Eschaton (The Scott Pfeiffer Story Book 1)

by Shane Woods

  I asked my first question, “What the fuck made you come up my ladder?”

  “It was there,” Rich replied, his voice seemingly perpetually rough, “the house looked empty, first floor was boarded up solid, there was a ladder, so we figured it was a good high ground.”

  “Right,” I said shortly, instantly regretting leaving our quick escape in place.

  “Well, let’s get back to rest,” Henry offered.

  “Yeah,” I agreed, “I’ve got another two hours on my shift for watch. Rich, we’ll roll out some more bedrolls for you guys, you sleep through the night, get washed up in the morning. We’ve got a bird bath setup to keep clean, and y’all look and smell like shit.”

  Laughing, Rich agreed, “I imagine we do, we’ve been through a lot.”

  “Well, we’re using the upstairs for our stronghold, follow me, but keep quiet. Kids are sleeping,” I explained, motioning for them to follow me up the stairs, myself leading, and Henry taking up the rear.

  Upon entering the attic, Jennifer giving the new guests a wary look, I grabbed an armload of blankets, a few cans of food, and some bottles of water.

  Grabbing his can from me, as well as a water and plastic fork, Rich said, “Thank you. So, have you guys been here since the beginning?”

  “They have. I was at work, drove my semi here through this shit,” I replied. “Probably my worst day of work ever. Well, maybe my second, there was that one time I had to spend the night in Scranton, Pennsylvania…” I trailed off, shrugging.

  “That was your truck?” Carolyn asked, her first time saying much of anything, and every word coated with a heavy French accent.

  “Yes, it was,” Henry pitched in, “Crazy man drove it all the way here.”

  “Jesus,” Chris said, looking at me in a new light already.

  “We travelled, too,” Rich explained, “From Canada. Easiest border crossing I ever had.”

  “You’re from fucking Canada?” I exclaimed, “Why come down here? Why risk all that for Akron, Ohio, of all places?”

  “My folks are from here, I grew up around here,” he said, then, motioning to Carolyn, “She’s from Canada, I moved up there a couple years ago when we got married, but when all this happened, I had to see if my family was alright.”

  “My parents worked for the local hospital,” Carolyn picked up where Rich left off. “We tried to get to them, but it was so overrun. There were thousands of them! No way anybody around survived, so we left. We came across border to find his family.”

  “And?” I urged them on.

  “No good, man,” Rich said solemnly, “My stepdad was nowhere to be found. My mom and sister, well, we found them. And we ran from them.”

  Henry bowed his head, lips moving, obviously in prayer.

  “That’s shitty, man,” I offered, “real shitty. I’m sorry.”

  “We have had time to come to terms,” Carolyn said, “but we are strong. We are still here.”

  “We ran into Chris,” Rich continued, “his big ass was scrounging the liquor store east of here.”

  “No family, Chris?” I asked.

  “Nah,” he replied, “They all got got. My mom never made it home, I couldn’t find my dad, so I went to go get something to drink.”

  “We holed up in the back of a restaurant,” Rich explained further, “then those planes came in, we knew downtown would be off limits, so we started moving at night when we could sneak and sleeping where we could find shelter during the day.”

  “None of them things caused you much trouble?” I asked.

  “Nope.” A bit of pride in Rich’s voice, “A few run-ins, but nothing big. Some of them are slower now, too.”

  “Slower?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Carolyn said. “We watched one for nearly a week from where we hid. He stayed near same house, he was a runner, now he’s not. I don’t know,” she finished, splaying her hands in uncertainty.

  I motioned to my wife, and she retrieved her notebook and started writing.

  “What’s she doing?” Carolyn asked.

  “Anything noteworthy or possibly useful for survival,” I said, motioning to her notebook, “gets written in there. Sun Tzu, man, know your enemy better than you know yourself. We’re learning.”

  “Smart,” Chris opined.

  “So, your journey to survive, what? Led you to the next safe looking place to chill, and that ended up being here?” I asked them and was met with nods to the affirmative all around.

