The Azrael: Surviving the Outbreak (6 page)

Taliah

Mario and Taliah finally exited the Ottawa Trail Woods and entered the concrete jungle of the Azrael leading to Chicago.  Mario was a bit uneasy travelling without the cover of the trees, but Taliah seemed in better spirits.  The swelling on her face reduced revealing her beautiful brown eyes that seemed to add to her character.  Mario noticed a clothing shop across the street and decided to take a look.  He entered the half looted building cautiously and cleared the building strategically with Taliah on his heels.

“I know you want to get out of those dirty clothes you’re wearing.  Take whatever you want.  I’ll be at the front door looking out.  Taliah smiled and began to browse through the clothes still on the racks and sorted through the ones lying on the ground.  She found a few sets of clothes and changed herself.  She walked out of the fitting room fully dressed.  She looked in the mirror and liked the clothes but was not digging her dirty body.  She couldn’t wait to get into a shower and wash the mud and those nasty men off of her.

“You look gorgeous Taliah.”  Mario said when he seen her modeling her outfit in the mirror.  “We need to get going.  Maybe we can find a place with plumbing intact and you can get in a shower.

“Are you kidding?  I would love that, so much.  Let’s go now.”  Taliah said balling up the other outfits under her arm and started to head out of the door.

“Wait, here let me see those.”  Mario took the other clothes from Taliah.  He folded them neatly and placed them in his pack.  “Okay, let’s get moving.”  Mario said and Taliah gave him a big hug.

“Thank you Mario.”  Taliah kissed him on the cheek.

They exited the building and continued northeast towards Chicago.  They continued east on West Pershing Road.  They travelled through an industrial district, keeping the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal to their right.  This trek of land was just as free of the Azrael as the wooded stretch Mario was accustomed to.  They crossed over South Pulaski Road and found a weak corner in the black gate surrounding an enormous factory.  Once they passed the rear of the building, the area opened up.  Mario peeked around the building and found a herd surrounding a transmission tower holding up power lines.  Were they drawn to the power?  They must be drawn to the hum on the lines, Mario thought.  Bigger cities still had power grids active, the power may be low these days, but most systems ran automatically.  There were several sources of power running these vast cities, the biggest contributor, coal, needed human intervention to keep running.  It looked like this city didn’t get Wind Turbine power set up yet.  The gas and nuclear contributions must be still humming over the lines.  However, if the nuclear plants weren’t kept cool, they too would fail, which would bring a whole new issue into their day to day struggle.  However, he believed a lot of protective measures were installed in America to prevent a full meltdown like Japan had several years ago.

“If we got a bit of power left, there might be hope for a hot shower for you.”  Mario said, smiling at Taliah.

“That would be great.”  She said, keeping a watchful eye on the Azrael.  The herd wasn’t sleeping, but seemed calm beneath the transmission tower.  The land opened up too much for them to slip passed unnoticed.  They needed to backtrack and find a new path.  They worked their way back to S. Pulaski Rd and headed north.  They encountered railroad tracks and decided to follow them east.  They passed the herd on their right.  They stayed low and kept a watchful eye on their movements.  It looked like about two hundred of them at least gathered there.  Taliah kept close to Mario grabbing on to his backpack with a tight grip.  There were small houses to the left of them, but none seemed to have power and there were too many on top of each other.  It would be a defensive nightmare.  They passed several storage trailers on their right that could hide Azrael.  They continued down the path and slipped passed a few more small herds that gathered in the trailer graveyard.  Beyond them to the right some light emerged.  They continued down the path where green land and a layout of several large buildings revealed themselves with a few lights glowing around them.

“Power, those buildings have power.”  Mario said pointing ahead at an ‘L’ shaped building beyond a small parking lot.  They continued towards the source and entered the open area cautiously.  Mario kept Taliah close and tactically moved from car to car and stopped at one of the building’s windows.  He looked inside, no people or Azrael seemed to move about.  It looked clean and maintained.  They circled around the front of the set of buildings to see what it was.  It appeared to be some sort of self-sustaining facility.  They may have their own generators up and running with conjunction to soaking up some of the juice from the power lines.  What a brilliant find this was.  Mario continued to investigate the building’s exterior and noticed that it was Paul Simon Job Corps Center, like some small community college campus.  It offered all types of trade job training programs.  He browsed inside each building looking through the windows.  He didn’t want to be trapped inside if he found something or someone hostile inside.  He found nothing moving.  A gym was in one room, which may have meant a shower nearby.

