by Calen, Tom
“We’ve survived in large part thanks to you and the decisions you’ve made, there’s no denying that. But, somewhere along the way you got stuck on survival mode. Maybe it’s because you’ve had to focus on day by day, but what about a year from now? Five years? Do you really see us all still in a camp somewhere in the mountains?”
Mike remained silent. Since the first days of the outbreak he had been forced to make decisions that not only meant the difference between life and death for him, but also the life and death of those in his care. Each month, each year, had seen the number of those that depended on him grow significantly. There had been no formal vote, no spoken declarations, but the role of leader had been eased onto him, evolving into a de facto position. Yes, the burden was like the weight of a buoy at sea; keeping it upright, keeping it from sinking, always at the mercy of the ever changing tides. But he refused to believe that he had given up.
The awkward silence stretched on until Paul spoke again.
“There’s something that comes after surviving. It’s living. It’s rebuilding some sort of a future. And that can’t happen when we’re hidden away in the mountains.” His voice cracked as he softly continued. “I lost my wife and baby to this damned virus. I hated myself for being the one to survive. But, I did. And now it’s time to live…otherwise what’s the point?”
Mike had no answer to the question. Paul rarely spoke of the wife and child he lost six years ago. After a year of marriage, the couple had welcomed a baby girl into the world. Amy, his wife, had given birth just one day before the outbreak. He was to bring them both home from the hospital when mother and child spiked high fevers. Only once did he tell Mike how he had been holding the yet-unnamed infant when she had changed, the angelic features turning into a grotesque, snarling face. The doctors had rushed the child away and quickly ushered Paul out of his wife’s room. It was the last time he saw either of them.
The two spoke no further that night, the ranger leaving Mike to his tortured thoughts. He did not know what type of future he saw five years hence. His mind had been so preoccupied with surviving a day, and the one that followed. For the first time, Mike began to realize that while he had worked towards daily survival, to meeting the immediate needs of the refugees, that six years had slipped by. He began to wonder if perhaps Paul was right. Have I traded living for surviving?
* * *
The underground sanctuary offered no indication as to whether night or day ruled the world outside. Blearily, Mike sat up in the cot and glanced at his watch. He was shocked when he read the digitized numbers, stating that it was 8:17 AM. Fatigue had kept him asleep for almost ten hours. The other cots in the room were empty, and he could make out faint voices coming from the kitchen.
Not wanting to jump back into the discussion now being held about the broadcast, he headed for the showers. He let the water scald him, the intense heat relaxing muscles that seemed to constantly ache with tension. He felt slightly guilty for enjoying a second shower while those back at the camp were forced to bathe with cold mountain water. The soothing steam rose around him in the stall, as he placed his head under the steady flow of hot water. He breathed deeply as his nose absorbed the light aroma of the scented-soap with which he cleansed his body. Even with the shower the afternoon before, the water that circled the drain ran dark with dirt and grime.
As he stepped out and dried himself with a large, soft bath towel, he noticed a small shelf stocked with shaving cream and disposable razors. Wiping the steam-covered mirror, he began to lather his face with the mentholated cream and shaved away the scruff that had accumulated over the past several days. Rinsing his face, Mike soon discovered that the clothes he had worn yesterday lay folded in a neat pile on a chair in the bathroom, the fresh scent of detergent and dryer sheets evident as he dressed.
Surprisingly rejuvenated, Mike stepped into the kitchen as he adjusted the straps of the holsters buckled to his waist and torso. The others were seated around the large wooden table, eating a breakfast of oatmeal and canned fruit. Taking an empty chair, he joined them and quickly poured himself a cup of coffee.
“A washer and dryer, too, huh?” he asked with a smile.
Sara Marshall, Pete’s wife of over twenty years, acknowledged that she had discovered the machines in a back room of the complex and had taken it upon herself to clean the garments of the four new arrivals.
The group spoke amicably as they reminisced over the last time each had enjoyed a mug of fresh brewed coffee, or the hearty warmth of a bowl of oatmeal. For most, the memories lived in better times, before the outbreak. Mike took note of how quickly these people, who had spent years in make-shift camps, slid back into the normal pace of an era he thought lost for good.
Paul turned the conversation back to the immediate present when he asked Mike, “So, what’s the plan, chief?”
Savoring the last sip of the coffee, Mike placed his cup on the table as he addressed the room.
“First off, we need to get a vehicle since there is no way we’re going to make it back to camp on foot.”
“I’ve been scouting from the roof over the past couple of days, and it looks like there is a used car lot a few blocks over. With enough fire power we should be able to reach it easily enough,” Jon Connelly informed Mike.
“How long will it take to reach?” Paul asked.
Jon responded as he scratched his chin, calculating the distance and obstacles, “If we head north and circle back around down one of the other streets, we can avoid the Til by the hospital. If it goes smoothly, we could make it in thirty minutes.”
Mike absorbed the information. “Okay. Paul, Lisa, Andrew, and Jon, I want you guys to head out within the hour. We’re going to need two cars, preferably SUVs. I assume the loading dock to this building is on the west side, Jon?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, when you get the transportation, head there. Sara and Pete, that leaves us a little over an hour to get as many of these supplies up there and ready to load in when they return.”
