The Gathering Dead (27 page)

Then the lights went out.

Someone screamed
—
it wasn’t the youngest girl, it was her older sister, Kenisha. A thrill of fear went through everyone, and both McDaniels and Leary reached out and grabbed the edge of the elevator door. It was within millimeters of sliding closed when the power failed, and there was just enough of a gap for them to get their fingers inside. They pulled, and the door slowly retracted back into its recess with the greatest of reluctance.

“Five, this is Six... we just lost power up here, over!”

“Roger that, Six. Same down here, in case you were curious. Are you trapped in the elevator? I don’t think I heard it engage, over.”

“Negative, we’re still on twenty-seven. Give me a second to figure this out, over.”

“Roger, Six.”

“Everybody out,” McDaniels ordered. He reached behind him and grabbed the front of Safire’s jacket and hauled him out of the elevator.

“Major, do you mind?” Safire snapped, not happy with the roughness of McDaniels’ actions. McDaniels ignored him and flipped down his night vision goggles.

“Troops, go NVGs,” he ordered. Leary already had his in place. Finelly and Derwitz snapped their goggles down over their eyes and shouldered their weapons. They looked at McDaniels, waiting for orders. McDaniels didn’t keep them waiting.

“You two, guard the corridor outside. Watch the fire exit. Don’t get too close, some of our guys are with the dead, and they know how to use their weapons, including grenades. Once I figure out how we’re getting out of here, I’ll recall you.”

“Got it, sir,” Finelly said. He and Derwitz turned and headed for the hallway outside. McDaniels returned to the elevator and pressed the G button again. The door did not move, and only the meager emergency light was one. The call panel was completely dark. The elevator
—
like the rest of the building, and the rest of the city McDaniels saw through the rain-slick windows
—
was dead.

He fell to his knees and pushed and tugged at the tile floor. There was no hatch he could detect. Earl stepped toward the elevator then and looked down at him, his hands in his pockets.

“Ain’t nothin’ in the floor there, major. What, you think they’d put somethin’ there that people might be able to fall through when they’re a hunnert feet off the ground?” he asked, the puzzled amazement plain in his voice.

McDaniels pushed himself to his feet, smiling ruefully beneath his helmet and night vision goggles. “I guess not,” he said. “Is there any other way off this floor Earl, without having to go down the stairs?”

“Naw, this is —” Earl stopped himself and put a hand on his chin. He stroked it thoughtfully, deep in thought. Leary watched them from behind his night vision goggles, then opened his mouth to say something. McDaniels waved for him to be silent.

“Earl,” he said softly, “if you have something, you got to tell us now, man.”

As soon as he finished, a thin sound cut through the sudden silence. It was a long, drawn out moan. Leary shouldered his M4 and darted toward the door that led to the corridor, but McDaniels didn’t need any confirmation. The dead were making their way up the stairs.

“The dumb waiter,” Earl said. “It goes down to the twenty-sixth floor board room—”

“Where? Where is it?” McDaniels said.

“The kitchen. Follow me,” Earl said, and he hurried across the dark dining room.

“Where are we going?” Regina asked.

“Follow him,” McDaniels said, waving the others to follow. Regina did that, a hand on her father’s arm, towing him along as she hurried after him and Earl.

“Yes, I heard about the dumb waiter, but what good is getting to another floor going to do if we can’t get to the basement?” she asked.

“We can get to the freight elevator from there and climb down the shaft,” he told her as he followed Earl into the kitchen. The emergency lights were brighter here, and he flipped up his goggles, falling back to using the good old Mark I eyeball.

“You think we’re going to be able to climb down the
elevator shaft
?” Safire asked, the incredulity plain in his voice.

“We sure as hell are,” McDaniels said.

Earl looked around the kitchen for a moment, then found what he wanted. A single stainless steel door was mounted in the wall, approximately three feet high by three feet wide. He grabbed its handle and yanked it open. On the other side was a small elevator with shelves for plates of food.

“Yeah, here it is!” he said, not even attempting to hide his simple delight at the discovery. McDaniels fancied that in his mind, Earl had saved them all. That was very probably close to the truth.

