I showed him our makeshift tiny spikes. “Well this is the best I could do with weapons. Are we being stupid and throwing away our lives Brian?” I wiped sweat from my head.
"Do we even have a chance in hell of surviving?"
“It’s better than nothing man and we don’t have to like it we just have to do it.” Brian said with confidence.
“Is that another stupid military saying?” I sighed.
“Navy Seal, Richard Marcinko, was fond of saying that. He’s the founder of Seal Team 6 and a pretty scary mother fucker to mess with. I’d rather have a shotgun and a good side arm but I’m sure more has been done with less.” He reached over and grabbed my scissors.
Within 15 minutes we had our arm armor and weapons ready. The leather was well broken in but made moving my elbow a little difficult. Everyone gathered around the stairway door saying their goodbyes and best wishes and a couple of the staff said thank you. I was overcome at how small our little group had become. Including Brian, Matt and I there was only 14 left.
I grabbed Matt, wrapped him up in my arms and gave him a reassuring hug. “I’ll be right back buddy. Hold these people together.”
Brian came over and put his big bear paw on Matt’s shoulder “You got this dude.” He winked. “Just remember when we come back down we are going to be in a hurry so make sure someone is on guard to let us in. We will knock 3 times quickly than 2 slower.”
“Or screaming bloody, murder or you know whatever.” I said.
“You can trust me big man. See you two soon. Be safe.” Matt stepped over to the door and untied the hose. “On 3 got it?” we nodded. “1. 2. 3!” He ripped the door open onto an empty dark stairway, and Brian and I ran in. Once we got through Matt slammed and retied the door.
“That was the last time I saw Matt. Can you tell me if anyone from my group made it out?” I realized I had been staring at the table while telling my story. I raised my head and felt tears slide down my cheeks and splattering onto the table.
Reynolds reached over and snatched a tissue box off another table behind him. He handed them to me and I took one and wiped my eyes. “Dan I don’t have any names but I was told one person made it out alive from your floor and is at Saint Francis Memorial. According to this report the person is ripped up pretty bad. Other than that, you and Brian are the only two who made it out in semi good shape. By the way Brian came out of surgery and he’ll be fine. They got the bleeding to stop. I have some detectives over there right now getting his side of the story.”
“Just three people made it out of that entire building? With well over a thousand residents” I put my forehead on the table enjoying its cool surface. I felt like I could fall asleep but my story wasn’t done being told. It haunted me and demanded to be told. If anything, to help this man find out what happened.
“I know how you feel Dan. It’s the largest loss of life in San Francisco, since the earthquake in 1906. Let’s get some more coffee brought in. I think we could both use some.” He picked up his cell phone and made a call to someone in the station. “Could you please have a thermos of coffee brought up to interrogation room three please? Sugar, cream, and two cups thanks”
“Reynolds how long have you been on the force?” I felt like I needed to know more about this man.
“sixteen years altogether, two as a beat cop, six in SWAT and the rest as a detective. I originally came out of the Army with five years as a rifleman then two years as an MP. How about you Dan?” Reynolds put his pad of paper and laptop on the desk and sat back in his chair taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes.
“Never been a cop or in the military.” I said while my head was still on the table. “But I spent my college years at Chico and got a master’s degree in Project Management and minored in Business Applications. I partied a little too much my first two years then I lost my mom. She always told me I would never make it in this world being that guy. So when she died I changed everything about me. I buckled down got my degree and took a job at JP Morgan for five years as an analyst, then I came to Next Level and been here for five years. Was hoping to get into the executive side in another five years.”
“Ever been married or longtime partner?” Reynolds asked.
“Nope, too busy with work. No time to enjoy the fun things. Dad moved to Spokane after mom died and my brother and sister live on the east coast. My sister’s an MD and my brother works as a news director. So I just work and usually go hiking if and when I get time off. How about you? Married?”
“Divorced, no kids. She lives near Portland. We are still friends but with my work schedule and dedication here we just couldn’t make it work. She never got remarried either”, he answered.
