He got back in the truck and got on the radio. Riley answered within seconds. Jimbo advised her what happened, told her to send someone to pick them up, and gave their location.
Riley acknowledged and set the microphone down. Her first instinct was to find Johnny G. She switched channels and tried to raise him. She knew he had a portable radio with him, but also knew there were dead spots around the area, including inside most of the refinery area.
While they waited, the three men opted to stretch their legs and stood beside the truck, scanning the area. Everything was quiet. Ringo pointed and identified the group of buildings.
“That’s the University of Pennsylvania campus. This grid hasn’t been searched, am I right?”
“No, it hasn’t,” Jimbo said in agreement. “What’re you thinking?”
“Let’s run through a building or two while we’re waiting,” he suggested. “We’re not being productive just standing around with our thumbs up our butts.”
Jimbo peered at the first building. It was impressive. Brown brick, mostly rectangular with one section round, and around twelve stories high.
“May as well make use of our time. I’ll call it in,” Jimbo said.
Riley acknowledged. “I’m having trouble finding Johnny G,” she told him.
“Don’t worry about him. Find a vehicle large enough for all of us and come get us. There ain’t a zed in sight, so there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Roger that,” Riley replied.
Jimbo smiled again at the thought of her and Johnny G, although it made him wonder if he was ever going to find himself a woman. He’d been a confirmed bachelor, back before, but Ringo was right, having a significant other now seemed more important than ever. It wasn’t like he could go down to the local bar in downtown Philly and try to lure some cute drunken filly back to his place. He shirked off the thoughts and concentrated on the task at hand.
“Alright, we’re going to be off the air for about an hour or so. Tell whoever is coming to stand by at the truck and call us. We’ll be nearby.”
“Roger that,” Riley replied again.
Jimbo shut the truck door quietly and looked around. It was chilly and the sky was glum, which meant it was unlikely they’d have good lighting inside the building.
“Let’s do a double-check on the flashlights, men,” he directed. “It’s going to be dark in there.”
Each man had two flashlights, with Jimbo also having a headlamp. Ensuring they worked properly, the men walked down Walnut Street and found the main entry doors open, like school was still in session. The main lobby was grand and impressive, with the Wharton name emblazoned on the floor and on the wall here and there. They cleared the ground floor and then ascended the stairs.
Unfortunately, the second floor was occupied.
Chapter 38 – Debriefing Dong
Even though his room had no windows, True awakened promptly at zero-five hundred, as he had for the past ten years. After getting himself cleaned up, he walked to the other end of the building and unlocked the door to Dong’s room. Dong sat up and rubbed his eyes before offering a hopeful grin.
“We eat?” he asked.
“Yeah, we eat,” True said. “Then you get to meet some people.”
True led Dong to the latrine where he got himself cleaned up and put on some clothing that True had rounded up for him. The shirt, a size small, fit well enough, but the pants legs were a little long. Dong had compensated by rolling them up a couple of inches. True thought he looked like an ugly kid wearing hand-me-downs.
There were some curious stares when they entered the cafeteria. True led Dong to the serving line and they sat at the Tennessee table. Sadly, it was empty.
“There’s usually more people who sit here,” True muttered to Dong, who nodded. The two of them ate in silence for several minutes. True was lost in his thoughts when someone began speaking to him.
“So, this is the Chink, huh?”
True looked up to see D-Day standing over him, staring with obvious disdain. He was casually resting a sawed-off shotgun on his shoulder and his long graying hair was still wet from showering and he had it pulled back in a ponytail. True noticed for the first time the man had a nervous tic in his left eye. Although the man appeared to be freshly bathed, the faded red thermal shirt and blue jeans looked like they had not been washed in weeks. He still had the remnants of two black eyes.
The man bent over slightly and gave Dong a cold, scrutinous stare before straightening, snorting, and rubbing his crooked nose.
“He sure doesn’t look like much.”
While True agreed with his assessment, he was not going to admit it. Not to this redneck anyway. “What do you want?”
“I’m just checking him out,” D-Day said. “You need to get him out of here though. The president will be here in ten minutes and we don’t need the likes of him in the same room as the president.”
“When does the president want to debrief him?” True asked.
D-Day gave an expression of confusion. “Are you joking with me?”
“Why would I be joking?” True said.
D-Day sneered. “Do you really think the president is going to waste his time with this slant-eyed mutt?”
True had one or two retorts in mind, but he let it go. “I’ll have him out of here in a couple of minutes,” he said.
“See that you do,” D-Day warned. He gave one last contemptuous stare at Dong before walking off.
Dong may not have been able to understand most of the conversation, but he understood body language easily enough. True saw the little man staring anxiously.
“Don’t worry about that knucklehead,” True said.
