Survivors in a Dead World

by Gary M. Chesla

  If they ever managed to get out of Pittsburgh and find somewhere safe to live, she wasn’t sure how the list of who needed to be protected would change. Maybe then the doctor would move to the top of the list. The group would need a doctor to survive. She wasn’t sure what skills all of the others had. She knew the one guy named Jim had been a banker, unless he had some other special survival skills, he would end up at the bottom of the list. From what she could tell he was at the bottom of the list now.

  When they didn’t need a pilot any longer or the helicopter was beyond repair, where would she end up? She could end up on the bottom of the list with Jim. After all, reporting traffic would be in less demand than even banking experience.

  But she was a girl. Not only was she a girl but she was the only girl. She doubted that she would end up at the bottom of the list. That idea was both comforting and terrifying. It was comforting to know someone would want to protect her, even if she wasn’t thrilled with the reason they would want to keep her safe. But if their plan was for her to be the next Eve, they could go find themselves someone else for that job.

  So far everyone here had treated her with respect and as an equal. No one had tried to hit on her. That was again both comforting and in a way insulting. Guys had always hit on her. They had hit on her all through high school. College had been a real free for all. Men had constantly hit on her the entire time she worked for WTAE TV. They had even hit on her during the sexual harassment seminars they had been required to attend. Men continued to hit on her after the world had ended, if you could call that being hit on? It was more like living in the days of cavemen. Fortunately she had been able to avoid the club part of the caveman scene.

  But all of these men seemed different. This was actually sort of confusing. It made her suspicious. After all she had lived in a man’s world all of her life and it had never been like this. Guys usually fought with each other to be with her.

  “Come on Carrie Jenkins, get your lazy ass out of bed,” Carrie said to herself as she pulled her sheets and blanket off and slid out of her hospital bed. She thought it was funny to be happy about sleeping in a hospital bed. “You’re starting to sound like a damn hypocrite. First you bitch because guys won’t leave you alone. Now you are bitching because they are leaving you alone. Make up your mind girl. You can’t have it both ways. You’re not a teenybopper anymore. You’re a damn adult and in case you didn’t notice, you have real problems to worry about, like maybe how to stay alive for another day.”

  Carrie laughed at herself as she walked out into the hallway, heading to the latrine.

  “What’s so funny Red?” Bob asked

  “Nothing,” Carrie replied, surprised at seeing Bob in the hallway.

  “Fine, then don’t tell me,” Bob smiled.

  Carrie smiled back, “Really it was nothing. I was just thinking about how things are now.”

  “Well I’m glad you think this is all funny,” Bob said. “I think it’s all a damn nightmare.”

  “No, I don’t mean I think what is going on out there is funny. I was thinking about how I ended up here,” Carrie replied.

  “Oh, you mean how you ended up living with nine guys,” Bob smiled. “It must be a dream come true.”

  “Not exactly,” Carrie laughed.

  “Don’t worry Red, you’re safe,” Bob said. “We had a meeting right after you came to join us. You’re off limits. Anyone that bothers you gets to live back out on the streets.”

  Bob winked and disappeared back into his room.

  Chills ran down Carrie’s spine. How did he know what she had been thinking about? This wasn’t the first time Bob had from out of nowhere, said what she had been thinking about. That was creepy. There was no way he could read her mind, was there? Just in case, she had better get her act together. She would be embarrassed to imagine what he would think of her if by any chance he could read her mind. She didn’t want him to know how screwed up she really was. She wouldn’t want anyone here to know that.

  Carrie quickly walked to the bathroom. They used a different room as the bathroom each week. Without flushing toilets, the rooms quickly became too toxic to continue using for very long. Most of the guys just went off the edge of the roof. She wasn’t about to entertain them by doing that. She was sure they would enjoy watching her, guys were like that. She considered herself to be more modest than the guys. Some of the perverts seemed to go out of their way to give her a show. She would gladly endure the smelly room for a little privacy.

  Carrie returned to her room and got dressed. She had a job to do this morning. In fact Bob was probably outside getting the helicopter ready to go.

  Carrie walked up the steps and out onto the roof. Bob was sitting in the copilot’s seat. Tom and Jim were chattering away in the back of the small cabin.

  She hoped they weren’t going to subject her to anymore apocalyptic football jokes. She hadn’t cared that much for football before. She knew for someone living in Pittsburgh to admit they didn’t care much for football was like a fish admitting it didn’t like water. In Pittsburgh that was considered heresy. She had ended her traffic reports with the obligatory “Go Steelers” to fit in and keep peace, but that was about as excited about football she ever got. She also didn’t like dead jokes. There was nothing funny about those things down on the streets below. But Bob and Tom liked to irritate her and had somehow managed to combine the worst of both worlds. She hated the jokes but in a way she enjoyed the attention. Except for their corny jokes, they were OK guys. Carrie even thought that Bob wasn’t too bad looking.

  Carrie hopped into the helicopter and tightened her seat belt.

  “Checklist,” Bob started as soon as Carrie was ready.

  Tom groaned from the rear of the cabin.

