by Howard, Bob
There wasn’t time to stop and take it all in, but Tom did have time to realize that cars were against the trees on the far side of the road, all lanes and the median were blocked, and large numbers of cars had tried to go around the wreckage by crossing a small open field on the right. Once cars and trucks began getting stuck in the soft soil of that field, it had filled with people trying to drive through the gaps between them. In some places there were cars on top of cars, and many trucks had rolled over smaller vehicles. In the moments when the chain reaction began, it must have been total mayhem just avoiding running over people who were fleeing for their lives. The infected didn’t have to search for people to bite. They only had to stand still and wait for the unsuspecting living to run directly into their arms.
Tom didn’t know how long this many infected had been wandering around near this impossible barrier, but many of them had been doing what they tended to do when there was nothing drawing their attention. They had been just standing around and staring at each other. Sometimes a breeze would blow and move a tree, and they would all look that way. Sometimes it was nothing more than moving grass that drew their attention, but given nothing new for a really long period of time, they often did nothing more than stare at their own feet.
This crowd of infected was on stimulus overload. After countless weeks of nothing new to attack, there was a roaring pillar of fire and smoke, and a handful of living people running through their midst. The horde was growing by the second as the highway filled with more and more of the infected, and they were coming from all directions.
Just when it seemed to Tom that they had made a terrible mistake to think they could run through so many of the infected, something exploded near the power relay station. The sound momentarily blocked out the chorus of groaning that had also increased to a deafening roar, but as the explosion rolled across the trees, the houses, and the infected, the groaning changed to a fevered pitch. Tom said it sounded like desire, and the thought made him shudder. He said he heard them groan plenty of times, but he said the explosion seemed to awaken in them a more desperate sound.
Tom looked around himself and saw that he was completely surrounded, but he kept moving from side to side and mostly forward. He didn’t have time to look back to see if the last survivors in his group were still with him, but he was sure he heard a scream rise above the sound of the groaning. He came face to face with infected dead more than once, but there was so much noise and so much movement, that he was fairly sure they were lost in the craziness that was happening around them. Before it registered in whatever thought processes drove the infected to react, Tom had slipped by again.
Molly clung to Tom’s neck and held her breath for most of the run through the horde. She even kept her eyes shut for most of it, but Tom could sense from the racking sobs he felt shudder through her that she wasn’t going to be able to keep it together much longer.
Tom said that he didn’t remember when the pavement ended and the grassy median began. He also didn’t remember when the pavement began or ended the second time. The fire truck was just suddenly in front of him.
There were infected on all sides of the truck, and although most of them were reaching in the direction of the huge pillar of fire and smoke, some of them could see him better now that he was not blending in with the crowd. With the truck as his background, he looked exactly like what he was……a living, breathing person who needed to be bitten.
Tom practically tossed Molly over the top edge of the truck to safety, and with his last drop of willpower he caught his foot in a rung of ladder and gave himself a powerful shove to freedom. He felt more than one hand grab his trailing leg but not bites, and with disbelief he rolled over to find Molly sitting on top of coiled firehoses and ladders smiling at him. He looked around and saw that they weren’t even visible to the infected dead surrounding the truck.
It was with no small measure of guilt that he remembered the four people who had been with him. He had become so caught up in keeping Molly alive that he had never even asked their names. A small part of him wondered if he stopped asking people for their names because he had seen so many die in such a short time.
Tom looked around at us all and realized that he had become lost in his thoughts and had stopped talking.
Kathy said, “It’s okay, Tom. You can tell us the rest later.”
“No, no……I should finish,” he said. “You need to know this if you don’t already.”
Tom thought for a minute before continuing, and he listened as his little girl was doing her duty in the next room at the short wave radio.
Tom said he didn’t want to draw attention to where they had gone, and he was sure there were a few of the infected still trying to figure out where he had gone or how they could climb the side of the truck, but he had to see if the others had made it. He lifted himself up on his elbows and looked out between firefighting equipment to get a better look at the direction from where they had come.
Everywhere Tom looked there were the infected dead. There had to be hundreds of them, and they were mostly glued to the sight of the fire and smoke, but his heart sank when he spotted smaller groups that were more intent upon some other prey that could only have been the last members of his group. He couldn’t see them, and there were no screams, but he could tell what was happening under so many hungry mouths. Tom rolled away from the view and just let the feeling of safety sink in.
He told us that he didn’t know how long he laid there on his back just looking up at the gray sky and letting the weariness wash over him, but he gradually became aware of the building behind the big fire truck. He had come to rest with his feet facing the fire station and his head resting on a coil of rope by the cab of the truck. His daughter was sitting by his right hip and just watching him. Molly had a way of bringing calm to herself and to him at the same time, and when Tom was calm he thought more clearly. The back of the truck wasn’t three feet from a second floor window.
