The Reckoning - 02 (43 page)

             
I quickly checked them all for a pulse. It was thready, but it was there. They were all alive. Only one girl was conscious. She looked to be about sixteen and had auburn hair that had once been curly but was now matted to her head. From the look of them, I had to guess that they were all suffering from dehydration and exhaustion. I needed to get them back to Maddie as soon as possible.

             
“We have to get them back to the Underground,” I said, without looking up. “They need medical attention, right away.”

             
“What about the mission?” asked the First Sergeant.

             
“We’ll load them in a Humvee and send them back with two of ours,” I said, without hesitation. “Southard and Matthews can take them back.”

             
“You’re going to need us,” said Southard. “You can’t go in there with just six of you.”

             
“We don’t have a choice,” I countered. “If we don’t get them to the doc, they might die. We can save them and we’re going to.”

             
“Then just send one of us,” he replied. “You need every gun you can get.”

             
“If I only send one of you,” I said, “you’ll be up shit creek if you run into trouble. You can either shoot or drive, but not both.”

             
Southard pondered that a moment before replying.

             
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

             
“I don’t like it either, Chuck,” I said, “but the fact is we can save these kids and that’s a priority. We’ll make it work with just six of us.”

             
“Then how are you going to get home with only one Humvee?” he asked, shaking his head.             

             
“It won’t be comfortable, but we can manage,” I replied. “We’ll make it work.”

             
We started carrying the kids to the vehicles. I picked the girl up and draped her across my shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Then we headed out the door. Once we had them all loaded in the back seat of one of the Humvees, Southard climbed into the turret while Matthews jumped behind the wheel.

             
“Do you want us to come back after we drop them off?” asked Southard.

             
“No,” I said, after a moment. “We’re not going to wait for you. Just stay there and wait for us. I’m not planning on taking them on, just verifying that they’re in there.”

             
“Yeah, but your plans have gone wrong before,” he said, shaking his head.

             
“This is a recon mission,” I said, “not an invasion. We’re outnumbered too badly to engage.”

             
“Famous last words,” he replied.

             
“We’ll be back in a few hours,” I said. “Gods willing.”

             
“We’ll see,” he said, and then slapped the roof of the Humvee.

             
Matthews fired up the engine and gave us a mock salute. Then they were accelerating back towards the parking lot and vanishing from sight around the corner of the building. I had a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. I hoped I hadn’t just sent two of my closest friends off into an ambush without backup. I also knew that we needed them with us when we hit the cave. There was no help for it, though. We had to press on.

             
We regrouped and headed back into the building. Six more zombies were stumbling in our direction from the main part of the building, but we dealt with them without incident. The silencers were worth their weight in gold when it came to dealing with zombies. Once we reached the main part of the building, you could hear the old wooden floor creak beneath your feet. It made more noise than the suppressed weapons did.

             
In the main hallway, there were two zombies near the front offices. McDonald and Jackson dropped them with a single shot each. I used the opportunity to check the load on my magazine. I’d only expended six rounds since this all started. I considered changing mags, but decided against it. There were still 24 rounds in this one.

             
I crept down the hallway and glanced around the corner at the front doors. They were intact and secure. That was good news, because it meant that no more zombies would be coming from that direction without us knowing about it well in advance. Breaking down those heavy wooden doors would take time and be very noisy.

             
We took the stairs down to the basement level. I remembered my son telling me that there was an access door down there that led beneath the old theater auditorium and into the old boiler pipe tunnels. I found only one door that didn’t lead into classrooms or bathrooms, so I knew that had to be it. I could easily understand why the faculty and students at Central believed the old tunnels were haunted. Even the door gave me the creeps. It was heavy and securely bolted, like they didn’t want anyone getting in or out. It was a much heavier door than you would expect for a high school. I’ve seen banks with less intimidating doors.

             
I briefly considered shooting the locks, but that only works in movies and on television. I knew that Ramirez could blow the door off of its hinges, but that would make entirely too much noise. I had no idea where they might keep the keys to this gray painted behemoth, so I didn’t see the point in spending hours looking for them.

             
“Ramirez,” I said, “give me a flat head screwdriver.”

             
After digging through his bag, Ramirez handed me a large heavy handled screwdriver. I shoved the tip into the lock and struck it solidly with my hammer. On the third hit, the lock broke. I pulled out the screwdriver and listened for the sounds of approaching zombies. When I didn’t hear the telltale shuffling sound, I slipped the blade of the screwdriver into the deadbolt at an angle. It took six solid blows to break the deadbolt.

             
I could smell the damp and mold when I swung the door open. It was so dark inside that my tactical light didn’t seem to penetrate the gloom. I half expected to hear sinister music start up somewhere in the distance. Thankfully, it didn’t. I noticed that even the battle-hardened Rangers gave each other a wary glance as they looked into the darkness. Sometimes I hate my brain, but at that moment all I could think of was that line from Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven.”

“
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.”

             
Yeah, sometimes I really hate my brain. Now I
really
didn’t want to go down there.

