They Came With The Storm (The Effacing)

by Clark, T. Anwar

  Someone had been watching us.

  I whispered, "Mike," and after no answer I raised my voice. "Mike!" then raised my rifle.

  "Dale," Mike's voice echoed from below, bringing a sense of relief. "Come on down."

  The basement was dark and smelled like a shitload of mildewed clothes. I was stepping on rocks; whoever lived in the house was in the middle of getting home improvements, putting in new pipes and adding to it – or digging for oil. The only light came from a lantern being held by a grudged-out brute in need of a good shaving. He wore a city street workers reflective jacket, and had a machine gun strapped across his back. Dominican looking character Mike introduced as Bane.

  What was Bane doing down there?

  Hollow copper poles, tools and heavy machinery were behind them, pleasantly scattered throughout the confines of the basement. And more work-related items glimmered from the lantern.

  "He heard me and thought I was a tracker when I dropped the bottle. I thought he was a damn Bleeder, and we had ourselves an old fashion Mexican stand-off going for a second or two. He told me about this and I had to check it out before heading back." Mike’s voice echoed, pointing down at the broken up floor.

  "It's cool. We just supposed to stick together. Everyone stick together, remember?" I reminded him of our hospital situation.

  Bane had a group of twenty inside the sewers to avoid the soldiers and the infected. He advised us that a few of his city workers served in the military but were now civilians with families; none of them knew how to pilot a helicopter. He provided us with a map to the tunnels, and knew the exact route needed to get right under the hospital unnoticed by the soldiers and unknown to house the infected.

  "My men and I built the walls," Bane reported. "To ward off the infected, and warn the soldiers. Other than the occasional scavenging or lost infected, we haven't had much problems after we put it up." he waved his lantern over the manhole, "We go down this way into the sewers, and we'll end up under the hospital by nightfall."

  Night time was perfect, the soldiers lurk the streets. We abandoned our vehicles, Mike went back to retrieve his bottle of liquor, and our group followed us down the ladder into the sewers.

  CHAPTER XIV

  We were in desperate times, and there were sixty-three of us, all shapes and sizes, nationalities, ages ranging from 18 to Pops’ infamous sixty-something. Bane's men tried to blend in with the group, moving coded and in silence. Some of us walked the paths on each side, the rest moved slower and more cautiously through the two inch sewer water.

  We stopped at every other manhole cover to count the soldiers and keep track of the infected. After a few hours of traveling underneath the city at a snail’s pace, observing everything from a rats eye-view, Mike popped one drainage cover, looked through his binoculars and said, "I see three black mobile transports, two black Rock Raiders that look armored, and five machine gun packing soldiers in the parking lot." standing atop the ladder, holding up the manhole cover, his eyes through the binoculars as he looked toward West Warwick. "There are a couple of tents set up, and I can see a Hazmat crew 5 deep. No civilians." he shifted his head to the left, "Well, the cops were right about a checkpoint about a mile out. It's only got four men, another black Wrangler, only this one has a mounted .50 Caliber. The grounds are reinforced with a large steel fence, sandbags, and plenty abandoned, shot up vehicles on the road. It looks like we're losing the war." he turned back to the hospital. "Oh shit!"

  Everyone was patient, but eager to acknowledge what Mike had to report.

  "You're not gonna believe this... fucking, four Knight XV's just came from the back of the hospital! The armor on those trucks'll laugh at our fire power while throwing them back. Night vision cameras, run flat tires, electrostatic windows. There's only a hundred, and I’m looking at four of 'em. We need those." he adjusted his sight to the right, "Whoa!"

  THUMP!

  Mike fell from atop the ladder, broke his fall with a couple of unlucky hoods and still managed to land in the sewer water. He looked up. Blood leaked onto his flak jacket from the fingerless nubs that dangled from the manhole cover. Then he looked at me with a fed up and dreadful look of I quit on his face, and stressed, "Fucking Bleeders!" before reaching out his hand for me to help him up.

