The Living Dead (Book 1): Contagion (11 page)

Chapter 12

Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night…

Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness.

                                           -Psalm 91

            Old stone steps led to the basement. A moist smell of age mixed with mold closed around them as they entered the main room. Daniel spotted a table covered with Lego’s and ran over to play. Several doors led off to unknown spaces and Virginia picked a door to the right and went in. This must have been the original coal cellar. A chute that allowed coal to be shoveled in from street level was still in place but the access door was chained shut. She heard footsteps crunching in the snow on the sidewalk outside as well as that low pitched keening. There was nothing in the room other than a water heater so she turned to leave, but only after giving the lock on the chain a good tug to be sure it was securely fastened. The chain clanged on the coal chute door and the moaning outside paused. Suddenly there was a loud thud on the door, followed seconds later by another. The banging became continuous. She backed away from the chute, horrified by what she had done, just as Charles and Carson ran into the room.

            “You done it now Virginia! There’s live food in here and they know it.” Carson seemed more excited than frightened.

            The fierce assault on the chute door continued. The door shook with each hit but held. The noise would only attract others. How long would it hold? They left the room, shutting the door firmly behind them.

            “That’s all we can do for now. Let’s finish what we came down here for.” Charles strode down to the last door at the end of the room, struggling with the doorknob, finally kicking the door in. After a moment a muffled shout floated out of the doorway. Carson and Virginia followed him inside. A couple of old pews took up most of the space. Charles had climbed over them and crouched in a corner, shining a flashlight on a small door.

            “Help me move this pew out of the way, there’s not enough room to open this door.”

            Carson picked up the closest end of the nearest pew, lifted it and backed out of the room, Charles following with the other end. The space now cleared, Virginia knelt by the door and listened but heard nothing inside. The door was about 3 feet high, made of joined planks and looked old. The knob was an irregular oval with a tiny key plate below it. She tried the knob but it didn’t turn.

            “Locked?” Charles was at her shoulder. She nodded. “Ok, move aside.”

            Carson took a screwdriver from his pocket and jammed it forcefully into the lock, prying the plate completely off the door. Cold air smelling of earth poured out through the hole created. Virginia trained her gun on the door as Charles pulled it open, shining his flashlight into a small room with a dirt floor. He ducked down into the room and came out a minute later. He held two glass jars.

            “Blackberry jam. I think we found an old root cellar.” The contents of the jars looked completely dried up. “Can’t tell how old these are. The dates on the lids have faded. There are more on the shelves in there but I‘d say they‘re just as old. Somebody just forgot about them.”

            Daniel pushed his way through the forest of adult legs and crouched by the aperture. He looked delighted by the small size of the doorway and duck-walked inside.

            Charles slumped against the wall. “That’s it. That was the last place we hadn’t looked. Maybe this building was never connected to any tunnels or the entrance could have been walled up. I just don’t know. Dear God, I am so tired. I want a shower, a toothbrush, a bed.”

            Virginia laughed. “I want a monster truck with those giant wheels and a full tank of gas, idling just beneath one of the windows upstairs. We can climb down to it, drive out over those things and get out of here.” And I want my children back in my arms, she added silently to herself.

            Everyone was silent, thinking of their own most wanted list. In the quiet, the sound of the infected slamming into the coal chute door intruded into their thoughts. What they wanted if they got in was not hard to guess.

            Charles and Kincaid left and went back upstairs. Virginia tucked her gun into her waistband and called for Daniel to come out. He didn’t appear. She crouched down and peered into the doorway. He was over by the shelves of preserves. “Daniel? Come on sweetheart, let’s go find something to eat then we’ll read a story before bed.” She wasn’t sure where they would sleep but anything would do. Just then she heard a crash as the wooden shelves and assorted glass jars hit the dirt floor. Daniel ran over to her. ”I didn’t mean to! They bumped my head when I stood up.”

            Virginia shushed him and checked his head for injury.

            “Daniel, it’s fine, we couldn’t eat those anyway. You’ve a little knot on your head though. Let’s go up and find-” She stopped speaking. In the space where the shelves had been was a small rectangular opening, outlining a deeper darkness behind it. She bent down and, entering the room, shined the flashlight into the space. She saw little but piled up rubble, (bricks maybe?), and a dirt floor. She backed out, picked Daniel up and climbed the stairs back up to the main level.

            Carson and Larry stood by a window, looking down into the street. It was now fully dark but the street lamps were on, providing pools of light in the otherwise dark streets. They laughed and exclaimed while watching something on the sidewalk. Virginia set Daniel down and walked over to see what was going on.

            To the side of the library was the graveyard of the former church. Considered historic and picturesque, it boasted mournful angel statues and stone crosses guarding the occupants of tombs and plots buried in a time when the dead stayed dead. The action was not taking place there, however. On the sidewalk next to the library, under a street lamp and right about where she guessed the coal chute door should be, the new dead congregated. An infected man wearing sweatpants and a “Don‘t taze me bro!” t-shirt slammed repeatedly into the chute door, using his shoulder and head. His skull cracked and grayish black matter sloshed as he threw himself at the door. As his cranium disintegrated and his brain fell out, he slumped to the ground. Within seconds, another of the dead took his place, ramming the door, while others clawed at the wall.

