“What’s the most dangerous thing in the world? A bored Infantryman.”
It was why he always made them do something, even when his troops were sitting on the deck with their gear. It was a lesson Steven Bennett said he learned the hard way. He was a young LT on an incursion into enemy territory. They had cleared their zone and were resting up. A couple of young recruits were off by themselves and were messing with a rocket propelled grenade, when they blew themselves up. They were the only casualties his unit suffered on that operation. From then on, even down time was filled with purposeful activity. Besides, her father said, an idle mind gives you time to feel bad about where you are, and there was no value on a mission in feeling bad. Nicole had gotten to feeling bad. She raised her head and climbed out of the car. She grabbed her gun and went around to the back.
Sam snoozed, lightly snoring.
“Come on, Sam. You need to learn how to field strip and clean your rifle,” she said.
Sam woke up and looked around. He grabbed his rifle, hauled himself off the trunk and followed Nicole.
☣
Nicole and Sam finished reassembling their rifles and were wiping them down when Walt approached.
“Hey, guys. Paul says if we’re hungry he can show us the cafeteria. Says he’s got a whole spread in there, man,” Walt said.
Sam stood up and looked at Nicole. Nicole smirked at him.
“You don’t need my permission, Sam. If you’re hungry, just go,” she said.
Sam was about to say something, but figured it would not be all that helpful. He turned and followed Walt over to Paul. Nicole slung her rifle and watched them a moment before falling in behind them.
Paul looked for his daughter. She was slow skating next to Billy, who was a little more sure on his feet but nowhere near the point of steady forward motion. Paul approached.
“Put your skates up, Jordan. It’s time to eat,” he said.
Jordan and Billy went over and sat on a bench by the sidelines and exchanged their skates for their shoes. Paul eyed Billy with suspicion and not altogether hidden hostility. When Jordan rose, Paul took her hand and led her away, whispering to her.
“I don’t want you hanging out with that boy, we don’t know anything about him or his group.”
Jordan retorted, “We were just skating, Dad.”
Paul hurried her away, casting a long glare back at Billy, who sat on the bench looking down.
Paul and Jordan led the group down the home team entrance at the fifty yard line and into a wide hallway that encircled the interior of the stadium below field level.
“Before you showed up, we went to the All-Mart twice a week to get groceries. We don’t get much, just enough to last us. There’s plenty of other stuff, though, if you like stadium food,” he said.
As they continued down the wide subterranean hall, Nicole came alongside Paul.
“What about those things outside, can they get in?” she asked.
Paul did not look at her immediately and gave all appearances of a man biting his tongue.
“No, they can’t get in. I don’t know how much you know about their behavior, but I watched them long enough to know that their mindless. They don’t think things out. They followed you in here and they will just keep banging away at the polycarbonate until the end of time or something else distracts them. There’s no way they can get through those doors and the only other exit is the players and staff parking entrance which are locked tight,” Paul said.
Nicole kept pace with Paul. “Okay, well, if they can’t get in, is there any way we can get out?” she asked.
Paul stopped abruptly and turned on her. “Look, I had those things all focused on one thing and moving in one direction. It took me a long time and cost me my best friend! You people show up and give them something new to think about and lead them right to my door. Now they are ten deep all around us with nothing else to do, so… no you can’t get out,” Paul said.
Paul looked at Nicole then looked to the rest of her group. He sighed a deep sigh. He did not mean to sound so harsh, but those were the facts and he lacked the energy or will to smooth things over.
“If you’ll follow me, I can show you where you all can get something to eat,” he said, turning back down the corridor.
He led them past the team training room to a set of wide double doors, over which was a sign indicating the cafeteria. Paul pushed open the doors, revealing several rows of long tables. In the back was a large stainless steel kitchen with several massive refrigerators and freezers.
“The power still works so you’ll be able to pretty much cook what you want. We passed the training room. In there are showers and lockers to put any stuff you want,” Paul said.
