“You sure they didn’t see?”, John asked.
“Well if they did, I’m not sure why I’m still here”, Devon pointed out.
The impromptu plan had been well orchestrated. With no more than a single wink to notify Devon that something was about to take place, John had done just enough to steer the situation towards the conclusion he required, thanks in no small part to Devon’s ability to follow John’s lead. The two had wrestled around on top of the pile of weapons just long enough to obscure Devon’s slight-of-hand grab of the pistol, and had done so in a believable enough way that the whole thing had aroused no suspicion, and had even led their captors into a false sense of achievement at seemingly turning their hostages against each other.
What John couldn’t quite figure out however, was just why exactly Devon still looked like he was hiding the biggest surprise yet. Devon was a confident looking man, always level headed no matter what the situation, and rarely the type of person to be down about anything. But his current attitude, that of a giddy schoolboy about to give the greatest birthday gift a person had ever received, was something John couldn’t quite figure out.
“What is it?”, John eventually asked, sensing Devon was waiting for the question.
“Well”, Devon said, “I didn’t just stop at the pistol”, he announced happily.
“… what else did you get?”, John questioned uneasily, reserving judgement until he knew more information, but also now recalling just how much movement Devon had exerted during their scuffle, and realising how little a single pistol would be in terms of result.
But just as Devon opened his mouth once more, the sound of the door’s lock disengaging filled the room, grabbing the attention of both occupants and sending their necks snapping round to focus on the door. Less than a second later, the large metal barricade swung violently open, the round figure behind it all but expected given the level of force that had clearly been placed on the usually easy to open door.
Suddenly John found himself feeling concerned. Despite his confidence in Devon’s analysis of the room, he’d never been a hundred percent certain that the place wasn’t bugged. There was always the possibility that something had slipped by Devon’s inspection, or that he might have misidentified some hidden camera or microphone as a run of the mill object. But worse still, neither of them knew what had happened inside of the room during their absence, and all they’d done since their return was discuss how they’d pulled one over on their captors.
John shifted nervously as he watched the large man inspect the contents of the room, before once more returning to the slightly darkened hallway to his rear, freeing up the now empty doorway, where both sets of eyes from inside the room were focused. John held his breath as he prepared for some kind of sweep to take place, like prison guards turning over a prison cell in search of contraband. But instead, an unfamiliar figure appeared from around the corner, and was promptly shoved into the room by the huge man, who pulled the door shut and locked it almost immediately afterwards.
If anything, the next few moments were even more uneasy. John and Devon were now in an empty, locked room with no means of escape, no ability to defend themselves due to their still handcuffed hands, and an unknown additional person thrust into their midst with a bag over their head and clear signs of blood on their clothes. John imagined this might have been the person who was taking up space in whatever room the group here used for interrogations, but it wasn’t until he saw the individual’s familiar clothing that it finally clicked.
“Danny?”, he asked, still not entirely convinced himself.
Suddenly clicking in his head too, Devon’s eyes widened as he looked down at the squirming body, face down on the floor with little ability to right himself due to his own restrained hands.
“Is that you Danny?”, John asked again, certain he recognised the clothing.
“J… John?”, came Danny’s familiar tone in an uncertain stutter, clearly incredibly relieved to hear a familiar voice.
“Jesus Christ, what’d they do to you?”, John asked, twisting around so he was facing the wall he’d previously been leant against, and then pushing off with his feet hard enough to slide himself most of the way over to their old companion, before rolling the remaining distance.
“Oh you know, just had a nice little chat”, Danny replied sarcastically.
At that moment, John managed – despite having his back to the younger man – to grab hold of the hood draped over Danny’s head and yank it off, exposing him to his first taste of their new home, a bright sight that quickly turned him into a squinting mess.
“Just a chat, huh?”, Devon asked, taking note of the numerous bruises and cuts spread across Danny’s face, prominent evidence that the niceties he and John had so far experienced were soon to end.
“Devon!”, Danny exclaimed, “That you?”.
“Yeah it’s me buddy”, Devon replied with a smile, a sense of pride coming over him as he happily realised the importance of his presence to the younger man.
Bobbing up and down along the floor in the strangest of fashions, Danny eventually managed to roll onto his back and sit upright, allowing him for the first time to lay eyes on Devon, as well as John, who was just now managing to get himself back over to his previous spot on the far wall. As quickly as he could, Danny attempted to take in his new environment, but struggled to do so given just how excited he was simply to be back in the presence of familiar people.
“I didn’t think I’d be seeing you guys again”, Danny eventually called out, “I should have taken the shot guys, I’m so sorry”.
“The shot?”, John asked, exchanging a puzzled glance with Devon to confirm neither of them knew what Danny meant.
“Yeah, up on the rooftop, I saw the guys about to ambush you, I just… I didn’t exactly know what was going on and then…”, Danny paused for a breath as he prepared himself to tell the least believable part of the story. “Then there was this drone, and it dropped a message and-“.
