“Maybe the people up north might have one?” Timmons was grasping at straws.
“They’ve taken stuff we’ve left behind, but we’re no closer to talking with them. It’s only been two months of near daily excursions, what do you expect?” James said sarcastically. He was getting tired of all the overtures without making any progress.
It would only take one to break the ice, but they hadn’t found that one person yet.
“I recommend we back down to once every three or four days to go up there. That will still give us exposure and show commitment. Maybe absence will make the heart grow fonder and all that,” James suggested.
“That’s fine,” Timmons agreed.
“O’Hare should have a big old map in there somewhere, baggage claim by the taxi stand?” Ted asked.
“We’ll need the map after we know where we’re going,” Timmons replied. “I just want the yellow pages, man, to look up a steam locomotive and see if we can find one. The alternative is we follow railroad tracks in all directions and look for one, but that would be pretty inefficient, don’t you think, Ted?”
The smaller man agreed.
“But, without a phone book, I fear that we’ll have to do just that.” Timmons leaned back and sighed. The wolf pack was lounging around. The evening was cool with a nice breeze blowing in from the lake. The sky was blue and the air clear.
It isn’t such a bad place, Timmons thought. But it would be so much better with a little power.
Every day they seemed to get closer, while at the same time getting farther away. Timmons looked at his left hand, fully regrown, fully functional. Don’t take shit for granted, he told himself.
“We need to stop fucking around and bring that plant online, Ted. We bring it up on fuel oil to make sure it works. Then we start checking the grid, blocking sections that short out. First order, some power, then we start working on better power.”
“The tanks at the railyard seemed full,” James offered, having forgotten about them after the encounter with the Vampire.
“Ted?” Timmons asked.
“Diesel for the locomotives, maybe jet fuel, not sure where the piping went from the tanks. We’ll have to go back and take a look. But that puts us back in the position of having to move tanker cars. We need that steam engine.”
Timmons threw his hands up in surrender. “In due time, Ted. Everything will happen in due time.”
***
“Get out of the way,” Terry hissed. The survivors were unperturbed and continued shuffling. Terry started grabbing the people and throwing them out of the way, but gently. He sympathized, but if he was to liberate them, he needed them to be somewhere else. Char stayed behind him as they waded through the crush of bodies.
The Vampire gave up trying to hide behind the too thin forms of the refugees and launched himself through a gap. Terry had seen it coming and was braced. He rotated at the waist, building extra power for a right cross that caught the Forsaken in the side of its head and drove the creature to its knees.
Terry stepped forward, ramming his knee into the Forsaken’s face and snapping its head backwards. It looked up through dazed eyes, earning it another flurry of punches as Terry used his enhanced speed and strength to wail on the creature.
Char watched for a moment or two, feeling satisfaction in the merciless pummeling that Terry was giving the Forsaken. This one seemed weak, but one of these last two had killed Xandrie and injured Adams. Her money was on the other one.
“Finish him, TH. It’s the other one we want.” Char looked through the crowd. He was close.
“Give me a stake,” Terry asked, but Char didn’t have one.
“Okay, the hard way,” Terry said once more as he wrapped the end of the whip around the Vampire’s neck and pulled it tightly. The silver started to cut deep into the creature’s flesh. It started bleeding profusely and the Forsaken started to scream.
Char moved to the opposite side of the tunnel to get away from the commotion Terry was causing.
A hand reached between two people and grabbed Char by the throat, the long claws digging deep into her shapely neck.
She tried to cry out, but couldn’t get any air, so she used an attack that Terry had taught her, charge forward.
The bull rush. The attacker gets far more than they bargained for.
Char pushed off and plowed two shriveled humans out of the way as she continued forward, catching the Forsaken by surprise. He stumbled backwards, down the hill as she bore down on him. He went down, and Char fell on top of him, ramming her knee into his groin when they hit the ground.
Terry saw what was going on. “Fuck it,” he said, yanking his whip free from the Forsaken’s throat. He took two steps and dove, catching the arm of the creature that Char was fighting before it could dig its claws into her back.
He rolled, holding the hand tightly and keeping his elbows tucked in close. The creature was pulled sideways, giving Char leverage to free herself. She gripped the Vampire’s other hand and they pulled it to its feet.
It tried to kick, but Terry avoided it, then followed with a series of vicious roundhouses to the Vampire’s lower back until something gave and the Forsaken lost control of its legs.
Together, they slammed it face first into the roadway. They looked at each other, nodded, then picked it up and slammed it again. Terry pulled his silvered blade and started hacking away at the thing’s neck. Blood spurted, but soon slowed.
Char was leaning against the wall when the first Forsaken recovered enough of its strength to get up and run. Char bolted after it while Terry struggled with a dull knife.
Char ran the injured creature down and tackled in from behind. She pinned it to the ground, pulled her pistol, and emptied a magazine into its head.
She holstered it and reached for the second pistol, when a hand stayed her. Terry tossed the Vampire head on the ground, in front of the last one’s face. “My knife can’t cut butter,” he told her.
