Dead, but Not for Long (37 page)

“It was kind of sudden,” Jack continued. “That
woman had a heart of gold. Unfortunately, that’s what got her killed.” Jack
paused, seemingly deep in thought.

Lindsey shifted uncomfortably, wanting to know
more, but she thought better about prodding him on.

“She was a social worker,” Jack finally said. “She
insisted on going into the areas where most of her peers refused to go. Her
cases were children of crack addicts and prostitutes. She said someone had to
help them. Might as well be her. We were never able to have kids, so, honestly,
she loved these kids like they were her own.”

“How did it happen?” Lindsey said, breaking her silence.

“She was on a routine visit to one of her long-term
cases. A twelve-year-old kid had been returned to her mother a few weeks
earlier. Her mother had been a meth addict, but had been clean for two years.
The visits were going well and they had plans to get out of the ghetto and
start a new life. Unfortunately, the woman’s meth-crazed ex showed up. When my
wife arrived, the man was beating the crap out of the girl’s mother. My wife
should have just called the cops, but that’s not how she was. She tried to stop
him and was stabbed eleven times. A neighbor called the cops and when they
showed up, the guy came at them. He went down in a flurry of shots. My wife
made it to the ER but died a couple minutes before I got there.”

Lindsey sat in silence, again at a loss for words.

“At least she didn’t have to live through this,”
Jack said, fighting back emotion. “She died helping people. Wouldn’t be a bad
thing to have on your resume when you meet your Maker, don’t you think?”

Lindsey simply nodded.

~*~

Keith made his way to the observation room,
grateful for something to take his mind off of Shanelle. He didn’t know for
certain that his wife was dead, but he knew that it was likely. There were
other possibilities and most of them weren’t any better. He couldn’t stop his
mind from going through all of the scenarios. She could be trapped in a
collapsed building with zombies all around. She could be wounded but alive, but
even if that were the case and they had the resources needed to dig through the
rubble, the undead would probably make a rescue impossible.

When he reached the room on the top floor, he greeted Snake.

Snake was glad to see Keith. He’d been afraid that
Dr. Doune would show up, and he and Snake had nothing in common other than a
mutual distrust of each other. Keith seemed to be a little more down to earth
than the doctors and a lot easier to be around than Doune, in particular.

“You’re up early,” the biker said. “How’re you feeling today?”

“Like I’ve been run over by a truck,” Keith admitted,
“but I used to know Morse code and I think I still remember it, though I may be
a bit slow this morning.”

“We think they’ve been trying to signal us for an
hour or so. Dumbo here just thought it was a machine or something.”

Keith was taken aback when Snake called the man “Dumbo,”
thinking that the name-calling was a bit harsh. After all, most young people
didn’t even know what Morse Code was. Once he turned to look at the younger man
and saw his huge ears, it all made sense. Keith had to fight back a grin.

Dumbo shrugged his shoulders and asked nonchalantly, “Can I go to sleep now?”

Snake nodded and the younger biker strolled out the door.

Handing Keith a flashlight, Snake pointed to the eighth floor of a nearby building where a dim flashing light could be seen.

“I walk by that place all the time on the way to the gym. It’s an office building,” Keith said. “There’s some kind of
engineering firm there and a computer company. I’m not sure what else. It
always seemed like a busy place so there should either be a lot of survivors or
a lot of infected.”

Snake was lost in his thoughts for a moment as he
looked out the window, eyes scanning the dark between the two buildings.

Turning away from the window, he said to Keith, “I’ve
found one of my guys that can actually write if you need to dictate.”

A man in a leather cap smiled proudly at Keith
while holding up a pen and a pad of paper.

Keith glanced at the man and said, “If you don’t
mind playing secretary, that’ll work for me.”

He turned and watched the signal for a while. “That’s SOS.”

He took the flashlight and started to send back
long flashes just to get the attention of those in the other building and to
let them know that someone had gotten the message. After about a minute of the
long flashes, there was a response. The light from the other building began to
flash up and down erratically for a moment before a slight pause then a mixture
of long and short flashes.