  “OK, we’re going to Costco’s at the Water Front. Travel time will be twenty minutes. After we land, we have to stay there for at least an hour before we can consider the chopper reliable enough to attempt the flight back.

  So let’s make sure we have everything we need.

  First on the list, baseball bats for defense?”

  “Check,” Jim answered.

  “Rope so we can get down into Costco through the hole we cut in the roof?” Bob said next.

  “Got it,” Tom answered.

  “Nylon bags to carry the food in?” Bob asked.

  “I have four of them,” Tom replied.

  “A five gallon can of fuel, just in case?” Bob asked again.

  “Tools in case we need to repair the helicopter?” Bob read off the list, “I can say check to that one.”

  “Did you check the wires?” Tom asked.

  “Until I have something to replace them with, I don’t want to mess with them,” Bob replied. “If it is a cracked wire, I figure a cracked wire is better than no wire at all.”

  Tom thought for a second.

  “How about eye shadow for the pilot?” Tom chuckled.

  Carrie smiled as Bob turned in his seat and gave Tom a stern look.

  “Sorry,” Tom said. “I don’t know what got into me.”

  They all started to laugh.

  Bob turned back to his list.

  “Next, torches, rags and lighter fluid so we can see once we get down into the store?”

  “Shit!” Tom said from the back of the cabin.

  “Well unless you found us all some night vision goggles so we can see in that pitch black cave,” Bob said. “Get your ass down below and go get the torches.”

  Tom grumbled something about how the hell he could forget something like that as he crawled out of the helicopter and ran for the stairs.

  “How about you Red, anything you can think of that we might have forgotten?” Bob asked.

  Carrie got an ornery smile on her face, seeing an opportunity to give Bob some of his own corny medicine,

  “Do we really have eye shadow?”

  Without cracking a smile Bob replied, “Yea, we found it in the nurse’s station. But it’s some ugly looking
orange shit. It wouldn’t go with your red hair and blue eyes.”

  “I like it though,” Jim said from the back.

  “It looks good on you Jim, but you have the right hair and eye color to wear something like that,” Bob replied. “It would make Red here look like one of those walkers.”

  Carrie turned to look back at Jim.

  She stopped when they both started laughing.

  “Got you Red,” Bob laughed.

  Jim was cracking up in the back.

  “Bastards, both of you,” Carrie laughed.

  “The look on your face before you asked about the eye shadow gave you away,” Bob laughed. “You should probably not try to pull any practical jokes on anyone. That and if I were you, until you learn how to keep a straight face, I wouldn’t try to play poker with any of these shysters around here either.”

  Tom ran back out and climbed into the helicopter,

  “Sorry.”

  “I think we have everything we need now,” Bob said looking at Carrie.

  “OK, hang on,” Carrie said as she started the engine.

  The engine slowly revved up to speed, stirring up a dust storm on the pad.

  The takeoff was always Carrie’s favorite part of the flight. Watching the chopper start to rise into the air just felt so exciting. It was at that point she knew she could actually fly.

  The chopper slowly rose above the pad and Carrie guided the craft over the edge of the roof.

  The roof disappeared as the helicopter dropped down over the hill and glided out over the Monongahela River, now moving south towards Homestead.

  The Waterfront was a revitalization project that was completed about ten years ago to try and draw people back into the Homestead and Braddock areas of Pittsburgh. After the steel mills went out, those areas transitioned into little more than run down ghettos. In fact, even back then those areas had looked like how most of the world now looked. The areas out that way, appearance wise had pretty much stayed the same since the world as everyone knew it had changed.

  Even the dead that now filled the streets wouldn’t have looked out of place in Homestead back then. The Waterfront on the other hand had looked like an oasis in the desert.

  That was before, now it blended right in with the surrounding areas, dead and decaying.

  The only reason they were going to the Waterfront today was the Costco store. The Costco store had been locked up tight when the end came.

  After Carrie joined the group, on one of their flights to check out the area, they spotted the Costco. When the building appeared to have sustained little damage, they planned a return trip to Costco to see if they could get inside. It had been a lucky discovery.

  The trips to Costco had now become a monthly event. It had kept them supplied with food over the last six months.

  It was also lucky that it was close enough to manage a trip out and back with their handicapped helicopter.

  Carrie turned the helicopter inland and flew over the south side of town. It was creepy to see the thousands of the dead that covered the streets, stop and all stare up into the sky at the sound of the engine as they flew overhead.

  “Why are they always down there?” Tom asked. “Why don’t they go somewhere?”

  “I don’t think those ugly bastards know where to go,” Bob replied.

  “Do you think they even know where they are?” Jim asked. “I mean, they probably all lived down there somewhere at one time. Do you think they remember anything about who they were?”

  “The only thing I have ever seen that they seem to be able to recognize are the living,” Carrie added. “Other than that, they just wander around with that glazed look in their eyes. I don’t think they know anything at all or can even think. I’ve seen them go in a building and walk into a closet and not be able to find their way back out of the closet. Unfortunately for me I tried to hide in that closet and it scared the hell out of me. It was just standing there looking at the wall until I ran into it. Thank God they are slow as hell.”