The group filed in and looked like kids in a candy store. Billy, Sam, and Walt were all smiles as they rushed into the kitchen area. Nicole stood looking around, taking it all in. She glanced at Paul, who looked like he was not happy but was going to try to make the best of it.
“Look, I know you’re not happy to see us, but… thanks…” Nicole said.
Paul smiled uncomfortably at her then looked to Jordan, who was in the kitchen giving a grand tour.
“Jordan! Let’s give these people some time to eat and get cleaned up, okay?” Paul said.
Jordan sighed and her shoulders slumped as she traipsed over to her father. Paul took her hand and led her out.
“We usually watch a movie on the jumbo tron at night… you guys are welcome to join us…” Paul said before exiting, closing the door behind him.
Nicole watched Sam, Billy, and Walt rummage through stacks of stadium food in anticipation of full stomachs before slowly making her way over.
☣
With full stomachs and hot showers, everyone was feeling better. When Nicole came out of the training room she found Walt, Sam, and Billy standing there.
“What are you all doing,” she asked as she slung her rifle back over her shoulder.
She noticed the others did not have their guns, and was about to ask why they didn’t, when Walt interrupted her.
“Waiting for you, man. You going to the movie with us?” he asked.
Nicole was in no mood for a movie, she had meant to talk to Paul about how to either get the Dead away from the building or formulate a plan to get out. As she looked at the three her resolve faltered. They all stared at her with pleading and expectant eyes, as if to say, “yeah, I know we’re screwed, but tonight can we just forget that for a minute.” Nicole rolled her eyes, “fine,” she said.
Sam, Walt, and Billy all seemed to smile at the same time as they turned to make their way to the field entrance ramp.
When they came up on the field, Paul was talking to Jordan and it looked like they were arguing. They stopped as the four approached.
“Let’s ask them,” Jordan said and turned to Nicole. “Daddy wants to watch his favorite movie, AGAIN, but I want to watch one of mine. Which one do you guys want to watch,” Jordan asked holding out two DVDs.
Nicole looked down and saw that Jordan was holding DIE HARD and TWILIGHT. Sam, Billy, Walt and Nicole all shifted nervously and gave every indication they were going to try not to be rude. Practically in unison they all said, “Die Hard.”
Paul sighed. “Oh thank God,” he said.
Jordan’s head slumped and she stomped her foot, then handed DIE HARD to her father.
“Maybe we can watch it next time, okay, sweetheart?” Paul said.
“Okay,” Jordan said.
As Nicole passed, she saw Jordan smiling. Jordan looked up at Nicole.
“I like Die Hard, too. Bruce Willis is hot! Just don’t tell my Dad, ‘kay?,” she whispered.
Nicole smiled and made like she was sealing her lips and throwing away the key. Jordan jumped with glee and took Nicole’s hand and led her to the middle of the field. There were blankets and lounge chairs spread out. In front of them was the massive Jumbo-tron hanging from the ceiling. Paul huffed it up the steps and disappeared in
to the control box as everyone took a seat. On the huge screen, the FBI warning against piracy came up. Paul huffed it back down and over to his chair, collapsing into it. He did not notice immediately that Jordan and Billy were sitting next to each other on one of the large blankets.
“Are you alright, Daddy?” Jordan asked.
Paul held up his hand and tried to get the words out, but his lungs were too occupied with trying to inhale.
“I’m… fine… honey,” he gasped. Catching his breath, he looked at Billy who was staring at the huge screen, then at his daughter.
“Come sit over here by me, okay, sweetheart,” he said.
Jordan, who was lying on her stomach with her hands under her chin hung her head in frustration and knew it was a fight she was not going to win.
“I have to go sit with my Dad for no reason,” she said to Billy.
Billy looked away nervously and tapped his foot.
“It’s okay, I understand,” he said.