“Dot dot dot, that’s an s and dot dot dash – “u” I
think,” he told the biker. “Let’s see, dot dash dot is “r” and
dot dot dot dash, um, “g” I think. I don’t remember for sure. Okay, we got “i” and
another “g” then o, r, s.”

“Surgigors?”

“I guess that dot dot dot dash had to be a v, not
a g,” Keith said, looking at the paper. “Survivors.”

Thinking for a moment, Keith spelled out the words, “More details needed.”

“Okay, this one is going to be longer, so we’ll
translate it after it’s done,” Keith said to the biker. He began slowly calling
out dots and dashes as he got them. Once the message stopped, he looked the
paper over, translating the message.

“Twenty trapped on eighth floor. Building overrun. No food. No water.”

Keith let out a slow breath as he glanced at the other building.

Snake was amazed that Keith had remembered the code so well after so many years. He imagined how helpless the survivors must have
felt, being trapped by the infected as they watched Snake and his men quickly
annihilate a parking lot full of them. He wondered why the building wasn’t lit
up like the hospital, but then realized that, unlike the hospital, it probably
had just an emergency backup generator, designed to only run essentials such as
heat and emergency exit lighting. That would also explain the lack of water. He
had heard that some older buildings had to have assist-pumps to increase the
water pressure enough to reach the top floors. It was possible that the basic
generator wasn’t designed to run those pumps. Regardless, a rescue operation
would have to be planned.

“I could gather up a fresh set of men and take
them over,” Snake said. “Glad we had them take shifts.”

“A couple of the newcomers mentioned that they
wouldn’t mind helping you guys out,” Keith said. “I don’t know if they talked
to you or not.”

Snake nodded. “Yeah, but I want to give them a
couple days to rest and rehydrate before taking them back out there. Some of
them have been through a lot and have been without food and water. I’d rather
have them get healthy first then give them a chance to join us.”

He glanced at the other building again. “I wonder
if we could use the fire escape. Then again, there must be a reason they aren’t
using it to get out.”

“I noticed that a lot of the buildings around here
don’t have fire escapes,” Keith said, unable to see much of the other building
in the dim glow of the street lights. “I wonder why? Maybe there’s a second set
of stairs inside instead.”

He thought about offering to go along on the
rescue but the nursing staff was already spread very thin. “I can stay up here
while you go if I can get Amelia to help out on the third floor,” he said. “If
I have a radio here and you take one with you, I can be the go-between.”

“Well, I think I’ve caught my second wind,” Snake
replied. “I stayed up for a week once in my party days. I guess it won’t kill
me to miss a little more sleep.”

“A week?” Keith asked, impressed. “The longest I ever made it was 48 hours once.”

“Believe me,” Snake said about his week-long wake
marathon, “I had help from several substances that I can’t even name. I think I’ll
just stick to a cup of coffee, now. I’m going to need to borrow your secretary
but I’ll find someone that’s awake enough to take notes for you then I’ll round
up my posse.” Snake smiled as he headed to the door. “I’m going to send up a
couple guys to clear the parking lot, too, but it shouldn’t take long. Not too
many of those things out there this morning.”

“Yeah, I think that Helga and I made a dent in
their population last night,” Keith said. “Probably not a real smart move.”

“Well, it turned out all right, so I’m not too
worried about it,” Snake said. “Sorry about your wife.”

“Thanks,” Keith replied. Turning his attention
back to the window, he let the people in the other building know he’d have a
message in a moment. He had to write it down since it was going to be a long
one, but then he sent it, telling them what the plan was and that he would be
the liaison during the rescue.

Snake went to talk to Amelia then made his way to
the first floor to have the bikers get ready for another run. He noticed that
the lights were on in Doune’s lab and he stuck his head inside.

“You’re up bright and early today,” he said to the
doctor and Autumn.

“Well, we’re not going to cure this zombie disease
by sleeping all day,” Autumn said.

“I’ve got a favor to ask,” Snake said, explaining
about the message they’d received from the other building. “Can Autumn go to
the observation deck and take notes? I’m going to need to take a fresh crew and
the others are sleeping.”

