AniZombie 2: The Refuge

by Ricky Sides

  Jesse reacted without conscious thought. He darted at the zombie that was concentrating on his partner and slammed the tip of his bat into the side of its knee. The zombie’s leg buckled beneath him and he fell to the ground, almost pulling Hernando down with him. Jesse attacked again. This time, he struck the creature a solid blow to its forehead. He hit it again and then a third time before it released Hernando who backed away and stared at his wrist. Paling at what he saw.

  “What’s wrong?” Jesse asked. “It didn’t bite you, did it?”

  Hernando shook his head in the negative. “No, it didn’t bite me, but its fingernails broke the skin. I’m as good as dead,” he said bitterly.

  “We need to get inside before more of these things show up,” Jesse insisted. “We can try to disinfect the wound once we’re inside.”

  “It’s too late for that,” Hernando countered. “I can feel that burning sensation so many people spoke of after fighting zombies. You know what that means as well as I do.”

  “Yeah,” Jesse responded with a miserable expression on his face. He paused for a moment, but he knew they were running out of time. “You can help me secure the building. You won’t be a threat to us for hours. Maybe even days.”

  Hernando looked at the women waiting for them to decide what to do. He noted that most of them looked at him with confusion evident on their faces and realized that they were unaware that he had been mortally wounded, and were wondering why he wasn’t leading them to safety. He nodded his head. “Yeah, man. Let’s do this. Maybe I can last until the pickup team arrives and help you make certain they are okay. But if it becomes clear that I can’t, then you know what you have to do.”

  “Yeah, brother. I know what I’ll have to do. Don’t you worry. I wouldn’t let you harm the others,” Jesse responded in quiet tones that the women couldn’t hear because he knew Hernando well enough to realize that this would be his chief concern.

  “Gracias, my friend,” Hernando replied. He turned toward the police station and headed for the front entrance. They soon found that that entrance had been barricaded and they couldn’t get inside using it.

  “Damnit, we need to get inside to see if we can get some ammunition and more weapons,” Hernando said in exasperation.

  Hernando was uncharacteristically short tempered. Jesse assumed, correctly, that he was under a lot of stress due to what had just happened. “Let’s check one of the other entrances,” he suggested to his distraught friend.

  “Okay, but if the next one is barricaded too, then we’d better move on before that mob of zombies locates us,” Hernando replied.

  They walked around a corner to Elm Street, looking for another entrance. None of them was familiar with the layout of the building, but that corner was closest because the front entrance to the police station was set near it. It was also logical to go in that direction in order to get out of the line of sight of the pursuing zombies that would soon come within view of the location.

  It turned out that heading for the Elm Street entrance was the right thing to do. The District Court entrance was set in the side of the building just around the corner. Hernando led the way to that door, which they found ajar. He stopped and stared at the small trashcan that someone had wedged between the door and the door facing in order to keep it from closing.

  “Someone didn’t want to get locked out,” one of the women speculated.

  Hernando nodded in agreement, but held a finger up to his lips, thus giving the group silent instructions to remain quiet. He motioned for those in the back of the group to watch their backs and then pointed to Jesse.

  Jesse approached Hernando and listened as he whispered instructions for him to wait beside the door while he entered to see if it was safe. “I should go with you,” Jesse, argued.

  Hernando shook his head and whispered, “I go in alone. I’m already a dead man. Besides, you need to be here for the others.” When Jesse nodded his head in reluctant agreement, Hernando drew his pistol, but he surprised Jesse when he held it out to him. “Take it. If the zombies get here before I get back, you use it to defend the others. Don’t let them corner you here!” he ordered Jesse, and then without another word, he swung open the door and entered the building.

  Jesse made certain the trashcan stopped the door from closing and locking them out. He heard the faint sounds of zombies moaning and knew that those they had outdistanced were now closing in on them again. Jesse felt the other members of the party move closer. Their instincts were telling them to move closer to the promised sanctuary of the brick building.

  Inside the darkened building, Hernando held his bat in one hand and a flashlight in the other. He knew that he didn’t have the time to clear the building before the zombies that had been following them moved into the area, so he didn’t even try to clear it all. He found himself in a hall with doors on the right and left. He checked a couple of doors and found one that was unlocked. A quick check of the room proved that it was safe and could be locked from the inside. He made his way back to the entrance and pushed the door open. He could hear distant moaning as he motioned for the group to enter.

  When the last member of the group entered, both he and Jesse did a head count as they always did in such situations, and then he secured the door. Directing his flashlight toward the door to the room he had just cleared, he led the way and again counted as they entered the room. He grabbed Jesse’s arm as he was about to enter and whispered, “I’ve got to finish clearing the building. You stay with the women and guard them. If I’m not back soon, do not come looking for me. Assume the worst. You’ll need to stay here for hours to give the zombies outside time to disperse. Keep the others quiet. Wait a few hours, and then get them back out the door we entered.”

