A Place Outside The Wild

by Daniel Humphreys

  Empathy was the one aspect of the medical field that Tish had always struggled with. Maybe it was the way her dad raised her. There wasn’t anything necessarily wrong with the outlook that Larry had instilled in her, but it also wasn’t one that fit with the more touchy-feely aspects of the medical profession. His concepts of discipline, self-control, and hard work had been a great help in the coursework of medical school. They weren't so great when treating someone suffering from, say, lung cancer, without making a snide comment about their lifelong cigarette addiction.

  Not that there was much of an issue with lung cancer these days.

  Tish smirked as she stepped into the patient room and glanced at her dad. His eyes were open, she was happy to note, but he was deep enough in thought that there was an aspect of a daydream stare to his expression. It broke as she crossed his plane of view and he grumbled, “What are you smiling about?”

  Her smile widened, and she replied, “For such a big bad Marine, you are an awful patient.” Across the room, Frannie was performing physical therapy on Bob Gentry to keep his arms and legs from drawing in. She tried to stifle her own laughter but failed.

  Larry sighed with the air of one long abused and replied, “Whatever.”

  “Lizzie, how are you feeling?” The woman had polished off the bottles of water they’d brought her earlier, but she’d abandoned a mug of canned chicken soup on the bedside table. Tish measured it with a practiced eye and estimated the woman had eaten half of it, which wasn’t bad, all things considered.

  “Better. Sleepy.” She squirmed slightly. “Which is weird, isn’t it? I’m going to have to pee here in a bit.”

  “Do you want the bedpan, or do you want to try and walk?”

  The woman grimaced. “If you want to let me, I’ll try to walk. I want out of here.”

  Tish smiled. “Sounds good to me. You done over there, Frannie?”

  “Give me just a minute.”

  “All right, I’ll go ahead and prop the door open.”

  She turned around and headed back to the break room. The clinic had one bathroom, mainly used by the doctors. It was a strange mixture of familiar technology and jury-rigged pioneer hardware. The outflow went to a septic tank — and was eventually used for fertilizer, something that still grossed her out if she thought it too much — but they didn’t have true running water. When they’d built the clinic, the attic space had been set aside for a large water storage tank. It had been necessary to place the structural walls in specific points to support the weight, but having clean water was a necessity for a clinic. They’d plumbed in a connection to one of the windmill-driven wells to keep the tank topped off. The water smelled strongly of rotten eggs, but it was clear. They still didn’t have enough electrical capacity to install a hot water tank, so they boiled and stored water as needed.

  Inside the break room, Tish propped open the bathroom door and dragged a couple of chairs out of the way to make a clear path for Lizzie. Despite the other woman’s eagerness, she knew that she and Frannie would have to be there for more than moral support. She was stiff and weak from her ordeal, but she wasn’t as bad as Bob and his neighboring patient, JT. At some point, they were going to have to decide if they were throwing good after bad. The two men had overdosed weeks before Lizzie, showed no signs of coming around, and were requiring more and more physical therapy to fight against tendon contracture. Eventually, the demands of their care was going to surpass the capabilities of the medical staff unless they got some extra help. Even that might be more trouble than it was worth, as they’d have to watch the newbies like hawks until they learned the job.

  The space was as open as it was going to get without moving the tables, she judged. As she turned to head back, the entire building shook. It didn’t last long, but it was strong enough to rattle the entire place and knock items off of the shelves. As the vibration faded, a loud thump sounded — far enough away that the sound had to travel, she judged, but not so far that there was more than a hair’s breadth of a delay.

  “What the hell?” Tish exclaimed. She stepped out of the break room and headed for the doors. Frannie sprinted out of the other room to join her and the two of them studied the view through the front of the clinic. A few of the people outside were pointing to the south and east. Other than that, everything looked normal. Whatever had happened was out of view. Tish stepped forward to open the door and go out for a better look but stopped at the sound of a cold, firm voice.

  “Don’t.”

