Dead Air

by Ash, C. B.

  Moments before his hand could touch it, the trap door exploded into the room. Wooden splinters and sections of plank scattered through the air like so many needles in a strong wind. Immediately behind that was a cast iron pot, coated in rust, that flew through the remains of the door. Krumer and Tiberius fell backwards, hands held in front of them to ward off any of the wooden debris that came too close to their faces. Inside the room, the rest crouched low behind cover and averted their eyes to protect themselves from the worst of it.

  Krumer quickly rolled to his left and scrambled up into a crouch. Through the door rushed the unwelcome sight of a broad-shouldered man who, if his obvious stab wounds were any indication, should not have been walking around at all, much less rushing through a door, his face contorted in a mix of anger and pain. The zombie lunged for Krumer's throat. The orc twisted to one side, and narrowly avoided the attack. Tiberius threw a quick punch to the zombie's face. The creature grunted and glared at the young man before it reached for him. Tiberius leaned back just before the zombie could touch him.

  "So much for a safe place." Krumer said as he hammered a strong right fist into the zombie's face. The creature's head snapped back before it lost its footing. It fell hard, face first onto the wooden floor, then slid sideways down the metal stairs. Through the doorway, Krumer watched it slam into four more of the creatures, which knocked two more zombies off their feet. That unfortunate group slid into a group of seven jostling and shoving at each other at the bottom. The last two zombies that remained on the stairs continued their climb.

  "We have a problem." Tiberius said firmly.

  "There be quite the understatement." O'Fallon remarked.

  "How many?" Adonia asked quickly.

  Krumer looked over the side and counted. He sighed with exasperation. Two more had joined the rest below. "Thirteen now."

  Another zombie appeared through the trap door and was abruptly greeted by a burst of gunfire from Moira. The zombie's body shuddered with the impact of each well-placed bullet. This one, like its predecessor, lost its footing on the old metal stairs and crashed downward. The thump of the creature's body against metal echoed from below.

  "How'd they find us?" Moira snarled angrily. "I thought they didna come here!"

  "They don't!" Tiberius snapped back. "They didn't before!"

  "Well, it seems they have been exploring a bit more in earnest then." Adonia replied with a cold edge to her voice.

  Krumer hammered two quick punches into the next zombie then shoved it backwards. That one fell downwards like the previous two and vanished from sight. Krumer looked down the stairs. Below, the larger group of figures had just begun to climb towards them. He shot a stern look around the room behind him. "That's quite enough! If we panic, they'll have us for certain! If we work together, we stand a fighting chance. Tiberius, where does that other door lead?"

  "To a storeroom." The young man shrugged, then hesitated when realization dawned on him. "A storeroom with a window! It should be just large enough for us to scale out and onto the roof!"

  The orc grinned savagely. "Excellent! Thorias?"

  Thorias smiled grimly. "I know, Dr. Von Patterson to safety. Come Carlos, let's help the good doctor with his exercise regime."

  O'Fallon jumped up and raced to the door. He turned the knob and pulled it open to allow Carlos and Thorias to carry their dazed burden into the storeroom. At the trap door, Krumer drew his pistol and fired down the stairs. His first two shots impacted in the creature's chest, the third in its lower torso. It jerked twice from the first two bullets then doubled over at the impact of the third, its face contorted in pain. It collapsed to the metal stairs and lay motionless. A memory rushed to the front of Krumer's mind of something similar happening not long ago on the catwalk over the propellers.

  "There is a way to stop them!" Krumer called over his shoulder.

  "Aye! Explosives!" O'Fallon retorted.

  Krumer ignored the comment and continued. "Aim just below the chest but just above the stomach. For some reason, they seem only vulnerable there!"

  "Good and done!" Moira replied. Adonia simply nodded gravely that she understood.

  A minute crawled by with no more unwelcome undead at the top of the stairs. The first mate, who had remained at the trap door, peered through the opening. At the bottom of the stairs, five figures milled about, but none had ascended more than a step or two. At once confused and curious, he leaned a bit lower and tried to peer into the gloom. Despite his efforts, he could see no reason why the zombies had not pressed their attack.

