A Glimpse of Decay (Book 3): Lost in Twilight (5 page)

“We don’t have time to think about those guys,” Nick cut in.  “They’re gone and there’s nothing we can do for them now.  Let’s check and see if the fuel pumps are running, and then maybe we should duck into the garage or office and see if those things will go away when they don’t see us anymore.”

“Sounds good to me,” agreed Vincent.  “We just need to be on our toes.  There might be a few more of them in here…like Hector.”

“Who’s Hector?” Shondra asked with a surprised look on her face.

“Uh, never mind…it doesn’t make a difference anyway.” Vincent looked down at the toes of his boots and sighed.  A speckle of brain matter was caked onto his right boot.

The three officers turned and studied the garage and the fuel pumps.  Vincent commented on how they needed to secure the offices inside of the building and how it was important for them to locate any kind of supplies that might have been lying around.  After a small tactical briefing that resembled kids drawing up a football play in the school yard, the three set off for their objective.  With Vincent leading the way with his shotgun and Shondra and Nick bringing up the rear with their pistols, the three cleared a row of empty dump trucks.  They then knelt down by the large rear tire of one of the dumps as they plotted their next move.

“Looks like the lot is clear,” Nick said as he nervously glanced around.  “And I guess that was Hector?” he said as he pointed to the lifeless body of the maintenance worker in the distance.

“Yeah, that was him.  And yeah, I think the lot is clear.”  Vincent wiped at the sweat on his brow and he pointed towards the garage and its large open bay doors.  “Looks like there’s five garage bays.  Those should be easy enough to clear.  The dangerous part will be clearing the offices.  We just gotta make sure there’s nothing inside of them.”

“Then let’s do it,” Shondra urged.  “I don’t like being out here in the open.”

“Alright, let’s do it,” Nick said as he rose to his feet.  “I’m gonna check real quick and see if the fuel pumps are on-line.”  He looked at Vincent and nodded to him.  Without saying anything else, the balding officer left the cover of the dump trucks and walked up to the first pump and pulled the nozzle from the cradle.  He saw that the digital read out was still working on the pump housing.  “Looks like this one is still working.”

“The diesel one is up too,” Shondra said.  She had followed Nick’s lead, checking on the diesel pump.

“At least that’s one good thing going for us,” Vincent whispered to himself.  “Alright, let’s check out the garage and the office.”

As the officers fanned out through the overhead doors and cleared the bays, Shondra noticed that the crowd at the fence could see them moving around inside of the building.  “Hey, Vincent,” she called out.

“Yeah, what’s up?”  He was busy trying to turn on a computer terminal that was sitting on a desk and he didn’t bother to look up at her.

“Maybe we should close the overhead doors so they can’t see us in here.  Looks like it gets them worked up when they see us moving around.  We don’t want to do anything that will piss them off and make them try harder to get in here.”

Vincent stopped what he was doing and looked out at the fence line.  Shondra was right.  The runners were vigorously jumping up and down as they eyed their prey.  They were yanking and shaking the fence and although the chain-link showed no serious signs of giving way, he knew that he didn’t want to press their luck and risk the fence being breached.  “You’re right, we don’t want to agitate them unnecessarily if we don’t have to.”  He looked over to the chains that were hanging down from door pulleys on the ceiling.  “We can close them with those.”

Nick sprinted over to the farthest door and began to lower it with the pulley.  He then turned and looked at the back doors.  “And the back ones?” he asked as he pointed at them.

“I guess you can leave them open,” Vincent said.  “Just in case we need to get out of here in a hurry.”  He looked back down at the keyboard and clicked on the mouse.  “Damn it!”

“What are you doing over there?” Shondra asked.

“I was trying to see if I could get on the internet…you know, to see if there is any news on what’s going on out there.”

“Any luck?”

“Nope.  Says the server is down.”

“You know what else is about to go down?” Nick interjected as he walked up to the couple.

“No, I don’t” Shondra said.

“Our radios.  We have no chargers for the batteries.  Now, I’m sure there’s some chargers in the station next door, but do we really wanna go in there to find them?  I know I don’t wanna do that.”

“Naw, that probably wouldn’t be the smartest thing to do right now,” Vincent said.  “Let’s check out the office and see what we can find in there.”

“Well, I know the first thing I’m going to do…and that is…hit the shitter,” Nick said as he pointed towards a door with “MEN” affixed to it.  “Y’all go ahead.  I’ll catch up.”

“Okay, but don’t go straying off anywhere,” Vincent warned.

“Believe me man, I won’t.”  Nick hurriedly removed his gun belt and made his way towards the restroom.

“Well, let’s check out the office and make sure nothing is in there,” Shondra said.  “I’m sure with as much noise that he made while shutting those doors, if anything was in there, it would have come out after us by now.”

“You would think so, but be on your toes anyway.”

Vincent and Shondra walked through a glass door that lead into the lobby of the offices for the maintenance garage.  Shondra, still uncertain of her surroundings, had her gun out of its holster and at the ready.  After clearing a few individual offices and the parts department, they then made their way down a hallway and came up on the supervisor’s office.  In the corner of the room sat a flat screen television on a small table.  On a desk was a computer with small picture frames flanking both sides of the computer monitor.  A telephone sat on the corner of the desk.

Vincent plopped himself down in the chair behind the desk and he picked up the phone receiver to see if he could get a signal.  Angrily, he slammed it back down in its cradle and said, “Fuck, nothing!”

Shondra, who was now sitting on a dingy sofa that was up against the wall, said, “Look for a remote for the T.V.  Maybe there’s a broadcast or some information.  They probably keep it in one of the drawers of the desk you’re sitting at.”