He watched Jordan get up and go over to her dad. He looked quickly back at the screen when he saw Paul staring at him.
As John McClane’s flight from New York to Los Angeles landed, Nicole sat in her lounge chair in the middle of Liberty Bell stadium and stared at the Jumbo-tron. She wanted to let herself enjoy the night, but she couldn’t. She knew they had to get out of there, and that doing so would probably destroy all the good Paul and Jordan had found.
Twenty-Two
Nicole had not slept much after John McClane was reunited with his estranged wife. While the others shuffled off, to sleep on improvised beds in the stadium’s subterranean spaces, Nicole had walked. She started with the massive clear doors on either end of the field. It was surreal standing in front of all that death, a mere eighteen inches away. The seal made the doors virtually soundproof, creating a vacuum of silence. She saw the Dead and it made her motionless. The Dead saw her and it made them agitated. Like angry, hungry fish in a gruesome aquarium, they thrashed and threw themselves at the clear doors. Those in front were mashed to pulp, creating smears of gore all across the doors, at times almost obscuring the view. When those in front were ground to mush, their place was taken by the next row, their bodies being in slightly better condition, the Polycarbonate was wiped clear enough to see through, before they too were squashed to liquid by the sheer numbers of those pressing from behind. Row upon row upon row stacked up, hungry to get in, hungry for her. It was the same at the other set of doors and Nicole understood that they were surrounded on all sides.
She made her way down the field entrance and walked the perimeter of the stadium, the wide hall that opened up to offices and training rooms and all the things it took to run a franchise. It was as Paul had said, the stadium was locked up tight and she could find no weak points. She found the players and staff parking lot with its ramp leading up to street level. A steel roll down door was locked in place. Against this she heard the Dead pounding. Pressing her ear to the door she could hear their moans.
She turned and made her way back down the ramp. There were no cars in the parking lot. No one was thinking about football when the apocalypse hit, not the players and certainly not even the most die hard of fans. Only Paul and his daughter, and for them it was a good choice. A choice they sacrificed to save her and her group. It was a good choice that she was going to have to convince him and his daughter to abandon.
☣
She did not know how long she slept, but she awoke to the sounds of people and the smell of pancakes. It was glorious, the smell of breakfast, and for the briefest of moments she thought she was six years old and at home in her room. Her mother used to make pancakes on Saturday morning. She would race downstairs in her pajamas and slippers to hot pancakes and Bugs Bunny cartoons. These were some of her fondest memories. As her head cleared and the dreams faded, she remembered where she was. Not bothering to undress for bed the night before, Nicole pulled on her boots and walked the corridor to the cafeteria.
Inside, Paul and Walt flipped pancakes while Sam, Billy, and Jordan were stuffing their mouths. Billy and Jordan sat across and down from each other but cast nervous glances back and forth. Paul cast nervous glances at them both. Everyone was in good spirits and acted like there wasn’t a thousand hungry mouths to feed just outside. Nicole stood and took it all in, even more unsure this morning how to proceed than she was last night. Sam looked up and saw her.
“Hey, Nicole! Come get some pancakes!” he screamed at her. Nicole smiled nervously at him.
“Maybe in a minute, Sam,” she said.
Paul and Walt looked up at her. Walt smiled. Paul seemed to want to smile but was unsure. Nicole locked eyes with him and with her head, gestured him over. Paul wiped his hands on a towel and approached. Walt was too wrapped up in pouring dough onto the skillet to pay much attention. As Paul approached, his face told Nicole he knew what she wanted to talk about. She gestured him outside and the two went out into the corridor.
Nicole kept her voice low. “We need to talk about what we’re going to do. Is there a floor plan or a blueprint of the stadium?” she asked.
Paul looked at her, then away. “Yeah, I keep a set in my office, for maintenance,” he said.
