The stink of unwashed human hit me hard once we were all gathered in the space. My length of time in the truck made me grow accustomed to it, but my brief walk outside refreshed my senses. Now the scent was back, combined with the hard smell of cigarettes, marijuana, and a sweet odor that wafted down the halls. It came in many forms, but I recognized the pungency of home cooked meth anywhere. Living in bad parts of Arkansas made me familiar with it.
The doors slammed behind us. Firelight blinked away and darkness descended. Moments later one of our guards flicked on an electric lantern. There were three of them, Lumberjack, Darryl, and another man, each made more sinister by the play of shadows. Garish white light made the sallow people around me look like the walking dead. After the incident outside no one spoke, but tears flowed freely.
“Ladies and kiddies, make yer way to the right side of the room,” Lumberjack said. “Gentlemen to the left!”
The apocalypse was my rebirth. My second chance. I’d been running on adrenaline, bullets, and survival since the day I left my apartment, but I
loved
it. As long as I had a goal, I had a reason to keep going.
After I found Blaze, I was going to make the world a better place, taking out one sadistic clusterfuck of crazies at a time. It wasn’t the need to save people or be a good guy that instigated the thought. More so it was the sick feeling I got in my gut when I saw lunatics like Lumberjack and Darryl using people just because no one could stop them.
To use someone for your own advantage, like I did with Beau or Gabe did to me, was different in my book. No one got hurt, though feelings and egos might get bruised. Bartering humans for your own gain was wrong. Even I knew that, and my mental health was less than sound most of the time.
Plus, no more crazies meant I would never get in this situation again.
We gathered at our respective walls and waited for further instructions. My mind was set on escape mode. I assessed the building, what I saw outside, and everything else I’d seen or heard since we came into the compound. Even as we were lead down the hall by Darryl and the other guy, I forced myself to focus.
Covered windows lined the walls to my left. We passed two shut doors, then another hallway. Music came from down there, and open doors cast light into the hall. After one more office, we came to a door. The guy with the light went first, pulling a metal pipe that served as a lock from the handle. We descended a twisted flight of cement steps.
Chunks of flesh and hair nestled in the cracks of a ragged brick wall that flanked the steps, which were slippery with melted snow and blood. I almost lost my footing before we made it to the bottom. The hard white light of their lanterns illuminated men sitting on the floor of a maintenance room. Uncovered piping snaked through the walls and ceiling. A gray boiler sat noiselessly in the corner.
There were at least twenty of us. The space the crazies corralled us in was too small, not like they cared. Darryl and his companion waited until we maneuvered into the room before tossing out a few more threats, though we didn’t need to hear them. I doubted a single one of us didn’t know what their intentions were.
Our only light source faded, along with the sound of their footsteps, as they went upstairs. The door shut. I heard faint banging as the pipe was put back into place.
No one spoke or moved. Labored breathing and sniffling were the only sounds, until someone close to me said, “Juan, I don’t think they’re coming back. Light the candles.”
The familiar clicking of a lighter preceded a flicker to my left, near the boiler. A Hispanic man came into view. He pulled three more candles from behind the boiler and passed them to the group. It was still hard to see, but some light was better than none.
“Is anyone bit?” Juan asked. “Please, just speak up if you are.”
A unanimous chorus of no’s and nuh-uhs. Don had made his way through the crowd, back to my side. He was an annoying stray dog that followed you everywhere because you acknowledged him once. I imagined he did the same with Beau.
“
Now
do you have a plan?”
“Has much changed since you asked ten minutes ago? Why do you think I’m going to help you?”
Don’s face crumpled. “I’m sorry. You seem strong. I need help. Besides, we’re in a different place now. Maybe you have a plan.”
My plan, once I escaped the building, was to get a snowmobile and a gun. Or I’d have to hijack a truck. That was me being optimistic. Worst case scenario was going on foot, but I was willing to fight for keys to a vehicle. The chances of me getting out of here without coming across someone who had a weapon was next to zero, so I decided my chances of finding a firearm were 100%.
