“But what if you don’t come back.”
“I will.”
“But…”
He got down on one knee and gently grasped her chin, forcing the kid to look in his eyes, “I will.”
She stopped crying and smiled. “I know.”
Alcatraz was hustle and bustle while everyone, even the kids, helped clean up. Even Martingale pitched in and helped clear some rubble, with a minimal amount of harping. Dallas had found Rick, and Rick assured him that the kids were ok. Meara, Pitt, and McInerney had just sighted the duo when gunfire erupted from the eastern side of the island. All five men started running, and both Meara and McInerney shouted into their radios, demanding to know who fired.
As they, and a considerable crowd of others, arrived at the eastern dock, they could see SWAT member Wizneski sitting on the dock his back to the shore, two corpses sprawled across the planks. One of the dead was charred beyond recognition, so much so that it was impossible to tell if it had been male or female. The clothing, skin, and hair were totally burned away. The other dead man was missing his left arm from the elbow and had scorch marks as well. Both had holes in their foreheads compliments of Wizneski. Rick stopped at the edge of the dock and looked at the back of the man he had known for some years.
“Wiz! Wiz what happened? Where did they…” Rick ceased speaking when he noticed drops of bright red blood on the dock.
“They just walked out of the water.” Wizneski stated calmly. “I didn’t see Nubby,” he indicated the man with one arm, “until he was on me. I heard someone on the dock behind me and I turned, but he just grabbed me. Jesus, he smelled like clam chowder. I wrestled with him for a sec, and had to drop my MP5 before I was able to pull my sidearm and shoot him. Crispy was pretty sneaky too, and had gotten close while I was fighting Nubby.”
“You ok? Damn, that must have been close.”
“Too close.” Wizneski held up his hand. It was bleeding freely from a bite wound near his thumb. “Ya know, it’s amazing how quickly you try to rationalize how you aren’t going to die when you’re certain you are.”
“Wiz…”
“Forget it. There’s nothing to say. Fucking thing doesn’t even hurt.”
Rick looked at Meara.
Pitt stepped up, his pistol drawn, but pointing down, “We have to isolate you. I’m sorry.”
Wizneski nodded. “Yeah. Yeah ok. Musta been some of those dicks from the boat you sunk huh?”
“Probably. Let’s get you isolated and then we can talk.”
“Sure. Here.” He passed his pistol, butt first, to Pitt, “I love that damn Glock too. Shit. Do we have any booze?”
“We’ll find some,” Meara said, and held his hand down to Wizneski. “Let’s get you up.”
Wizneski stood and regarded the crowd that had gathered at the dock. With a heavy sigh he began walking toward the cafeteria with two SEALs for company.
“We’ll get you patched up in a minute,” one of the SEALs told him on the way.
“Save the bandages for somebody who’ll live.” The SEALs exchanged a glance as they escorted Wizneski up the hill.
“Alright everyone, let’s get moving,” Wiz heard Pitt tell the group. “Nobody alone anymore, anywhere, at any time. At least two people per post starting now. All areas where…”
Wizneski couldn’t hear Pitt over his own pounding heart as he got further up the hill.
26
Cyrus had been successfully avoiding the undead for a long while when he arrived at the piers east of San Francisco proper. He was exiting a small bakery, with a ham sandwich and a bottle of water when he heard a sound like a jet plane whooshing over his head. He ducked instinctively at the intensity of the noise, throwing his hands over his head, (but maintaining a firm grip on the sandwich). A few seconds later another object zoomed over, leaving a smoky contrail behind it. The source of the parallel white lines in the sky was the roof of a shipping company warehouse immediately behind the bakery. The destination for whatever had been fired was lost over the larger buildings obscuring the horizon.
Across the street up on the roof of a dilapidated factory, a man with his hands on a pair of binoculars was staring out into the bay. Cyrus smiled.
Spinning on his heels, Cyrus crossed the road, entered the factory, and explored. There were numerous dead people littering the floor, all covered in blood. Some sported vicious wounds, but all had serious head trauma. “Dispatched undead,” he muttered to himself. Locking the door behind him, he followed the sound of voices. The voices came down the stairs and had four people attached to them.
