“You did great,” Neil said when he felt clean again.
Mark leaned against the grey wood of the split rail fence and sighed up at the clouds above. “I thought I was going fucking wet myself, but, I did it. I really didn’t think I could but I did.”
Though Mark was smiling over his achievement, Neil was frowning. There was no sign of Sadie. The tire tracks they had been following had joined the trail and the trail had joined the road, which meant she could be a hundred miles away by now. Maybe even two-hundred.
“You think there’s any corn in there?” Mark asked jutting his rugged chin toward the silo. It was the color of iron and had seen some weather, but not as much as Neil would’ve thought. Everything that was man-made seemed to be aging far quicker than it had in the old days.
“Haven’t a clue,” Neil admitted. “I’m not even sure what a silos is for. I mean why do you need a three-story high cylinder to hold corn or seeds or whatever in? Maybe it’s just the way they do it.”
Mark still had his good mood about him, he grinned and said, “Wrong, Mister City-slicker. When you store stuff vertically like this, you get the benefit of gravity. The grain gets pressed down by the weight of the grain on top. It allows you to store more in an equal space.”
“That makes sense,” Neil said. “Let’s see if there’s anything in it. Might come in handy.” The two men went to the silo and found it locked with a deadbolt instead of a padlock which they could’ve broken off quietly. They went about tapping the outer walls here and there; it sounded hollow.
“Empty,” Mark said, craning his head back, glancing up its length. “It looks like they put it in just in time for the apocalypse. Lot of work for nothing.”
“And they already had that other one across…wait. Is that normal to have two silos?”
Mark started to shrug as if it wasn’t abnormal, but then he stopped. “People have two silos all the time, but they don’t generally keep them out it in the middle of nowhere like that other one. It wasn’t even on a dirt road.”
“Maybe it’s nothing,” Neil said. "Maybe…the tree! Son of a bitch! The platform on that tree had new boards. I bet you they hadn’t seen a single winter. Someone put them up recently, which means someone is living around here, and that someone has Sadie.”
“That’s a big jump in reasoning, don’t you think? It could’ve been anyone. A complete stranger who took her or put up that platform.”
“No,” Neil said as he turned and marched off to the Rover. Over his shoulder he made his points: “That platform on the tree was new. Would a stranger to this area take the time to cut all that wood and lug it up into a tree just for the view?”
“Probably not, but…”
“And wouldn’t it be a huge coincidence that a stranger would just happen to be close enough last night to come in and snatch Sadie the minute I left?”
The thought seemed to send a shiver down Mark’s back. He stopped before opening the passenger door. Lowering his voice, he asked, “If you’re right, where are they? The only thing nearby is a burnt down house, a ratty, zombie infested barn, and a couple of silos.”
A touch of rain blew across Neil’s face as he turned to look up at the silo. It stood as if guarding the trail into the fields. From its top the view must have been all encompassing; it surely stretched to the lonely tree where he had left Sadie to her fate.
Neil climbed into the Rover and pointed it at the heavy door to the silo. “What the fuck do you think you’re going to do?” Mark asked.
“Get your gun ready,” Neil said. For his part he flicked the shotgun’s safety off and laid it across himself: the butt against the console and barrel out the window. “Here goes!”
Stomping the gas sent dirt and rocks spitting out behind them as he aimed straight on. Mark cursed loudly and stuck out his arms to brace himself. Just before they hit a gunshot ripped the air, and the door to the silo sprung open.
Neil found himself staring down the bores of a half-dozen rifles.
Chapter 25
Sarah
Atlanta, Georgia
Even as she walked out of the main gate of the CDC, alone, save for the sleeping baby snuggled in the sling across her breast, Sarah Rivers had to wonder if she was already dying. What horrifying germs had been released? And did they travel in the air, or were they coating the ground, or lying invisible on the chain hanging slack from the gate, or were they even then eating into Sarah’s exposed skin?
“Just keep walking,” she whispered. The night was spooky as hell even without the thought of germs. In spite of the fact that she had packed in a hurricane of fear, throwing whatever came to mind into the backpacks as fast as she could, she was still the last to leave. There weren’t even taillights in view. The very last of these had dwindled to red dots just as she stepped out of the apartment building.
Around her the city was dark, black in fact. That was the category it had been given, meaning there wasn’t any signs of humanity left. All save the lone woman and the baby that is. Everything else that moved was a zombie, at least in her eyes, which, due to her fear weren't exactly 20/20. Within minutes of leaving the gate, Sarah almost shot a scraggly myrtle bush with her Beretta—it was right there appearing to jump out at her with its branches looking far too zombie-ish. Then she almost shot her own foot as she was trying to put the gun back into its holster with hands that shook like an old man suffering from palsy.
“Oh, crap,” she whispered, struggling the gun into place and struggling harder not to cry. It was an urge that gripped her around the face and clutched at her throat. She had never in her life been this utterly alone. Not even at the beginning of the apocalypse. Then, she’d had her parents with her and when they died, she had Neil. He had always been there for her, no matter the danger.