Yet none of that mattered until I found a way to get out of the boiler room. After my eyes adjusted to the candle light, I looked for any exit other than the stairs. There were no weaknesses in the walls. Upstairs some of the walls were barely plastered, but down here it was cement. No windows, no nothing.
“We’re in a worse place than outside,” I said. “Different, maybe, but does it look better?”
Don glanced around. “No, guess not.”
Most of the new arrivals found places to sit on the floor. They squished together in some areas, but as minutes passed everyone found a spot. I sat down too, my knees drawn close to my chest so I could fit, and thought hard about what I was going to do. As my thoughts drifted in and out, I felt a painful stabbing in both my sides where my coat pockets were.
Things are getting better
, I thought as I remembered the
Sports Authority
knives I’d stolen not so long before.
A lot better
.
My focus on obtaining a firearm, or how I didn’t have one, made me forget about other viable weapons. I remembered what a friend of Frank’s told me. The 21 foot rule. A knife wielder 21 feet away or closer is more likely to win a confrontation involving a gun. An individual can travel 21 feet with a knife before another person trained to use a gun can bring the weapon to bear and fire with any hope of hitting their target. Useful, motivating knowledge.
When I was locked in the back of a truck, I couldn’t do anything with the knives. Certainly I couldn’t attempt to kill any of them when the convoy stopped or we were unloaded. I couldn’t fight more than a few crazies at best with a pocket knife. But one guy? I could take him. No problem.
The two knives weren’t much, but they’d be the difference between life and death. I wanted to take them out for a secondary inspection, but decided not to. There was no telling how the crowd would react. One of them could try and jump me for it and get stabbed in the process. Then we’d have a runner in a tight space, unless we bashed his head in fast enough.
No, better to keep them hidden and safe.
I
could
overpower a crazy the next time they came downstairs. The wall beside the staircase offered cover, but my maneuverability would be terrible since there were so many people. Fighting someone on wet, slippery steps wasn’t something I wanted to do, either.
When we were in the truck, it grew warm and humid. The same effect occurred in the boiler room. So many bodies shoved into such a small space made me feel nauseated. I breathed through my mouth, but instead of smelling it I could taste it.
That’s when I heard it—the chorus of a country song popular pre-apocalypse. I hate country music (it’s on my top ten list of things to dislike) and the unbearably catchy tune about a girl wearing short-shorts threatened to get stuck in my head immediately.
No one seemed to hear it, or they weren’t showing that they did. It wasn’t coming from up the stairs or from another prisoner. Each note and word was so faint I questioned whether it was really there. But why would I hallucinate something as obscure as that?
I rescanned the walls and floor; nothing. Then I looked closer at the ceiling and found the source. Above the boiler was a grate the same gray as the ceiling. It was a square ventilation shaft I estimated to be slightly over 2x2 feet. If I had a pack, gun, or any form of supplies it would be impossible to get through.
I couldn’t get to the boiler without navigating from the middle of the room to the edge, so stealth wasn’t an option. I’d have to ask people to move so I didn’t step on them, and when they saw what I was doing mass hysteria would erupt. They’d see a way out and jump on it.
Or maybe they were so afraid they wouldn’t do anything? I almost forgot most of the men down there had been captive and abused for quite some time. While they didn’t have Stockholm Syndrome they might be abused into submission.
If one of them asked what I was doing, which they would, I’d tell them the truth. From there…well, I was good at lying. I’d come up with something.
I stood and began moving towards the boiler, politely asking anyone I couldn’t maneuver around to slide aside. Don, of course, followed in my path. I’d deal with him later. No one questioned me until I got to Juan, who was stationed at the boiler itself. As I approached I smelled the lavender and vanilla wax of the candle closest to me.
“Did you need something, buddy?” he asked.
“I’m going to leave,” I answered honestly. “Through that.”
He stood and checked the area I pointed to. The look on his face indicated he wasn’t impressed with the idea. “What happens after? You’re going to take them all out? I’ve tried going up there. There’s too many of them.” He tilted his face more toward the candlelight, revealing a fresh, ragged gash. “Never a good time to escape.”