  “They seem to like helicopters,” Bob said.

  “Great,” Tom said from the back of the cabin.

  Carrie had to agree with Bob. The entire trip to Homestead, the dead all stopped and watched as the chopper flew over.

  It wasn’t so bad at five hundred feet, but when they landed on the roof at Costco, the dead that flooded into the Costco parking lot and surrounded the warehouse made them all feel like they were landing right on top of the dead.

  Carrie shut down the engine.

  The sound and smell was overwhelming down this close to the dead. It smelled bad on the top floor of the hospital, but nowhere near as bad as when they came out to Costco for supplies.

  When the engine finished winding down, Bob turned to face Tom and Jim, “Be careful and don’t take any chances. If you see anything, just get back here and we’ll decide what we are going to do.”

  “If we all went we could wrap this up fast,” Carrie said.

  “You know the rules Red,” Bob said sternly. “Whether we like it or not, you and I stay here and you know why. Until we can get out of Pittsburgh, you and I are not to take any unnecessary chances. Besides we are going to be here for an hour no matter what. We aren’t in any hurry.”

  Jim and Tom crawled out of the helicopter.

  Jim carried the torches, the four nylon bags and a baseball bat.

  Tom grabbed the ropes and tied one end to an air conditioning unit on the roof. After looking down through the three foot square hole they had cut in the roof on their first trip here to the store, Tom lowered the rope and listened.

  Tom looked up at Jim and nodded. He took hold of the rope and slowly lowered himself down into the store. Jim followed a minute later.

  Carrie and Bob got out and walked over to the edge of the hole and sat down. Even though they were not to go down into the store, they would help pull the supplies up to the roof and load the helicopter while Jim and Tom searched the store.

  Carrie looked at Bob, “Bob I know you were a mechanic before, but where did you live before? Did you have a family? You all know pretty much all there is to know about me. My first week felt like the Spanish Inquisition.”

  Bob laughed, “Well Red, you have to admit, you were sort of a novelty when you showed up at the hospital. The fact that you could fly a helicopter and will eventually be able to get us all out of the city makes you our hero.”

  “I’ve been wondering,” Carrie asked hesitantly, “If I wasn’t able to fly the helicopter, would you guys be treating me differently? I mean…..until I came to the hospital, any guys I was unlucky enough to run into treated me as little more than entertainment. I was beginning to feel relieved when all the living seemed to vanish.”

  Bob smiled softly, “I know what you mean Red. I’m not sure, but let me just say these guys are all good people. You treat them with respect and they will treat you with respect. We’re all adults here and we have one very big problem. Dealing with that problem is the main thing on everyone’s mind. The answers to your other questions are that I lived in Pleasant Hills, I worked at South Hills Ford as the head mechanic, I had a family but I don’t anymore and that is all you need to know.”

  “I’m sorry,” Carrie replied.

  “Don’t be,” Bob replied, “We’ve all lost everything and everyone. It’s done and over with. It wasn’t anyone’s fault here. We have to put it behind us and forget about it. If you want to live, just keep your mind on what we need to do. Let go of what happened before. It’s over.”

  “For a guy, you seem pretty level headed,” Carrie smiled.

  “For a girl, you fly that helicopter well,” Bob returned the smile.

  “As for the rest of the guys, you should ask them the same questions,” Bob added. “In a world where no one gives a shit about anyone else any more, they would be happy to find someone who cares enough to talk to them and ask them to tell a little about who they were before this all happened. The world is a lonely uncaring place. We a
ll need each other. Even more, we all could use a good friend, especially one as pretty as you.”

  “Anyone still up there?” Tom’s voice sounded from down inside the store, interrupting the conversation.

  “Hell no,” Bob called back, “they left ten minutes ago.”

  “Well whoever is up there, how about pulling up this bag of soups and beans,” Tom laughed.

  “You have them tied up tight this time,” Bob asked.

  “Yes, smart ass,” Tom joked. “Just pull.”

  “What’s it like down there today?” Bob asked.

  Smells like hell,” Tom replied. “Other than that, it’s not bad. Jim has a bag of nuts and snacks ready to go next. After you start pulling, I’ll go over and get the clothes next.”

  “Sounds Good, Tom,” Bob replied.

  Bob started to pull on the rope, “Red, give me a hand. I think those assholes filled this one with bricks.”

  Carrie pitched in and pulled.

  Thirty minutes later the last bag was hoisted to the roof.

  Carrie finished loading the last of the supplies into the back of the cabin as Bob helped Tom and Jim get back up on the roof and retrieve the rope and equipment and get it all back into the helicopter.

  When they were done Bob said, “Good job boys.”

  “Thanks Bob,” Tom replied. “I think when we leave we should maybe try to lead the dead away from the warehouse.”

  “I agree Bob,” Jim added. “Those bastards were starting to worry me down there.”

  “Yea, they were all pounding at the front windows of the store,” Tom continued. “They smashed out all the windows in the front. The only thing keeping them out was the chain link mesh they pull down over the windows when they lock up. If they keep running into that mesh like that it isn’t going to hold much longer.”