He wanted to right the wrong the Jihadi’s had done, but her cold logic was a little disturbing. He’d never killed a woman or a child. Not a living human one, anyway. Must be the Kentucky Gentleman in him coming out, never hit a woman or a kid. Or execute one. Her hatred ran deep and he wondered if there was more to it than just the death of most of the world, and the destruction of her country.
Nah. That was more than enough, he supposed.
Once they got set up, Scratch turned his truck around, waiting for the inevitable followers to start showing up. Some of the trucks were getting a little low on fuel, the bus critically so.
There was a truck stop on the outskirts of town, but it was agreed that it would be best to hit it in the morning, after they came back with Firecracker’s family. Then they could take off and put another five hundred miles behind them, hopefully getting near Denver. There was no need to fight zombies all night coming at them from both ends and the run into town should only take an hour or so.
Griz and Cadillac Jack were prowling through the food provisions, examining different sized plastic bottles, much to the annoyance of Martha. As Gunny came back from getting rear guards set up, he noticed Martha with her hands on her hips giving them the evil eye. They were checking to see which bottles would fit snuggly on the end of the gun barrels. “Making suppressors?” Gunny asked.
“Yeah,” Griz answered and the crowd that had been gathered around the small campfire, mostly ignoring them, perked up and started to pay attention.
“You can make a silencer with a mustard bottle?” Tina asked, somewhat aghast.
Deputy Collins followed the proceedings with a slight frown on her face, looking like she was trying to remember the exact code and subsection of the law that expressly forbade the manufacture, use, or possession of such items. But she was wise enough to know it no longer applied. Old habits die hard.
Gunny wondered if she knew about the buckets of cocaine Sara and Stacy had commandeered from Lars. Or that Stabby was slightly buzzing on it most of the time.
“I saw that on the telly,” Stabby said. “It really works?”
“It’ll work until we can raid a good gun store and find some real ones,” Griz replied. “It’s better than nothing for now, though.” Then he threw the frowning deputy a wink, grinning at her in his boyish way.
Cobb came back into the group after setting up the forward outpost, saw what they were doing and told them to get the weapons out to the guards as soon as they finished cobbling them together. They didn’t know if the infected would chase after a gunshot like they would a truck engine, but anything they could do to cut the chance of it, the better off they would be.
Later that evening, after dinner had been eaten and everything had been stowed away in case they needed to make an emergency departure, they gathered around a small fire and the talk turned to what they could expect when they reached the reservoir in Oklahoma. Other than the four on guard duty, this was the first time they had all sat around and discussed where they were going, and what could be expected.
The disaster and the days leading up to their departure had been chaotic and everyone had been busy. Now, bellies full of Martha and Cookie’s spaghetti dinner, a relative feeling of safety with the guards keeping an eye on things, and the quiet night seeming to be void of danger, they finally talked about the future. Some of the drivers had been in the area, although no one could actually remember delivering to the little town itself. They described a rich land with streams and a huge, clear lake with plenty of fish and wildlife in the area.
According to General Carson, the soil was good and most crops would grow there. Bastille wanted to know what type of society it would be, comparing it to middle ages England, with peasants toiling the land while the high and mighty did nothing.
Cobb voiced an opinion that if you don’t pull your weight and do your fair share, then you don’t have any rights to take anything from the group.
“This we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat,” Preacher Bible quoted, then said that if they raided the food warehouses from the cities, they would have more than enough canned and dry goods to last for years. Maybe even enough to last until the infected had finally withered away and died for good. Surely long enough for them to start growing their own crops again.
Shakey was worried about medical care and wondered if the hospital generators would still be up and running. Hot Rod said he knew a few tricks for gathering plenty of fish from the lake and he and Jack got into a discussion of the best bait. Griz and Gunny kicked around ideas for making the area defensible. Maybe even having their encampment on an island in one of the big lakes. Maybe build some cabins on it.
It was a good evening, a good first day on the road, and everyone was optimistic for the rest of the trip. Even their resident naysayer, Richard Bastille, had actually said a few things that weren’t completely negative. The Cowboys had brought out their instruments and had a good laugh as Stabby updated their country songs in his death metal style. On his way back to his truck, Gunny was cornered by the SS sisters and in her usual blunt way, Stacy said quietly, “You know Shakey has diabetes?”
“No, he never mentioned it.”
“Why would he? He’d lose his job. Why do you think he came to the Three Flags for his DOT exam?”
“Well, everybody knows Doc would let things slide. What’s the big deal?”
They looked at each other, then looked back at him and he got the distinct impression he was being dense about something. She was looking at him like he was an idiot again. “He takes insulin shots, Gunny. Every day. Four times a day.”
He was starting to see the picture now. “So we need to raid a drug store or something? To get him more? We can do that. We’ll find one tomorrow.”
Stacy looked exasperated. Sara asked, “You’ve never known anyone with Type 1 have you?”
“No,” was his simple reply.
“It has to be kept refrigerated. You can’t just walk into a drug store and grab some off the shelf. Once it gets hot, it starts to break down.”