“Where does it lead? You’ve tried?” His depressing comments didn’t kill my buzz. Any information he had would only help my cause.
“It goes through each story, but the only opening is in a closet on the first story. You can’t climb up to the other levels of the building. The vent walls are completely flat. Doesn’t matter, though, since every floor has a million of them. There isn’t a good point to get out anywhere.”
“It’s a risk
I’m
willing to take,” I said, then paused to look him hard in the eyes. “Wouldn’t you rather die fighting than get taken upstairs?”
Juan turned his gaze to the flame of the candle. “I’m afraid of dying either way.”
“I’m not. That’s why I’m willing to take the chance, go up there, and give it my fucking all to get out of here.”
“Yeah,” Don said, a hint of vigor in his voice as he tried to step up. “Me too.”
The other survivors grew agitated from the conversation. They mistakenly thought I might come back to save them. Sure, I had a long term plan to help get them out, but it wouldn’t happen today.
I wasted no more words on Juan and his pessimism. Juan moved aside, creating enough space so I could climb my way up the metal structure.
As I bent my knee to place my boot on a pipe, my wounded leg gave way and I slipped, knocking Don back. The pain spread out, morphing into sharper discomfort as my elbows and back connected with the concrete ground. My head bumped into something soft, fleshy.
“Get off me,” someone said. I complied, rolling off, only to bump into other people. A murmur of laughter went through the crowd.
“He’s pathetic, trying to escape,” came another voice.
The mass of people in the room were all a dark blur. They breathed shallowly, waiting to die. But they were a group, stuck together for who knew how long, and picking on an outsider brought them together. That often happened in apocalyptic scenarios I’d encountered. Could they be blamed?
“What an ass.”
No, but I still felt vulnerable. That made me feel pathetic. Falling down, weak and incapable, as I tried to make an escape into certain doom. It was junior high all over again, with that buzzing sensation at the back of my neck that warned me people were watching. Staring. The knot in the pit of my stomach induced by embarrassment.
And what does someone do when put in that position?
“You idiots aren’t even trying to escape,” I snapped. “You’ve given up.
That’s
pathetic.”
Under other circumstances I would’ve left after my snarky comment. I didn’t have that option, not this time, but I was saved from further embarrassment by boisterous laughter and quick footsteps coming from the stairwell.
“I feel like spic tonight, Ray.”
“Nah, that gives me ‘ndgestion. I want chink. Feel like sumthin’ oriental, y’know?”
It was the truck all over again. Upon hearing the voices everyone, cowered away from the stairs. Juan blew his candles out, shrouding us in thick darkness. Elbows nudged against ribs. Clumsy feet stomped on each other. My back brushed against someone before I pressed beyond him. Our bodies slid together as I pushed him in front of me. My back hit the wall. Since Lumberjack had it in for me, I had to be as inconspicuous as possible.
Hoarse screams rose as one of the crazies used a hooked, metal prod to draw a man from the crowd. Frantic energy filled the cramped space, as the prisoners fled from the bloody mess.
I rubbed the back of my head, closed my eyes, and imagined myself out of this nightmare.
* * *
Just get through this
, I thought, while I steadied myself with one hand against the boiler.
Then you’ll find somewhere to rest. Push through.
It was take two on the escape. If the prospect of being eaten alive wasn’t motivating enough, the stench of truly dead rotted corpses was. The crazies tossed two partially eaten bodies down the stairs. They were ripe, many days old, and though I didn’t see them, I could certainly smell them. Whether it was a joke intended to scare the survivors, or a macabre food offering, I wasn’t sure.
As I studied the boiler, lit by Juan’s meager candles, Don began to speak, but I cut him off with a curt shake of my head. “You’re coming with me. I get it. Get this straight, though; you’re
following
me. Not going
with
me.”
I needed to ditch the baggage sooner rather than later, before things got out of control again. Beau might’ve been willing to put up with him, but I wasn’t. Don was a tagalong. If he wanted to follow the path I cleared, good for him. I wouldn’t make the same mistake Beau did trying to save him.