Nicole shifted her rifle in anticipation. “Can you get it? You know this building like the back of your hand, right? We need to see what our options are. I’ve some thoughts, but-”
Paul cut her off. “Can’t this wait till… till after breakfast? I mean-”
Nicole cut in. “Look, time is not on our side, here, we can’t wait these things out,” she said.
Paul backed away, his hands held out in front like he was trying to push her away. “I know… I know… it’s just that today is pancake day, and… after breakfast I’ll get the plans, I promise…” His words trailed off as he backed away and re-entered the cafeteria.
Nicole sighed and followed him in. She took a seat next to Sam, who handed her a heaping stack smothered in syrup.
“Here, I made you a plate. Everything alright?” he asked.
Nicole smiled and took a bite of the pancakes. Sweet maple flavor filled her mouth and she could not help but close her eyes and grunt with pleasure.
“I know, right?” Sam said, beaming at her reaction.
Paul went back to the stove and poured another batch.
“Jordan! Sam! Billy! Who wants seconds?” he called.
All three jumped from the table and stood at the window as Walt filled their plates.
☣
After breakfast, Paul retrieved the plans for the stadium and laid them out on a large conference table in one of the meeting rooms. The group stood around staring down at it, nobody knowing where to begin. Finally, Paul spoke up.
“Well, maybe we could burn them out, you know. We’ve got plenty of fuel on sight for the backup generators. We could somehow spray them with it and then… set them on fire,” he said.
Walt stared at the plans, contemplating what Paul had proposed. He rubbed his chin.
“Nah, man. I don’t think that would be kosher, you know. You have outside ventilation to contend with. A thousand or more Dead guys all burning right outside your door, heck man, we’d smoke us out the whole time you were burnin’ them out,” Walt said.
The group fell silent, lost in thought. Billy shifted nervously and debated whether he should try to contribute. In school he never raised his hand, died a thousand deaths when his teachers would try to draw him out, calling on him anyway. Nicole had let him come with her, had saved him, so some part of him thought he needed to contribute.
“Miss Nicole, you have all those guns and bullets… May-maybe we could get somewhere and shoot ‘em all in the head…” he said.
Billy braced himself for the ridicule from the others. Nicole looked over at Billy. She thought this was the first time he had really spoken, to her at least. She watched as he cast his eyes to the floor. She took a breath and framed her response.
“You’re on to something there, Billy. Those things wo
uldn’t try to run and hide. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel. The thing is, if we dropped them all where they stand then there is no way we can get our vehicles out. There’s just too many of them,” she said.
She looked at Billy and smiled. Billy smiled back at her, then his face flushed with embarrassment and he looked away. His face went hot, but Billy felt a rush through his whole body. He had suggested something and no one laughed at him.
Nicole looked around at the others. All had their eyes locked on the plans. Nicole waited for somebody else to say something. When nobody did, she cleared her throat.
“Paul, tell me about this lower level. This corridor goes all the way around the stadium down here?” she asked.
Paul rested one hand on the table and leaned in. With the other, he gestured to the subterranean corridor that ran all around the stadium.
“Yeah, the field entrance is here leading down to the corridor which circles all the way around,” he said.
Nicole looked at the plans. “And on the other side of that corridor, all this stuff in the middle, what’s that?” Nicole asked.
“Some of it you’ve seen, cafeteria, clubhouse, training rooms. There are four accesses along the corridor leading up to front offices, Admin stuff, here, here, here, and here,” Paul said as he gestured to the four doors spaced at the “corners” of the circle which was really more oblong.
“And is there field access from those offices or do you need to come back down to the corridor to get to the field?” Nicole asked.
Paul raised his eyebrows, curious as to her line of thought. “No, you can access the field from up top. Why, what are you thinking?” he asked.
“You’re not going to like it, but we can’t just open the doors and try to drive out, we would be mobbed like before, and we can’t do anything about that horde from in here…” Nicole’s words trailed off.
Nicole's Odyssey (Human Extinction Level Loss Book 1) Page 12