Cyrus sidestepped between a large stack of pallets and a forklift, the people coming straight for him.
“Didn’t expect that, did they Pee Wee?” Some more steps; boots on a concrete floor. Cyrus smiled, recognizing the lead voice immediately. “Pee Wee my friend, you talk too much.” Cyrus heard chuckling laughter and saw a friendly punch to the arm from an unassuming man to a giant specimen of a human being as they walked past Cyrus’ hiding place, briefly crossing his field of vision. “I was wondering, Masta G, if you wouldn’t like to —”
Cyrus stepped out behind them, “Malik.”
All four men spun at the sound of the newcomer, weapons raised. Cyrus smiled wider at the look of extraordinary shock on the faces of three of them. Cyrus stepped forward “Hello David, hello Leon. I see you’ve been keeping safe. Congratulations.”
Doc Murda was stunned. “How…how did… I mean where…?”
“Come boy, spit it out, what are you trying to say?”
“Who the fuck is this dude, Doc?” the fourth man asked.
“Please don’t curse, he doesn’t like that,” Murda answered. “He doesn’t like that at all.”
“How have you been, Malik?”
“It’s Doc Murda now.”
“Is it? Well, I’m sure that’s fitting, but the question remains.”
“I’ve been well sir, and you?” Murda looked nervous.
“Incarcerated. Not so well, although the strawberries and cream at Morningside was exquisite.”
“When did you get out?”
“Yesterday. An old acquaintance of mine released me. Have you nothing else to say?”
Murda looked embarrassed. “It’s good to see you.”
Cyrus raised his left eyebrow.
“Good to see me?
“Yes, it’s good to see you… dad.”
“Thank you Malik, it’s good to see you as well. Perhaps you and I could have a long talk. I would certainly like to know where you appropriated such—”
An explosion of monumental proportions threw four of the five men to the floor of the dingy factory. Bricks and glass showered down throughout the building. The eastern wall gave way and tumbled outward into the street, showing that the building four doors down was gone. Not simply destroyed, but gone. Nothing was left but a smoking crater and some small fires. Pee Wee brushed dirt and rubble off of his shoulders.
After a few seconds Cyrus looked up to see a massive hand reaching down to help him to his feet. Cyrus accepted and stood, brushing himself off. “Thank you, Leon. We should go. Half the city will be here in moments, and apparently, you aren’t the only ones with expensive hardware.” Pee Wee made to assist Murda, but Cyrus intervened. “Allow me please, Leon, I haven’t seen my son in a while.” Cyrus lowered his hand to Murda, and helped him up. Murda was dazed and bleeding from a small gash over his right eye. “Hmm, this may need stitches. We’ll get you fixed up when we get someplace with four intact walls. I must say that firing your weapons whilst on a different roof was a stroke of genius.”
“I didn’t want to get killed by any possible retaliation, and I had some soldiers that were… expendable.
Pee Wee helped up Masta G and the other man and the five of them strode from the broken building. “Ahh. San Francisco in the summer time,” said Cyrus, breathing the salt air deeply and squinting in the sunshine. “Absolutely breathtaking.”
27
A quick assessment of the waste processing facility yielded no undead, and all doors were secure. There was an eight foot chain link fence surrounding the small building as well, and its gate was also locked. A small refrigerator contained some condiments and a jar of pickles. The soda machine, however, was found to be fully stocked after Tony pried the door open with his axe.
“So where’s this boat?” Abbey asked Ali.
“Dunno. Billy knew where it was, not me. He was taking me to it when we found you guys.”
Abbey’s face showed some discomfort, and not a little fear. “You’re kidding right?”
“No, although he did say it was near the container ships down by the piers. Shouldn’t be too hard to find.”