  The orc looked over his shoulder into the loft. "How fares it?"

  O'Fallon called out from the storeroom. "Havin' a wee bit a' trouble with the window." The Scotsman then punctuated his comment with a strong series of blows with the butt of his pistol to the windowpane that stubbornly refused to budge. "Ah'll be havin' it open right enough."

  "Good. We may have some time left to us but ... " The orc's words were cut short when a dull boom shook the walls, floor and ceiling of the loft as if something had struck the building. A second impact followed the first that knocked everyone off their feet.

  "What the devil?" Adonia exclaimed.

  Krumer scrambled up off his back and peered over the open trap door. The orc grunted in mild anger when his eyes caught the hint of motion beneath the stairs. Almost out of sight, two zombies each hefted a sledgehammer and aimed for one of the main support struts for both the stairs and the loft.

  "Spirits willing, if it had to be zombies, why could they not have been mindless?" Krumer complained with a snarl.

  Tiberius, who had peered over the side as well, sighed in frustration. "I could use one of my grenades, but it might help them with what they are doing far more than hinder them."

  "What is it?" Adonia asked, unable to hear the conversation by the trap door.

  Krumer turned to reply when the sledgehammers impacted on the rusted support beam below. Once more, everyone was thrown from their feet. This time, the chilling sound of wood as it splintered filled the air.

  "Hold on to what you can!" The orc shouted as the support beam fell away from under a corner of the loft.

  Metal twisted against metal in a loud groan. Wood splintered, snapped and fell away. In the loft, blacksmith tools, once securely stored, jerked from the walls to become deadly missiles in the air. The forge shook apart, and the once metal-braced stone added to the avalanche. Among the metal tools, stone and wood debris, people were tossed about like rag dolls on the wind. Just to the side of the trap door, the beam broke away from the wood and twisted. Beneath even that, and unexpected to everyone, the main floor of the blacksmith's shop caved at the abuse that was tendered. Wooden floor snapped, and the beam plummeted through it like a drill. Above where the support beam had rested, the loft split largely into three pieces before it fell in on itself and crash to the floor below.

  Krumer instinctively reached out and grabbed the trap door's frame. Tiberius did the same. A maelstrom of wood and stone pelted them from all around. Somewhere in the shower of debris Krumer recognized a feminine shape with thick hair. His hand shot out and caught hold of the collar of a wool long coat. He fumbled with the material until his fingers found purchase in the wool. Krumer tensed and pulled at the cloth. Adonia, who was wearing the wool coat, was quickly hauled up against Krumer so she, too could grab onto the frame of the trap door that miraculously remained intact. With her other arm, she clung desperately to Dr. Von Patterson, who was in the midst of yet another seizure.

  The orc looked out through the dust and chaos that rained down. The middle of the room was a maelstrom of debris that fell away into a dark pit. On the far side, he thought he saw one, perhaps two figures for a moment struggle for their lives. Then the dust obscured any view of them.

  "O'Fallon! Thorias! Moira!" Krumer yelled. No one answered, if they could hear him at all. Dust made his eyes water and splinters stung his face. He strained to listen for a reply among the noise. He started
to shout again when one of the large, gray, soot-stained stones from the forge struck him on the head. The world exploded in a shower of stars that slid sideways into blackness.

  Chapter 14

  A soft wind brushed O'Fallon's face. It was a cool wind with a hint of moisture to it. In the dim recesses of his memory, he remembered a walk along the moors not far from Inverness, Scotland with his Uncle Robert. The wind had felt cool and just a touch damp that day as well. His uncle had told him it was a sure sign of rain and they had better seek shelter inside. He could not remember there being a place to go into at that time. His memories jumbled and mixed. All he could make out was his Uncle's voice saying to go inside.

  Slowly, O'Fallon struggled to open his eyes. His body felt covered in a thick mud, and his thoughts swam in a sea of gray fog. Through force of will, he forced his eyes open and pushed himself awake. Just as awareness returned, so did a chorus of aches. He grunted involuntarily at the series of pains in his back and reached under him to push himself upright.

