Before Andrew could even ask, John pulled hard on the blue material and brought the entire cover flying off towards them, briefly engulfing them in its netting-like grasp. Both men fought angrily to push the sheet off of their heads and eventually broke free, exposing themselves to the huge and now uncovered object that lay in front.
“Oh my God”, John said out loud, both wide eyed and open mouthed.
Chapter 38: Holding back
Shortly before the sun began to descend behind the buildings to the car-park’s rear, the F150 emerged a short distance away from the north, travelling back home after a long day out scavenging. The truck was looking a little rough nowadays, dented in parts and with speckles of blood dotted around it, but overall remained in much better condition than most of the vehicles around. The occupants of the Ford however were in even better condition, with one of them in particular sporting the kind of smile that hadn’t been seen in these parts for months.
“What a day”, John said happily, now back in the driver’s seat and coordinating the approach to camp.
“I know”, Andrew replied enthusiastically, “I can’t wait to tell everyone about-“.
“No”, John cut in, stopping Andrew dead, “Not now, we’ve got bigger things to worry about and so have they”.
“But”, Andrew tried to reason, “What if it helps the morale of-“.
“Andrew”, John interrupted again, “If we have to wait till tomorrow, we wait till tomorrow, we’re not going back to that place with good news, it isn’t the right time”.
“Tomorrow?”, Andrew asked, “Why tomorrow?”.
John didn’t reply, focusing instead on the approaching entrance up ahead where Lester stood, just as stoically as always.
Andrew looked ahead hoping for answers, but instead found his gaze shifting upwards, soon noting the dwindling sunlight that was slowly submerging the world in heavy levels of shade and darkness. “Oh”, he said, as it now clicked for him too, “Because we can’t bury him at night”.
John said nothing in response, but his silence was enough for Andrew to know he was right.
Moments later, the Ford slowly pulled in through the entrance, narrowly avoiding the trailer which remained in place, itself now completely empty inside. Briefly John and Andrew each exchanged nods and gestures of greeting with Lester, and then continued on inside, noticing straightaway that Harvey was just as they’d left him. This similar view however gave them no sense of relief, as they both immediately observed that rather than be on duty upstairs, Sonja was sat on the floor by his side, something that did not bode well for Harvey’s condition.
John slowly manoeuvred the truck into one of the many vacant parking spaces, taking his time so as to put off the conversation they were about to have just as long as possible, and then eventually switched off the engine. Before getting out, he gave a brief look over to Harvey’s body, and then to Sonja, who sat next to him. Looking back at John, Sonja gave a simple, slow shake of the head, and in doing so told him more than enough.
“Damn it”, he said quietly to himself.
Both men then disembarked from the truck at more or less the same time, opting to leave their items in the back, knowing they were unlikely to be needed in the coming minutes. Each of them then hesitated for a moment, neither wanting to make their way over for what was more than likely going to be a final goodbye. But eventually, they both began the brief walk to the large vertical pipe that Harvey remained attached to.
“He’s not got long”, Sonja said, before either man could ask the inevitable question. “He hasn’t woken up once, he’s got a bad fever and he’s still losing blood”, she explained, “The girls couldn’t do anything else for him”.
“Alright”, John said, as he too lowered himself down to sit beside Harvey, “I’ll wait”.
“How’d it go out there?”, Sonja asked after nodding to acknowledge John’s offer.
“It went-“, Andrew started, before being cut off yet again.
“Okay… it went okay”, John said, “Got a couple bits of food, some ammo, nothing special”.
“Better than nothing I guess”, Sonja said to John, despite knowing he was only really after one thing on such missions.
“Sure”, John replied.
“I’ll take watch upstairs”, Andrew interrupted to announce, himself still stood fully upright.
“Oh”, Sonja said, realising why he was making such a suggestion, “That’s my bad, I’ll head back up”, she insisted, getting to her feet and preparing to resume her duties.
“No”, Andrew replied, placing a hand on Sonja’s shoulder, “You stay with him, I’ll do it”.
Sonja smiled and nodded her head. “Thanks Andrew”, she said, before climbing back down onto the ground as Andrew began the walk over to the northern stairwell.
For a few minutes, John and Sonja sat in silence, each of them watching over Harvey, waiting for the moment the small amount of breathing he continued to do either stopped, or got better. Either scenario would be preferable to just sitting around, waiting for something to happen, but as no such event occurred anytime soon, John instead opted to start up conversation once more.
“Did you know him before?”, John asked, “Before… this place?”, he added, looking around at the innards of the grey building that encased them.
“No”, Sonja replied, “He turned up a few weeks after me and Lester started things here. He was the first person we took in to be a guard”, she explained. “He did a lot for helping secure the place, and made a lot of hard calls, like who to send to Chicago”.
John nodded, knowing of course that Harvey had been the one to send his daughter on one of the previous boats.
“And after him, we didn’t come across many people who were guard material”, Sonja said, “Till you two came along”, she added, now looking at John.
