“How deep is this gross water going to get?” Katie asked.
“If that other pipe is blocked, the water doesn’t have anywhere to go but up,” I replied looking up at the grate above us. “We better get out of this box before we drown down here.”
“How?” Logan asked. “We can’t even reach the grate from down here.”
“Get over here,” I said urgently as I looked up at the grate. “I’ll lift you up and I want you to grab onto the grate. I’ll get under your legs and push you up while you push up on the grate.”
Logan sloshed over next to me and I grabbed him around the waist and lifted him up to the grate.
Logan grabbed onto the grate and called back down to me, “OK Dad, I’ve got it.”
I shifted my position and moved upwards until Logan was sitting on my shoulders.
“Logan, keep your arms as stiff as you can,” I said. “When I stand up, maybe we can push the grate up off the concrete lip. When it starts to move upward, yell and I’ll try to move towards the side of the box.”
“I’m ready,” Logan replied.
I attempted to stand but for a long moment I felt like I was trying to move a concrete wall. I was about ready to stop and take a break when Logan called out.
“I think it’s starting to move,” Logan gasped.
Instead of taking a break, I forced myself to continue straining my muscles, hoping to get into a standing position before my strength gave out.
Slowly I could feel my legs begin to straighten.
“Try pushing to the right,” Logan said, his voice shook as he struggled to keep his arms locked.
I leaned and pushed to the right and was rewarded by the sound of the metal grate scraping across the top of the concrete lip.
“I don’t think we can move it any further, it’s stuck on something,” Logan called down.
“I’m going to lower you back down,” I said to Logan. “I need a break.”
“I think we moved it enough to crawl out,” Logan replied.
“Hang on to the grate, I’m going to get back down on my knees,” I said.
I dropped back down into the water, a moment later Logan dropped back down into the box beside me, making a loud splash.
I took a deep breath and struggled to my feet, then looked up at the grate. We had managed to slide the grate off the top of the box almost two feet.
“Do you want me to go up for a look?” Logan asked.
“No, you wait here with your mom and sister,” I replied. “I’ll go up and see what’s up there. I don’t think I could lift you up that far again.”
“You better hurry, Brian,” Emma said urgently. “But be careful.”
“What do we do if the dead are up there and we can’t get out of here?” Katie asked.
“How long can you hold your breath?” Logan asked.
I looked over at Emma and Katie, they were holding our blankets up over their head as they stood shivering. The water was now half way between their knees and their waists.
“Logan, give me a boost,” I said.
Logan locked his fingers together and held his hands down for me to put my foot, so he could boost me up.
I stepped into his hands and he lifted me up until I could grab the grate.
“I’m going to put my feet on your shoulders, I won’t put any weight on you until you are standing,” I said.
I bent my knees as Logan stood up, keeping all my weight on the grate. When Logan was standing, I transferred my weight on to Logan’s shoulders and stood up until my head was out through the opening.
I quickly ducked back down into the box, hanging by one arm I put my finger over my lips to signal for everyone to be quiet.
I held on now with both hands as I watched a lone figure stagger by the side of the opening.
I glanced down nervously, watching Emma and Katie shivering, as they stared up at the opening.
The water was now up to their waists.
Slowly the staggering body moved past the opening on its way to join the others at the safe zone, barely making a sound that I was able to hear over the pounding rain and thunder.
I gave credit to the pouring rain, thunder and lightening for it not detecting us. I hoped the sounds of the storm would keep our movements from being discovered when we finally managed to get out of the drain.
As the figure slowly moved out of my line of sight, I held my breath and hoped there weren’t any more of them close by or we would be in trouble. The water was almost up to Emma’s neck and I could see the fear in her eyes.
Katie was already holding her breath and I could feel Logan’s body trembling under my feet.
I slowly stood up and cautiously stuck my head up through the opening.
The grossly decayed body was now some thirty feet away with its attention focused on the base, so I pushed my head up a little further.
I now got my first look at the landscape outside the safe zone. We were about two hundred feet east of the base.
The clouds were dark and threatening as the rain continued to pound the ground around me, drowning out any other sounds that might have been out there.
I took a quick look around to be sure nothing was behind me before I continued to scan the area.
The dull gray light and the pouring rain made it difficult to see very well, but at the moment, I felt grateful for the poor conditions. I could see a lot of movement over at our former base, I could only imagine that all the dead that had been staring in through the fence at us inside the base were now inside the base searching for whatever bits of flesh that hadn’t already been claimed. I could also see the fence lying on the ground, it appeared that only a short section of the fence was still standing. Amazingly there was still a large crowd of the dead pushing up against what remained of the fence, their arms reaching in between the bars as if they were trying to somehow get their fair share.
From what I could see the dead were swarming all over the remains of the base.
