Dead Air (Book One of The Dead Series) (46 page)

The wind kicked up, sending a chill breeze across the roof.
Steve checked his watch again, and saw that he should get moving. It was Heather's turn to cook tonight and he didn't want to be late. Taking one last look at the hordes of flesh eating zombies in the street below, he tried to reassure himself that, if they played it safe, the trip to get fuel should be no problem. Once they were a block or two away from the building it should be clear sailing. As long as everyone in the building kept their cool and didn't do anything crazy, they should be able to hold out for a long, long time.

***

Marcia knocked on the door while carefully balancing the tray she carried in her other hand.

"Mister Harrison
? It's me, Marcia. I brought you something to eat." She waited for a reply, and when none came, she called out, "I'll just leave it out here and you can get it when you're ready."

Setting down the tray, Marcia turned and walked away, hoping that Mister Harrison was
all right. She’d always believed that you judged a society by how it treated its elderly and infirm, and she refused to find herself lacking in compassion for someone who was mentally challenged.

Marcia had been bringing Harrison a meal a day since running into him as he came out of the bathroom over a week ago. She had noticed how haggard he was looking, and when she tried to introduce herself and speak to him, he had turned and almost ran down the hall before entering his office and slamming the door behind him.

Seeing how thin and pale
he was, Marcia had gone down to the deli and fixed some sandwiches for him. When she knocked on his office door to give them to him though, he had babbled incoherently about her not getting any of his gold and that he was going to call the police if she kept bothering him. Sternly, as if speaking to a child, Marcia told him she was leaving the food for him and that he better eat it. In a gentler voice, she then explained that he needed to stay healthy. She left after promising him she would bring him something to eat every day.

Although
Harrison never spoke to Marcia, she always found the food gone when she went to retrieve the tray. The previous day, she had even found a sticky note pasted to Harrison’s door with the words 'Thank you' written on it.

Today she received no note, and as usual no conversation, but
she vowed that this wouldn't deter her. Little steps, she told herself. Just keep making progress and soon Harrison might become part of their little community.

Brian Harrison listened intently at the door to make sure that the woman had left. Days ago
, when she had spotted him coming out of the bathroom, he’d cursed himself for not being able to hold his urine until later that night when the hallways of the building would be deserted. He had spent the last month watching the comings and goings at the far end of the hall where the radio station was located, and he knew that the best time to emerge and work on his project or take food from the deli downstairs was between midnight and four AM. The reason for his unscheduled bathroom break had been the six-pack of beer he drank that morning and had regretted all day; when the urge to urinate made him break cover.

Opening the door to his office a crack, Harrison peeked out to make sure that no one was waiting in the hallway in ambush, ready to bust in and rob him of what was secreted in his mind. Satisfied that it was safe, he slid the tray in and locked the door behind him.

Harrison sat with his back against the door for added security, since the people running around the building still had keys and ate his sandwiches while calculating how much longer it would take him to break into the bank. He had slowly but surely been cutting through the lower pane of clear polycarbonate that made up the 'glass' in the door that led from the Galleria into the bank. His hands ached from scratching a groove in the hardened plastic with a sharpened screwdriver, making sure that his cut was along the frame of the door so that no one could see it. He had to be careful that the others in the building didn’t find out what he was doing, or they would surely rob him of his knowledge and then kill him so that they could keep the treasure for themselves.

Five million in gold stored in the vault of the Garnett
Bank could bring out the worst greed in anyone.

Although
his initial motivation for coming to his office had been to find sanctuary in a world that was trying to eat itself, he did have a secondary plan that he’d been working on. He had heard through the grapevine that the bank was holding a large amount of gold for a client who transacted foreign land investments. Realizing that the banking system was shutting down across the country, he decided that he had a good chance of grabbing the fortune for himself. He obsessed about the gold and continually planned out the different ways he could steal it until it felt like his head would burst.

For days
, Harrison had even walked around with pieces of cloth shoved into his ears so that none of his plans would leak out and be stolen by someone else. His secretary had asked him if he had an ear infection. Fearing that he would be discovered, he fired her. Harrison knew that she had always been suspicious of him and his ideas and that she only wanted him to remove the earplugs so that she could see the knowledge spill out of his head and steal the gold for herself. She was always saying things like, 'Such and such client called, and I need you to sit down with me and update his file', or 'We need to discuss the Japanese banking venture', all tricks to try and lure him into a conversation so it would force him to take out the plugs and reveal himself.

But he was smarter than that.

The nagging worry that his secretary would find out what he was up to plagued Harrison all that day. After considering the situation, he came up with a plan. That evening, he went to her small apartment, and after gaining access by pretending to apologize, offered to reinstate her with a raise. After she accepted, he sat with her and made small talk until he was sure that she was alone. Then he beat her to death with a length of pipe. He left the body lying in the living room, sure that in a world slowly going insane he wouldn’t be connected to the murder. Now his plan was safe, and he could move into his office and lay low.

After waiting days for it to happen,
when the power went off it had almost been orgasmic for him. Even though the meddling people from the radio station had shown up, he was able to bluff them into thinking he was happy to have a cop around to protect him. To act slightly crazy had been a spur of the moment idea that had paid off. And while he been really surprised to find an actual Sherriff’s Deputy in the building, he managed to convince them that he was nothing but a slightly eccentric, law abiding citizen who was only worried about protecting his property.

