by JE Gurley
“They’ll be here soon,” she assured Benoit, but he lay silent on the bed she had made for him with two chairs. His chest rose and fell frightening slowly.
Several loud explosions shook the floor, followed by more gunshots, but then she heard nothing more for almost an hour. Her hope of rescue was growing dim. Something had happened, forcing them to leave her behind. She considered her options, but they each dismayed her. She and Tomas might make it out safely past the zombies, but she couldn’t carry Benoit, and she wouldn’t leave him behind. He would die without her, might die in spite of her help, but she wouldn’t abandon him just to save her own life. She looked down at Tomas, asleep in a chair, and wondered if she would abandon a friend for his young life. The answer was still no. If the value of a person’s life became so reduced that she would callously spend it for her own safety, what hope could there be for anyone? It would be better to die clinging to the values in which she believed, those which her father had instilled in her as a child. To do less would be to dishonor his memory.
Gunshots in the corridor outside woke Tomas and roused Benoit. Tomas began crying and Benoit managed to raise his head a few inches and open one eye before collapsing back onto his bed. Rita picked up Tomas and tried to calm him as she watched the door breathlessly, her heart pounding in her chest. Then the pounding came from the door.
“Rita! It’s Kyle Bane.”
Rita hugged Tomas to her chest and released her pent up breath. She laid Tomas beside Benoit and rushed to the door, frantically tearing at the barricade to remove it. As she flung open the door, flashlights blinded her as Kyle and two other men entered. She flung her free arm around him and kissed his cheek. He brushed his cheek where the mask had tickled it, looked at her, smiled, and said, “That was worth the trip.”
“Is this all of you?” She surveyed the three men, disappointed by their small number; then noticed their torn uniforms, splatters of blood, and bruises and retracted her initial dismay. Their journey to rescue her had not been an easy one.
“The others had to carry the survivors to safety.”
By the harshness of his tone, she was almost afraid to ask, “How many?”
“About fifty.”
Her heart sank. Of the people she had known, eaten with, spoken to, most were probably dead. She fought back a wave of despair. She was alive, as was her son and Benoit.
“You came back for me,” she said.
“I said I would didn’t I?”
“Are you hurt?”
Kyle shook his head. “We had to slog our way through a few fungus heads, but no real injuries, except Ginson of course. He popped a stitch or two.”
She pointed to Benoit. “This is Mr. Benoit. He was shot in the shoulder. I did all I could, but he’s lost a lot of blood.” In a quieter voice she added, “I think his heart is bad.”
Kyle gave Benoit a cursory glance; then shared a look of concern with his two companions. She knew what they were thinking – how can they carry an injured man and still fight off zombies?
“Can he walk?” Kyle asked.
She shook her head in confusion. “He is barely awake. We need to nurse him back to health.” She stared at Kyle. “Surely mores soldiers are coming?” When he didn’t answer, she pressed him. “Are they coming?”
He shook his head. “No one’s coming.”
She suspected more that he wasn’t revealing. “Why?”
“Because the army is going to blow this place to hell in less than twenty minutes.”
She stepped back and stared at him. The tall, lanky soldier with the black mustache spoke up. “I can make a travois for him.”
“”What the hell is a travois, Walters?” Kyle asked.
Walters shook his head. “Don’t you ever watch John Wayne movies? You have a serious education gap. It’s an Indian litter. I can use these two curtain rods and drapes. One man can pull him. That leaves two to guard.”
Kyle looked at Rita. “Three. Rita can shoot.” He took Tomas from her arms and made cooing noises at him. “You’d better see to your friend. We have to leave now.”
She busied herself with Benoit, trying to absorb the direness of the situation. Twenty minutes to escape through hordes of zombies seemed impossible. Even if they managed, could they get far enough away to avoid the blast?
Walters ripped down the two curtain rods and used his knife to slit a series of parallel holes about three feet apart in one of the curtains. He slipped the rods through the slits, and then secured broken chair legs at the top and bottom of his travois with strips of cloth. As Rita was changing Benoit’s bandage, she noticed Sergeant Ginson holding his side where he had been injured at the courthouse. His hand came away wet.