“Holy shit. Apparently you’ve never been down there. I have. I drive a mail truck, and I go in there sometimes.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So it’s a giant maze of big shipping containers the size of trailers you see on the back of big rig trucks. And there are a lot of people down there, all the time. For Christ’s sake, we might as well stay here.” She shook her head in dismay.
“Can’t. No food, and eventually they’ll get in. We have to go.”
“Listen, we will never find his boat, and the whole time we’ll have to dodge—”
“No, you listen! I didn’t come all this way to give up and be lunch. I’m not staying here, and you’ll die if you do. We have to go. We’ll find another boat. Billy said there were people on Alcatraz, and we need to get there to be safe. Period.”
“Wow. Tough bitch huh?”
“No. Scared and pissed off. I’ll be tough when I have to.”
“Fair enough,” Abbey said, “look, I’m sorry it’s just that…”
“Forget it, it’s cool. This is a typical ‘I watch your back you watch mine’ scenario, and that’s what we need… What was that?
“What?”
Thump!
“That! What the hell is that? Maybe we didn’t sweep this place as well as we should have.”
Thump-thump!
“It’s coming from… Tony! Tony quick!”
Tony and Martin came toward where Abbey and Ali were standing. “What is it?”
Ali pointed at the cover in the floor, “Listen!”
Thump!
“It’s ok, they can’t get in, it’s locked.”
Ali rolled her eyes. “Dumbass!” She pulled out one of her arrows from the small quiver and tapped the broad head tip on the steel cover. Two seconds later, Shave and a haircut was tapped from the other side. Ali smiled and tapped twice more: Two bits.
“It’s Billy! Open it up!”
Abbey and Tony looked at each other. “How do you know it’s him?” demanded Tony.
“Are you fucking kidding? Open the damn grate, I can hear him yelling down there!”
There was indeed someone barely discernible, yelling from the other side of the small steel door. “Ok, Abbey get the gun ready, Martin, take this.” Tony handed Martin the fire axe. “Anything that isn’t alive gets killed if it comes out.”
“That sounded ridiculous,” Martin observed, eyebrows raised.
Tony scowled at him, lifted the T handle, and twisted it, pulling.
“About time, it stinks down here,” Billy said as he looked up from the hole at his friends.
Ali moved to hug him, but noticed he was covered in gore. “Glad you made it,” Tony said and stuck his hand out to help him. As Billy climbed up to the floor of the room, Tony’s eyes narrowed. “Actually, how did you make it?”
“Sometimes they just don’t like me,” Billy answered. “I mean it’s not like I was covered in barbecue sauce anyway.” He winked at Ali, who smiled.
“What does that mean?” insisted Martin.
“The barbecue sauce thing? Well, if I —”
“No dammit! Why didn’t they tear you apart!”
“It means sometimes they don’t attack him. Or me,” Ali replied.
“Bullshit!”
“No, it’s true, but we don’t know why, and it’s only sometimes,” Billy told them. “Other times they want to eat us like a coyote wants a road runner.”
Martin shook his head, “I don’t understand.”
“Welcome to the club, we have cards, and a secret handshake. Is there a shower in here, and maybe a change of clothes?” Billy’s voice changed to mimic someone from the deep South. “I’m gonna get a mite gamey in a few.”
“Yeah,” Tony told him, “shower’s in the back over there,” he indicated a door behind Billy, “and there’ll be some of these coveralls in there too.”
“Thanks!” Billy moved off toward the door.
Tony spun and faced Ali. “Well?”
She looked bewildered. “Well what?”
“Why didn’t they tear him to pieces? What the hell just happened?”
“Did you miss the last few minutes? We don’t know!”
“Well we need to find out!” Martin almost yelled. “We need to know! Think!”
“I… I really don’t know,” she stammered, “why is it so important?”
Martin raised his eyebrows in shock. “Seriously? Because if we can copy whatever it is about him,” he jerked a thumb in Billy’s direction, “then we can all be immune to their senses! We can walk right past them!”
“It doesn’t work like that! If you don’t imitate them, they still come at you, they just walk away after a second! You can’t talk or look different!”
