The Gathering Dead (28 page)

Safire started to refuse, then thought better of it. With a heavy sigh, he slowly climbed onto McDaniels’ back. McDaniels hefted him into position and twisted about slightly until he felt the scientist was about as well balanced as he could be. He nodded to Finelly.

“Strap him up,” he said.

Finelly used the quick-ties to secure Safire to McDaniels as well as he could. McDaniels pulled a spare pair of gloves from one pocket and handed them to Regina.

“Put those on, you’ll need them. Earl, you have gloves?”

“Yeah,” Earl said, his voice thin and unsure. “You really think we gotta climb down the elevator shaft? I mean, there ain’t no ladders or nuthin’ down there —”

“Hear all that pounding, Earl? That’s what’s going to have you for dinner. Climbing down is the only chance you have of getting out of here alive. Finelly, strap his youngest kid to his back. Kenisha, Regina, you guys are on your own. Kenisha, you look like you’re in great shape, can you do this?”

“I was a gymnast in high school,” she said. There was a nervous quality in her voice that McDaniels wasn’t sure he liked, but there were a thousand zombies trying to get at them. What wasn’t there to be nervous about?

“You’ll do fine. Take a set of gloves.” He hopped upward slightly, adjusting the load on his back. Safire groaned at the indignity of it all, and McDaniels felt his breath on the back of his neck. McDaniels grabbed the secured rope in both hands and yanked on it, testing the strength of the knot Finelly and Derwitz had tied.

“Here, I have some extra gloves.” Derwitz handed them to Kenisha, and she smiled vaguely as she pulled them on.

“They fit,” she said.

“Be glad I got small hands,” Derwitz said.

“Maxi’s always wanted to be a woman,” Finelly added.

“Blow me,” Derwitz said. “Oh, sorry about that,” he added for Earl’s benefit, glancing quickly at his young daughter.

Leary stepped back inside the vestibule. McDaniels couldn’t see much of his face behind his NVGs and radio microphone, but he didn’t look happy.

“We gotta boogie, major. Those things are going to get through that door pretty quickly. I pushed a file cabinet up against it, but it’s not going to do more than slow them down for a second or two.”

“On our way. Get your rappelling gear ready.” As Leary pulled his rappelling harness out of his backpack, McDaniels keyed his radio transmit button. “Five, we’re coming down. Over.”

“Roger that, Six, and I advise you to get a move on. Over.”

“Brace those doors,” McDaniels said to Leary, then hauled himself and Safire into the elevator shaft. He cinched the rope through his rappelling gear and pushed off the edge of the open elevator door. Safire gasped even though the hop was a small one, just a quick experiment to ensure both he and the rope had what it took.

“Take it easy,” he said to Safire. “Just enjoy the ride
—
it won’t take very long.”

And it didn’t. Though it had been a while, McDaniels rappelled down the length of the elevator shaft quickly and efficiently, even with the extra weight on his back. For his part, Safire clung to him like a frightened child but he remained utterly silent during their bounding descent. Overhead, the second rope tensed as Finelly clambered onto it and began his own descent.

Gartrell’s voice whispered in his headset. “Fifty feet now, major. Looking good, almost there. We’re right here waiting for you...”

And with that, McDaniels was pulled backward as Gartrell and Rittenour grabbed Safire. They hauled both men out of the elevator shaft and into the darkened parking garage. As Rittenour ducked back into the shaft to spot Finelly, Gartrell cut Safire free. Some of the plastic ties had cut into his skin despite Finelly’s careful placement. Once he was free, the elderly man practically collapsed to the cement floor. Gartrell half-caught him and cushioned the impact.

“Easy there, doctor,” he said.

“Thank you... thank you,” was all Safire could say as McDaniels turned and helped Gartrell ease him into a sitting position.

“No problem. You sit there and rest,” McDaniels told him.

Finelly joined them a short time later, red-faced and slightly out of breath from the hard work ferrying McDaniels’ loaded back pack from the 27th floor. McDaniels allowed himself a brief smile. Even though Finelly was at least a good fifteen years younger, McDaniels had made it down with more weight on him and more breath in his lungs.

Derwitz was next, and he shrugged off his pack after alighting. “Someone has to go back up and help the civilians come down, major,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

“Sergeant Leary will see to that, Derwitz.”

“They’ll be blind. There’s not much light in there, and they don’t have NVGs. I’ll only go up a couple of stories, talk them down if they need it.”

