by Jack Hunt
“Coffee?” he said nonchalantly, as though what had just happened was an everyday event.
“I didn’t kill him.”
The guards had treated me as if I was to blame even though no knife was found.
“I know you didn’t,” he replied.
I shook my head without saying a word. I watched him go through the process of grinding beans. He sniffed at them before pouring hot steaming water into a French press.
“Ah, that’s one thing I am going to miss. We don’t have much of it left. We’ve tried to salvage what we could from the city but it’s bad out there. So much of what used to be plentiful is scarce. What do you miss, Johnny?”
He turned waiting for me to reply. I could still smell Birdy’s blood on me. It had caked the side of my neck, covered my hands, and soaked through my clothes. When I didn’t reply he continued.
“You might want to change into the issued clothing.”
“I’m fine.”
“Suit yourself.” He stirred the black liquid slowly. “You know the key to making good coffee, Johnny?” I remained silent. “It all comes down to the coffee maker. Not the machine but the person behind it. He or she is ultimately responsible for the kind of beans they pick, the water they use, and the method in which they brew. You see, most folks use crappy drip coffee makers, and pre-ground beans and then wonder why their coffee tastes so bitter. What they don’t realize is that the moment the air hits the beans you have already lost the best part. No, to really get that fresh taste, you have to use the cleanest water, beans that have never been ground, and a French press. You can’t let it sit there on the counter the way some businesses would. No, that’s what makes it taste so bad. Hell, you can get the finest coffee in the world but if you screw up the timing or the method in which you make it, it will ruin it.”
“Is there a reason why you are telling me this?”
“We are losing hours, Johnny. Time is running out for us to find a cure. Every day more and more people are turned into those monsters. What I am trying to do here doesn’t come without a little sacrifice. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Does that make sense?”
I had a feeling he knew that I had seen the room. Was that why he killed Birdy? Would he kill me too?
The Warden took a sip of his coffee and relished its flavor by swishing it around in his mouth before swallowing and slapping his lips like a dog. “Oh that is divine. Are you sure I can’t get you some?”
My eyes flitted to the French press. I shook my head.
“Very well.”
He took a seat behind his desk and leaned back as though he was the commander-in-chief. He craned his head towards the window and gazed out as he drank from a cup that was no bigger than what you might get in a little girl’s tea set.
“So what are you going to do about Birdy’s murderer?”
“Ah yes, Birdy. That was unfortunate. I can assure you whoever is responsible will be dealt with.”
I shook my head ever so slightly. It was highly doubtful that he would do anything.
“Have you considered going out with the team this evening?”
“I have.”
“And?”
I hesitated before replying. “Yeah, we’ll do it.”
He smiled and the lines on his forehead disappeared as he took another sip.
“Do you mind me asking what changed your mind?”
“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, right?” I replied, tossing back his words.
“Right,” he said, giving me a skeptical look. “I think you are going to fit in here quite nicely.”
I left his office feeling despondent. Who was Wren? Why did they kill Birdy? I wasn’t sure I would ever discover the answers. When I returned, I noticed his book was gone and so were his covers. I checked inside my pillow for the access card. It was still there.
I squeezed it tightly and glanced at his empty cot. Staying was no longer an option.
GO TIME
NEW YORK HAD ALWAYS BEEN a place I’d wanted to visit; I just never imagined I would see it like this. Smoke drifted through heaps of metal and brick covering up the streets. The outlines of towering buildings now half their original size were startling to see.
An hour earlier, the others and myself joined another group of survivors in what I came to find out was where they trained their worker bees. Of course they didn’t call them that, but after my conversation with Birdy, that’s all I could see them as.
We were each given a futuristic-looking handgun that was a dark grey metallic. The grip was the same as any other gun except the barrel dropped down almost parallel to the grip. A guard demonstrated how it worked before they handed them out. It worked like a police stun gun except that it didn’t fire electrode projectiles with barbs on the end that stun a victim and then reel back in. Instead, it operated like a regular gun, firing a round that would emit an electrical pulse upon contact and render a person unconscious for up to several minutes. We were told that it had been developed by the government as a means to stop the biters. However, I didn’t expect that we would be using them solely on Z’s.
“It’s just like government to hold back on us, eh?” Baja said. “I mean for years our boys have been sent overseas with AR-15’s, meanwhile they had the best shit in storage.”
Baja kept taking potshots at the wall.
“We have to wear these?” I asked a guard, holding up a dark black uniform with a pentagon symbol on the back.
“Yeah. You have a problem with that?”
“No.”
“Hey, you want to stop pissing around,” a guy yelled at Baja. “You’ll have plenty of chances to use it out in the field.”
I slipped into pants and a jacket, then donned a helmet that made me feel like Robocop. By the time we were all kitted out, we all looked the same. Attached around our waists was a holster to place the stun gun, along with additional magazines. Maybe the uniform was good, maybe not. Whatever the Coalition had against this group, they were likely to fire first and ask questions later.
