“OK, just be careful and stay away from those creeps,” Emma said as she, Logan and Katie nervously started to throw things into their bags.
I crawled out of the lean-to and moved over to look around the side of the building.
It was almost dark, the only light was the stars in the cold clear night sky.
I slowly worked my way towards the restroom tents and the other end of the building, near the place where Hank said we needed to go.
I was half way to the restrooms when I heard voices off in the distance.
I laid down on my stomach and stared off in the direction of the voices.
The last of the day’s light quickly faded into blackness, making it impossible to see much more than dark shapes.
However just like the night that our site was attacked by four of the tattooed creeps, I again noticed the flames from someone’s camp fire disappear, then reappear as someone briefly moved between me and the fire.
I watched as the campfire seemed to blink on and off fifteen different times.
I knew it couldn’t be because the survivors at the sight were moving around, they never moved around that much. Their movements were listless and slow, they moved more like the dead.
If I was right, the creeps were out in force tonight.
All hell was going to break out a lot sooner than I expected.
I knew I shouldn’t have been surprised, I had honestly expected this would happen a lot sooner than now.
I was just disappointed that the creeps had decided to get their revenge on me tonight.
There was a possibility I had a chance to get my family out of this place, but not if those creeps went on the war path, that would ruin everything.
But again, I should have expected that it would happen now, everything that could have gone wrong had gone wrong over the last month, nothing had been easy, why should I have expected things to go smoothly now.
One way or the other it looked like our time at the safe zone would be over tonight.
Whether we would live or die, I didn’t know, and I didn’t have time to worry about that right now.
It almost felt like I didn’t care one way or the other at the minute, I was tired and weary of what passed as life here at the safe zone and I just wanted it to be over.
But of course I cared, I cared about my family and I wanted them to survive this ordeal, it had been all that had kept me going for the last month.
But if I didn’t act fast, we would all die before we had a chance to even try to save ourselves.
I quickly got to my feet and ran as quietly and as quickly as I could back to our site.
Part Three
Life after Death
Chapter 1
I raced back to our site, watching the dark yard over my shoulder as I ran. I estimated that we had at most, five minutes to get away from our site before those creeps showed up.
I had counted that there were at least fifteen of them coming, but I knew there could be more on the way. I had only seen that one group that passed by in front of that campfire, but it was possible that there would be two groups, each coming from a different direction.
If I were planning the attack, I would attack from two sides, trapping my victims so they wouldn’t have an escape route. Unfortunately, the second route I would have used led right past the restroom tents, the route that my family needed to take to find our way out of the base.
Hopefully they would give the building a wide berth to avoid being seen by the guards inside the building.
I would need to keep this in mind as we left, but right now my main concern was getting my family away from our site before our visitors arrived.
I finally made it back to the corner of the building.
I stopped and listened as I scanned the dark yard for any movement. So far this end of the yard appeared quiet and still.
I quickly walked around the corner of the building and from the low light given off by our campfire I could see that Emma, Logan and Katie were busy inside the lean-to,
I hurried over to the entrance, knelt down and looked inside. I kept my back to the yard as I whispered quietly so that no one, but my family would hear me.
“We have to get out of here within the next thirty seconds,” I said. “I think we are going to have company in a few minutes.”
“Now?” Emma asked.
“Now,” I replied. “I spotted a large group moving down through the yard when I was almost up to the restroom tents.”
“OK, let’s go,” Emma said.
“Should we bring our blankets?” Logan asked. “Carrying them could slow us down.”
“Bring them,” I replied. “If we find they are making it hard to move around, we can just leave them along the way, but they could come in handy later.”
Emma, Logan and Katie lined up in front of me at the edge of the lean-to.
“Stay inside until I put out the campfire,” I said, then I got up and casually walked over to the fire and began to scatter the burning pieces of wood with my foot until the flames were out and all that remained were a few glowing embers. Hopefully, if anyone was watching, they would just assume that my family and I were turning in for the night.
I moved back over in front of the tent and leaned down.
“OK, Emma you get behind me, Katie you get behind your mother, Logan, you take up the rear and keep an eye out behind us,” I instructed. “We’re going to stay close to the building until we get down to the restrooms. If you see or hear anything, tap the person’s shoulder in front of you. No talking unless you absolutely have to.”
“I can’t see,” Katie whispered.
“Hang on to your mother,” I replied. “We need to go now.”
I moved slowly to the corner of the building and stared out into the yard and then down past the building.
The way in front of us appeared clear at the moment.