  “We should consider sticking together, you know,” Rich offered.

  “We’ll consider it, but I want to know you three a bit better,” I replied. “I’ve got kids, man. Gotta consider them, as well as the rest of our safety. You’ll draw on our supplies, and a bigger group is even easier to spot.”

  “That safety in numbers, though,” Henry added from his window seat.

  “He’s right,” Chris added.

  “Fuck it,” I relented. “Maybe, but we’ll talk about it once I’ve rested. And y’all still stink, so get some rest, clean up in the morning, we’ll talk then.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Rich said with a smile. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Yeah, goodnight, dude. Get some rest,” I commanded.

  FIVE

  The rest of the night went quickly. We opted to hold vigil as always, not including our guests, partially to allow them time to rest, but also partially because we simply did not know them. The next morning, we all sat around, and had our talk over coffee. Jennifer and I at our seats, by the windows on opposite ends of the attic, and Henry keeping a watchful eye on the girls.

  “Okay, look,” I opened up, “I need to know some things before I make any choices.”

  “Shoot,” Rich said.

  “Yeah, that’s the first one. Can y’all shoot? Ain’t got to be professionals, but can you hold a gun steady, pull the trigger, and hit something?”

  Affirmative nods all around.

  “Good,” I continued. “Obviously, you have survival instincts, you two made it from Canada, he’s survived this city. No kid touchers, sex freaks, or hard drug addicts here?”

  Negative head shakes instantly from Rich and Carolyn, but a hesitation from Chris.

  “Chris?” I urged.

  “Nah man, I been clean for six months,” he said.

  “Right. Whatever, I’d imagine whoever you got whatever from is gone anyway,” I said, with just a touch of malice hidden in my words. “Alright. We haven’t touched your bags and shit since we put them in the bedroom last night. Go grab them and let’s see how you’re set up.”

  Rich and Chris left to gather their things while Carolyn sat enjoying her cup of coffee. They returned just a moment later with two large backpacks and a long canvass duffel bag. Opening the bags in turn, they set their weapons aside and started going through what they had. Some food, some water, maybe a few days’ worth of each for the three of them, as well as some very basic medical supplies and water purification tablets.

  Bringing their guns forward, Rich had the .32 caliber pistol he’d handed me the night before, and a Ruger 10/22 rifle with an oil filter screwed onto the end of it.

  I eyeballed the contraption, and smiled, “I like that.”

  Grinning ear to ear he offered, “I saw these silencer setups on YouTube a couple of years ago and made my own in my dad’s garage when I still lived down here. It was still in his gun cabinet, but it was one of very few left there.”

  “Suppressor, not silencer,” I corrected.

  “Suppressor, whatever, but it works good,” he said, still grinning.

  I pulled a couple more weapons out of the duffel bag, a Taurus 9mm, and a lever action Marlin chambered in .30-30. Not great, but not bad. Even a good pellet rifle, or a machete, would be better than nothing. Almost as if on cue with my thoughts, the last thing in their bag was a pair of machetes, still with the price tags on them.

  “Not great, not bad. A couple of boxes of ammo for each, at least you’re n
ot dry,” I said appraisingly. “Chris what do you have?”

  He grinned, and pulled out a Ka-Bar fighting knife, and then said, “I also got my Glock .40, it’s my problem solver.” As he produced a black handgun and handed it to me with all the enthusiasm of a child showing a new drawing to his parents.

  I took the proffered handgun and groaned inwardly. Dropping the magazine, I shucked the rounds out of it onto the floor.

  “The fuck you doing?” Chris asked, angrily.

  “Well, it’s a .40,” I explained, “but it’s not a fuckin Glock, man. This is a Hi-Point. That’s Chinese for ‘fancy hammer’. It’s garbage.”

  “Man, I gave my cousin three hundred bucks for that thing,” he shot back at me, anger rising in his voice. “He said it’s a Glock!”

  I opened the footlocker next to me and handed him one of my pistols.

  “This is a Beretta 92FS. It’s a 9mm, better than a Glock or a Hi-Point,” I told him, watching him look the new gun over, and the smile begin to spread across his face. I then added, “Keep it.”