“Is that fresh blood?” she demanded. “Why didn’t you get that wound treated?”
Ginson shook his head. “I did. I’m okay. See to the old man.”
Benoit stirred and opened his eyes. He focused on Ginson. “I’m not that old, Sergeant, though I feel it today. If you’ll help me to my feet, I can walk.”
“You just lay back and enjoy the ride. We’ll do the driving.”
The effort to speak had used almost all of Benoit’s energy. Realizing how weak he was, he nodded his head and closed his eyes. Kyle walked over to her bouncing a giggling Tomas in his arms and watched her re-wrap Benoit’s wound. She could tell by his expression that he didn’t think Benoit could survive their escape, but he didn’t say anything about it.
“Did you see my signal?”
“The light? Yes. But I couldn’t respond. We were using night vision goggles. I was relieved to see that you were still alive. It looked bad when we got here.”
“Benoit said the alarm sirens during the first outbreak drew them here. They … they crashed through the window wall. The soldiers couldn’t stop them.”
Kyle’s face became grim. “The army will kill them all.”
“But there may be others trapped like me.”
“Probably, but we can’t save them.”
His being right didn’t lessen the coldness of the idea of destroying Marlins Park. “We could search for them on the way out.”
“Rita, we might not even make it out of here ourselves. We have less than twelve minutes. There are thousands of those things out there. The army won’t pass up this opportunity. Frankly, I’m surprised they haven’t destroyed the place already.”
“But they know we’re here, don’t they?”
“Yes.”
As she studied his face, she suddenly realized he wasn’t wearing a mask. None of them were.
“Why aren’t you wearing your masks?”
“We’re the guinea pigs for a new vaccine. The job doesn’t pay well, but it’s steady work.”
His attempt at humor didn’t fool her. “If it doesn’t work?”
“If it works, we might have a chance of surviving this Cordyceps Plague. If it doesn’t … then it’s back to the drawing board.”
“Finished,” Walters announced. He laid the travois on the ground. He had included a harness for his shoulders.
“It’s time to go,” Ginson said. He pointed down onto the field. A fire had broken out in the Clevelander Restaurant near the Marlins signature homerun sculpture. Fed by a breeze through the broken window wall, the flames were spreading unchecked into the seats above. Smoke billowed up to the roof and pooled overhead like a threatening rain cloud. By the light of the flickering flames, the crazed zombies running around looked like a Seminole war dance. The sight of zombies thrashing in the pool was ethereal, like a scene from a horrible nightmare.
Kyle handed Tomas back to Rita. She placed him in her blanket sling and secured him to her chest. Kyle and Walters gently moved Benoit to the travois. Walters handed Rita his M16, slipped the makeshift harness over his shoulders, and lifted one end of the litter.
Ginson led the way with Walters, Benoit and Rita in the middle. Kyle followed, protecting their rear. She cringed when she saw the body she had stumbled over earlier.
Ginson stopped just long enough to remove the dead man’s dog tags. Just as they reached the non-working escalator going to the Vista level, a large man wearing the remnants of a tattered white coverall leaped at Kyle from the steps, bowling Kyle over. The zombie leaked blood from several bullet holes in his chest and side but ignored his severe injuries as he struggled in his madness to kill Kyle. The creature slammed a fist the size of a brick into Kyle’s head, knocking him almost unconscious. His struggles lessened and the creature continued to rain blows into the detective’s head.
Rita raised the unfamiliar M16 and pulled the trigger. Unaccustomed to the heavy recoil, the weapon sent her stumbling backwards. She caught herself against the wall to keep from falling on top of Tomas. Ginson rushed past her to Kyle’s aid. When she recovered her balance, she saw the large zombie sprawled at an awkward angle on the escalator lying in a pool of blood, half his head missing. Her bullets, at least one of them, had found the target. Ginson pulled Kyle to his feet. His face was a bloody mess, and he reeled from the blows, but he was alive.
The noise would attract zombies. They wasted no time with stealth. Rita grabbed the rear of the travois to speed things up. The commotion had roused Benoit. He tried to sit up but Rita pushed him back down.
“You’re heavy. Lie still before I drop you.”