  Frannie and Tish turned. Jaid stood in the doorway of the exam room, and her demeanor was so changed that Tish wondered what in the world had happened to her. There was a manic light in her eyes, and her hand was tucked in one pocket of her coat.

  Tish’s heart sank as Jaid removed her hand and pointed the small semiautomatic pistol. “I think everyone else is going to be busy for a bit. Which gives us a perfect opportunity to have a little chat, doesn’t it?”

  Hanratty snapped awake at the sound of the explosion. Before he could stop himself, he jerked upright and slammed his forehead into the bottom of the LAV. The dull thump reverberated all the way down to his toes. “Damn it,” he cursed. He flopped back to the ground and rubbed at his forehead.

  A shout came from atop the vehicle. “Captain! You need to see this!”

  Hanratty rolled out from underneath and climbed unsteadily to his feet. His head throbbed. He could already envision the bruise he was going to be sporting later. Couldn’t sleep in the compartment, could you? He shook his head, climbed inside, and moved up to the vehicle commander’s hatch. Rivas was already up in her own turret. He stuck his head up and out and stopped dead. Chunks of burning debris described falling ballistic arcs across the sky, and a line of smoke traced the southern half of the eastern wall. “What the hell, Rivas?”

  “Got no clue, sir,” she said. “Sheet of flame shot up along the entire front of the wall. Looked like napalm, almost. Are we under attack, sir?”

  “Given my luck lately, who knows,” Hanratty grumbled. He snagged a pair of binoculars and studied the far end of the wall. Ant-sized people ran around, and their demeanor was anything but calm. The distant crackle of gunfire came to him and he leaned forward in the turret and propped his elbows on the edge. “Oh, hell,” he said.

  A group of men and women ran by. Hanratty lowered the binoculars and followed the movement. They were all geared up with rifles, and a few carried battered surplus ammo cans. One of them noticed his study and paused long enough to shout, “Wall breach, Captain!”

  “Damn,” Hanratty cursed and dropped back down inside the LAV. His eyes, unfortunately, hadn’t been deceiving him. “Where’s Patterson?” He demanded as he closed and dogged his hatch.

  “Grabbing chow, Cap.”

  “Well, he’s going to miss the party,” Hanratty said. “Looks like it’s just you and me. I’ll drive, you shoot.” If anything, the crackle of gunfire from the corner was intensifying. He pulled the rear hatches and dogged them. Pete’s swarm had lurked in the shadows all this time — would they keep lurking after the wall breach? Somehow, he doubted it.

  “We’re light on machine gun rounds, and we’ve only got a handful of flechette rounds for the 25mm.” The LAV’s main gun was of limited utility against even massed groups of infected. One of the first innovations the surviving military had tinkered together was a modified 25mm sabot round that held a bundle of small tungsten darts. They were wickedly effective against infected hordes, but the primitive nature of their assembly line kept supplies limited.

  Hanratty settled into the driver’s seat and cranked the engine. “Well, there’s always the Patton method.”

  “Sir?” she said, confused. Hanratty grinned and dropped the LAV into gear.

  “We’ll grease our tracks — or wheels, rather — with their guts, Rivas.”

  “Anything?” Ross said. His kept his voice pitched low — all the better to avoid disturbing Janacek, who crouched in front of the fire door with one ear pres
sed up against it. The younger man hesitated, as though he were willing any sounds to pass through the metal door and into his ear, and then shook his head. Miles let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

  “Nothing, sir,” he said, finally. “Quiet as a—” he caught himself, then shrugged with a sheepish smile. “You know.”

  Ross smiled crookedly. “Let’s just hope it stays a tomb. Shout out if you hear anything.” He wheeled around and stepped inside of the elevator shack. Miles followed though he felt like even more of a third wheel than usual given Ross’ energetic motions. “Anything, Chief?”

  Foraker gave a slight shake of his head, then shrugged. “Don’t know if we’d hear anything, anyway. We left the hatch closed.” He rocked back and forth on his heels and finally said, “What’s our move, Mikey?”

