Behind Our Walls (19 page)

Lot shook his head. "If they had any way to get in here, they would have done it by now."

"You don't know that," Meredith said. "You don't know why they're waiting. And even if they haven't found a way in, it doesn't mean that they won't find one."

Lot stood up and paced around the room for several minutes before taking a seat. Sophie looked back outside, and it occurred to her that she had never seen this many rovers in one place before. Besides the bikes, there was another large cluster of men standing behind Jerry.

Rowen had been right about one thing. The time had definitely come that they would find out how important this place was to them and how much this life was worth.

"Should we even try to talk to them?" Rowen asked.

"I think that the time for talking was over a long time ago," Sophie said. "I think it would be a bad idea to go out there."

"We can ignore them for now," Meredith said. "But eventually they're going to try and engage us and we need to be ready for that. We have extra guards posted around the clock and all the other areas seem secure."

The argument paused at the sound of sudden, concussive blasts from outside. They all ran to the windows, looking out to see the rovers clustered together behind Jerry, all firing their guns off into the sky as the bikes revved their engines.

"Great," Meredith said as they turned back to each other.

"Let them waste their ammunition," Lot said. "We can't let that dictate what we do."

"How are we going to explain this to everyone?" Meredith asked. "They're going to want to know how we plan on protecting them. I'm only glad that most people can't see out there because if they could, they'd likely be bouncing off the walls."

"I know that," Rowen said. "I just don't know what we can really do. It isn't like we can just lead some kind of assault against them. Our best bet is finding a good strong, defensive—"

The door banged open and Clive ran in, somehow looking even more scared than he had before.

"What is it?" Lot asked.

"You all need to come down to the food court."

They followed him down, where they found a large group gathered around something on the floor. Sophie couldn't tell what it was at first but as they drew closer she saw that it was a backpack, one that looked strangely familiar.

"It's Nairi's," Meredith muttered as they approached.

"Where did this come from?" Rowen asked.

"Roger found it," Clive said. "They launched the thing from the parking lot and it ended up right on the fifty yard line."

Rowen walked over and knelt down on the floor. He pressed his ear to the bag and listened. As he reached for the clasps, Sophie had a sudden image of his arms ripped from his body in a blazing explosion. She reached out to stop him, but nothing happened as he unzipped the bag and stretched the canvas open, wide enough to peek in. He turned his head away immediately and dropped the bag to the floor.

Sophie walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. He didn't respond to her touch, and remained turned away from the bag. She reached out with one foot and lifted it open.

The first thing she saw was blood. Then damp, clotted hair that looked all too familiar. She peered in at the severed head and tried to control the retching that rushed up from her stomach. She vaguely heard the cry from the others as they slowly realized who it was.

Daniel's eyes were lifeless mirrors, reflecting her stricken expression back up to her from the deep recesses of the bag.

-43-

The crowd became bedlam.

Everyone backed away from the bag, even more quickly than when they thought it had been a bomb. A wave of cries and voices crested as Sophie tried to pick out what any one person said.

"Hold on, calm down!" Lot called out, but no one paid attention. Sophie watched as Rowen visibly steeled himself before bending down to lift up the bag. Meredith stared at the spot on the floor where it had been, her mouth half open as if she was trying to say something, but couldn't remember the words. No one responded to anything Lot said until he stepped forward and screamed at them.

"Everybody shut the fuck up!"

This finally shocked the crowd into silence, and Lot put out his hands to try and soothe things over. "This is
exactly
what they want. They want us all to go bat-shit and start flooding out like lunatics so they can just pick us off."

Sophie could tell that more people were listening to him, but more from being put off by his tone, wincing at the apparent disrespect. No one liked being treated like children, and Lot realized this as he took a step forward and softened his tone somewhat.

"I'm as upset as you are. Daniel was my friend, he was irreplaceable." He glanced over at the backpack, still hanging limply from Rowen's hands. "You can't honestly tell me though that this possibility hadn't occurred to you."

The crowd was starting to settle down, the angry cries replaced by tears. It was as if the collective heart of everyone had been ripped out and trodden upon.

"So what now?" Clive asked.

"We aren't going to do anything to retaliate," Lot said. Sophie looked at him in surprise. Even Rowen looked somewhat taken aback as the rest of the crowd started to mutter and shift impatiently again. "The worst thing we could do would be to rush out there, all pissed off so they could just mow us down."

"So what
do
we do?" a voice from the crowd called out.

Everyone started to yell, but there was nothing understandable. Sophie shook her head and finally stepped forward. "Go back to your rooms unless you have guard duty. Please don't say anything about this to anyone. We've got to hold things together."

There was a shrill scream from behind. Sophie's heart sank at the sight of a woman talking to Becca, who was now down on her knees and sobbing loudly. Several others ran over to try and console her. Sophie let her gaze drift from the scene. Just past the larger group that was now forming, and back against one of the far corners, she saw Fiona looking out at them.

She had a pale expression as she looked at Becca, as if she had been punched. Her mouth kept opening and closing, and Sophie followed her gaze and saw that she was actually staring at the backpack in Rowen's hands.

Nairi's backpack.

"Oh God," she whispered as she stepped forward, having no idea what to do but knowing that she needed to help Fiona. When she finally reached her though, Fiona just shook her head and turned to run away, shedding tears that Sophie would have never expected to see from her.