“Leave me here,” Benoit gasped. “You’ll never make it carrying me.”
“I won’t leave you.”
“You’re killing your child,” he said.
His accusation hurt her deeply, but she knew he was just trying to make her angry. “Shut up and lie still.”
Ginson had one arm around Kyle’s waist supporting him, but he still managed to shoot a second zombie one-handed as it raced through the open door of a suite. The creature fell to its knees, but continued to struggle toward them, its hands clawing the air frantically. Ginson slid to a halt, still supporting Kyle, aimed his weapon at the creature’s head, and fired. The head exploded, splattering Rita’s cloth shoes with blood and gooey brain matter. She jerked her foot back instinctively, noticing that both her shoes were already soaked with blood from earlier.
She glanced through the door of a suite. The fire at the Clevelander had grown larger and had spread into left field seats. The mass of zombies crowding the field had doubled. They were attracted by the flames and stood swaying and moaning in front of the restaurant. Somewhere, a store of ammunition touched by the flames began exploding, adding to the confusion. The confusion played in the group’s favor. Their shots drew few of the creatures their direction. They reached the outside ramps without running into more of the creatures. Just as it looked as if they would make it out of the stadium alive, the floor beneath them began shuddering. The glass around them began to shatter.
“My grenades or the Claymore must have damaged a support beam or two,” Walters said.
Ginson shook his head. “It’s probably the fire.”
“Either way,” Kyle said, “we don’t have much time.”
Before they took five steps, the floor groaned and began tilting downward. As she felt her legs folding, she stumbled and lost her grip on the travois. She swung Tomas to her chest and held on tightly to protect him. Everyone fell and tumbled downward. The travois, still attached to Walters by the harness, slid into him. Benoit’s weight pushed him forward. The two of them landed on the first level in a tangled heap with her, Ginson, and Kyle, right behind them. The noise of the collapse drew the zombies’ attention away from the fire and in their direction.
Rita struggled to get to Benoit amid the rumble but couldn’t find him in the smoke and dust. Finally, she caught a glimpse of him ten yards ahead crawling down the concourse toward the approaching zombies.
“Benoit!” she yelled and started forward. The sharp rubble cut her feet through the cloth shoes but she ignored it. Walters grabbed her and dragged her back.
“He took one of my grenades,” he said.
“But he’s …” she began.
“He’s trying to save us. He’s giving us time to escape.”
She faced Walters with one fist balled, ready to fight him. She was in tears from anger. “We can’t leave him,” she pleaded.
Kyle grabbed the sling in which she carried Tomas and shook her. “We can’t stop him. Think of your child. Let’s go.”
She looked at Benoit. Fifteen or twenty zombies were almost on top of him. She thought he smiled at her as he pulled the pin from the grenade in his hand, but it was too dark to be certain. She closed her eyes not wanting to watch him die. Kyle dragged her and Tomas to safety as the grenade exploded. She felt a hot wind brush her back, and then she was outside with the rain washing her face of her tears.
“Two minutes,” Ginson called out. His eyes searched the sky.
Rita glanced up to see twin streaks of light approaching from the west, flying low beneath the cloud cover. The two jets roared over the stadium and circled. She ran as quickly as she could. Her rain-soaked, tattered shoes fell apart on the wet pavement. Kyle kept pace with her, but his face was an expression of agony. Sergeant Ginson fared no better with his injury. They were less than a twenty yards from Marlins Park, passing the west parking garage, when the jets began their final approach. She knew they weren’t going to make it. They were still too close and moving too slowly.
“Hit the ground!” Ginson yelled as he ignited a flare and waved it over his head.
She fell to the ground with the others waiting to die. At first, she thought the pilots hadn’t seen the signal, but at the last moment, they veered away.
“Come on!” Ginson yelled.
The jets wouldn’t give them much time. They couldn’t. Zombies were already spilling out of the entrance and through the broken glass wall. Ginson ran as he held the flare aloft to pinpoint the small group. They had only managed another sixty yards before the jets returned. This time she knew they would fire their missiles no matter what. The jets were approaching so low she was afraid they would crash. Eight bright streaks of fire lanced through the air toward the stadium just as the jets swooped upward. She fell to the pavement while protecting Tomas with her body. Two of the missiles struck the concourse in front of the stadium. Zombies disappeared in a ball of flame. Others became pieces of flesh shrapnel. Propelled by the blast, their body peppered zombies around them in a shotgun blast. Pieces of human bone punctured skulls, hearts and organs, killing dozens more of the creatures untouched by the blast itself.