  “Damn, for real?” he questioned, then, “Thanks, man!”

  His grin faltered a bit though when I opened the window next to me, and unceremoniously flung the Hi-Point out the window, over my porch roof, and we both watched it as it clattered to the street, struck the curb, and finally ceased its motion in the middle of the road.

  The weapon landing was almost immediately followed by the shriek of one of the runners as it burst out from the still-open front door where the family across the street tried to make their escape. She shot down the stairs in front of the house, skipping three at a time, out into the street, and finally skidded to a halt right next to the discarded firearm, studying it. Her head tilted back, she sniffed the air, and ran off in the opposite direction.

  “See?” I said, as if that reaction were planned, “Not even the infected fuckers want it.”

  This was met by soft laughter from everybody. The laughter stopped at a new sound, the sound of several gargled gasps and low growls. In a few more beats, more infected made their way to the commotion, but, just as Rich had said, they were slower. Moving not much faster than a speed walk as they moved to inspect the weapon, and then moved on to wherever the runner had gone.

  Closing the window, I turned back to the group and said, “I guess Rich wasn’t bullshitting us. Some of them seem to have slowed down.” Then I added, “Considering that, and the new load on our resources, it may be approaching a good time to move on to somewhere with easier scavenging, more resources, and more room.”

  A few nods, then the question from Carolyn, “Where are we to go? You mean to stay?”

  “Yeah,”, I replied, “and I think I know where.”

  “You talkin about the place?” Henry asked.

  “Yeah, that’s as good an idea as any,” Jennifer added.

  “Probably it,” I said, then explained to Rich, Chris, and Carolyn, “We’ve had many, many talks about different scenarios. A few friends, Henry, and me. Usually late-night drunk fun talk, but we kept focusing on this pair of apartment buildings north of here, maybe about five miles. Lots of rooms in both buildings to scavenge, security doors, and the stairs can be blocked to limit anything getting higher than the first floor. Good, high vantage point, too, and it’s residential around it with a view of the highway. If these fuckers are slowing down, I’m ready to move.”

  Rich shrugged, and replied, “Sounds good to me! The nomad lifestyle sucks lately.”

  The others echoed their agreement, and we began to formulate a plan.

  “Henry has his Escalade. I’ve got my crew cab down there. Let’s start gathering up everything we can, I’ve got to get some things from deeper in the house. Wrap everything up like giant hobo bundles in those sheets, a little of everything in each pack in case one or two gets left.”

  “Yes, Sir!” Jennifer said sarcastically, amid the others’ agreements. While they gathered up things in the attic, I trekked down the stairs to the basement. There, I grabbed a couple bundles of 550 paracord, and a bundle of heavier nylon rope. Hoisting the bundles in one arm, I grabbed our recurve hunting bows and a narrow, long box full of various arrows in the other.

  One more trip down into the house, I looked, and came up empty on further survival supplies. The wife and neighbor had done very well clearing us out previously, so I grabbed a handful of tools from the basement and made my final trip back up to the attic.

  “Alright,” I told the gathered group, “I’ve got everything we have left. We’ll use this rope to lower all our things out the window, and into the bed of my truck. But, we’ll do that tomorrow. We have to plan how to get there, how to get out of here safely, and where to call safe until we clear the building. Can’t exactly have a toddler and a kid sweeping a building for us.”

  “Whatever you think, you’re the boss man now!” Henry said with a grin.

  “This should help,” Rich said, as he produced a map of the entire country from his pack. “Now we just plan a route and a way to distract those freaks.”

  “Yeah, you’re right, dude, whoever goes with Henry has more ground to cover than we do. ‘Only right next door’ may as well be a mile now,” I observed. “So we’ll need to distract them hungry fuckers long enough to get in the vehicles and get moving faster than them. Any ideas?”

  “I’ve got one!” Jennifer exclaimed. “I’ll be right back!”