Rowen came over to her and looked up the corridor.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Fiona overheard everything. If they killed Daniel, they probably killed Nairi. And that's her backpack."

Rowen looked down at the bag and his skin went even more sickly and pale. Still, he shook his head. "We can't deal with this right now. Fiona isn't the only one who lost someone. We need to think about everyone and you need to be here with us."

Sophie nodded, seeing the logic, but also thinking it was a mistake to leave Fiona to stew in the juices of her own anger and grief.

-44-

It had only been an hour since they received the package, but already, the radio squawked at Sophie to get to the main ticket gate, and the tone in Rowen's voice had her running by the time the transmission ended. She was there in just under a minute, and found a crowd gathering, the chatter of their conversation rising to a dull roar.

Rowen held another backpack.

Sophie stopped short and paused, unsure if she wanted to see what they had sent this time. Rowen didn't allow her much time to decide however, as he walked up to her and shoved it into her arms. Sophie lost the battle against her better judgment and looked inside.

There was a severed arm inside the bag.

The arm looked too petite to have come from Daniel, and Sophie was pretty sure she had seen Nairi wearing that ring. She tried to take some comfort in the fact that Fiona wasn't here to see this and as much as she hated the thought, she said a silent prayer that Nairi was dead and not being kept alive and tortured somewhere. She noticed that Rowen was holding out a slip of paper.

"This was crammed into the hand."

Sophie took the paper and smoothed it out as she read. The message was simple and to the point.

You have 24 hours to open up and let us in.

"All right, everyone listen!" Lot yelled. "I want teams of people going through this place, looking for any piece of movable debris you can find. I don't care if it's furniture, vending machines, exercise equipment, anything we can use to block up the doors leading in here. I want ten people posted at each ticket gate at all times and those guns better God dammed well have the safeties off."

The crowd nodded but no one seemed eager to go anywhere, shuffling back and forth as they looked around, waiting to take their cues from someone else. Rowen stepped forward and began clapping his hands to get their attention.

"Come on, we've got twenty four hours to figure something out, let's get moving."

The crowd dispersed slowly, as they seemed to be discussing who should be going where. Sophie was glad that for the moment they seemed to be holding it together. She almost pointed out that they had no reason to trust that Jerry would hold to his deadline but she kept her mouth shut.

"Are we going to try and respond to this?" Meredith asked as the rest of the crowd moved out of earshot.

Lot shook his head. "I'd rather they get the impression that we're considering letting them in. If we just refuse or do something to piss them off, they might just say, 'screw it' and come on in."

Sophie crossed her arms and shook her head. "They might also think we're ignoring them, and decide to come in."

"Yeah, well there's risk any way we go, but I think this is the best course. We need to take as much time as we can to get ready. Besides..." His voice trailed off as he glanced around to make sure there was no one around that could hear him. "Tonight, I'm going to put some people up on the roof and we're going to start picking these assholes off."

Meredith was clearly surprised. "But I thought—"

"That was before they gave us a deadline and scheduled their attack."

Sophie nodded. She didn't like the idea, but if that was what it was going to take to defend themselves, she had to be fine with it.

"Sophie, there is something I'd like you to do," Rowen said, "Start looking around the building for a good fall-back position. Probably somewhere in the basement where we could get people quickly in case the stadium is breached. It needs to be somewhere we can defend fairly easily, ideally a place we can get the children stashed away."

Sophie didn't point out that if they were to actually retreat like that, chances are they would be going down there to die.

"I want to also make sure everyone on guard duty is working short shifts," Rowen continued. "It's great that we have so many people, but we're going to need everyone to be sharp. I don't want anyone dozing off or doing something stupid because they're too tired to think straight."

Lot nodded and looked around as groups moved to their positions to take up guard duties. "Well, at least now we aren't just waiting. At least everyone understands what's going on out there."

Sophie made her way down to the field and began walking around the perimeter until she got to the fifty yard line. There was a tunnel, barely visible behind a long line of tackling dummies that sloped down from the field, into darkness below. She hadn't remembered noticing it before and it occurred to her that they might be able to find some equipment to block off the entrances. She took out her flashlight, cranked it for a minute or two, and began walking down. It leveled out into a long hallway that led to a large storeroom. There was no way to tell what had been intended to be kept down here, but she could tell that the room could probably hold everyone in the community, if needed. Also, the narrow passage of the tunnel might even out the odds if they had to fight off intruders.

Sophie shone her light across the room and noticed that some of the dust on the floor had been recently disturbed around a filing cabinet. Nothing unusual, it could have been moved at any point, and anyone could have come down here exploring. Regardless, this room seemed like the best solution. They could bring supplies down here which would allow them to get by for at least a little while if they were under siege. She shook her head again at the absurdity to think they would actually be able to survive a scenario like that. As she walked back up to the field, a sudden shiver ran down from the back of her neck, all the way down to her feet and she tried not to imagine ending her life on her knees, looking down the barrel of a gun.

-45-

Guards were now posted at every entrance. There weren't enough guns to go around so the rest fashioned their own crude weapons out of whatever they could find. It seemed a little silly to think that they would ever get close enough to be able to use a club, but it did feel better to see so many people walking guard, armed and ready to defend their home.