Run: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller

by Rich Restucci

  “I understand.”

  Murda looked at another man. “And what about the missiles?”

  “We can’t figure out how to make them work. There’s instructions on the sides, but when we follow them, the little green light don’t come on like it’s supposed to.”

  “A green light?”

  “Yeah Doc, the instructions say that a green light needs to be on, or it won’t shoot.”

  “So you’re telling me that you can’t fire my missiles because of a green light that won’t light?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “I see. So while the attack crew was risking their lives, and in fact dying to take a fortified position guarded by no less than a nuclear attack submarine, my engineering crew was foiled by a broken light?”

  The man backed up a step, looking warily around. “I… I’ll figure it out!”

  “Unnecessary. Pee Wee, would you please escort this fool out?

  Before the man could bolt, Pee Wee’s gigantic arms wrapped around his frame. The man thrashed about, but Pee Wee hefted him as if he were a child. A skinny child. Pee Wee walked to the stained window with the struggling man in a crushing bear hug. He pinned the hapless banger to the wall with one massive hand, while he opened the big stockroom transom with the other. The moans of the undead outside became louder as the glass opened. The giant picked up the smaller man one last time and pitched him out the three story window of the warehouse loft. The unfortunate man let loose a short scream before his impact with the street below.

  Pee Wee closed the window and latched it before folding his arms and standing silent once again.

  “Imbecile. G, Pee Wee, would you please accompany me to the missiles?

  The three gangers took the metal stairs to the warehouse floor, where several of the men from the surviving tug sat on the floor or in tattered old chairs looking dejected.

  Murda gently put his hand on the shoulder of one man who looked up with poorly-concealed apprehension.

  “You men are heroes,” intoned Murda. “You couldn’t fight a submarine with a tugboat. Retreat is an option when facing an overwhelming force, always remember that.”

  A few of the men looked at each other crossways.

  “While I do not condone failure, you had no choice but to come back here. Do not despair, we will achieve our goals my brothers.”

  Murda, Masta G, and Pee Wee continued across the warehouse floor to the area reserved for munitions storage. They approached four wicked-looking green tubes, one of which was propped up on a tripod. The top of the cylinder sported a large sighting mechanism and yellow lettering stenciled on the side of the tube read: BGM-71F TOW 2B.

  Murda got down on one knee and put his finger to smaller lettering, reading the arming instructions, moving his finger as he read. He walked around the missile a few times, touching a panel here, and clicking a button there. He lifted a red safety cover and clicked a silver toggle switch. A small red light on the sighting mechanism flashed to life, but the large green light on the missile itself remained dark. Murda tapped the light twice with his index finger and it sputtered, then glowed brightly.

  “Idiot,” he said, and rolled his eyes. He flicked the toggle back down and re-covered it with the safety switch. Murda looked up at Masta G and smiled a toothy smile. “Now we’re in business.”

  20

  Billy heard moaning. Mournful and full of pain. Moaning. Why did that disturb him so? There was something about that sound that inspired dread, but the reason escaped him. Zombies! He opened his eyes but vision didn’t come. He was blind. He tried to bolt upright, but his head was in torment, and he immediately felt nauseated. Slumping back down into slimy moisture, he held his hand up in front of his face. Nothing. He moved it closer and closer until it bumped into his nose. Yup. Blind. There couldn’t possibly be a worse time to lose his eyesight. Sitting up more slowly this time, the moaning came back, and Billy realized it was he that was moaning. His head really hurt, and he put his hand to his damaged cranium and it came away sticky.

  Blind, soaking wet, and with a busted head, he tried to stand, only to have some kind of demon have its way with the nerve endings in his right ankle. He stood and tried to feel his foot to see if it was broken, but he got dizzy and fell on his back with a small splash. The cool water felt good on the back of his neck and scalp, but it stank, and excruciating comets whizzed past his clenched eyelids for a moment.

  “Excellent,” he said, surprising himself with the raspy sound that emanated from his throat, “a sewer.”