  Jesse frowned, but nodded his agreement. He knew that Hernando was right. “You be careful, man,” he cautioned, and then he offered Hernando the pistol, but he shook his head and stepped away. Jesse watched as Hernando walked down the hall and tried one of the doors, and then he stepped inside the room with the others and closed the door. He locked it and then tried to open it to verify that it was indeed locked.

  Hernando made his way through the building one section at a time. There was little of interest to him in the District Court section of the structure, but it still had to be cleared. The last thing he wanted was to be blindsided by zombies that he had missed because of making the dangerous assumption that it would have been empty during the crisis, as the zombies had overrun the town. Most of the doors were unlocked. The few that were locked couldn’t be searched. He hoped those rooms were harmless, but couldn’t be certain. He had never seen a zombie unlock a door, but he knew that wasn’t proof that they couldn’t do it. He suspected some might see people doing so and learn to mimic them. Therefore, he was uneasy as he left the District Court section of the building and headed into the Police Station.

  As had been the case with the exterior door, Hernando found that the door leading into the Police Station side of the building was wedged open with a trashcan. The smell of death permeated the air inside that section of the building, and Hernando entered it reluctantly. Now he knew the source of the odor he had been detecting since entering the structure.

  As he made his way into the police station, Hernando called out in quiet tones. He didn’t want to be mistaken for a zombie. He was carrying a bat and a flashlight. That alone should have been plenty of proof that he was still human. However, when you are entering an area that could be occupied by armed people, it was best to take every precaution, and everyone knew that zombies didn’t talk. So he called out as he searched that section of the building.

  He soon came to the body of a man in a police uniform lying face down on the floor. He retched as he looked at the corpse that was in an advanced state of decomposition. Such was the condition of the body that it was impossible to know with any degree of certainty how the officer had died. The man’s service pistol lay on the floor near the remains of his hand. Hernando squatted d
own beside it and set his bat on the floor. He propped his flashlight up on the bat so that the light would aim upward and then he picked up the pistol to examine it. He ejected the magazine and saw that it contained bullets. Working the slide back slowly so as to do it quietly, he soon determined that the pistol had a round in the chamber. He reinserted the magazine, and then turned his attention to the officer’s service belt. He found a pair of spare magazines loaded with what he thought was 40 mm ammunition.

  Hernando examined the pistol again. He saw that it was a Glock 40 mm. He would have liked to have taken the service belt as well, but was reluctant to turn the corpse over so that he could remove it. The pistol fit in the holster he wore for the weapon that he had left with Jesse. He stuffed the extra magazines in one of his pockets, stowed the bat in its carrying case and picked up his flashlight.

  Next, Hernando moved further down the hallway toward the lighted section he could see ahead of him. He slowed his pace when he realized that there could be dozens of zombies standing in front of the Police Station by now. He stopped and pondered the problem. As he thought about it, he realized that he couldn’t hear any moaning, so he decided to risk exposure, but he would use his wits and approach the opening with caution. When he reached the end of the hallway, he stopped by the wall and extinguished his flashlight. Then he lowered his body to the prone position and crawled forward to peek around the corner toward the front entrance. He saw no sign of the zombies and hoped that meant they had moved on in search of prey.

  Hernando got to his feet and tried to remain in the shadows as he ventured out into the open area. He stayed near the wall, as far from the glass entrance as possible, and proceeded through that section of the building. He soon came to an open door that led to the dispatcher area.

  Jesse looked at his watch and noted that Hernando had been gone for forty minutes. He was beginning to become concerned about him. He had been sure the leader would be gone for only a few minutes. Now enough time had elapsed that he had had time to consider all of the things that could go wrong with the plan. Not the least of which was the possibility that the parasites could have progressed to the point that they had incapacitated him.

  A soft knock sounded at the door. “It’s me,” a muffled voice announced.

  Jesse recognized Hernando’s voice and moved to stand beside the door. “Did you find my cat?” he asked.

  “That bitch died a year ago,” Hernando replied without hesitation, which was the correct response that informed Jesse that he was alone and hadn’t been forced to lead other men to their group. It was a security precaution the men had devised to counter the possibility that one of them could be captured and forced to betray the group.

  Jesse unlocked the door, but stood with the pistol in his hand as he opened it. Hernando wasted no time slipping into the room and closing the door. He nodded his head in approval when he saw the pistol in Jesse’s hand. “Good. You were ready, just in case.”

  “Yes,” Jesse admitted sheepishly.

  “You did the right thing. Don’t worry about it. I like to think I have what it takes not to betray you all, but a man never knows until he comes face to face with such a situation.”

  “What did you find out?” Jesse asked. He was eager to change the subject to something less troubling.

  “As far as I know, the building is secure,” Hernando explained. “There were a few locked doors, but I didn’t hear anything when I listened at them. Of course, I didn’t make any unnecessary noise either, so if anyone was inside they may not have heard me. I found one dead policeman. That’s where I got this pistol. I couldn’t be sure, of course, but it looked to me as if he committed suicide. I found out who left the door open. It was the dispatcher. He left a note saying no one was answering his calls on the radio, so he was going home to check on his wife and daughter. He promised to come back. For all I know, that was his body I found.”