“Either they are trying to help or they are stupid,” Jess said. “I mean who would willingly hand us a weapon if they didn’t trust us?”
“Now listen up.”
Tanner, the guy with the Mohawk, came into the room.
“Our target tonight is the resistance group known as the Coalition. The intel we’ve gathered has allowed us to establish that a meeting is taking place in the lower part of Manhattan. You are not to fire upon the dead, unless attacked.”
“Where did they get this chump from?” Baja muttered. “Have you been out there?”
“Do you have something to say?”
“I just find it funny that you are telling us to not fire upon the dead, when that’s all that is out there. Now I for one don’t think a stun gun is going to stop them. It takes a bullet to the head to take these bitches down.”
Tanner looked at one of the other guards as if he couldn’t believe someone was talking back to him. The guy reminded me of G.I. Joe. All muscle and no brains.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked.
The officer beside him leaned in and whispered something. Whatever he told him, it seemed to do the job as he immediately backed down.
“Yeah, you better back down, bitch,” Baja mumbled. Thankfully I was the only one who heard him say that.
“On your way out the door, you will be given an AR-15. Does that answer your question?”
“Just one thing.”
“What now?”
“Do you think we’ll have time to drop by a 7-Eleven and pick up some Pop-Tarts?”
“Officer, move them out.” He walked away shaking his head.
We filed out the door towards three choppers that were waiting. Whup-whup-whup. The noise of the turbine engines and churning rotors was deafening. A wave of cold coastal wind hit us as we closed the door behind us. Each helicopter was carrying no more than nine people. A few of them were empty to provide ro
om for people who we’d bring back. Guards that worked for the Warden dispersed among the helicopters, no doubt to keep an eye on our ragtag group.
One of them gave a signal and the pilot ascended. We were told the reason they did this at night was to avoid detection. I was pretty sure a bloody loud chopper coming in would be pretty easy to detect even if it was black. Once we were over the wall the helicopter came low. All that could be seen outside was darkness. There was no way to determine where the sky and the East River met. The city itself was lit up with fires that burned in various places.
Wind swept across the surface of the dark water as we moved closer to a heliport that was located in downtown Manhattan close to Wall Street.
“We have pier six in sight.”
The pilot’s voice came over the earpiece I was wearing. The moon peeked through clouds. Outside I could hear the wind howling, and the slightest sound of rain. It seemed strange to find ourselves in this position. Only months ago we were in Castle Rock. Now we found ourselves helping a dubious government.
“I hope he knows where he’s going,” Baja muttered. “I don’t want to end up drowned in the ocean.”
It wasn’t a good night for being in the air. That was for sure.
New York didn’t look as I imagined it would. It was in complete devastation. Smoke drifted through heaps of metal and brick covering up the streets. It was if the Air Force had dropped bombs on the city and blown up buildings. It was a mountain of rubble and fire. Through the smoke you couldn’t tell what were streets or the remains of buildings. Everywhere was covered in bodies and concrete. While there were still some high-rises, most of them had large chunks taken out the sides. Windows were shattered. Jagged metal twisted beneath concrete and stone.
As we hovered low over the water and came in close to the pier I scanned for the undead. There were none. It didn’t make sense. The place should have been swarming.
“Where are the undead?” I asked Tanner.
“Oh they’re out there. A while back we set up an electrical perimeter to ensure we could land and get out without being overrun. It’s not foolproof but it seems to have kept them at bay.”
I nodded.
As soon as the wheels kissed the concrete pier, we all had our game faces on. “Let’s go,” Tanner said, sliding the door open. We burst out with our AR-15’s at the ready. One team broke off right while we went left. Along with our group of six were three others, one of them was Tanner. I’d hoped he would go with the other group but I had a feeling the Warden wanted him watching us.
* * *
Rain cut through the night, plastering us from the second our boots hit the ground. Lightning flashed on the horizon while thunder rumbled in the distance. I shook the water from my face as the other members of the team made their way around pier six. Rough, frothing waters crashed against the shore. A large wave broke over the edge, spraying water into the air. I glanced across the bay to where the Statue of Liberty should have been and noticed it was gone.
“What the hell?”
It was no longer there. The copper lady’s head peeked above rough waves as if taking its last breath. What the hell had happened here? I remembered what my father had said about the government bombing cities. By the look of the devastation, I assumed that was what happened.
We rushed towards the towering concrete jungle. What remained of the city loomed over us like giants. My mind was occupied with the plan we had discussed. It was agreed that staying at the Hive was no longer an option. Whatever chance of survival humanity had, it wasn’t to be found at the hands of the Warden. I for one certainly wasn’t going to become a human guinea pig. If what Birdy had told us was true, it was only a matter of time before we would be dead.
There were eighteen of us that evening heading towards South Ferry-Whitehall Street Subway Station. I brought down the night-vision binoculars to my eyes and scanned the way ahead for Z’s. Tanner was convinced we wouldn’t see any until we hit the subway. They had done these trips into the city many times. On the way in I had asked Tanner how he managed to convince people to come with him. He said that he didn’t need to convince them. Desperation was a good motivator. Most of the people that returned were stragglers. Barely surviving in a city overrun by the dead. Others need a little more persuasion.
