“We might be able to help, Jason. I can’t guarantee anything at this point, but if our plane can get repaired and we can get to it…then I can get you back to Etna. At that point, it’s still up to the commander at Etna Station. We don’t have the resources to take everyone in. It’s a pay-to-stay type of situation, hence this uniform,” I said, pulling at my camouflage utilities.
“Just my son. I don’t care about myself, just him. If he can make it, I’ll consider it a victory.”
“Some might be turned away, but worst case scenario, they’ll get cleaned up, new clothes, some food and the perimeter of the base is a relatively safe place. Personally, that’s the best I can offer. I’m fairly low on the totem pole myself.”
“Hey, Mike.” Gary was at the doorway, leaning against the frame. I wanted to smile at his outfit, looked like a mascot for some minor league baseball team in his bright M&M’s clothing, but it was easy enough to see he was in a great amount of discomfort.
“How you doing, brother?”
“It hurts, even through the haze of the pills. Winters wants to see you.”
“He could have come here, you didn’t need to do it.”
“Hurts more to lie down.”
I could understand that; weren’t many parts of his body that weren’t scraped raw. Lying on those bits would be like recuperating from a sunburn inside a sandpaper sleeping bag.
“Is he coming?” I asked.
“He wants to talk to you alone.”
“If you’ll excuse me.” I stood and waited for Gary to move away; I didn’t want to rub up against him accidentally. He was following, albeit very slowly. Winters was in the far corner of the church, talking into his handset.
“Roger that,” he said before turning to me. “That was Major Eastman. They have more damage than they originally thought.”
“Still no comm with Etna?”
Winters shook his head.
“ETA on repairs?”
“That’s the thing…without parts, it’s indefinite.”
“Fuck. I told Bennington coming to the East Coast was a bad idea! Too far away from any help. Okay, so, what are our options?” I was thinking out loud. “There’s got to be a radio station or television studio around here; would we be able to broadcast something to them?”
Winters was thinking on it. “We’d need to get a backup generator for power, but the communication satellites are still up there. No reason to think they wouldn’t still be working. Etna monitors all bands. We still have a small continent’s worth of zombies outside, though, before we can get anywhere.”
“We’ll add that to our list of growing problems. These people are starving; we’re going to need to get them some food and water. How’s Harmon?”
“I think she might be in shock. She’s got a raw patch on her head I’m sure is going to hurt for a while, but that’ll heal long before she gets over this.”
“Anything else I should be aware of?”
“I think that about covers it.”
“Thanks.” I went with him to check on Private Harmon. Corporal Stenzel and PFC Grimm were both with her and they were talking. They stopped when they saw me coming. I motioned with my head for the other two to leave. “How you doing?” I sat on the pew next to Harmon.
“Good to go, sir,” she said without ever looking up.
“This isn’t a psych eval, Private. I’m genuinely concerned about your well-being.”
She was wringing her hands in her lap; she took a moment before pulling her head up to look at me. “Scared shitless, sir.”
“About the normal reaction. It would be a lot crazier if you weren’t.”
“Like, so scared, I’m not sure I’m ever going to be able to leave this seat. I feel like I might be losing my mind.”
“Again, normal response, Harmon. You did good out there.” She rolled her eyes at me. “You’re alive, right? I’m alive. We made it. Keep talking with your friends and remember ‘almost dead’ and ‘actually dead’ are two vastly different states of being. You can have some downtime when we get back, but sooner rather than later, I’m going to need you and your impressive shooting skills perched up high.” I pointed to the balcony that overlooked the congregation. “You’re going to be my sniper while we try to find a way out of here.”
“Are you sure, sir?” She held up her hands; they were trembling.
“Anything I can help with?” Jason had come our way. The rest of the congregation, I use that word for lack of a better one, mostly ignored us. I think it had to do with the hunger or just the fact of having been stuck in here since the beginning. You could be bunkered in the Taj Mahal and still lose your mind not being able to go out. Or maybe they were still flat-out suspicious; at this moment it wasn’t a puzzle I was overly worried about solving.
