Stage 3: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (11 page)

Mason abided all of the girl's eccentricities as if she were the birthday girl whose every wish was to be granted. He tried to shove all thoughts of the future to the back of his mind and concentrate instead on the present, singing along, laughing along, and bowing pretentiously to each mangy sewer rat Mackenzie named, bidding them a pompous, "How do you do, Mr. Pudgy?" or "Your servant, Madame Stinky," in turn. At one point , he even called out a stilted, "Bonjour Mon Sewer Rat!" that made Mackenzie howl with laughter, but no matter how much he tried to distract himself from his brooding thoughts, they were always there.

They spent nearly an hour trudging through the dark and fetid tunnel. There were bends and blind alleys and cross-pipes that taxed Mason's 3D perception to the limit, but even after back-tracking more times than either of them could count, they still managed to travel in a few hours a distance that might have taken them days to cover on the surface.

Mason finally put Mackenzie's hands on the rungs of a ladder and told her, "Wait here."

"Okay, Mace," she said with a nod.

He climbed the ladder, pried the cover up a few inches, and looked out. He didn't know the neighborhood by sight from this odd vantage point, but the street signs at a distant intersection were just legible. He lowered the manhole cover back into place and descended the ladder, back to Mackenzie's side.

"Two more blocks, I think," he said, then he took her hand once more and followed his weak light farther down the dark tunnel.

At what he gauged to be two blocks later, he again oriented Mackenzie at the base of the ladder and climbed up to have a look. Sure enough, the Trident Urgent Care Center was directly across the street. But, as he'd feared, the entire place was overrun. He couldn't tell if the people surrounding the place were alive or undead, but it didn't matter. Hundreds were there, and that was all Mason needed to know.

He backed down the ladder and crouched close to Mackenzie.

"Mack, listen," he told her, "We're here, but the whole place is surrounded, just like we talked about. Everyone who got sick turned up here looking for help. There's hundreds out there.
Thousands
, maybe."

"Sarah," Mackenzie said cooly, and left it at that.

"Listen, sweetheart," Mason tried again, "There is no way I can fight through a thousand people to get in there. If only—.…."

The girl interrupted him with a subtly cocked head, "It's
Sarah
. Find another way, Mace."

Jesus.
Okay, so apparently the Prime Directive wasn't absolute. Although Mackenzie had agreed to the edict, her tone told him that in this one regard, there was no room for negotiations. Again, he knew he could drag her bodily away from this place, but he knew just as clearly that she'd find a way to get back, and she'd go in, alone and blind.

Alright Mack, you win…..
Mason thought.
Maybe this is what will define me if I get a chance at the Pearly Gates. If not, then fuck it. ……Let's do this…..

"Alright, Mack," he said aloud.

"Really?" Mackenzie's eyes grew wide.

"Yup," Mason said simply, "But we can't go through the front doors. We'll have to find another way."

He went a little farther along and discovered a narrow offshoot of the sewer line that looked like it went in the right direction. It would be a tight fit for a man, but if it somehow went under the road and took them into the hospital grounds, they might actually stand a fighting chance. Hunching his shoulders, Mason led them along in a hunch, and soon enough they came to another ladder. Mason wrapped the girl's tiny hands around the side bars and went up for a look. There was the scrape of metal on metal, then Mason reappeared and brushed back the tangled curls from Mackenzie's face.

"We're inside, Mack," he told her matter-of-factly, "Well, not inside the hospital, but inside the grounds. There's a small yard with a chain-link fence around it and a couple of benches. Do you know where that is?"

"Uh huh. It's outside the cafeteria. You go through another room, and there's a door that says 'Do Not Open', but people go out there all the time. Sarah calls it the 'Secret Garden'."

"Okay, good. Now, the fence is keeping out the rest, but I saw three others in the Secret Garden that I'll have to deal with."

"You mean
kill."

"That's
exactly
what I mean," Mason didn't hesitate to confirm her inference. "If they were to stand back and let us through, I'd have no problem leaving them in peace. But they won't do that, and you know it. As soon as those things hear us, they'll try to hurt us, and I intend to not let them. I will absolutely,
positively
kill them. I just hope I only have to do it once."

He watched Mackenzie's face in the dim light of his phone, looking for signs of dissension. To his amazement, she simply gave a quick head-bob and declared, "Good. I just wanted to make sure."

Mason smiled and gave her a peck on the forehead. Then it was time to plan their egress. The manhole cover would make noise as soon as it moved, so Mason wouldn't have time to help the girl out. She would have to do that much on her own. He told her to ignore everything she might hear and climb out as quickly as she could. Once out, she was to turn left and walk swiftly away. The side of the building was no more than a dozen paces from the manhole, so if she counted in her head and held her hands out in front of her, it should be a piece of cake. Once this was agreed upon, Mason tied the backpack to the side of the ladder and started up, Mackenzie at his heels.

He lifted the cover a scant few inches and peered out, whispering, "Ready, Mack?"

"Ready, Mace," came the reply.

He eased the heavy steel cover away as slowly as he could, but he couldn't do it silently. Finally, after scraping the thing against the ground enough to cause a growling from above, he abandoned any hope of a furtive exit and used all of his strength to throw the cover back. It clanged to the ground, and he launched himself through the opening.

The Secret Garden was a small space, perhaps thirty feet to a side, and the fence around it was thick with dozens upon dozens of creatures. They hovered, they leaned, and as they became aware of noise within, they growled and snarled and thrashed at the fence. But they weren't the immediate problem. Three….. no,
four
creatures were inside the fence and charging full-speed at Mason. He barely had time to make sure Mackenzie was out of the hole and headed to safety before they were on him, and then he fought like a madman.

