In the Lone and Level Sands (46 page)

****

The group sat around, mostly in silence.
Whenever someone started to talk, it usually turned into an
argument, but in silence they were pleasant. It was Stephanie who
broke it.

“Hey, do any of you hear that?” She turned
toward the windows and stood there for a little while as the sound
grew louder. The others joined her, pressing their faces against
the glass, trying to get a view of where the sound was coming
from.

They couldn’t see anything but the city;
neighboring buildings appearing untouched by the tragedy. The
ground was a graveyard made up of people and vehicles.

The sound grew louder, and a large Black
Hawk came into view outside. Though the people on board couldn’t
possibly hear them, there was nothing stopping the survivors from
trying to grab their attention. Jason cracked the window and began
waving the blanket wildly as he shouted up at the sleek black
chopper.

“Hey! Over here! Survivors in the Cardigan!
Please, you gotta help us!”

Evan and Stephanie opened the other windows
and screamed out at the Black Hawk as loud as they could. Evan
looked back in at Mal. She sat up, rubbed her eyes, and then looked
at Evan.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “Is someone
here to help us?”

“You hear that, honey?” Evan said. He sat
beside her on the couch. “That sound in the sky? That’s a
helicopter. We’re just calling to it, but I think it’s too
high.”

“They can’t hear you?” Mal said.

Cynthia sat on the couch and put an arm
around her. “We’ll be out of here soon. I bet they’ll hear us and
come for us. Don’t you worry.”

“You promise?”

“I promise. We won’t be here for too much
longer.”

The others kept waving as the helicopter
flew slowly through the sky. It was halfway across the view they
had, and Jason rushed away from the window, still holding the
blanket, and grabbed a cleaver.

“Where are you going?” Evan asked.

“I’m going to the roof. It’s higher, and
it’ll be easier for them to spot us.”

“I’m going too!” Stephanie said. She
followed, grabbing a cleaver as well.

“You coming?” Jason asked Daisy.

She nodded. “Sure thing.” She looked at
Eugene, who had been at the window. He was heading toward the
vacant couch. He saw the question in Daisy’s eyes, and cleared his
throat before answering.

“N-no, I think I’ll stay down here. You’ll
tell us if someone c-comes?”

“Yeah, definitely,” Stephanie said. She
looked at Vanessa, who had given up on the helicopter and sat down
on the floor in the corner of the room. Stephanie would have asked
her, but she felt there was no point. Vanessa looked a million
miles off.

Evan wanted to join them, but he figured
he’d stay with his wife and daughter. Mal was getting anxious, and
this made Cynthia twice as anxious. Evan wanted to be there for
them.

“Are we going to go with them?” Mal asked as
Jason, Daisy, and Stephanie began removing the barricade from the
door.

“No, I think we’ll stay here. They’ll come
back and let us know about everything, okay?”

“Okay,” Mal said. She looked at the
floor.

“Don’t worry, Mal. I bet when they take us,
they’ll have a nice big safe zone where we can go and relax. There
are no monsters there, and we can eat as much as we want, and we’ll
be safe.”

“Really?” Mal asked, her eyes lighting
up.

“Really,” Cynthia said.

“We’ll be back with a yea or nay on the
chopper,” Jason said.

“Good, thank you guys,” Evan said. “Be
careful.”

The trio left, and Evan pushed the desk in
front of the door after them.

Eugene pulled at his scratchy-looking
sweater vest and cleared his throat. Small beads of sweat dripped
from his receding hair and down his forehead. He adjusted his
glasses.

“I’m so exhausted,” he said, mostly to
himself.

“Did you say something, Eugene?” Cynthia
asked.

“N-nothing. Just that I’m tired. I haven’t
b-been getting much sleep here.”

“Oh, well, same here.”

“Is it weird that I’ve gotten some of my
best sleep here?” Evan said.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I mean, I’ve slept like a rock the
past few nights.”

Vanessa suddenly stood up and moved to the
couch Eugene was sitting on.

“I just can’t forget the way his eyes seemed
to glow when he looked at me.” She looked at the others and then
looked away, feeling embarrassed for hijacking the
conversation.

“That sounds terrible,” Cynthia said. “I’m
so sorry, Vanessa.” The others offered their condolences.