“Somebody bring me a fucking stake!” Terry bellowed up the tunnel. Mark wasn’t far away, but had to fight his way through the human beings who were little more than vegetables.
With a stake in hand, Terry made quick work of the last Forsaken. He leaned back against the tunnel wall, watching the creature shrivel as its body died.
“Smoke if you got ‘em,” he said aloud.
There was no time to relax, or as Terry saw it, no rest for the weary. A hundred walking dead were crowded into the tunnel.
***
“No. NO! No, no, no,” Billy repeated. Ernie was adamant about taking his favorite chair. He said he had to have it because that was where he did his best thinking.
Billy was shaking, he was so angry. Felicity guided him outside. She didn’t want to watch him kill another man, not because it bothered her, but because it bothered him.
He cared about these people more than he would admit.
He also wanted them to be more helpful as he tried to save their lives. They resisted the second notion, and that got under his skin.
“Maybe Sue can talk with them? With that blonde hair and beaming smile, she can convince them that traveling light is in everyone’s best interest,” Felicity drawled casually.
“What if they decide to stay? What if the whole town decides to stay?” Billy asked, furrowing his brow as he adjusted the blanket to cover the baby’s head and protect her from the sun.
“Most of them will go, Billy. The rest will have a hard life here, a very hard life. In the end, they’ll realize that you were right. You can’t force them to go.” Felicity laughed to herself. “Who has the energy for that?”
Billy Spires, Mayor of New Boulder, took a deep breath and smiled. “Exactly.” He kissed Marcie on the head and walked back in to the greenhouse.
Ernie stood defiantly with his fists on his hips.
“I’m not going to fight with you, Ernie. Here’s the deal. We can’t take the chair. Your alternative is that you can stay here. I’m not forcing anyone to
go,” Billy said calmly and evenly.
“Who’s going to hunt? Who’s going to fix the pump? Who’s going to help me work the fields?” Ernie asked in a panic.
“My problem, Ernie, is getting people across two thousand miles of the Wastelands. To do that, we travel light. If you stay, then those things are your problems. Maybe you can see a little bit of what I have to deal with.” Billy slapped the man on the shoulder and left.
“All I can do is create the conditions for them to survive. Isn’t that what TH is always telling us? There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, right? We don’t need Sue to woo them into playing nice. I’ll give them the option, do the right thing or stay. Their choice. Thanks, beautiful,” Billy said happily, kissing her fully, before strolling to the next greenhouse and delivering the same speech he’d already given three times.
***
Timmons worked like a man possessed. He looked at every day as gravy, a day that he probably had no right to enjoy. He had been as close to death as he’d ever been, and the humans had saved him. In doing so, he’d also gotten his hand back. He didn’t believe in a deity, or so he said, but when he was alone, he thanked God for giving him his third chance.
He didn’t want to waste it. It was important to Terry Henry Walton and Charumati that they had power. He wanted the lights on to welcome them home.
That meant signs, too. He remembered that he wanted to post something at the old power plant to direct the people to their new homes. They’d roll in exhausted. Timmons and the others had talked that they wanted a welcome celebration that would show the town’s people that their sacrifice in moving had not been in vain.
Since the plant had been sequentially powered down, it didn’t require any repairs to bring it back to life. What it needed was dismantling to check gaskets, fittings, and buildup within the systems that had existed prior to the power down. It was time-consuming but not overwhelming.
Timmons and Ted had yet to find a broken part that needed to be replaced beyond new gaskets, which they were making from certain roofing shingles and only the part of the shingle that had not been exposed to the sun. Other gaskets were being fabricated from soft metals. It was a laborious process, but one that the others in the group could help with. Two hours every day were dedicated to gasket fabrication.
It wasn’t sexy work at all, not like hunting or scavenging. And then there was boating.
Ted had recovered a small sailing boat from the Navy’s dock. He’d pulled it ashore, scraped the hull clean, and lathered deer fat onto the sail and ropes, to give them new life. It smelled a little gamey from the deer fat, but beggars can’t be choosers. He’d been puttering around with it since they moved to the naval station.
One day as they sat around the evening fire, Ted announced that the boat was ready for a test sail.
James, Lacy, and Gerry weren’t interested. They’d all been raised on the border of the Wastelands where water was at a premium. The lake scared them. Kiwi wanted to go as a way to fight her fear of the water.
She’d been raised to respect nature, no matter which form it took.
First thing in the morning, if the winds were fairly calm, they’d head out. Even Timmons couldn’t argue with that. There was work to do, but sometimes you had to take a break, and the small boat would give them a completely different look at what used to be Chicago.
They could even catch a few fish. Timmons had gained a taste for fish during the trip to Chicago, as had the wolf pack. They hadn’t had any since they arrived, and with a good catch, everyone could win.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Blackie had had to take Hank outside and a ways away. The grizzly wasn’t too keen on having all the people who smelled of death wedge in around him.
Char looked exhausted from carrying Kae around, watching over Adams, and trying to keep things moving.
With the Forsaken out of the picture, Terry instructed the platoon to move the refugees outside. The walking dead, as Terry referred to them, went where they were told, but they had no purpose outside of the simplest of instructions.
