Season of Rot Read online

  Laura sighed. “Vince, there’s no way we can get our hands on a helicopter, much less one large enough to move all of us and the supplies we’d need.”

  “That’s it?” Jack asked Vince. “You were up there most of the night without your damn radio and all you came up with is the fact that we have a helipad?”

  “Whoa, settle down, big guy,” Vince said, laughing. “We all agreed that we couldn’t reach the airport to get a helicopter, that’s true, but I was going over the maps of the city again and did you know the WKT station is only a couple of miles from here? You can’t see it with the binoculars, but I borrowed Chris’s telescope. The station’s got a copter sitting on its roof.”

  Laura shook her head. “It’s too small for what you’re thinking, Vince. At best, it’d hold four people with minimal gear.”

  “Yes, we couldn’t use it to escape as group, but we…” Vince saw that he had lost their attention. “Just hear me out, okay?”

  Laura motioned for Jack to stay quiet for a moment.

  “We send a small strike team to fetch the bird, but we don’t use it to escape. Once we have it, we’ll have a viable means of traveling around the city. Do you know how many other hospitals and buildings have helipads? A damn lot of them do. So we use it to reach those buildings, loot their supplies, or even fly out and land in less populated areas of the city to make ground raids. Sure, some of us will have to risk our asses to do it, but it’s a damn sight better than risking the whole group trying to make it out of here on the ground.

  “And here’s the beautiful part: not only would food no longer be an immediate problem, but some of the buildings I’m talking about have fuel depots for birds like the one we’d be using. We’d also have a way to reach the airport and steal us a larger bird if we really needed to get out of here.”

  “It’s risky, Vince,” Laura said. “There are so many things that could go wrong every time our raiding parties took the helicopter out, and dozens of ways we could lose the helicopter after we’ve got it… if we can even get it. One failed raid and we could be right back where we started with nothing to show for it except some of us being dead.”

  “A strike team?” Jack laughed. “Just who the hell out of our little group fits that description? None of us have any military training. Hell, half of the folks here have barely even used a gun more than once or twice in their lives, and those times were in desperation after the plague hit.”

  “Actually, Jack, I thought we’d go. Me, you, Mitchell, and Chris. And Daniel, of course. He’s the only one who knows how to fly a bird.”

  “You’d take three of our strongest people and our only engineer on this fool’s errand? You’d actually leave Laura here with no one left to head things up if the hospital had to be defended?”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, Jack, we all have ‘basic experience’ or we wouldn’t be alive, would we?”

  “Vince,” Laura said, “what you’re suggesting might work if the creatures outside were like the ones in the movies, but they’re not. Those things out there move like us. They’re fast and there are thousands of them. There’s no way a team could fight its way through them to the station.”

  “You’re right, but they could leapfrog to it,” Vince said with a grin.

  “Leapfrog?” Jack muttered under his breath.

  “All we’d have to do is jury-rig some grappling gear. We could hop from one rooftop to another all the way to the station. How many creatures have you seen on the roofs? Not many. Only a handful of the things ever wander that high, and most of them either fall off or leave when they find that the roofs are empty. Chris used to be a professional mountain climber. With his help, it’ll be easy.”

  “Chris’s wife just died last night,” Laura reminded Vince coldly. “He has a daughter to think of now. Even if he wasn’t an emotional wreck, I’m not sure he’d agree to be a part of your plan.”

  “Leapfrog?” Jack repeated, laughing aloud this time. “Holy shit, you are crazy. This isn’t the fucking Matrix or something. We’re not superheroes. Going from roof to roof would be nearly as suicidal as facing the creatures head on.”

  “Do you have a better idea?” Vince asked.

  “Making a break for it with the damn cars locked up in the garage seems like a better idea than that,” Jack said. “And we all know there’s way too many of those things out there to make it, even if we armored the vehicles and wasted all our firepower trying.”

