Dead, but Not for Long (46 page)

Once she was done cleaning weapons, Helga left the
ER to look for Snake, hoping he could tell her how to get a room. She was told that he was upstairs checking on Smiley.

“Maybe Wolf can help you,” Gunner said. “He’s outside.”

Helga found Wolf and Wombat standing together and
she approached them. Wombat didn’t look much like a biker, in her opinion, and
she thought he had a silly name. Not only was he younger than most of the
others but he didn’t have the facial hair and rough looks that she associated with a real biker.

“You need scars or tattoos,” she told him,
stopping in front of him, “and a beard.”

“I . . . what?” he asked, confused.

“Nothing,” she said, turning to face Wolf. “I want
a room. Can I just take one or do I have to ask someone nicely?”

“Talk to Lindsey,” Wolf said. “She’s handling the rooms.”

“I think Lindsey’s leaving,” Wombat said,
surprising Wolf who had been sure she’d stay. “She’s up on the roof meeting the
choppers now.”

“Good,” Helga said, surprised that the other woman would leave a fine man like Snake behind.

“Why is that good?” Wombat asked. “I’ve kind of liked having her around.”

“Snake will be better off without that woman.”

Wolf and Wombat looked at each other then back at Helga.

“What do you mean?” Wombat asked.

“You don’t think they’re together, do you?” Wolf added.

Helga frowned. “Snake told me she is his girlfriend.”

Both Wolf and Wombat burst out laughing.

“He musta been joking,” Wolf said. “Lindsey’s got
something going with the helicopter pilot. That’s probably why she’s leaving.”

A slow, almost wicked smile broke across Helga’s
face at the news. “Good, then Snake will be mine again.”

Wolf and Wombat exchanged a look, realizing why Snake had lied to Helga.

“Uh, well, maybe we’re wrong about that,” Wolf said quickly.

“Right, um, who knows? There might be something we
don’t know about,” Wombat added, shrugging. He glanced over at Mouse, who had
helped Lindsey with the room assignments on occasion.

“Talk to Mouse,” he said, nodding toward the small biker.
“He might be able to find you a room.”

While Mouse was dragging a zombie to the burn
pile, he noticed that the others were looking past him and quickly heading off.
He had hoped it was just another zombie approaching, but as he turned, his eyes
widened and his throat went dry. It was Helga. She stood towering over his five foot five frame.

“Where can I sleep?” she asked him.

He gulped while backing up and pointing toward the building. “Anywhere you want,” he said.

As he backed up, she followed, step by step.

“Some of us have gurneys set up on the fifth floor
and are kind of camping out b-b-but if you . . . you know, need your privacy,
being, well . . . kind of a girl and all, Lindsey can maybe find you a room
upstairs.” Mouse wanted to run, but he worried that her animal instincts might
take over, causing her to chase him and bring him down like a wounded gazelle.
Instead, he stood there like a condemned man before the executioner.

Helga’s fists tightened when Mouse mentioned Lindsey.

“Lindsey again!” she said. “I don’t want to hear about her anymore.
And I don’t want a gurney. They crumple like tinfoil. Give me a real room.”

“Sure,” Mouse said. “J-just go upstairs and find
an empty room and put your name on the door.”

She walked toward the building but glanced back at Mouse once to see if he would flinch.

~*~

Lindsey stood on the roof as the Coast Guard helicopter landed. It was longer than the one that Lee
normally brought, and the pilot did some impressive maneuvering to fit it on
the roof around the air conditioners. Jack joined her and they watched together
as the helicopter finally settled into place. Moments later, an officer
stepped out and approached them.

“You must be Jack,” he said with a smile as he reached out his hand.

“Yes, sir,” Jack replied, shaking the man’s hand. “And
this is Lindsey.”

“Nice to meet you,” Lindsey said.

“I’m Major Wilson, but you can both call me Bob. I’ve
heard a lot about you,” the officer said. “My crew has been instructed to start
shuttling your people over. We’ve got two of the Blackhawks, so you might as
well get everybody up here at once. We want to get moving right away since it’s
going to take several trips.”

Lindsey glanced up to where the second helicopter was hovering, waiting for its turn to land.
“I’ll go let them know,” she said, turning to leave.