  "Is it that serious?!" I joked, accepting his hand.

  He sprung to his feet, rubbed his face down with two hands in a frenzy and said, "The mouth was wide open, like he was about to take a big ass chunk of my face back to the surface." then looked around for the missing fingers, spotting the index and pinky finger popping around on the path before being stepped on by one of Bane’s men, and kicked into the sewer water.

  Pops interjected, "No bite no fright, Mike. As long as yer don't become dinner yer a winner."

  The nearby folks in the group quietly chuckled; one guy even disguised his laughter through coughs.

  "You just make that up?" Mike sarcastically retorted.

  "Naw," Pops shot back, "Been holding that one for a couple days now."

  "You know something?" I said, "A couple of us should stay here to take out that checkpoint."

  "Yeah, you got a point." Mike said. "A group of four should stay here. Can I get any volunteers?"

  Everyone must have hoped that we all would have stuck together until we made it to the docks, mainly because of the way most of them gave each other blank stares for a few seconds. Then, two brave men volunteered to stay back and wait for the rest of us to initiate our rescue at the hospital.

  Frank Wildes said, "I'll stay here too."

  Pops said, "I'm staying back too. I think I can hit 'em from this far... maybe need to run out there a few yards, but you need someone skilled if yer gonna take out the checkpoint from this distance."

  "You sure about this, Pops?" Mike asked.

  "Shit... you got the hard part. My team’ll meet y’all at the checkpoint."

  Mike smiled. Then reached in his vest, pulled out his shaken up bottle of hard liquor, and threw it back for a couple seconds before handing it to Pops, saying, “Sure thing. You hold on to this for me will ya? And take care of yourself, old man. I’ll see you on the other side.”

  "I'll see you first." Pops said. “You boys need the time to talk amongst each other…”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I love you both like my own, Mike. Talk to one another fur you ain’t got the chance.”

  They hugged, and the rest of us gave our good lucks before moving on toward the end of the tunnel.

  We ended up coming to a halt in front of a split in the tunnel made of three passages about an hour or so out.

  "These are the tunnels that lead to the hospital." Bane pointed out. "Split up, or all of us go in together?" he made the conscience decision to ask Mike.

  Mac spoke up, "We're better off separating into groups. Keep 'em guessin' on our numbers."

  “You don’t think it’ll be better if we all stuck together?” I asked.

  “I think we’d best separate to get a better advantage.” Mike insisted.

  Everyone else agreed.

  Bane pointed to the tunnel on the right, "This tunnel leads right to the well-guarded parking lot and heliport." he pointed toward the tunnel on the left, "This one should lead you to the dumpsters around back." Then he pointed to the tunnel in the center, "And this one will take you right underneath the morgue. There are more access points, but they're all sealed off."

  Mike walked in the midst of everyone and gave them his method of attack. "Alright..." he started, looking around at everyone as he spoke, "We split up into three groups. My team will go in through the morgue and try to sneak in the rooms, rescue as many as we can. We're going to need another group focused on transportation; that means getting into those armored, urban tanks, and another group to hold back any reinforcements coming from behind the building. Each of the three groups split into four teams. After the first team is out, wait 5 minutes before the next goes in, and so on. Since Pops stayed ba
ck with a team, my group will be going in with one less team. Only shoot if you have to... We don't know how many men are inside, or their positions, so everyone stay sharp... when we get spotted all hells gonna to break loose, but after everyone is loaded up in the transports, we grab Pops team at the checkpoint, link up with the women and children, and then it's a straight shot to the docks."

  "Everyone check your ammo!" Bane blurted.

  The sound of clips and magazines detaching and being reinserted into dozens of firearms was overwhelming, and extremely intimidating in every since of the word, If you were the enemy. Then everything silenced. You could only hear the faint drips of water rapidly ticking into the sewers, like the sound of the seconds hand on a cheap watch.

  "I'll lead a team covering the parking lot." Bane insisted.

  Mac added, "I'll lead a team around back and work our way to Bane."