  “I’m sorry Vince,” Laura said, hoping to cut Jack short. “Everything you’re suggesting is just too risky. Let’s drop it and move on, okay?”

  Vince shrugged and gave up. He knew if Laura sided with Jack it was pointless to continue, even if he was right. That’s one of the things Laura liked about Vince. Though occasionally temperamental, he was generally laid back and didn’t care how things got done as long as they did get done.

  She turned to Jack. “According to these reports, we have nearly four weeks of food and water left, right?”

  Jack nodded.

  “Then that gives us some time. Maybe we can come up with some other options…. One other thing from your lists that concerns me is the lack of weapons and ammo. If it does come down to a plan like Vince’s, Jack, can we realistically equip a team to send out and still have enough firepower here, should something happen?”

  “Honestly, no. Even without splitting the weapons, if the dead found a way up to us right now we wouldn’t have enough here to make a real stand… but I don’t think that’s going to happen, or it would have already.”

  “Point taken,” Laura said and leaned back in her chair.

  “So then what the hell do we do?” Vince asked.

  They all sat in silence.

  * * *

  Two floors above the informal tribunal meeting, Daniel had returned to his obsessive work in what he considered his own field. Though he had actually been a pilot before the plague, he’d also been a HAM radio fanatic and was the closest thing the group had to a communications expert. Since his first days in the hospital he’d been trying to reach other survivors using the radio equipment he’d found in the building. His efforts weren’t entirely futile. More than once he’d made contact with another group or person still alive in the world outside, even a few in the city itself. But they were always cut off from the hospital by either the dead or a lack of transport. The other survivors might as well have been on the moon.

  The part that really depressed Daniel was that he never managed to stay in contact with any of them. They simply disappeared from the airwaves as if they had never been there at all. He told himself those poor souls had just ran out of power to broadcast or that they’d been rescued.

  Daniel had boosted his signal as much as he could. His range was huge for the equipment he had available, but he still wished for more. He told himself that if he just kept trying, one day he would reach a group capable of coming to the hospital’s aid. He’d spent the last few days scanning the civilian bands, so today he switched back to the military channels.

  His only radio contact with a military unit had been scary as hell. The soldiers demanded his location as if they intended to raid the hospital rather than come to their rescue. They hadn’t said that outright, but Daniel could read voices. They were his passion. Hell, for all he knew they’d already tried to reach the hospital and had been consumed in the attempt by the dead. He’d certainly never heard from them again. He never even told the others about them, and they were the one party he never tried very hard to reestablish contact with after they went missing.

  Still, he was desperate. He hadn’t reached anyone in a long time, and he wanted, maybe even needed, to hear the voice of someone outside of the group. He needed to know they weren’t the only ones left.

  Daniel made some additional adjustments on his gear, then sent out his usual message. “This is Saint Joseph Hospital calling anyone who can hear us. Please respond?” Daniel leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his unkempt b
lond hair. He nearly toppled over when the radio crackled with a reply.

  “This is Installation Phoenix. I copy you, Saint Joseph. It’s good to hear another voice.”

  Daniel rocked forward, grabbing the control console to answer his new friend.

  “You have no idea how good,” he said, and then he laughed over the airwaves.

  * * *

  Alyson raised her head and looked down at Mitchell. A smile stretched across her lips as the bed sheets shifted over her naked, sweat-drenched body. “Was it good for you?” she said with a chuckle.

  Mitchell ran his hand through her short, wet red hair. “You know it was. But I’ve got to get back to work. I’m on sentry duty, honey. Jack would tear me a new one if he knew I was here.”

  Alyson rolled off him, her sweetness suddenly gone. “Just don’t forget to pay up on your way out,” she told him, stretching out on her back and closing her eyes.

  Mitchell got out of bed and got dressed. He placed the packet of drugs on her nightstand and turned to glance at her a final time before he headed out the door. “Alyson…”

  “Shut up, Mitchell. You know why I do it. I don’t need another lecture.”