“Jayhawk, not Blackhawk,” Eric said, walking over to join the others.
He stuffed a pair of rubber gloves into his pocket.

“Same thing,” Wilson said. “The Jayhawk’s just a
modified Blackhawk.” He turned to Jack. “I’m sure you have some questions, so
is there someplace we can go that’s a little more private while my crew gets everyone aboard?”

“Information is gold these days,” Jack answered. “Let me give Snake a call so he can join us.”

As Jack got on the radio with Snake, he heard Eric say to Wilson, “Most people think that’s true about the Blackhawk, but the truth is . . .”

“Eric,” Jack sighed, putting away his radio when he was done with the call. “Go stand guard outside the lab for a while. Now.”

Once Eric walked off, sulking, Jack said, “Follow
me. Snake will be joining us as soon as he’s done checking on a friend. Poor
guy survived the zombies and bombs, just to have a heart attack.”

“That’s too bad,” Wilson said. “It was fortunate
that he had access to a hospital.”

Jack and Wilson descended the stairway to the
fifth floor and walked down the hall to a small conference room. Four soldiers
followed.

As they entered the room, Snake came in behind them and introductions were made.

Bob said, “I hope you don’t mind if I ask you to
lay your weapons on the table. Just a policy we have.”

Jack laid his pistol on the table and motioned for
Snake to do the same with his rifle. Jack noticed right away that it wasn’t the
weapon that Snake normally used. It looked like junk. He wished he could have
swapped his pistol out for something else as well, but they probably already knew what weapon he carried.

“Just a precaution,” the Major said.

Snake started to protest, but Jack motioned for
him to comply and Snake relented. The soldiers quickly scooped them up. The
Major leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head.

“Give us a little privacy,” Bob said to his men as
he waved them off. Three of the soldiers walked outside the room and shut the
door. The one that stayed moved to the wall behind Jack, facing Wilson.

“I’m sure Lt. Reynolds filled you in on what’s
happening here,” Bob started.

“Well, he told us you’d be evacuating us to other
locations, but he was pretty tight-lipped about the details,” Snake said.

“You’ll be going to our large shelter down the
river from Dubuque, Iowa, for now,” Wilson said. “It’s not too close to the
city or any other populated area, and it’s surrounded by farm land, so there will be
plenty of food. River’s right there, too, for water. It’s an ideal location.”

“For now?” Jack asked.

“Right,” Wilson continued. “We’ll look at long-term placement after you get there and everything gets sorted out.
We have shelters all over the country but we’re broken up into regions.
The Dubuque shelter is in the middle of a region, so you could end up in Illinois, Wisconsin or Iowa.”

“Who decides where we go?” Jack asked.

“We have people at Dubuque that make those
decisions, but they do their best to keep families together.”

Jack raised an eyebrow at the comment. “Do their
best? You mean families could be separated?”

Wilson began backpedaling, explaining that there
had been a few mix-ups which had been straightened out.

“And we don’t get any say in where we go?” Snake
asked.

“Well, now, that would get pretty chaotic, wouldn’t
it?” Wilson asked. “You’ve got to understand, this is a massive operation and
it’s difficult to take care of all these people as it is. We’re doing our best,
but sometimes things do get a little hectic. Besides, we like to place people
where they’re needed based on their skills. It wouldn’t make much sense to have
two mechanics or two doctors in one location and none in another.”

Jack frowned. Wilson’s comment made some sense but
at the same time it bothered him that the refugees weren’t given more say in the matter.

“What exactly did Reynolds tell you?” Wilson
asked, leaning forward in his chair. A look passed between him and the soldier
who stood at the back of the room.

“Not much,” Snake said. “He encouraged us all to
go to the shelters. Guess he didn’t see a problem with leaving the patients to
die, though.”

“He did ask Snake about our weapons,” Jack added. “He
said that you might be able to get us some more. We seem to be in short supply
and we’ve just about exhausted our ammo on our supply runs.”

“Now, that’s not really true, is it?” Wilson asked
with a grin. “I think you have all sorts of weapons and ammo. My men will be
collecting all of it.”