“Unless you have an easier way to get out of here so we can get to the NBC studio, probably not.” I’d meant it more as an aside; his delay and hesitation in not responding had me thinking otherwise.
“There’s a passageway from Times Square to Rockefeller Center.” He licked his lips.
BT had assisted Gary and was now with our burgeoning group. By assist, I mean he walked behind him to make sure my brother didn’t fall; he did not prop him up because there was no safe place to grab hold of him.
“Want me to have Winters give you another pill? Maybe you can get some sleep. You make me hurt just looking at you,” I told him.
“Wouldn’t be the worst thing,” he responded.
“Harmon, can you go get him one? Thank you.”
“I know that shortcut. A lot of folks use it when it’s cold out. If I remember correctly, that’s maybe a block away, though.” BT thought back on the old haunts.
“One of the entrances is across the street,” Jason replied.
“That might as well be a country mile,” I said.
“Do you even know what that means? Or are you just making up some bullshit analogy?” BT asked.
“Country mile, right? They’re longer because of trees and shit,” I said.
“What I thought.” BT looked triumphant.
“Archbishop Francis Joseph Spellman detested the cold,” Jason said, seemingly out of the blue, but there was something else there.
“And?”
Again he was hesitant.
“Why are you stalling?” BT was looking down on the man with all his mass tensed and ready to pounce. I’m sure we could have forced it out of him, but I was hoping he’d give it up willingly.
“Do you understand why I don’t want to talk?”
“I don’t. If you’ve got an alternate way out of here, I think you should tell us. Your people are starving; the situation in here is not sustainable. Plus, if we get out of here and get a message to our people, we can evac you all.”
“You yourself said they might not be able to take us all in. Then what?”
He’d just ten minutes ago said if his son was safe then nothing else mattered. “Still a fresh start,” I answered. “I bet if I go and ask those people if they want to die here or try somewhere new, we’ll get a lot of takers.”
“But if you know the other way in you could…”
“We could what, Jason? The three people you had guarding us are all sitting down, doing their own things. Only one is even looking our way, and he put his pistol down beside him. I have eleven highly trained military people here with a variety of automatic weapons. I give one word and we own this building in less than ten seconds. Doubt me? Go on and take stock.”
He stood. The woman who had seemed so cross at us in the beginning was asleep. The second guy was trying to read a book, but his head kept dropping and he nodded off, and the third who’d been somewhat cognizant of the situation was staring up at the stained glass, looking lost. My team, on the other hand, was alert, armed, and strategically placed almost entirely around them.
“As I told you before, I don’t want to harm anyone and I’m not looking to take over your sanctuary. We’re all very grateful you opened the doors. We are who I say we are, and there’s a chance I can get help for all of us. Food and some clothing, at the minimum. But I can’t do anything from here. Now I’ll do my best to fight our way through the front, but, like you, I’m very protective of my people and that would not be my first inclination–not if there’s a safer way.”
He sighed. “You’re right, I know you’re right. We’ve just been isolated in here for so long we’ve become distrustful of everything on the outside. Come on, I’ll show you.”
We ended up in a large bedroom. I saw more red, crushed velvet there than I have in my entire life. The bed was enormous; looked like two kings sewn together.
“Not trying to go anywhere with this, but why would a man who has taken a vow of celibacy need a bed that could hold a harem?” I asked.
“Fuck, Talbot! You got all the class of a shitting gopher,” BT said.
“Yeah, and country mile was a bad analogy,” I replied.
“Archbishop Spellman had four dogs; the only time they weren’t by his side was during mass,” Jason filled us in.
“I think I like this Spellman guy,” I said.
“Archbishop,” Jason corrected me. “He used to complain about getting crowded out of his bed; he had this specially made. Funny, though, according to his memoirs, they still crowded around him.”