Tom lifted himself onto his elbows and looked over the side of the truck again. There were still hundreds of infected dead moving toward the other side of Highway 17, and he figured they had to all be over there sooner or later. At least most of them would be.
Tom told us that he wondered if there were any inside of the fire station, and he was torn between crossing the small gap during the daylight hours when he would surely be spotted by the horde of infected, and waiting for the sun to go down. The inside of the station would be pitch dark, and would be a death trap if he stumbled into the bite of one or more of the infected.
It didn’t take him long to decide because he didn’t think they would do any better if they spent the night on top of the truck and waited for the horde to finally pass. Judging by the numbers still emerging from the trees as far up Highway 17 as he could see, Tom didn’t have a great amount of faith in the theory that they were going to run out of new arrivals any time soon. It would have to be before it got dark.
Tom explained to Molly that he was going to go inside the building and then come back for her. Molly asked why she couldn’t come too, but all he needed to do was to say he had to make sure it was safe, and that nothing could hurt her on top of the truck. Molly was worried, but she had learned over the last few weeks when her father really needed her to be brave.
He dug around in the cases of neatly stashed firefighting gear on top of the truck and found exactly what he hoped for. There were several working flashlights. When he clicked the button on the first one and it came on, he could feel his spirits soar. Next, he looked for something he knew firemen used to bring down walls and ceilings, and he wasn’t surprised to find them, but he was glad to see they were still standard issue.
An axe might be too hard to swing in close quarters, so he was looking for something that resembled a pike. He found three fastened in a rack below the ladders. Each pike was about six feet long, had a sharp steel tip and a vicious looking hook. Tom told himself that he would prefer to thrust outward rather than
swing an axe like a bat, especially in close quarters.
There was only one more thing Tom wanted. A fireman’s coat would give him added protection from bites, and as a bonus he hoped to find a pair of heavy duty gloves. There was a locker full of spare protective clothing, and he helped himself. He felt a bit conspicuous in bright yellow clothing, but he couldn’t have felt safer.
Tom and Molly gave each other a big hug, and then they found the best spot for her to wait for his return. The gray sky had turned to a slight drizzle, so Tom used extra coats to make a shelter where Molly could stay warm and dry. Once she was situated, he worked his way to the back of the truck and looked across at the window.
Tom said that he remembered thinking to himself that it was only one long step. It didn’t matter that it was up in the air, and it didn’t matter that below him were dead people who would shred him with their teeth if he slipped on the damp roof around the window. The roof was slanted on both sides of the window, and just a bit more level in the area directly in front of it.
He used the pike to steady himself as he made the step, and it was as easy as he had expected given that he was a professional baseball player, but he still felt like he was doing a high wire act at a circus. He decided that he wasn’t afraid of heights, he was just afraid of falling from high places.
With one foot on the roof in front of the window and one on the truck, he tested the window to see if it was unlocked. Breaking it would be no problem, but if there was something inside, he didn’t want to make more noise than he needed to. At first it stayed where it was, but with just a slight amount of effort, it slid upward.
Tom gripped the sill with one hand and then pulled himself the rest of the way from the truck to the window. He put his head close to the opening and tried to listen for sounds coming from inside. It was difficult because there was so much noise outside, and some of the noise was being drowned out by the blood pounding in his ears. He had his head turned sideways to the window and almost didn’t see the hand that was reaching for his arm.
When Tom saw the movement in the corner of his eye, the infected was lowering its head toward his arm with its mouth stretched wide. He probably would have fallen backward from the window if he had tried to pull his hand away from being bitten. Instead, he held on with his left hand and threw a right jab to the side of the greasy looking head. The thick protection of the glove and coat sleeve would have stopped the teeth from tearing into his arm, but he was also grateful for the protection on his punching hand. To his surprise, his punch collapsed the entire left side of the infected man’s head. Bone fragments would have shredded Tom’s hand if he would have thrown a bare handed punch, and it would have meant the end for Tom. The creature went down in a heap and didn’t move.
Tom was even more aware of the blood pounding in his ears as he tried to make himself calm down. He was more than a match for the weak monster that had just tried to bite his arm, but Tom was amazed by the fact that something so frail could be so deadly. It made him think about how silly it was to be afraid of spiders or even the cockroaches that grew extra large in South Carolina. They were gross and a nuisance, but they couldn’t kill you.
He leaned back toward the window and listened, but this time he turned on a flashlight and aimed it into the darkness. He saw that he was looking into a large room, and his flashlight didn’t seem to reach every corner. He could gradually make out the details of furniture and a pool table. There was theater style seating, and a huge movie screen on one wall. The room was obviously for the recreation and entertainment of firemen as they worked shifts of several days on duty in a row.
