by Schafer, Jon
The trio backed up, expecting the dead to stop at Meat's corpse to ravage it, but the wave of zombies moved inexorably toward them. Some stopped to feed on Meat, but a majority, urged on by the scent of fresh meat, overcame any hesitation at attacking an armed foe and surged upward as one.
"Fall back," Heather said. "There's too many of them."
They had been pushed back to the seventh floor when Brain rejoined them. He was ignored in the fury of the battle. Steve had wadded up pieces of paper that he stuck in his ears to block the noise of the gunfire. After finally noticing the tech standing behind him trying to get his attention, he removed one to listen to what he had to say. Even with the plug out, Steve could barely hear over the ringing, dull roar that seemed to come from the center of his head.
Between the gunfire and deafness, it took Steve a little while to understand that Brain was telling him that everyone was heading for the roof and that most of the supplies and equipment had already been transported there. Steve relayed this to Heather and Tick-Tock and then motioned Brain to join the others. Once he was gone, they started a slow, steady, retreat up the stairs.
Steve burst from the stink of cordite and the musky rancid smell of the dead that permeated the stairwell into the fresh air of the roof and inhaled deeply to clear his lungs. Heather and Tick-Tock rushed through the door right behind him, Heather pausing to slam the door shut before staggering forward a few steps and throwing up.
Brain immediately started bracing the door with wood while Susan wrapped the small building that held the top of the stairwell in lengths of rope to hold the door shut. Steve, Heather and Tick-Tock moved out of their way, bent at the waist as they tried to catch their breath, occasionally gagging and spitting to clear their throats.
Steve was the first to recover enough to talk. "That smells bad enough to knock a buzzard off a shit wagon."
Tick-Tock laughed and said in a raspy voice, "You know what I hate about the Military channel?"
Steve and Heather shook their heads as they tried to spit the slimy residue of bile out of their mouths.
"They show all that great shit that you can kill things with, but they never give you a one eight hundred number to call and order it."
Steve's laugh turned into a coughing fit and he couldn't reply, so he waved Tick-Tock off. He finally caught his breath but was still having trouble with his watering eyes as he called out, "Brain, where in the hell are you?"
Brain materialized at his side and said, "I've got it all set up like you told me, Steve. Everything's ready."
Helping Heather stand upright, Steve said, "Show me."
Brain led them to the edge of the roof that overlooked the MRAP and said, "I reattached the window washers seat to one line and I still had enough rope to splice together another one we can use to lower our stuff. I already dropped that one down with a bundle attached to it, so the first person down can untie it. That’ll save us some time. I also packed most of your and Heather's things and grabbed the radios and ammunition and gear from your room."
"Good job," Steve said. He was joined by Heather, who looked over the side and appraised the area before adding, "No dead in sight."
Tick-Tock replied, "That's because they're not out there anymore. They're all inside the building."
"We thought this could happen," Heather said. "That's why we made this plan. I just thought we'd never have to use it."
"Is the rest of the stuff we need in the MRAP?" Steve asked Tick-Tock.
"Too volatile," He answered. "I stored it just inside the entry to the parking garage in an igloo cooler."
Behind them, they could hear the dead banging on the metal stairway door as they tried to break through to the roof.
"How long do you think they'll stay mobbed up inside the building," Steve asked.
"Long enough," Tick-Tock replied.
Steve again looked down at the rope trailing away to the dark shape of the MRAP. The building shadowed the area below, but the moon threw enough light to show it was deserted. Turning to what was left of the survivors who had holed up at the Garnett Bank Building on the day that the dead rose up to walk the streets of Clearwater, Steve was saddened to see that Jonny and Marcia were not among them. He pushed the emotion down and kept his voice even as he asked if anyone had seen them. No one replied.
Mary asked where Meat was and received her answer by Steve lowering his head and shaking it slowly from side to side. Looking up quickly, he refocused his concentration on the situation at hand. He would grieve for Jonny, Marcia and Meat later. Right now, he had a responsibility to those still left alive.
"Tick-Tock, Brain and Heather go down first to act as security," he said. "Susan, Mary and I will start lowering down the gear on both ropes. When we're done, we go down in this order; Cindy, Susan, Mary and me last."
No one replied. Steve checked his watch, shocked to see that not even an hour had passed since the alarm had woken him. It had taken him and his crew months to build up their refuge and only minutes to lose it. He wondered how the dead had gotten into the building and who had set off the alarm. Frustrated that he would never know, he turned to the task at hand.
Looking each of the survivors in the eye one by one to make sure that they were holding up, when Steve was satisfied he said, "Let's go."
It took them an hour to get the equipment and themselves safely to the ground. Steve was last, and realizing he would have to repel, helped lower Mary. Turning from the parapet wall, he knew he had one more thing to do.
Thumbing on his flashlight, he made his way across the roof to the water storage tank and located the shut off valve. At first when he tried to turn it, the wheel wouldn't budge. Thinking of Heather and the conversation he’d had with her when she told him about the safety catch, he flipped the small latch and spun the wheel, shutting off the water supply to the building.
Walking over to the stairway door, he could hear the scratching and banging of the dead as they tried to break through. He turned away and donned the window washer's harness, hooking the rope through a d-ring attached to the suspenders. The last time he had repelled was years ago in the Army, so he was a little out of practice. He had a few scary moments when he over-balanced and once almost turned completely upside down, but got himself straightened out. In no time, Heather was hugging him as they stood next to the MRAP.