McDaniels considered this for a moment, then nodded. “All right. Thanks for volunteering.”

Derwitz headed back into the elevator shaft and clambered up the rope.

Safire slowly rose to his feet. “My daughter?” he asked.

“She should be making her way down shortly. Specialist Derwitz and Sergeant Leary will assist her in her descent,” McDaniels said. That wasn’t strictly true. While both soldiers would doubtless cheer her on, there was nothing they could do for any of the civilians now. They were on their own now.

“Leary, how’s it going up there?” McDaniels asked.

Leary’s response was a muted whisper. “They’re in the hallway outside, major. I’ve blocked the door with as much stuff as I can, but if they decided to crash through, there’s not a lot I can do about it.”

“Roger that. Are all the civilians off the floor? Over.”

“Yes sir, all are on the rope now. Over.”

“Then get the hell out of there and close the elevator doors behind you, ASAP. Over.”

“On it.”

McDaniels left Safire where he lay and returned to the elevator shaft. He glanced up and saw the figures slowly climbing down the rope. They still looked tiny, so very far away.

Gartrell joined him. “This is going to take a while.” He grabbed a hold of McDaniels’ arm and pulled him away from the shaft. “Better step back, major. No one wants to be looking up when... well, you know.”

McDaniels nodded and did as Gartrell asked. He handed the keys to the senior NCO and motioned toward the van in the center of the garage.

“Maybe you should see about getting that vehicle squared away, first sergeant.”

“On it, sir.” With that, he spun on his heel and hurried toward the waiting van. McDaniels stepped back toward the open elevator shaft. He couldn’t help himself, he was drawn to it as if my some sort of gravitational force. He looked up and watched as Derwitz hauled himself into position several floors above, speaking to the civilians so very far above him in hushed tones that nevertheless echoed throughout the elevator shaft. Far overhead, Leary did the same, his voice soft but encouraging.

Then something echoed through the darkness, something loud and cacophonic.

“What’s going on up there, Leary?” McDaniels asked.

“Zeds at the elevator door,” Leary replied. “They’re pounding on it. Either they figured out where we went, or they’re just guessing, but either way we’re probably about to get the sharp end of the stick, sir. Over.”

“How are the civilians doing, over?”

“So-so. It’s plenty dark in here, and it’s a long way. Earl’s doing okay, I think. Not so sure about the others —”

A brief shriek cut him off. McDaniels’ heart leaped into his throat as he saw a figure tumbling through the elevator shaft.

Oh God —

The figure bounced from side to side, and the sounds were horrifying as each impact forced a tiny, breathy exhalation from the body. The sounds echoed throughout the elevator shaft as the body tumbled and spun like a disjointed rag doll. Derwitz swore and pressed himself against the concrete wall as the body slipped past him, bouncing off a support. McDaniels was jerked backwards suddenly, and Rittenour’s voice was in his ear.

“Get out of the way, major!”

And then, the body slammed to the bottom of the elevator shaft with a wet slap that carried with it the sound of bone being compressed past the stage of breaking. Something dank and fetid filled the air, and McDaniels pushed away from Rittenour and leaned back inside the shaft.

Kenisha Brown still breathed slightly through an open mouth. Her tongue was bloodied, and more blood trickled from her nostrils. One side of her face had been crushed inward, and the eye on that side was distended, the orb sticking out from the ravaged socket like some sort of glutinous marble. Her limbs were bent askew in several places, and her skull had been parted on one side. Gray-looking brain tissue peered out, rendered in ghostly green and white by the night vision goggles.

And then, she stopped breathing.

Rittenour joined McDaniels at the elevator door and grimaced. “Jesus Christ. Poor kid...”

“Is it Regina?” Safire asked from behind them. His voice was weak and tremulous.

“No,” McDaniels said over his shoulder, “it’s not.”

Safire said nothing in response, but McDaniels heard him weeping as silently as he could. McDaniels knew how he felt. If he had time, he’d weep himself.

More banging and slamming from above. McDaniels and Rittenour looked up the shaft as light flared and gunshots echoed through the building. Brass cartridges tinkled as they fell down the long tunnel, bouncing from wall to wall.

“Zeds are forcing open the door, major!” Leary reported. “They got us!”