“Relax Danny”, John said, interrupting the boy, “You can tell us all about it when we get the hell out of here”.
“Sounds good to me”, Danny replied, relieved that his fellow survivors seemingly bore no grudge over his failed attempt to defend them, “So how are we getting out of here?”.
“I’m hoping you can help with that”, John stated, “Tell us what you know”.
* * *
It was around five in the afternoon on a particularly chilly Wednesday that one of the many scouts tasked with keeping an eye on things in the local area surrounding the Chicago camp returned through the front entrance. Waved in by the numerous guards on duty that recognised him, Michael – who was one of the original few who’d helped set up the camp with its leader, Geoff – had an unmistakably despondent look on his face, one that was almost infectious to those around him.
Walking briskly along the main road leading into camp, Michael made several nods of acknowledgment to numerous people. Some knew him as his role of co-founder and felt the least they could do was greet the man, whilst others simply knew him as a guard, and so felt the need to show appreciation to those that looked after them. For the rest though, it was simply a case of being happy enough in their current location to exchange greetings with anyone and everyone, and that was perhaps the best reason of all.
Michael however looked far from happy. With a large tear up the side of his jacket, short curly hair that had matted and tangled into a complicated mess, and dirt rising up along the vast majority of his legs, it was clear he’d had a rough time out in the wild. Even his face helped tell much the same story, with numerous small cuts and bruises evidencing at least one scuffle, and alluding to many more that might have occurred in the past.
Michael had been out in the wild for around two weeks. This wasn’t particularly lengthy compared with other similar trips, but was nevertheless a long period of time to spend outside of the much more civilised world the residents of Chicago had grown accustomed to
. Plentiful sources of water and food, coupled with around the clock protection and a genuine sense of community were three things sorely missed once a person went over the other side of the wall, especially when they did so alone.
But alone was Michael’s preferred method for heading out into the wild. Alone meant he didn’t have anybody to look after, it meant he wasn’t responsible for anybody else’s wellbeing, and most importantly, it meant every decision came down to him. Michael wasn’t a particularly poor team player, and had no issue with being led, but when making his way around a place as dangerous as the wilderness outside, he very much favoured being in charge of his own safety and nobody else’s.
Reaching the front entrance to the WG – where more or less everything important happened in the Chicago camp – Michael made his way inside and sought out the first guard on duty that he could find. The woman in question was a little older than his late-twenties self, and was stood at the bottom of the disused escalators that led up to the commonly used meeting area above, where she had evidently been stationed earlier that day. Whilst guarding the broken escalators of a disused supermarket-come-headquarters might not have seemed all that interesting, for many it was a welcome change from being on the wall, waiting for the dead to come knocking.
“Geoff up there?”, Michael asked upon arriving in front of the woman, her concentrated stare forwards finally broken for the first time in what Michael imagined might have been several hours.
“Sure is”, the woman replied, just about mustering a smile. “Went up about a half hour ago, there’s nobody up there with him”.
“Thanks”, Michael replied, before walking past the stoic figure – who promptly returned to their guard-pose – and ascending the escalator.
Upstairs, things were eerily quiet. Sat at a desk at the far end, Geoff and Geoff alone was hunched over a stack of paperwork – most of which appeared to be a combination of spreadsheets, diagrams and maps – scribbling away furiously when he caught wind of a new arrival. Looking up, he was happy to see the return of a loyal friend he’d treasured the company of for many years, before changing to a somewhat worried state when he noticed the expression on the man in front’s face.
“What is it?”, Geoff asked, skipping the pleasantries in favour of quick information.
“Nothing…”, Michael replied hesitantly, “Yet”.
“Yet?”, Geoff asked, placing his pen down in order to give his scout his full attention.
“I was tracking a horde a little ways up the coast”, Michael explained, pulling out a chair from the table across from Geoff and parking himself in it with a hard thud, and an exhausted exhale of breath to go with it. “I watched it grow, and grow, and grow”, he started again, “And then merge with an even bigger one, and then grow some more, I mean honestly you’ve never seen anything like it”.
“Yeah John mentioned he’d seen it before he left”, Geoff replied.
“John’s out?”, Michael asked, having himself been outside of the camp when plans were made.
“Yeah, he’s on a recon mission, I’ll fill you in after this”, Geoff explained.
“Well it’s probably for the best that he’s out”, Michael said, “Cause this thing was heading towards Milwaukee”.
“Shit”, Geoff replied, knowing they still had the final few guards stationed in the car-park, “What happened?”.
“I didn’t see”, Michael said, “Just heard a whole lot of gunfire, saw a whole lot of bodies too, there’s nobody left out there, the whole place was overrun”.
“God damn it”, Geoff said angrily, slamming his fist down on the table, “I knew we should have brought them over sooner, they should have been here with us, not sitting on their own out there”.
For a moment, Geoff looked off to the side, thinking briefly of the three people he knew to be left at Milwaukee, having met none of them but knowing how important they’d been to so many of the new generation of Chicago residents. More importantly though, he was now forced to think of one particular fallen guard, and the family he’d left behind that needed to be informed of this latest series of events.