It also seemed that at least for the moment, that their attention was focused on the building at the base. I then thought of the soldiers that Hank planned to leave behind, there were possibly a few of the soldiers still alive and hiding in the building, and the dead knew they were there.
“Brian,” Emma’s voice whispered from below. “We have to get out of here, the water is up to my chin.”
I slowly pulled myself up through the opening where I then knelt down on top of the grate.
“Keep your voices to a whisper,” I whispered. “Logan, boost your mother up to me.”
A moment later, Emma’s hand shot up through the opening. I pulled her up next to me.
Emma looked around nervously, “Brian, it feels scary to see the dead and not have anything between us and them.”
“I know, but stay low and quiet, hopefully they won’t see us with all this rain,” I whispered back.
“Toss up the blankets,” I whispered down through the opening.
After retrieving the blankets, I handed them to Emma, and had Logan boost Katie up to the opening. I pulled Katie up, her soaked clothing added an extra ten pounds making the job harder than I had anticipated.
Next I reached my arms down into the opening to get Logan.
The deep water in the box made it easier to find Logan as he bobbed up and down in the water near the opening.
I grabbed his arms and pulled him easily out of the now almost full collection box.
When we were huddled close together next to the grate, I whispered, “Since most of the dead are behind us at the base, we are going that way,” I pointed. “Stay low and move very slowly. If we stay low and move slowly, hopefully the dead won’t notice us. Keep your eyes open and watch me because we might have to make a run for it.”
“Run where?” Katie whispered.
“Where ever we have to run,” I replied. “We’ll have to play it by ear, just stay together.”
We each wrapped our blankets round us and pulled part of the blanket over our head
s like a hood, to help keep the rain off our heads and also to disguise our shapes into a blob like object that we hoped wouldn’t interest the dead if any of them happened to look our way.
Water was starting to bubble up out of the grate and flow down over the hillside as we slowly began to move off.
The grate was located next to a road, so we got up on the road and out of the mud and began following the road.
We were soaked and shivering in the cool damp air after having only traveled about two-hundred feet, the only good thing was that we were moving a hundred times faster than we had been able to crawl down in the drain, that and the rain seemed to be finally letting up.
Water was dripping off the edge of my wet blanket, running down over my face. I decided to slide the blanket down off my head to ease my discomfort.
It was then, after uncovering my head and with the rain letting up, that I heard the moaning.
I wondered if it was coming from back at the base and I just hadn’t been able to hear it before because of the heavy rain, I turned my head to look back at the base.
The visibility had begun to improve as the rain slowed and I could now see the base much more clearly, but I could also see the source of the moaning. The dead had seen us and were moving in our direction in one massive formation.
“Shit, they’ve seen us,” I said.
“How?” Emma asked. “Most of the dead at the fence didn’t even have eyes.”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Just like back at the house, they just seem to have a way to sense where we were. I knew they couldn’t see us up in the attic, but they just somehow knew we were there.”
“Is this when we start to run?” Logan asked.
“I don’t think I have enough energy to run,” Katie added.
“And where are we going to run, there isn’t anything around here to run to.”
“Just start walking faster,” I said. “The dead can’t run, we just need to keep them from gaining ground on us until I can figure something out.”
I scanned the area around us as we quickened our pace.
I wasn’t familiar with the area, but I was certain that even if I had been familiar with this area that I wouldn’t have recognized it. The area now looked much like our neighborhood, minus the houses, dead with a reddish black tint and it smelled like hell.
Many of the dead that had come to the safe zone over the last few weeks had probably come this way. It looked like many of the pictures of a Civil War battlefield I had seen. Most of the foliage had been trampled and bloodied. If I didn’t know better, I would have said this area had been used as a bombing range by the Air Force.
The sight was depressing and offered few clues as to where we could go to escape the dead that were following us.
I could also see small groups of the dead staggering across the decimated landscape around us and I knew it would only be a matter of time before they saw us too.
I was frantically trying to think when Logan interrupted my thoughts.
“Dad,” Logan said nervously, “Look up ahead.”
When I looked down the road, I saw another wave of the dead moving towards us and the former safe zone.
“Apparently they didn’t get the word that the safe zone has already been taken,” Emma sighed.
“Them and probably a few thousand more that are headed this way,” I replied as I looked out over the fields that lined each side of the road we were following, watching for any sign that the dead out there had also finally seen us.
“We’re being surrounded,” Emma said. “There isn’t anywhere left to go, is there?”
“We could try running across that field and head north,” I replied. “There doesn’t seem to be as many out that way as there are in front or behind us. If we are lucky, we just might be able to get through.”
“We don’t know where we are or where we’re going, we’re tired and half starved,” Emma smiled sadly. “What do you think our chances will be?”
I didn’t want to answer truthfully, I couldn’t do that to my family. If we were going to die, I wanted us to go out fighting, I didn’t want them to give up and just wait for the dead to take us.
