After a long moment and a deep breath, I gently laid her down and put my mask and goggles back on. I took her wedding ring and engagement ring off and put them in my breast pocket. They were for Jake when he wanted to get married. His mother would have approved. I picked Ellie back up and brought her into the lounge where I wrapped her in a blanket and laid her down on the couch. I had no intention of bringing her out, but I did intend to bury her as I left. As I stood up, I thought I felt a gentle touch on my cheek and my heart inexplicably felt lighter. I immediately knew I had done the right thing and I also knew I was forgiven.
“Get busy living,” I said to no one in particular. Patting my pocket, I headed for the door just as Charlie burst in.
“We gotta go and we gotta go now!” He panted, stealing a glance at the door. He was carrying a huge sack over his shoulder like a kick-ass, zombie-killing Santa Claus. He looked down at the couch. “Did you…”
I nodded. “I found her. I’m good.”
“Are you bringing her with us.?” Charlie asked.
I shook my head. “No, but I’m going to make this place her funeral pyre. It killed her, now I’m going to kill it,” I said, the rage building inside.
Charlie put a hand on my shoulder. “You’ll die in that mood. Get your head on ‘cause we got trouble.”
“What are you talking about?” I calmed down slightly.
“Those zombie kids are on the loose and they are fast. I saw one of them move quick enough to be considered running,” Charlie said.
That was bad news. Fast zombie children in the dark was a literal nightmare come to life or unlife, as the case was.
“Fuck it, let’s move,” I said, swinging up my carbine, with Charlie doing the same.
I moved into the hallway and headed back towards the stairway. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw several pairs of glowing eyes moving quickly behind us. They weren’t running, but they were darn faster than any zombie I had seen before. I paused for a second at the corner and snapped a shot at the gang, blowing a small head apart and causing others to fall as they got tangled up in the falling body.
“Move, move, move!” I yelled to Charlie and we both sprinted down the hall towards the stairs. On the other side of the hall, other small shapes were advancing rapidly. High-pitched moans reached my ears as we made the stairs. Charlie threw the door open and dashed inside, the big bag of supplies knocking me back a step. I pulled the door shut as the first little zombie slammed into the door, managing to get an arm wedged in the opening. The grayish arm grasped wildly, trying to get purchase on something. I pulled hard on the door as half a dozen little hands grasped the edge and started to pull. I braced myself and put a leg up on the door jam, pulling desperately. I could hold it closed, but the arm prevented me from closing it completely.
Not sure what to do to resolve the situation, I was relived when a large arm holding a handgun appeared in front of me and aimed through the door opening.
“Pardon,” Charlie said as he fired several rounds, the shots echoing up and down the stairwell. The owner of the arm was thrown back against others and the brief respite allowed me to close the door completely. Severed fingers dropped down on the floor. I slumped against the door and caught my breath as little clawed hands scratched against the small glass window in the stairwell door.
“Thanks, man,” I said as I followed Charlie down the stairs.
“Told you they were fast,” Charlie said.
“No kidding. That would explain the carnage. Wonder why they’re fast, but the adults aren’t.”
“No idea. I’m still getting used to the glow-in-the-dark eyeballs.”
We reached the ground floor and moved quickly. I stopped again at the janitor’s closet and grabbed some liquid soap. Charlie and I ran down the hall and burst out into the sun at the top of the ramp leading to the landing, which led down to the dock and the missing boat.
Both Charlie and I looked at the dock, then each other, then the dock again. Tommy and Angela were nowhere to be seen.
I immediately thought the worst, that Angela had fooled us all and had killed Tommy and taken the boat. I had no proof, no signs of violence, nothing. I looked at my watch and we were a full hour early, so Tommy would not have taken off with the bad news.
Charlie must have been having the same thoughts I was, he was gripping his rifle so hard it shook
I could hear him muttering, “…hunt her down…long as it takes…”
I thought about it for a minute, then gave up. I had something else to do. I walked down the sidewalk towards the door by the dock. I figured it was a maintenance shed and after a minute jimmied the door. I pulled out an empty gas can and poured the liquid soap into it. I dug around and found an old, greasy rag and tied it around the handle. Moving back to the ramp dock, I knocked on the small fuel tank that was used to refill the ones on the ferry boat and was gratified to hear gas inside. I took out a hollow spike from my pack and a small ball peen hammer. I chose a spot near where I thought the gas level was and used the spike to punch a hole in the tank. Gas spilled out through the tube and I quickly moved the can into position to fill it up. Once it was finished, I let the gas spill out of the tank before retrieving my spike. I washed it in the canal before replacing it in my pack.
I took the can and ran it back inside, taking a moment to make sure the coast was clear. I planted the can near the stairs at the far end of the hall and pulled out a small book of matches. I pulled out a match and stuck it in between the other matches, then placed the book under one corner of the rag. I pulled another one and lit it, then lit the outside match. I sprinted down the hall, leaping the zombie pile Charlie and I had created earlier. Behind me, I could hear a small hissing sound as the matchbook caught on fire. I moved around the ramp wall and sighted the now-burning rag with my AR. I aimed slightly lower and fired. Nothing happened, so I figured I missed and tried again. This time, the can blew, and the fire lit the escaping gasoline nicely. The soap helped it to cling to everything it touched and soon the entire back hallway was on fire. Black smoke billowed out the ramp opening and escaped to the sky.