I turned and glanced back at my family, their black hair and dark clothing helped hide them in the darkness of the night. Our dirty faces also didn’t hurt our efforts to blend in with our dark surroundings either, we hadn’t washed our faces in a week, opting to drink the water we were given rather than wasting it by washing our faces. As I had said, food and water were too valuable to use for anything frivolous. Also, as you begin to lose hope, personal hygiene no longer seems important especially when you have to sleep in the dirt day after day. Keeping ourselves clean like we were used to doing hadn’t really been an option.
I reached back and tugged Emma’s arm and we started moving again. I listened after each step, but fortunately the group I had expected to come down this way hadn’t made it down this way yet, or they decided to take a different route to our site.
Maybe I was just being paranoid, maybe there was only one group out tonight, but better to be paranoid then careless. I knew I couldn’t get careless tonight, too much was riding on what happened over the next ten minutes.
When we reached the restrooms, I stopped and stared at the tents when I heard what sounded like five or six different men’s voices.
I cocked my head as I scanned the area, trying to decide where the voices were coming from.
As I shifted my attention from place to place, I determined that the voices seemed to be coming from the men’s tent. I focused all my attention on the men’s tent, that’s when I saw the light coming from beneath the sides of the tent. Someone must have a lantern or some kind of torch, maybe a burning piece of wood from a campfire that they were using for light.
I then studied the women’s tent, I didn’t hear any voices or see any light coming from that tent.
Our destination was at the other end of the building.
We could go behind the tents and keep going towards the end of the building, but if the men came out of the tent and started down that way, we might be able to reach our destination before they caught up with us, but we didn’t know how long we would be exposed out in the open once we got there. I decided that we couldn’t
take that chance.
I leaned back and whispered to Emma, “We’re going to go in the women’s tent and wait until the guys in the men’s tent leave.”
I could feel Emma nodding her understanding when her hair brushed across my face as her head moved up and down.
Emma turned and quietly passed the message back to Katie.
I took Emma’s hand and pulled her along behind me as I started moving towards the tent.
When I made it to the women’s restroom, I pulled open the flap and took a quick glance inside, then I pulled Emma up next to me and guided her into the tent and against the inside of the front canvas wall.
I guided Katie and Logan inside the tent and placed them next to Emma, then I moved inside and stood holding open the corner of the flap, so I could see outside.
The entrances of the two tents were only about twenty feet apart, even though the men in the other tent were talking quietly, I could make out just about everything they were saying.
By their conversation, it was obvious who they were and where they were going next.
I wanted to move over next to Emma and Katie and put my hands over their ears so they couldn’t hear what these guys intended to do tonight, but I didn’t want to move around and make any sounds that could give us away, so I just stood in silence and listened. I hoped that Emma and Katie didn’t become too upset by what they were hearing, because they were the subject of much of what the creeps were talking about.
The conversation continued for about three minutes, then I noticed the light that had been coming out below the sides of the tent suddenly went out. The guys inside the tent slowly started to file out in to the area between the tents. I let the flap fall back in place when I noticed the shapes coming towards the women’s tent.
I could feel Logan’s body get tense as we heard the sound of footsteps coming closer to us.
The steps moved by the side of the tent, a mere two feet from where we stood. I heard Katie almost gasp when someone bumped against the side of the tent near where she was standing.
We all held our breath as the sounds of the foot steps moved off in the direction of where our spot was located, then the sound slowly faded.
I waited for about two minutes before sticking my head out through the flap to see if it was safe for us to leave. The area around the tents was now still and quiet. I ducked back inside.
“OK, all clear,” I whispered. “Emma, switch places with Logan, I want to be in our same order when we reach our exit point.”
I took another look out through the tent flap, then took Emma’s hand and led her out into the yard.
We moved around the men’s tent and angled over to the building. We followed the building until we were almost to the far corner. I felt around with my feet until I felt the ground begin to angle downward slightly. I followed the downward angle until I could feel the openings in the metal grate with my foot.
“I found it,” I whispered. “I’m going to see if I can move the grate, keep your eyes open.”
I dropped to my knees and wrapped my fingers around the bars in the grate. I pulled, trying to lift the grate but the damn thing wouldn’t budge.”
“Logan,” I whispered, “Help me.”
Logan got down on his hands and knees and crawled over next to me.
“I can’t budge this thing by myself,” I whispered.
“Maybe it’s bolted down,” he suggested.
“We better hope not or we’re screwed,” I whispered back. “Come over here next to me and grab on to the grate. Pull straight up, if we can lift it a few inches, then pull it towards us to get the end up on the lip of the drain. If we can do that, maybe we can slide it this way enough to let us get down in the drain.”
“OK,” Logan whispered, moved over next to me and then he reached down and grabbed the grate.
“OK, Pull!” I whispered.
We both pulled at the grate, trying not to grunt too loudly as we strained to move the heavy metal object. Slowly the three-foot square grate began to pull loose and rise up out of the concrete rim of the drain.