We had just spent weeks living with that feeling back at the safe zone, if you could call that living.
I knew our chances were slim, that is if we had any chance at all, but I also knew that we had to try.
“Our chances are better doing that than just standing around here,” I replied and forced a small smile for the benefit of my family.
“OK,” Emma said and forced a little smile of her own. “Where ever you lead, I will follow. For better or worse, until death do us part…….I can’t remember the rest of it, that was a long time ago.”
Emma’s repeating of that part of our wedding vowels made my heart sink. I’m sure she didn’t mean it that way, but it reminded me that I had promised to love and protect her.
The loving part had always been easy, but it looked like I had failed the protecting part big time. Not only had I failed, but it looked like I would be leading them directly to their death.
I lowered my head, so Emma couldn’t see the hurt in my eyes. She had always said that I could never lie to her even if I wanted to because my eyes always gave me away.
I didn’t want my family to see what I was thinking at the moment, or the tears that had welled up in my eyes at the thought of what would soon happen them.
The moaning was getting louder around us, the sound was making it difficult for me to hold on to my thoughts or my sanity as I thought about our options.
Panic and despair were tearing at my insides as I desperately tried to come up with a way to save my family.
As I looked at the ground by my feet, I saw I was standing on top of another grate.
I looked down through the grate, then dropped down on my knees and put my eyes to the grate to verify what I thought I was seeing.
What I saw raised a glimmer of hope that we weren’t finished yet.
“Brian?” Emma asked. “What are you doing?”
“I looked up and smiled, “I think we have a better option, we can go back down into the drainage system.”
“I don’t think I can hold my breath until the dead have moved on,” Emma replied.
“You won’t have to,” I replied. “The drain is bone dry here. The blockage that caused the drain we were in to back up must be between here and where we got out. We should have a clear path from here.”
“A clear path to where?” Emma asked.
“To where we were going before, somewhere other than out here,” I replied.
“What are we waiting for?” Katie asked as she came over and looked down into the grate. “I promise if we can get back down in the drain and away from the dead that I will never ever complain about having to crawl around on my hands and knees again. Live to fight another day, right Dad? Isn’t that what you always say?”
“Emma?” I asked.
“Anywhere is better than here, or out there,” Emma smiled. Pointing out across the field. “If you’re waiting for my approval, stop wasting time and get that grate open.”
“Hurry Dad,” Katie urged. “They’re almost here.”
Chapter 4
We crawled back down into the drain. The collection box under the grate was a lot shallower than the ones we had seen before. I’m not sure why, maybe it was because we were getting closer to one of the retaining ponds, but it made sliding the grate back into place after getting down into the collection box a lot easier.
We quickly crawled into the pipe, so we would be out of sight when the dead arrived at the grate. I didn’t think the dead would be able to move the grate and follow us into the drainage system, but I didn’t want to tempt fate.
Fate had a way of biting you in the ass when you least expected it.
We had crawled slowly through the drain pipe for about three hours, taking a break every half hour or so.
We got excited when we saw light in the
dark pipe ahead of us as we came to two of the collection boxes during our crawl. We took a short break to stand and stretch at the first box but cut our stay there short when we heard moaning sounds nearby. The second box we were able to rest longer and enjoy the quiet and the sun shining down on us through the grate.
We continued to make our way through the drains, hopeful that it would lead us to somewhere safe. We also gained hope from knowing that with each grate we came to, that the pipe we were in was getting closer to the surface. We hoped that was a good sign, but good or bad, we felt we were getting closer to the end of the line.
We were all tired, sore and scraped up from the rough concrete pipe, but true to her word, Katie didn’t complain and neither did anyone else. We all just felt lucky to be alive and still have a chance.
It was near the end of the third hour that I announced that I saw light up ahead again.
“If it’s quiet when we get to the grate?” Emma asked. “Do you think we should try to go out for another look? Maybe we might see somewhere to go this time.”
“It’s worth a look,” I replied.
“How far do you think we’ve gone?” Katie asked.
“It’s hard to say,” I replied. “Maybe a mile.”
“Wow!” Katie said. “I can’t believe that I’ve gone that far on my hands and knees.”
“I swear you crawled ten miles a day on your hands and knees before you learned to walk when you were little,” Emma laughed. “You wore me out trying to keep up with you.”
“Then after you learned to walk, you wore me out trying to keep an eye on you,” I laughed. “And I haven’t had a single day of peace ever since.”
“I know it’s been a tough job keeping me out of trouble, but I appreciate you were there to help me,” Katie replied.
“It’s helped that I have never been a problem,” Logan added from the back of the pack. “It gave you more time to keep an eye on Katie and believe me she needed it.”
“Watch it Logan, I’m sure Dad would be interested in hearing about a few things you think you got away with,” Katie laughed.
Just Trying To Stay Alive: A Prepper's Tale Page 30
