Tales of Courage From Beyond The Apocalypse (Book 8): John Read online

  I didn't drop the bat, carrying it with me back to the truck, keeping a close eye on the thing as I grabbed the bags from the bed.

  Crap, I forgot to pull out the keys!

  I must have made a pretty hilarious sight trying to take the keys from the ignition without dropping any of the sacks to the ground, but I was not about to let any of the food or the weapon out of my grubby paws.

  I got them, though, and sucked in a deep breath as the zombie slowly rose to its unsteady feet. I crossed through into the foyer of the station and tried hard not to look at the bodies of my co-workers sprawled with their entrails spread from hell to breakfast.

  I stuck the key in the lock, but didn't turn it before checking to ensure the thing was still solid. It was locked, the massive deadbolt unturned.

  Good. I might have a chance, then.

  I spun the lock and flung the door open, waiting only a half-second with my heart trying to batter its way out of my chest. I just had to make sure nothing was going to pile out after me.

  The lights were on, but the hallway beyond was empty.

  I threw the bags inside and whirled to find the zombie struggling through the doors behind me.

  The echo of the door as it clanged shut echoed back from the end of the hall as I slammed the bolt in place and leaned against the cold metal.

  Five seconds later, the pounding of the zombie's fists against the steel joined the raging beat of my heart.

  5

  At least for the moment, I was safe.

  Grabbing the bags I’d tossed inside, I left the door behind, the sounds of the thing outside barely coming through the thick steel. It would take a lot more abuse than a single guy would be able to give to break that stuff down.

  The lighting in the place was always rather soft. A concession, I guess, to Galen wanting to set an ambience, but it was more than enough to see around. I only dragged the sacks of food I carted from my trailer a short way before leaving them behind, but I kept the bat with me and ready just in case.

  It took some time to go through the whole building, but I wanted to make sure I was right in assuming it was emptied out. I had the keys to pretty much everything inside aside from the snack and drink machines, since, if I worked nights and it was Tad's night off, it'd be up to me to clean for the next day.

  Yeah, a real crapper of a contract.

  I don't know how it all transpired, how the zombie was able to catch all three of them and bring them down. Maybe the thing attacked Rebecca first, and Carissa came out to see what was going on. Tad probably walked in thinking nothing was wrong and got taken by surprise.

  It was all so damn senseless. I might not have been close to those people, but they didn't deserve what happened to them.

  I didn't notice any sign of Galen, and wondered if he was taking another of his many days off, or became caught in the hell outside before he was capable of making it in.

  Most of the building's doors were set up with the same hard steel as the front, the only weak spot in the entire place being that foyer, and that had already been compromised. I made sure all the locks I could find were secure. The last thing I needed was to have one of those creatures show up unannounced and invite themselves to a John sandwich.

  A couple of the rooms had a television and I flipped them on, keeping half an ear on the news broadcasts coming in while pacing from one room to the next.

  There wasn't much on the televisions, though the local channels could have been on automation for all I knew, their own crews already being feasted upon.

  I dragged the bags to the small cafeteria and put the perishables into the refrigerator. The power was still on and steady, which was good, and I figured between what I was able to gather up and bring in combined with what was previously in the building, I would have ample food on hand for a couple of weeks. Maybe longer, if I could keep it cooled off and ration hard.

  Thankfully, water was not going to be a complication, for a while, anyhow. It seemed clean enough. I'd have to find some jugs or cans to store it in, and if I kept it in the fridge, it might be able to go a little longer. I always drank less when it was cold.

  I didn't know for sure how long it would last coming out of the tap. If it broke down, I would be in big trouble quickly. Power, too, could become a problem sooner rather than later.

  There was a generator on the roof, though, and if the electricity failed, I knew how to use it.

  I thought I would be safe. I had food, at least for a while, and enough water to get through.

  How many of those things were there? I only saw one zombie. God, I couldn’t believe I was actually using that word, but the power of it terrified me.

  I couldn’t go back out there. No way. I didn’t know how many more there were, but if I could hunker down and keep myself away from them, I might be able to get through it until help came.

  6

  It was only a day later when I got my next real taste of how horrible the world was becoming.

  I only knew it was another one by the clocks on the walls. They still blithely counted down the hours I had left before I ran out of food, their smiling faces staring at me without a care.

  The only windows in the place were in the foyer--I wasn't about to go back out there--and another set on the third story. I hadn't bothered going up there, though. It was just an empty collection of rooms that Galen was planning on renting out as office spaces but never got to.

