by M. E. Betts
"Listen, Liu," Maximus sneered, "I've kept around a thousand people alive in that convention center since this shit broke out. That qualify as useful in your book, hmm?"
They arrived at the large, featureless building. It has a twenty-foot-high garage door and a separate entry door. As they approached the facace of the structure, they heard a voice from above.
"I'm Will. Nice to meet you all."
They looked up to see a man, roughly in his mid-thirties, on the roof. Shari remembered him from the confrontation in front of Soldier Field. She had seen him running to the northwest as the firefight erupted, heading toward the southern end of the Loop. She shuddered as she recalled that she would have shot him if he had been in closer range, assuming as she always had that sadists were fair game for murder.
"We're just here to talk," Maximus told the man.
"I know," Will replied. "Your people let us know to expect you." He lowered a 30-foot ladder to the street. "We can talk from up here."
"You should know that my people next door have their eye on you," Maximus said as he scaled the rungs.
"Understandable," Will said. "You don't have to worry, though. We're not bad guys. That's why we left that place."
"You seemed to have been fighting on the side of the sadists pretty recently," Shari said as she climbed onto the roof behind Dr. Liu, spotting him on the way up in his one-armed state.
"Sadists?" Will repeated.
"The sadistic assholes whose side you were on," Shari said. "You care to explain that, Will?"
"You don't understand," he said. "They don't get people like me and my brother to join by telling us how sick they are, all the terrible things that they do. They recruit guys like us because we have skills that are useful to them. Even sadists need people who know heating and cooling, electric work, plumbing, mechanics. They bullshit us, tell us they've got a thriving community going. Obviously, we bought it hook, line and sinker. We were so eager to get our families somewhere safe that we fell for something that sounded too good to be true."
"Do any others get out?" Dr. Liu asked.
"I've seen a lot of men and women die trying to escape," Will said. "They don't want to deal with the slight chance that someone will come back with an angry mob if they get away alive. Me and my brother were lucky to have escaped with our families intact."
"How many between the two families?" Maximus asked.
"It's me, my wife and our twins," Will said. "A boy and a girl, James and Jessica. They just turned eleven. Then there's my brother, his wife and their six-year-old daughter. Oh, and then there's Chance and Thorn."
Maximus grimaced. "I don't suppose those are people names."
"They're not," Will said. "They're my brother's huskies, and they're the biggest babies. Well, until he gives the word, that is. He's a renowned dog trainer...well, all types of animals, really. And let me tell you," he said, "those dogs have saved our asses more than a few times."
"Seven people and two dogs," Maximus said.
"We'll understand if you ask us to leave the dogs," Will said. "We'll do whatever it takes to save our families. We don't stand much chance of making it out of the city, let alone the suburbs, alive."
"How soon are you willing to leave?" Maximus asked.
Will shrugged. "If you guys agree to take us in, we'll leave right now."
"Are you willing to share any information you may have regarding the sadists?" Shari asked.
"Absolutely," Will said without hesitation. He smirked. "That's half the point. We owe those guys no favors, and we'll tell you anything we can."
"That's all I wanted to hear," Maximus said.
"Come down this way," Will said, opening a hatch and descending from the roof into the interior of the building. "I'll introduce you to the rest of the family."
Inside the building, a young mother paced nervously. "Do we get to go?" she asked as Will climbed down the ladder.
"They agreed," Will informed her and the other two adults. "Everyone get ready to go, get your stuff together."
The young woman squealed with delight, reminding Shari of a person who had won a free vacation to the Bahamas. She ran off to pack and prepare for the move.
"That's Jenna," Will said, "my sister-in-law. She's in a hurry to get out of here, but then again, I guess we all are."
He introduced the group to his brother, Damian, and his wife, Patricia. After a few minutes of gathering possessions and trying to talk the kids into using the bathroom, the group exited the building through the heavy steel entry door.
"Where will the dogs sleep?" Damian and Jenna's young daughter asked Maximus.