But now there was a whole city of the dead between them. He had left for the suburbs to the south, scrounging. South was the one direction she couldn’t go; not without a car. South was where the neighborhoods stacked in on themselves, where the city itself, once the jewel of Old Dixie, sent skyscrapers reaching high into the heavens, where no human had set a live foot in months.
It was rumored to hold upwards of a million zombies within its dark bosom. If she had a car, things would be different. In a car she wouldn’t be afraid, or more accurately not as afraid. In her mind she could picture herself zipping down the center of town and setting out a huge sign along a highway overpass that Neil couldn’t miss. It was a silly dream.
She wouldn’t be driving anywhere. There wasn’t a car for miles that hadn’t been checked and then re-checked for gas. They were, every one of them, dry as bleached bone. Most were settling on their haunches as well, their thickening tires leaking air at a rate immeasurable but, nonetheless, relentlessly constant. They were little more than monuments now, gravestones of a failed and dead civilization. Like gravestones they saddened Sarah as she passed them.
How amazingly quick her fate had caught up. A month before she had stood marveling at the new, expanded wall the governor had erected: twin ten foot fences in front of a barrier of cars that were stacked just as tall. The wall around the CDC was so well founded that guarding it became a perfunctory exercise, an excuse for men to sit around and shoot the bull instead of doing chores.
Only at the main gate was there still a real need for men to stand watch.
Now the watchers had all fled and, as Sarah glanced back, she saw the shambling movements of the dead as they moved into their new home. For a moment she felt guilt at not having closed the gate behind her or for not having left a note. In the dark she paused wondering if she should zip back and leave something for Neil. What could it possibly say? I’m gone and I don’t know where I’m going. P.S. You could be coated in germs and dying right now, sorry.
What else could she possibly write that wasn’t a lie? She had no idea where to go, or how to get there. She only knew that walking couldn’t be the mode of transportation to whatever her destination happened to be;
she’d be zombie-chow in no time. In fact, just as she turned from staring uselessly at the gate, a shadow separated itself from the deeper shadow of a building she had stopped in front of. Though the shadow had the vague outlines of a human, the fact that it began to moan told her it wasn’t one.
Sarah hurried to the far side of a van that sat parked half on the street and half on the sidewalk. It was the kind of van favored by child molesters and FBI agents; it was without windows. This was good in that the zombie couldn’t see where she had gone, but was bad in that Sarah could only track the status of the zombie by listening to its persistent moan. As well she could hear it as it dragged something. The zombie made a constant scraping noise as it worked its way around the long end of the van. She hoped it was dragging its own leg along behind, but she couldn’t tell by the sound.
On the opposite side of the van, she kept an equal station, endeavoring to keep as much of it between them as she could. In this way they went round twice before the zombie stopped and stared down the street back the way she had come.
Attracted by the movement, more of the beasts were heading their way, too many for a van to keep at bay.
Immediately Sarah rushed at a fast walk around the side of the building opposite the van. Burdened as she was running was out of the question.
“Eh-heh,” Eve said with a jutting lip. This was how she was trained to express her displeasure in lieu of crying.
“Not now. Oh, please,” gasped Sarah. She stepped off the sidewalk and squatted down against the building in the gloom of some unknown bush. This offered scant camouflage, really none against any zombie heading down the sidewalk. Still, she had no choice, and quickly pulled back the baby blanket that was keeping the damp night off of Eve’s face. The problem was obvious. Eve’s binky had come dislodged from her mouth and was resting against her round cheek.
“Here ya go, here ya go,” Sarah whispered, bouncing the baby as she poked it back between her lips.
Down the sidewalk from her the moaning grew louder.
Sarah looked all around: she squated next to an office building, two stories high, with not a single window left undamaged. Across a side street was another set of offices. The sign on the building read: North East Medical Plaza. There was zero chance that it hadn’t been looted, however there was a good chance the front doors were unlocked.
A locked door would likely mean death just then.
Up she jumped and, glancing side to side, speed-walked across the street and to the front door, or what was left of it. It had once been constructed of glass which had since been kicked in.
Behind her the shuffling sounds and the moaning picked up in tempo—there was no need to look back. She knew what was coming. She just didn’t know how many. Had she looked she might have given up on the spot and turned the Beretta on her baby and then on herself.
Instead she headed into the building, feeling the need to cry growing within her.
A door as destroyed as the one she breezed through was nearly as useless for her needs as a locked one. It didn't slow the onrushing zombies for more than a couple seconds, and if the medical plaza had been like so many other buildings a couple of seconds would have been enough. She would have sped through the lobby to the staircase and slammed the door shut on the zombies who were notoriously bad with doors. Instead, the plaza was painfully open and modern: a wide atrium took up the entire middle of the building.
Even the stairs were out where everyone could see; everyone included zombies. Sarah rushed up the stairs with the first zombie breathing down her neck and she actually felt something tug at her backpack, before the beast tripped.
“Too bad for you,” she said jauntily, but also with less force than she had anticipated; she was already getting winded. Including the weight of Eve, Sarah was carting nearly fifty pounds around with her. With that in mind she kept anymore comments to herself and concentrated on going up and up. The stairs ran out on the third floor, from which she had a wide open view of the building, and saw that she had effectively trapped herself. The stairs were the only way up or down.