“Do me a favour and send for Andrew’s wife”, Geoff asked of Michael, “I’ll tell her in person”.
But Michael remained sat in place, and it wasn’t until Geoff looked back over that he realised the younger man hadn’t yet finished, a sombre look still evident on his face.
“There’s something else?”, Geoff asked in disbelief, “What now?”.
“Well, I watched that horde from a long way away”, Michael began, the thing is the size of a city, you wouldn’t believe it”.
“Yeah so I’m told, but what’s your point?”, Geoff asked, hoping to speed things up.
“Well, after it tore through Milwaukee, it got split up into a few different hordes. One carried on north, one’s headed west towards Waukesha”, Michael recounted, “But the biggest one… that’s coming here”.
Chapter 32: Divide and conquer
In “the box” as it had already become known, there was no sense of time, of day or night, or of any other type of passing unit of measurement that might have given its residents some indication as to how long they’d been incarcerated. There was simply four, bright walls, a door, and an overwhelming sense that whatever happened, happened by the hand of the captors, and that was just how things worked.
Around thirty minutes after Danny had been thrown back in with his former companions, the locking mechanism of the large metal door once more clicked out of place. The action was a simple one, but despite that it summoned the attention of every set of eyes in the room, immediately focusing all of them on the door, which now swung slowly open, presenting the most interesting sight of the last half hour.
“You”, said Rust, the grey-haired figure walking into the room more briskly now that he was getting used to how his captives organised themselves within the box, “On your feet, you’re coming with me”, he continued, pointing down at John, who was sat against the wall at the far end of the room. Within a few seconds, Rust was close enough to help John up, throwing down an arm to grab a hold of his shoulder, and then pulling him off of the ground.
“I’ll be back for you in a little while”, Rust then said, pointing down at Devon as he led John out of the room.
To John’s surprise, the route to the interrogation room was not a long one. Despite having a seemingly endless supply of space over which to spread the group’s various activities, they appeared to have concentrated themselves to a fairly small part of the stadium. It took just ten or fifteen seconds from the outside of the box to the interrogation room, the route to which was only a short walk along the corridor immediately outside, before turning right and heading into a room already open in anticipation of their arrival.
Inside the room was eerily similar to the inside of the box. Four plain white walls, one door, and an incredibly bright light above. The only real difference was the presence of a small table in the centre of the room, as well as two chairs on either side of it. Of course, there was also one other minor discrepancy; the sight of red stains on the edge of the table, and a small collection of what John assumed to be Danny’s blood on the floor underneath.
“Have a seat”, Rust ordered, closing the door behind him and then gesturing for John to sit down in the closest chair to him.
The chair was a small, cheap, exposed metal affair that was cold to the touch and incredibly squeaky under pressure. Placing his above-average weight down onto the flimsy support, John briefly wondered if he wasn’t soon going to collapse to the ground below, but thankfully managed to remain seated.
“Here’s the deal”, Rust began, “We like people like you. Hell we just like fighters, but we prefer fighters with brains, and something tells me that’s exactly what you are”.
John refrained from responding, returning instead to his earlier technique of staying silent.
“But see now we have a problem”, Rust continued, undeterred, “See your people killed tw
o of my people outside that apartment building, and my boss ain’t too happy about that”, he said. “But he’s a sensible man, he understands that killing you doesn’t solve our problem, whereas recruiting you just might”.
Suddenly John looked up from the table in front, straight into the eyes of Rust. Was this man serious? Had he really done this whole thing just as some kind of strange recruitment process? And if he had, did he really think he’d get a loyal soldier at the end of it? Or was this all just another trick, designed to get the weakest link in the group on side and use that against the remaining members in order to draw out information? Whatever the reason, John refused to bite.
“Now see I understand your surprise”, Rust said as he noticed John’s reaction, “I was surprised too matter of fact. But then the boss man explained the one condition, and that’s that he only wants one of you”.
With that, John’s latter theory began to seem the most likely.
“I reasoned with him, I said ‘we’re down two, let’s get two more’ but he just wasn’t up for it”, Rust recalled, “so now here we are, three possibilities, one slot, and two… well, you’re not stupid, you know what’s going to happen to the other two”, he continued, licking his lips towards the end of the clearly well-rehearsed sentence.
John returned his attention to the table in front. Now that he knew the play Rust was going for, he also knew just how insincere the offer was. Nobody smart enough to build up an empire like this one was simultaneously dumb enough to recruit the enemy, hand them a gun and have them wander around the inside of the base. Of course, even if it was a sincere offer, John would never have taken it anyway.
“Let me tell you what we know so far”, Rust began again, “We know there’s more than the three of you, we know you’ve got a camp, and we know you didn’t walk all the way here”.
John couldn’t help but smirk slightly, knowing that such information was readily available prior to interrogating anybody, and that it presumably meant Danny hadn’t given them anything additional.
Road to Grissom: Part three of the Aftermath series Page 26