"I don't have an answer to that question right now," Maximus said. "We'll figure that out when the time comes."
"Oh," the little girl said, silent as she contemplated her next question. "Where will I sleep?"
"We'll see, Amelia," Jenna said. "Stop asking so many questions."
"There are a lot of other kids your age," Dr. Liu told Amelia. He turned to address Will's eleven-year-old twins. "Some your age, too, guys," he added. "You'll all fit right in."
They approached the stairwell that would lead them into the north building. Maximus took a keyring from his inner pocket, preparing to unlock the security door and enter the stairwell. As he fumbled with the keys, the male out of the two young twins let out a shrill cry of terror. At his feet crawled and clawed a very decayed and weathered zombie. Most of its body had been severed, leaving little below the armpits.
"James!" Patricia cried out as the boy stumbled backward in fright, tripping on a lawn sprinkler obscured within the tall, untended grass.
Will brought a size thirteen, steel-toe boot down in to the back of the thing's skull. As his foot made contact, a spray of putrid sludge and bone shards rained out in all directions, splattering across the bottoms of all nearby pant legs. More undead lurked nearby, having spotted them.
Maximus finally found the required key and swung the door open. As he stepped into the stairwell, he held his M16 up to Will and Patricia, motioning for his team to follow him inside.
"The boy's not getting inside," Maximus told the two parents.
"The hell he's not!" Will thundered at him. "There's more of those things out here! Let us in!"
"Maximus!" Shari hissed. "What are you doing?"
"The kid was bit," Maximus said, pointing to a rip in the boy's pants, torn away from the shin and exposing a thin wound, blood trickling out lightly. "He's not coming in here."
"He wasn't bitten!" Patricia protested. "He fell on a sprinkler in the grass out there and it cut him. Please, I'm begging you--let us in! There are undead everywhere out here!"
Maximus lowered his rifle. "Everybody but the boy can come in," he said. Jenna entered the stairwell with her daughter and niece. Damian came in behind them.
"It's not right," he said, his extended finger grazing Maximus' face and leaving a faint suggestion of blood on his right cheek. "We told you, that boy wasn't bitten!"
"I don't take any chances!" Maximus roared, pointing toward the street. "You like to take chances, go take 'em out there!"
Outside, Patricia and her son screamed. Damian ran back outside to help his brother.
Shari strode up to Maximus, shoving him hard in the chest. He staggered backward, falling into the steps.
"Let him in, you fucking sociopath," she said in a low growl.
Maximus rose to his feet, approaching Shari until his chest nearly brushed hers. "I'm getting real tired of your shit," he muttered, reaching for his handgun in its holster. At that moment, Shari heard a swift ringing sound, and Maximus crumpled to the floor. Dr. Liu had snuck up from behind him, kissing him on the head with his aluminum baseball bat, rendering him unconscious. Having incapacitated the tyrranical leader, Dr. Liu and the others hurried to see what had happened to the others outside.
As they opened the door, Will and Patricia rushed inside, both of them weeping. Will cradled James in his arms, and Shari could see th
at the boy was alive but bleeding from a wound on his neck. Patricia had a faint wound on her cheek, its shape reminiscent of human teeth, and a few drops of blood beaded up along the curved line of tooth marks. Shari's heart sank. Both well alive, she thought, knowing from experience that they would likely live for days or weeks with non-lethal bites wounds.
More undead could be seen and heard nearby, quickly approaching.
"Come on," Shari said. "Let's get them to E.R."
As the next week wore on, a dichotomy was occuring in Dr. Liu's infirmary. On the one hand, Maximus recovered from the effects of his head trauma, though he didn't yet know that it was the doctor himself who had hit him. On the other hand, however, the young boy and his mother declined in health, beginning to succumb to the effects of their slow transformations to undead. Will began drinking heavily, which, according to his brother, was a vice for him. Jessica, the twin sister of young James, was mostly raised by her Uncle Damian and Aunt Jenna from that point on.