“Awesome, keep close to me Taliah.  We’re going to try to find a shower for you.” He found a dormitory nearby and had to break the lock that was chaining the doors shut.  Every survivalist needed a pair of bolt cutters on them at all times for just this instance.  The two entered cautiously and moved through clearing the rooms.  There were no Azrael inside and the place was remarkably well kept, which set off alarms in Mario’s mind.

“Okay, this is the female dormitory.”  Mario said noticing the decorations and color schemes.  “There has to be one that has soap, shampoo and other girl toiletries that you can use.”  Mario continued and Taliah found a room that had everything she needed and she walked up to Mario on the outside of the room.

“Found one, keep an eye out please.”  Taliah said shutting the door and skipped over to the bathroom.  She turned on the water on hot and held her hand out.  It took a bit, but she heard the pipes working.  Within moments water came out.  It was brown at first, but within a few seconds it cleared up and began to heat up.  She squealed.

“Are you okay in there?”  Mario said almost opening the door.

“I’m fine, the water works and it’s hot.  You’re next. God knows the last time you bathed.”  Taliah said and began taking her clothes off.  She forgot about the abuse she endured while taken hostage. Her body was disgusting.  She had bruises and crusted semen all over her body and seeing it brought back the horrible events along with the memories she struggled to forget.  She felt repulsed and tears began to fall before she could hold them back.  She cried silently succumbing to waves of emotions coming to the surface.  She slowed her tears and stepped into the shower, watched as the water turned a dark brown and she could see her dirty footprints on the tub floor.  Soon the water turned clear and she began to use soap on a luffa and shampoo to cleanse the disgusting off of her body.  She rubbed the footprints away with her feet and the water.  She picked this room because it was a black girl’s room.  The shampoo those white girls used wouldn’t work so well with her thicker curly hair.  She even found some facial exfoliating cream that she used to clean her face, just like what her mom used.

As Taliah washed herself, images of her family and where she came from displayed in her mind.  She thought of her little brother Derron and his twin sister Sherron.  She thought about how she hated the fact that their names rhymed.  She thought of her daddy, working two jobs and how her mommy baked cookies and cakes all of the time.  Mommy kept daddy thick, she thought.  She wondered if her family was even alive anymore.  The men snatched her when she left school late working on that stupid science project.  If she didn’t stay extra to make sure her volcano worked properly, then she wouldn’t have been taken by those sick men.  She remembered how long the ride was to their house.  They took turns with her in the back of the van.  It was a long trip that she wished didn’t happen.  The urge to cry welled up inside of her but she stopped it as soon as it came.  Instead she squeezed her luffa with both hands fiercely as she dug her nails into it. 

The outbreak didn’t hit Pinckneyville in southern Illinois as fast as it hit Chicago.  There were too many open plains and the wind carried scents long distances causing the Azrael to not get a good grasp on their whereabouts.  At least that’s what her daddy always said.  It was a good two and a half years into the outbreak before it came knocking on their doorstep.  Taliah shook her head and wondered what the people in charge were thinking.  Why was school still going on with this outbreak happening?  It’s like they were in denial that it even was true, still going about things like nothing was going on.  Of course, they all still were aware of what was happening.  Not all the TV channels worked and the radio stations kept updating the world about how the apocalypse was taking place and that everyone needed to stock up on resources and create underground bunkers.  Her mommy and daddy didn’t have the kind of money to waste on survival gear.  They could barely survive the mortgage company.  Well, that’s what her mommy said often.  Her mommy encouraged her to keep learning, despite the events that happened.  Mommy probably thought she got eaten by one of those monsters.

“Hah, it wasn’t an Azrael Mommy, just some men.”  Taliah said out loud thinking to herself.  She knew she was pretty and that girls got snatched up all the time.  She never thought it would be her.  She cried harder this time.  Her tears were being washed away along with snot that dribbled from her nose and into her mouth.  She hoped that Mario didn’t hear her cries.  She got herself together again and finished up her shower.  She wasn’t going to relive those awful days back at that dirty house.  Her image appeared in the mirror after she turned off the shower and exited the tub drying her body off with a big soft towel.  Her bruises were fading away, but she could still see finger bruises on her side and breasts.  She was more developed than the other girls in her class, she thought.  “A lot of good it did me, huh.”  She said out loud to herself.

“What was that?”  Mario asked.