A bench was right there at the top, possibly to cater to out of shape people who dared the stairs. Sarah dropped onto it, silently thanking chubby America. While she got her breath back, she listened to the zombies below trying to navigate the stairs. If she hadn’t trapped herself, it might have been a funny situation. The ones further up were constantly falling and bowling over the ones below—it was good old fashioned slap-stick comedy, except the zombies were relentless in their desire to kill.
On the plus side, they were dumb as bricks. It was Sarah’s hope that they would get tired of crawling all over each other and ignore the third floor altogether. For that to happen, she would just have to sit there quietly, and pray.
For some time it looked as though her prayers were going to be answered. Most of the zombies took to wandering around on the second floor and the few that made the attempt at the next set of stairs seemed to be tackling the challenge for the simple reason that they were in front of them. To the zombies, Sarah had simply ceased to exist in their minds, that is until Eve gave them away.
“Eh-heh,” Eve said, sending Sarah’s heart into her throat. She dropped to her knees and uncovered her daughter. For a second time Eve had spat out her pacifier.
Sarah once again corked the baby with the little bit of pink slobbery rubber and then leaned over her, whispering sweet, fearful nothings as she listened to the zombies on the stairs begin to make more of an effort to get up.
Still, it didn’t sound like many of the beasts had heard the little baby-noise and if Eve could stay quiet for a few more minutes, Sarah thought there was a good chance the zombies would fall again and perhaps forget about her. And if that happened…
“Eh-heh, eh-heh,” Eve cried, louder now. This was her version of a full on outburst. Something was wrong—she wasn’t hungry, Sarah had fed her just before they left. She wasn’t cold, either, Sarah was sure she had her bundled properly. Just in case she drew back the blanket to feel her cheek and that was when the smell blossomed out into the air.
Eve hated to be dirty and as long as she was, she would continue to cry in that soft manner of hers. It may have been quiet compared to other babies, but in that open atrium it was a very obvious human sound and would draw the zombies like flies.
Working quickly with practiced hands, Sarah laid the baby down, popped the binky back in Eve’s mouth, swung the heavier pack off of her back, dug through it with one hand while holding the binky in place with the other so Eve wouldn’t cry, smiled in a grimacy, semi-reassuring manner, cooed at such a low decibel that a dog ten feet away might not have heard, pulled from the pack first a diaper and then the thin package of baby wipes, snapped it open with just her thumb, peeled back the layers surrounding the baby, handed Eve her own feet to play with, removed the soiled diaper, wiped a pudgy bottom, re-diapered, re-dressed, re-swaddled, and listened as the zombies came ever closer.
A chest high, partioning wall separated the stairs from the third level; Sarah was just about to creep away using the wall as cover when her eye fell on the dirty diaper. The mother in her wanted to wrap it up properly, perhaps even double bag it so as not to be in the least offensive and then throw it in the trash. The woman on the edge of death thought better.
She took it and threw it, open-faced over the wall so that it landed on the stairs behind the zombies that were clawing their way up. Movement attracted them, but on the other hand smells confused them to no end. The diaper, for instance, stunk of humanity, but where was the human? As one, the zombies on the stairs turned and went for the diaper, while below many others were drawn to the white flash and the odor.
Sarah took what advantage she could. Every door on the third level, but one had been cloven in as though a medieval battering ram had struck them. The one intact door stood out. Even in the dark there was a gleam to its metallic surface that denoted an elevator. Hope surged through Sarah, hope and fear in equal parts.<
br />
What if she couldn’t get the door open? What if the elevator was there on the third floor? She had envisioned sliding down the cable, but if the elevator was there she’d probably make a lot of noise getting the doors open for nothing. Finally, what if the cable was oily or too far to reach? Could she realistically jump to it with Eve and the backpacks all over her?
All this was counter balanced by the fact that she knew she couldn’t just find somewhere to hide on the third floor indefinitely. Zombies lingered, sometimes for days on end and Sarah only had so much food and water, and there was the fact that Eve would stir and make more noise eventually.
All this went round and round in her head as she approached the elevator. Then Eve squirmed in the sling, finding a better position, and Sarah jettisoned her fears. She was out of choices; she only had action left to her.
Step one was to get the door open. The first attempt, gripping the seam with both hands and pulling with all her strength, failed when her right index nail bent back nearly in half. Focused as she was, she didn’t even notice. Next she pulled the seven-inch hunting knife from her belt. Everyone carried them, though until this moment hers had been more decorative than useful.
She jabbed the sharp blade deep into the seam and pried the doors as far apart as she could—three inches. It was just enough room for her to get her shoe wedge in the gap. Then it was just a matter of hauling on doors that hadn’t budged in seven months. She found it impossible to use even a fraction of her strength with Eve across her torso. Still with her foot wedged, Sarah gently laid her down, resting her head on the backpack, hoping the baby was asleep. She wasn’t.
Eve stretched in her cocoon and made tiny baby noises. In another time or another place it would have been adorable, now Sarah could only pray that Eve would not start babbling.
The Undead World (Book 2): The Apocalypse Survivors Page 22