by Olah, Jeff
Realizing the heat generated by the flames would compromise the room shortly before allowing the smoke to overtake him; Sean crawled back under the lab table. He pulled the sat phone in close and dialed the number once again.
Nothing.
The horde gathered once again and moved toward him at an increasing rate. Jack stopped for the moment and still unable to get a clear line of sight on the others, trained his weapon on the car twenty feet ahead. It took three shots to draw their attention in the opposite direction and to clear enough of a path for Jack to get to the others.
Mason’s weapon trained on him, Jack shouted, “Wait.” And as he began running through the distracted crowd, he held his rifle above his head. “He’s one of us.”
Realizing it was Jack; Mason turned and instead of lowering his gun, refocused on the grey-haired man. Jack’s last comment still ringing in his ears, Mason said, “Last chance buddy, you don’t want this.”
The man dropped to his knees and for the first time spoke. “They came right through, we didn’t have time. There wasn’t any time.”
Lowering his weapon, Mason stepped forward. “It’s alright man, we can help you. We aren’t going to…” It came to him. As Jack came alongside, out of breathe and uttering something incoherent, Mason remembered.
“Grant?” His beard was full and although Mason hadn’t spent much time with him before they left, Mason remembered this man. “What are you doing out here? Why were you with these people?”
Attempting to stand, he coughed and began to weep. Looking away from Mason and focusing on Jack, he again spoke. “They came late last night. No warning and traveling without any lights. They smashed through our front gate and I was thrown from my post on the North wall.”
Jack moved to him as he stumbled backward. Reaching in, he helped Grant stay upright and turned to the others. “Let’s go,” he said motioning toward the crowd who began to head their way. “We can sort this out later.”
He was right. Mason stepped quickly to Lockwood, checked him over, and along with Savannah followed Jack and Grant toward the gates. The group of five quickly covered the short distance to the entrance and paused as Jack raised his right hand. “The front gates aren’t going to be an option.”
For as many Feeders that followed, there appeared to be twice that amount pushing in from beyond the gates. Hundreds deep and without much in the way of protection, the group looked back toward the beach.
Still shaking, Grant continued to mumble incoherently. “We can’t go back, they’re gone. Everyone is gone.” He wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular and only briefly made eye contact with the others. “We have to leave here, we have to go now.”
He broke free from Jack and moved to Mason, grabbing him by the arm. For the first time, the older man appeared as if he was in control of himself as he pulled Mason up onto the front lawn. Grant pointed over the far wall at the edge of the neighborhood and said, “Look… it’s over. There’s nothing to go back to.”
A thick column of fast moving black smoke peeled off into the sky. Pushed by the offshore winds, it permeated the southern skyline and dropped flakes of ash throughout the area.
“What is that?” Mason asked.
No response.
The others moved up and all five watched as Grant sprinted away. He didn’t speak; he simply ran toward the concrete walkway, between the last two houses at the end of the street. As he reached the eight-foot block wall that divided the two communities, Grant stopped and turned back toward the street.
The others turned to one another looking for an answer, although no one wanted to say what they were all thinking.
As Jack and Savannah started after Grant, Mason turned to Lockwood. “Is that what I’m thinking it is?”
Lockwood lowered his head and started forward. “Let’s go find out.”
Mason and Lockwood followed the others through the narrow path between the two homes. As they grew closer to where the concrete walkway ended, the air quality had begun to plunge. Early morning fog combined with areas of low lying smoke made for a long walk and with the limited visibility, the group began to slow.
Mason was the first to climb the eight-foot block wall. He sat perched along the top, watching flames rise from the residence Lockwood once called home. The entire second floor spit flames and black smoke out into the morning air as both neighboring homes began to feel the abuse.
After helping the others scale the wall, Mason and Jack jumped down into the street and moved slowly toward the home. Insisting they keep a safe distance, Mason said, “Anyone left inside is probably already gone, so no one needs to be a hero today.”
The others looked to one another and then back to Grant. He didn’t acknowledge their stares and continued to focus on the blaze almost one hundred yards away.
“Grant, snap out of it.” Jack said. “We need to know what happened here last night. Where are our people?”
Still no answer, although Grant turned to the others and dropped to his knees. Tucking his head into his chest, he cradled his face and again began to convulse.
Breaking from the others, Lockwood started toward the blaze. He took one torturous step after another, hobbling toward the destruction with Savannah close behind. She caught him, slid under his right arm and the pair continued forward until the heat radiating from the massive fire warned them of their proximity.
Standing on the sidewalk across the street from the home he designed, Lockwood turned to Savannah. Under his breath he said, “My children.”
179
Waking in the upstairs hall, he wiped the river of blood that flowed from his hairline into his left eye and winced through the pain of standing. Flames licked at his heels and had completely engulfed the staircase. The living room below was now made up of silhouetted shapes and blanketed in a dense layer of black smoke. Streaks of yellow and orange filtered up through the railing and weakened the floor below.
