“Let me up!” I tried to scream, but I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. “Boggs…”
It was growing difficult to breathe and I fought even harder to get out from underneath him. The wounded Roamer was slithering closer, dragging her damaged body behind her. Her mind was new, her thoughts more rudimentary than those who had been roaming the earth for so many months now. There was no indication that any of her human thoughts or desires remained. She was only inches away. Her only goal was to reach the flesh of my face. Her jaws were merely inches away when another gunshot rang out. As her head exploded, I clenched my eyes shut tightly. I could feel the sickly cold of her blood and splattered flesh upon my face. With that last gunshot, everything went quiet aside from the wind and the sound of sobbing. Boggs finally rolled off of me, trying to catch his breath. It had grown dark from approaching nightfall and the increasingly intense storm.
I used my wet, muddy shirt to wipe my face. Eventually I gave up and took the filthy piece of clothing off, not caring if anyone else saw me near-nude. My eyes were coated in blood and soil, making seeing difficult. My ears were ringing and every part of me hurt. I looked around, trying to assess overall damage. Susan had already made her way to Nathan and was holding him tight. Danny was at the tree line, hunched over in grief. Abbey stood watching, but in the evening light and at a distance I was unable to read her face. Gus was looking at the sky, letting rain fall on his face. I sensed Boggs standing directly behind, and turned to face him. His face was battered and bloodied. I reached a hand out and placed it upon his face. Feeling the warmth of his skin, for a brief moment I understood the tiredness and desperation within him. Time seemed to pause as he looked into my eyes. He reached a hand up and placed it over mine as he closed his eyes, almost as if acknowledging defeat.
Time came rushing back in a flood of desperation as I realized we were surrounded by more of the dead. I withdrew my hand from Boggs’ face and spun around to face the others. My hand reached back to Boggs and as he gripped my arm I rushed forward with him in tow. I could tell from the look on Gus’ face that he too knew what horrors were coming.
“Abbey! Danny!” I yelled in desperation. The two teens looked up at me as I screamed. “More are coming! Get down below!”
They hesitated, staring at me as if I were crazy.
“Run!” I screamed. “Run!”
I pulled my hand free from Boggs and ran as fast as possible toward Abbey. Danny had taken the lead and was guiding her by the hand toward me.
“Gus! They’re almost here!” I shouted, the wind and thunder doing their best to drown out my voice.
As Abbey and Danny got within arm’s reach I came to a halt and took Abbey’s other hand. Danny and I helped the girl onward, our footholds slippery in the fresh mud. Almost to the open hole in the ground, I could see Gus and Boggs dragging the injured Nate toward the hatch. The severely rotten corpses of the dead were moving toward us in a large circle; the stench was overwhelming. It was impossible to tell just how many there were in the dying light of the day. Their vocalizations of hunger and want were now louder than the storm or the cries of us living. Susan stood in obvious distress aiming her pistol at the evil creatures surrounding us. Surely she knew the gun would be of no use against the sheer number of dead.
Nathan’s cries of pain were ear-piercing as the other men worked together to lower him into the hole.
“Danny, get Abby in next! It’s our only option,” I said loudly, hoping he could hear me over the sounds of the Roamers who were now so very close.
The young man wiped rain from his face using his forearm and nodded at me in understanding. As Boggs slipped below ground, joining Gus and Nate, Danny pushed Abbey toward the hatch opening. I could see the fear on her face and she shook her head side to side. Danny yelled something at her, but I could not make out the words. The girl began trembling as her fear increased, but she finally allowed Danny to help her into the hole.
“Susan!” I screamed. “Susan, Susan! Hurry!”
She began to back up, never taking her eyes off of the dead. The Roamers were nearly upon us and almost all traces of daylight were gone.
“We have to get the lid on! Get inside, now!”
Susan finally broke her stare with the dead and glanced at me. She lowered herself into the hole and I quickly followed. Reemerging half way from the tunnel opening, I searched the wet ground with my hands and arms. Now barely able to see from the darkness of night, at last I felt the edge of the hatch lid. I pulled it into place as I sank back below ground. Within seconds, clawing and pounding from dead hands began.
I could hear moaning from Nathan farther into the earth and soft yet constant crying from Abbey.
“Susan, help me with the lid,” I urged.
We were now bathed in pitch black, but I knew it was she sitting beside me. The two of us struggled with the chains on the underside of the hatch lid. I hoped beyond all hope that the design on this hatch was the same, or at least similar, to the last safe house. I felt blindly with my free hand while pulling down on the chain-handle with my other. The dead were working hard to gain entry, making the task difficult. The smell of both stale and fresh blood in the tunnel in which we crouched was sickening. At last my fingers found what they were looking for; a large metal hook in the frame that supported the lid. I pulled the chain as tight as I could and slipped the loop onto the hook. Carefully, I took my hands away and waited for a moment to make sure my side was secure.
“I got my side, Susan. Just keep hold of your chain!”