“Can we get the tour moving?” BT seemed antsy.
“You alright?” I asked as Jason traversed the room.
“Not a big church fan. Last time I was in one was to bury a girl I’d shot; I don’t like being reminded of it,” BT said.
“Gotcha, brother. We’ll get out of here soon enough.”
Jason was standing next to a bookshelf full of tomes. If I had to guess, I’d say there was about a metric ton of paper and binding there. The entire unit swung outwards effortlessly.
The kid in me loved the idea of a hidden entrance like that. The cynic in me wondered what nefarious purposes it had been used for. Hanging from the back of the bookshelf was a skeleton key; it looked like it belonged to a Medieval castle in England, or maybe to that castle’s dungeon. It was huge, about half the size of my forearm.
“I don’t want to state the obvious, but if you guys are starving why didn’t you go out through here to forage for supplies?” I asked.
“Oh, we did…did all right at first, too. Most of the places in the underground tunnel were offices and they had fridges and vending machines; held us over pretty good. But once we went through those stores and had to venture back out onto the streets, that’s when we started losing people. It got to the point there were so many people who never came back we couldn’t get anyone else to go looking. It was a death sentence; might as well have asked them to walk the final steps to the electric chair.”
“Just like The Green Mile,” BT said out of left field.
“Could you maybe reel yourself back in?” I asked my gunney.
“It was a good book and movie; pretty sure I could have played John Coffey.”
“I could see that. He was a lot nicer, though. Wait a sec,” I said to Jason, who placed the key into the lock. “What’s on the other side?” I had my rifle nearly at the ready, as did BT.
“A fortified tunnel under 5th Ave.”
“That’s pretty impressive. How’d they pull that off? Ordinances, permits…I can’t imagine anyone getting permission to do that,” BT frowned.
“Archdiocese in the ’50s could have put a casino in the church if they wanted,” Jason told us. “Getting a small tunnel dug so that the Archbishop could go to his favorite bagel shop without getting snowed on was nothing. That was his outward reasoning, anyway. Actually, he hated his dogs’ paws getting wet and cold.”
“I hope that guy got sainthood,” I replied.
“Archbishop,” Jason said again.
“So, is this the way your people were going out?” I asked.
“Not all the time.”
“Is there any reason to think there’s anything…hostile on the other side of that door?” I asked.
“Not likely, but that changes once you get across the street and open that door.”
I noticed he said “you” and not “us.” I imagined if he hadn’t been chasing his son he wouldn’t have come out at all, and most likely, that was the first time he’d had direct sunlight hit him in a very long time.
“BT, what can we expect?”
“The tunnel is fairly long, goes from 5th to 7th. I’m thinking it’s going to be dark. It’s not some small passageway; it’s like a mall down there, wide as a street. Plenty of places for people and things to hide.”
“Hold off, Jason. We need to figure this out. It’s gonna take more than two of us, and I still might opt for the more direct approach.”
“Ammo, Mike; we didn’t bring a bunch and we lost some. This was supposed to be a quick in and out mission.”
“Yeah, I know that, but have you ever seen the movie Descent?”
“Descent? That the crazy cave movie? How does that apply?”
I didn’t answer him.
“Oh…thanks for that,” he said when he got it. “I would have been much better off had you not mentioned that.”
“Me too.” We went back out to the rest of the squad.
Jason was off tending to his flock while I sat with my team. I wasn’t a fan of dividing our forces, but I didn’t want to have a large group doing this, and I could not take Gary along.
“Gunney, I want to take you, Winters, you as well, because you’re our comm expert. Anyone can get a broadcast out it’s going to be you.”
He nodded.
“Tommy?”
Of course, Mr. T, I mean, Lieutenant, sir.”
I wanted Tommy because he was the most capable warrior in the group–especially in close combat–which looked like it might be the case. “Stenzel, I want you with us. Corporal Rose, that puts you in charge back here. I don’t think there will be any trouble with the natives, but if you have an uprising, you put it down quickly.”