  Memories came flooding back fast enough to have the synapses in his brain rebel. Sam, Alcatraz, the hospital, roof hopping, Cyrus, the basement and the grate in the floor. Ali. Where was Ali? She must have thought he was dead and left.

  Standing up even more slowly this time, he found he could put weight on his right foot, but at great protest from his nervous system. He took a tentative step, and drew a hissing breath from the pain, but he didn’t go down. At least he could stumble, not unlike his cannibalistic counterparts overhead. He stretched his arm to the right and found a rough, dank wall.

  His ankle was extremely painful, but he was blind and not a doctor, and so unable to do anything if it were broken. Not that his ankle mattered, because he was blind, thus doomed. It must have happened when he hit his head.

  Stretching both arms out to the sides, Billy was able to figure out that the sewer went in two directions, but he didn’t know which way to go. “Eeny-meeny,” he started, but then he just walked forward. After about twenty painful steps, he heard a splashing echo arising from… somewhere. The sound seemed to come from all directions in these wet, confined quarters. He looked both ways before remembering he was blind, then continued forward. More repetitive splashing noises came to him, and this time he could tell whatever was stalking him was coming from behind. He felt for the ice axe on his belt and picked up his hobbling pace.

  The splashing got louder and louder, and Billy knew that he could never outrun something he couldn’t see, especially if he had an injured leg. Turning to face his assailant, he waited patiently, hefting the axe.

  Suddenly, Billy realized he wasn’t blind. He could see a bobbing light coming from some distance off. As the light got closer, the splashing got significantly louder.

  “Stop! Billy don’t move!”

  Breathing a heavy sigh of relief, it dawned on him that Ali didn’t leave him for dead, but had left to reconnoiter. She stopped about twenty paces from him. He heard something like wood being drawn over wood. The flashlight beam shined up into his face, and he covered his eyes with his forearm.

  “Say something!” she hissed.

  “Ouch?”

  Billy heard that wood on wood sound again.

  “Thank God! I didn’t know if you were going to die back here, you took a wicked digger down the ladder and thumped your head but good!”

  “These things I know, tell me something new. But tell me after you get the light outta my face.”

  “Oh, sorry. I wanted to see your eyes to make sure...”

  “Yeah, I get it. I don’t blame you.”

  Ali walked a little bit past where Billy had stopped and shone the light behind him, in the direction he had been traveling. She had affixed the flashlight to her bow with a black elastic lanyard from her appropriated backpack and was using her free hand to hold an arrow to the bowstring.

  “Were you gonna shoot me?”

  “If you had red eyes? You bet your ass. Look behind you.”

  He turned around, and was very happy she had told him to stop. Five feet away the tunnel ended, but not in a wall. Ali stepped closer to the edge, and panned the light around. There was a gaping hole some forty feet across. Sewer water trickled down from four large pipes into the chasm, which looked like some type of overflow collection area. Billy gingerly hobbled forward and looked down. Eight or so feet below, there was a concrete walkway spanning a deeper opening ringed by a rusty iron railing. Further down in the hole was d
ark water. An injured ankle would have been the least of his worries if he had stepped out into nothing and landed down there.

  More ladders ran up from the overflow pool into four other tunnels like the one they were in now, each tunnel with a slow trickle of nasty water that added to the pool.

  “What’s in the other direction?”

  “It just kind of goes,” she answered, “I stopped walking after a few minutes. There are some other ladders like the one we climbed down, but I couldn’t see through the covers. A ways down there’s a sideways grate that leads into the street, but we can’t fit through, it’s too small. Oh, and the street above isn’t empty anyway, I could see them up there stumbling around.”

  “Doesn’t matter, we have to go this way anyway.” Billy pointed toward the chasm. “That’s west, and we need to go that way.”

  “How do you know which way is west?”

  “Sense of direction is one of my super-hero powers.”

  “One of mine is detecting bullshit,” she countered, but stepped back to let him lead the way.

