Road to Grissom: Part three of the Aftermath series

by Duncan McArdle

  “Well the military were, at least at that point”, Danny replied, “Barely five minutes after everything went down, while we’re all sitting there trying to call people and figure out what to do, a bunch of guys from the national guard come storming in, start ordering us all out, saying something about an evacuation vehicle outside the apartment block”.

  “So you were evacuated?”, John asked.

  “Not quite”, Danny responded, “Me and my sisters got real into it about the whole thing, they wanted to get the hell out of there, I wanted to stay with Mom and take care of the body. Honestly I think they knew what this thing was gonna’ turn into, I was still thinking the old way, wondering how much a funeral would cost, where we’d bury her, all that kind’a crap”.

  “Wait”, John interrupted again, “Did they go without you?”.

  “You bet”, Danny confirmed. “Honestly, I don’t blame them. It was the right choice, I just couldn’t see it at the time. Now I don’t know where they are, don’t even know if they’re still alive, just know they got the hell out of Chicago before it all went to hell, and that’s definitely a good thing”.

  Suddenly the car slowed, a particularly large member of the undead community having wandered out into its path. The Ford was well equipped to deal with the odd biter found out on the road, and had of course been modified to ensure it remained capable of dealing with whatever body parts flew out of it upon impact. But with a body as big as this one, John didn’t think it was particularly worth the risk, and so manoeuvred carefully around the now somewhat agitated biter, and then continued along the street.

  “Anyway, next thing I know my Mom’s eyes just… open back up”, Danny continued, “Course, I knew pretty quick they weren’t her eyes. Her pupils had turned black and the whites of them were all red. It was like I was looking at my Mom’s face but someone or something else was looking back at me. I knew straight away what was happening, I’d seen enough of it on the news, I knew what had to happen”.

  “Jesus”, John interjected, knowing exactly what Danny had been forced to do, and knowing in turn that for a son to do it to his own mother must have been the single hardest thing they’d ever had to do. “You had to put her back down?”.

  “Yeah”, Danny confirmed quietly, as a single tear – which had been forming in the corner of his left eye for some time – finally built up enough moisture to break free of the eyelid’s grip and slide its way down the front of his face, only to be quickly wiped away in the hope nobody would notice.

  John looked in the rear-view mirror, partly out of desperation to find something other than the clearly overwhelmed person to his left, and partly to check whether Devon was even paying attention. But to John’s surprise, the no-nonsense blonde man in the rear of the Focus was listening intently, his focus long since having been drawn away from his duties looking to their rear, and his shoulders hunched forwards to get him closer to the conversation.

  “Honestly”, Danny started up again, a slight tremor in his voice now more than apparent, “I was hoping things outside the city weren’t so bad. I was hoping maybe I’d just seen the worst of it, but all this, all this looks the same”.

  “Not all of it”, John said, “I’ve seen a whole lot of places that are doing a whole lot better than this”.

  “Well, here’s hoping my sisters made it somewhere like that then”, Danny replied, “But I’m not holding out much hope”.

  By this point, the car had been driving for some time. Completely distracted by the story of his now much more emotional co-driver, John had absent-mindedly made it along almost the entire stretch of main road leading up to the stadium’s general area, and was now just a few blocks from the nearest parking area. Spotting the end of their current road just up ahead – and knowing that this marked the point where the stadium was less than a minute away – John once again unfolded the map he’d hastily stuffed back into the Ford’s centre console, quickly inspected the area between himself and the stadium, and then looked back up from the map to the buildings in front on each side of the street, slowing the car as he did.

  All around the Ford were a mixture of residential buildings and small stores, with the occasional gas station and mini-mart thrown in for good measure. Apartments were plentiful and some rose a good six or seven stories into the air, but the view of the nearby stadium was completely blocked, meaning that although they were technically close, their ability to perform some kind of recon on the target was all but non-existent. Worse still, with the United Center itself having so many of its own excellent scouting spots, getting any closer was a definite non-starter.

  Accordingly, John set about figuring out what their best course of action was. Looking along the right-hand side of the street – the side that had the start of the stadium’s huge grounds behind it – John quickly singled out the tallest of the available buildings; a seven-storied apartment block that appeared to be in good overall condition. If they wanted to get the best possible vantage point, he was fairly certain this was going to be it.

  “Right there”, John said, pointing to the building as he did, “From on top of that thing, I’m thinking we’ll get a damn good view of this place”.

  “Sounds good to me”, Devon replied from the back of the car.

  “Yeah, sound good”, Danny concurred, his voice cracking slightly but otherwise sounding at least somewhat confident.

  “Alright”, John concluded, “Everybody arm up, I don’t know what’s waiting for us inside, but I seriously doubt it’s going to like us being there”.