Just then a knock came at the door and Reynolds answered it. Two police officers pushed a cart in with an urn of coffee and some Danishes. He poured us a cup and put the sweets on the table. I grabbed my coffee and forgone the sugar and cream. The Danishes looked good and I attacked one like a kid with a Twinkie at fat camp.
We sat in silence for a couple of minutes cherishing our coffee. I looked up and caught Reynolds eyes. “Ok I think I’m ready to continue.”
Reynolds put his coffee down picked up his pad of paper and gave me the go ahead nod.
Shit it was dark. Brian reached out, grabbed my arm and we headed toward what we hoped were the stairs up. We moved slowly testing our footing and taking small strides. Finally, we met the first step and we started ascending. My heart was pounding so hard in my chest I was afraid it was like a dinner bell ringing for those things to come and eat. I never minded the dark but what we were experiencing right now, was oppressive. It smothered me in its confines. It felt alive like it was swallowing us. If not for Brian’s hand in mine I would’ve been lost in mind, physicality and soul. We made it to the next landing, it felt like a lifetime had gone by, but couldn’t have been more than five minutes.
We stopped and Brian was whispering in my ear. I jumped and almost had a heart attack when I felt his breath on my ear. “Halfway there, Boss, I hear no sounds but let’s go slowly, I got you man.”
Inside I was screaming in fear. I felt like we were walking into the pits of Hell and was about to be devoured by some shit eating hairy balled demon named Bob. Yes, my mind goes to stupid places when I am terrified.
We finally made it to the next door and found it unlocked. The door handle was slick with something and took Brian a couple of tries to grip it. He slowly opened the door and light from the creeping sun lit up our position. I heard screaming from below us so we dove in to the hallway and closed the door. I repeated the fire hose trick from down stairs and secured the door with it.
Brian looked down at his hand, it was covered in that black stuff. He wiped his hand on his pants leg, and stood back to back with me, listening for sounds of life around us. We had no idea if Stacey was on this floor or anyone infected, I guess that included Marco. We slowly walked down the hallway toward the bathrooms. Brian opened the door to the woman’s bathroom and entered. It was dark, damn it no power duh. “Hold the door open so we can get some light. But watch my back. The light right now is our only friend.”
I slipped the door open enough to bring light into the bathroom and stood sideways so I could see down the hallway and into the bathroom. Brian moved from stall to stall and not finding anyone back tracked to me. We repeated the same procedure on the men’s bathroom which was clear also.
“We are going to go left and clear the back office, conference room and those cubes. Then we will go to the lunch room and cross over to the executive offices.” Brian suggested.
“I thought we wanted to go right for that Sat Phone?” I asked with confusion.
“Well that’s a great idea, but clearing the floor so we don’t get our asses eaten is probably a better idea.” Brian gave me a duh look.
“I gotcha, ok I will watch your back, you go beat some shit up.” I answered.
We started down the hallway slowly. I was walking sideways trying to see what was in front while covering our rear. We got to the conference room and saw the drapes were open much to my relief. Brian got to the door and slowly cracked it open. He had his spike raised high and then opened the door all the way till it bumped against the wall behind it to make sure nothing was behind it. We made our way in and Brian pointed to the door so I took his cue and closed it. The sun was shining in and lit the room. The table was up ended blocking our view and making a great place for something to be hiding, and the chairs were lying all over the place. Blood was splashed on one of the windows. Brian put his arm out slowing my pace. He pointed to the wall and gave me the wait sign. He walked stealthily toward the table moving chairs out of his way as he went.
He reached over and grabbed the table and slowly moved his head over the top to see what was on the other side. He pulled it back quickly and looked back at me with wide eyes. He put his finger to his lips to remind me to be quiet. He then waved me over. I could hear a slight sucking sound, like someone putting their hands in mud and slowly pulling it out.