  “I’m working on it, Chief,” Ross promised. He turned to Miles. “Mr. Matthews, what do you know about long-range communications?”

  “Zip,” Miles admitted. “Other than a general ‘turn the radio and it gets this channel’ kind of thing.”

  Ross rubbed his head and looked thoughtful. “The MBITR’s don’t have enough range to reach Camp Perry, but we’ve got a portable Blue Force Tracker in our supply ruck. Maybe we can, I don’t know, hack some sort of antenna together to boost the signal.”

  “Which assumes that there’s anyone left to actually receive it,” Miles murmured.

  “Well, yeah,” Ross admitted. “Short of zip-lining off the roof, we don’t have a way out of here without going through the building. And I’m not too enamored of that option at the moment.”

  Miles considered the opposite rooftop and shuddered. “Yeah. Wait, zip line?”

  Ross waved a hand. “Bad joke. Antenna?”

  Miles sighed and looked around the elevator shack. “I wouldn’t even know where to start,” he admitted. “I mean, there’s more to it than just hooking up a big wire, right? That might help receive a signal, but I’m pretty sure you need to boost the power to extend the transmission range.” He made a face. “If I had Google and access to Fry’s Electronics, no sweat, given the time, but hell, Lieutenant. I’m not MacGyver.”

  The other man rubbed his face and sighed. “Shit. All right. I’m going to park the tracker up on top of the roof. If I set it on repeat, maybe the signal will get through at some point.”

  Ross ghosted through the doors. Miles frowned and leaned on the railing surrounding the elevator shaft.

  “Don’t sweat it, kid,” Foraker murmured. “He’s just grasping at straws.”

  Miles glanced up at him and smiled. “I get it,” he assured the other man. “Feeling a little out of sorts myself. I’ve spent the last few years trying to avoid getting into no-win situations. This is a bit out of my comfort zone.” He frowned and craned his neck over the edge of the shaft. Foraker followed his eyes and stepped forward to mimic his movement.

  “Is that . . . ?” the Chief said.

  “I think it’s the hatch. It has to be, right?”

  At the bottom of the shaft, a faint square glowed. Disaster planning — send all elevator cars to the ground floor and lock the doors open. The doors to the lobby. The lobby that was completely walled in with glass.

  The light from below flickered and Miles caught a vague sense of motion in the distance. “Shit,” he whispered. The light faded out, obscured by a press of who knew how many bodies. Could they climb?

  Of course they can climb. They just crashed a fucking helicopter, idiot.

  “Mikey!” Foraker shouted. Gravel rustled outside as Ross leaped down from the top of the elevator shack. “We got problems!”

  “The power,” Miles snapped. “If we bring the car up to the server room, there’s no access from below. It’ll cap off the building.”

  Ross and Foraker stared at him for a long moment, then shared a glance between one another. “That cuts off our best egress,” Foraker pointed out.

  The lieutenant’s mouth worked. “Do it,” he spat finally. Miles snapped into action.

  “Pull the cable!” he shouted to Foraker as he jerked their jury-rigged connector off of the shelf. He fumbled for what felt like an eternity and finally got it seated into the elevator control system. He turned to pick up the other end, but Foraker had already pulled it over to the battery system and connected it. The SEAL hammered the switch to bring the power back up and turned to Miles with a look of anticipation on his face.

  “Come on, come on,” Miles whispered. The charging cycle was no longer than it had been before, but it felt like an eternity, now. Finally, the display lit up and he pounded frantically on the buttons. “Get up, get up.”

  “Guns up, Chief!” Ross barked. “Who knows how many have already gotten through!” The two men trained their rifles over the railing.

