The Last Bastion [Book 3]

by K. W. Callahan

  They were inside the Riverport town limits two minutes later. Guided by Lance and Max, with Groush’s vehicle leading the way, they arrived at the gated and currently unguarded alleyway a minute after that.

  Fifteen minutes later, it was all over.

  * * *

  “He’s dead? What do you mean, he’s dead?” Dan cried into his radio.

  “I just found him…and Eric,” Hector replied. “They’re both dead here in the alley.”

  “How did they die? Did biters get them?”

  “Looks like somebody shot them.”

  Worried when he couldn’t find Richard, and not being able to reach him on the radio, Dan had sent scouts out to search the square.

  “Must have been the new people,” Marta said as she stood cleaning her gun.”

  “New people? What new people?” Dan frowned, unaware of Lance and Max’s arrival.

  “Man and woman. They arrive just before biter attack,” Marta explained in her deep Polish accent. “They told about biter herd coming. Ask Hector if they are there.” Her accent was even more pronounced due to the stress of the situation.

  “Hector? Is there anyone else around there? A man and a woman?”

  “Hold on, let me check.”

  “Be careful,” Dan said. “They might be the ones who shot Richard and Eric.”

  There was a pause, pregnant with suspense. Dan looked over at Marta across the desk from him. She continued to work dutifully on her weapon. She was an amazing woman. Not only was she beautiful, but strong, intelligent, brave, and sensible.

  “No one here. I checked around, even called out, and no one,” Hector finally responded on the radio.

  “Okay, get back here so we can figure out what in the hell is going on,” Dan instructed from his post inside Richard’s town hall office.

  “Copy that,” Hector replied.

  A minute later, Hector was back, out of breath and looking worried.

  Dan had called the people he felt most confident relying on in such a crisis, but they’d yet to arrive. These people had been sprinkled around the square fighting off biters just five minutes prior. And they’d been hoping to soon return to the beds from which they’d rudely been roused.

  “Dan…there’s something…something else,” Hector huffed.

  “What?” Dan eyed the panting man who had worked as an auto mechanic before the Carchar outbreak.

  “The alley gate.”

  “What about it?”

  “Looks like that’s how those people must have gotten out. The gate was closed, but I noticed that the lock was smashed.”

  Dan was silent for a minute, thinking, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. “Why would they have killed Richard?” he said mostly to himself after a moment. “You think…”

  But his thought was interrupted by the sound of gunfire.

  He shot a glance at Hector, the realization of what was happening smeared across his face.

  “Oh no,” he breathed and then grabbed his radio. “We’re under attack!” he called into it and then darted out of the office. “Come on!” he said to Hector as he passed.

  Hector followed Dan outside where the town square was already a flurry of activity. Marta was close behind. Dan paused to absorb a scene of chaos. People were swarming everywhere around the square. Explosions of light from guns being fired flickered like fireflies around them. Dan couldn’t tell his own people from the attackers. But judging by how many people he saw, and knowing the number of his own townspeople still alive, the residents of Riverport were clearly outnumbered. Gunfire was erupting everywhere around the square. People were screaming, running, fighting, dying all around him.

  Hector fell face-first to the ground beside Dan and Marta and lay motionless. Dan knelt beside the fallen man, rolling him over to reveal a bullet hole in the side of his head.

  Dan recognized instantly that organizing any sort of defense would be impossible. The town was lost. Already low on ammunition, severely outnumbered, apparently outgunned, obviously disorganized, and caught by surprise, they stood no chance. He stood, pulled his own weapon from a shoulder holster, grabbed Marta by the wrist, and bolted for the armory, pulling her along behind him.

  As they dashed across the square, they were able to take down two of the strangers who had unexpectedly infiltrated their town. One was male. One was female. Marta hoped that they were the same man and woman who had arrived earlier and had apparently been spies for the force now attacking them.

  Along the way, they encountered Ben and Jill. The young married couple was just exiting the building in which they resided. They had retreated there to clean some biter gore off them after the recent battle with the unexpected herd.

  “What’s going on?” Ben yelled.

  “Don’t know!” Dan slowed to call back but didn’t stop running with Marta. “Come on! Richard’s dead! It’s falling apart!”

  Ben and Jill joined Dan and Marta in their retreat, reaching the armory just as several vehicles entered the square through the open alley gate.

  “How’d they know about the gate?” Ben yelled.

  “Spies!” was all Marta called back in response.

  The armory was a two-story, largely windowless, concrete building. Its front door was made of several-inch-thick oak.

  “Come on! Get inside!” Dan urged the others. Just as he was about to close and lock the armory door, he saw several figures dashing across the street toward the armory. One figure was several feet smaller than the other two, and in the darkness, he recognized Cara and Brandon Durfner, and their five-year-old daughter, Louise.

  “Cara! Brandon!” Dan called, waving them over. “Come on!”

  They saw him and headed straight up the armory steps.

  “Hurry!” Dan urged, but there was no need. They were moving as fast as two parents with a five-year-old in tow could move through a hail of bullets around them.