“Did somebody else try?”, John asked.
“Couple people”, Sonja replied, “One of them was a real… well…”.
“Psychopath?”, John suggested.
“Yeah”, Sonja laughed, “That’d about sum him up, his name was Donald, a real strange guy. We ended up making him leave his guns at the entrance whenever he came in, nobody trusted him”.
“Can’t say I blame you”, John said, “I’m familiar with… his type”, he laughed, thinking back to the numerous times John had realised just how strange a man Donald was.
“But Harvey was always-“, Sonja started, only to be cut off.
On the floor to her side, Harvey had suddenly begun to move. But he wasn’t moving in some calm, collected, waking from a slumber sort of way. Instead, he was jerking from side to side, hunching over and straightening out again, making the strangest of noises and seemingly no longer in control of his own body.
“He’s fitting”, John announced, as he scrambled over and grabbed Harvey, trying with all his might to steady the body.
“What do we do?”, Sonja asked desperately.
“Get him on his side”, John instructed, in response to which Sonja assisted with pushing the man onto his side and then holding him there while he continued to fit.
“Should I get someone?”, Sonja asked in a panic.
John stared down at Harvey, holding his head off of the ground, and within a few moments, the fitting subsided.
“No”, he said, before cautiously lowering his head back down.
John placed his ear right up against Harvey’s mouth. It would take a mere millisecond for a fresh member of the undead community to bite at something so close to their teeth, and with it being at such a crucial part of the body, the infection would spread throughout in no time at all. There would be no coming back from a bite like that, and John reminded himself of this during the brief time he remained in place.
After a few seconds of inspection, John dipped his head and let out a long sigh. “He’s gone”, he said, leaning back up from the body.
“Well… do CPR or something!?”, Sonja insisted, “Chest compression
s, air, anything!?”.
“Sonja”, John said plainly, looking dead into her eyes so as to make sure she understood what he was saying, “He’s gone”.
Sonja stared back, and in the seconds that followed went from being a defiant, strong woman that was adamant her friend could be saved, to losing all of that confidence and being forced to simply accept the situation. As she did, a series of tears began forming in the corner of her eyes, each of them soon beginning to trickle slowly down her cheeks.
“God damn it”, she said finally, turning back to Harvey’s body.
The two of them once again sat still for some time, each trying to process recent events, and to understand what was going to happen. John of course found this much easier to comprehend, having been out in the real world for much longer than Sonja had, but that didn’t mean he was anything close to happy about the situation. He knew he could offer little to console Sonja, but what he could do was at least offer her a way out of what he now had to do.
“You should head up”, John said after some time, his gaze still trained on Harvey.
“What?”, Sonja asked, “No, what if he’s not-“.
“I’m not going to do anything till I’m sure”, John said reassuringly, “Not till I know there’s no hope”.
Sonja looked at John, and then to Harvey, and then back to John and then back to Harvey. She knew there had always been little chance, but she couldn’t bear to think of losing anybody from the camp again, especially not someone so vital to its survival.
Realising however that it was best for her, John and Harvey, Sonja finally said those two words she’d feared would be needed sometime soon, looking one last time to the once handsome man as she said them, and with numerous tears streaking out across her face.
“Goodbye Harvey”, she struggled to say, with quivering lips and a series of sniffs.
After a brief delay, Sonja then climbed back up onto her feet, and just as soon as she could manage, began the slow walk over to the northern stairwell.
“Well Harvey”, John said once Sonja was out of earshot, “Looks like it’s just me and you now”.
* * *
Over the next two hours John found a variety of ways to fill the time as he waited for any kind of change in Harvey. He reloaded and cleaned his weapons, sorted out the various items stored in the nearby Ford, and even tried to clean up some of the mess created earlier in the day. But he knew full well that this was all just a stalling tactic. All he was really doing now was waiting to see if Harvey turned, to make sure he didn’t give him an unfitting end if he’d simply succumbed to blood loss, rather than the infection.
Eventually, whilst John sat quietly a few feet from Harvey’s now lifeless body, he finally decided to say his own farewell, to a man he’d never really known all that well.
“Harvey”, he started, “I know we didn’t always see eye to eye. But I want you to know something”, he said, “What you’ve done here with these people, what you did for my wife and my daughter, what you’ve done for so many people’s wives and daughters, it was a great thing”, he continued, now growing a little more emotional himself. “Nobody’s going to forget that… nobody’s going to forget you”, he insisted.
John stared down at the body, and much to his surprise, saw the slightest sign of a spasm taking place. But John didn’t call out Harvey’s name, or go closer to once again check his breathing. If Harvey was showing signs of life, there was only one reason for it, and as John watched the slight spasms turn into bigger movements, and heard that tell-tale groan he was forced to listen to almost every day, he knew what he was dealing with.
“I’m sorry this happened to you”, he said to the man, hoping some part of him could still hear and understand the words. “You didn’t deserve to go out like this”, he added, at the same time as he began to slowly withdraw his knife.
