Human Extinction Level Loss (Book 2): Substation (The Last Stand of Gary Sykes) (7 page)

As Beverly left the control room, she let the door close behind her.  She knew Gary had wanted her to take one of the trucks, but how would she explain that when the authorities came looking.  Gary was a good guy and she genuinely liked him as a person and so overlooked his eccentricities that others used as a source of personal amusement and ridicule.  Sure some shit had hit the fan, but the end of the world?  Gary had been playing too many of his games and it had allowed him to work his post-apocalyptic dream-scape into a fervor.  Beverly opened her purse and dropped the truck keys in, then retrieved her own.  Instead of taking a right out of the control room, which would have led her to the exit and the trucks, she hung a left and headed toward the front of the building and the parking lot.  She pulled the exit door open and stepped out into the night. 

It was clear and mostly quiet, save for the sound of sirens from emergency vehicles off in the distance.  She walked across the gravel yard and headed to the parking lot at a brisk pace with her head down.  The night had been crazy enough, and even though she didn’t think it was a bad as Gary made out, she didn’t need to freak herself out anymore by seeing things in the shadows.  She would get to her car and lock the doors and not stop until she pulled into her garage. 

As she approached the curb that formed the boundary between the plant and parking lot, she fumbled with her keys, looking for the ignition.  Finding it, she looked up and froze.  Her car keys dropped to the ground and her jaw threatened to follow.  In front of her, in a loose grouping that spread the whole width of the parking lot, a large horde of Undead shuffled by.  She kept perfectly still as they passed, not seeming to notice her.  Beverly held her breath and stifled a scream that wanted to blow from her chest.  Realizing she had dropped her keys, she cast her eyes down without moving her head, but could not see them.  Slowly, she bent her knees and lowered herself to the ground, keeping her eyes straight ahead on the zombies that looked like they were running the slowest marathon in history.  Her breath came out in short gasps as her hand shot around on the ground trying to find her keys.  So concerned was she about finding them, she failed to notice her purse sliding down her arm.  It slipped off her shoulder and hit the asphalt with a thud.  The open purse fell over, the momentum spilling out her cell phone which shot across the pavement out into the parking lot.  The noise caught the attention of several Shufflers, many which bore the wounds of their initiation.  Damaged bodies with torn flesh hanging off faces and torsos stopped and turned as one towards the sound.  Beverly froze for the second time and a smothering blanket of tension fell upon the space between them.  The crowd of the Undead and Beverly stared each other down across the parking lot.  It was like a gunslingers’ duel, the calm before the storm as the Universe waited to see who would blink first.  What seemed like an eternity to Beverly but in reality was only the space of seconds transpired, then as if on cue and acting as one, the horde broke into a run after her.  Reason fled from Beverly, as out of pure instinct alone, she grabbed her purse and bolted back towards the plant.

Beverly threw herself at the door she had just exited and put her hand on the handle.  Her mind froze and refused to accept the reality that hit her like a wrecking ball to the stomach.  The handle did not budge.  She screamed and pulled on the door that had locked behind her.  She whirled around and witnessed the horrific wave of bodies coming at her.  She shoved away from the door and sprinted down the length of the wall that formed the perimeter of the building and headed for the fenced in yard.  The Dead did not break stride, shifting direction, threatening to outflank her. 

As Beverly ran around the corner of the building, the wall gave way to chain-link fence.  She thought about the gate entrance and whether she could make it that far before they caught her, and what if she did make it? How would she get in?  There was nobody there to open it for her.   