            “Did you see that? Outstanding!” Carson and Larry fist bumped.

            “Heaven help us.” Virginia walked past them and found Charles next to the candy machine, eating from a bag of M&Ms. He held the bag out. Virginia took one and let the chocolate ecstasy melt on her tongue. She wondered briefly if they would ever make M&Ms again. She would miss them.

            “Daniel and I found something. Come back downstairs and I’ll show you.” She led him down the stairs.

            “In here. When the shelves fell down this is what we found. What do you think?”

            Charles shined the flashlight into the opening in the wall. ‘This could be a tunnel. Can’t see much so it’s hard to say for sure.” He looked up and smiled. “Maybe you did it Virginia.”

            “Thank Daniel, not me. He found it. And got a bump on his head for his trouble.”

            He backed out of the room and shut the door. “I think we’ve explored all we can today. Let’s go up and tell everyone what you- sorry-
Daniel
found. If we decide to get out through here, we should all get a good night’s sleep and tackle it tomorrow. After you, gorgeous.”

            Virginia found Daniel back in the apse, entranced by a Clifford book. She sat next to him and together they finished the story.  He wanted to sleep on the blue patch of the colorful carpet and she got him settled in. No blankets but the heat was still on in the building. For now.

            The adults had a quick meeting on the landing and briefly discussed the recent find.

            “I still don’t see why we need to leave here. We have a little food, water, and power. I’m in no hurry to go. We‘re bound to be rescued.” Larry stated his opinion.

            “Again, no one has to go. We’re all free agents here. But we have
very
little food and I don’t think anyone is coming to our rescue.” Charles looked annoyed that someone failed to grasp something he found so obvious.

            “I’m going to find someplace to sleep and we’ll take it up tomorrow.” Kincaid stalked off, also looking slightly annoyed, either at Charles or Larry, Virginia couldn’t tell. She too, left and found a spot on the floor near Daniel. She was almost asleep when she heard voices raised in argument.

            She scrambled to her feet and grabbed her gun. She looked down but Daniel still slept. She heard footsteps on the landing and a woman’s voice imploring someone. At the circulation desk, she found Gabriella in a furious argument with Charles. Virginia moved closer.

            “…now! It has to be tonight. She gets worse and you have no right to stop me. The hospital is right there! There is more than enough there to save her. You can’t stop me!”

            It wasn‘t hard to figure out what was going on. Gabriella, wearing her coat and carrying a flashlight was heading to the hospital for insulin. Virginia moved past them toward the back office where Marisol still struggled to hang on to life. Larry’s dog appeared to be guarding the child and sat patiently by the cot. Mari’s hand slipped from under the mail sack covering her and the dog gave it a gentle, wet lick. Virginia walked back to the desk.

            “Ok then, let’s do this. Tomorrow, assuming we have actually found an entrance to the tunnels, we get out, come back around and enter the hospital from the Broad street side. Most of the infected are in the front parking lot near the ER. We just might have a chance coming in from that direction.”

            “I cannot wait. These infected are slow and stupid yes? I can get around them and be in and out and back here before they can catch me.”

            “I‘m asking you, don’t go-” Charles entreated. “There are so few of us- the living- we can’t lose you. We can’t lose anyone else to them. Just wait until tomorrow. Yes, they’re slow but there are too many. Once we explore the tunnels-”

            “I will not lose my daughter when the medicine she needs is down the street.” Gabriella cinched her coat belt tighter and walked to the door. Virginia walked back to the apse and grabbed her boots.

            “We don’t have a view of the area outside the front doors from any of the windows. We can’t see if those things have gathered out there.” Virginia leaned against the wall as she yanked her boots on and slid her knife inside. “Can anyone hear anything through the door?”

            By this time, Carson had arrived to investigate all the noise. He volunteered to go up to the roof and scout the entrance. Charles left the room and returned with his coat, a shotgun, and a handgun.

            “Obviously I‘ve been overruled. Here” He gave the handgun to Gabriella. “Know how to use it?”

            “Point and shoot?”

            “Be sure to take the safety off. Also, headshots are best.”

            “I knew this.”

            The sound of running footsteps announced Carson‘s return. “No way out the front. Most of ‘em are still over by the coal chute but plenty are scratchin’ at the front door. And that hospital is just boilin’ with ‘em. The inside lights are all on and it looks like a corpse shindig. You might want to have another think about this.”

            Gabriella made a sound of disgust and ran up the stairs, heading for the roof door. Virginia followed with Charles close behind. As they emerged onto the roof, a piercing scream rose above the moans from the infected. They joined Gabriella leaning over the roof’s edge and saw a woman scramble over the wrought iron fence of the cemetery, the infected stumbling after her. It was a good move on her part; the dead were too uncoordinated to climb the fence although they continued to mass against it in growing numbers. Where had she come from and what could have made her desperate enough to run out into a throng of hungry dead? The noise was drawing several of the coal chute besiegers and-she ran to check-those by the front doors of the library as well. Charles had already assessed the change in situation and, motioning to Gabriella, they sped down to the front doors, pulling them open and making sure Carson closed them behind them. Virginia called back, asking Carson to watch both children while they were gone. They descended into an almost deserted street, snowflakes swirling around them and the unsettling sound of moaning from one hundred or more dead throats just around the corner.