Tom couldn’t remember how many days firemen worked in a row, but one of his fans had talked with him about being a fireman, and Tom always thought it would be a fulfilling career. The man had told him fire stations were supposed to be home to the men and women who worked there, so they were likely to be more comfortable than most people expected. The newer stations had even more amenities than the old ones, and this one appeared to be really new. At least it had been new. It had probably smelled a lot better before the infected had taken up residence.
After convincing himself that none of the shadows were infected dead waiting for him to step into their den, Tom put one leg in through the window. After all, the infected weren’t exactly subtle when they saw living people within reach. The crowd of infected gathering around the back of the truck were making enough noise to attract anything inside, so Tom didn’t have to worry about being too quiet. Still, he moved as quietly and carefully as he could.
He stepped over the infected man that he had dropped with one punch and began circling the room staying close to the wall. Playing the flashlight over everything he couldn’t readily identify, Tom found that the room was as big as the first floor bay that held two fire trucks. The only difference was a lower ceiling. He could see two doors along the wall that ran from the front of the station to the back wall. He dreaded what he had to do, but he knew he would have to go through every room if they planned to stay for any length of time, and by this point he was beginning to hope they could.
After circling to the opposite wall, Tom turned off his flashlight and let his eyes adjust to the dim light that came from the open window. There was another window on the back wall, but there were curtains closed over it. As his eyes adjusted, he was able to make out familiar shapes and was certain that there were no more infected dead in the room. One shape wasn’t familiar so he edged a little closer to take a look.
Older, more traditional fire stations had the pole for the firemen to get to the truck quicker. Some new fire stations still had the poles, and this one had a shiny pole enclosed by a railing that curved around the opening in the floor. Tom looked into the darkness below and strained to hear if there were any noises coming from the huge engine bay. It was quiet, but he wouldn’t take that for granted. He thought about it for a moment, and it occurred to him that the best way to find out for sure was to be obvious. He walked over to a table and picked up a glass that had long ago been left behind. He walked back over and dropped the glass and waited.
The glass shattered at the bottom, and the groaning started a split second behind it. Tom told us that there was something really odd about the sound the glass had made, almost like it had hit something before it hit the floor. He clicked on the flashlight and pointed it at the base of the pole, and he was surprised to see an infected dead on the floor. He was looking up at the flashlight and reaching upward with one hand aimed at Tom. It took a few moments to figure out what he was seeing, but Tom was able to piece it together. The infected was on the floor instead of walking around because it had fallen through the hole and broken its legs.
Tom sat down on the floor and looked around the room. He was wondering how he was going to kill the infected that was sitting below him, and he was wondering how he was going to be able to clear the building of any infected he hadn’t found yet. He figured one of the doors was going to be to the bunk room, and the other was maybe to a restroom, but knowing what each room was for was far less important than knowing what was in them.
He pushed himself up from his perch by the hole and walked over to check on Molly. He saw that the light drizzle of rain had gotten a bit steadier, but Molly looked like she was still doing okay. She gave him her usual little smile and wave, and he was impressed by how patient and brave she could be. He looked back toward the large room and it occurred to him that he had never tested the lights. The power station across the highway was going up in smoke, but there should have been emergency lighting somewhere. The only thing he could imagine was that the emergency lights had already been on, and that the batteries had gone dead.
Tom tested a light switch and wasn’t surprised that the room stayed dark. He crossed over to the first closed door and said out loud, “Let’s get this over with.” He leaned with his right ear up against the door and listened. He didn’t hear anything, so he tapped lightly on the door. It was still quiet, so he knocke
d louder. He wasn’t sure if he would have preferred to hear groaning or silence, but he got silence. If it had been groaning, he would have known for sure something was behind the door. He put his hand on the knob and turned it as quietly as he could. He pushed the door open and backed up in one motion.
Nothing came out through the door, but Tom mentally kicked himself. If something had been in the room, he wouldn’t have been able to shut the door in time. He would have been forced to deal with whatever came out no matter how bad it was. He looked over at the other door and hoped he would be lucky at that door too.
He eased back up to the open door and used his pike to push it open further. The room was also large because it was laid out like a big efficiency apartment. There were bunks, a toilet area, and a community shower. Personal lockers had names on them, and Tom saw by the names that he was in the lady’s bunk room. There were two windows with the curtains open, so Tom’s eyes adjusted well enough to see the room was safe.
There was no sense in delaying the inevitable, so Tom walked back into the recreation room and crossed over to the second door. This time there was little doubt about where this door went because there had to be stairs somewhere. Instead of knocking, he just quietly opened the door and listened at the gap. It was dark, but there was total silence. Tom turned on his flashlight and aimed it at the darkness.
There was a landing on the other side of the door and then stairs that went down to a corner and made a left turn at the next landing. There may have total silence, but the smell was so bad it was nauseating. Tom started down as quietly as he could, holding the pike out like a lance. He made it to the landing after the first set of stairs and put his back to the wall.