Steve drove while Tick-Tock sat in the gunner’s hatch, preparing their final goodbye to the building and the dead that now occupied it. Steering carefully through the outside dining area, he avoided the wrecked tables, as he didn't want to risk puncturing a tire. Despite his caution, he did cut the wheel over to run down a solitary zombie wandering near the back of the deli.
Reaching the street, Steve looked in awe at the desolation around him. Derelict cars sat scattered up and down the boulevard as a light breeze blew trash through the illumination thrown by the MRAP's headlights. Huge swirls fluttered down the valley made by the buildings. Many of the ground floor windows on the businesses lining the street had been smashed out, and everything in sight was covered by a fine gray layer of ash from the fires that had cropped up since D-day. Dead day. The day the dead walked the Earth.
It had been months since Steve had last been on the streets of Clearwater, and the change he saw gave him the feeling he was looking at a scene from another planet. Shaking off the eerie sensation, he edged between two cars and turned right, driving a short distance before stopping at the side entrance to the bank.
Music started up, coming from the radio Tick-Tock had used for entertainment while he was working on the MRAP. It played one of the songs that Jonny G had programmed in before taking his fatal trip with Marcia to the deli. When Steve turned around to give his second-in-command a questioning look, Tick-Tock said, "I turned it on to see if we're still on the air. It's tuned to KLAM. Must be a bunch of songs in the queue."
Turning his attention to his right, Steve immediately saw the busted out glass panels and now knew how the dead had acc
essed the building. A hammering noise jarred him as Tick-Tock added to the destruction by knocking out the double doors of the bank with the .50 caliber. A moment later, Steve saw the fiery trail of the Molotov cocktail that Tick-Tock tossed through the blasted doors. This was the volatile substance that he kept in the igloo cooler. Three more firebombs followed the first, turning the inside of the bank into an inferno.
After pulling around to the front of the building, Tick-Tock repeated his performance with the .50 caliber on the doors there. The tarp they had hung up months earlier quickly burned away from the first firebomb, revealing the interior of the foyer. Steve could see a body lying inside with its arms outstretched toward the wall but it was too torn up to be recognizable as Marcia. He didn't give it a second glance.
Tick-Tock randomly blew out windows along the length of the first floor and followed up with four more Molotov cocktails. They stayed long enough to make sure the building was well ablaze before Steve turned the MRAP toward the marina.
As they drove away from the Garnett Bank Building for the last time, Heather climbed into the seat next to Steve and reached across to lay her hand on his shoulder.
"We made it," she said with relief. "It wasn't pretty, but we made it."
She then turned and looked back with a bit of longing at the Garnett Bank Building, its first two floors now engulfed in flames. For a short while, it had provided a sense of security for her, but that was gone now. All she had to hold onto now was the man sitting next to her and the hope that they were bringing out a cure with Cindy. But even if there were no cure, she would find a new sanctuary and start a life with Steve.
A small sigh escaped her as she turned forward to face the future.
Tick-Tock came down from the gunner’s hatch and stuck his head into the driver's compartment. This wasn't exactly the way he planned to leave, but it would do. Although he thought he would go alone when the time came, he was comforted to have the people he'd come to trust around him.
As Steve turned out of the downtown area, Everclear was singing on the radio ... ‘We can live beside the ocean, leave the fire behind, swim out past the breakers, watch the world die’ ... The second verse of the song started but was abruptly cut off, leaving a heavy silence in the MRAP. The fire had reached the generator.
Flicking his thumb back over his shoulder at the receding bank building, Tick-Tock said, loud enough to be heard by everyone, "Dead air."
"Dead air," Steve echoed.
From the back, Mary and Brain spoke up at the same time saying, "Dead air."
Susan looked up briefly, curious at the expression, then turned back to Cindy and spoke softly about stories with happy endings.
Coming over the rise that led down from the city to the marina and the beach beyond, Steve drove carefully along the pitch-dark street as he wove around the occasional abandoned vehicle. The moon had set, turning the distant waters of the Gulf so black that they stood out in stark relief beyond the buildings on either side of the road. A few weak lights burned here and there in the desolate landscape, causing him to wonder if they were clusters of survivors like themselves or just lamps waiting for their batteries to die and snuff them out for eternity.
A survivor, Steve thought as he took in the scene, I'm a survivor. Just like I vowed in my office the day Heather showed up. I'll live until they pull me down and then take as many as I can with me.
Looking again at the black water with the black asphalt road snaking down to it in the canyon formed by the buildings, he remembered a poem he learned in college.
Somehow it seemed appropriate.
'In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measure less to man
Down to a sunless sea.'
Special Thanks to:
The middle man, travelling sales men, stationary sales men, Snickers bars, George Romero movies, Heidi’s House of Strict Discipline, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, all you can eat buffets, cats (not the show, the animal), ice beers, warm malt liquor, those who know, those who don’t know, those who will find out, Kevlar vests, the other white meat, alternative music, elevator music, the Sound of Music, the usual suspects, AutoCAD, Williams Pub, adages, the C.I.A., the F.B.I., the D.E.A., the N.S.A., alphabet soup, the chicken, the egg and my mom for naming me Jon because that’s what everyone’s called me all my life.
Watch for:
DEAD CALM; Book two of the Dead Series - Now available
DEAD WEIGHT; Book three of the Dead Series – Coming soon
