Dead Air (Book One of The Dead Series) (51 page)

No one replied
. Steve checked his watch, shocked to see that not even an hour had passed since the alarm had woken him. It had taken him and his crew months to build up their refuge and only minutes to lose it. He wondered how the dead had gotten into the building and who had set off the alarm. Frustrated that he would never know, he turned to the task at hand.

Looking each of the survivors in the eye one by one to make sure that they were holding up, when
Steve was satisfied he said, "Let's go."

It t
ook them an hour to get the equipment and themselves safely to the ground. Steve was last, and realizing he would have to repel, helped lower Mary. Turning from the parapet wall, he knew he had one more thing to do.

Thumbing on his flashlight,
he made his way across the roof to the water storage tank and located the shut off valve. At first when he tried to turn it, the wheel wouldn't budge. Thinking of Heather and the conversation he’d had with her when she told him about the safety catch, he flipped the small latch and spun the wheel, shutting off the water supply to the building.

Walking over to the stairway door,
he could hear the scratching and banging of the dead as they tried to break through. He turned away and donned the window washer's harness, hooking the rope through a d-ring attached to the suspenders. The last time he had repelled was years ago in the Army, so he was a little out of practice. He had a few scary moments when he over-balanced and once almost turned completely upside down, but got himself straightened out. In no time, Heather was hugging him as they stood next to the MRAP.

Steve drove while Tick-Tock sat in the gunner
’s hatch, preparing their final goodbye to the building and the dead that now occupied it.  Steering carefully through the outside dining area, he avoided the wrecked tables, as he didn't want to risk puncturing a tire. Despite his caution, he did cut the wheel over to run down a solitary zombie wandering near the back of the deli.

Reaching the street, Steve looked in awe at the desolation around him. Derelict cars sat scattered up and down the boulevard as
a light breeze blew trash through the illumination thrown by the MRAP's headlights. Huge swirls fluttered down the valley made by the buildings. Many of the ground floor windows on the businesses lining the street had been smashed out, and everything in sight was covered by a fine gray layer of ash from the fires that had cropped up since D-day. Dead day. The day the dead walked the Earth.

It h
ad been months since Steve had last been on the streets of Clearwater, and the change he saw gave him the feeling he was looking at a scene from another planet. Shaking off the eerie sensation, he edged between two cars and turned right, driving a short distance before stopping at the side entrance to the bank.

Music started up, coming from the radio Tick-Tock had used for entertainment while he was working on the MRAP.
It played one of the songs that Jonny G had programmed in before taking his fatal trip with Marcia to the deli. When Steve turned around to give his second-in-command a questioning look, Tick-Tock said, "I turned it on to see if we're still on the air. It's tuned to KLAM. Must be a bunch of songs in the queue."

Turning his attention to his right, Steve immediately saw the busted out glass panels and now knew how the dead had accessed the building. A hammering noise jarred him as Tick-Tock added to the destruction by knocking out the double doors of the bank with the .50 caliber. A moment later, Steve saw the fiery trail of the Molotov cocktail that Tick-Tock tossed through the blasted doors. This was the volatile substance that he kept in the igloo cooler. Three more
firebombs followed the first, turning the inside of the bank into an inferno.

After pulling around to the front of the building, Tick-Tock repeated his performance with the
.50 caliber on the doors there. The tarp they had hung up months earlier quickly burned away from the first firebomb, revealing the interior of the foyer. Steve could see a body lying inside with its arms outstretched toward the wall but it was too torn up to be recognizable as Marcia. He didn't give it a second glance.

Tick-Tock randomly blew out windows along the length of the first floor and followed up with four
more Molotov cocktails. They stayed long enough to make sure the building was well ablaze before Steve turned the MRAP toward the marina.

As they drove away from the Garnett
Bank Building for the last time, Heather climbed into the seat next to Steve and reached across to lay her hand on his shoulder.

"We made it," she said with relief. "
It wasn't pretty, but we made it."

She then turned and looked back with a bit of longing at the Garnett
Bank Building, its first two floors now engulfed in flames. For a short while, it had provided a sense of security for her, but that was gone now. All she had to hold onto now was the man sitting next to her and the hope that they were bringing out a cure with Cindy. But even if there were no cure, she would find a new sanctuary and start a life with Steve.

A small sigh escaped her as she turned forward to face the future.

Tick-Tock came down from the gunner’s hatch and stuck his head into the driver's compartment. This wasn't exactly the way he planned to leave, but it would do. Although he thought he would go alone when the time came, he was comforted to have the people he'd come to trust around him.

As Steve turned out of the downtown area, Everclear was singing on the radio ...
‘We can live beside the ocean, leave the fire behind, swim out past the breakers, watch the world die’ ... The second verse of the song started but was abruptly cut off, leaving a heavy silence in the MRAP. The fire had reached the generator.

Flicking his thumb back over his shoulder at the receding bank building, Tick-Tock said
, loud enough to be heard by everyone, "Dead air."

"Dead air," Steve echoed.

From the back, Mary and Brain spoke up at the same time saying, "Dead air."

Susan looked up briefly, curious at the expression, then turned back to Cindy and spoke softly about stories with happy endings.

Coming over the rise that led down from the city to the marina and the beach beyond, Steve drove carefully along the pitch-dark street as he wove around the occasional abandoned vehicle. The moon had set, turning the distant waters of the Gulf so black that they stood out in stark relief beyond the buildings on either side of the road. A few weak lights burned here and there in the desolate landscape, causing him to wonder if they were clusters of survivors like themselves or just lamps waiting for their batteries to die and snuff them out for eternity.

A survivor, Steve thought as he took in the scene, I'm a survivor. Just like I vowed in my office the day Heather showed up. I'll live until they pull me down and then take as many as I can with me.

Looking again at the black water with the black asphalt road snaking down to it in the canyon formed by the buildings, he remembered a poem he learned in college.

Somehow it seemed appropriate.

'In Xanadu
did
Kubla
Khan

A
stately
pleasure
dome
decree:

Where
alph,
the
sacred
river,
ran

Through
caverns
measure
less
to
man

Down
to
a
sunless
sea.'

Special Thanks to:

The middle man, travelling sales men, stationary sales men, Snickers bars, George R
omero movies, Heidi’s House of Strict Discipline, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, all you can eat buffets, cats (not the show, the animal), ice beers, warm malt liquor, those who know, those who don’t know, those who will find out, Kevlar vests, the other white meat, alternative music, elevator music, the Sound of Music, the usual suspects, AutoCAD, Williams Pub, adages, the C.I.A., the F.B.I., the D.E.A., the N.S.A., alphabet soup, the chicken, the egg and my mom for naming me Jon because that’s what everyone’s called me all my life.

Watch for:

DEAD CALM;
Book two of the Dead Series - Now available

DEAD WEIGHT
;
Book three of the Dead Series – Coming soon