“Nothing, I’ll be out in a minute.”  Taliah said forgetting that he was out there and that this wasn’t her own room.  She combed through her hair a bit adding conditioner to it, but gave up after five minutes when her hands started to cramp up.  She put a headband on her head and pushed it back pulling her hair off of her face.  She had a very tangled afro, but it looked much better than that matted mess it was in before she washed it.  Hell, she went back and cleaned out the bottom of the tub of the debris that was too big to go down the drain.  She found some clean panties and a bra that was in one of the drawers near the bed.  She put them on.  The bra was much bigger than what she needed, but she put the latch on the farthest connector and it held together somewhat.  She fit the panties well and put on the clothes she took from the store earlier on, the other set that she didn’t wear yet.  She threw the other set away.  They still had dirt and crap on them from before the shower.  She was leaving all of that behind her, she thought.  She finished getting dressed and looked at her appearance one more time before speaking to Mario.

“Finished, you can come in.”  Taliah said posing like a model she saw in some magazine years ago.  He walked in and was taken aback at how beautiful she was after the shower.

“Wow, you look amazing Taliah.  I can hardly believe you are the same person.  You clean up good.”  Mario said smiling at her.  She blushed and spun around so he could see all of her.  He nodded with approval.

“So, time for you to jump in there.  You smell like trees and dirty gym socks.”  Taliah said pinching her nose.

“I will, but we need to be careful and not get complacent.  We still don’t know who has been maintaining these buildings.  Someone or a group of people are keeping this place up and running.  A lot of work has gone in to keeping this place functioning properly.”  Mario said sounding concerned.

“I don’t care.  I can’t travel with a smelly man.  What would all the cute boys think?”  Taliah said joking.

“Alright, but you need to keep an eye out.  If you see anyone, let me know.”  Mario said, knowing that he did in fact want to shower.  But he wanted to keep her safe.   He didn’t want the same thing to happen to her again, or worse get turned into one of those monsters.  He entered the bathroom with his pack and shut the door.  She shut the door leading to the outside and locked it.  She posed in front of the mirror several more times and found a radio in the corner.  She turned it on, quietly and kept the volume on a two.  The radio was all static, but she did find a message on the am channel talking about Chicago and how it’s safe there, like Mario said.  She found an ipod near the radio and found an auxiliary hookup connected to the radio and hooked it up.  The ipod had a quarter charge on it and she cycled through the songs until she found one she knew and started it.  She danced a bit to the music while Mario cleaned up.

Mario entered the shower and sighed with relief at the heat of the water washing over his body.  He washed himself up quickly, but effectively getting into all of the places with soap on a rag.  He exited, cleaned the tub as if no one used it.  He got dressed, put on a set of clothes that were cleaned in a stream.  His transformation wasn’t as impressive, he thought.  He left the bathroom and found the door heading outside wide open and Taliah was gone.

The Safe House

John and Savanna crossed over Joliet Road and entered the White Eagle Woods.  They continued north until they finally found Ogden Avenue.  It was the most direct shot to the Chicago Highways.  The moment the two got on the road, they sighed with relief.  They felt more comfortable on the streets than in the woods.  They travelled cautiously on this once, busy road keeping on the lookout for herds and possibly lone wolf Azrael.  The layout of the land opened up into a giant train station with train cars littering the tracks to their left providing significant cover for herds.  A few small herds traversed the train station, but were easy to slip passed unnoticed.  However, the small herds were becoming more common.  They continued on Ogden through the 25
th
and 26
th
crossing.  Ogden opened up once they hit the Illinois Department of Human Services, revealing a mega-herd that saturated every inch of space on Ogden.  They diverted down South Pulaski Road.  John suggested the mega safe house near the river south that they could reach before it got too dark.  Savanna’s eyes lit up and encouraged the detour.  They continued down Pulaski until they hit the railroad tracks and turned left on it.  They noticed a sizable herd gathered underneath the transmission tower.  They made a note of the Azrael that seemed drawn to the hum of the lines in their notebooks.  They continued until they reached the Paul Simon Job Corps Center.  John knew that Savanna would be excited to get in a shower.  He made sure the generators were running properly and refilled the fuel in them.  He knew the layout of the safe house and did a sweep for intruders Azrael and humans and found nothing.  He knew where Savanna was headed and proceeded to the male dormitory himself to wash up. 

Savanna walked up to the doors of the female dormitory and found the lock cut.  She froze and crouched looking for any people around.  Azrael don’t cut locks with bolt cutters and all Highwaymen have a key for this place.  This was “The Safe House” of the Highwaymen.  Someone was inside.  She drew her pistol, screwed on a silencer and entered defensively.  She soon found a young girl raiding the vending machine that she remembered stocking herself the last time she was here with all kind of shit she enjoys.  She had a card that would pull credits from her account to pay for it.  The girl obviously didn’t have a card and broke the glass with a chair.  The glass was everywhere.  She was on her knees stuffing her face with potato chips, chocolates and sour gummi worms. 

“Freeze! Don’t think I won’t shoot you just because you’re a child.”  Savanna said pointing the pistol at her head.  The girl froze and put her hands up.