A young male was ahead of the others, charging headlong in crazy, awkward strides. When it approached to within striking distance, Mason swung the length of rebar as hard as he could. It hit the creature directly across its throat, there was a satisfying
crunch,!
and the creature collapsed, gurgling and spewing frothy blood from its mouth. Mason continued the swing and performed an admirable pirouette on his heels, using the built-up kinetic energy to bring the iron bar down on the next creature in line. It connected with the female's left temple, and the thing's skull split open like overripe fruit. As it fell in a heap, Mason turned toward a big male racing at him from the side. He deked away at the last moment and stuck out his foot, and the thing stumbled over the obstacle, skidding to the ground. It immediately began to struggle back to its feet, growling at Mason through teeth now turned to shrapnel, but before Mason could finish him off, an old female charged from the other side. Mason turned and threw his body into the creature, and she clattered to the ground, and in the seconds it took her to scramble back to her knees, Mason swung around and buried his weapon in the male's skull.

The old female was the last one. She found her feet and charged at Mason, her mouth drawn back in a snarl, but there were no gnashing teeth. In fact, there were no teeth at all. Mason looked to where she'd fallen and saw a pair of dentures lying on the ground. Still, the creature clawed at the air, snapped its gums like a landed fish, and charged. Mason struck a batter's stance, swung the rebar over his shoulder, then turned his feet and body into the swing as if he was batting for a homer. The creature's skull came apart and sprayed across the ground, and Mason turned back to the male with the crushed larynx. The bleeding had stopped, so the heart was no longer beating, but before the dead man could become undead, Mason brought the rebar up like a spear and drove the end of it directly between the corpse's eyes.

Pulling his weapon free, Mason clicked his cheek, and Mackenzie came running. He drew her into his arms and carried her over the fallen bodies and puddles of gore. He lowered her to her feet in front of the door marked 'Staff Only' and told her to stay, and she dutifully stood as quiet and still as a statue. The way into the Secret Garden was a fire door, but someone had stuck an empty cigarette pack in the door to keep it ajar, and everyone else had adhered to this little bit of rebellion against the powers that be.

Mason put his eye to the crack, but he could see nothing. It was all black inside. He listened for activity, but the swarm outside had become agitated with the noise of the battle and now thrashed against the fence so violently that Mason could hear little else. He eased the empty cigarette pack out of the door, dropped it to a patch of grass, and pulled the door open another few inches. He planted his foot against the base of the thing and readied his weapon lest someone tried to barge through, but all seemed quiet inside. At last, he pulled the door open wide and shone the dim light of his cell phone inside.

He could hear movement, now. Not here, though. Close, but not here. He shone his light one way, then the other, and saw that they were in a kind of boardroom. There was a long table surrounded by chairs, and a white screen on the far wall for power-point presentations. He collected Mackenzie, ushered her through, and held her close to him as he padded across the room. There was a single door on the far side of the table, thankfully closed. Mason had a brief bout of retroactive fear as he envisioned how their entry might have gone had that last blessed smoker not closed this door behind him, but he quickly turned away from such thoughts.

Mackenzie squeezed his hand and whispered up to him, "Sarah works in the emergency room."

"Okay," Mason replied coolly, but he knew that no one in the emergency room stood a breath of a chance. The ER was always open to the public. The masses would have flooded in, sick or feverish or already blind. And then, all it would have taken was that very first potential patient to turn rabid, and there would have been pandemonium. No way to shut the doors, no way to block the infected and the blind and the ravenous;, they would have swarmed the emergency room like a pack of wolves. Anyone still human would have been torn to pieces.

Should he tell Mackenzie? Should he inform this sweet little girl that her aunt was turned into chum? Or worse? As dedicated as Mason was to holding nothing back from his young charge, he couldn't bring himself to share his concerns with her. He assuaged his guilt by convincing himself that it was all conjecture at this point, so it didn't count as a lie.

He crouched down and whispered in her ear, "Is there some other place she might be besides the emergency room? Say that a whole bunch of people rushed in, and she knew she had to go someplace safe. Did she have an office or anything like that?"

Mackenzie mulled it over for some seconds, then she pushed back a tangle of red hair and turned her beautiful, sightless green eyes to Mason in an accusing scowl.

She harrumphed and said, "What you're trying
not
to tell me is that if she stayed in the emergency room, she's either dead or one of them," she harumphed.

He dared to give her a light kiss on the top of her head and hushed the words, "I apologize, Mack. I keep forgetting that you're wise beyond your years. Would you like to withdraw your assessment of me as good father material?"

The scowl melted away, and one corner of her lip curled up in a sly smirk, "I guess not. But Sarah is the smartest person I know. If something happened, she would have seen it coming."

"Okay, so where would she go?"

This time, she didn't need to think it over. "Sarah doesn't have an office, but there's a….….a
break
r
oom
on each floor. If she couldn't get out, she would have gone to one of those."

Mason put an ear to the door and heard shuffling noises beyond. He told Mackenzie honestly, "Alright, Mack. There's only one door from this room to the rest of the hospital, and I can hear people on the other side. Well, not
people
, but….….you know….."

"Yeah, I know," the girl harumphed, "Mace, if you tell me that there's no way through them, then okay. But Sarah….."

She left it like that, and what could Mason possibly do? One look at that sweet, desperate face was all it took. He squatted down and told her honestly, "I truly don't know if we can do this or not, Mack. But I promise you, we'll try our best."

The girl allowed a solemn nod, and that was it. Mason unlatched the door, pulled it open an inch, and put an eye to the slit.

Christ!

Beyond the door was a length of hallway littered from one end to the other with bodies. At either end of the hall, Mason could make out flurries of movement, but he could see no detail from his vantage point. The creatures might be close or they might be far; there was just no way to tell without committing themselves.