  As she disappeared down the stairs, we began planning our route. Deciding that the bridge over the river, and one of only a couple of routes across the highway were going to be our only choke points, we quickly determined paths through the neighborhoods based on what I’d seen on my way in, and the path that my semi had cleared was going to be the clearest, easiest way to our destination.

  “Cluster of houses here about a block from the buildings,” Rich pointed out, “we can leave the kids and someone to guard them there, while the rest of us check the buildings.”

  “Yeah, agreed,” I said as Jennifer came back upstairs.

  “We forgot about these!” she said, obviously proud of herself, and displaying two large brown paper bags full of various fireworks.

  “Nah,” I replied, “Pack them, they might come in handy, but I don’t know if they’ll last long enough to give the distraction we need. We need a longer-term device. An alarm clock or something.”

  “My stereo is loud,” the usually quiet Melissa chimed in.

  Sitting back for a moment and thinking, I looked at her and said, “Good idea kid, go grab it, and some of my CD’s.”

  She took off down to her bedroom, returning shortly with her stereo, a five-disc changer with two big mounted speakers, and a handful of large D-cell batteries. I pulled an arrow out of a box, and began tying a rope around it, just below the hunting broad head.

  “I’ve seen this in a movie or something,” I said to the confused faces around me. “Should be able to get it further from the house without breaking it. Get the truck loaded up.”

  They began relaying large packs of supplies to Chris at the window, who lowered them each into the empty bed of the pickup truck. While they worked, I further fastened the rope to the arrow with Gorilla Glue and set the contraption aside to set up. I loaded the batteries into the back of the stereo, removing the wall plug, and selecting my choice of CD to insert.

  “It’s almost dark now,” I told the group. “We’ll eat, and bed down tonight, and we move first thing in the morning.”

  “Our food,” Jennifer said sheepishly, motioning to my pickup truck, “is all down there.”

  “Well then we’ll just go to sleep. Can’t eat if you’re sleeping, anyway,” I replied with a reassuring smile.

  SIX

  Thankfully, the next morning came quickly, and uneventfully. Jennifer gathered up the kids and had them ready while Henry and I opened up the path to the garage door and shot two full cans of oil on every moving bit of it to make it as silent as possible. Everybody else policed the weapons and a fe
w lighter packs that got left behind, and we gathered back in the attic.

  The plan was simple, but we all understood so much could go wrong in almost no time at all. It was agreed that Jennifer, Melissa, and Gwen would ride with me. My diesel Ford outweighed Henry’s SUV and had a nice deer catcher on the front that had proven itself time and time again with no more than a small dent on it. Henry, Rich, Chris, and Carolyn would go together.

  Basically, we’d lay out the distraction, and book it. Get in the vehicles and get moving as fast as possible.

  I guessed how much rope I’d need to reach my target and handed the end of it to Rich. Nocking the arrow, I opened the front attic window, drew the sixty-pound string to full draw, and let it loose. The arrow shot, well, straight as an arrow, if you can imagine, through the sky, through the window of Bill’s house across the street, and struck home with a loud, solid THUD. Grinning, Rich wrapped the rope around a nearby roof support.

  Hoisting my daughter’s stereo in one arm, I quietly instructed them to be ready to book it as soon as we were sure it worked, as there was no way to signal either way.

  Everyone gathered on or around the steps, Jennifer holding little Gwen in one arm, with the other around Melissa’s hand. Everyone else crowded close, looking like they were all but weighed down with apprehension, all except for Chris, who actually looked bored. Bored! I couldn’t believe the guy!

  Nonetheless, I untied our end of the rope, looped it through the carrying handle on the stereo, set the thing to play, then paused it as I cranked the volume to the max. Re-lashing the rope to provide an anchor point, I pressed play, and let the device free from its window frame-perch. Immediately, loud crashing drums and a heavy metal guitar began screaming out of the speakers as it slid down the length of rope, and crashed right through the partially busted window, right into Bill’s living room.

  “What the Hell was that?” Henry asked, eyeballing me.

  “Cannibal Corpse!” I replied, trying not to laugh at my cleverness. He shook his head, letting out a chuckle, as did everyone else.