Doune glanced at Autumn and said, “We can look at
the slides of the brain later. They won’t be going anywhere.”

“You mind being a secretary for a while?” Snake asked Autumn.

“Yippee,” she said with a bored look on her face. “I’m
going from dissecting to dictating.”

Snake thought for a bit.

“Maybe it’s better if we find someone else,” he
said, watching her out of the corner of his eye. We might be receiving some
pretty gnarly messages. Might give you nightmares.”

Autumn gave him that ‘I know what you’re trying to
do’ look, but she had to admit, it did sound exciting.

“Alright,” she cracked a smile. “Sign me up.”

Doune went back to his observations once the girl
left. Now that he had the microscope and other equipment, he’d made some interesting
discoveries. So far, he hadn’t passed on what he’d learned to any of the others
since he needed to run a few more tests to be certain. If his assumptions were
correct, then the culprit behind the plague was a very complex parasite, rather
than a virus.

~*^*~

Snake directed Autumn to the observation room then
headed back to the ER. He talked to a couple of his men who were getting ready
to start work on the gate.

“Hey, Boss, this is Carmen,” Gunner said, nodding
toward a young woman with spiked, red hair. Snake thought he recognized her as
one of the survivors that Lt. Reynolds had dropped off.

“Nice to meet you,” Snake said, offering his hand.

“She’s a welder and she’s going to give us some help
with the gate,” Gunner said. “She’s done lots of iron work.”

“Awesome,” Snake told her with a grin. “Two of my guys weld,
but I’m taking one of them with me. I’m sure you and Gunner can handle it.”

Gunner said, “We’re going to make sure the gates
can’t be pulled off the pins, and we need to weld the metal plates onto the
front of the gates so the zombies can’t see inside or reach through. That’s all, right?”

“Yep, that’s it,” Snake said.

“You know the gates are a little shorter than the wall, right?” he asked.

“Yeah, I had Moose go eight feet high on the walls to be safe.”

“Want us to make the gates a little taller?” Gunner asked.

“Sure. You guys just be careful and have someone
watching your backs at all times while you’re out there.”

“Don’t need to tell me twice,” Gunner said. “We
cleared a spot in the ER and we’ll put the plates on in there. We’ll just be
outside to do the work on the pins.”

“Um, you might want to wait and add the plates to
the top after you get the doors outside,” Snake said.

“Why?” Gunner asked.

“Because the door to the hospital is only seven feet high.”

“Oh, gotcha, Boss,” Gunner laughed. “That wouldn’t
have worked too well, I guess.”

“No, it could’ve been a bit of a problem,” Snake
said, then added to Carmen, “Appreciate the help.”

After chugging a couple cups of strong coffee, he
gathered a group of his men in the ER and let them know about the survivors in
the other building and his plan to attempt a rescue. Lindsey wandered over when
she heard them talking and she asked if she could go along.

“You sure?” he asked. “This one might get a little
tricky. Sounds like the whole building is overrun.”

“I’m sure,” she said. “I won’t tell you that I’m
not terrified to do it, but honestly, I think it’s a fear I need to face. I don’t
see anything changing in the near future and I would rather learn how to deal
with the infected now than to hide out and hope someone else will keep me safe.
Besides, I’d rather be doing this than hanging out in the lab, watching Dr.
Doune. Just give me a couple minutes.”

She hurried to her room for her sweater, knowing that
it would be chilly outside. She was lucky to have it, since the weather had
been hot when the outbreak had happened. The air conditioning in the hospital
tended to get cold at times, though, so she had been in the habit of keeping a
sweater in her locker.

Her pistol and cross bow were hidden in the truck,
along with most of the other guns and ammo, but she was sure that Snake had
plans to retrieve the weapons before making the rescue.

~*~

Snake went to get one of the few working
flashlights from the kitchen, though Theresa protested at first.

“If the lights go out again, I’ll be cooking
breakfast in the dark,” she huffed.

“I know,” he said, shrugging, “but we got some
survivors to try to rescue. They’re in a dark building filled with zombies.”