  Promptly, his hand slipped from the metal and off into open air! O'Fallon's eyes shot open, his mind all at once fully alert as he lost his balance on the support strut and fell head first towards nothing. His arms lashed out, his fingers clawing at the metal beam until they caught one of the rough edges. The quartermaster jerked as gravity took hold and yanked him downwards. Fortunately his grip on the metal beam held. Only then did he allow himself the luxury of a painful groan over his injured right shoulder, which had made a sickly popping sound during the excitement.

  When the pain changed from a sharp stab to a dull throb, he clenched his teeth and flexed his arms. Slowly, painfully he hauled himself up onto the beam. Only then did he look over the side at the large propeller that churned the air fifty feet below. The Scotsman exhaled a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment, then looked around.

  The support beam was one of many that crossed each other in the frame surrounding the propellers beneath the station. They were the foundation on which the above buildings and their platform rested. O'Fallon looked along the particular girder he found himself on then glanced upwards. Last he could remember, the wooden floor beneath his feet had snapped in half, dropping him into open air. That was when the main support beam hit the lower floor and tore open the floor to the blacksmith's shop itself.

  Of course that was right before something had struck him on the head. Which meant it was a minor miracle he survived the fall. Above him, a dark hole yawned in the superstructure where something large and heavy - he assumed the metal beam from the shop above - plunged through. On either side of the hole, support bars, metal sheets and similar parts had been violently ripped away.

  "We be keepin' this up, won't be much of a station ta stand on." He muttered to himself.

  "O'Fallon!" Came a shout over the wind. The quartermaster recognized the voice. It was Moira. He looked around until he spotted her forty yards away on a nearby maintenance walkway that ringed the entire circular pit around him. He raised a hand in greeting.

  "Heaven blessed, yer alive!" Moira shouted over to him.

  "Ah be banged an' bruised, but ah'm alive." He shouted back, his throat hoarse. He wondered if he had been yelling in his fall before he was knocked on the head.

  "Some of us be here. Crawl across that spar. It be hookin' up ta where we are." Moira then slowly made her way over to where the platform did indeed connect to the support strut.

  O'Fallon did not reply, but instead nodded silently before he began to crawl. Slowly, painfully, he inched his way along the narrow girder until he reached the platform's edge. At that point he practically fell over onto the platform from relief. Moira caught him in a quick hug, which helped to keep the quartermaster from accidentally teetering over the edge. Unlike the walkways earlier, these had no handrails.

  "Enough o' that now." The Scotsman slowly extracted himself from the blacksmith to carefully sit upright. "Who else be with us?"

  "Beside us two? Thorias, Arcady and Carlos." Moira replied and pointed twenty feet down the platform to where the others had gathered in a small alcove.

  O'Fallon nodded with a pained look. "Be a sight small group. Na sign o' the others?"

  Moira shook her head sadly. "Not a bit."

  O'Fallon averted his eyes and squeezed them shut before covering his face with a hand. The constant running, being unable to get word to anyone, half his group missing or maybe dead, and the attacks by zombies of all things had begun to wear down the Scotsman's resolve. His stomach felt like a hard lump of pig iron sat inside it. The wind blew around him, a faint howl of despair he just could not ignore as it mirrored how he felt. He did not know how long he sat there listening to the wind. Eventually Moira touched him on the shoulder.

  "Conrad," she said carefully, "they might be makin' it on their own. As fer us, we can't be sittin' out here in the open. Been no signs of zombies here but still, we'll need ta be headin' somewhere more secure."

  O'Fallon nodded. "Aye, someplace defensible."

  "Aye." Moira replied.

  She helped O'Fallon to his feet, and the pair slowly walked down to rejoin the others. They had settled in one of the regularly spaced doorway alcoves along the side of the walkway. This one in particular led to a door that had obviously been welded shut some time ago. O'Fallon looked around at where they were. It was anything but defensible, however it did provide some shelter against the propeller-driven winds. His attention turned to their small group of survivors. Each of them bore their own assortment of cuts, scrapes and bruises from their fall. From the look on their faces, they all felt every injury with a sharp intensity. Only Arcady seemed unaffected, though that was likely because he could fly. O'Fallon knelt among the small group.