  The motor kicked to life. The smooth purr from before was gone; now, the motor sounded strained. Miles realized with dawning horror that there were already enough zombies inside and on top of the car to overwhelm the system’s weight rating. He racked his mind and tried to remember what the sign bolted by the panel inside of the cab had said, and failed. It had never mattered, before. He urged the motor on, mentally. The sound hadn’t gotten any worse, but it hadn’t gotten any better, either. Whatever the case, it was pulling the car up. This was doable. He’d stop the car a few floors down and they could take out any hitchhikers from higher ground. The cables continued to wind smoothly, and he let out a sigh of—

  The strained roar of the motor escalated into a high-pitched whine, and the cable spool suddenly reeled into the housing at more than double the prior rate. At the same time, a sharp snapping sound echoed up the elevator shaft.

  Miles recalled his earlier concern about the integrity of the cable. It had been strong enough for the car and three of them, but the weight of untold numbers of zombies, both inside and on top? Too much. He dove for the floor as the cable blurred through the pulleys. The arrangement should keep the whipping, broken end away from them, but he wasn’t about to risk the worst. Across the shaft, Foraker pulled Lieutenant Ross to the ground as the end of the cable appeared at the top of the shaft. It oscillated wildly and smacked into one of the railings as the motor drew it back into the housing. With the cable fully withdrawn, the motor ran for the span of several racing heartbeats until it shut down. It was either damaged or had somehow recognized that a fault had occurred in the system.

  “What’s going on?” Janacek hadn’t left his post. His shout was just audible over the fading echoes of the elevator’s catastrophic death.

  “Stand by,” Ross barked. He got back to his feet and peered down into the elevator shaft. Miles joined him, hoping beyond hope that the falling car had somehow blocked off the open doors to the lobby.

  Luck wasn’t with them — if anything, the lighted opening below them was even larger, as though the roof of the car had ruptured when it hit the ground floor. Foraker kicked his gun light on and panned it over the bottom of the shaft. Gray-skinned bodies milled about, but there was a sense of order and purpose to their movements. Slowly and steadily, the clot of infected humanity separated into a stream of undead flesh that moved inexorably up the ladder on the side of the elevator shaft.

  The slide locked back on Pete’s pistol and he stepped sideways and back. The calm resolve of his voice belied the frantic tempo of his thoughts. “Vir, go.”

  The other man stepped up and began to take slow, aimed shots at the horde that lurched toward them. The breach in the wall was small; narrower at the base than at the top. They’d stacked up enough of the undead that it slowed the newcomers, but their advance was inexorable. They attackers had already forced them to step back, which widened their perimeter even more.

  Vir missed his first two shots; his third stuck the zombie crawling over the crest of the mound of dead flesh and knocked it back and out of sight. Another replaced it as soon as it fell back.

  Pete dropped the magazine out of his Colt and replaced it with his next-to-last on
e. The VEPR shotgun was empty and abandoned somewhere under the leading edge of the pile.

  Shouldn’t have changed your mind about taking the time to get more firepower, boss.

  “Where the hell is Gary?” He muttered to himself and thumbed the slide release to chamber a round.

  “It’s getting a little sporty here,” Vir shouted, and began rapid-firing. Pete glanced up; a massive clot was pushing up and over the mound of the fallen.

  Charlie was sporting one hell of a shiner where some debris had hit him, but he stepped up without a prompt and added his own fire to the crescendo.

  Pete waved an arm at Trey, Jenny, and Brett, and shouted, “No more than three at a time shooting! We can’t afford to be all caught reloading.”

  “Are you nuts?” Brett screamed, hysterical. He clutched his emptied rifle in front of him like a holy talisman. “We need to get the hell out of here!”

  Pete licked his lips and hesitated for the barest of moments. He stepped over to the other man and jerked the rifle out of Brett’s hands. “Go,” he said quietly. “But leave your mags.”

  Something cracked through the younger man’s terror. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. Confusion flashed across his face. “Wait . . . what?”

  “I don’t have time to babysit you here, son. If you can’t hack it, fine. But don’t create obstacles for the rest of us. Go — but make yourself useful and raise the alarm. Start getting everyone into the shelter.” He glanced over at the pile at the breach. The fear and the stress was contagious. His team was missing more shots than they took, and their actions grew more frantic with each step of retreat. Pete turned back. “Move it, soldier!” he roared.