The middle-aged couple both nodded in agreement.
“You’re probably going to stir up a good number of Tils along the way, so as soon as you four get back, you’re to lay down as much cover fire as we have left while the three of us load up. After that, we pile in and plow through anything that’s still standing. I want us back at camp in forty-eight hours.”
As he finished, the others dispersed and set about their tasks. Paul was the last to rise from his chair.
“Listen, Mike, about what I said last night—” he began slowly.
“What you said last night was what needed to be said,” Mike interrupted, rising to meet the ranger eye to eye. “Now, I have supplies to haul up five flights and you have a couple of cars to steal. So, let’s skip the apology crap and get moving.”
“Yes, sir,” Paul replied with a laugh. “How many of the supplies you want to move on this trip?”
“All of them,” Mike answered as he made his way out the door.
“All of them?” Paul repeated incredulously.
“All of them. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long trip to Miami.”
Paul’s smile broadened, and he shook his head while shouting, “You know, you really are a crazy son of a bitch!”
Mike responded, voice booming down the corridor, “Yeah, I’ve heard that somewhere before.”
Chapter Nine
The room bustled with excitement as the students filled their backpacks, replacing books with vending machine snack food and bottled water. An uninformed observer would have assumed they had been trapped within the faculty room for weeks, rather than the forty-eight hours that had actually passed. Mike understood their need for action, for the feeling that they were not sitting around helpless, the feeling that—even in the chaos—they were in control of their fate.
During the night it had been decided that Derrick’s minivan, a vehicle borrowed from his mother that had previously caused him much embarrassment, and S
ean Reno’s large Ford Explorer would be sufficient to transport the eighteen people to the military base. Mike had conceded that retrieving whatever weapons and supplies they could from Derrick’s house was worth the stop. Not surprisingly, the other students had all begun demanding that stops were made at their own homes, but he laid out the risks of such actions, and eventually the others relented.
A night had passed since he’d announced their imminent departure and he spent the intervening hours rehearsing each stage of the plan. In addition to having two of the largest vehicles of the drivers in the room, Derrick and Sean had parked quite near each other in the rear lot. Armed with the remaining ammunition, the group would exit the building through windows in the English pod, which overlooked the rear parking lot. Exiting the school grounds would present the first hazard as it required passing through the infected that roamed the front courtyard. Though not relishing the idea, Mike felt it was more prudent to use the vehicles themselves as weapons than to use up ammo in bringing down any infected that attempted to impede their exit. Since they insisted on driving their own vehicles, Mike had taken the two boys aside to make sure that they would be prepared to drive through an attack. Satisfied with their resolve, he agreed to let them drive.
Once off of the school grounds, it would be a short trip to Derrick’s to collect his father’s arsenal and hopefully find Mr. and Mrs. Chancer unharmed. From there, it was another thirty minutes north on the parkway to the army base. Mike worried that the parkway might be congested with abandoned cars, but without knowing a secondary route well enough and not willing to pass through residential neighborhoods, he felt the choice was clear.
Before they left the faculty room, he tried to explain what the others should expect to see beyond the door. True, they had all heard the gunfire and heard the tales of each excursion, but facing the carnage they would have to pass through would require a strength they had not yet had to muster. There would certainly be faces of people they knew lying among the dead in the halls.
It surprised Mike that he had already begun to detach himself from the attackers’ previous humanity. Fighting them directly, seeing firsthand the gruesome violence of which they were capable, had placed the infected outside the realm of human. Hoping the students were prepared, but knowing there was no way they truly could be, he instructed that the blockade securing the door be removed.
The hall leading to the stairs was, thankfully, still deserted. Quickly ushering them down to the first floor and past the main office, Mike could see the visuals begin to take its toll. With weak words of encouragement, he did his best to comfort them and keep them focused on the task at hand. As he entered the corridor leading to the English pod, Mike heard a scream behind him. Turning rapidly on his heel, he found two students helping a third back to her feet after she’d slipped on the blood-covered floor tiles. The girl understandably began to panic as she found her hands and backside covered with the remains of the victims beneath her. Desperately trying to quiet her, Mike looked out the doors to the courtyard and saw infected already making their way to the disruption.
“English pod. Run. NOW!” he shouted as the students realized their peril. Further screams and cries of fear erupted from the teenagers as they streamed past him. Mike and the five armed students formed a line blocking the entrance and began to open fire. Infected whirled as bullets tore into shoulders and legs. Within seconds, they rose again and continued their advance. With only Derrick and Jenni as marksmen with any experience, shots to the head of the attackers were few and far between. Once the others had reached the targeted pod, Mike ordered a quick retreat to rejoin them.
Derrick and Sean were the first out of the windows and they ran directly for their respective automobiles. As the rest of the students climbed through the first story window, Mike saw them running in haphazard groups. Cursing himself for not thinking to assign certain students into each vehicle, he watched as too many struggled to fit in Derrick’s minivan, while too few entered Sean’s SUV. Yelling for their attention, he waved wildly and pointed for some to break away from the minivan and head for the Explorer. Relieved when he finally saw recognition break across their faces, Mike looked behind him as several infected poured into the classroom.
