The Living and the Dead Read online

  “She was out of her quarters after curfew. You know how the Colonel feels about that.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I need to check on Sergeant Jones.”

  “Yes, sir,” Breeden said and turned and started walking back down the hallway toward the room where Sergeant Jones was being held. Kinsler and Jo followed. A metal folding chair and a kerosene lantern sat next to the door. The lantern acted like a bright beacon in the darkness, drawing them in. It reminded Jo of a lighthouse, warning ships of the land and dangerous rocks ahead.

  As soon as they reached the door, Breeden reached into his pockets and retrieved a set of keys. They jingled in his hands as he sorted through them to find the correct one. He found it and started toward the lock with it, but paused, the key inches from the lock.

  Breeden turned his head slightly back toward Kinsler and asked, “But why did you bring this woman with you to check on Sergeant Jones?”

  Before he could answer, Kinsler whipped the butt of his pistol across the back of Breeden’s skull. Breeden’s head snapped downward, and he collapsed in a heap outside the door without making a sound.

  “You think too much and ask too many questions,” Kinsler said, standing over the body. He didn’t like what he had just done, but he didn’t see he had too many other choices. Breeden may have been slow to pick up on the incongruity of Kinsler’s approach with Jo, but it wouldn’t be long before he got to more questions that Kinsler couldn’t answer.

  Time wasn’t on their side. Better to head it off, Kinsler thought.

  “Get the keys and open the door,” Kinsler said, reaching down and pulling Breeden’s body out of the way.

  Jo snatched up the keys but had to try two of them before she found the right one. She had barely unlocked it before the door before it flew open and Sergeant Jones was standing in the doorway, looking poised to launch an attack.

  “Hold up, Jonesy,” Kinsler said. “We’re breaking you out.”

  That’s when they heard the second round of shots. Only these sounded like they were coming from outside the building.

  Chapter 22

  Tora, Tora, Tora

  Tora, Tora, Tora were the words that tore through Old Man Schultzy’s head as he squeezed off three quick shots into the southwest room on the third floor. He wasn’t sure why the title of a movie about the attack on Pearl Harbor entered his head at that moment, but it did. Hell, it was about the U.S. of A. getting caught with its pants down. Still, it was in his head bouncing around like a rubber ball. In the end, the thought didn’t matter; the action did.

  He didn’t see it, but glass shattered inward into that room, scaring the shit out of the lone soldier, nearly asleep in the room. The soldier slammed his body flat against the floor and felt the shattered glass tinkling down on his back like broken icicles.

  Not waiting, Schultzy shifted his aim from the room on the southwest corner to the one on the other corner. He had seen the guard in their shifting around only a half hour earlier. The soldier inside must have been a smoker because Schultzy saw the glow of a cigarette through his scope.

  Stupid thing to do, Schultzy thought. Why not just shine a beacon on yourself, he wondered? Some soldiers are just dumb. And a dumb soldier is most likely a dead soldier.

  He had sighted that room fifty times in the last half an hour, so finding it again was no big problem, even in the dark of night. Even with his ancient eyes. He wasted no time and fired off three quick shots.

  He knew it was no good to stay in place. Someone inside could have seen where he was and they could find him easily, so, despite his creaking bones, he was up and on the move to his next location.

  As he limped along, his hips told him that old men should be in bed in the middle of the night instead of fighting some half-assed guerilla war, but he ignored his hip and any old man doubts. His most pressing thought was whether Madison had been able to get the word to any of their people inside. This was going to be a short war if she didn’t and he would most likely be its first and only casualty.

  A single shot came from the complex, but he could tell that it came nowhere near him. Still, he ducked for cover behind a tree. He counted to five and took a closer look back at the building, waiting to see if any part of his crazy plan might work.

  He had no idea if, or when his folks inside might make a break for it. If they did, he considered it his job to offer them some covering fire when they did.

  Questions flitted through his mind.

  What if no one came out?

  What if only soldiers came out?

  How long should I wait?

  No answers came. In war, there are few answers until the battle is over. He only hoped he was alive to answer questions when that time came.

  Chapter 23

  Comings and Goings

  The first set of shots had Lodwick on edge, but he had no idea where they had come from and what they meant. The uncertainty worked its way at him, making him feel edgy.

  An overall sense of alarm rippled within the walls. This sense of alarm was only amplified when the second set of shots sounded. Lodwick and the two soldiers couldn’t help but hear them as they rushed back to their headquarters to let Kilgore know that Jo was missing.

  “What the fuck?” he asked coming to a stop. “Did you two hear that?”

  “Yes, sir,” the first soldier said, only because he was asked. How could he have not heard it? There had been a series of shots that sounded like they were inside. This was followed by another set of shots, only these were spaced out and seemed to be coming from outside the building.

  Lodwick grabbed the soldier’s arm and yanked the soldier towards him.

  “Griffey, get to the third floor and let me know what the hell is going and do it ASAP.”

  Griffey said, “Yes, sir,” and tried to pull away, but Lodwick held him tightly.

  “Shoot anyone that is outside the building. Do you understand me?”