“Deadly force authorized, sir?” she asked.
“It won’t come to that, Rose, but use the zip ties if you need to. PFC Grimm, you’re with us. The rest of you stay alert. And keep an eye on those doors; that the zombies aren’t trying to break them in has me on edge. If something should happen, you get everyone into that tunnel. We clear?”
“Sir, I’d like to go as well.” Private Harmon was looking directly at me. I held contact with her gaze. I wanted to give her some time to collect herself after her harrowing ordeal; I got the idea of getting back up the horse and all, but I couldn’t afford to bail her out if she froze in combat. I didn’t ask if she was sure because that would have shown the rest of the group, I doubted her ability, and once I did that, none of them would trust her. The stakes were too high to have reservations about a comrade in arms.
“All right. Grimm, you’re sitting this one out.”
“I’m ready to go, sir.”
“I know you are and hold on to the gung-ho attitude. We’re going to need it soon enough. We’ll stay in constant radio contact. If you don’t hear from us for over twenty-four hours, assume the worst. Hold out here until the zombies dissipate, then make a go for the airfield in Stewart Air National Guard Base. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” from the rest in varying shades of enthusiasm.
“Corporal Rose, I want you to set up a schedule for the secret door; I want it manned the entire time we’re gone. I don’t trust Jason to open it up if he feels we’re in trouble, I’d feel much better if we had one of our own on the other side.”
“On it, sir.”
“Okay, those coming with, gear up and meet me in the Archbishop’s bedroom in five.”
“Sir, we’d all appreciate it if you came back.” Corporal Rose had stayed behind to deliver the words.
“Just covering bases…it is fully my intention to do so. Keep everything in order here and we’ll be back before you know it.” I turned to the front; Harmon was in front of the altar on her knees saying a prayer. Her file had her listed as an agnostic; couldn’t blame her, though. She was covering her bases as well. I went and knelt next to her; no sense in leaving a message unsent, even if I thought no one was home and wouldn’t be picking up mail for a while. I got up wordlessly; she followed a moment later.
BT handed me an extra magazine. I nodded and put it away.
“Everyone check their lights?” I was doing my best not to notice how Harmon’s light was shaking on the wall as she tested it.
BT looked over to me, skepticism regarding her mission readiness all over his face. Trust me, I had the same reservations. If I took her off this mission, there was a good chance she would be through. She’d think herself into the depths of doubt. But I had to balance what she was going through with the safety of the rest of the team. Leading people into combat situations was never really something I’d aspired to, and right now I knew exactly why. She shut her light off when she realized most of us had been looking.
“Deep breaths, people. We all have each other’s back. Single file in the passageway, and we stay tight once we get into this mall tunnel or whatever the hell it is. Clear? I’ll go first.”
“Excuse me, sir, but I’ll do it.” Stenzel checked to make sure her gear was tight.
If I was a true officer, I would have put Harmon in the lead as the lowest ranking among us. I just fundamentally could not put people in danger ahead of myself. It went against everything ingrained within me. I nodded curtly to her, my lips pressed tight; I did what procedure dictated.
“You ready?” Jason was fumbling with the key. He turned the lock; the light from the bedroom didn’t penetrate more than a few feet into the well of darkness. Anything could have been ten feet away and we’d never know. My muscles tensed as I awaited the worst. Stenzel’s light blazed down the majority of the small tunnel; I was happy to note there were no creatures from my childhood waiting to reach out and pull me into their nightmares, no red balloons and more importantly, no clowns. I was expecting that the tunnel would be this rough-hewn hole in the earth, the shovel marks of the laborers still visible–something more akin to what inmates in a maximum-security prison would dig to escape the confines their actions had landed them in. What I was looking at was a straight, tiled, sidewalk-sized walkway that, in better times, I’m sure looked downright pleasant. Stenzel went in, immediately followed by Tommy, then Harmon. I plucked the key from a reluctant Jason before I followed, then Winters and BT brought up the rear. I figured he should go last just in case he got wedged tight like a wine cork, and I said as much. He didn’t think it was funny, which is funny, because everyone else did.