  The family rushed past Dan and inside the armory. Then Dan scanned the square one last time for signs of other townspeople in close proximity. Seeing no one, and with bullets striking the building around him, several of which thudded into the heavy wood door right beside him, Dan ducked inside the armory, pulled the door closed behind him, and locked it.

  He knew the door wouldn’t stand up long to the sort of firepower now outside. But even if it bought them a spare minute or two, they could use all the extra time they could get.

  The small group of Riverport citizens with him was already making its way downstairs. He could see Brandon leading his wife and daughter down the stairway ahead of him. He knew exactly where they were headed. Therefore, he pulled out a flashlight that every citizen in the town was required to carry at night, and followed them.

  At the base of the stairs, he turned right and hurried down a dark hallway in the armory’s basement. A few moments later, he found the others congregated in a large storeroom full of supplies. The group was hurriedly throwing various goods into backpacks. Food, bottled water, medical supplies, and ammunition were tossed haphazardly inside these packs. There was even a pack for little Louise to carry. Everyone had to pull their weight. They knew that what they carried might be all that stood between survival and death once outside the town.

  The group worked quietly, knowing exactly what they needed to pack. It was something they’d talked about in public meetings as well as rehearsed privately in their minds numerous times. Suddenly there came the sound of shots being fired upstairs. The sound echoed dully through the basement’s concrete hallway. This was followed by the distant rumble of shouted voices.

  The invaders were breaking into the armory. Dan knew time was short. It wouldn’t take them long to find their way downstairs.

  “Come on guys, let’s go,” he threw a box of ammo inside his bag, tossed in a couple more bottled waters, and then zipped the bag closed.

  He slung the zippered bag over his shoulder. Then he walked over to a large metal cabinet and opened it. He pulled out three semi-a
utomatic rifles. One went to Ben, one went to Marta, and he kept one for himself. Then he bent and pulled a smaller, yet heavier bag than the one he already carried, from the bottom of the cabinet. It contained loaded magazines for the weapons. He pulled three magazines from the bag and handed one each to Ben and Marta, and again kept one for himself.

  They loaded their weapons and followed the others who had already dispersed into the hallway and were headed for yet another stairwell that led down to the armory’s sub-basement.

  As they walked, they could hear the sound of boots and voices echoing one floor above them.

  They entered the sub-basement through a wooden door that Dan paused to lock behind them. Guided only by their flashlights, they moved to the far wall of the space that was devoted largely to the building’s mechanicals – boilers, electric panels, utility lines and meters, backup generator, sump pump. At the far end of the space was a large iron door with several metal latches securing it to the concrete wall. Marta lifted the heavy latches and swung the door open revealing a darkened passage. She ushered Cara, Brandon and Louise in ahead of her, followed by Ben and Jill. She stood waiting as Dan crossed the basement floor.

  “Go,” he urged her.

  She stepped inside the tunnel. Dan stepped in after her, closing the door and re-latching it from the inside so it locked.

  The tunnel had been used since the town’s earliest days for a variety of purposes. Prior to the armory being built, the land on which the armory now sat had been the site of a general store. The store had closed in the early 40s, and the building had fallen into disrepair. It had burned in the early 50s, and the armory had been built overtop the building’s basement, incorporating part of its foundation. This portion of the previous structure included the tunnel the group had entered.

  The tunnel had been built in the late 1800s for the purpose of transporting food and other goods to the bars, restaurants, and hotels around town during harsh winters. It had been used for cold storage during the hot summers. During the Roaring 20s, the tunnel had been used to transport illegal liquor to those same bars, restaurants, and hotels during Prohibition. After Prohibition ended, the tunnel remained in use, assisting the city as they upgraded a variety of utilities under the streets of Riverport. It continued to be utilized and serviced by the city and county to conduct other necessary repairs and maintenance on utility lines until the mid-90s. At that time, a nearby water main had burst and flooded the tunnel. After that, the tunnel had been sealed with iron exterior doors at both ends. A concrete block wall had been built in its center to deter the curious or those with nefarious motives in mind. But after the Carchar Syndrome had hit, and the armory had become the town’s supply depot, a team of residents had broken through this wall. This was done in preparation for using the tunnel as an escape route in an emergency – an emergency the likes of which the town was now experiencing. The tunnel ran for almost 100 yards before exiting into the basement of the nearby hardware store.

  Brandon unlatched the iron door at this end of the tunnel and forced it open, knocking aside several pieces of concealing sheetrock leaned up against the wall in front of the door.

  The rest of the group quietly filtered out of the tunnel and into the hardware store’s basement behind him.

  “Lights off,” Dan instructed.

  Everyone shut off their flashlights but Dan.

  “I’ll lead,” Dan said. “Link hands and stay close. As soon as we get upstairs, I’ll kill my light to avoid being seen. We’ll have to move slower then since it’ll be hard to see. Keep your eyes peeled and your ears open. Got it?”

  The group agreed.

  “I’m scared, Mommy,” little Louise whispered in the blackness.

  “It’ll be okay,” her mother assured her. “You just hold Mommy’s hand and don’t let go, and you’ll be just fine.”

  “Okay Mommy,” Louise’s sweet voice quivered in the dark.