The six remaining missiles penetrated the front of the stadium. The ground shook and the interior lit up six rapid times like a strobe light. Flames erupted from every opening and billowed skyward. With the sound of thunder, the retractable roof collapsed inward section by section, filling the interior with tons of steel, crushing anyone inside. The walls of the stadium began to collapse inward, as well as sections of ramp and parking garages. The entire structure folded in on itself.
The heat of the blast swept over the prostrate survivors. Large chunks of concrete and steel fell all around them, but thankfully missed them. A fine cloud of dust, turned into mud by the rain, settled over them. Rita sat up, staring back at the destroyed stadium, and Benoit. Only a handful of zombies, confused by the explosion but drawn by the flames, remained near the stadium. Around her, her companions got to their feet. For several minutes, they stared at the funeral pyre that had been Marlins Park. She knew they needed to leave before the light drew more of the creatures, but the flames were mesmerizing.
Only the roar of a helicopter broke the spell of the flames. She glanced up to see a large helicopter flying low over the parking lot, called in by the jet pilots. It landed a short distance away. With Tomas, who seemed unfazed by all the commotion, snuggled safely across her chest and one arm supporting Kyle, she joined Walters and Ginson in their walk to the helicopter. She didn’t look back. Beneath the rubble and flames lay Benoit, her twice savior. She realized that she didn’t know much about him except that he was a science teacher, but it was enough to form a las
ting memory.
Someone in the Blackhawk offered her his hand and helped her into the helicopter. She snuggled with Tomas against a wall and closed her eyes as they lifted off. She and her son had survived.
17
June 9, MIA, Miami, FL –
Kyle’s pummeled ribs felt as if they were grinding together whenever he moved, and the bruises on his face stood out like billboards for Fight Club. His right eye was swollen almost shut and his jaw ached, but he was still alive. And so far he hadn’t succumbed to the Cordyceps Plague. In fact, Marli was so enthusiastic about the favorable results that she had forwarded the formula to the military for distribution to the country’s pharmaceutical labs for immediate production. He was slightly perturbed that he hadn’t seen her in over twelve hours. Upon his arrival, battered and bruised from the incident at Marlins Park, she had fawned over him until he had sent her away embarrassed by the special attention she was showing him. Now, she was so engrossed in her work that she ignored him completely. With her, it was always feast or famine.
Rita and Tomas had joined the other survivors inside the airport. Hotel rooms had been turned over to them, allowing a degree of badly needed privacy. Too late, as usual, the military had finally taken Marli’s advice and sealed the airport buildings, filtering the air, and installing cleaning stations at all entrances, eliminating the need for uncomfortable masks or respirators. Ginson, after allowing the medic to re-suture his wounds, had reluctantly followed the medic’s advice and taken it easy. Both he and Walters, now local heroes for testing the vaccine, lounged around on cots in the hangar allowing smitten female lab assistants to tend to them. Kyle suffered his share of hero worship the first day, but found the fawning a trifle annoying and insisted on carrying his own weight by reviewing Marli’s projections. He had been at it all day.
The deadly graph lines were tending slightly downward. The rain had washed the air clean of the deadly Cordyceps spores, carrying them into drains and canals and on to the ocean where the high salt content rendered them harmless. It was good news but that didn’t end the plague. Tens of thousands of infected still roamed the city spreading the spores. Other cities, unaffected by rain or not near salt water, still suffered greatly. Kyle knew that the new vaccine, provided it worked, wouldn’t be a God send. With both production and delivery systems in turmoil, synthesizing the vaccine and it into people’s hands would be difficult, and in some instances, dangerous. Even at fifty to sixty percent effective, the potent weapon in their arsenal did not involve bombs or purification by fire. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a start. To Kyle, not quite a pessimist, but always wary of gift horses, things were going too well.