“Time takes it all whether you want it to or not, time takes it all. Time bares it away, and in the end there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness, and sometimes we lose them there again.”

― Stephen King

             
We stood there a moment, listening for the telltale sounds of the dead in that darkened abyss. I didn’t hear anything not even the sounds of mice or rats. It was eerily quiet. First Sergeant Gregory reached into his pack, pulled out a green chem-lite and snapped it. It began to glow immediately as he shook it. Then he tossed it into the darkness. It fell and rolled on the floor of the basement, coming to a stop after just a few seconds. It illuminated exactly nothing.

             
As badly as I didn’t want to, I brought my weapon up in a tactical grip and forced myself to go into the darkness. The stairway that went down into that dank basement was uneven concrete. I could see where a few of them had even begun crumbling. They must have been part of the original foundation. I knew that it had been built in the late 1800’s, just before the turn of the century.

             
Once I reached the bottom of the steps, I swept to my left with each person behind me taking a different section of the basement to sweep. There was old furniture from who knows when stored down here and boxes long forgotten by previous administrations. The old steam pipes were still visible along one wall. After several moments that seemed to last a lifetime, we finished our sweep. There was nothing down here but moldy boxes and furniture. The walls were all crumbling brick and mortar. I didn’t see a cave opening.

             
“Anyone have a lighter?” I asked, glancing around.

             
First Sergeant Gregory fished into his pocket and tossed me a zippo. I caught it with my left hand, mostly out of luck. It was almost impossible to see down here. I looked at it in the glow of my tac-light. It had the Ranger emblem on it and a motto in Latin on the back. It read
“Sua Sponte,”
which means “Of Their Own Accord.” I flicked it open and struck the igniter. It sparked a few times, then caught and lit up. The flickering flame only illuminated a small area. I held it out in front of me and watched the flames flickering and moving.

             
“Why don’t you just use your flashlight?” asked Corporal Jackson.

             
“He ain’t using it for light, dumbass,” said Top. “Now, be quiet and let him work.”

             
They all fell silent as I moved the flickering lighter around until I found what I was looking for, a very slight draft. I began moving towards it and it led me to the far northern edge of the basement. As I approached the wall, the flickering became more pronounced. I began moving the lighter along the wall and saw the flame almost go out as I neared a section of moldering brick.

             
“Bingo,” I said, closing the lighter.

             
Immediately, everyone illuminated the area in front of me with their lights. I handed my weapon to Spec-4 and started feeling along the bricks with gloved fingers. I selected a brick that seemed very loose and began working it. I slid the blade of my knife into the crack and started breaking it loose from the old mortar. In a few seconds, I had worked the brick loose enough to pull out.

             
I pulled the brick from its socket and instantly felt the cool rush of air from beyond. It smelled dank and earthy, like a cave. Shining my flashlight in through the hole, I peered around for any signs of either zombies or
Freemen
. I didn’t see either of them, but I did see a passage that ran off both to the left and to the right. The mud on the ground showed no signs of recent passage. That was a good sign.

             
“This is it,” I said, softly. “Let’s get these bricks out of the way and get moving.”

             
“Give me a few seconds and I can blow the opening,” said Ramirez, reaching for his pack.

             
“No,” I said, turning around. “That’s too noisy. We need to keep this as quiet as possible.”

             
The First Sergeant handed his weapon to Sergeant McDonald and pulled out his bayonet. Then he nodded at me and we both went to work dislodging bricks. In just a few minutes, we’d managed to remove enough bricks for us to duck through into the cave beyond. Recovering my weapon from Spec-4, I slid my knife back into its sheath and stepped through the opening. There was a slight incline that took me down the ten or so feet to the floor of the cave. My boots sank into the soft soil, but not deep enough to cause any problems.

             
As the others began to join me, I took the opportunity to shine my light in both directions. Both passages angled down, deeper into the earth. However, the passage to my left seemed to curve and head back to the south. The main entrance at Doling Park was over a mile to the north. So long as the cave didn’t double back on itself, I was guessing that we needed to take the path to the right.

             
“This way,” I said, and headed off to the right.

             
Without a word, the others fell in line behind me. The path angled down about fifty feet lower than we’d been when we entered. Then it curved off to the north. We were deep underground, now. Well below the sewer system and all of the underground utility lines. Dank water dripped from the ceiling and the thought entered my mind that it could easily be sewer water.

             
“Don’t drink the dripping water,” I whispered over my shoulder.

             
“Why?” asked Ramirez.

             
“We’re below the sewers,” I replied. “Your call.”

             
“Ewww,” muttered Spec-4. “That’s gross.”

             
We walked in silence for a while, passing several side passages. I ignored the smaller passages and stuck with the larger main passage. I hoped I wasn’t getting us hopelessly lost. I’d never actually been inside this cave system, only heard it described by a college professor almost 20 years ago. Yeah, there’s no chance
this
could end badly.