To his left and right, the angelic glow and super-heated gases fought to devour everything in its path. Near the floorboards, the synthetic blend of carpet fibers melted into the wall and evaporated into the already polluted air. His only option sat three feet ahead, although the stench of scorched chemicals filtering into his airway threatened to pull him from consciousness.
From a semi-crouched positon, Brian moved quickly through the hall. His mouth tasted of charred debris and his throat burned as he approached the door. The handle was cool to the touch and smoke was being pulled into the room from the hallway. “One… Two… Three.”
Brian pushed the door open and covered his face. The room was a ten foot by ten foot storage closet and although filled with smoke, it appeared free of fire for the moment. The sounds coming from the left side of the room told him this luxury wouldn’t be afforded for too long.
Two motionless bodies lay in the back corner and although his vision had been severely reduced, the damage was still abundantly clear. Two of his men were chased into this room, shot in the head and left for dead. Brian closed the door and grabbed a stack of towels from the shelf. He used one to cover the gap at the bottom of the door and the next to give his friends some dignity in death.
Laying the elongated beach towel over their heads, the man nearest him began to move. Pulling the towel from the man’s head, he attempted to look up at Brian and spoke. “Did we get them out, how many are left?”
This man he’d known for less than twelve months was going to die and it would happen soon. His name was Michael, although everyone called him Maverick. The group had decided on the nickname when they couldn’t get him to stop quoting lines from the most popular movie from 1986.
“Maverick, we took care of it. You helped with that.”
“I can’t feel my legs,” Maverick said. “I can’t move.” Blood ran down the corner of his mouth and dripped into the carpet. “Brian, I’m not gonna make it.” He began to choke and spit up mouthfuls of blood-saturated bile.
Brian positioned his friend
on his side in an attempt to suppress the choking. Noticing the exit wound behind Maverick’s right ear, Brian wrapped the end of the towel around his neck and eased his head back down.
“We’re getting out of here buddy.”
His friend didn’t respond and the focus had left his eyes. Sliding his hand along Maverick’s neck, he waited for a pulse. Faint and inconsistent, his time was near.
Brian closed his friend’s eyes and whispered into his ear, “Rest now buddy, I’m going for help.”
The room now closing in on him, Brian stood and moved to the wall, searching the shelves for anything that had weight behind it. Feeling along the left side, drywall began to peel off in sheets. He stepped back and tossed the pieces to the floor just as the flames broke through.
The back of his shirt now damp, sweat pooled between his shoulders as the temperature climbed. Brian reached up and pulled free the four foot metal rod pinned between two laminated shelves. Extremely hot to the touch, he immediately dropped it, cursed at the top of his lungs, and put his fist through the opposite wall.
Burying his arm to the elbow, his hand smashed through two layers of drywall into the adjoining room to the right. Pulling back, he’d peered through the hole, noticing the room appeared free of devastation.
Back to his two fallen friends, Brian knelt beside their bodies and thanked them for the past year they’d spent with him. He acknowledged the sacrifice they made and said goodbye.
As the flames pushed through the wall and began to compromise the area at his back, Brian reached for the metal rod. Like a battering ram, he moved back to the opposite wall and began to dismantle it. Within thirty seconds, he’d stripped the area down to the two-by-fours. As the smoke and ash began filtering out into the much larger bedroom, Brian watched as the door at his back gave in to the furious blaze.
One gap in the wall was noticeably larger than the others. “Thank god for shoddy workmanship.” He kicked free the last remaining piece of drywall on the opposite side, tossed the metal rod into the room and slid through the opening.
Onto his back and then rolling to his stomach, Brian pushed to a standing position. The smoke beginning to pour through the opening and the flames destroying the adjacent storage room were winning the race.
The window to his left would be an easy escape route, granted the fast moving blaze gave him an additional sixty seconds. He figured he had at least half that amount of time as he moved to the partially opened closet door.
The twelve desperately placed holes along the left section of the door and the thick trail of blood running from inside the closet told him more of his people had been murdered while trying to hide. He could have turned and fled, although without verifying who was behind the door, he’d have no way of knowing who was left.
Sliding the door open, he recognized the bodies and instantly turned away. His friends, too many to count, had lost their lives today. Brian moved to the window, pulled it open, and stood aside as a thick column of grey smoke moved through the opening. He stepped out onto the roof, bent forward, and clutched his head. The tears came quick as he tried to forget, not the people and who they were, but the images of their demise that would surely be burned into his mind forever.
Shouting in the distance came like children at play on a far off field. The words were drowned out, hidden under the intense vocals of the destruction now engulfing the room at his back. He coughed, righted himself and stepped slowly to the roof’s edge. “Lockwood?”
He remembered hearing that Megan had spoken with Savannah sometime after midnight. He was aware that his traveling friends were nearly home, although he thought that they’d met the same fate as so many others within the last few hours.
Through the haze, Savannah and Lockwood stood on the sidewalk holding one another. Three additional silhouetted figures walked toward them. As the trio grew closer, their faces began to materialize. Mason and Jack moved in behind Savannah with a single member of the night watch crew.