“Screw it!” she shouted as she hurled her purse over the top of the fence and began to climb.  Her fingers curled over the top just as the impact of a hundred bodies shook the fence.  Beverly’s foot slipped and she dropped down precious inches.  The chain-link cut into her hands but she only felt the probing hands below as they batted and swiped at her dangling foot.  In a burst of fear fueled adrenaline, Beverly hauled herself up and found her footing.  At the top she swung her legs over and started down the other side.  The Dead began to shake and rattle the fence in a frenzied tantrum.  Beverly tried to hold on, but the shaking and swaying of the fence loosened her grip.  She fell hard on her back, her head thumping solidly on the gravel.  Beverly lay on the ground with the breath knocked out of her and her head ringing.  She stared blankly, unable to separate the stars in the sky from the ones dancing in her eyes.  Everything was silent and she felt suddenly tired and wanted to go to sleep.  Her eyes began to close.    A new  sound pushed its way into her ears, the scratch of something moving across the gravel.  Her eyes flew open,  but instead of the stars in the sky, above her were the ruined faces of three Zombies.  She bolted up, as more began to gather around her.  Beyond the fence, the high pitched sound of the chain-link being assaulted mixed with the groans and howls of the Things on the other side and spurred her to action.  She grabbed her purse and raced towards the trucks, her eyes scanning the yard for number three.  As she ran, she plunged her hands into her purse and searched for the truck keys. Her eyes found truck three at the same moment her hands seized upon the keys.  She cast her purse away and careened towards the truck.  Beverly grabbed the handle and the door flew open, sending her crashing to the gravel for the second time.  Not wasting any time, she leaped up and climbed into the cab of the repair truck and slammed the door.

Beverly’s hands were shaking as she fumbled the keys into the ignition.  The big engine rumbled to life and she headed for the front gate. 

In front of her the gate was closed.  She stopped the truck and was about to hit the remote to open the gate when she noticed movement in the side mirror.    The Dead that had pursued her to the fence won their battle.  She watched in renewed horror as the fence gave way, sagging to the ground under their weight.  Like a breached dam, the Undead poured into the yard and came straight for her.  Beverly whimpered and her eyes filled with water.

“I’m sorry, Gary,” she said as she mashed the gas and plowed through the gate.

Beverly consoled herself that maybe Mack and Reggie had already made it back to the plant.  No sooner did she bolster herself with the thought then she noticed a wet mess on the ground in front of her.  Her mind told her a large dog had been hit by a truck, but in her heart of hearts she knew it was a lie.  Beverly hit the brakes and the truck skidded to a stop.  Her breath came hard and fast as she stared at the gelatinous pile in her headlights.  Dogs didn’t wear work shirts with names stitched in them.  Beverly slumped on the steering wheel and her body shook with tears.  She sat up as the first of the Dead hit the back of her truck.  In the side mirror she could see a steady stream of them coming her way.  The collisions of more and more of the Dead sounded all around her as they began to pile up around the big vehicle.  Beverly looked ahead of her at the clear road leading into the night then at the glistening pile that was Reggie, and finally at the plant in the mirror behind her.  She thought of Gary and his waiting in vain for Reggie and Mack.  Even if she led them away, more of the Undead would find their way here and Gary would be trapped.  Beverly dropped the truck in reverse and plowed through the horde around her.  Bodies fell and were ground beneath her wheels, others were smashed to pieces and thrown across the yard as Beverly raced backwards toward the plant and Gary.

Gary stood on the roof.  He turned in a slow arc and looked at each of the three buildings in the distance.  Tall gantries with high voltage wire led away from each of the buildings, disappearing into the night.  Gary had to get to each of them to do what he had to do.  He let his eyes drop to the land below.  The buildings sat on twenty-two and a half acres of fenced in land around the plant, fenced in except for the breach.  Hundreds of meandering bodies now dotted the landscape.  Gary looked to the trucks.  He had thought if he could make it to one of them, he could get to the buildings and flip the switches.  Staring out at the sea of predators, he doubted he would make it ten feet out the door.  Gary was about to turn and go back down the stairs to the control room when he heard a noise in the distance.  He raced back up to the roof and over to the edge.  He could not believe what he saw.  Truck number three was mowing down bodies and heading to the plant.  Gary turned and ran back down to the control room.