Raising both firearms, and hoping that the short distance would allow for greater accuracy, he began to shoot. With screams and snarls, the fearsome beings fell dead, one on top of another. Still, as quickly as they had fallen, others soon pushed through to replace them. Mike continued to fire until both magazines were spent.
“Mr. A., get out of there!” yelled Erik, who now aimed his shotgun through one of the open windows, firing relentlessly. Mike quickly dove out, hitting the ground with a thud that knocked the breath out of him. Within seconds, he could feel arms dragging him along the soft grass towards the waiting Ford Explorer. No longer gasping for air, he got to his feet and jumped in the passenger seat, while Erik pushed in beside him and slammed the door shut. Sean pressed heavily on the horn and both vehicles squealed their tires as the drivers floored the accelerators. The force of the forward momentum pushed the passengers back into their seats.
As they rounded the slight curve that led to the front of the school, he was relieved to see that the infected that had previously occupied the courtyard had all headed into the building after they heard the screaming girl. As they pulled onto the main road, shouts and cheers erupted inside the car. For the first time in two days, Mike Allard could feel the warmth of happiness course through him.
* * *
The streets held no signs of life save for the ambling forms of infected people that attempted to chase after the vehicles, but proved no match for the speed at which the survivors travelled. Without incident, the small caravan reached the Chancer home and pulled into its long, curving driveway. Set far off the road, Mike hoped they would attract little notice from the infected that certainly lurked in the area.
Rolling to a stop, Erik stepped out of the SUV, with Mike quickly following. Exiting through the driver’s door, Sean moved around the front of the still-running car and joined with them. With an increased familiarity, Mike removed the empty magazines from the guns and replaced them with the last two that remained to him. As he approached the minivan in front of him, Derrick rolled down the driver side window and wordlessly handed him the keys to the house.
Though agreeing that they would stop at the Chancer house, Mike did so with one condition. Derrick was to remain outside until he, accompanied by Erik and Sean, could make a sweep of the residence. He did not want to risk the young man finding his parents dead, or worse, still living but infected. Once he could rule out those two possibilities, Mike would signal the all-clear and Derrick would then be allowed to enter.
Easing through the now unlocked door, the three slid silently into the unfamiliar home. The entryway opened into a small living room on the left, dining room on the right, and a large staircase leading to the second level. Moving room to room, they made a cautious search of the first floor, and then headed up the stairs. The home showed no apparent signs of an attack, but also no sign of Derrick’s parents. Making their way back down, Mike followed Derrick’s verbal floor plan and located the door in the kitchen that led to the basement.
Since his adolescence, the history teacher suffered from a crippling fear of basements. His youthful imagination had always created fanciful monsters that for some reason chose to live in basements and waited anxiously to attack little boys that wandered into their lairs. With the rationality that came with age, Mike had always told himself that such things were impossible. Given the events of the past two days, he began to think his childhood fears deserved a bit more credence than his adult mind had previously given them.
Descending the wooden steps, Mike felt about for the string overhead to turn on the light. Thankfully, Erik thought to improvise a flashlight with the blue glow of his cell phone. The faint light provided enough illumination for him to locate the string and with a gentle tug, an exp
osed bulb sprang to life above them. Reaching the bottom step, Mike found and flipped on the switch that controlled the rest of the lights in the basement. The room was small; a well-worn work bench stood at the center, and one wall was filled with shelves of tools. The other walls, however, were lined with the unmistakable rectangles of giant steel gun safes. Mike counted fifteen as his eyes scanned the room.
“Damn,” Erik exclaimed, the utterance matching Mike’s own amazement.
“Sean, go get Derrick so he can open these things up.”
As they waited for Derrick, Mike opened a tall metal cabinet that stretched to the eight foot ceiling. Stacked neatly on shelves were boxes upon boxes of various types of ammunition.
“It’ll take an hour just to get these out of here,” Erik said as he stepped behind Mike and saw the contents of the cabinet. Mike realized the teen was right; loading all of the weapons and ammunition into the vehicles would be a daunting and time-consuming task.
When Derrick entered the basement, he quickly began entering the combinations to open each safe. Mike was amazed that he could remember that many different combinations. Derrick explained that his father had used only three different codes for the fifteen safes.
Seeing how many weapons each case held, Mike sent word up for the other students to take shifts guarding the front of house, while others took brief showers in the two bathrooms in the home. Derrick, joined now by Jenni, began to show them how each weapon worked and the steps for loading and unloading. Mike’s head spun with terms like clip, magazine, double barrel, spring action, bolt, hammer, and a slew of others that he struggled to remember.
Seeing the bewilderment etched across his teacher’s face, Derrick presented Mike with a case holding twin black firearms.
“Mr. Allard, why don’t you take these? They’re Glock 17Cs with extended magazines. Each mag has thirty-three rounds, so you won’t have to worry about loading and unloading as often.”