The entire community was beside itself with collective rage as the details surrounding the incident began to spread among the population. Dacee had questioned Shari and all those who were present. In the end, it seemed, Dacee had faced the unpleasant conclusion that her on-again, off-again lover would have to be stripped of his power.
"You guys in security will have to figure out for yourselves who's gonna fill his shoes," Dacee had told Shari in private. Since none of Shari's co-workers had been remotely interested in the position, Shari became the somewhat unwilling volunteer.
At the Halloween party, Shari sat until the wee hours of the morning with Daphne and several others. They lounged in the ballroom, everyone wearing a scavenged costume. Shari wore a jumpsuit from her favorite video game, along with a functioning gas mask. Daphne, not one for dressing up, wore a mask consisting of a pair of glasses with a false nose and moustache. The air was thick with debauchery and body heat as inebriated party-goers celebrated being alive and protested the death lurking all around them. There was music, though it didn't pulsate at the decibel of a party in the pre-zombie world.
Shari stretched back in her seat, comfortable in her roomy, yellow and blue jumpsuit. She gazed at the crowds of people filling the ballroom, living individuals. She was filled with horror as she considered the fact that she was the one responsible now for their security, and worse still, that of the sleeping children across the street.
"I can't imagine being inside Maximus' head," she told Daphne. "Being the type of person who likes having authority just for the sake of having it. I've only been responsible for books up 'til this point. Now every decision I make is intrinsically related to the safety of all these people. People who are alive, and need to stay that way." She sighed, being sure she made eye contact with Daphne as she continued. "I don't think I can do it without your help."
Daphne shrugged, smirking as she rolled her eyes. "What else do you think I have to fill my time besides keeping peace with you?"
The two relaxed and enjoyed the night, despite their worries. They chatted with the group at their table, passing around joints between everyone but Daphne, though even she was happy to partake in the convivial atmosphere in her own socially limited way.
As the hours wore on, Shari came to terms with her new role as protector of the settlement. Every single one of them, she thought. I hope every single one of them is still here to see next Halloween.
Throughout November, there were only a few minor incidents with the sadists. Shari was fairly certain that they were mainly being sent to gain intelligence on the complex, with whomever had sent them knowing fully well that the front lines, at the very least, would be obliterated. On each occasion, she had seen opposing members sneak away once the fighting had begun, aiming their cell phone cameras at the building as they fled to the northwest. After Patricia and James had passed away, Will had poured himself into his drinking and his work, working with the weapons department during most of his waking hours.
As the fall wore on, carrying the winter ever closer, more and more of the undead continued their exodus southward. Of the ones who remained, they lost more of their mobility as the temperature dipped ever lower.
Shari had been in the habit of visiting with Merlin on a regular basis since taking up the role of head of security.
"How are you feeling?" she had asked as she entered his cell the week after Halloween.
"How do you think?" he had muttered in response, his voice hollow and his visage that of someone who had lost their will to live. "If I close my eyes, I can almost see the bright blue sky falling down on my face. Maybe Merlin's ready to feed the worms and trees."
"You think this'll make you feel any better?" Shari had asked, revealing a baggie containing around a half-dozen carefully rolled joints and a decanter of steaming coffee.
He had scoffed passively. "I doubt it. That doesn't mean Merlin doesn't want any, though."
In the end, he had been slightly more receptive and helpful after having smoked and imbibed caffeine. Shari was certain that forming a bond with him and gaining his trust would prove useful when a real confrontation did occur, provided that she would extract pertinent information from him regarding the sadists. In the meantime, she gleaned as much as she could from him.
"They took Navy Pier, did I tell you that?" he asked her one morning in late November. The complex, other than the hotel, was kept around fifty-five degrees since the weather had turned cool in an effort to conserve resources, and Merlin shivered as he spoke, his dishwater blonde curls brushing his shoulders. Shari turned on a space heater on the desk, noticing for the first time that he was handsome in a unique way, at least when he was bathed and relatively lucid. The down side was that he seemed to be perpetually depressed when not in an extremely altered state of consciousness.