  “Yeah, man. His wife and little girl had probably been killed by then. Or worse,” Jesse speculated darkly. “But if that was the case, why come back here?”

  Hernando shrugged and said, “Maybe to see if any of the police had returned. Who knows, man? If what you said was the way it went down, he may have just gone loco.”

  Hernando shrugged again as if to indicate he had no answers to the mystery, and then he changed the subject to one that was more critical to their survival when he said, “There’s no power, so I couldn’t get the radio to work. I couldn’t get inside their armory. It was locked.”

  “I may be able to get the radios working. I’m not sure. I’d need to see the system,” Jesse said. “I hope we can get them working, because we tried ours while we were waiting and our batteries have played out.”

  “You’re sure they are dead?” Hernando asked.

  “Yeah, man. You know we’ve been expecting them to fail for a while now.”

  “I know, but the timing couldn’t be worse. We need to get word to the rescue team coming to pick us up, or at least get word to their base camp. They aren’t going to know where we are when they arrive, and worse than that, they’ll be driving right into a hotbed of zombie activity. Once they get clear of that, if they do that is, then they’ll probably be pretty reluctant to come back here on another trip to try to rescue us.”

  “Then we’d better get to work,” Jesse said.

  Chapter 15

  Rescue in Newport.

  Herb stared at the highway ahead and frowned in consternation. “We’re almost there,” he said to the team. “I’m going to stop up ahead and try to reach our survivors on the radio. Randy, I need you topside. You other guys, help keep an eye on his blind spots.”

  “You’ve got it, Herb,” Randy responded.

  Herb brought the bus to a smooth stop and turned his attention to the radio. All morning long, he had been expecting a contact from the refuge with an update on the survivalists they were en route to pick up. Yet, the radio had remained quiet. Now that they were within a couple of miles of Newport, it was important to get the latest information available. His primary fear was that, after being forced to relocate to a safer area that his team could reach, the survivors might have been overrun by zombies during the night.

  Herb patiently worked the radio through the primary and backup channels but heard nothing in response to his calls to the refuge. He switched it back to the primary channel to give it another try. He heard an excited voice saying, “Rescue team, this is Hernando Garcia! Can you hear me?!”

  A few seconds elapsed and Herb was about to respond when the male voice broke the silence and repeated the same message. Herb waited for the man to finish and then the instant Hernando stopped talking, he keyed his microphone. He said, “This is the rescue team from the refuge. I hear you.”

  “Thank God,” Hernando’s voice responded. To Herb’s ears, the relief in the man’s voice was palpable. Then he said, “We had to move because the other location was being overrun by zombies. We are now several blocks away from that location.”

  “Are you safe at the moment?” Herb asked.

  “We are. At least we think we are,” Hernando amended his statement. “We’re in the Newport Police Station, and there are some locked doors here that we can’t open, so I can’t be sure there are no zombies in here.”

  Herb heard another voice in the background say, “Ask them how far out they are.” Hernando passed along his partner’s question, and then he waited for Herb to respond.

  “As best I can tell, we are about two miles south of the turnoff for Highway 17,” Herb explained.

  “Good. I can give you directions from there, but we have to work quickly. We may lose these batteries at any moment. If that happens, then we’ll lose communications capability,” Hernando warned.

  “Jason, I need you to make notes on the directions,” Herb said. He wanted to listen to the directions and concentrate on committing them to memory while Jason wrote them down, just in case he forgot something. He didn’t want to have to consult such instruc
tions on the drive into the town unless he had to do so. That would mean he wasn’t concentrating on the drive and he didn’t want his attention divided at that critical juncture of the mission.

  “I’m ready,” Jason responded seconds later.

  “We’re ready on this end. Start by confirming your location please,” Herb instructed Hernando.

  Hernando confirmed that they were at the Newport Police Station, and then he gave them directions from their current location to their destination. After he gave them the directions, Herb asked if there had been any problems that could affect their mission.

  “No, just watch out for the zombies. We’ll be waiting at the side door I told you about in the directions. When you arrive, we can exit the building and be inside your vehicle in less than two minutes,” Hernando promised, and then he signed off.

  “You didn’t tell them about what happened to you,” Jesse said.

  “There’s nothing anyone can do for me. I won’t be going with you. I’ll wait until you and the others are gone, and then I’ll do what has to be done. That way, the women won’t have to hear it. That will be easier on them and you as well, my friend.”

  Jesse stared in silence, but then he nodded reluctantly. “That would be easier on them. They respect you, man. You’ve been a good leader. None of us would have made it through this shit if it wasn’t for you.”

  “We all worked together for our survival, my friend. I couldn’t have done any of this without you and the others working with me. And don’t sell yourself short. Your contributions were every bit as important as mine were. I can’t count the times I knew what we needed to do, but lacked the skills to accomplish it. You stepped up and got the job done because you had the skill to do it. Things like setting up a battery system for the radio with all these batteries. I could never have done that. I would have kept searching for large units like the ones in the radio,” Hernando countered. “But you knew how to make do with what was available. Now there is one more task I need you to handle for me, and it is important.”