“Everything all right down there?” Kirby spoke through the radio.
“Good to go,” Winters responded.
“Jason here is losing his shit with the door open,” Kirby announced, I’m sure loud enough for Jason to hear. I liked that he didn’t give a shit who heard him speak his mind.
We hadn’t made it a quarter of the way across when the little bit of light afforded us from behind winked out of existence. Jason had shut the door; I shouldn’t have expected anything more from him. He’d shown his true colors early on and had never deviated from that path. Didn’t matter; it was plenty bright in there with all the flashlights bobbing up and down.
“What’s that dumbass hope to accomplish? He can’t lock his side without the key,” BT grumbled. It wasn’t the optimum set up. Once we opened up to the mall, we would have to shuttle the one and only key back to the church. I didn’t want to keep it on any one person in case we got separated or, well, the alternative. No, the only plan that made sense was to send it back and keep a guard at the gate, so to speak, to let us back in.
“At the door,” Stenzel whispered. “Don’t hear anything.” That didn’t mean much; it wasn’t like the zombies were known for their loud and boisterous rave parties. Still…something, though. As quiet as the door had opened in the bedroom, the converse happened here. There was an ear-grating squeal and the teeth gnashing sound of broken glass sandwiched between the bottom of the door and the floor, scratching deep grooves into the concrete.
“So much for a tactical entrance,” BT came through my earpiece. I was more than half expecting to see the bright muzzle flashes of Stenzel’s weapon; I was pleasantly surprised when that wasn’t the case. Harmon looked frozen in place.
“Private, get the key, bring it back to Kirby.” She didn’t move. “Harmon.”
She didn’t answer me, but she moved to the front and did as I’d ordered, glancing up at me as she went past and back.
BT shut off his radio before he spoke. “Mike, I don’t want to step on your toes here, but....”
“She’ll be all right.”
“She looks shell-shocked.”
“This unit is her last shot; she left her medical training.”
“Yeah, because she couldn’t handle the sight of blood. I’m not thinking this was the appropriate substitute career.”
“BT, if she doesn’t make it here, Bennington will set her outside the gate.”
“Don’t start guilting me Talbot, I’m not Catholic.”
“Not working? Baptists don’t have guilt?”
“I’m not Baptist.”
“Episcopalian?”
“You don’t know, do you? We’ve had this conversation at least a dozen times.” BT looked pretty mad.
“Seventh Day Adventist? Latter Day Saints…err, Mormon?”
He was shaking his head. “None of those and I’m more concerned with the added danger Harmon brings to this mission and to us, should she freeze up. Again. And LDS are Mormon,” he added.
“Really? And I’m aware of what’s going on, BT. I’ll keep an eye on her.”
He grunted before turning his radio back on; clearly, he wasn’t a fan of my decision. We waited in silence for the couple of minutes it took Harmon to come back. More than once I thought it possible she might not.
“Stenzel, we’re ready,” I said as Harmon came up alongside me. I watched the corporal’s light as it moved into the tunnel. There was a sharp intake of air.
“What’s going on?” BT asked her.
“Sorry. There’s a pizza restaurant out here.”
“And?” I prompted.
“Standard fare, thinner crust, New York style.”
“Corporal.”
“Sorry sir, it’s just, I haven’t had good pizza in so long. The chow hall puts spaghetti sauce and a piece of American cheese on top of an English muffin and calls it pizza.”
“I love that pizza,” Tommy replied.
I couldn’t defend his position; this was the same kid that ate rhubarb and mayonnaise Pop-Tarts.
“As good as having some authentic pizza would be, can we perhaps move on?” I asked.
“Reluctantly, sir.”