“Where’s your friend.  I know you didn’t get in here on your own. “ Savanna asked still scanning the area.

“wrtt frdd.  Drnnt srrt.”  The girl got up trying to talk through a mouthful of treats she hadn’t eaten in a long time.

“Has anyone ever told you not to talk with food in your mouth?”  Savanna said as the girl slowly turned around.

“Has anyone ever told you not to point a gun at a little girl?”  A man’s voice said from behind her with a knife to her throat.  Savanna’s eyes went big and she slowly rolled the pistol over her finger and slowly put it to the ground.  The man picked it up, checked the safety and put it in between his belt and his hip.

“I’m with the Highwaymen and…”  Savanna is interrupted.

“I don’t’ care who you’re with.  This girl is my friend and I don’t much appreciate you pointing a gun at her.  Just answer my questions and I probably won’t kill you.”  The man said as he pulled her arms behind her back and slapped some flexicuffs on the woman.  He did a personnel search and led her to the wall next to the vending machine and had her turn around and sat her down slowly so she could sit and answer questions without getting into anything.

“These things are too tight.  Could you loosen them?”  She asked.

“No, actually I can’t.  They are just as tight as they need to be.  If you think you want to run, don’t think I won’t catch you and hog tie you.  So just appreciate that I have been this lenient towards you.”  The man said.

“What do you want to know?”  Savanna said sarcastically.

“What is this place?  Why does it have power?”  He asked.

“It’s a safe house for the Highwaymen who scavenge out here and research Azrael activities.  It’s actually one of the nicest facilities we have.   It was once called Paul Simon Job Corps Center and had all the elements of a good safe house.  ” Savanna responded.

“Good, makes sense.  Who is in charge of this Highwaymen facility?”

“We maintain these facilities so that if we are in a pinch and can’t make it back to the Central Chicago District before nightfall we can sleep comfortably.  Did you notice that the Azrael gathered near the factory nearby?  The transmission towers do something to them.  We’re not exactly sure why they are drawn to it.”  Savanna said.

“Yeah, we noticed that ourselves.  We took a detour around and followed the railroad tracks.  Do you put the power on those lines to keep them there?  Does your power grid back feed to keep power on the lines just for this?”  He asked.

“No, we actually are running on a separate cable that we set up when the Highwaymen were institutionalized.  Several volunteers ran those lines in parallel with the power company’s lines.  They feed other safe houses in the area.  We can’t always make it here.  The transmission tower thing with the Azrael has been a recent discovery and it’s very much appreciated.  John ….uh, a guy I know actually works on those things.”  Savanna realized she gave too much information and tried to play it off.  Maybe he didn’t catch it.  He didn’t respond to her mistake.

“You guys seem to have a good system out here.  Boy, I’d love to meet who developed this program, he’s probably a genius.”  The man said.

“You have no idea what kind of man he is.”  Savanna said remembering that he saved her life on his last mission.  She owed him everything.

“That’s good to hear.  So, where is John?”  The man said with an unreadable expression.

“John who?”  Savanna said looking away.

“Don’t play with me woman.  I know you travel in two’s.  It’s called highwaymen not highwayman and you are too calm to have been captured by a man you don’t even know.  My back has been to the door this whole time and your eyes have been scanning behind me this entire conversation.”  The man said with confidence without looking behind him once.  Savanna had been giving away clues this entire time and she didn’t even notice it.  This man was dangerous, extremely dangerous, she thought.

“He dropped me off and left to check on another safe house.”  She lied and didn’t know why she did.

“She’s lying.  I can even tell she’s lying.  Why are you lying?  This man is a cold hearted killer.  I seen him kill six men without taking a scratch.  That man is nasty.”  The girl said revealing too much information herself.  The man shushed her and shook his head.

“He’s here, probably in the male dormitory.  I could easily find him and have him down here with you.  Make it easy on yourself and your friend and just take me to him.  This will be easier when we are all together in one place.”  The man said with a cold voice.

“That house!  Did you kill those men in that house?  We were detoured there, it was a disgusting place.  There were dead girls in the closet.  They... cover your ears sweetie.”  Savanna asked the girl to cover her ears.

“Don’t talk about that place.  Take me to your friend, now.”  The man said lifting her up and led her outside towards the male dormitory.

“It was you.  Those men were freakin’ twisted.  You did a good thing killing them.”  Savanna said turning her head as she was being pushed towards the exit.

“I told you to drop it woman.  Nothing good was in that place.”  The man said pushing her arms up causing a bit of discomfort.