“There is a newer version available, but he’s so damn stubborn, he wouldn’t change to it. It’s much better, but no matter what, it’s going to be touchy unless we can get to the right testing equipment,” Stacy said in frustration.
Gunny was starting to see why they were so concerned. This would explain some of Shakey’s questions, asking about the hospital generators still running, and the general consensus had been most likely not. They only had a few hundred gallon fuel tank for them, at most.
“How much does he have left?” Gunny asked.
“Not much,” Stacy said. “He was supposed to get his ‘script from Doc when all this went down. He doesn’t know I know, he’s kept it hush-hush for years now. But I would guess what he has in the fridge of his truck is his last little bit.”
“We can raid a pharmacy if we get a chance, the weather isn’t too hateful,” Sara said. “Even if it’s gotten hot, it’s better than nothing. It’s still useful. So just keep that in mind, let’s try to hit one up soon.”
35
Lacy
Day 5
Preparation
Most of them woke up to the smell of coffee. Lacy and Carla had a small blaze going, using clients’ files and remnants of the bookcase they had sacrificed for yesterday’s fire. They had raided the cupboards in the lawyer’s kitchen area and were boiling up a pot of cowboy coffee, using a sauce pan. As the rest of the crew gathered around, Phil and Robert pried open one of the other elevator doors and shined a flashlight into the gloom.
“There it is,” Phil used his Mag Light to point at the metal rungs mounted in a channel along the back wall. “It runs from the top of the building all the way to the sub-basement.”
“Wow,” said Carla. “I thought it would be up front or maybe on the side. How do you even get to it?”
Phil shined the light down the shaft. Twelve stories to the basement. About a hundred and
eighty feet. His light was strong and bright, but it didn’t begin to cut into the darkness that far below.
The ladder was a good eight feet away. “You could probably jump and make it,” Robert said. “Maybe.”
Alex snorted, nearly shooting coffee through his nose.
“Yeah. If you were James Bond,” Carla said dismissively. “Me, I’d probably pull my arms out of their sockets, even if I did make it past the cables running down the middle of the shaft.”
Lacy walked back over to the coffee, giving it a stir, making sure it didn’t burn. Nothing worse in the morning than burnt coffee. “We can make rope out of some cable, make a grappling hook or something,” she said.
They had a fairly decent breakfast of oatmeal, granola, and coffee. The secretaries working for Williams and Williams must have had to pull some early morning shifts on occasion, from what they found in the kitchen. Afterward, they stacked up a few small bookcases on top of a secretary’s desk and started pulling data cables out of the drop ceiling.
They were the easiest cables to get to, having been added by contractors after the building was finished, and held in place with just the occasional zip tie. As soon as the guys had enough pulled, Carla and Lacy set up a station on one of the desks and started stretching it all out, determining exactly what they had to work with. It took Lacy a few tries to remember how it went, but once she got started, the muscle memory in her fingers took over, and she showed Carla a new way to braid.
“I had to learn this when Johnny wanted a paracord sling for one his guns,” Lacy said, and then demonstrated to her how to intertwine the six cables together into one that was extremely strong.
“I told him I would get him one for Christmas, not realizing how much those things cost,” she continued as they worked the wires swiftly, making two ropes.
“Needless to say, I went to the Army-Navy store and bought some paracord and made it myself. What a major pain. Then he liked it so much, he wanted more for the rest of his guns.”
Carla laughed softly, her fingers flying, now that she was in the groove. “What did you tell him?”
“Handed him the rest of the paracord and told him to have fun.” She smiled. “One was enough. It probably took me seven or eight hours to learn how to do it and get it right.”
“How many guns does he have?” Phil interrupted. “He’s ex-army isn’t he?”
Lacy looked up from her work and said, “Yes, he is, and I don’t know exactly, Phil. He doesn’t like to open the safe when I’m around and I leave it alone. I know of five or six that I’ve caught him trying to sneak in, telling me some nonsense about trading something for them, getting a good deal.”
She smiled again and shook her head. “He thinks he’s slick. I let him think he has secrets, but I’d bet my bottom dollar the gun safe is nearly full. He’s been beating around the bush, saying it might be a good idea to pick up another one if we catch a good sale.”
“How many does it hold?” asked Mr. Sato. “How big is the safe?”
“Biggest one they made,” Lacy replied. “About as big as a side-by-side refrigerator freezer.”
They all just looked at her in disbelief. “That many? “Really?” Carla asked. “What does he do with them all?”
Lacy felt a little defensive. She knew Johnny didn’t need fifty guns, but they were something he enjoyed and he never let them go hungry or want for anything to feed his hobby, so she didn’t see any harm in it.
“Shoots them. Some of them, anyway. He goes to the three gun competitions,” She said. “But he’s got all kinds, some of them are antiques and old western guns. You know, collector’s stuff.”
They nodded their heads in understanding. People collecting stuff, even guns, they could understand. Everybody collected something. Anything from Pokémon to ceramic frogs. It didn’t get much more American than that.