“It’s a good step in the right direction, but with the power off, how do we get down?” McDaniels asked. “It uses electricity, right?”

Earl snorted and reached inside, plucking a rope with one hand. “Naw, this is part of the original equipment! This thing was here when the building was put together, and no one really paid much attention to it unless there were dinner meetin’s and things like that. No sense in puttin’ an electric motor on it, you know?” He let go of the rope and reached inside the elevator and pulled out one of the shelves. He placed it on the floor. McDaniels reached over Earl’s shoulder and pulled out another shelf. Within moments, the elevator was clear. McDaniels immediately tried to climb inside, but even with the shelves removed, it couldn’t hold him and his huge backpack. He shrugged it off and tried again. It was a tight fit, but he made it.

“Earl, describe the board room to me. And what else is on the twenty-sixth floor?”

“Board room’s got a big table, with about twenny chairs. Dumb waiter opens up on the wall facing the windows. Only one door leading out to the hall, but there are glass windows overlookin’ it. It’s all offices, only a few cubes that the secretaries would use. I know they’re all gone, no one on that floor other than the boss, and we know what happened to him.”

“Which way to the freight elevator from the board room?”

“Left out of the board room, end of the hall. Here, I’ll send you down. Be careful and try not to move around too much, major. I don’t think this thing was built for people, you know?”

McDaniels clutched his M4 and nodded. “Got it.”

Earl pulled on the rope, and the dumb waiter hitched and jerked as it made its way down to the next floor. It hit the bottom of the landing with a tinny
clunk
and came to a full stop. A small push bar was on the door, placed there just in case someone happened to get trapped inside. McDaniels pressed it and slowly pushed against the door. It swung open on well-lubricated hinges. Slowly, McDaniels unfolded himself from the dumb waiter’s tight confines. A long credenza was right below the door, and he stepped onto its lacquered surface gingerly, his M4 clutched against his side. Getting out of the dumb waiter was awkward and cumbersome, and he wondered how well the much bigger Finelly would handle it.

The floor was just as Earl had described it. McDaniels exited the board room and turned left, his rifle at the ready, his NVGs in place across his eyes. He moved quietly but quickly, his boots whispering across first carpet and then travertine tile. The freight elevator was in a room similar to what was in the cafeteria, which made it easy to locate. Using the fire key, he was able to force open the sliding door. The elevator shaft was completely dark, but his NVGs revealed it was also empty. There were no zeds in it, and the elevator was still parked at the floor above where McDaniels stood. He shoved a nearby trash can into between the door and the frame to hold it open.

“Leary, this is Six.” McDaniels spoke softly into his headset microphone. “Let’s start sending everyone down. Get the rope from the elevator up there and bring it along. We’re going to need it.”

“Roger that, Six.”

It took some time to get everyone relocated to the 26th floor, as stealth had to be maintained. As they descended one by one in the dumb waiter, McDaniels kept a close watch on the fire escape door, located down an adjacent corridor from the freight elevator. If the zombies tried to get to them, the attack would come through there.

Their moans grew louder in the stairwell as the dead climbed higher and higher. It would not be long until they were right outside the 26th floor fire door. The question was, would they continue on to 27? And if so, how long would they remain there before coming back down? He decided that all depended on just how much of their collective tactical faculties OMEN team retained. If they were only running on so-called “muscle memory”, then so long as they were quiet and especially mindful of what they were doing, then they could make it to the basement without incident.

If not, of course, then things would probably go to hell in a fast sports car.

Leary was the last to leave the 27th floor. As he lowered the dumb waiter with all of their gear loaded inside
—
none of the soldiers could withdraw with all their packs and weapons on them, as the dumb waiter was just too small
—
he reported he heard pounding on the fire escape door. It was hardly news to McDaniels, who heard the same thing from the 26th floor board room. Time was up. McDaniels pulled all the gear out of the dumb waiter and sent it back up.

“Let me know when you’re inside, and I’ll pull you down,” he said over the radio as he yanked downward on the rope. The dumb waiter ascended on its well-lubricated rails.