Dong stared and nodded, as if he understood, and shoveled in a mouthful of food. After breakfast, True led Dong over to Doctor Salisbury’s office. She greeted them both with a studied look, led them to an examination room, and spent the next thirty minutes giving him a physical.
“No signs of infection or bite marks,” she remarked. “He’s obviously malnourished. Has he exhibited diarrhea?” she asked.
“I believe so,” True said.
She frowned, and then nodded. “I suspect he has roundworms. Since you are now his guardian…”
“Hey, hold on, Doc. I ain’t nobody’s guardian,” True exclaimed.
“You rescued him. You have been feeding him, and you brought him here for his physical, right?” she asked.
“Well, yeah, but…”
“It sounds like you’re his guardian, Mister True. Now, as I was saying, for the next couple of days he will need to be restricted to certain foods. I’ll write a list. After three days, inspect his stools for worms. If there aren’t any, he can resume a normal diet. So, try to put some weight on him.”
True gave her a sidelong stare. “Doc, I ain’t inspecting nobody’s stools.”
“You owe it to your new friend,” the doctor said and gave Dong one last long look before walking out.
Dong peered at True with a hopeful grin. “We friends?” he asked.
True did not respond and instead motioned for Dong to follow. He walked down the hall with the intention of locking Dong back in his room when he was intercepted by Lydia.
“Mister True, I need your help,” she exclaimed in her usual tight, toneless voice.
True stopped walking and faced her. Lydia Creamer was a plain looking woman who, as far as True knew, had never been in a relationship. Her job had always been the work coordinator. She did not have many friends at Mount Weather, but she’d always treated True with courtesy and respect. He liked her for that if nothing more.
“What you need, Miss Lydia?” he asked.
“The TOC has called. They have advised that Flash was supposed to have been relieved from guard duty over two hours ago and his relief is nowhere to be found.”
“Say no more, Miss Lydia. I’ll go relieve him,” True said.
Lydia gave a grateful smile. “You’ve always been dependable, Mister True. I
promise I’ll find someone to relieve you in no more than eight hours.”
“I would appreciate that,” True replied. He then looked at Dong, who was staring at Lydia in wide-eyed wonder. True did not know if he was ogling her or what. He thought a moment and decided. “Come on Dong. You get to join me.”
Dong grinned and began following him. True scowled. “I don’t know why you’re so happy. We gonna be stuck together all damn day.”
Chapter 39 – Wharton
Ringo spotted them first.
“Zeds!” he yelled before firing twice. The men scrambled backwards out of the room in tandem and hurried down the stairs.
“I didn’t get a good count,” Jimbo said.
“Over a dozen,” Ringo wheezed, a reminder that he had asthma. It was mild but could still sometimes be a detriment.
“Good enough. Back to the truck,” Jimbo ordered.
He had not even taken a breath before the horde began working their way down the stairs. The men hurried out the doors, only to be met by another dozen zeds converging on them and cutting off their route back to their truck. Bandy, who was in the lead, changed directions, and ran across what was once no doubt a plush green to the building next door.
The men did not know it, but the building housed the Lippincourt Library. The doors to it were also unlocked. They ran in and looked around, expecting more zeds to appear. It was dark inside, which normally would have meant a cautious approach, but the zeds outside were already clamoring at the door.
“We need to find a back door,” Jimbo said. He didn’t have asthma, but he was still winded. As Jimbo watched, Ringo grabbed the handles of the double entry doors.
“Go, I’ll hold the doors,” Ringo said in an urgent whisper.
“No, come with us,” Jimbo said.
“No. I can hold them for a few. Hurry up and find us a way out of here.”
“When I yell, you better come running,” Jimbo said and gestured at Bandy.
They used their flashlights to work their way further into the interior of the library. They found a fire exit about the time they heard the two doors being violently attacked.
“Ringo, run to my voice!” Jimbo shouted.
“Run, Jimbo, they got me!” Ringo shouted back. His shout was followed by several gunshots before he started emitting blood curdling screams.
Bandy started to run back toward the front, but Jimbo grabbed him hard by the forearm, causing Bandy to stop and face him.
“He’s gone! We’ve gotta get out of here!” Jimbo shouted.
“But he’s my friend!” Bandy shouted back.
Jimbo squeezed his arm and stared. Bandy had been in enough of these situations to know he was right. He could run back, guns blazing, but it was already too late for Ringo.
“Alright,” he croaked.
They turned back to the fire exit and pushed open the door. A dozen zeds were standing in the parking lot, about twenty feet away. Almost like they were expecting them. Both men opened fire and after several gunshots had dropped the zeds.
“They all look like college students,” Bandy breathlessly said as he reloaded.
