Shari recognized the voice as that of Paul, a forty-ish male member of the security team. "I forgot. I swear, I was going to come back for him--it was just me, and I already had Maximus to evacuate from the holding area. Well, obviously I never made it back."
"Someone go get him!" Shari hissed into the mouthpiece of her walkie-talkie. She glanced nervously at the snow plow, which was perhaps a minute to a minute and a half away from the convention center. She glanced behind her, where the holding cell lay on the northern wall of the north building, just off of Lake Shore Drive.
"I was already on my way when I heard, 'Oh, fuck,'" Dr. Liu replied, breathing heavily as he ran through the south building toward the concourse. From there, he entered the north building, making haste for its far side. As he neared the holding area, he began to hear gunfire being issued from the roofs outside. He reached the cell, where Merlin sat cross-legged on the floor of the cell. He flinched as the sounds of gunfire from outside echoed through the room, shaking his head as the doctor approached.
"I knew Paul wasn't coming back for me," he said. "That straight-edge, glorified mall cop would just as soon leave me as zombie or sadist bait."
"You can tell him all about himself when we get to the south building," Dr. Liu said. "Now is there an external release for the cell door?"
"Behind the desk," Merlin instructed.
From his walkie-talkie, Dr. Liu heard Shari raise her voice to a decibel far exceeding the incessant chirps and hisses issued since the situation had first arisen.
"Stop!" Shari's voice hissed, so distorted from its loudness that it was barely recognizable as a word. Then, more clearly, "Stand down!"
Dr. Liu had not been paying attention to the conversation previously, as he was focused on the task of liberating Merlin from impending doom. Therefore, he wasn't sure what was going on, or what was about to happen. He located the cell door release Merlin had told him he would find behind the desk, freeing Merlin from his small jail.
"This way," the doctor told him, exiting the room and making a right to head back toward the south building. As they began to jog down the wide hallway, open on the left-hand side and overlooking the ground floor, they heard a deafening explosion from outside. A moment later, a thunderous crash was heard downstairs, and a flaming truck came barreling through the north wall, near the corner where the northern wall of the building met with the eastern one. After a moment, the air was thick with smoke and a heavy dust of ruined building material, floating upward to the second-floor overlook. The doctor continued running south, covering his nose and mouth with the collar of his shirt and trying to breathe as little as possible while he attempted to outrun the burgeoning nebula of debris and flames.
When he had run far enough to no longer feel the menacing heat at his back, he looked back, trying to get a clearer look at what had happened. As he gazed northward, he saw the vague outline of the gash torn through the building, illuminating the noxious cloud from behind with dim, overcast daylight. On the first floor, in the center of a large, open office area full of cubicles, an orange city snow truck sat smoldering quietly. Black smoke poured from a small section on the windshield, where they had left an opening, roughly ten inches high, stretching across the width for visibility. The plow truck had laid waste to the cubicles in its path, leaving stacks of flaming papers, blown forty feet upward, to flutter at a leisurely pace back to the floor.
"Merlin!" Dr. Liu called out in a loud whisper. He paused for a moment, deliberating whether or not he should go back to look for the other man, when the smoky cloud began to near him, spreading its way into the building. He drew in a sharp breath of frustration.
"Well, isn't this magical," he muttered, retreating alone toward the south building.
Shari crouched on the roof of the eastern building, gazing through her scope. She eyed the snow truck, estimating that it would reach the building in about half a minute. She reached for her walkie-talkie, intending to ask Dr. Liu whether or not he had reached Merlin. Before she could press the button to speak, the receiver crackled.
"I'm almost there with the dragon's breath," came Hugo's breathless voice over the speaker. "Someone come to the door to get this thing."
"I got it," a female guard told him. "I'm just outside the door."
"You guys," Shari said after a few moments, "that thing's getting a little close to the building now. We're going to have to abort, or it's going to hit us and it's going to hit us on fire. Who on the ground has the incendiary grenades?"
"I'm trying to get some distance from the building," said a male guard. "See if I can hit 'em with one before they get any closer."
Shari panned her scope slightly further down Lake Shore Drive until she spotted the riot-gear clad guard heading up the length of railroad tracks that ran parallel to the highway. He crept around the rear of the small building, leaving his cover as he reached the other side and attempted to roll an improved incendiary bomb into the path of the vehicle. He missed his mark, the grenade rolling into the side of the rear tire and bouncing off, doing no discernable damage to the truck as it sped on down the highway.