Vanessa sat down. “I just don’t know how to
get my mind off of Butch.”

“Always keep him in your heart, but don’t
let his absence tear you apart. That’s a waste. We’re all here for
you, so if you need anything, just ask.”

The smallest smile appeared on Vanessa’s
face, and she looked down at her destroyed dress with teary
eyes.

****

Daisy, Stephanie, and Jason moved quickly.
Luckily for them, there were no zombies on the 22
^nd
floor, but there were a few more floors to get through before they
made it to the roof.

They ran down the hall toward the stairs,
past a line of abandoned offices. Papers, pencils, chairs, and
various desktop items lay around on the floor as if a tornado had
come through.

Daisy was a few yards ahead of the others.
“Come on, guys!” she said.

“We’re coming,” Jason replied.

They reached the stairs and climbed them as
fast as possible. Their feet slapped loudly against each step. They
got to the next landing with no problems, and then the next. A
zombie was on the last landing. Its back was facing them, but it
turned around as soon as they saw it.

“Shit,” Daisy said.

“It’s just one,” Jason said. “We can take
care of the fucker.”

“Let’s get off the stairs,” Stephanie said,
“lure it down to the next landing so we’ll have the upper hand on
it.”

“Good idea, Steph,” Jason said. They backed
down the stairs, while the zombie watched them curiously. It took a
step forward as the trio made it off the bottom step onto the
landing.

“Geeehrr,” the zombie said. It stood there
for a few seconds.

“It’s almost like it doesn’t want to bother
us, since it knows it can’t win,” Stephanie said.

“That’s bad,” Daisy said.

“How is it bad that the thing isn’t gonna
bother us?” Jason asked.

“It means these things are wising up.”

“Oh. Shit. Well, you know if we try to get
past it, the fucker’ll probably try to get a bite, so we need to
kill—”

The zombie charged at them. It was swift,
but without the necessary coordination, it slipped and tumbled,
pained grunts escaping its mouth all the way to the landing.
Shocked, the trio backed out of the way to avoid being bowled over.
They were even more shocked when the zombie started getting up
almost immediately after coming to a rest. Its arm was broken.
Jason cringed when he saw bone protruding from the skin and blood
dripping off of it.

“You okay there, Jase?” Stephanie said.

“Never mind, I’ll take care of the
fucker!”

Jason lurched forward with his cleaver and
brought it down on the zombie’s head as hard as he could. The
zombie cried out in pain, then fell limp, and Jason removed the
blade. The body crumpled to the floor, blood leaking out of its
head and arm.

“Let’s go!” Jason said. The others followed
him over the corpse and ran up the stairs to a door with “ROOF”
marked on it in white letters. The sound of the helicopter was
still loud, and they saw it as soon as they ran out onto the roof
of the Cardigan. It had already passed over them, and they shouted
and waved, the blanket clutched in Jason’s right hand. Jason waved
both arms high over his head, but the chopper was getting farther
and farther away. The trio screamed after it as long as they could.
After a moment, it disappeared, the sound fading away into the city
along with their hopes.

“Fuck!” Jason said, throwing the blanket
down. Daisy laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Ah, nothing. You just looked like some dear
old wife waving her kerchief at her main squeeze, as his steam
train pulls him away to war.” Stephanie joined in the laughter.

“Not funny,” Jason said. “Why are you making
jokes at a time like this?”

“Because I don’t know what else to do,”
Daisy said. “Do you want me to stand here and bitch about our
troubles?”

“I just want to know why the hell they’re
flying through if they’re not even going to look for survivors.
Fucking military.”

“Who knows?” Stephanie said. She looked at
the sky, and then her watch. “It’s still early, maybe there’ll be
more military coming through. You know what we should do?”

“What’s that?” Daisy asked.

“If we found some paint, I bet we could
paint a huge sign on the roof. That chopper was low enough that
they would have seen it.” Stephanie looked from Daisy to Jason.
“And it’d always be here, we wouldn’t have to run back and forth
every time we hear someone coming.”

“That’s perfect!” Daisy said. “Art had some
paint in his closet back in the office. He kept putting off
repainting, thank God!”

“Let’s go!” Jason said. The three rushed
back inside and down to the corner office.