“Understood. You can file a grievance when we get back to Etna.”
“Duly noted. Just past the entrance to the restaurant there was a fight. Got six or seven dead zombies and maybe three or four people, hard to tell. There’s blood and parts everywhere.” Could hear the tinkle of brass being kicked aside or stepped on as she moved farther out.
Tommy was out next and was checking the hallway behind her. “Looks like an office here. All the glass and the doors have been broken out. Movement.”
“Stenzel–move back,” I said as I came out into the tunnel way. She was too far away if this was a trap and we needed to make a hasty retreat. BT was next out, his light trained toward Stenzel, watching her steady back-walk to us.
“See it?” Tommy asked. To be honest, the play of shadows with our flashlights made it difficult to see anything subtle. He kept his light trained on one specific part of the office window down by the bottom, while I looked like I was trying to paint the entire area with mine. Let’s be honest; I was expecting to see hundreds of outstretched hands and gaping mouths moving toward us. I mean, we were in an underground tunnel in the city; should pretty much be par for the course. Instead, when I finally stopped looking for the massive attack that wasn’t there, I saw something, though, I was having a difficult time saying what it was. It was right at the bottom of the window. I could just see something pop up for a second or two then dip back down.
Winters was moving alongside me. “You hear that, LT?”
“Shit.” I raced over to the busted-out window. There was a zombie on the ground. At one time it had been a woman office worker; she had her headset wrapped around her neck and a large file cabinet had been overturned on to the bottom half of her body, effectively pinning her there for all time. She snarled at me as I reached my barrel in and blew her tattling brains out. “We’ve got to move.” I couldn’t see much after the muzzle flash except a bright yellow blob in my primary field of vision.
“What gives?” BT was keeping an eye on the area.
“This one was letting others know we’re here.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. And you want to know what’s worse?”
“Not really.”
“She’s got gnawed-through body parts all around her.”
BT put it together. “She rats us out and gets a piece of the take.”
“Give that man a prize.” I was looking deeper into the office space.
“That’s some next level shit.”
We knew about the shriekers and the fact that the zombies as a whole seemed to be gaining in intelligence, but BT was right. This was advanced gameplay, for sure. She was calling to others, offering them our plump flesh, then collecting a finder’s fee.
“Onward or back,” BT asked as I kept looking for any others inside.
“No choice; we have to keep moving. Being stuck in the church does us no good.”
“Tommy, watch our back. Stenzel, you heard the man. Find us a safe route out.” BT was moving back toward the door, Harmon was just coming out.
I saw Stenzel run the tips of her fingers along the pizzeria sign as she went by. “There’s a bend up ahead.”
“Advance slowly. Let us catch up,” I told her.
“Got an odor up here sir, and it ain’t fresh pizza.”
“Going to have to let that go, Stenzel.” I moved quickly to get alongside her.
“I don’t want to.” She said it softly, hoping the radio wouldn’t pick it up. We both rounded the corner at the same time; the eye shine staring back was startling. There were six pairs, but they were too far away to see what was attached to the glinting orbs staring back at us.
“That people, sir?”
“Doubtful.”
“We shooting?” She had her rifle up against her shoulder.
“A little closer.” I was fairly certain of what we were advancing on, but not entirely. I’d never be able to forgive myself if we took out a family seeking refuge in this subterranean corridor. “Make yourself known!” I yelled. Funny thing is…nope, don’t like that. Ironic thing, maybe? They did exactly as I ordered. Three broke for us instantly. Stenzel was quicker than I was and dropped two in the span of three steps. By the time I blew out the top of the third one’s head, the other three were coming, but we now had BT in the mix. It was a short firefight, but the rifle percussions in the enclosed space were exceptionally loud and the muzzle flashes excessively bright; I had two senses knocked down a few degrees. Even if my hearing was down to fifty percent, it would have been impossible to miss Tommy’s warning.
“Horde to the rear!” Then the staccato burst of his rifle, maybe Winters’ and Harmon’s as well.