  Griffey, an inner city kid from Cleveland and ten years into the service, wanted to say he understood the order, but he wanted to add that he thought it was fucked up. Instead, he just nodded. He wasn’t sure about shooting anyone, but the less time he spent with Corporal Lodwick, the better. The only problem with that was that he was now alone and on his own against God knows what. Maybe being with Lodwick wasn’t a bad idea. He weighed his options quickly and decided being on his own was better than being with Lodwick, but it was a tight race between the options.

  Private Griffey trotted off down the hall, heading for the closest stairwell.

  “Mays, come with me,” Lodwick said and started off toward the front of the building where he had thought that the first set of shots had come from.

  Griffey made it to the stairwell door and looked back to see Lodwick and Mays disappear down the hallway. As soon as he was sure the two soldiers didn’t double back, Griffey entered the stairwell, but instead of heading up to the third floor, he ran downward to the first floor.

  Twenty seconds later, he was out an external door, smelling the moist air of the night. Thirty seconds later, he was at the tree line on the south side of the complex, sprinting as fast as his legs could carry him through the trees.

  Some intuition told him that things were about to go FUBAR. There was no way he was going to be a part of the shit storm coming their way.

  The zombies were having their way with Private Holland as he had quickly stopped screaming. Maggie felt the intoxicating thrill of being in control pulse through her body like an electric current. For her, it was like a retired commander getting back to the battlefield after a long lay-off. She had all the power and she was ready to use it.

  Russell felt a little sick to his stomach though. He had spent all the past year struggling to survive the zombies and now he was a part of a team with them. It made his head hurt to even contemplate it, but desperate times meant desperate measures.

  A door opened just a few feet away from where the zombies were finishing off Private Holl
and. A second after that a soldier stepped into the doorway wearing olive drab pants, a helmet, but no shirt or shoes. He carried a rifle, but that was it.

  Maggie saw him immediately and set her little herd back in motion.

  “Holy shit!” the soldier exclaimed, but he reacted more quickly and with more poise than the now deceased Private Holland. He brought his weapon up and started firing. His first shots were mostly to the torsos of the oncoming creatures to little effect. The force of the bullets stopped the zombies for a moment, but they shook them off and were back on mission and heading at him. It took a few moments, but he redirected his aim and went for headshots. He quickly scored two hits and two of his undead foes fell, but the others just kept coming, not caring about their fallen comrades in death.

  The soldier stepped back into the doorway and jerked his aim to the right. But in his growing panic, his aim was low, blasting away at the main body mass of the zombies offering little gains in terms of taking out his enemy. He tried to bring his aim up, but a zombie to his left shot out an arm and struck the barrel, knocking it astray.

  He quickly saw his predicament and tried to pull his rifle back, but another zombie reached out and latched onto the barrel. He tried to yank it free, but the zombie held fast. This was his big mistake. He should have let the zombies have his weapon and retreated instead. For some unknown reason, maybe because he like that rifle or it offered some deep sense of security, the soldier clung to it and that proved to be his undoing.

  Another zombie stumbled into him, wrapping its arms around his waist in a death grip and not letting go. The effort worked, and the soldier went down and it was all over but the screaming.

  Russell looked over to Maggie, who was pushing her zombies onto their next quest. Referring to them as ‘her zombies’ was a bit unsettling. It wasn’t that long ago when she was working her undead crew against Russell and the other people at the Manor. But times changed and so did people. Or, at least, Russell hoped so.

  She turned back to him with a twisted smile on her face and said, “Zombies 2, humans zero. Fuck yeah.”

  Something in her eyes almost glowed and the corners of her mouth seemed turned up in a self-satisfied grin. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. He only knew it both repelled and attracted him. In the end, his final summary was that he was glad that she was on their side.

  “Take Madison and go for the weapons,” Ellen told Henry as they jogged down a semi-dark hallway. “Get anyone else to go with you, but make sure they come back.”

  “I can show you where the guns are,” Madison said.

  “But you guys need me inside,” Henry said back.

  Madison shadowed Henry as they made progress toward a set of stairs heading down. The lone sentry wasn’t walking their hallway any longer. They suspected that the shots from earlier had every soldier heading that direction on the run. The original plan was to have the zombies cause chaos and for the Manor residents to rebel, fighting back any way they could. The interior insurrection combined with old man Schultzy providing an exterior distraction amplified the chaos.

  None of the soldiers they had counted on having to battle were in place. Ellen hoped that worked in their favor. They needed something to go their way or none of them would make it through the night alive.

  “No, you need to get to the weapons,” Ellen said.

  “But what are you going to do?” Henry asked.

  “There are people here who can’t fight,” she said. “I need to get them out.”

  There were a handful of elderly residents who had no business fighting. Ellen felt it was her role to get them to safety, then do what she could.

  “But…”

  Ellen cut him off. “There’s no time for debate. Please just do it.”

  The stairwell that led down to the first floor was coming up fast, and he knew he had to make a decision. A new set of shots sounded behind them and he made his choice. They stood no chance of escape without being able to fight back and to do that with something better than clubs and broken pieces of metal sharpened into crude knives.