I scooted forward in the dark, guided by the soft grunting of Susan as she struggled to keep the lid down tight. As I bumped into her, I felt with my hands, following the chain to where it attached to the hatch lid. The next hook proved more difficult to find. It was facing a different direction and tucked behind a wooden beam. I had to reach around Susan at an awkward angle to take hold of the chain. The howls from the dead were getting louder and the cries from the rest of our group had grown farther away. At last I was able to hook the chain and Susan and I began creeping farther below ground and away from the hatch and away from the dead.
CHAPTER 15
After crawling on our hands and knees for several feet the tunnel became illuminated in a soft glow.
“Keep coming this way girls,” urged Gus.
The palms of my hands kept sliding in human entrails and blood that lined the walls and floor of the tunnel. I could hear Susan sniffling behind me. She was involuntarily making gagging noises. As I reached Gus he helped me through a small metal opening that was barely big enough for a grown man. Once into the next chamber I was able to stand upright. The room, if you could call it that, was long and narrow. The walls were corrugated metal and at one time had been painted red. Now, though, they were partly rusted and worn. A small wooden table lay on its side off to one end with bowls and spoons scattered on the floor along with what remained of an interrupted meal. Blood had been spilt in random places around the room and it was obvious that a massacre had occurred. I could hear Susan and Gus still in the entry tunnel and knew that Susan was busy throwing up. I looked up when I heard Boggs’ voice calling to me from up high; there was another small opening like the one I had just come through. Someone had welded metal pieces to the wall to use as hand and foot holds, as a ladder of sorts. I could hear Gus and Susan in the room behind me as I scrambled to reach the opening that would lead to another chamber. He was telling her to follow me. As I reached the opening in the wall, Boggs helped pull me through. I found myself on the top bunk of an old bunk bed set. I scrambled down the ladder and onto the floor of the second room, which was much like the first but in shades of rust and faded yellow paint. This room was obviously used for storage; rickety metal and wooden shelves lined most of the walls and were nearly full of various provisions.
Abbey and Danny were huddled together in a corner. Both had stopped crying for the moment and she was leaning against him and clutching his arm. I looked back up to the
top of the bunk and saw Susan crawl through the entry and into Boggs’ arms.
“Where’s Nathan?” She asked in a broken voice. She was covered in mud and blood and her eyes had a wildness about them.
“He’s ok. He’s just beneath us in the bottom bed, passed out.” Boggs said to her with tenderness in his voice.
I hadn’t noticed Nate lying in the bed until now. Susan scrambled down the ladder and rushed to his side, where she sat on the bed beside him. I looked up and Boggs was no longer in the room. I could hear the muffled voices of him and Gus from the first chamber. I could hear the sound of metal on metal and guessed that they were securing the cover over the entry. The room in which I was standing was lit by a bright lantern that sat upon one of the many shelves. In one corner canned food had been knocked off the shelf and now lay scattered upon the floor. One of the shelves was broken and leaning awkwardly. The floor was lined with tattered area rugs in various colors and textures; there was dark crimson blood pooled on one and I could see a large clump of black hair that was wound around a screw head that protruded from the broken shelf. It was obvious that a struggle has occurred in this room.
Soon Boggs and Gus spilled through the opening and joined us. They were both out of breath and had brought with them a piece of metal with which they began securing to the opening above the bunk bed. Still half naked and wet from the storm, I could feel my body begin to shiver. As Gus and Boggs joined us at floor level, Gus quietly walked over and knelt in front of Danny.
“Danny, we need to know how many rooms there are total, son.”
“T-three,” he stammered. “Just three.”
“Where’s the entry to the next room?”
“In the ceiling, above the bed. George… he designed it to try to confuse the dead if they ever got in. Oh God,” the boy moaned. “They’re all dead. Oh God…they’re all dead.”
Abbey gripped at his arm harder and began crying softly.
Gus made his way back up to the top bunk and began searching for the hidden panel that would lead to the next room. Within a couple of minutes he had found it and opened it.
Near the lantern on the shelf I saw a box of flashlights. I picked one up and took it to him, already knowing he was about to ask.
“Zoe, give me a hand up here? It’s a tight fit but I need someone to hold the flashlight.”
I hoisted myself upward into what was a small framed-in passageway that led to another small metal panel. Oddly it was secured shut with rope from our side and I wondered why someone secured it from the outside.
“I’m wondering the same thing, Darlin’. Do you sense any of them in there?”
I shook my head side to side. This far underground the signatures of the dead that lingered outside were blessedly muted, and I picked up absolutely nothing from the next room.
“Ok. I’ll take the flashlight and start working on these knots. Go back real quick and asked Danny about the rope and grab the pistol?”
“Sure. Just…don’t go in alone, ok?”
“I won’t.”