  "Anythin' be broken?" O'Fallon asked lightly.

  "Fortunately, that is one thing that seems to have gone in our favor." Thorias replied with his usual dry wit. "No breaks or serious injuries that I could tell."

  "A bounty of cuts and scrapes, though," Carlos said sourly from where he sat.

  "And," Thorias said with a scowl, "we've lost the good Dr. Von Patterson. If nothing else, I must find him and get him to the Griffin before his condition worsens."

  "Since we are speaking of locations, would anyone happen to know our location?" Arcady, who had taken flight, hovered in the alcove to try and avoid the worst of the wind. Since he was so much smaller than the others, the wind was more troublesome. "I'd fly out and look but the winds make it difficult for me to circumnavigate the area."

  "Sittin' below the station." Moira shrugged. "Just where? Yer guess be as good as mine."

  O'Fallon looked up and around again at where the group sat. "We be na far from the secondary boilers. The wee doors along here should be takin' a body right past any of 'em. Most got more ta be doin' than stretchin' their legs down here. Unless they be down ta fix somethin'. If'n Ah na miss me guess, there should be a brass plate on that door here. It'll state 'Sub-boiler' and then some wee number after a fashion."

  Curious, Thorias stood and stepped over to the rusted door. It took the doctor a moment to locate it, but eventually he did find a small brass placard on which was the faint engraving of 'Sub-Boiler No. 9'. Thorias turned around to face the group and gestured to the plate with an impressed look.

  A ghostly smile crossed Thorias' face. "Well, that's quite smashing. How did you know that so precisely?"

  O'Fallon shrugged. "See, Ah be born Scottish, even though me Father be Irish. When ah be a wee lad, we be living in Dublin. One night me Father be taken for 'treasonous acts' - which just be a fancy term for speakin' about Irish independence. That same day me Mother be takin' meself, me sis and herself back ta Scotland ta me Uncle Robert and me Mother's people. Me uncle be an engineer and shipwright. Helped be designin' these, he did." The Scottish quartermaster smiled slightly while he gazed around at the weather-worn walls and metal catwalk. "Took me on more'n one trip through one. Ah be gettin' ta know some o' the insides."

  Mo
ira smiled. "Then all we need ta do is take one o' these doors, get off this catwalk and go lookin' for anyone else and the Griffin. Unless we can find parts ta fix the opti-telegraphic."

  O'Fallon slowly stood. Instinctively, he reached down for his pistol and, to his complete surprise, found it still in his holster. He must have managed to replace it there just before the floor fell out from underneath him earlier. "Well, if we be movin' in ta find if anyone else be makin' it out, we'll need ta take one o' these doors. They'll be leadin' to a ladder. Climb that, we'll be back up near where anyone else might have found a place to hide."

  Carlos stood as well. He winced at obvious aches and bruises. "Then Señor, what do we wait for? Let us find an open door."

  It was a long, slow twenty minute walk before they could locate another door off the catwalk. O'Fallon gave it an experimental pull. The door moved slightly on its hinges with a rough scraping sound. O'Fallon turned back to the others.

  "This one be unlocked." O'Fallon pulled on the handle and the door opened obediently. Behind it stood a man, unlike the previous time, this one was not dressed in ragged, bloodstained clothes. His were a dark brown shirt and trousers, a bit worn but well kept. The man lunged for the surprised O'Fallon and planted a hard right fist across the Scotsman's jaw. O'Fallon staggered back a step but managed to raise a hand to ward off a second blow.

  "O'Fallon! Look out!" Thorias yelled too late and reached for the small pistol at his side. Moira's guns were already in her hand but none of the rest had a clear shot. The two men were too close together.

  O'Fallon shook the cobwebs from his mind and hammered a wicked uppercut in return that knocked his assailant up onto his toes. Winded, the stranger coughed hard and staggered backwards, a look of hatred on his face.

  A pair of guns immediately boomed and smoke curled from Moira's pistols. The stranger jerked sideways and slammed against the door frame before he slid heavily to the metal floor while blood oozed around a hole in his trouser leg.