             
Up ahead, I could see my light reflecting off of something. It looked like the surface of water. I started sweeping the light back and forth across the passage as I approached the source of the reflection. I could see that we were approaching a major intersection. The water turned out to be an oversized puddle, about ten feet across. When I scanned the passage to the right I could see where more water was running down the passage, which was angling farther down.

             
When I scanned to my left, I froze. Not ten yards away was a crowd of zombies. My first instinct was to open fire and take them out. But good sense stayed my hand. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness beyond my light, I could see movement well past the edge of my beam. I wasn’t sure how many there were, but it was a lot. There were dozens, possibly even hundreds. I froze in place and motioned for the others to hold position.

             
“Keep your lights down,” I whispered.

             
Everyone pointed their lights towards the ground without questioning. That was good. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how so many zombies could have been down here in the caves. Then I remembered something my professor had mentioned. The caves connected at some point with the steam tunnels under Springfield. There were large numbers of homeless who took shelter in those tunnels. There could easily be hundreds of them.

             
“What do you see?” whispered Spec-4.

             
“Zombies,” I replied, softly.

             
“How many?” asked McDonald.

             
“A fuckload,” I replied. “Too many to engage.”

             
“Do we continue on or go back?” asked the First Sergeant.

             
“Forward,” I said, after a moment. “Try not to attract attention.”

             
I started across the intersection, keeping my light on the ground. I could hear the dead shuffling around in the darkness, but they didn’t seem to be coming our way. Stepping around the puddle, I slipped into the next passage and crouched down. One by one, the others came across. I cringed every time I heard a noise. What felt like an eternity later, we were all safely across the passage.

             
Slowly, I peeked around the corner and checked the crowd of the dead. I almost panicked and opened fire. They were much closer than before. The lights must have attracted them. They weren’t moving fast like they were on the scent of prey, but they were definitely coming closer. They would be at the intersection in a few minutes.

             
“Top, give me a chem-lite,” I whispered, holding my hand out.

             
He slipped one into my hand and I snapped it. It started glowing red as I began shaking it.

             
“Everyone kill your lights,” I said.

             
Instantly we were plunged into nearly total darkness, with the only illumination coming from the glowing red tube in my hand. I silently prayed that this worked. If it didn’t, we were going to be in a lot of trouble. Leaning back around the corner, I threw the chem-lite as hard as I could over the heads of the pack. It sailed off into the darkness far enough that it was only a speck of light in the distance.

             
I strained my ears to listen and heard the shuffling of feet stop, then change direction. I breathed a silent sigh of relief and turned back to the others. I clicked on my light and started to motion for everyone to move out when I smelled rot. Before I could react, rough hands grabbed me from behind and yanked me off my feet.

             
I landed on my backpack and in the light of my tactical light I could see that there were almost a dozen zombies reaching for me. The one that had pulled me off of my feet was on the ground beside me reaching towards me with its pale lifeless hands. The face was hardly recognizable as human, there was so little flesh left on it. It was less than two feet from me and I reacted as fast I could.

             
I drove the weapon into its snapping jaws and shoved as hard as I could. I knocked it back enough to give me some breathing room. Then I rolled to my right, away from the other zombies. As I was rolling, I heard the sound of suppressed weapons and could see some of them begin to fall. I rolled to my knees and snapped two quick shots, taking out the one that had taken me to the ground.

             
Other tactical lights began illuminating the area and we engaged the few remaining zombies from the crowd that had taken me down. Sweeping the passage, I saw the crowd had heard the noise and had turned back towards us. Suddenly I heard the sound I was dreading to hear, the telltale sound of several
Shriekers
taking up the call. The zombie crowd seemed to come alive.

             
I took a quick aim and opened fire into the crowd. As the others moved into firing position, we did the only thing we could do. We fully engaged the oncoming crowd of the dead. With six of us engaging, we were thinning the ranks of the dead in impressive numbers. After what felt like an hour, the last of the
Shriekers
fell silent. Unfortunately, the tide of the dead hadn’t diminished at all. They were still coming, in large numbers. There had to be more of them than I had imagined, possibly hundreds more.

             
“We’ve got to move!” I barked.

             
“Which way?” called Spec-4, changing magazines.

             
I hesitated only a moment before determination won out over good sense.

             
“Keep going,” I said. “We’ve got to be close to the park. It’s got to be closer that way than going back the way we came.”

             
“You heard the man,” snapped the First Sergeant. “Grab your gear and move your rears.”

             
We headed out as fast as we could go. I took the point again, hoping I was right and not consigning us to death. We were making good progress in putting some distance between us. Either there weren’t any
Sprinters
in the group, or the mud was too thick for them to run in. The complete darkness might have a lot to do with it, as well.

             
We ran for about ten minutes and my lungs were on fire when I signaled to halt for a rest. I tried to listen for sound of pursuit over our heavy breathing. Well, over my heavy breathing. The Rangers and Spec-4 were breathing heavily, but comfortably. Ramirez didn’t even look tired. Suddenly, I felt very, very old.

             
“Why are we stopping?” whispered Spec-4.

             
“I wanted to listen for pursuit,” I managed to say without wheezing.