“Back to the church entrance?” I was caught in indecision. There was a chance that we were being herded into the mouth of another group to the front.
“Won’t make it.” I could hear the bounce in Winters’ voice as he ran.
“Stenzel, BT, stay with me. Looks like we’re going to have to make a path.”
BT didn’t have to say anything; I could hear his heavy sigh. He was right. Moving quickly through darkened corridors without having any idea of what we were getting into was not a wise move, but we were being forced, plain and simple. We didn’t have the luxury of picking our way through carefully.
A light from behind swept over us.
“Going to need to move faster, sir!” Winters said. He wasn’t quite panicked but, yeah, there was an urgency there. Not sure he needed to say anything, as even over the exceedingly loud discharge of their firearms, we could hear hundreds of footfalls slapping along on the flooring.
“Mike.” BT’s flashlight was pointing into one of the offices on our left.
I turned my head to see zombies navigating around office furniture.
“Winters, Tommy, move! We got speeders streaming in from the side!”
BT stopped to place some decent shots into the throng.
“Contact!” Harmon shouted out; I thought my eardrum was going to rupture from the shrillness. She was sending three-round bursts downrange as quickly as she could pull the trigger. I was about to admonish her for her lack of trigger discipline, but it was effective fire.
Between the flashlights and the multiple muzzle flashes, the corridor was brightly lit. Unfortunately, it was not a view worth dying for.
“Mike, my man.” BT was looking for some direction. Obviously, he didn’t need help killing zombies; he had that part covered. The unspoken question was: where to? Backward was a literal dead end. To the right was a small coffee shop; we could head there and make a go at barricading ourselves in, but to what goal?
“Forward. Just forward.”
It seemed the more I shot, the more bobbing heads of the dead I saw. It wasn’t a dense pack like what was chasing us, but it didn’t need to be; there was enough to slow us down and that was enough. As my bolt popped open, I reached down onto my utility belt to grab a fresh magazine. I kept advancing as I performed the much-practiced routine of reloading. Used to be a time where I would have needed to stop everything I was doing, pull the rifle from my shoulder, fumble for the magazine release button, look down to grab the new magazine, make sure it was oriented correctly, then breathe before popping it up and into the magazine well. After slamming it home, I’d still have to watch where my thumb was going so I could hit the bolt release; then I’d second guess myself to make sure the bolt hit home before deliberately bringing the rifle back up to my shoulder to begin firing again.
It was a quick sequence; on a good day, maybe that routine took ten seconds, not horrible. But now I could keep moving forward, the buttstock never leaving my shoulder, drop a mag to the ground, reload, and be firing shots in under four. When every second counted, that was a hell of an improvement. All great and fine if I was looking at an infinite amount of ammunition. It’s times like this I wish I was in a sci-fi book and could get my hands on a plasma rifle or something that didn’t generally run out of projectiles. I mean really; what could be worse than hordes of the undead? No time like the present to wish for omnipotence.
Winters and Tommy were coming up quick, even though they were going as slow as they could and doing as much damage as possible on their way in an effort to keep us from being overrun. It was us up front that weren’t holding to our end of the agreement. Zombies were knocking each other away in a bid to get at us and it was jamming their progress; probably the only reason we hadn’t been laid into yet.
“Bulkers!” BT warned. If he hadn’t said anything, I would have assumed it was the NYC transit system back up and running.
“Got a door!” this from Harmon.
“Go! We’ll follow!” I told her. I had no clue if we were heading into a broom closet, the bathroom, or Bloomingdale’s; at this point it didn’t matter. We’d lost the area; our only options were to take the exit or stay and die. On the spectrum of possibilities, that one rated fairly low. Either the zombies were into self-preservation or the bulkers had sent a message for them to clear a path, but we could see tendrils of openings tearing through the horde like a knife dragged over tight fabric; the zombies parted, allowing the heavier, more destructive bulkers an access route.