They went back to their work, pulling and braiding and passing the morning away in quiet conversation, getting to know one another, bouncing ideas off of each other for their next step. Would they stay together or split up, once they got vehicles out of the parking garage? What would they do if the parking levels were full of the undead? Did any of their family members survive? Should they all stick together and try to rescue them? Where was a safe place to go?
By lunchtime, they were satisfied with what they had. Two long, and very strong ropes, with knotted hand holds every few feet. They planned on using one as a throw rope, grappling onto the ladder and the other as a safety, tied off to the person and something unmoving in the office, just in case. The plastic ropes were solid, but kind of slick. It would be easy to lose your grip if you weren’t careful when swinging out across the abyss to the ladder.
Mr. Sato and Robert said they would figure out lunch while the rest of them went to search through the offices again, this time looking for anything that would make a good, strong, hook.
With the triple wrapped shelving brackets they modified and bellies full of some spicy concoction from lunch, they gathered around the open elevator doors and started trying to throw the hook across the gulf to latch onto the ladder. After a few tries they got it to snag on, and despite Phil’s hard tugs, it held.
They had drawn straws at lunch time to see who would go down first and Robert tied the safety rope around his waist as he sat on the edge of the drop-off. He wrapped the braided wire, that was hooked onto the ladder eight feet away, firmly around his arm and with a few quick breaths, slid out into the emptiness.
With Phil holding him back with the safety rope, he didn’t slam into the far wall, but slowly slid over to it as the rope was let out. When his feet made contact with the rungs, there was a quiet cheer from those gathered at the open doors. He wrapped his arms around it once he made contact and stayed like that for a moment, getting his rapid breathing under control. They only had the one flashlight and he double checked that it was firmly in its holder, borrowed from Phil, then untied the safety rope and started down. They watched, heads leaning out over the darkness, as he disappeared.
They soon lost sight of him and then even the sound of his feet on the metal ladder. Every so often, they would see the light shine down in the blackness as he checked his progress, then finally saw it as a speck of white, moving around on the top of the elevator car.
They listened. Thought they could hear the sound of the roof access panel being removed, then the light disappeared completely. He must be inside the elevator, they all assured each other. Robert had a sturdy piece of flat railing they had pulled out of the ceiling, and used it to pry open the doors on the car. Using the flashlight, he could see the doors of the sub-basement, plainly marked B-2. He listened with his ear to them, but heard nothing.
Quietly as he could, he started to pry open the doors, just enough to see out.
Blackness.
Two stories below ground, with no electricity and the darkness was nearly as complete as it was in the elevator shaft.
He switched on the light and a snarling face was illuminated, a hand reaching for him through the gap. An inhuman screech echoed through the underground garage as it shoved its arms through the opening, forcing it wider.
Robert screamed and backpedaled, dropping the light, and jumping for the opening in the ceiling of the elevator. The undead thing squeezed through the doors and launched himself at the dangling legs illuminated in the rolling beam of the flashlight. Robert screamed again as he felt the hands tearing at him, pulling him back down.
They heard his screams from twelve stories up. First of fear, then of pain. Then nothing.
36
Skull Valley, Utah
Day 5
It was four a.m. when the gentle tapping came on Gunny’s sleeper. He heard Deputy Collins come awake on the bunk above him, and told her it was okay. His turn for guard duty. Guess being president didn’t get you off Cobb’s guard roster, he thought sourly to himself. He dressed hurriedly, grabbed his AR, strapped on his Glock, and double checked his magazine load out
.
He was relieving Bastille, and Bunny was coming on to relieve Griz. Cobb had made out the roster to have one civilian and a vet on duty each two-hour shift. It was up to the old hands to bring the civilians up to speed on what was expected of them, how everyone could die, including them, if they goofed off or nodded off. She stumbled up to the outpost, still half asleep, and sat down on a rock. Within a minute, her head was drooping.
Gunny poured out a cup full of cold water and threw it in her face. She spluttered and jumped to her feet, dropping the .22 rifle she had been cradling between her legs.
“What? What was that for?” she demanded.
“Sleeping,” was Gunny’s simple answer. “Don’t do it on duty.”
After she had calmed down, he went over her duties, explaining more than once that it didn’t matter if she thought it was bullshit. For now, it had to be done. Once they got to Lakota, got things secured, things would be different. By the end of their shift at six, with the smells of breakfast in the air, she had a pretty good understanding of the basics of military life. She realized the importance of each person in the cog, and how they all made it work. Gunny knew a little more about her. She had been an exotic dancer and tended to drink too much. She and Collins had gone around and around a few times, and she always wound up spending the night in jail when they tangled. She supposed it was lucky she had this last time. Otherwise, she would have ended up like everybody else she knew. Dead and still walking around.
When Squeak and Preacher relieved them, they headed back to the trucks and got in line for chow, taking the cups of hot coffee gratefully.
By seven, everyone was fed and Gunny had gathered his crew to head into town with Firecracker, to see if his family was still alive. Cobb had tried to talk him out of it, said he was kind of too important to be running off on a dangerous mission.
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