Jimbo grunted in agreement. All the zeds appeared to be in their early twenties. Some were wearing U Penn apparel and even wearing backpacks. Jimbo struggled to catch his breath and orient himself. After a moment, he pointed.
“The truck is back that way and around the corner. Let’s go!”
When they heard the fire door open, they needed no further prompting and resumed running. As they rounded the corner, they were brought up short by at least twenty to thirty more zeds. These too seemed to be waiting on them. Whether they were drawn to the gunfire or working in concert with the other zeds was unknown, but Jimbo suspected the latter.
The men were surrounded, and although they fired with fatal accuracy, the horde was closing in. Suddenly, they heard a small caliber automatic weapon firing. Several zeds dropped, and when Jimbo spotted a black Nissan Titan with a familiar looking damaged fender, he almost cried in relief. He pointed to it and yelled at Bandy, who was already running in a full sprint.
Jimbo didn’t even get a good look at the occupant of the Titan until he jumped in the truck. Bandy had gotten to the passenger side first, threw open the door and crawled into the back. Jimbo was practically pushing him as he jumped into the front passenger seat and shut the door. It was then he realized it was Riley in the driver’s seat. She fired off another burst before shutting her door and taking off, deftly reloading her weapon with a fresh magazine as she steered with her knee.
“Thanks for the save,” Jimbo said.
“No problem,” Riley replied and glanced over at him. “I thought there were three of you.”
“Ringo didn’t make it,” Jimbo said.
“Oh. Damn, sorry,” Riley said.
She glanced in the rearview mirror at Bandy. He was sweating heavily and gazing out the window with a thousand-yard stare. She kept her own expression emotionless, but she was feeling nothing but contempt for these two. How dare they let one of their teammates die?
“Is that an Uzi?”
Riley looked over at Jimbo, who was eyeing the weapon sitting in her lap.
“Yep. It’s Johnny G’s. He showed me how to use it the other day and I’ve been dying to try it out. It has an insane rate of fire.”
Jimbo nodded slowly. He’d only seen an Uzi on TV back when the world was somewhat normal. Riley had fired it like a pro and had cut down a dozen zeds in her first burst of fire.
“I didn’t expect any zeds,” Riley said. “Y’all said there weren’t any.”
“They ambushed us,” Jimbo said and turned back to Bandy. “You know what I think? I think when they saw us drive up, they hid and waited on us, like they knew we were going to start searching buildings. We didn’t stumble on a place where they were living. That building didn’t smell like zeds and there wasn’t the usual stuff you see where zeds nest, right Bandy?”
Bandy did not answer. Riley glanced in the rearview mirror again to see if he was going to respond, but it was like he didn’t even hear Jimbo. He was still staring out of the window, his thoughts a million miles away.
They were back at Marcus Hook thirty minutes later. Riley had radioed ahead, and several people were waiting on them. Bandy ignored everyone and walked off. Roscoe asked someone to put away the Nissan and led everyone else into the cafeteria whereupon Jimbo told them what happened. It made for a somber Thanksgiving eve.
Chapter 40 – Prairie Meets Dong
At about the time Jimbo and his two friends were being attacked at the Wharton School of Business, Melvin was walking little Prairie to the main guard post where True was trying desperately to be patient with Dong’s desire to touch everything.
“Hi, True!” Prairie greeted.
“Hi, Lil’ Bit,” True replied and grabbed her in a big hug. “You know, you’ve grown since I been gone.”
“You smell a lot better since you got back,” Prairie replied, which brought a rare smile from True.
“Well, thank you, ma’am,” he said and then looked at Melvin.
“What’ve you been doing this morning?” he asked.
“I had an early morning meeting with VanAllen and Rhinehart,” Melvin said.
“I noticed I wasn’t invited,” True said.
“Nope, Rhinehart didn’t see the need in both of us being there,” Melvin tersely replied.
True knew what he meant. Rhinehart was an older, rich white man who came from a rich white family. Old money. Back before, his only interaction with black folks was with the hired help.
“How’d it go and what do they want to do next?” True asked.
“They were only interested in a brief summation of our mission. They believe that since those soldiers became infected, there is no further threat from the Chinese.”
True scoffed. Dong had been attentively listening. Whether or not he understood was unknown, but when True scoffed, Dong mimicked him and scoffed too. It caus
ed Prairie to giggle.
“He acts just like you, True,” she said and turned to Dong. “My name’s Prairie. What’s yours?”
He frowned and looked at True for guidance. True patted her head. “Savannah.”
True nodded vigorously in understanding, tapped his chest, and gave a bucktooth grin. “I’m Dong.”
Prairie emitted another giggle. True smiled. “You’re a little giggle-box today, aren’t you?”
Zombie Rules | Book 8 | Who The Hell Is That? Page 22