  Dizzy, he climbed down the ladder as Ali illuminated the area. She held the bow to her side and followed, the two continuing around the concrete pool. Once opposite the ladder they had descended, they had a choice to make. There were two tunnels running roughly west.

  Billy pointed to the left side tunnel, “That one.”

  “Why that one?”

  “Why not? You’ve got the light, you go first.”

  “How utterly valiant, sir. How about you go and I cover you?”

  “My head hurts.”

  Billy limped forward and gingerly put his injured foot on the bottom rung. Both the iron and his ankle held his weight, so he began to climb. Ali flashed the beam of light upward into the mouth of the tunnel, which seemed to be clear. She followed him up the ladder and they began to trudge west. After a few dozen paces, they could discern dim light ahead. It grew gradually brighter until they reached the source: not a way out, but a series of sideways grates to the street above, spaced about fifty feet apart.

  Billy turned and put his finger to his lips in a shushing motion, then he pointed to the grate. Although the angle was steep, the legs of many staggering forms could be seen through the small, barred slit in the curb. They continued on in silence.

  As they reached the second to last grate, the tunnel began to pitch downward. Now there were newer, smaller passages branching off of the egg-shaped brick tunnel that they were in. A large beige tool box with a lock on it stuck out of an alcove to the left, and the condition of the walls here gave one the impression of recent work. There were dimly lit work lights; light bulbs in little yellow cages with hooks, suspended from the ceiling of the tunnel in a daisy-chain configuration. A ladder led upward to a manhole cover in the street.

  Billy looked thoughtfully at the lights, “Power’s still on.”

  The grade was a steep down angle as they continued on, and leveled out at fifty or so paces. To the left, two steps led up to a rusty metal door. Ali and Billy exchanged glances as they heard sobbing through the door. Billy climbed the two stairs and knocked on the door. Shave and a haircut… They heard a shocked gasp, and then nothing. Billy tried again: Shave and a haircut… Nothing. He tried the door, but it was locked. One more attempt at knocking: Shave and a haircut… was met with: two bits.

  “Let us in!” Billy whispered harshly.

  “How do I know you’re not infected?” came a woman’s whispered voice through the door.

  “Uh, because we’re talking? We’re not infected, let us in!”

  “We? Who’s we? How many people are out there?”

  “Just my friend and me, we haven’t seen anyone alive in a while. Please let us in!”

  A hushed conference transpired from whoever was on the other side of the door, then silence. Billy shrugged and they were about to move on when they heard the door lock ratchet open. A light shined out from the crack and found them. Billy took a step forward, eager to meet whoever this was, but a man’s voice stopped him, whispering: “Not so fast! Show me your arms and legs!” They both did as they were told, pulling up pant legs and in Ali’s case, shirtsleeves.

  “Now turn around!” They each obediently made a slow revolution, which seemed to calm the man down some. He opened the door fully, and let the two inside.

  The place was large for an underground room, maybe fifteen by forty feet, and lighted by scattered lanterns. Various equipment was scattered haphazardly around, and there were three workbenches, two of which were occupied with folks laying down on them. One of the people had a police jacket covering his torso and head, his arm splaying out to the side. This man was dead. Another man, dressed in blue maintenance coveralls with a PG&E logo on the sleeve, was breathing raggedly. A large red bandage covered most of his left forearm. The bandage was dripping blood, and the man seemed to be unconscious. Six other people were also in the room. A woman holding two small boys to her sides, a big man also dressed in PG&E coveralls and carrying a fire axe, a filthy man sitting on an even filthier mattress drinking something out of a plastic gallon milk jug, and a wiry woman with an automatic pistol pointed at the newcomers.

  “Drop it, Robin Hood!” she demanded, waving the pistol.

  Ali put the bow on the floor.

  “Now strip!”

  “Screw you,” Ali said and folded her arms.

  The man with the fire axe took a step forward. “We want to check you for bites.”

  “Then Tell Dirty Harriet to point the gun elsewhere. We’re not bitten and we’ll show you, but I don’t like the gun in my face!”