  Chapter 20: Ascent

  The apartment complex was a wide, seven storied concrete mass of grey with red brickwork running intermittently up its sides so as to give it some kind of aesthetic appeal. Older than most of the local buildings, it was – despite best efforts – a fairly ugly creation, and had little of the more modern amenities that were required for newer buildings. None of these were particularly missed by this point of course, other than perhaps a fire escape, which might have made getting to the top a whole lot easier.

  Instead the group would need to make their way from ground level to the rooftop via the innards of the unfamiliar building, navigating countless closed doors and unknown passageways on their route. This was obviously always going to be a dangerous task, but judging by a lack of windows along the side John was confident housed the inner stairwell, it seemed it was going to be made even more dangerous by a generally low level of light.

  The one saving grace was that the main entranceway had been propped open – perhaps in order to aid the initial evacuation of the building – and so at least required no physical force in order to gain entry. In addition, the huge gap meant there was at least some light leaking inside, which would help illuminate their route, albeit only while they were on the first and possibly second floors.

  Approaching the open entrance – which appeared to be a single, extra wide door held on by some fairly serious looking steel hinges – John switched to his sidearm and instructed for the others to do the same. They were about to enter an area where close quarter combat was much more likely than a ranged gun battle, so the rifles would need to take a backseat. They needed the ability to move quickly, to adapt to fast paced changes in their environment, and that was exactly what the pistols were for.

  Signalling rather than speaking so as to reduce noise, John gestured for Devon to come up alongside him and breach the initial entrance simultaneously, allowing them each to peel off and cover their own sides, with Danny bringing up the rear. Aside from the fact Danny lacked the expertise to comment on the plan, the whole group also lacked the time; being out in the open like this in front of a building that could be occupied by the same people they were attempting to get a look at was definitely not a good thing.

  With a quick second gesture, John gave the order for the group to breach. Immediately the two leading men marched inside, guns held up and sweeping the area in front as quickly as possible. Within a single second both guard
s were inside, and began carrying out a textbook split; John peeling off to the left to cover the left-hand side, with Devon heading to the right, and shortly thereafter, Danny following close behind, himself keeping an eye out for movement to their rear.

  On the left of the entranceway, now being scanned by John’s eyes as well as with the barrel of his gun, was a series of elevators and a long, narrow hallway running along the length of the building. The ground was coated in a thick layer of dust and debris that had blown in from the open entranceway, and the route ahead appeared to be blocked off just a few metres down. Although this of course presented the benefit of reducing the chance of any biters roaming in, it did also raise questions about the integrity of the building itself; the rubble appeared to be from some kind of ceiling cave-in.

  On the right, Devon was finding a similar hallway, blocked off in a more or less identical fashion, and running so far along the building that without light to illuminate it, he couldn’t quite see its end. More importantly however was the sight of a stairwell, visible through the small window of a door to his right, with a sign above it that confirmed it not only provided access to the upper floors, but also to the rooftop.

  “Clear”, John whispered without turning away from the corridor in front, knowing better than to abandon his post before the entire team had completed their assignments.

  “Clear”, Devon concurred from the other side, himself also remaining in position.

  “Clear”, Danny said finally from the rear, confirming that nobody appeared to be following them into the building.

  With that, all three sets of shoulders relaxed slightly. From first inspection, the building appeared to be unoccupied – aside from the inevitable biters that some faint scratching and moaning noises were already alluring to – and even better, the group had entered without any signs of being followed. They could now make their way to the top at as slow a pace as necessary, their only time constraint that of how long they were willing to leave the Focus parked outside unattended.

  But just because they had the ability to move slowly, didn’t mean they were going to. Keen to advance through this mission as quickly as possible and get back to camp, John allowed the men a few seconds of inspection before signalling for them to move once more. Patting each man on the shoulder, he made his way over to the stairwell door, quickly peeked inside to confirm its apparent emptiness, and then gave it a gentle shove open with his left hand, the right remaining gripped firmly on his pistol.

  The immediate area in front was indeed empty. The stairwell was almost entirely concrete, with barely a lick of paint to be seen, giving the impression this building had looked just as bad as it did now long before the end of the world. But aesthetics were hardly important at this stage, so John quickly checked underneath the bottom of the stairs – so as to ensure there were no nasty surprises waiting for them – and then began the ascent up.

  The sound of John’s footsteps echoed an unfortunate amount. Although his boots were far from hard heeled, they did have a certain kick to them, and that was being amplified far more than he would have liked by the bare floor below. Bringing up the rear, Devon and Danny too caused a fair amount of noise during their own ascents, though Danny – who had opted for trainers over military grade boots – was much quieter. Ignoring the sound as best he could, John proceeded up the steps until he arrived at the next checkpoint.

  The next floor’s section of the stairwell appeared to be much the same as the ground floor one. Aside from the presence of a vending machine – which had long since been broken into and picked clean – the small space was effectively just a concrete box with a closed door leading to that floor’s apartments, its small window the only fresh source of light in what was quickly becoming a darker and darker area.