Vincent began to shuffle through the drawers and finally came across the control.  He punched the power button and the screen flickered on.  Grey snow filled the display.  He cycled through the channels but was unsuccessful in finding anything.

“Shit, I can’t believe that everything is down,” he said, his face incredulous.  “Not even one channel is broadcasting.  How are we supposed to learn anything?”

“Maybe there’s no one left at the television stations?” Shondra suggested.

“But you would figure that they would have some sort of automated message playing…or at least something like that.”

“Well, at least the power is still running.”  Shondra leaned back into the couch and let out a relieved sigh.  “And at least the air conditioner is working in here.  God it feels so good, especially after spending all that time out in the heat at the stadium.”

“Did you say that your boyfriend is in the army?” Vincent asked.

Shondra sat up straight and looked at Vincent.  He couldn’t tell if she had become upset with him over the question.  She looked away and said, “Yeah.”

“What did he say…about what is going on.  He must have told you something.”

Shondra sighed.  “He really didn’t say much.  About a week ago, he got word that his unit was going to mobilize.  They’re out of Fort Hood—he was down here on leave.  Anyway, three days ago he leaves for the airport.  He said that he was heading to Fort Hood, but he didn’t know where he was going from there.”

“And that’s all he said?”

“Yep, that’s about it.  He knew that there was an alert with the stuff that had gone on in Russia and with the stuff that was going on in Europe and on the west coast, but he was in the dark just like everyone else.   Everything happened so fast.  He left and then I started seeing all the stuff over the television and the radio.  Next thing you know, the mayor is calling us back on emergency duty.”

“I still can’t figure it out,” Vincent said as he leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling.  “This is supposed to be some sort of chemical weapon or something that got released by accident in Russia, and now it’s over here causing all this madness.  I can’t believe our government hasn’t been able to figure out something.”

“Maybe because it’s moving too fast?”

“Maybe, but you would figure that the government would have plans for something like this.”

“Dude,” Shondra chuckled, “I don’t think anyone was planning for the dead coming back to life…and zombies and shit like that.”  She leaned back in the sofa and curled her bottom lip, nibbling on it slightly.  “I think maybe this whole thing has just overwhelmed the system.”

Vincent swiveled back and forth in his chair as he contemplated his predicament.  “Well, I want to make it over to my parents’ place and see if they’re still there.  I haven’t been able to talk to them since before getting assigned to the stadium.”

“Where do they live at?”

“Out off of Judson.”

“Shit,” Shondra said, “that’s a long way away from here.”

“I know, but I gotta try.  And you?  What are you going to do?”

“Well, now that Jamel is off with the army, I’m by myself.  My momma is in Houston along with my baby sister.  My brother is out in Detroit somewhere.  Really, I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, you can hang with me, if you’re cool with trying to make it out to my folks’ house.”

Shondra sat and pondered her options.  “If you’re okay with that, I’ll tag along with you.  What about Nick?”

“What about Nick?” Nick said as he walked into the office.  “What are we talking about?”

“Did you take care of business?” Vincent asked.

“Yeah, I just wouldn’t go near there for at least thirty minutes, if you know what I mean.”  He flared his nostrils to emphasize his warning.

“We’re just trying to figure out what to do,” Shondra said.  “Vincent wants to try to go and find his parents.”

“Where’s that at?” Nick asked.

“Out off of Judson and Thirty-Five.”

Nick let out a whistle.  “Man, that’s a long way away from here.”

“I know.  That’s why I have to plan it out.  Shondra said that she wants to tag along with me.”

“Well, I want to try to make it to the evacuation station at Port San Antonio.  My wife should be there.”

“But how do you know if that place is even still around?” Vincent asked.

“I don’t,” Nick said, his voice gruff.  He was offended at Vincent for suggesting that something might have happened to the station.  “How do you know your family is still at their house?”

Sensing Nick’s anger, Vincent realized the carelessness of his words.  “Sorry man, I didn’t mean to make it sound like that.”

Nick caught himself and knew that he must have sounded pissed off.  “It’s alight man, I didn’t mean to sound like a jerk.”

“Nay, you didn’t sound like a jerk.”  Vincent swiveled in his chair and looked at Shondra.  “These are crazy times for all of us, it’s understandable that we’re all a little edgy.”

“Yeah,” Shondra agreed, “it’s not every day that you get to live through the end of the world.”

“You really think that’s what’s going on right now…the end of the world?” Nick asked.  In his mind, Shondra was over exaggerating.  Sure, there was some crazy shit going on, shit that couldn’t be explained, but there was no way that this was going to lead to the end of the world.

“Well, maybe not like end of the world
nuclear war
style, but end of the world as we know it.  Before Jamel left, he did talk about some stuff…stuff like power and water shutting down, phones and internet going off-line, grocery stores running out of food and hospitals closing down.  If that stuff happens and the government can’t turn it around, you can bet that things are gonna be different around here.”

“I didn’t think about it like that,” Nick said.  After pondering Shondra’s words for a moment, he said, “All I know is that I want to get over to the shelter and see if I can find my wife.”

“Well, let’s see if we can refill the car and figure out what we’re going to do,” Vincent said.  “If we go our separate ways, you can take the patrol car if you want and Shondra and I can take one of those trucks.”

“You think we should separate?” Shondra asked.  “I think we stand a better chance if we stick together.  Maybe we can go check on Nick’s wife and then maybe head out towards your parents’.”

Vincent took in a deep breath and cupped his hands together as he twiddled his thumbs.  He knew that Nick was desperate to check on his wife, but Vincent didn’t want to take a side trip on his way to see if his parents were still alive.  As he weighed his options, his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a distant rumbling.

Shondra, hearing the same rumbling, sat up in the sofa.  “You hear that?”

“Yeah, what is that?” Nick asked.  “Sounds like an engine or motor.”