"I heard something about Navy Pier having had a settlement," she said in response to his statement. "Were there a lot of people there?"
"Yeah," Merlin said, "and there still are, far as Merlin knows. Real people, not just sadists. Sadists killed a lot of them when they came in, but you know those guys. They kill some, make their point and recruit the rest. Mostly for fighting or fucking."
"How many people are there?" Shari asked.
"Not sure about that," Merlin said. "Probably in the hundreds. Last Merlin heard, they wanted to try and take Lake Pointe Towers, too. And I've heard they're also inside Willis Tower, but Merlin can't confirm that." He was referring to the tallest building in the city, and the second tallest in the country, towering at over one-hundred stories.
"I haven't noticed anyone in there," Shari said. "Me, or anyone in security. And we look at the skyline all the time, in detail. I'm not saying I don't believe you, just that they must be good at hiding."
"You're not thinking like a sadist," Merlin said. "They see you. That makes it easy for them to hide. The city's big. Sadists shroud themselves in it. They're the snakes in the grass, and you're all field mice."
"Yeah," Shari said. "Or at least that's what they think."
Later that night, she sat around with most of the security team, plus Dr. Liu, Dacee and Phoebe, in a quieter, more private sitting area than the generally bustling commons. They drank, smoked and talked strategy, as they had on a few occasions, knowing that a full-fledged sadist attack could happen at any point. Shari and Phoebe sat at the bar, discussing explosives, when Dr. Liu ambled up, beer in hand.
"So how's Shari?" Dr. Liu asked, sitting on the barstool next to hers as the group mingled and socialized.
"No complaints," Shari said. "How about yourself, Don?"
The doctor grinned. "Busier than a one-armed surgeon in a zombie apocalypse."
Shari smirked, her eyes on her ashtray as she flicked ashes into it, a nervous habit. "That's pretty busy."
"You're one of the only people in this place who hasn't asked," the doctor said.
Shari glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "I assume you mean about your arm." The doctor nodded. "I don't
know," Shari said, shrugging. "I usually leave it up to others to bring up stuff like that on their own, if they want to."
"Ha, that's a rarity," Dr. Liu said, tilting his back his beer bottle. "Most people have to give in to their curiosity."
"Okay, you twisted my arm," Shari said, blushing a little at the unintended pun. "Sorry."
"It's okay," the doctor said with a laugh, "I basically set you up for that."
"So what happened?" she asked. "Was it before the apocalypse, or after?"
"After," the doctor replied. "I was out scavenging with Maximus and some of the other security people. They told me they didn't want the surgeon going scavenging, but the thing is, they were planning on hitting up a medical center down the block. That was before we made it to the hospital across the highway to the south. I got all sorts of supplies from there, a whole truck worth, but before that I didn't have much to work with. I wanted to see what was at the medical center, and the scavenging team wouldn't have known what to take. Well, as it turned out, I wound up getting bit just below my right shoulder on the way back to the convention center. I had what I needed on hand to perform an impromptu amputation, to try and keep the infection from spreading. I had no choice but to do it, right then and there, in the back of an empty fleet van in the street. At the time, I wasn't even sure if it would work, if I had removed the arm in time to avoid infection. It was a nerve-wracking few days, waiting to be sure that I wouldn't turn. Well, obviously, I came through it, minus an arm."
"But you're left-handed?" Shari asked. "I'm only assuming because you seem to do pretty well with that hand."
"I do well enough with it," Dr. Liu said. "But no, I'm not left-handed." He smiled. "I mean, I guess I am now, right?"
"I suppose so," Shari said, grinning and looking down at the ash tray on the counter beneath her, gently flicking her ashes as she and the doctor spoke.
"We have some news," Hugo announced, the doctor beside him, as they entered the lounge area purposefully.
"What is it?" Shari asked as Hugo sat beside her, and the Professor to his other side.
