Zombie Fallout 8: An Old Beginning (26 page)

“He was also a volunteer firefighter.”

That made more sense. That was why he would have had keycard access to this place and even more of why he would want to hide his addiction. Tough to be a manly fireman with a
Romancing the Highlander
novel in your back pocket.

There was a heavy banging on the door we’d entered. It appeared that the zombies were also romance-reading fans. It was a hope of mine anyway.

“Mr. T, we should really be finding a way to get out of here.”

I held up a finger and silently shushed him. This was a small room; there was a bench in the middle—I would imagine
to help in donning fire apparel…or reading in this case. The lockers and the hose were mounted on the far wall, along with an axe. There were no holes in the floor, walls, or ceiling as far as I could see that would allow for some miraculous escape. At this point, I’d love to tell you that all of this was coming together in my head.

It wasn’t.

I was blank slating. I think maybe it had something to do with being nearly naked and the damn burning itch in my wrist as it healed at an impossible rate. Right now, as far as I was concerned, we were trapped, might as well hear Porkchop’s story out. He would recite it whether we were listening or not, and this would give me plenty of time to claw at my crawling irritation.

“I stood up from my duties to look through the opening that went from the cook area to the serving area. From there, you can see out into the cafeteria. Mr. Springer was swinging the end of his mop back and forth in the face of a zombie. Then he stuck the handle into the zombie’s mouth and drove him backwards into the wall. Left a huge blood splatter. It was pretty gross.”

I had a newfound respect for the sometimes fireman and secretive romance-reading janitor.

“It was when more zombies came in that he started to lose the fight. He killed two more, and would have had another if one hadn’t bit his shoulder from behind.”

“He killed three zombies with a mop?” I asked.

Porkchop nodded.

“Damn, I wish he were here now. I’d help him carry his books.” And I meant it.

“I couldn’t move, Mr. Talbot. People were screaming and running all over the place, but I couldn’t move. I kept watching as more and more zombies just tore him apart. He was still fighting with five of them on him. He saw me once, it was across the cafeteria, but I heard him tell me to run. I couldn’t, though, he needed saving and I did nothing.”

“Porkchop, there’s nothing you could have done. If you had gone out there with your potato peeler you would have been dead, too.” I tried to calm him down. He was crying now, fat tears falling to the floor as I helped him back to the bench.

“Dad, I mean Doc Baker, came in from the other side. He was looking around like crazy for me. I couldn’t even call out for him. I was like peas.”

“Huh?”

“Frozen.”

“Gotcha.”

“So he finally spots me, and he’s waving for me to come and follow him, but I can’t.”

“Because you’re peas,” I say as I put my arm around his shoulder.

“Because I’m peas,” he echoes. “So he comes to me.”

He was crying now, a full-throated keening coming from him. This sound seems to be a siren song for the zombies as they redouble their effort on the door. The bolt looks solid enough, but I’m not sure how long it can hold.

“He…he grabs my hand and we…we start running the way he came in. It was too late though.” He had to stop his narration while he exhausted his supply of tears. “If I had gone when he waved to me, we might have made it.”

“You don’t know that, Porkchop,” I tried to console the boy.

“He told me to get somewhere safe. And that was it. The zombies started biting him. I ran that time. I came here. It was the safest place I could think of, and I knew Mr. Springer had food and a stove down here. We used to come here to go “camping”. Mr. Springer said he sometimes felt trapped in this place, and he wanted to go topside and see the stars again. He tried, but the people in charge said he couldn’t, so he did this.”

Porkchop was pointing to the stove, hotdogs and beans. He then did something I had not been expecting and was honestly frightened of. He stood and walked over to each flashlight and turned them off. I think I may have been shivering by the time he got to that third one. I was going to plead to his sense of compassion to leave it on. He had his reasons I suppose, and if worst came to worst, I would wrestle one away from him.

“Look up,” he told us.

“Holy shit,” was the best I could come up with on short notice. Mr. Springer was the Michelangelo of glow in the dark paint. He had recreated the constellations in painstaking detail. Even Tommy was amazed.

“Aries, Andromeda, Cassiopeia, there’s hundreds here. They’re perfect.” I could see Tommy’s jaw had grown a little slack. “I swear, if I look at it long enough, I can see it move.”

I sighed in a sort of sadness and cold longing, with an edge of desperation, as Porkchop turned the flashlights on. For a brief moment it had felt like we’d escaped and were no longer trapped levels beneath the earth.

“He held the zombies off long enough for me to get away. So I came here.”

“I can see why.” The door rattled again. I’d swear I saw the bolt bow out a little.

“We used to talk a lot, me and Mr. Springer, mostly about our homes and food, sometimes zombies. He told me once that he didn’t think zombies could bite through the fireman gear. I didn’t really believe him. I haven’t seen anything yet that stops them, not even concrete walls.”

I looked over to the uniforms, my feet quickly taking me to where my eyes had been looking. I gripped a sleeve of the protective clothing; it was thick and heavy. I was more inclined to agree with Mr. Springer. Especially after I read the tag that said the material was woven with a Kevlar mix. Anything that was designed to stop a bullet should be able to stop zombie teeth and fingernails. I put the jacket on, might as well have donned a piece of clothing consisting entirely of knitted together mosquitoes. If the zombies didn’t kill me, the incessant scratching would.

“These could work,” I said, fidgeting about, trying to get into the impossible position of having the material not touch me.

“There’s a shirt in the locker,” Tommy said, noticing my discomfort.

I thought I was going to do a happy dance at the possibility of putting a layer between the torture device and me. That was of course until Tommy pulled out the wadded up ball of clothing.

“It’s dirty,” I told him.

“So,” he responded evenly.
“Stop being a prima donna.”