“Let’s see if we can slide it our way,” I whispered.
Logan and I leaned back, straining to pull the grate towards us.
We were able to pull the grate six inches before I whispered, “OK, take a break.”
We were both breathing heavily by then from all the exertion. The damn grate had to weigh two hundred pounds.
After a few second break, we both grabbed on to the grate again and pulled it our way a few more inches, after a few more attempts, we had moved the grate off the opening to the drainage pipe about eighteen inches, enough that I felt we could all get through and down into the drain.
“Katie, give me a cell phone,” I whispered.
I could hear Katie rummage through her bag before she replied, “I got it.”
I saw her dark form move my way and I reached out, took her arm and felt my way down to her hand and took the cell phone.
“OK, I’m going down first to see what’s down there,” I whispered. “Just be ready to crawl down in to the pipe as soon as I call you.”
I slipped the cell phone into my pocket, sat at the side of the opening and slid my legs down into the drain.
I lowered my legs down, then held onto the grate and lowered the rest of my body down through the opening as I started to wonder how deep this drain was. I thought I was going to be hanging by my arms when I finally felt my feet touch the bottom of the drainage pipe.
When I was standing in the middle of the drain, I pulled out the cell phone and powered it on. A few seconds later the screen lit up and I held out the phone to light up the drain around me. I found that I was standing in a four-foot square concrete box. A two-foot round pipe connected to the box near the bottom of the box in front of me, another pipe led into the box behind me. I didn’t know what the box was called, but I knew that they put these boxes in the ground everywhere they put a grate so that the water had a place to collect before entering the drainage pipes that would then take the water away.
I didn’t know how far the pipe would lead before it came to another collection box and grate, but I dreaded the idea of crawling through that small pipe, my claustrophobia was going to be put to test.
I held out the light and looked back up to the opening. “Logan,” I whispered loudly.
Logan looked down through the opening and said, “Wow, this is deep.”
“Take your mother’s hands and lower her down to me,” I said.
A second later, Emma’s legs came through the opening. I grabbed her legs and gently lowered her to the concrete floor. Katie came next, I grabbed her legs and lowered her down next to her mother.
I handed Katie the cell phone and turned back to wait for Logan.
Instead of seeing his feet coming down through the opening, Logan stuck his head down and looked at me.
“Something is happening up here,” he whispered. “I think the fence is starting to collapse. I can hear people yelling across the yard and it sounds like metal scraping against metal.”
“Logan, get down here now,” I said.
Logan’s head disappeared, then his feet came flying down through the opening. I grabbed his legs and lowered him down with the rest of us.
We could now hear screaming and shouting echoing down into the drain from above.
“Right before I jumped, it sounded like the entire fence across the yard collapsed,” Logan said. “It sounded like thunder and then the moaning got really loud over that way. We got down here just in time.”
“We’re not safe yet,” I said. “We have to get this grate closed before someone or something falls down here with us.”
“How are we going to do that?” Logan asked. “We can barely reach it from down here, we don’t have any leverage to put our weight into it.”
“Stand next to me,” I said. “I think if we reach up and grab the grate, then put our feet against the wall, we can let our legs do all the work.”<
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Logan watched as I stood facing the wall, I grabbed the grate, then bent my knees and swung my legs up and put my feet against the wall. I held on tight as I straightened my legs and pulled against the grate.
To my surprise, the grate slid back over the opening and clanked as it fell back into lip around the top of the opening.
“That was easy,” Logan said. “Sorry I didn’t help, I was trying to figure out what I was supposed to do.”
“No problem,” I replied. “The important thing is we got the opening closed off.”
Just then as we listened to the screams and the sounds of all hell breaking loose getting closer to our location, we heard the engine on the helicopter powering up above us on the roof of the building. I was about to make a comment about Hank when I was startled by people running across the grate above us.
I quickly held the cell phone against my body to hide the light shining from the screen as something fell over the grate. The savage sounds of wild animals tearing their prey apart only a few feet above us was sickening.
I reached out with my other arm and pulled my family close to me.
“We have to keep moving before someone spots us down here,” I whispered. “Keep the same order. If you can’t see or you start to feel claustrophobic when you’re in the pipe, just close your eyes and hold on to the foot of the person in front of you.”
“Which pipe should we go into?” Emma whispered.
“I’m not sure, but I think if we take the pipe to my right, it should get us out of the base faster,” I replied. “Follow me as quietly as you can until we get up the drain a ways.”
I got down on my hands and knees, then crawled into the pipe on my stomach. I crawled about twenty feet before pulling out the cell phone to light up the pipe.
The way ahead seemed to go on forever, behind me were three scared looking faces staring at me.
Just Trying To Stay Alive: A Prepper's Tale Page 28