I admired my handiwork for a second and walked back to the dock to stand next to Charlie, who was watching me with interest.
“So that was what the soap was for,” he said. “Nice one. I’ll have to remember that.”
“Learned it from an outdoor magazine,” I said.
Charlie said nothing.
The fire burned well, spreading quickly in the hospital. Smoke began filling the air and on the second floor, a window had blown out, and flames were licking the sides of the building, trying to get to the third floor. I sat down on the dock and removed my squeeze bottle of kerosene and my pickaxe. Squirting a little kerosene on the blade, I lit it and watched it burn for a minute, flaming red as the virus burned. I dunked it in the canal to put out the flames. I did the same to my boots, an awkward exercise, but after practicing for a while, we had gotten pretty good at it. Charlie did the same for his weapons and boots.
“What do we do about getting back home?” Charlie asked, adjusting the sack on his shoulder.
I looked up the canal. “Take the boat, of course.” Tommy was moving down the canal at a decent clip, steering the pontoons over to the landing. Charlie and I stepped over and onto the boat, with Charlie unloading his burden at the rear. I plopped down into a chair and leveled a gaze at Tommy, who seemed remarkably unfazed.
“Finish your business?” he asked innocently, steering the boat away from the landing and heading back down the canal. I looked back and saw flames shooting out of the windows of the nurse’s lounge.
Rest in peace, Ellie. I thought. Rest in peace.
I nodded, then fixed Tommy with a stare. “Any particular reason why you decided to go for a cruise down the canal and leave Charlie and I to fend for ourselves?” I looked over at Angela. “I thought maybe you were a good liar and I was going to have to hunt you down.”
Angela looked scared and Tommy looked hurt. “I know how it looks, but I think you’ll forgive us in a second.” Tommy nodded to Angela, who handed me a piece of paper. Curious, I opened it and stared. I looked up.
“What…where…how did you?” I was stunned into near silence. Charlie came over and I handed the note to him and he looked at Angela and Tommy as well.
“I can’t take credit. Angela found it,” Tommy said.
I looked over at Angela. If she had ever needed to prove her worth, she had just done so and in spades. “Tell me,” I said.
Angela smiled and said, “It was by accident, really. I was standing over on the edge of the canal and a piece of paper floated by. It had writing on it, so I fished it out and saw it was a survivor note, like the ones families used to write when they were escaping sieges.”
I stared hard at her and Angela shrugged. “My grandfather was a survivor of the siege of Stalingrad when he was six years old. His mother wrote a note in the hopes they would be found by his father. People wrote hundreds of these notes, hoping someone would find them and be able to reunite with them later.
“Anyway, I showed it to Tommy, who thought we should head upriver a bit to see what we might find. We figured you all wouldn’t be out for a bit and if you were you would just wait a minute.”
I just shook my head and then Tommy asked Charlie, “We called you on the radio, why didn’t you answer?”
Charlie looked sheepish as he retrieved it from his pack. “Forgot to turn it on,” he said, fiddling with it. I couldn’t blame him since I forgot he even had it.
I changed the subject. “What did you find upriver?”
Tommy jumped in. “We didn’t see anything going north, which made sense since anyone in their right mind wouldn’t go to the city during the Upheaval.” Tommy cast a sly glance at me before continuing. “But we saw on the other side of the bridges people had left notes and markings as they fled the city. Those that used the canal, anyway. The closer we got to the city, the more notes we saw. Then, when we were about to turn around and head back, we saw the note in your hand. Angela wouldn’t have noticed it except it was so odd.”
I looked down at the note. Just like my brother to do something to get noticed, even in the middle of a crisis. It read Eagles at Fort St. Louis’ in large black print, then in smaller writing, it read ‘Tell John Talon his brother lives and will look for him at the Leap.’ I turned the note over in my hands and then gently folded it and put it in my pocket next to Ellie’s rings. At the moment it was precious to me, as it was the last thing my brother had left for me.
“Thank you,” I said quietly to Tommy and Angela, meeting their eyes in turn. “Thank you.”
“So what’s the plan, man?” Tommy asked, his hand on the throttle of the boat.
I looked around and realized the city had nothing I wanted. It was a nightmare to try anything and whoever was still living in there could have it. We would just get killed if we went farther in. If I wanted a close look at the city, a better bet would be to approach from the water side, like the lake. Even now, drifting as we were, we could hear the moans of thousands upon thousands of zombies. In a few years it would be safer as the zombies decayed past being a danger. But it would take years to clean them out to make the city livable. Not my work. Maybe Jake’s, in time. But not mine.
“We head back to the community, drop off the supplies and get Angela checked out and fed properly.” Angela shot me a look of pure gratitude. “After that, we head south as fast as we can. My brother has been out there with his family for over a year and I want to go get him.”
“Do you know where he is?” Charlie asked.
“Yes,” was all I had to say. The note put an idea in my head and Charlie and I had a few things to discuss.