About forty feet away from us was the first entrance point to the subway.
“Now listen up,” Tanner said, pulling the group into a tight circle. “We are going to break into two teams once we’re down there. Each of you has the location of where the meeting is taking place. Be advised, you are to take necessary force, however, that doesn’t always mean using the AR-15’s for any of you who are a little trigger-happy. Remember, we are here to bring them in alive.”
At the bottom of a steep flight of steps we checked areas to the left and right of us. Echoing throughout the subway was the sound of Z’s.
“Stay alert. Stay alive,” Tanner said, leading the way. I was about ready to dump this guy but until we knew the location of the Coalition we were going to use their intel to our advantage.
It was eerie being below the streets of New York not knowing when or if Z’s would attack. We heard the other group’s gunfire before we had even unloaded one round. I twisted around instinctively, thinking we should go back and help but Tanner was calling the shots.
“They all know the risk.”
“Why split up?” Jess asked.
Tanner didn’t need to answer that. Ben did. It’s a common tactical strategy. If one of your group gets fired upon, you still have the element of surprise. We jumped down onto the tracks and broke into a jog.
“How far is it?” Ben asked Tanner.
“About ten minutes from here.”
He was an oddball. I was curious to know more about him. How had he ended up here working for the Warden? Did he know what the Warden was doing with the people he had taken? It seemed that morals only mattered when survival wasn’t at stake. Beyond that people did whatever the hell they wanted. As we jogged down the dark tunnel, the smell of death lingered in the air like rotten meat covered in flies. We had grown used to living in a world that smelled bad.
“So how did you come to work for the Warden?” I asked, coming up beside him.
He glanced at me skeptically. But like most people who loved to talk about themselves he opened up.
“I was in the military. Eight years. Special ops. When everything went bad, our platoon was brought into New York to extract some of the key officials.”
“Did you get them out?”
“Of course. That’s what we’re trained for.”
“Where’s your platoon now?”
“Dead.”
He didn’t bat an eye. It was like he’d already dealt with the grief.
“So why Rikers? I mean, the Hive?”
“It’s the most secure place on the east coast. The road in and out is barricaded. The structure is fortified by concrete and barbwire. No sucker is getting in or out of there unless we say so.”
I was tempted to ask him about the bodies. But I got the feeling that he was just another cog in a wheel among many who performed a job. That’s how they kept the machine running and the blood flowing.
As we rounded a corner each of us came to a grinding halt. Before us were six Z’s feasting on the remains of some unlucky guy. They cocked their heads at us. Our lights fell on their milky white eyes. Right then they did something we had never seen before. They didn’t shuffle, or begin running at us. Like spiders that could climb walls, these monsters went up the sides of the arched walls. The lights on the ends of our assault rifles lit them up as they scrambled towards us. It was beyond terrifying, it was seriously messed up.
“What the fuck are those?”
We began unloading on them, bullets ricocheted off the sides as all nine of us took them down. One landed inches from my feet. Its skin was different to what I had seen before. It was pale and the veins protruded like thick purple webbing covering every
inch of its grotesque body.
Jess and Izzy prodded the beast before us with the ends of their gun barrels.
“You want to explain to us what we just saw?”
Tanner laughed. “Let’s go.”
We rushed forward continuing towards the designated location. Tanner had brought the two men that we usually saw hovering around him like flies. They were only known to us by their last names tagged on the front of their uniforms: Randall and Eastley. Each of them was equally abrasive when addressed. It was as if they wanted to make it clear that we weren’t one of them. There was us and them thrown into this shit pot together but that didn’t mean we were working for the same team.
Over the earpiece we continued to receive intelligence updates from the helicopters. The pilots didn’t linger after dropping us off. They immediately began sweeping the streets above us, searching for anyone who was trying to escape.
“So where does the Coalition reside?”
“Everywhere. But they have taken up base in several of the abandoned underground subways.”
“How did you find that out?”
Randall looked at Tanner and chuckled as if they were in on some inside joke. Once we made it to the location, which appeared to be a dead end, Tanner put his finger up to his earpiece.
“Bravo Two, this is Whiskey One. What’s your status? Over.”
There were a few seconds where nothing could be heard, and then a reply came back. “Whiskey One, this is Bravo Two. We are in position and waiting to go. Over.”
“Okay, maybe someone wants to tell me where the hell we are going?”
“There is an outer and an inner platform. You are standing in the outer one. The inner one was built back in the early 1900s but since then it was walled off. The Coalition has got their hands on it. Come, look.”
He led us up to the wall and we glanced around it. A section was missing. If you faced the wall head on, it just looked like it was sealed off but it wasn’t. There was an arched doorway that led into another area.
“Let’s go.”
FRIENDLIES