“What’s the news?” Evan asked as they
entered.

“They didn’t even get close to seeing us,”
Jason said. “But we’re going to paint a big old ‘SOS’ sign on the
roof. There’s paint in the closet.”

“That’s better than nothing,” Evan said.

“Are the stairs c-clear?” Eugene asked.

“Crystal,” Daisy said.

Jason went to the closet and opened the
door. After a moment of searching, he found a five-gallon bucket of
reddish-brown paint and a clean roller brush leaning against the
wall. He grabbed them and came out looking as determined as
ever.

“All right, let’s go back up there!” he
said. “Let’s get this paint down before we miss another chance out
of here!”

46

In the Community College

Max could hear the distant, muffled sound of
a machine gun.

“Where do you think they are?” he said. He
and Ortiz stood against the wall of the library building, waiting
for Lou and Johns to catch up. Max’s face was throbbing, his brain
was still trying to adjust to the temporary loss of half of its
vision and all of its depth perception, but he had at least calmed
down.

“I’m sure they’re fine, wherever they are,”
Ortiz said. “Just be patient. They had the mess hall and an extra
building, after all.” He could read the look of worry on Max’s
face. “We’ve been through a lot together. I know those two can
handle this.” That made Max feel better about Johns and Lou, but it
also made him feel all the more incompetent.

A few more minutes passed, and then Max saw
movement across the courtyard.

“Is that them?” he asked. Ortiz looked
through his binoculars.

“Sure is, and they’re giving us the signal
to proceed.” Ortiz waved back, and then readied his gun. “You ready
for this, kid?”

“I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” Max
said.

“Don’t worry so much. Look, what happened
back there, you had no control over it. You did your best, and you
did a great job, considering your lack of experience. This here
will be a piece of cake. And, with time, you’ll keep getting
better. We’re doing this to help people. Remember that.”

Ortiz turned and opened the door. He stepped
inside and checked the corners, and Max followed.

“Dead ahead!” Ortiz said. A group of zombies
began shambling toward the two. Max and Ortiz opened fire,
dispatching them with ease.

“It’s dark in here,” Max said.

“Turn on your flashlight.” Ortiz indicated
with his own. Max turned on the light at the end of his gun and
looked around. They could hear gunfire coming from the floor above
them.

There were only a few classrooms in the
building, and all were on the ground floor. Ortiz and Max cleared
them out. Max couldn’t tell if he was doing better on his own, or
because Ortiz stayed within a few feet of him this time. He wanted
to believe the former, but he was glad to be having an easy time
either way.

Max and Ortiz left the classroom wing and
entered a lobby. A vending machine near the door had been smashed
open, and glass and snacks (some partially eaten through their
wrappers and some completely untouched) littered the floor.

Ortiz kneeled down and picked up an
unscathed Snickers bar while keeping his gun fixed on the door at
the other end of the lobby. “If I had to guess, I’d say most of the
zombies in here starved to death.”

“Then where are the bodies?” Max said. A
noise to their left drew their attention, and their aim. A small
set of automatic doors had slid open, and now revealed a sunny
summer day. After a moment, they closed much slower than they’d
opened. “Holy shit, this place has power!”

“It must be on a generator,” Ortiz said.
“Remind me to take care of the automatic doors later. We won’t be
safe if the doors are letting zombies in on their own.” He
unwrapped the Snickers bar and took a bite, then started toward the
door at the other end of the lobby.

“I wouldn’t eat that,” Max said.

“Why not?”

“You don’t know what it might… do.”

“Look, kid. I don’t know what these things
are. I don’t know how they got here, and I don’t know what makes
them tick. I’ve seen enough to get that if they bite you, it’s all
over. But I’ve had enough of their blood get on me, get
in
me, to see that it has no effect. I’ve had them spit into my mouth,
but I’m fine. You had a nice run-in with their fingernails, but
you’re all right.” Max’s face throbbed at the very mention of it,
and he found himself hoping that his wound wouldn’t scar. “Point
is, besides the fact that I’m positive this candy bar won’t turn me
into a zombie, the second we let ourselves give in to fear, to the
point where we can’t even enjoy the little things we still have, we
may as well have already become one of them.” Ortiz opened the door
and stepped through.