  Peering through the door’s window, John gleaned as much as he could about the area on the other side from between the layers of dirt, but stopped short of clearing some of it off in order to get a better view. Years of training for some of his more covert missions had taught John that the second you do something as simple as pushing aside a layer of dirt, you leave a pretty obvious marker that you were there, and as they were still yet to find out if anybody else already occupied this building, that wasn’t something he was too keen on doing.

  From what John could tell, the next floor appeared to be much the same as its predecessor. A long corridor ran in both directions and provided access to each of the apartments running along the length of the building, and brief glimpses of light leaked in from the few windows that were found along the hallway, as well as any of the open apartment doors, their own windows providing a little extra visibility. Unlike the previous floor however, John could also make out what he was fairly certain was a biter, albeit a particularly lifeless one, seemingly mostly rotten and using just about all its remaining energy simply to remain upright, and using the walls for support to achieve even that goal. But the odd, motionless biter certainly wasn’t the source of groaning and scratching John was now able to hear even more clearly on this floor, and that was what concerned him most of all.

  Moving on from the second floor, John began ascending the steps up to the third. The area was becoming darker once more, and this time the window from the next floor up wasn’t providing anywhere near as much light as the first. Rounding the penultimate corner of stairs, John raised his pistol up to what he could just about make out as being the door, and then managed to answer two of his most burning questions.

  The first – why the light from this particular floor was so much worse than the others – was answered upon John realising that the window appeared to be blocked on the other side by a number of darkened objects. The second however – where the dead were congregating – was not only answered, but also helped answer the first question.

  “Biters”, John announced matter-of-factly, moving towards the door once he was sure it was safely closed, and then looking as best he could down the corridor on the other side, “A whole lot of biters”.

  Best he could tell, there were at least fifty or so. Moving with more animation than those that had come before them, but with less than your average member of the undead, these particular beings presented somewhat more of a threat. That said, the door separating the two groups was made of thick metal, and John imagined that if the dead on the other side hadn’t managed to open it up by now, they weren’t likely to do so any time soon.

  On the other hand, this marked an important point in the journey to the rooftop. If they opted to continue on, they were placing themselves above the threat, a threat that then blocked their ability to leave the way they had entered. Should the biters manage to free themselves, they would leak out into the stairwell, naturally finding their way both up and down it, and causing all manner of problems for everyone else. But despite this, the potential for this building and its vantage point was too high to pass up, so John continued on, with Devon close behind, and Danny – who peered both curiously and fearfully through the window as he passed it – a little further back.

  Perhaps it was the adrenaline running through his veins, or perhaps it was the fear of potentially trapping not only himself, but two others on the upper floors of an unknown building, but whatever the reason, John’s attention was temporarily distracted. This in itself was a rare and worrying occurrence for someone as laser focused as John Parker, but as it had had happened at the exact moment his normal level of attention had been needed more than ever, it presented a particularly big problem.

  Raised up just a couple of inches above the bottom step, stretching from one side to the other in such a thin line it was barely visible to the naked eye, a stretch of dental floss was held precariously in place by a series of glued on mounts that were all but hidden in the dim lighting. Passing straight through and breaking the wire so easily he didn’t even feel it hit his left foot, John unknowingly triggered the clever tripwire left behind by whoever else laid claim to the building, and in doing so released the lever keeping the
door securely shut. Of course, with all the noise going on just a few inches away, nobody heard the lever snap open, and nobody noticed the door jolt slightly, because for now, neither did those inside.

  The rest of the floors passed by without incident. Aside from the discovery of a deceased individual – who judging by his decomposed condition had been slain whilst undead rather than living – on the fourth floor, and another that looked much the same on the sixth, the stairwell was empty. The lighting remained dim, but was sufficient enough to aid navigation, and what little of the floors were visible through each door appeared empty, aside from the occasional, less-concerning member of the undead community.

  Before long, John was leading the group up the final set of stairs, this time heading towards a single black door, a metal bar running across it. The door had obviously once been secured shut with a number of chains which now lay discarded in the corner, and a padlock which appeared to have been smashed to pieces, each of which were now spread sporadically throughout the final section of stairwell.

  Pointing towards the evidence that someone had been here at least once since the end, John gestured for his fellow guards to keep their eyes open, and to switch to their rifles. The layout of the rooftop remained unknown at this point, but John was fairly certain it was going to be open enough to warrant the bigger guns. If nothing else, the sight of rifles was going to do a lot more to intimidate any potential survivors on the other side of that door than pistols would.

  Counting down once everyone had completed the switch, John reached zero and pressed down on the bar, releasing the bolts in the door and allowing it to swing open, which it did at significant speed. Moving quickly out after it, John re-gripped his rifle and held it up to eye level, before surging out across the immediate area of rooftop, spinning on the spot so as to take in as much of the area as possible, and quickly followed by Devon – rifle also raised – and Danny – who aside from providing the third level of their arsenal, was also tasked with holding the door open until they had completed an initial sweep.