“Ali, I don’t give a shit. If they don’t attack then we are infinitely safer. Now think, think hard. What did he do prior to each episode of them not attacking?”
“I only saw it a couple of times, so I have no idea. I was in a…hospital, and at first none of them would come near me. Then, all of a sudden, they thought I was dinner. I can’t think of anything I did differently from one minute to the next, I’m sorry!”
“Ali, we must know! Whatever it is we should…”
“We should what? Dissect me? Stick me in a room with a bunch of them to see if they want to eat me at that particular time? Fuck you professor, I’m not your goddamned guinea pig! I’ve told you I don’t know what it is. Neither does Billy. For all we know it happens to everybody! Or maybe it isn’t us at all, but them!” She pointed out the window, “How about we throw you out there to see if they take a chunk outa you! Or you,” she indicated Tony, “or one of the kids!”
“Ali, no one is saying we are going to test anything, we just…”
“Not yet you’re not, but I’ve been in this situation before, and I know what happens. All shock and awe at something new, then come the tests, then comes the imprisonment because the ‘subject’ is too important to lose.” Ali lowered her chin and pointed at Martin, “Tell one person about this and I will kill you.” She turned and walked toward the shower room, leaving Tony and Martin looking at each other, stunned.
Sometime later, Billy and Ali walked together toward the small group assembled near a silent pumping system. “There’s nobody here, and the streets outside seem deserted,” Tony told them. “We checked every nook and cranny twice inside, and Abbey has only seen one of them outside, but it left a little while ago.”
Ali wouldn’t look at Tony or Martin, and moved off to find Abbey upstairs on the catwalks.
“What excellent news!” Billy chirped to the group, “Can you see the docks from here?”
“No, but Abbey told us they’re close.”
“You don’t have a pizza or maybe a roast beef sandwich tucked away someplace do you?”
Martin smiled and handed Billy a candy bar. “That’s it I’m afraid.”
Billy’s eyes went wide. “Zagnut! One of my faves!” He accepted the candy bar and went to sit with the kids.
“He seem a little loopy to you?” Tony asked Martin.
“A bit. I’m still thinking about his immunity to those things. I can’t wrap my head around it.”
“They said they didn’t know,” shrugged Tony, “what else
can we do? Either way, he’s got a boat, so we need to leave eventually. We can carry the ball if he blocks.”
“Agreed. No better time like the present either. It seems whenever we stop we have to go again, huh?
“Yeah. These things don’t give up.”
“Neither should we. Let’s talk to the group.”
Martin climbed up the metal stairs and found the two women sitting on a catwalk, talking in low voices. He strode over to them and received a venomous stare from Ali. “We need to get moving. Billy is going to tell us all where his boat is, and we will make an attempt at reaching it soon. Ali, I—”
“Forget it,” she interrupted, standing up. “You’re right, we should move.”
The three met the others in the main control room, discussing their next move in hushed voices.
Martin took charge. “Billy, can you get us to your boat?”
“Sure, if I can get to the docks. I left it tied to a big wooden piling near one of the piers. It shouldn’t be too hard to see once we get there.”
“Wait, you just left it tied up? Where are the keys?”
“Keys?”
“Yes, the keys to the boat, where are they?”
“Sorry chief, I’m not getting you. There’s no keys.”
Martin closed his eyes and started pinching his nose with his thumb and forefinger, “How big is this boat, Billy?”
“I dunno, maybe fifteen feet?”
“Let me guess, it has a pull-start outboard engine?”
“Yeah! What are you psychic or something?” His smile turned into a frown, “You sound like there’s an issue with the boat. Did you want to hang out here while everybody else goes to Alcatraz?”
“No, but the entire non-undead population of San Francisco has been trying to escape the city! The damn boat is probably gone! You might have brought us here for nothing!”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t a gamble.”
“Jesus, Billy! We thought you had a power boat.”
“Duh! Outboard ENGINE! Power boat!”
Tony looked at the ceiling of the building, and Martin shook his head. “Oh man, we should have stayed at my place.”
Run: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller Page 20