“Okay, okay let’s go to John.”  Savanna said and noticed the girl was breathing heavily and couldn’t make eye contact with her.  She followed the man without hesitation.

They approached the male dormitory and entered the building.  Savanna led them straight to the room where he slept.  She’s slept there several times.  She actually hoped to be in there later for some much needed release.  She opened the door and he was still showering.  The man turned her and placed her on the bed.

“Here, take this.  Shoot her if she decides to run.”  The man said and the girl took the gun with no questions and she aimed it towards the woman.  The safety was on which made Savanna feel a little more comfort about it.  The man walked towards the door to the bathroom and opened it.

“So you want to fuck already.  Shit I ain’t even done cleanin’ up yet.  Why don’t you come join me.”  John said from inside the shower.

“I don’t shower with other men unless I’m deployed.  Get a towel on and put something decent on.  I got a young girl outside who doesn’t need to see anymore man than she needs to.”  The man instructed to John.  John pulled the curtain quickly and attempted to punch the man.  The man blocked the attack with one arm, grabbed his wrist and yanked John down.  He slipped and his chin struck the side of the tub.

“Are you kidding me John?  I’m trying to do this without force.  Just don’t, okay.”  The man said pressing down on his hand as the other one held a knife to John’s throat.  John complied and stepped out and the man tossed a towel at him.  He dried off and began to get dressed.

“So you’re going to watch me?  Are you gay or something?” John asked.

“I don’t trust you.  So, yes I’m watching you.  Do I look gay to you?”  The man asked.

“No, no you don’t.”

“So shut the hell up and get dressed.”  The man said and John got dressed quickly and they exited the bathroom together.

“John, it’s the guy who killed those guys at that house.  Don’t try anything.”  Savanna tried to warn John.  He exited holding his jaw as blood was leaving his lip.

“Too late Babe.”  John said and smiled at her.  His front teeth were covered in blood and one of them seemed chipped.

“You dumb ass.”  Savanna said.

“Keep it together.  There is a girl present.”  The man said.

“I’m not some little girl, Mario.”  The girl said.

“So your name is Mario.  My name is Savanna and this is…well you know.”  Savanna said.

“So, Savanna, the message on the radio saying that Chicago is safe, is that where you guys are from?”   Mario asked.

“Yup, the doc thought it would be wise to put a message out there for survivors.  I thought it was a stupid ass idea.  Who knows who you’ll bring into our safe district?”  John said.

“True, it is foolish.  However, it did bring me here from Missouri.  I’m Master Sergeant Mario Cortez from Fort Leonard Wood.  This is Taliah, I found her at that house.  It’s a bad memory in her past.  I don’t appreciate you keep bringing it up.”  Mario said and Taliah hugged him.

“I’m so sorry Sweetie.  I didn’t know.  Those were horrible men and I’m glad that Mario did what he did to them.  They deserved everything that happened to them.”  Savanna said trying to get up and hug the girl but she was still cuffed.  “Uh, can you take these off?  It’s not necessary.”  She asked.

Mario looked at Taliah and she agreed.  He cut the cuffs off and she pulled her hands up and rubbed her wrists that were now red and irritated. 

“I was taking a shower and came out and Taliah was gone.  Then I found you with a pistol to her head so I felt it was necessary.  You can’t trust people anymore.”  Mario said emotionless.

“You put a gun to the girls head?  What the hell Savanna.”  John said.

“I didn’t know who she was or why she was raiding the vending machine.  Hell, she could have been one of those lone wolf Azrael we saw at the Mason House.

“Lone wolf Azrael?  Explain.”  Mario asked.  The two explained their run in with the giant lone Azrael and watched it attack and eat a bear.  They described how it didn’t attack them like the others do and how its demeanor was different than the normal Azrael.

“I’ve seen something similar.”  Mario said.

“So it’s not isolated.  Maybe it’s a new strain of the virus.”  Savanna said.

“This one was being hunted by a very sophisticated herd led by a dangerous alpha.”  Mario added.

“They hunted their own kind?  The doc has to hear about this.”  John said.

“They completely ignored me and he sent in waves of the Azrael to attack it to gauge its strength.  It took out quite a few before the alpha tore it apart.  These new Azrael have a more focused look to them.  They somehow seem a bit more connected, and I think that threatens the Azrael.  I don’t know.  So who is this doctor you speak of?”  Mario asked and they filled him in about Dr. Schwinn. 

“So, want to join us back to Chicago?”  Savanna asked.

“Yes, it’s why we are here in the first place.  This is the first stroke of luck we’ve had in a while.”  Mario said.

“Not for the girl, not for Taliah.”  Savanna said smiling at her.  She forced a smile and clung onto Mario.