  Dan led them upstairs out of the hardware store’s basement, and after a quick scan of the street, out quietly into the night.

  CHAPTER 15

  “Where are Manny and Margaret?” Julia Justak asked Michael, her tone filled with angst as the group exited the fifth-floor storage closet where they’d temporarily been taking shelter.

  “They…they…well, they didn’t…” his words trailed off as he shook his head, tears welling up in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” was all he could muster as he walked down the hall away from the group, a hand over his eyes as he went.

  As soon as he rounded the hallway and was apart from the others, he collapsed to his knees, bursting into tears. He couldn’t believe it had happened again. He’d lost more of his Blenders.

  Caroline broke from the rest of the group to console her husband. The others were quiet as the enormity of having lost more of their Blender family members settled over them.

  It was a long night as the group slowly began to recover from the attack. There were still live biters sprinkled throughout the tower. Most of them were injured in some way, and rather than waste precious ammunition, the Blenders made short work of them with several long pikes they’d created and left up on the seventh floor. The pikes were intended for use should the Blenders be stranded on the rooftop. They needed weapons they could jab down through the tower’s rooftop hatch to kill biters below.

  The last few mobile biters they encountered were gathered on the ground level. It appeared that they had congregated there, nursing injuries or just waiting, unsure of what to do or where to go next. It took Michael and Josh less than a minute to clear the floor of these final threats.

  There were biter bodies everywhere inside the tower. It was a sad, disgusting, bloody mess. The group quietly mourned the loss of Manny and Margaret as they worked to reseal the tower’s main entrance and then begin the lengthy process of cleaning the macabre remnants left behind across five tower floors.

  * * *

  The next few days after the biters’ massive assault were spent cleaning and repairing the tower. It was a disgusting process, filled with the sights, sounds, and smells of hauling the scores of biter bodies and body parts downstairs or dumping them out windows.

  The kids, as much as possible, were spared the horrendous duty of body hauling, but they still had plenty of work to do. They helped by covering broken windows, preparing meals, mopping up the bloody remnants from the fight, and assisting with whatever else they could do to rid themselves of the reminders of the attack.

  At the end of the first day post-attack, a memorial service was held for Manny and Margaret. It was a service without bodies since the biters had consumed most of the young couple. Anything that had been left of them was hauled off by the retreating biters. The only evidence of Manny and Margaret having died on the tower’s ground level was their weapons, left where they had fallen, and one of Margaret’s boots.

  On the second day post-attack, things inside the tower began to take on a more normal appearance. This mostly meant that the first five floors of the tower no longer looked like a complete war zone or biter morgue. Most of the biter bodies had been brought downstairs and stacked like cordwood around the tower’s ground floor. Several piles of the bodies actually helped to add substance to the barricade at the tower’s front entrance. Michael wanted to get all the remains down and ready to be moved before opening the barricade again in order to dispose of the bodies as swiftly as possible. No one knew whether more biter hoards, similar to the one that had just attacked, were lurking in the near vicinity.

  Mid-afternoon on the second day post-attack, the group hauled half the biter bodies outside where they could freeze solid in the winter temperatures. With the front part of the tower’s ground level cleared, the Blenders temporarily re-sealed the entry barricade. Then they worked to move the stacks of other biter bodies closer to the barricade before reopening it.

  “I think I’d give ten years off my life if I never had to touch, see, or smell another dead biter again,” Patrick groaned as he and Josh hefted
a gruesomely disfigured biter who had taken several bullets to the face. They set it on a growing stack of dead biters beside the entry barricade.

  “That’s because you’re still young,” his father wiped sweat from his brow. “You got the years to burn…or to trade I guess I should say. People like your mother and I, and Ms. Mary, well, those years you mentioned are a lot more precious.”

  “Michael?” came a voice from inside the tower’s ground level office. It was Christine Franko.

  “What’s up?” Michael called back from where he was taking a breather from working with Wendell to move biter bodies.

  “You’ve gotta see this!” Christine called back.

  Michael shot a worried glance toward the office, wondering if he really had to ‘see this’. Such requests hadn’t been exactly fun-filled lately. Michael had gotten his fill of seeing all sorts of things he hadn’t needed or ever wanted to see. But he went nonetheless.

  Christine stood at the far corner of the office near the tower’s southwest wall where it met with the stairwell. Behind her, a bookshelf had been pushed askew by biters during the assault. Previously, the bookshelf had been set against the wall that formed the outer portion of the office stairwell.

  “I thought that was built in,” Michael nodded toward the bookshelf.

  “Me too,” Christine nodded.

  “I would have used it for our barricade had I known it was free standing.”

  “And check this out,” Christine motioned him forward toward the bookshelf. “Look behind it.”

  Michael poked his head around a sizeable gap between the back of the bookshelf and the wall. Behind it was a door.

  “Hmm,” he said, shoving the bookshelf out a little further. “Never knew that was back there.” He pushed the bookshelf out a couple more inches before it stuck in place. “Shelf is heavy,” Michael let out a deep breath. “Heavier than it looks. Must be solid oak. If I wasn’t so damn tired from hauling dead biters, I’d take a look at what’s back there behind that door. But my muscles feel like rubber.”