As he headed down the last flight of stairs and pushed through the control room door, he could hear Beverly calling his name.  The two burst into the control room from opposite ends at the same time.

“Beverly!  What are you doing here?!  Why haven’t you—”

Beverly cut him off.

“They’re not coming back, Gary!  Mack and Reggie are… gone,” she cried.

Gary’s face fell.  Beverly looked at him, confused.

“I know, Bev,” he said.

“You knew?!  If you knew no one was coming, why stay?!” she yelled.

Gary approached her and spoke in a tone that to Beverly seemed too calm for the present situation.

“I told you, Bev.  I have to do something that will… help survivors… after…”

Beverly looked at him and knew the calm in his voice sprang from a deep resolve to do what he thought was right.

“Okay, well then how can I help you so that we can get the hell out of here?” Beverly asked.

Gary smiled.  “I have to tie the three major U.S. power grids together with superconductive high voltage Direct Current power transmission lines, then because the AC power will be out of phase, I have to synchronize the Alternating Current so that it can be transferred across all three of the grids… which currently cannot be done…”

Beverly stared at Gary as if he had three heads and each one was speaking a foreign language at the same time.  Only one word sprang to her mind.

“What?”

Gary went over and ripped a large aerial photograph of the plant off the wall.  He spread it out on his workstation.  Gary pointed at a building towards the bottom of the photo. 

“This building here is us,” he said.

At each of the three points of a triangle beyond the plant was a building with power-lines attached.  Gary put his finger on each one as he spoke.

“This building here is the terminus of the Western Interconnection, this one is the terminus of the Eastern Interconnection, and this one down here, because they think they are better than everybody else and have to have their own grid, is the terminus for the Texas Interconnection.”

Gary looked up at Beverly waiting for her to realize what she was looking at.  She didn’t

“This is the power grid of the United States.  Our plant was built here because it puts us at the closest point to all three grids.  If you wanted to tie them all together, here is where you would do it, see?” Gary said.

“Okay, So,” Beverly said.

Gary looked at Beverly and knew he had to frame his next words carefully.

“America gets about eighty percent of its power from coal firing plants.  With no one to basically shovel coal into those plants, they will shut down, fail within two to three days.  The rest of our power, the other twenty percent is made up of other sources, Nuclear, Hydro, Wind, Solar.  Some people say that the Nuclear plants could run for about two years before they begin to fail, hydro, wind, and solar could run until parts wore out, so who knows how long.  The point is, Bev, the grid is going to go down and the only survivors with any power will be the ones near plants serviced by non-coal plants.  Our plant, Tres Hombres, was upgraded to be a repository of the energy that we generate from the twenty percent.  It circulates in an underground triangle of five gigawatt superconductive cables and the three grids will draw from it as needed,” Gary said.

Beverly’s eyes began to gloss over and Gary could tell he was losing her.

“I want to prop up the grid for longer than a couple of days, give the ones that remain every chance,” Gary said.

Beverly shook her head.  “Gary what are you talking about?  When this thing blows over, even if the grid has gone down or… they have stopped shoveling coal into plants, they’ll fix it.  I mean there might be blackouts for a while, but…”

Her words trailed off as she saw the leaden look on Gary’s face.

“There won’t be enough people left to do any of that, Bev.  Eighty percent of our power is from coal, but ninety-nine percent of the people will be… gone.  The ones that are left will be just trying to survive, which is going to be a lot harder to do without power.  I need to take what little power will remain, the power circulating here at Tres Hombres, and drip it into the whole grid… give what’s left of humanity a little extra time,” he said.

Beverly stared at him, her mind still not fully grasping the implications of what he was telling her.

“Yeah, but Gary, without the coal plants, the other twenty percent won’t be enough to power the whole country, I mean…”

A cold washed over Beverly as she thought about what was finally dawning on her.

“The demand for power will be next to nothing, Bev.  The whole country won’t be sapping the grid.  Only the one percent will.  Just the survivors,” he said.