  The woman pointed the gun at the floor with no apology. “The cop said he wasn’t bitten too. He turned and bit Chuck. That’s Chuck.” She nodded at the guy on the table with the bandage.

  Billy stripped off his shirt dropped his pants. “OK?”

  “Yeah, now you.”

  Ali lifted her shirt, and dropped her pants as well. “Shall I do a pirouette?” she asked sarcastically.

  The woman relaxed her grip on the gun as the newcomers straightened their clothing. Approaching Ali, she said, “My name is Abbey, can we start over?” She extended her hand. Ali took it and nodded in the affirmative.

  “We’re all edgy. This is Billy.”

  Introductions were made all around. In addition to Abbey, there was Tony in the PG&E coveralls, Melanie with her sons, Caleb and Noah, and Martin, the apparent homeless man. The group clustered around the far end of the room, some sitting against the walls, some leaning on the unoccupied bench.

  Ali noted that there was no other way out of the room except the door they had come through. This was both comforting and scary. An attack could only come from one direction, but that was also their way out. The door seemed secure enough, made of heavy steel on huge hinges with a ratchet lock. “How did you all get down here?”

  Tony began his story: “Me and Chuckie was working down here with Tim, another PG&E guy, when the city went crazy. We had no idea. We came up for lunch, and a bunch of them nut-jobs was running around up there. A guy in a suit and tie came toward me, and he was covered in blood. When he got close, I could see he was hurt. He was moanin’ and stumblin’, and I tried to help him. He grabbed me, and I could tell he wanted to kill me right there. We got to fightin’ and the cop,” he indicated the covered form on one of the benches, “showed up. He was leading Melanie and the boys away from a group of the crazy people, shooting into a crowd of them. He smacked the guy who was grapplin’ with me on the head, and the guy fell down on his face. More people was comin’ from all over, so we got the kids down into the manhole.

  We was yellin’ for Tim to get down here, and then the cop jumped down. I heard his leg snap, but we helped him up. Tim must’ve dragged the manhole cover to close the opening, because it closed. I climbed the ladder, but those covers weigh two hundred fifty pounds. I couldn’t budge it. I heard screamin’ up above, I hope it wasn’t Tim.” Tony’s eyes glazed over in thought.

>   Abbey shook her head. “It was so fast. One minute I was ordering a coffee, and the next, this bloody guy burst into the coffee shop, screaming that they were coming. Me and a couple of others in the shop stepped outside, and there were about twenty of those people there, all covered in blood. They came staggering toward us, and one of the guys ran toward the people. He was yelling at me to call 911 when one of the bloody people grabbed him and bit his face. He started screaming, but the other people all gathered around and started biting him. I ran like hell. I saw a cop car with its blue lights on, and ran to get them to help me but there was nobody there.”

  She swallowed hard and continued, “I got in the car and tried to use the cop radio. Suddenly there were bloody people everywhere. I had no place to go. There were no keys in the car, so I got out to make a run for it, but there were too many of them. The cop must have been on a construction detail, because there was a manhole with a big yellow hose coming out of it a few feet from the cop car. I climbed down the ladder and ran as fast as I could in the dark. I almost had a heart attack when Martin shined his flashlight in my face. He brought me here, and we met everybody else on the way.”

  “And what about you?” Billy asked the guy on the mattress.

  “Me? I live here.”

  “Oh.”

  “Wait,” Ali asked, “Abbey, why didn’t the infected follow you down the manhole?”

  “They did! I only barely got away.”

  “But then where are they, why aren’t there any in the sewer tunnels?”

  “What are you talking about? You mean you haven’t seen any? The tunnels are crawling with them!”

  Ali and Billy began to exchange a confused look, but were interrupted by a sudden scream from one of the little boys.

  Everyone spun to look at Caleb, fear gripping his small features, his tiny index finger pointed at something behind them. As one, the group turned.

  Chuck had gotten off the bench, his eyes blood red. He gave a snarling hiss, lurching toward them with his first steps as one of the undead.