  Defeated before he began, he slammed the door behind him. Alyson sighed. Men were fools, all of them. Give them a good time and sooner or later they all started to fall in love with you. Fuck him. If she wanted to spend her last days as messed up as she could be, that was her choice. If she overdosed, then the end would be here that much quicker and she would be out of this hellhole. She wouldn’t have to wait for the creatures to find a way in and rip her apart; she wouldn’t starve to death like the rest of the assholes in the hospital.

  Only Laura, Jack, and the medical staff had access to the hospital’s stash of pharmaceuticals, and if fucking people like Mitchell—who could get the keys from Jack every once in a while—got her the shit she needed, hell, it was only sex right? She wished she was brave enough to steal a gun or get one from Mitchell, brave enough to stick it in her mouth and pull the trigger. The drugs made her feel good though, and they weren’t anywhere near as messy. She knew that, given time, the drugs would do the job, and she was content on most days. With thoughts of slow suicide floating in her head, Alyson fell asleep in the darkened room.

  * * *

  “Vince, let it go,” Laura said, fighting the urge to give up and storm out of the room. Somehow the meeting had spiraled out of her control and had turned into a schoolyard spat as Vince and Jack resurrected one of their long running arguments.

  “Laura, I know Jack and Mitchell are close, but come on! The guy’s a freakin’ murderer. I just don’t feel comfortable with him having access to so many key areas, much less the damn arsenal he has locked up in his quarters. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. The guy gives me the creeps.”

  “Mitchell paid for his crimes,” Jack argued. “When I hired him he was already out on parole. He’s saved my ass more than once since I met him. I trust the man with my life, and he’s been instrumental with helping me keep things straight around this place.”

  “Face it, Jack, he’s your muscle. A thug who’d put us all to the wall and blow our brains out if you told him to. God knows what he does when you’re not out there with him.”

  Suddenly the door to the conference room burst open. Jack’s instincts kicked in and he drew his sidearm, barely stopping himself from putting a bullet through Daniel’s face.

  Daniel stood in the doorway, wide-eyed and out of breath, staring at Jack’s gun. “Sorry,” he said, holding up a hand as if to block a bullet. “I… I just made contact with someone who can help us.”

  Laura fell into her chair. “What? Who?”

  “His name is Martin Kier. He’s military, holed up in some kind of huge bunker about a hundred miles south of the city.”

  “Jeez, a hundred miles.” Vince whistled.

  “How many in his group?” Jack asked, getting right to business.

  “Just him. He’s the only one left alive there.”

  “One man? A hundred miles away? How can he help us?” Laura was confused, but she knew there must be some reason for Daniel’s excitement or he wouldn’t have butted in on the meeting. He seldom left the radio room.

  Daniel caught his breath and pulled up a chair at the table. “According to Martin, he’s the sole survivor of the base, yes, but the compound was built to house a couple of hundred people: scientists, military, high ranking officials. It’s essentially a giant underground fallout shelter, but it was being used as a research lab before the plague hit. There was a staff in place, working on various projects when the dead virus—or whatever you want to call—broke out. The base closed itself off automatically, trapping them all inside.

  “Unfortunately, the virus had already breached the compound, despite its safety protocols. A war like the one in the city was fought down there, inside the complex. Unlike the military up here, they won. It was costly, but they did win. The virus mutated, though, and became airborne or something. I didn’t really understand all of what Martin was saying. It was a bit over my head. He made it through it all though. Now he’s just sitting around with years of stockpiled supplies: food, meds, weapons, even fuel!”

  “Still, I don’t see how that helps us,” Jack interjected.

  “I’m getting to that part. Martin is a pilot and it’s a military base. There are two helicopters there, both of them for military transport. He could easily reach the hospital by air and either bring us some of the stockpiles or take a few of us at a time to the base. It’s just a matter of deciding what we want him to do.”