Grant had also survived; he was the last to join the others at the curb and looked to be in a far worse state. He was the first to glance up at the roofline and notice Brian near the edge. Pointing him out to the others, they raced through the deep grey cloud, moved through the front yard, and waited nine feet below.
Brian leapt to the grass as the group rushed in. They helped him to the opposite side of the street and laid him on his back. The new, much less polluted air was welcome, although glancing up at Lockwood, the memory came back.
Brian reached up, grabbed Mason’s arm and pulled him close. “Sean is still inside.”
180
With flames bounding between the homes to the left and the right, entering from the rear would be impossible. Attempting to find an area safe enough to get to the beach and then back to the home would waste valuable time, time they didn’t have.
Within minutes, the window Brian had exited was spitting flames as were the others on the second floor. Their only alternative would be to brave the intense smoke collecting along the front of the home and enter right through the front door. Mason marched forward with Jack and Brian close behind.
Stopping as they reached the driveway, Mason turned to Brian. “What about Randy, where is he?”
“I’m not sure. I believe they took the women and the children. The men, they were either beat or killed. Sean locked himself in the lab and I don’t think they knew he was in there.”
Stepping forward, Jack said, “Anyone else inside still alive, or did they take—”
He couldn’t look his friend in the eyes. “I’m sorry Jack, they took her… they took Elizabeth as well.”
“Let’s go,” Mason said. “Stay low and don’t put yourself in a position you can’t get out of. I need everyone to walk away from this.”
The three men made their way to the porch and moved to the door. Mason stepped forward and lightly gripped the handle. It was cool to the touch. He turned to the others as he pushed the door open and moved aside.
A freight train of black smoke erupted through the threshold. Turning away, the men waited for the thick mass to move out, before getting on their hands and knees and crawling toward the living room. Ten feet past the entry they came upon their first body, one of the men from the gate had come back to the house. Attempting to join the fight, he was shot dead while still clutching his weapon.
Reaching the hall between the living room and the rear of the home, Mason stood and moved to the kitchen. He grabbed a handful of towels and passed one to Brian and one to Jack. They quickly tied them around their faces, returned to the floor, and crawled back into the hall.
Since entering the home, the temperature had risen more than thirty degrees and the sweat running into his eyes told Mason that time was running out. He moved to the far side of the counter, lifted a barstool over his head, and tossed it through the sliding glass door.
The new oxygen introduced pulled the black cloud down the staircase and with it the flames that assaulted the second floor. “Boys, one more time,” Mason yelled, as he took out the four remaining windows facing the beach.
The room began to clear, although the surging blaze continued its march toward the first floor as three additional bodies were uncovered. Mason moved in, followed by Brian. They knelt next to the victims and looked to one another in relief. “Small victories,” Mason said.
The three lifeless corpses lying face up belonged to whoever entered their community without consent.
“No wounds,” Brian said.
“Randy must be close,” Mason said. “Keep an eye out.”
Making their way through the door to the lower level, they sidestepped another body. Unrelated to any of the residents living in this community, they paid it no attention and kept moving. As the dense smoke began to again accumulate in the hall just before Lockwood’s office, Mason found someone they knew, his friend… his brother.
“RANDY!” Mason shouted. “RAAAAANDY!”
No response as he lay at the do
or to Lockwood’s office. From Randy’s current positioning, it appeared as though he was simply trying to keep the others from finding the impenetrable office. He lay flat on his back between the door and the rest of the world, motionless.
Leaning over his friend, Mason moved his ear from Randy’s mouth and checked for a heartbeat. “He’s not breathing, although he’s still got a pulse,” Mason said. “Get him outside and I’ll see if I can find—”
Out of the dimly lit room beyond the glass, the boy appeared, breaking Mason’s current train of thought. Sean came forward and rested his head on the glass, looking past Mason at Randy. He turned to look at the other men and back to Randy as he began to cry. Sean held up a small dry erase board with a hand written note. Randy saved my life, please help him.
“Mason,” Brian said. “We’ll get him outside to Lockwood; you want any help getting Sean out?”
“I’ve got it covered boys; we’ll be right behind you.”
Jack slid in behind Randy and grabbed the shoulders of his jacket as Brian reached for his pant legs. They lifted him in one motion and moved out of sight as Mason nodded to Sean and moved to the transparent door.
Mason pulled down the towel from his mouth and nose before pointing toward the back of the room. “Stay back; I’m not sure what this does.” Reaching into his front pocket, Mason held a four inch by three inch black device. Not much bigger than a credit card, he stared at it for a few seconds before looking to make sure Sean had backed away.
Sitting at his father’s computer in the back of the room, Sean peered at Mason furrowing his brow. He again scribbled furiously at the dry erase board before holding it up. The power was cut. I can’t get out, my dad can help.
Mason smiled as he pressed the black device to the window next to the door, still unsure what it was or exactly how it worked. Back at Sean, the boy’s eyes were locked on the device as he gave Mason the thumbs up and crawled back under the desk.