***
Danny had said that he had no clue about why the third room had been secured from the outside. I filled the others in on what was going on and returned to Gus with Susan’s pistol, which I had made sure was fully loaded. I held the flashlight once again and watched as Gus worked at untying knots. His large fingers proved to be awkward with the obstacle, so I quickly took over with the task. Whoever had tied the rope had, without a doubt, intended for entry into the room to be difficult. When I got to the last knot, I paused and looked at Gus. He nodded once, but it was his unsaid words and not the gesture that told me he was ready for me to continue. As the last knot came undone, Gus held both the pistol and the flashlight up together as a unit. The metal panel fell away from us, landing in the next room with a loud clank. To my surprise the room was lit, but barely. The light came from a small table in a back corner. I held my breath as Gus aimed the flashlight about the room. It appeared at least twice as large as the others. I had expected to find the unimaginable, but the room was still and quiet. None of it made sense.
Still not sensing any evil lurking in wait, Gus whispered to me that he’d lower himself into the room first. The entry was only a few feet from the ground, with this section of the hideout being elevated above the first two rooms.
“The battery in that lantern is almost dead,” he whispered to me. “Be on the lookout for other lights.”
“What do you think the deal is here? Why’d someone secure the room from the outside?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe there’s rations hidden that they wanted to protect in case the rest of the group came back?”
“Maybe.”
This room was by far the neatest and cleanest of the three. There was a king-sized mattress in one corner and a long couch along an adjacent wall. Several sleeping bags were neatly piled beside the couch. It appeared to be sleeping quarters. There were no signs of a struggle. No blood. No horrible smells. A small rag doll was on the floor, along with a child’s blanket. Gwen. I became overwhelmed with sadness at the thought of what must have happened to her; to all the people here. So much tragedy, so much suffering, so much pain. Sensing my despair, Gus wrapped his strong arms around me and held me close. Something about the way he held me was different; it seemed less personal.
It began very quietly at first. It might have been in my imagination, but I knew better. It sounded like the soft keening of a cat as it licked itself clean, or the whimper of a small animal in pain. I knew that Gus heard it too from the way his body tensed. Something was in the room with us. I still didn’t sense any of the undead aside from those outside. Just as quickly as it had begun, the noise stopped, again leaving us enveloped in silence.
My connection to Gus left me aware that he too wondered just what it was that we had heard. I dared to speak in the quietest of whispers.
“I still don’t sense the dead.”
We stood still, listening. A single small cry pierced the silence, but was enough to indicate from which area of the room it had come. Gus immediately aimed the beam of his flashlight to better illuminate a far corner. All we saw was a pile of old towels. Seeing nothing obvious, I slowly walked over to make sure we hadn’t missed something. I could sense Gus right behind me, ready for whatever might lurk in the shadows. I startled when I heard the noise again, my heart racing and my chest tingling. Now standing at the edge of the pile of cloth I knelt down and waited. Another whimper, barely audible, came from the back of the heap. I felt Gus’s hands on my shoulders; a silent warning for me to be careful. The sounds began once again, pitiful and weak. For a moment I wondered if perhaps the little girl, Gwen, had been forced to leave a pet behind. I began carefully peeling cloth back, afraid of finding a maimed and emaciated dog or cat.
As I reached for a particularly ratty corner of a towel whatever lay beneath moved so subtly that it might have even been my imagination. Still, I paused and I held my breath. I could hear the sound of Gus cocking his pistol right beside me. I waited until he was aiming at the potential target before proceeding in removing the final layer. What we saw brought instant tears to my eyes; it was not animal nor was it amongst the population of the living dead. It was a tiny human baby that looked pale and limp. It couldn’t have been very old and looked like every breath it took was an effort.
“Fuck me,” mumbled Gus. “Is it alive?”
“It’s not dead. Oh God, Gus. What do we do?”
“I’ll need to look it over quick; make sure it hasn’t been bit. If it’s safe will need to warm it up and try to feed it.”
He reached forward and gently picked up the baby. It protested with a very weak and brief cry. I searched through the pile of towels and blankets, choosing a couple that appeared relatively clean. Gus had taken the baby to the sofa and had removed its diaper. He was inspecting the infant, head to toe, with the flashlight.
“Zoe, this baby isn’t even a week old yet. You can tell by its umbilical stump; it
hasn’t fallen off. That can take about ten days. My guess is it’s been alone in here for at least a day or two.”
“It’s dying, isn’t it?” I asked.
“I’d say so, and it will if we don’t help it. We have a choice; to let it go and spare it from this world, or we can try to help it.”
“We can’t just let it die. Remember it was you who once told me that we have to choose life.”
“Ayup. That I did. Ok. His diaper was bone dry,” he explained while putting it back on the baby. “That means he’s dehydrated and needs to eat. He’s also too cold.”
I looked up when I heard somebody else entering the room through the small hatch half way up the wall. It was Boggs.
“Everything ok in here?” he asked.
“Not really,” said Gus. “We found a very small survivor. Find out from Danny if he knows whose baby it is?”
“A baby? Fuck! It’s alive?”
“Barely. Just barely,” answered Gus.
“Hang tight. I’ll go talk to Danny.”
Fallen Grace (The Grace Series) Page 14