“I’m inside, and the outer door is closed,” Leary said a moment later. Just as a finished, a terrific crash echoed through the 27th floor, its sound reaching McDaniels through the dumb waiter’s shaft. He pulled on the rope, bringing the dumb waiter down.

“What was that?” he asked over the radio. He was alone in the board room. Finelly and Derwitz were with the civilians in the freight elevator vestibule, rigging the ropes they had with them. While he hadn’t expressly told Safire and the others what the plan was, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that they were going to have to climb down to the basement parking garage.

“Sounds like the zeds are on the floor,” Leary said calmly. “Probably so many of them they just popped the door out of the frame. Better watch out down there, sir... same thing might happen.”

The dumb waiter arrived and McDaniels helped Leary climb out. “Let’s hope not,” he said, and led him to the freight elevator vestibule.

###

McDaniels was pleasantly surprised to find that Gartrell and Rittenour had tied their rappelling gear and gloves to one of the ropes, and Finelly and Derwitz had recovered them without hassle. They had then tossed the rope back down the elevator shaft.

His surprise at finding resistance from Wolf Safire was not quite as pleasant, however.

“I’m sorry, major. I simply can’t climb down a rope for three hundred feet,” Safire said. There was no acrimony in his voice when he spoke, or even fear. He merely stated what he believed to be a fact as he peered into the elevator shaft. To him, without the aid of night vision devices, it would be a pitch black maw yawning into hell.

“Why is that, doctor?” McDaniels asked.

“I’m sixty-seven years old, major.”

“Age has nothing to do with this, doctor. But don’t worry about a thing. You’ll be strapped to my back.” Underlining the urgency of the situation was the noise from overhead. It seemed that hundreds of zombies staggered around the cafeteria now, brushing against tables and chairs, knocking things over. There was a tremendous crash as dinnerware shattered against the floor. The zeds were tearing up the place looking for them, and McDaniels didn’t want to depend on the zombies’ total stupidity to keep them safe long enough for him to have a calm, rational conversation with Wolf Safire.

Safire must have thought McDaniels was joking. “I can’t make it. I have a severe rotator cuff injury that was never successfully repaired, as well as significant arthritis in my hands and shoulders. I would love to do it, major. I have no desire to become food for the zombies, but I just can’t.” He put his hand on Regina’s arm. “Please take my daughter and the rest of these young people out ahead.”

“As far as this mission goes, they’re nonessential personnel. You are the mission objective. You go first.”

Safire’s face clouded. “I don’t think —”

There was a steady pounding from outside as first one zombie, then another and another and another started working on getting past the 26th floor fire door. Leary leaned into the corridor outside, then turned to McDaniels.

“They’re at the door. I’m going to go pull the batteries from the emergency lights. Should slow ‘em down a bit,” he said, then disappeared as he stepped out of the vestibule and closed the door behind him.

McDaniels shrugged off his backpack and opened it up. He pulled out a loose association of black nylon straps, carabineers, and a piece of metal that looked superficially like a figure 8. He also pulled out several long plastic quick-ties which he shoved into a trouser pocket, then quickly slipped on the straps. Finelly snorted.

“Guess you Green Beanies don’t go anywhere without your rappelling gear,” he said.

“Can you and Derwitz rappel down?” McDaniels asked.

“Hooah,” Finelly said.

McDaniels keyed his radio button. “Five, this is Six. How’s it looking from down there? Over.”

“Six, all clear in the shaft. I can see you guys up top. It’s about two hundred and seventy feet to the bottom, so you have a hell of a climb down. Lots of supports to use as hand-and footholds, but they’re about ten feet apart. Hope you’ve got enough gloves to go around.”

“Roger that, thanks. We’ll be coming down shortly.” McDaniels handed his back pack to Finelly. “You look strong as an ox, Finelly. Can you carry my gear?”

Finelly lifted the pack and after assessing its weight, nodded silently. McDaniels handed him the quick-ties, then crouched before Safire.

“Hop aboard, doctor. Make it quick.”

Safire looked scandalized by the proposition. “I don’t think now is the time for a
piggyback ride
, major!”

“Get on, you pompous ass!” McDaniels snapped. “No one’s leaving here until you do, including your precious daughter, so snap to it!”