  “Okay,” he said and went for the door with Madison close behind.

  Ellen kept jogging down the hallway, but stopped to look back at Henry and said, “I love you.”

  What could he say back, but, “Love you, too.”

  The exchange felt more like a farewell to him than an affirmation of his mother’s love for him as he and Madison entered the stairwell. Fighting tears, he followed Madison downward, their footfalls echoing off the hard concrete walls.

  Lights popped on on the first floor and Schultzy trained his weapon in that direction. After staring into the darkness so long, the brilliance of the lights made his eyes blink until they adjusted to the illumination.

  He had no idea if friends or foes would be coming out or anyone for that matter. Discerning one from another would be hard at the distance he was away, but he would have to figure it out and do it quickly. His eyesight was pretty good for his age, but it wasn’t like he had the old eagle eye anymore. Those days were long past.

  Schultzy hated the idea of not being able to communicate with anyone inside. That would have made things a lot easier, but that wasn’t in the cards. He’d either make good decisions or terrible mistakes. There would be little celebration for the former and only damnation for the latter.

  A brilliant beam of light blasted out from the side of the building and Schultzy adjusted his aim there. Someone had opened a door. Starkly silhouetted in the doorway, stood someone, looking out across the field.

  Schultzy studied the figure for several seconds, unable to determine who they were. It wasn’t until the person turned sideways that he could make out the helmet and the tactical gear.

  It was a soldier.

  No use making it easy on them, Schultzy told himself and fixed his aim on the figure. A moment later, he pulled the trigger. Less than a second after that, the figure stumbled back into the building and disappeared.

  It was time to move again, and he knew it. The muzzle flash from his rifle was sure to stick out like a beacon against the dark backdrop of the woods. He had followed and targeted muzzle flashes back in Korea. It was shoot or be shot. He preferred being the shooter.

  He pulled down the rifle and started moving when he felt a sudden hitch in his chest. It wasn’t much of anything, really. It felt like the engine of his old Buick when one of the pistons started acting up. It was just one or two little misfires in his internal engine. The hitch ended in just a few seconds and his engine hummed back into sync like it had for over seven plus decades. Smooth and true.

  He knew he had no time to pay attention to it and trudged off toward his next location. He made it ten feet when a spray of fire erupted from one of the third-floor windows like a full-featured fireworks show. The tree he had been hiding behind was shredded with several dozens of bullets literally ripping the bark right off it.

  Chapter 24

  Hopeless

  “Hey!” I yelled as loud as I could. “Anyone out there?”

  My throat felt shredded for screaming so loudly for someone -- anyone to come back to the room where we were being held.

  Kara had been gone for twenty minutes. It felt like an eternity. I could only imagine that those twenty minutes were longer for her than they were for me.

  “Sit down, Joel!” Brent shouted. “You’re only going to piss them off.”

  “You think I give a shit!” I yelled back at him.

  “What about us?” he said. “What about your people here?”

  I turned around and looked back into the room. It wasn’t a pretty picture. Naveen cowered in a corner, sobbing. Brother Ed’s nose had stopped bleeding, but large bruises were starting to form under his eyes as they were narrowed to slits. Jason was barely conscious. Brent and Linda still had their daughter cradled across their laps, holding onto her as if her life depended on it.

  “You’re only making it more dangerous for us,” he said.

  I
wanted to ask just how much more dangerous could this be?

  “What about Naveen?” He asked.

  “I don’t care what happens to me,” Naveen said between sobs. “They have Kara and it’s my fault. Getting her back is all that matters.”

  In a different situation, I might have said how proud I was of her, but all my thoughts were of Kara. Most of those thoughts were dark ones, shrouded in pain and fear. If what Brent said was true, Marlow wasn’t the sort to take it easy on anyone. Brent’s own daughter had been badly abused by Marlow to the extent that she was nearly catatonic. I knew Kara was made of tougher stuff, but we all have our limits.

  “Heyyyyyyyyy!” I screamed again. “One of you assholes better let me out of here or bring my woman back or else I’m going to kill every last one of you!”

  I knew it was no use, but what else could I do?

  At first, I looked for any way to possibly budge the door. Brute strength failed me as my shoulder and feet were no match for its heavy metal. Trying a different approach, I had scoured the walls for any weaknesses and found none. Then I went back to the door and looked for a way to maybe dislodge the hinges.

  They had taken nearly everything from us. The best thing I had was my belt buckle. Working with it for several minutes allowed me to slip the edge of it into the crack where a heavy metal nut sat on top of the hinge screw. I pressed on it until the buckle cut into the pads of my thumb, but made no further progress.

  Years of dirt and grime sat in the tiny gap and some of it chipped away, but that was it. That’s when I went back to the door and started shouting.

  I knew my threats were useless. I was powerless. My only hope was that I might piss one of them off and they might come back and open the door. Sure, they’d bring guns, but I had to do something. Anything.

  A closed door meant no chance of getting out to help Kara. It meant there was no hope, and that wasn’t acceptable to me. Not then. Not ever.