His gold.

When they first discovered him, Harrison had considered killing them, but they were armed, and all he had for a weapon was the pipe he’d used to murder his secretary. He studied the interlopers carefully while he was talking to them but couldn't discern if they were aware of the knowledge he carried in his head. He was relieved when they decided he was no threat. Playing the role of someone meek and humble was, after all, the easiest way to get close to someone and kill them when they weren't looking. And when the power died a few seconds later, he knew it was a sign. This was what he had been waiting for, and everything was now coming together perfectly.

The vault in the bank was secured by a time
lock, which was now disengaged, and a magnetic lock that would disengage when the power went out. The first two parts of his plan fell into place without him having to do anything at all. The only thing standing in his way was the combination lock, and that should prove to be only a minor hindrance as he had beaten the numbers out of the bank manager before killing her on the Sunday the dead rose up to walk the Earth. The last thing that could stand in his way was the people who had taken the building as their new home. He found a way around this by avoiding them during the day and only working at night.

In just a few days, he would be inside the bank itself and then the vault. He would steal the gold and hide it in his
office. Once this was done, he would glue the piece of glass back in the door so that no one would be the wiser.

Checking his watch, Harrison saw that he had time for a nap before it would be safe to resume his
work. After sliding the food tray out into the hall, he stretched out on the carpet with his back against the door and clutched the sharpened screwdriver he used as a glasscutter to his chest. Quickly, he dropped into a dream of running through fields of gold.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Clearwater, Florida:

Steve left the station and crossed the hall to the men's room. Standing at the urinal, he was wondering how difficult it would be for Meat to teach Heather how to drive a semi. His thoughts were interrupted by Jonny G banging through the door and positioning himself a few feet to his left.

"We need to talk," Jonny said urgently.

In a slightly condescending tone, Steve replied, "Jonny, the only person I speak to when I have my dick in my hands is the phone sex goddess at the one nine-hundred number I call when I can't get a date for Saturday night. Wait until I'm finished."

Ignoring this
, Jonny asked, "What’s up with Heather and Marcia?"

Steve thought about it for a minute and replied, "I've had it in my hand a couple times while I was talking to Heather
, but I haven't tried Marcia yet." Raising an eyebrow, he added, "But I'm always willing to experiment."

Jonny gave him a quizzical look and asked, "What are you talking about?"

Steve shook his head and said, "Never mind. So what's the big deal about Heather and Marcia?"

In a rush
, Jonny said, "They're being all secretive, and now they're down on the eleventh floor looking through the offices there for something, and I heard them say something about being pregnant or getting pregnant and I'm worried."

Heather had told Steve the night before about her quest
, but obviously Marcia had neglected to tell Jonny G. What went on between the G-man and his main squeeze was none of his business, so Steve replied, "I wouldn't worry about it Jonny, it's probably nothing."

"I'm too young to be a dad," Jonny said mournfully.

Steve laughed and said, "Don't worry stud, like I said, it's nothing to be worried about."

After exiting the bathroom with Jonny in tow, Steve heard Marcia call out to him in a loud voice from down the hall. He turned to find her jogging toward him
. His first thought was that something had happened to Heather. He immediately started moving in Marcia's direction, but when he saw the look of joy on the young woman's face, he stopped to wait for her and asked, "What's going on, why all the excitement?"

"You've got to come quick, both of you,"
she said breathlessly after stopping a few feet away.

Steve's concern rose again at the summons
, but before he could put voice to it, Marcia said happily, "We found a little girl. Heather's with her now."

Turning to go back down the hall to the stairs, Marcia said over her shoulder, "She's so cute, you just have to see her. She's been hiding in the building alone this whole time and
-." Seeing both men still standing in place, she said, "Well come on, Jonny, don't just stand there, she needs us."

As Marcia disappeared around the corner to the stairs
, Steve said to Jonny, "Now you might want to start worrying."

"Why's that?" The intern asked.

"From the look on Marcia's face, I think you did just become a daddy."

They entered the suite of offices on the eleventh floor
and found Heather leaning on the edge of a desk, talking softly to a little girl seated in a chair a few feet in front of her. The girl's eyes widened upon seeing Steve and Jonny G walk in, so Heather told the two men, "This is Cindy. She's not supposed to talk to strangers, so you have to introduce yourselves so we can all be friends."

"My name's Steve," Steve said
, as he tried to force a smile.

"Hi, I'm Jonny," Jonny added a big smile and a little wave.

In a shy voice, the little girl said, "Pleased to meet you. My name's Cindy."

Heather said to Steve, "We were down here looking around when I found Cindy hiding in the knee space of a desk. She wouldn't talk to strangers so I made friends with her and we had a nice
talk. She just finished telling me how she ended up being here when you came in." Turning back to Cindy, Heather said, "Please show Steve your arm, Cindy. He needs to see your owies too."

Even though the building had lost most of its air conditioning when the power went out, it
usually stayed cool except for a few hours around mid-afternoon. It was early in the day, so it was still chilly in the office. Cindy was wearing a long sleeve sweatshirt, which she reluctantly pushed up on her right arm.

When Steve saw what was revealed beneath, his hand flew to the butt of his pistol at his hip. Heather saw this and rapidly shook her head while mouthing the word 'No' at him. Cindy was looking shyly down at the floor, embarrassed by all the attention
and missed Steve’s grab for the weapon.