“You want me to put on dirty clothing from someone I don’t even know?
And that somehow makes me a prima donna?”

“Would it matter if you knew them?”

“No,” I answered honestly.

“
And that most definitely makes you one. What’s the worst that could happen?” he asked.

“Scabies, maybe.”

“I don’t think you can catch scabies from a dirty shirt.”

“What about flesh-eating bacteria?”

“I guess…I don’t know. Porkchop, did Mr. Springer complain about any large skin lesions?”

Porkchop just tilted his head, not getting the question. Tommy seemed to thoroughly be enjoying himself. “Just put it on.” He tossed it at me.

The end of a sleeve landed in my mouth. That alone would have been enough for my gag reflex to kick into gear, but the wafting stench that followed it completed the job. Before the zombies came, I’d smelt jock reek during my youth having played sports, and I remembered that acidic stink of testosterone along with sweat and a teen’s innate ability to let it age for a few days at the bottom of a locker. This was easily one of the worst funks I’d ever had the displeasure of smelling. But this shirt had all of the above ingredients along with what could only be described as essence of boiled skunk nards. The resultant putrefaction was tearing up my eyes and clawing through my olfactory senses.

I was like a cat trying to avoid water as I put the shirt over my head, all stiff-armed and clearly agitated.

“What’s the matter with him?” Porkchop asked Tommy.

“He’s afraid of catching leprosy.”

“What?” I ripped the shirt off. “Can you really catch that from a shirt?”

I should have known by Tommy’s smile that he was full of shit, but I was having a hard time distinguishing things clearly through the haze of odor. Plus my eyes were nearly closed tight. The door rattled again, I didn’t need to have my eyes open to hear a screw fall to the ground. The sound was small, but the actual event was monumental.

“Porkchop, get some gear on,” I told him.

“I tried, it’s too big. I can’t even walk in it.”

“Well, it’s your lucky day, because I’ll carry you.”

“Then what, Mr. T?” Tommy asked.

“Well…see…now I’ve got this all figured out.”

“Oh no,” Tommy and Porkchop said in unison.

“
Et tu
?” I asked the smaller boy.

“My name is not Brutus and you are no Caesar,” he told me.

“Impressive.” And I meant it. “Fact remains I have a plan. Come on, let’s get your stuff on. You too, Tommy. Looks like we’re joining the volunteer force.”

I’m not going to say I got over putting that gross ass shirt on, but it helped that I was assisting Porkchop in getting dressed. Once I placed the heavy jacket on, it hid a fair amount of the smell, kind of like locking it in Tupperware. Although there was some sticky fluid around the collar of the neck that about made me freeze in motion every time I turned my head and felt the material adhere to my skin. “It’s nothing, it’s nothing, it’s nothing,” became my chant.

“He going to be alright?” Porkchop asked Tommy. I was down by his feet pulling his boots on, and Tommy was doing the straps in front of the boy’s jacket.

Tommy shrugged. “Mrs. T is really the only one who would be able to tell us.”

“You two crack me up. Porkchop, I’m going to turn around. Will it be alright if Tommy helps you get on my shoulders? I want to do a sort of dry run here and see how this is going to work out.”

Porkchop looked to Tommy quickly, then me, and nodded. I went down on my knees as Porkchop stood on the narrow bench. He looked like he could go swimming in that suit. The kid might like to eat, but he’d been losing weight fast since I’d met him. Tommy picked him up and easily deposited him on my shoulders. It wasn’t too bad, felt like a small backpack. I grabbed my rifle and maneuvered around. Tommy caught Porkchop before he fell over.

“You realize that you need to hold on, right?” I asked him.

“I did not realize that,” he said, flustered.

“You ever done a piggyback ride?”

“Technically, Mr. T, a piggyback ride is where he would wrap his legs around your mid-section and his arms kind of around your neck. This is more of a shoulder ride.”

“Always one in the crowd,” I grumbled.

“I’ve never done either.” He looked down as he said it.

I would have questioned him further, but I remember him telling me that his father was a world-class d-bag. Well, maybe not with those exact words, but the sentiment was the same.

Tommy propped Porkchop back up.

“Okay, kiddo, I’ll hold on to your legs with one arm, but you’re going to have to hunch over and grab hold of my shoulders. Okay?”

“Okay,” Porkchop answered, but he looked far from thrilled about it.

I got him back up there. I bounced a little and made a couple of quick movements to my right and left. Porkchop’s arms encircled my neck much like I thought they would. The kid was strong enough to choke out a bear. I tapped his arms. But apparently the universal signal for “ease up” was not one he was familiar with.

“I think you’re killing him,” Tommy said to Porkchop as he looked into my reddening face.

Porkchop finally relaxed. “Shoulders,” I moaned, grabbing my raw throat. “Hold on to my shoulders.”

“I was,” Porkchop countered.

“Hold on, Mr. T. There’s a strap here. Lift your arms, I’ll connect it around your chest, and then Porkchop can put his legs under it so he can’t fall off. That way he won’t have to hold on to your shoulders as hard.”

“Sure, anything that keeps him safer and me with more air is fine with me. You good with that?” I asked Porkchop. I was smiling at him, attempting to keep him at ease, but my insides felt like they were liquefying, and I could pretty much squirt out everything within me. I know it’s
gross, I’m just letting you know how I felt. Keeping him safe was the only thing that mattered in this whole equation.

“How do you want to do this? I won’t be able to watch your back and cut a trail.”

Tommy had still not seen the shining path I was laying out before him. I motioned with my face toward the wall.

“Yeah, what about it? It’s an axe.”

“What’s next to the axe, Tommy?”

“A fire hose. What do you want me to do with that?”

“Really? How old are you? Fine, let me make this
real
clear. What’s the fire hose hooked up to?”