  Conrad asked, "And what's plan B?"

  Mike looked to Conrad seriously and inserted, "Pops will have his eye in the scope. He'll see what's going on and he'll know what to do from his position. So if all else fails, we regroup back here, make our way back to the vehicles and haul ass toward the docks... and if there's no way back... we die as the men who fought for the sake of freedom... to save the lives of our family and friends. We'll die honorably."

  Mac asked, "How much time we got?"

  Mike answered, "After the last team enters... Ten minutes at the max. Then get the fuck outta there if it ain't looking right. Any other questions?" he asked the group.

  No one said a word.

  "Alright then..." Mike continued, "Let's make it happen so we can get back to our normal lives. Good luck… and we’ll see you all on the other side."

  And we split up into three groups, entering the three tunnels not knowing what the enemy had in store for us; the enemy not knowing what we had planned for them.

  CHAPTER XV

  Mike and I walked slowly side by side, ahead of our group of thirteen men, a dim light coming from the drain entry point ahead in the distance. I figured it was about time that I asked him about Sarah and just came out with, "What happened to her?"

  "What happened to who?" he answered, looking as if I just asked him a stumping trivia question, unsure of who I was talking about.

  "What? What happened to Sarah, man?"

  Mike took a deep breath, taking his time to respond, "Oh, now I get it… That’s what Pops meant by you two need to talk. What do you think happened to her, Dale? I don't feel like talking about it. Let's just keep going. Wrong time… Wrong place…" he adamantly ended.

  The look in his face told me that there was more to the story; his response was even more reason. But I figured at that point, I chose the wrong time – again – and switched subjects. "You think Ann and Maria are really cousins?"

  "What?" his voice aimed for the high, but he caught himself and said, "You're paying way too much attention to Rebekah, dude." then laughed under his breath, "Do you think they're lesbians?"

  I laughed. And like most of the guys I knew, I said, "Well... yeah. I hope... both, Ann and Maria at the same time—”

  "It ain't happening, bro." Mike cut me short of my sentence right there, as if I was getting ahead of myself.

  "Why not..?"

  "What's wrong with you...? All this shit going on and you're thinking about your dick! Tighten up, D."

  A slender guy hiding underneath his hood overheard our conversation and entered his plea, his voice holding more weight than his physical build. "I wouldn't mind having a shot of ass before I die either."

  A couple others snickered and agreed, but Mike and the rest of the group took our mission more serious, and continued to shuffle along the path.

  "One more question..." I paused before asking, hoping he didn’t grunt or slide his finger across his throat. "What did Ann mean when she said; you’re just going to let me go too?"

  Mike grunted. Then said, "Alright, man," and hardened his tone, "enough talk. We're almost there."

  Yes, we were almost there, but Mike's ways and actions gave me enough proof to make the judgment about him sleeping with Sarah and Ann at the same time, even if he wasn’t screwing around with her. And whatever happened to Sarah, Mike really didn't give a fuck.

  “I wish we still had that drink.” I said.

  We approached our entry point with caution, making sure no one was above us before we entered. Mike slowly pushed the drain away and was the first to climb up. The slender guy who wanted his last nut followed, behind him was another hood that was silent through the whole trip; both holding AK-47's. I waited to see if anyone else wanted to volunteer their much appreciated services. Then I saluted the men and followed the first team inside.

  There was a bright light beaming in thru the small window of the door leading out the room. There were three white overcoats on a rack nearby, medical masks, gloves and slippers. The mops, brooms, used syringes and other therapeutic items were in their proper bins. We had entered into a janitorial closet-type wash room.

  “Well I guess this is it.” Mike said, looking back at the group.

  “It’s either now or never.” The slender man wearing the hood voiced, removing his hood.

  He was just old enough to legally purchase a bottle. Dark-skinned with a baby afro and a chin strap. The look in his eyes revealed that he had nothing to lose; a kid thrown to the wolves and left for dead, now fending for him. His Adams Apple lifted and dropped a lot; he swallowed his own spit just that often.