“Locked,” came Harmon’s breathless reply. We were pulling into a tighter and tighter semi-circle as she fought with the lock. The thundering of the bulkers was making the ground bounce. We were firing into them, but it wouldn’t be enough. They were going to press us into the wall. Wouldn’t leave much for the starving zombies, as we’d likely be vaporized.
“Move,” BT told Harmon, bringing his weapon over his head. I heard the crunch of his rifle and the sound of metal hitting the tile. Had no idea if it was the door handle or parts of his gun. “It’s open.”
“Let’s move, people, inside!” I ordered.
“Harmon! Get your ass in there!” Stenzel shouted, I turned in time to see her pushing the private through the opening.
“Go sir,” Winters said. “We’re right behind you.”
Time for words was done. There could be no debating. I tapped BT’s arm and motioned. He went in, and I was half a step behind him. Stenzel and Harmon had moved a few feet farther in.
“Stairwell,” Stenzel said.
“Check it out–quickly,” I told her. Once Tommy and Winters got in we needed to move fast. The door would not lock, and getting a door open, even if they had to pull on it, was not above the zombies’ new skill set. The door was a stout steel one, set into a concrete and steel frame, and still, it shook. We could only hope that the bulkers would take a few minutes to clear away; right now they had a ton or more of accumulated weight pressing up against it.
“Stairs only go down.” Stenzel’s light was trained down the well. “It’s clear.”
Her definition of “clear” was a little different from mine. There were eight people on those stairs; they were in various stages of mummification. My guess was they had starved to death. Harmon let out a small scream that seemed to excite the bulkers, who were going to try and force their way through. Stenzel picked her way down cautiously.
“Lost my rifle.” BT looked dejected as he showed me an amalgamation of parts that had at one time been a deadly weapon.
We were making our way down and he was still holding on to it. “You can probably leave that. Here, buddy.” I handed him my 1911. Looked like a cap gun in his hands; I wasn’t even sure he’d be able to fit his finger through the trigger guard.
“Might as well toss rocks.” He was pissed.
“Door’s open.” Stenzel looked back.
“Hold on for some back-up. Tommy?”
“On it.” He pushed past.
Winters was still watching the door to our back.
“Mike, you realize this is most likely a dead end, right?” BT asked.
He was right; if the door downstairs was unlocked, that was because the people in the stairwell hadn’t seen any reason to lock it, meaning nothing was coming that way. So, if they starved to death because they couldn’t go out the way we had come, well, that question answered itself.
“Got other plans?”
“If this wasn’t a party line…” He left whatever he wanted to add unsaid.
“Looks like a maintenance tunnel,” Tommy replied. “About thirty feet long, bunch of pipes, shelving, that kind of stuff. Clear otherwise. Got some other unfortunates in here too.”
“Let’s go, everyone down.” It was what we needed to do, but being entombed with the dead was about as appealing as cuddling with Eliza. The bulkers made one final assault, then I could feel them moving away, which meant the smarter ones were going to take a crack at us.
We’d been in that small area for a few minutes and I’d looked it over a couple of times already, avoiding the four bodies huddled to the side as best I could, so I’d looked over at them ten times a minute, seen their decayed expressions at least thirty times. I was fairly certain there were no mystery doors to explore, no secret portals to another time and place. I had expertly painted us into a corner; just so happened that this paint job had teeth, lots and lots of teeth. The smell wasn’t as bad as it could be, but the way those faces were pulled tight, their smiles forever engraved in cringing desperation…they seemed to sneer at us and the trap we had run headlong into.
“Sir, I can’t pick up the church.” Winters had his radio in his hand and was fiddling with some of the buttons. We had no comm outside of this area. We had light for another ten hours, no food to speak of, low ammunition, and no viable exit. All in all, it wasn’t looking like the day had got off on the right foot. I didn’t want to be the next set of mummies when some other hapless victims sprang the same trap we had.