  There weren't any blankets around, but there were plenty of coats, banners for the station, and other fabrics I could make use of to cover up and sleep. Laying my head on the stuff wasn't much fun. I had a crick in my neck already from the hard floor, but it was better than being outside. At least the heat still worked.

  Besides the transmitter on the roof, there was also a tall antenna for the HAM radio the engineers kept in their room. Thankfully it was all connected and ready to go; they liked listening to it when the nights were boring.

  I knew how to use it, since my dad was a big fan of them when I was a kid, but if I had to struggle to figure out how to get it set up, I'd be more than a little lost.

  I used the dial to try to find people talking, figuring any real news would come from it, not what was continually broadcast on the television. That thing was growing more and more useless as the hours passed.

  Most of the channels were empty, though the numbers stations I always got a kick out of listening to were still going.

  When I hit upon one channel in particular, my blood ran cold. As much as I wanted to force myself to turn it off, I couldn't.

  A man on the other end has his mic cued up and was talking about how he was trapped in his house. I didn't know where he was or how far from me he might be, but he sounded so desperate.

  "I'm the only one left. My family's gone, dead. All dead." His voice, strained and sobbing, came in sharp, though I could hear rustling in the background and what could have been glass breaking.

  He went quiet for a minute and then started screaming, the microphone still triggered and picking up everything. He got out one more word. "God..."

  I couldn't close my mouth. The screams were so clear, every heaving breath coming from his own lungs and the growling of what had come for him joining together in a symphony of terror that sickened my soul.

  Finally he stopped, but the wet, smacking sounds that poured out as the creature ... ate him... all I could do was click the switch to power the radio off.

  It took a while, my soul trembling out of control, before I could rise to my feet and walk out of the room. I glanced down the hallway toward the steel door blocking the thing outside still thumping against it. If it managed to break inside, would I sound like the guy on the radio? Would someone out there hear my own life ending, too?

  I had to get fresh air. The walls around me were shrinking, feeling more likely to suffocate me by the second. My body sailed up the stairwell, not even bothering to lock the doors behind me as I crashed through the topmost one to the roof.r />
  The cool hit me like an anvil and I gasped twice before turning away from the stairwell door and puking what little I had in my stomach all over.

  I stayed bent for some time before I wandered to the side of the roof and stared out over the large parking lot beneath. The lake of concrete was a dark splotch against the still-green trees as the twilight began to descend.

  Movement caught my eye and I focused on it, seeing a few people walking around the edges of the copse on the other part of the lot, not far from where the road met up with the compound I called my new home.

  No, they weren't people. Their shuffling, stumbling movements as they approached the station told me they were something else entirely.

  They might have been people once, but now they were creatures from the pits of hell, come to knock on my door.

  I was stuck for real. There was no way I was getting out now.

  I turned away from the roof, glancing at the small shed where the maintenance crew kept their tools and the generator nearby.

  The last glance across the road, before I headed back inside, showed dozens more heading for me.

  7

  When I first heard the words on the HAM the next day, I could not believe it. But that singular voice telling me the news was joined by others; the rumor mill, for once, agreed.

  Boston had been bombed.

  It wasn't terrorists or some crazed lunatic with a vengeance. No, it was our own government, setting them off so they could try to protect the rest of civilization from what was happening.

  The only thing the voices couldn't agree on was when it happened. Some said it was the day before, other ones said it had been a few days since they exploded.

  I had to get on the air. The need to take the weight off of my chest was too much for me to resist.

  The switch flipped, the power flared to life and I was on the air again, my voice shaky and more than a little wild as I let the words pour.

  “People, head south. Get to the coast, to Mobile. I’ve been told it’s one of the only safe places. There’s food there, water, and people you can count on.”

  My mind whirled as I thought of the people out there who might have their radios on, how unlikely it was they would even be able to hear my voice. Tears lined my eyes as I desperately let my despair fly.

  “Don’t stop. Not for anything. If you’re hearing my voice and you’re not already on your way, go. Right now. Don’t wait. Everything is falling apart.”

  By the time I finally turned the microphone off, all I could do was put my head in my hands and weep for the loss that was happening outside of my walls.

  I repeated the message at the top of every waking hour. The pattern made me feel like I was at least doing something for those still unsafe.

  I completely lost track of how long I had been stuck between those walls, the only indication any time was passing at all being the dwindling of my food supplies and the constant drone of the HAM as one person after another tried to do their thing.