  “Yeah, study long, study wrong, right?” I crept to the small window with my rifle down and looked toward an autopsy table that held a stiff underneath a baby blue sheet.

  I turned around when I heard Mike’s voice. He was headed toward the overcoats, buzzing, "No one's out there, Dale...”

  “Then why you still whispering?” I asked him.

  He whispered, “I just am.” He took down an overcoat and spoke normally when he said, “We should put these on." then looked to the slender man and said, "This'll be a perfect cover. We'll be the doctors and you can be the sick patient."

  "Why me?" the slender man asked.

  "You're the smallest one. To them you'll look like you might really be infected." Mike told the man before asking his name.

  "George McNeil." the slender man said in one breath back. "Why?"

  Mike said, "It's a pleasure to meet you George McNeil." and shook his hand, hoping that would comfort the man in some sort of way to assure him that Mike was a friend; I suppose. "If one of us lays on that table, the soldiers ain't gonna believe we're sick and dying. We need you, George. To do this'll better our chances of getting outta here alive... or would you rather die as Bleeder bait, knowing you had a chance to become a hero?” then tossed our fourth man and myself an overcoat.

  The slender man paused for a few seconds, and then said, “All the heros are dead.”

  The other guy stepped in, his voice lighter than a 5th grade squeaker when he said, "No one lives forever. My name's Jerry Parks. I'm twenty-three with a wife and a son."

  Mike said to him, "You're a brave man, Jerry Parks. And I'm proud to be here with you..." and then shook his hand as well.

  George still hadn't answered.

  I put the jacket on and turned the knob to the door after I made sure no one was in the morgue. It creaked opened and we all entered.

  The inside of the hospital morgue was bigger than it looked from behind the door. We were surrounded by refrigerators that held stiffs, smaller ice boxes that held blood and pharmaceuticals, organs, and whatever else they use to slice you open with. There were lifts, three morgue tables, a hospital bed, and an embalming machine in the far corner.

  I still wanted to see what hid under the baby blue sheet.

  "We got about three minutes before the next team comes in." Mike advised us, rushing toward the bed. "Let's make this quick, George."

  Jerry stuck to Mike like the parasite who'd found itself a host. George was still contemplating on lying a
cross the sick bed.

  With one hand on the grip and a finger on the trigger, I used my open hand to carefully pull back the sheet to get a view of the large figure that protruded from underneath. Before I could get a quick peak, the sound of a metal door squeaking from behind grabbed my attention.

  I looked behind me to find George, curiously pulling out a frosty corpse.

  Mike said, "I seriously recommend you don't do that, George."

  George turned around, “I have a family too. I want to make—” and a moan came from the corpse.

  The corpse turned over, grabbed George and hypersonically reanimated into a Bleeder right before my eyes. I rushed over and put my hand over George's mouth before he could get a chance to scream and tried to pull him from the Bleeders grip. It all happened so fast, I didn't stop to think if George had already been bit; but his breath heated up the palm of my hand.

  Mike swiftly rammed his ridged hunting knife into the Bleeder's skull, nimbly slid the Bleeder back in the fridge, pulled his blade out of its head, slammed the door and turned around.

  A sudden crunching sound was heard, followed by the breaking sound of a howl that erupted from behind me.

  Mike’s mouth flew open, and he yelped, "Oh shit," then skillfully pitched his blade.

  I felt the coldness of the blade’s wind as it breezed past my head at an upward angle. I was for sure he’d wanted me dead for a second, but why? Were we that far apart?

  The blade made a thwacking, gushy sound when it injected into its intended target.

  George and I turned around simultaneously to see what appeared to be a resident of the city who'd taken on the characteristics of an incredibly large canine, with a ridged hunting knife enlarged in its forehead, and Jerry lying on the tiles underneath the beast in a puddle of blood.

  “Good pitch.” I said, shaking my head at another close encounter with death.

  “What are big brothers for?” Mike said.

  “Thanks to the both of you,” George admitted.