“Sir.” Rittenour pointed down at Kenisha Brown’s body as it slowly stirred, writhing in place as its skeleton had been so severely damaged during the fall that it couldn’t provide its muscles with a solid framework on which to generate real motion. The zombie’s blood-filled eyes rolled this way and that, and the one good eye left in its head focused on McDaniels’ left boot, some four feet above. It reached for him with a flopping arm. McDaniels pulled his pistol and fired a single round into its head.

“Come on people, you have to move now, and move quickly!” McDaniels shouted. “Regina, Earl
—
you have to hurry!”

“I’m trying,” Regina said, and her voice was breathless.

Earl only muttered something, and McDaniels realized his words were for his surviving daughter, not for him.

“Easy does it, Regina. But as quickly as you can.” Into his radio: “Leary, how bad is the incursion?”

“They’re still fiddling with the door, but they know where we are,” Leary said. “Expect them to be dropping in anytime now, if you’ll pardon the pun. I’m trying to hold them back, but there are so many of them, they might just pop the doors open from sheer mass alone, over.”

“Major.” Gartrell hovered behind McDaniels’ shoulder. He looked at Rittenour and jerked his head to one side. Rittenour fell back and joined Safire, who crouched on the cement floor beside the van. Finelly stood nearby, his weapon at port arms. Gartrell grabbed McDaniels’ arm and pulled him away from the elevator shaft once again.

“Major, listen to me. We’re ready to go. We have Safire, and we have transportation. Let’s do the right thing and boogie, sir. We’ve ridden this as far as we can.”

McDaniels looked at Gartrell as if he were an alien creature. For his part, Gartrell endured the major’s derisive look as stoically as he could.

“You mean just abandon these people, first sergeant?” McDaniels said.

“I would call it resuming the mission,” Gartrell said, his voice as hard as stone. He flipped up his night vision goggles, and glared at McDaniels through the gloom. “But you can call it whatever you like, major. It doesn’t make a bit of difference to me.”

“We’re not running out on these people, first sergeant. They need us, we are soldiers of the United States Army, and this is our job.”

Gartrell walked up on McDaniels then, got so close that their faces were only inches apart. McDaniels flipped up his own NVGs and half wondered if the altercation would get physical. If it did, he had no doubts he would be the victor.

“Now you listen to me, you two-bit loser,” Gartrell said, his voice deep and raspy, the voice of a senior NCO who was used to being in charge of hundreds of troops and instilling fear in them with just a look. “I’ve been in This Man’s Army for over twenty-five years, and you don’t think for a
second
you know better what it takes to wear this uniform. You officers are all used to giving orders, but you have absolutely no fucking idea what it takes to translate those orders into results. And you’re demonstrating the same bullshit you shoveled out in Afghanistan, McDaniels
—
you’re the wrong guy for the job, because the
mission
is always second to you.”

And with that, Gartrell unholstered his pistol and placed it squarely under McDaniels’ chin. There was a click as he thumbed off the safety, and McDaniels was certain that his day had just come to an end.

“One chance. One chance only,” Gartrell said, and his voice was barely above a throaty growl. “Get in that vehicle, or die right here. This is a no-shit circumstance, son. I am not allowing you to fuck up another mission when it is in my power to prevent you. Not this time.”

“Drop that weapon, first sergeant.” Finelly had taken a firing position several feet away, and his MP5 was shouldered. Its barrel was fixed on Gartrell’s back. McDaniels didn’t doubt that Finelly intended to shoot if he had to, and he also didn’t doubt that Finelly would hose him as well.

“Hey, what the fuck is going on here?” Rittenour asked. He had his M4 in his hands, but it wasn’t pointed at anyone... yet. “Finelly, put that down. First sergeant, you too. What the fuck, we don’t have enough shit going down already?”

“Rittenour, get Safire into the van,” Gartrell said. “Do it now.”

“What the fuck for?” Rittenour asked.

“Don’t bother with asking what the fuck for, just do it, troop!”

“First sergeant, put down that weapon!” Finelly said again, this time with panic-tinged conviction in his voice.

“Make me,” Gartrell said. “The major’s been a grade-A fuckup ever since I knew him, and now you’re going to throw in with him, Finelly? I should’ve guessed, you aviation dilettantes are all alike.” Gartrell kept his eyes on McDaniels as he spoke. When Finelly failed to respond to his jibe, he said, “What’s wrong, Finelly? Can’t man up enough to shoot a fellow American in the back?”