I stuck my head over and almost gasped out loud at what I saw. Lisa lay there with half her face missing, having been torn off savagely. Her lone surviving eye darted over to me. It was pleading begging for help. I looked lower down her body and saw her shirt had been ripped off, her left breast was missing and her belly torn open. Marco and another man were kneeling on the floor, slowly pulling her intestines out and shoving them into their mouths. I did not know that disemboweling someone would make that sickening sucking sound.
I looked up at Brian and he indicated by miming with his spike that he was going to take Marco and then pointed at the other man and then at me. He was saying I’ll take this one you take that one. I nodded my understanding and agreement. I lifted my spike high and waited for Brian to give me the go signal.
“Hey cock heads want some fresh meat?” Brian said out loud.
Both men raised their heads to look at us. Marco let out a high pitched moan and was about to react by standing up when Brian brought his spike down into his right eye. I took a page out of Brian’s attack and also slid my spike into the other man’s eye. I felt things sliding and parting under my spike but then it felt like resistance. I put all my weight into the spike and pushed down twisting the spike back and forth. After a while there was no more movement from him. I pulled my spike out with a disgusting slurping sound with a pop at the end. I wiped my spike on him to clean it off.
I looked over at Brian and he was calmly wiping his spike clean on Marco’s shirt. He then stopped, looked over at me and gave me a small smile. “What do we do with Lisa Boss?” Brian asked.
“There is nothing we can do for her, she’s a big mess.”
“Hey boss I’ve been thinking about this flu virus thing. Don’t you think that when these beasts feed on people that they transfer something into them. Causing them to go crazy and attack, thus spreading the disease far and wide? Maybe we should put her out of her misery now?” Brian explained his point of view.
“I’ll do it, she works for me and I failed her so I’ll put her to rest.” I said.
“Boss cut this poor me crap. She made her own decisions and put everyone at risk. If anything, she should be apologizing to us. If you really think you need to deal with her, then do it.” Brian admonished me.
I stood there rebuked and properly chastised. I would never have been able to do any of this, let alone survive without Brian by my side. “Boss man it looks like she just let go. I suggest we stand back and see how long it takes for her to come back? But let me take her out when and if she comes back.”
I nodded my ok and put my head against a far window looking outside and feeling the sun on my face. Brian stood over Lisa never taking his eyes off her. He held his spike in his massive right hand squeezing it. “See anything outside different than usual?”
“No, it looks like a regular day out there, still no real traffic out there, well for San Fran that is. Both bridges look half empty. From our height I cannot see street level. You know a couple of things have been niggling my conscious. First is this going on all over the city? I mean if Marco got out of the east coast, how many others have? Two, who the hell locked down the building, shut down the elevators and locked the stairway door access? And lastly, are there any other pockets of life in the building?”
“Yeah I have been thinking the same things. That and someone must have an inkling of what’s going on by now.” Brian added.
Reynolds interrupted my story. “I can answer some of your questions for you now. We actually got a bunch of calls on Tuesday night from people waiting for their loved ones to come home from work. We rolled out a couple of patrol cars, and they reported that they could not access the building. All doors were locked and some barricaded. All power had been turned off and no one was answering our phone calls to any phone number we could find.”
Reynolds got up refreshed both of our coffees and eased himself back down on his chair. He sat back and let out a low sigh, crossed his legs and picked up another folder that had been lying on the table. He leafed through it as I took sips of my coffee. “Once we finally got access to the building we ran into a bunch of problems. When I arrived on scene, I was alerted that all access to the upper floors had been booby trapped and locked up tight. We also found that the power had been physically cut to the building along with the telecommunications cables. It also seemed someone reprogrammed the security system to lock out the elevator and all other access.” He looked through more pages and came to another section. His eyebrows rose as he read. “According to what we discovered, it was a security guard who did all this. One Garrett Springer. He also had some sort of device that ran on a series of car batteries. That device seemed to be jamming cell phone signals for the entire building. Our tech guys also found repeaters through the stair way once we cleared the building. The guy was actually on DHS list for home grown terrorism charges. How he got a job as a guard and a gun card really makes no sense to me.”