  Some wept constantly. I turned those off after a few moments. I was already eating enough misery without taking on the burden of others. Some people wanted to hear a friendly voice, survivors locked within bunkers of their own making.

  They were the same "cranks" I would have made fun of before all of this began. Now they were among my best of friends, huddled down waiting for everything to blow over.

  These cries, these little connections to the outside world, kept me company throughout the timeless days and sleepless nights, with my life spent going between the HAM and the broadcast studio.

  I couldn't wrap my head around what I was hearing about Boston, though. And not just there, either. Other rumors were that it was not the only place to be brought to an end in devastation at the hands of our own leadership.

  How could they do it? How could they bomb an entire American city out of existence? Wasn't there something in the Constitution against that?

  It was like the whole world was going absolutely insane, and I was the only one left who was keeping it together.

  The pounding on the walls and the doors of the station was a constant companion, but the damn things out there had yet to find any weak spots they could get through. I kept my bat on hand at all times, but if they did manage to break through and come inside, there were enough of them out there I wouldn't stand a chance.

  Whenever I went to the roof, I could see more of them coming, and there were already at least a hundred by my estimation. They came by ones and twos, rambling along without a care in the world, constantly growling and groaning to the point I could hear it even from three stories up. What brought them all? Was it the sound of their own kind hunting for a fresh kill?

  Maybe there was some kind of instinct inside of them, a signal or scent they gave off when hunting to let others of their kind know there was a meal around.

  Whatever it was, they came, and I watched in horror their numbers increase from my perch.

  I might have been the only human left in that crap-hole of a town, but I still got on the air every day, delivering what I hoped would be messages to give people something to hold on to. Hell, if no one heard me, that was okay. I needed to talk.

  I was used to having an audience to discuss things with, to opine, to be the voice of the people who were otherwise mute.

  Besides, I needed something to do or I would be crazy.

  Some days later, I heard a particular tale that really got me thinking. A guy on the HAM spoke about an old woman who had taken it upon herself to find survivors and get them to safety. If she could do it, why did it seem no one else was doing it, too?

  It impressed me so much that someone like her, an elderly lady in the middle of this mess, was not giving up.

  I talked on the air about it, not having any idea if those out there could hear. The words needed said.

  "People, you see, no matter what comes along, no matter what adversity life hits you with, you've gotta aim between its eyes and fire without thinking twice. It's the new reality. The new paradigm, God bless us all, and it's what you and I both are going to have to face one day soon. Don't think twice, guys. Don't hesitate. It might look like your mom, like your brother, like your freaking teacher from second grade who always gave you cookies when you skinned your knee and cried.

  "You've got to pull the trigger and not look back as you run."

  I laid my head on the stack of banners I used as a pillow and fell asleep, praying to whatever god deigned to still be listening, that the old lady in the wilderness would keep herself safe. The sound of oldies played softly on the speakers above my body.

  8

  I think, for a little while, I went mad.

  I mean, it's hard to blame someone for that, given the situation, right? Maybe it was the fact I was subsisting on nothing but soda and cupcakes. It wasn't like I could go to the supermarket and shop 'til I dropped. The last thing remotely nutritious went the way of the dodo days before and I was left with what was in the snack machines. Even that wouldn't last much longer.

  Solitaire and Elvis songs were my mainstays for keeping myself busy by that time. There wasn't much traffic on the HAM anymore. Whether that was because everyone was dead or people were just not interested in talking, I didn't know, but I was getting damn lonely in that enclosed space.

  I'd been reading a lot from a Bible that was left in the office, too, especially about the end of the world.

  I started imagining old John the Apostle sitting in his cell on a little island somewhere, perhaps feeling as abandoned and alone as I was, envisioning the hell that would come to earth in the future.

  One of the last times I bothered to get on the air, I let it all fly out, the despair and anger at what I was being put through flying out of my mouth.

  "I am John the Revelator, the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse, riding the airwaves ahead of the storm that's coming to tell you to keep your heads down and your mouths shut. God's sick of this world and He's bringing it to an end,
so hold on to your asses, cause it's going to be a hell of a ride."

  I flipped the switch off, ending the broadcast without another word. I stormed out of the room and headed for the roof again, Bible in hand, the cold wind blowing my hair behind me as I thumped the book at the piles of ambling bodies below me. I screamed that they were all sinners, that they were damned, that their punishment was coming, all the while knowing they were the ones really free of it all.

  This wasn't their hell, it was mine.

  Finally, I just threw the book at them and walked away, spent beyond anything I'd ever known before and tears across my filthy face.

  The next day, the power ran out.