  “You’ve asked him about all this?” Laura asked, unwilling to accept that such a miracle could simply fall into their laps.

  Daniel calmed down a bit. “Well, no. I haven’t asked him to fly us to the base, but he offered to bring the supplies we need without any prompting on my part.”

  Vince placed his hands on the table. “That seems odd. If he’s willing to share all this stuff, wouldn’t it be easier to move us there rather than have him haul it all out here? Could he even realistically make that many trips? And why waste so much if he just brings part of it and decides to stay here when he lands on the roof?”

  “I don’t know,” Daniel admitted, “but I trust him. I could hear the sincerity in his voice. He has to be lonely out there. I would be. Maybe all the stuff that happened down there is haunting him and he just wants out of the place.”

  Laura nodded. “Okay, Daniel. If you trust him so much from one conversation, I’ll buy into his desire to help us, but how do we handle this?” She looked to Jack and Vince for their input.

  “Have him fly over a run of supplies,” Vince replied. “It couldn’t hurt if he’s truly alone. There are nearly fifty of us. Numbers will be on our side even if he’s lying. Hell, a transport full of soldiers is something we could handle as long as we know when they’re coming. And if he’s telling the truth, we get the stuff we need and we get to meet him face-to-face and check him out for real. Then we can decide what to do from there.”

  Jack nodded, agreeing with Vince. For once, the hippy had a well thought-out and sane suggestion.

  “We’re agreed then,” Laura said. “ Daniel, go invite our new friend over for a visit. Jack, I want you and Mitchell to prepare for any of the darker things that could come from this.”

  “We’ve got one surface-to-air missile left from the armory raid before the hospital was completely surrounded,” Jack informed her. “It’ll do just great if things go south.”

  “What about me?” Vince asked. “Don’t I get a part in this?”

  “Yes, Vince, you do. I want you to make a list of the order we’ll leave in if this Martin is for real and we opt to move to his base. Decide who’s best suited to make the trip first, and who needs to stay here until everyone else is safely there.”

  “That’s it?”

  “No. I want you to inform everybody as soon as possible. Not everyone may want to leave the hospital, and
you’ll need to know who wants to stay. You can also prepare people for what’s coming, good or bad.” Laura stood up. “Well people, let’s get to it.”

  * * *

  Chris sat rocking Natalie, an empty bottle of formula below his chair. She cooed, gazing up at him with her beautiful green eyes, so much like her mother’s. Chris wrapped her blanket tighter around her tiny body as his mind raced with Vince’s news. He couldn’t believe it. Salvation had come to them out of the darkness. Hope was with them after all.

  The base had to be huge. Full of tunnels and open spaces, protected by thick metal walls, concrete, and the earth itself. No more fear that the dead would find a way in. Natalie would be safe. She could grow up without living in fear. She would have places to play, big spaces where he could let her run alone. For years to come she would have a life more normal than he could have dared to hope for. When Vince asked if he and Natalie would be willing to go, Chris hadn’t hesitated in the slightest.

  “Everything’s going to be okay,” he whispered to Natalie as she fell asleep in his arms; for the first time in a long while, he meant it. He only wished Rebecca had lived long enough to see her daughter enjoy a better life.

  * * *

  Night fell over the city, embracing the hospital in its darkness. Thousands upon thousands of zombies surrounded the building, wandering mindlessly and biding their time, waiting for their prey to emerge.

  According to Vince’s poll, not a single person—other than Alyson—refused to gamble on the new home that fate had offered them. Jack couldn’t blame them for risking it all. In the hospital you could see the dead if you bothered to look out, and you could hear their hungry voices calling up to you. Sometimes it seemed that the dead were using a form of psychological warfare against them, though Jack knew it was impossible. The creatures were just drawn to this place because they could sense the warm blood and flesh entombed in its walls. Entombed, he thought. It was such a perfect word to describe their situation. All of them, including him, were dead in the long run. They just hadn’t fallen down yet.