“One of the newcomers has a really great bat,”
Snake replied, grinning right back.

“Gentlemen,” Bob started. “I know what Reynolds
told you. He told you to hide the other guns. Unfortunately, his copilot
overheard and told us. Now, he doesn’t know that we know, and I’d like to keep
it that way. He’s an excellent pilot but it seems that he’s let this woman,
Lindsey, affect his judgment. I guess that he thought he was helping her,
somehow, but it’s making our job that much harder.”

Snake quickly thought back to the conversation on
the roof. The copilot had been watching them, but the chopper had been running
the whole time and there was no way he could have heard anything.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jack asked
with false indignation.

“He never said anything of the sort,” Snake added,
looking baffled. “We mostly just talked about the bedridden patients and what
we could do about them.”

Jack said, “Lt. Reynolds said you were going to
reinforce us, not take our guns away. How the hell are we supposed to defend ourselves?”

“Look,” Wilson sighed. “I don’t like the idea of
disarming people in the middle of a crisis, but my superiors have a certain
number of guns they want on that chopper or they’ll come back and get them
personally. I’m going to be honest with you. They don’t give a shit whether you
live or die. They just want your guns.”

“Well, they got our guns,” Snake said, “both of ‘em.”

There was a knock at the door and the remaining
soldier went to answer it, speaking briefly with someone in the hallway. He
closed the door again and whispered to Wilson, who nodded.

“My men found a third weapon, a rifle that was
being used down the hall.”

“In the observation room?” Snake said. “Our sniper
takes out any of the dead that get too close. You’re taking his rifle away,
too? You’re crippling us, here!”

“Give us a minute,” the major said to the
remaining soldier, who nodded and left the room. Once the door was closed,
Wilson leaned forward, elbows on the table in front of him as he continued in a
hushed tone.

“I’ll try to send someone back with more weapons
later, but if I don’t come back with something there’ll be hell to pay.”

“I can go get the bat for you,” Snake suggested.

“I wouldn’t trust me either,” the Major replied. “But,
unfortunately, you’re not going to have a choice. My men are already searching
the hospital. If we find your weapons, we’ll have to take everyone in. The sick
will be left to die and nobody wants that. Now, where are the guns?”

“Man, I don’t know what your copilot was smoking,”
Snake chimed in, “but what you see is what you got.”

The Major smiled. “All right.”

He keyed his radio and the soldiers walked back
in, this time with Autumn.

“Kids are brutally honest,” Bob whispered to Snake.

“Young lady,” Bob spoke in a forceful, but
non-threatening manner. “I’m Major Wilson with the U.S. Army, and I need your
help. We need to know if these people have any guns and where they might be. We’re
here to protect you now but we need to be sure that no accidents happen. Can
you help us?”

“They’ve got guns,” Autumn replied. “I’ve seen
them. I think they hid them or something.”

“Good,” the Major smiled smugly as he looked at
Snake then at Jack. “Do you have any idea how many there were?”

“Sure do. Three. The motorcycle guy had one and
the security man had another one,” Autumn answered. “And, I think one guy
shoots out the window with one, too.”

Bob’s smile turned into a frown. He stood and
glared at the two men for a moment before storming out of the room. Snake wiped
a bead of sweat from his brow, and Jack made a mental note to recommend to Dr.
Doune that Autumn be given a raise.

When the soldiers were safely out of earshot,
Autumn whispered into Jack’s ear, “Sometimes it pays to be nosy. You owe me big
time.”

“Yes, I do,” Jack replied. He turned to Snake. “Just
where
did
you hide the guns?”

“Most of ‘em are in the truck. We kept a dozen or
so out and those are under Helga’s bed,” Snake said.

“In the ER?” Jack asked.

Snake shook his head. “She wanted a room upstairs.
I happened to run across it when I was looking for a place to stash the
weapons. I pity them if they stumble into her room. It ain’t going to be
pretty.”

“I’ll bet it won’t be,” Jack laughed. He stood and
added, “I’m heading up to the roof to see how everything is going.”

“I’ll join you,” Snake said.

~*^*~

When Lindsey returned to the roof, she was shocked to see two of the bikers restraining
Keith while he yelled at Lee and another pilot.