Once outside, they shielded their eyes from the sun and stood wherever they happened to be when they stopped walking. It was heart-wrenching and taking its toll on the platoon members.
Mark was holding it together, but many of the others sat with their heads in their hands.
Terry suffered through watching for only so long.
“Sergeant, what’s the total count of refugees?”
Mark was ready. “One hundred, thirty-seven, sir.”
Terry whistled. He had a hard decision to make. Taking them along meant drastically changing the plan.
“Bring the platoon together, all of them, inside the tunnel. We have some work to do before we have to make any decisions.” Terry felt tired, too. He didn’t think there was any adrenaline left in his body. His nanocytes were busy repairing damage and not boosting him in other areas.
And it was still the morning. Not enough sleep, too many fights, and for some ungodly reason, he was craving a doughnut. He looked back to Char. So many things to do and none of them as important as what he needed to prioritize as number one.
He joined Char as they walked back toward the big doors that led to the tunnel. “Was the Forsaken right? Are you pregnant?” Terry asked.
“I’m over a hundred years old and I’ve never been pregnant before, but I think so, yes.” She forced a smile through her tired expression.
“How long?” Terry felt put out that she hadn’t shared anything with him. He put his hand on her abdomen, but couldn’t feel any difference.
“I think one day,” she replied in a whisper. He didn’t argue, not understanding how she could know that soon, but it brought back vivid images. He pointed to a spot against the wall not five feet from where they stood. There was a faint trace of blood from where Terry had touched Char’s bite on his neck and then the wall, the place they’d made love the night before.
Kae looked at them, not following the conversation. Terry picked him up. “We think you’re going to be a big brother, so there’s a lot to talk about, but later, when we’re on the road to Chicago. We’ll have plenty of time, little man.”
Kaeden nodded and tried to twist out of Terry’s grip when he saw Blackie and Hank. He let the boy run to his new friends. Terry took a moment to hug his wife and be mesmerized by her sparkling purple eyes.
She looked around at the people, but asked him out of the corner of her mouth, “You know stakes don’t kill vampires, right?”
Terry nodded, slightly, “Yes, but when fighting those fuckers, you have to give everyone a totem, something to believe in. If the vampire is mostly dead, the stake will kill them.” He admitted, before adding, “Just like ripping off an arm, or their head.” He shrugged, “The nanocytes can’t heal it.”
She put a hand on his arm and he cradled it with his own a moment before returning to life’s duties. At least she was always with him and that was the big difference between now and before the fall.
Melissa had stayed home. Char had no intention of ever staying home. They fought Forsaken within sight of Kae and that was how they protected him, by showing him that the real world was a hard place and his parents would fight for him.
And that reminded Terry that he needed to sharpen his silvered blade. Sawing like a mad man at the Vamp’s neck couldn’t have impressed anyone.
Terry and Char joined the platoon. The colonel waved the group to silence.
“I’ll start by saying that these people are the worst thing that you’ll ever see. It’s like when the concentration camps were liberated in World War Two. People, barely alive after having survived horrific torture. Keep your heads up, these people need your strength and empathy, not your sympathy. ‘Oh woe is me’ won’t bring them back. ‘That sucks but here’s what we have to do to move forward’ is the approach we’ll take. Because we have no other option.”
Terry looked at the men. They were still torn. “First, we need to ch
eck this place. We have us a convoy right here if these vehicles are functional. Need to check that, too. How in the hell do they have power? We need to find the source and see if there’s anything we can use, and most importantly, we need to turn on every light in this God damn stink hole!”
“Yeah!” Mark yelled. The others looked at him.
“Sergeant, Corporals, send everyone out in teams of two, partition each level and work your way down. If you can’t turn on the lights in an area, don’t go there, understood? Report back every hour, but if that slows things too much, then every two hours. Questions?”
“Are there any more of those creatures down there?” Boris asked.
“There are no more Forsaken, that is, no more bad Vampires. The major can sense them. There shouldn’t be anything alive at all down there.”
“Nothing left down there at all,” Char confirmed. Then choked up, a tear wiped away a moment later. Xandrie’s body was down there and they needed to recover what was left of her.
“Any more questions?”
“There are good Vampires?” someone asked. Terry didn’t see who it was.
“Yes. Bethany Anne and Akio are examples of good Vampires. They don’t get in your business and they absolutely don’t do to people what was done here. This is unconscionable. Those people were trapped in here for over twenty years with four bloodsuckers for company. No wonder they look like they’re dead.” Terry took a deep breath.
Thinking about it gave him the willies. He couldn’t imagine. “Most likely it was one, maybe two, but ended up creating more over the years.”
Terry looked around, “The sooner we start, the sooner we finish. Sergeant, give me two people to watch our refugees, please.”
Mark detailed Ivan and Boris to the colonel, before leading the platoon into the depths of the mountain.
Terry and Char checked on Adams to make sure he was healing. Kaeden wanted to follow Blackie and Hank, but they wouldn’t let him. He started to cry, but Terry put his foot down. “We take care of our injured. This is Adams, in his Were form. Just like your adopted mom. She can change into a Werewolf, too.”
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