"Forget the fire, guys," Shari said into her radio. "They're too close now. Snipers, let's do our thing." She pocketed the walkie-talkie and pointed her assault rifle at the very narrow window left on the windshield for the visibility of the truck's driver. She joined roughly a dozen other snipers, scattered across the rooftops of the complex, in a rain of assault rounds directed at the advancing vehicle.
After about a half-dozen shots, the vehicle suddenly veered sharply across the barren section of four-lane highway. Just before hitting a concrete median, the truck's course was corrected and it continued to barrel toward the convention center, now a mere fifty yards away. It's driver had gone off the road as it came upon the complex, and the truck was now steered directly toward the northeast corner of the north building.
To the west of Lake Shore Drive, in the edge of her periphery, Shari saw a flash of silver and black that she recognized as McCormick-issued riot gear. She shifted the barrel of her assault rifle toward the movement, and saw one of her security guards, Jimmy, hop down from a skateboard. He was carrying the shotgun delivered to the ground forces by Hugo, presumably along with the the incendiary rounds.
Shari raised her walkie-talkie, her heartbeat pulsating in her throat and fingertips in her panic.
"Stop!" she shouted into the mouthpiece, her lips brushing its surface. "Stand down!"
He crouched as he aimed the shotgun toward the windshield, previously shattered by the snipers, and attempted to line up a shot to fire a flaming round into the interior of the truck. He realized that he was unlikely to make the shot, and that if he did, he wasn't guaranteed to kill anyone inside the truck.
The driver was, by this point, aware of the shooter beside and slightly ahead of the truck, and as a result, jammed the gas pedal down to the floor. It turned out to be too much for the engine of the truck. Just before it buzzed past the young, shotgun-wielding McCormick security guard, its engine stalled out, apparently beginning to succumb to the effects of the sniper rounds which had rained onto the vehicle with the added pressure of being pushed to accelerate. Jimmy took the opportunity to mount the hood of the truck before any of its occupants could escape, inserting the muzzle of the shotgun directly into the glassless opening in the windshield and firing the dragon's breath into the cab. He fired one of those two rounds toward the driver'
s seat, and the other at the rear passenger-side occupant. The result was that all four of the passengers, plus the driver, were set aflame.
To Jimmy's amazement, the driver of the truck turned the ignition, managing to turn the engine over, rather than exit the vehicle to put himself out. He pressed hard on the gas pedal, barreling once again toward the building. In the back seat, two of the passengers jumped out of the moving truck, tumbling gracelessly into the highway, where they rolled in their panic, trying to extinguish the flames covering their clothing. They were sniped to death at once by McCormick forces on the roof. The other rear occupant and the one in the front passenger seat appeared to be dead, having succumbed to the burns and shock. The driver plowed foreward, while fire raged in the interior of the cab. Jimmy, clinging to the truck, inadvertently breathed in just as a plume of fire shot suddenly from the opening in the windshield, funneled through the narrow rectangular opening. Jimmy went lifeless, having severely burned his lungs as well as the entire half of his body that faced the flames. His body went limp, tumbling back onto the hood before doing a backward somersault onto the V-plow, where he bounced off, between the plow attachment and the truck itself and was subsequently run over.
The cab of the truck was now fully aflame, inside and out, and the driver seemed to have finally passed away. The driverless truck hopped the curb, barreling down into a ditch and toward the east wall of the north building. After a few moments, when the truck was around one-hundred feet from the building, a nearby member of McCormick security on the ground reached into his pocket, taking out an improvised incendiary device consisting of thermite placed inside a speaker magnet. He realized that the fiery truck was going to hit the wall of the complex, and there was nothing he would do to stop it.
He set a timer on the device for five seconds, then threw it at the truck as it rolled forward, where it struck the armored plating just beneath the driver's side cab door. Due to the magnetic nature of the device, it stuck and held. Seconds later, the gas tank ignited, causing a flaming, dirty explosion. Shari watched, helpless and unhelpful, as the truck barreled into the cavernous northern building, the entirety of its structure on fire, but with the threat of explosion passed.