In front, Harvey now began to open his eyes, revealing that their once bright blue colouring now a more lifeless shade of grey and black.
“You were a good man”, John continued.
Harvey then began to groan loudly, at a volume significant enough for Lester to hear and briefly look over, before realising what was happening and instead snapping his attention back outside.
“I’m sorry Harvey”, John said one final time, before standing up over the man, firming the grip on his knife, pointing it blade down, and then sinking it quickly into the still hard surface atop his fellow guard’s head.
Chapter 39: Hatchet
The next morning, a little while after most of the residents had begun tucking into their morning meals, the remaining guards gathered by the car-park’s entrance to discuss the plan of action for the day. Despite the numerous recent events that would usually have required intense debate, this particular discussion was preloaded with one main point of focus; how, when and where to bury Harvey’s body.
Respect was the primary concern, and thus one of the vital talking points throughout. Everybody there knew only too well that it could just as easily have been any one of them being buried that day, and so each were also adamant that everything be handled in as decent a manner as possible. After all, Harvey had been an important asset to the community and had given far more than he’d ever taken.
News of the man’s death had been quietly broken during the night before, and every opportunity had been afforded to all residents to say their goodbyes. John had personally seen to it that Harvey’s injuries were tidied up, and that he was presented in a way that did him justice, not least because he knew how much his wounds – inflicted by both the living and dead – would worry certain people otherwise. Over the course of the early evening, and even throughout the night, a steady stream of residents had made the journey downstairs for their own chance at a final few words, even if only to thank the man for protecting them.
John had hastily constructed what could only be described as an improvised coffin, made from a series of leftover planks and some sheets he’d found lying around to line the insides. He’d then requested Andrew’s help to lower Harvey inside, and then the two had loaded it into the bed of the F150, along with Harvey’s severed leg which was arranged back in place. Whilst far from the kind of elegant open casket ceremony one might have found before the world had gone to hell, enough had been done to at least enable people to see the man one last time, and to make sure it was easy enough to bury him afterwards.
Once everything had been taken care of, and the guards had agreed that much like former residents, Harvey should be buried beneath the grassy area a little ways down from the camp, they then set about deciding who should go. Everyone but Lester – who as per usual, wished to stay on site – had volunteered, but John had quickly argued the case for Sonja to stay behind. Herself and Lester were the original members of the community, and were thus the ones people were more likely to come to at a time like this. Sonja had fought her corner, but eventually she’d come around to John’s way of thinking, and so John and Andrew had been selected as the buriers.
Finally, discussions between the four remaining guards arrived at an issue that only two of them even knew existed, a fact evidenced by John’s reaction to the subject being brought up.
“What about that jet yesterday?”, Sonja asked.
“What!?”, John snapped, his eyes widening immediately despite his assumption that it couldn’t be true, “What jet!?”.
“The one that flew over just as you guys were coming back”, Lester jumped in to explain, his voice as calm and relaxed as always, “You didn’t notice?”, he asked.
Suddenly, John remembered the moment he’d sworn to hearing something whilst at the helm of the truck the day before, only to find at the time that Andrew hadn’t noticed, leading to John assuming he was imagining things.
“I heard something”, John eventually said, “When we were almost back here”.
“Oh yeah he did”, Andrew suddenly remembered, “But we figured it was nothing”.
“Well trust me, it was a jet�
��, Sonja insisted, “Flew right over the base and around the side of Chicago, then off into the distance, saw it with my own eyes”.
“What kind of jet?”, John asked sceptically, wondering if Sonja really meant a jet powered aircraft, or simply a fancy looking plane.
“Military”, Sonja said plainly, dispelling any confusion, “Painted all black, looked like rockets still fixed to each side”.
John shook his head dismissively, unable to believe the situation. Not only had something as incredible as a jet flown over, but a military one at that, and he hadn’t even noticed. Towards the end of the world, he’d heard reports and even seen cases for himself of the military bombing built up areas, trying to stop hordes from spreading any further. But more often than not it had just made a bad situation worse, making roads impassable and hitting just as many living as dead, and for that reason he now found himself worrying what might happen if they decided to repeat the tactic in Milwaukee, or perhaps even Chicago.
“Sonja thinks it means they’re coming”, Lester jumped in to explain, “That we… that you”, Lester said, focusing his attention on John, “Should sit tight and wait”.
“You’re kidding?”, John asked, now turning to look at Sonja, who had an expression on her face that showed she definitely wasn’t. “You think that after all this, there’s still some military out there that can actually save us, and that it’s just waiting for us to make ourselves known?”, he asked.
“Well if not, what the hell else are we waiting for?”, Sonja demanded.
“What are we waiting for?”, John asked rhetorically, “We’re not waiting for anything, we’re surviving! We’re growing crops, building up defences, saving lives”, he said, “In this world now, we are the military!”, he continued, before descending abruptly back into silence.
Aftermath (Book 2): Chicago Calling Page 31
