Stephen Knight: Left With The Dead

“I can’t really see you,” she said after a moment. Her voice quaked, and Gartrell wondered if that was a product of everything that was going on, or if the sudden, chance encounter with another human being had hit her hard.

“I’m right in front of you,” he assured her. “I can see you, I have night vision goggles. My name’s David Gartrell, and I’m a Special Forces soldier with the U.S. Army. I’m going to come closer to you…all right?”

“Why?”

Gartrell thought that was an odd question, but he answered it anyway. “So I can talk to you and prove to you that I’m human, and that I don’t mean you any harm. Or I can just go back to my business and ignore you, if that’s what you want.” He turned and glanced out the windows. The distant artillery barrage continued, and through the NVGs it looked as if a lightning storm was lighting up the night. In the far distance, he heard the blare of the Escanaba ’s horns. The ship sounded very far away now. There was no chance of him catching up to it.

And outside, dark shapes shambled through the night, still moving in the direction of the East River.

“Don’t leave,” the woman said finally. Gartrell looked back at her and saw she had lowered her weapon. He did the same.

“All right. Stay cool.”

Gartrell slowly moved forward and knelt beside her on the cold tile floor. He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, and she jumped slightly at the contact. Even through his glove, he felt her body was so tense it was almost rigid. She looked toward his face, and she must have seen the vague green glow emanating from the displays of his NVGs. She reached out with her right hand and found his, and to Gartrell’s amusement, she shook it quickly.

“I’m Jolie,” she said.

“Gartrell. Or Dave, whichever you prefer. Mind if I see your weapon for just a moment?”

She handed it to him wordlessly. It was an old J-frame revolver, more popularly known as a Saturday Night Special, the kind of piece he really only saw in the 1950s detective movies he so loved. He opened the cylinder. It was five-shot weapon of.38 caliber, fully loaded. He closed the cylinder and put the weapon back in her hand.

“Do you know how to shoot that?”

“Yes. My husband insisted I learn, so I did.” She paused for a moment. “It’s not hard.”

“I know. What are you doing down here, Jolie?”

She reached out with her left hand, fumbling in the darkness. Gartrell saw several small paper bags beside her, and he guided her hand to them. She lifted one and handed it to him. Gartrell opened the bag. Inside was a piece of frosted cake. He sniffed it. Lemon cake.

“So you have a thing for Starbucks lemon cake?”

“No. My son does,” she said.

Oh hell. “Your son. How old?”

“He’s four years old.” As she said this, her face was blank, almost expressionless.

Gartrell slowly rose to his feet and looked around the coffee shop. Outside, the arty still blasted away in the distance. Much closer, the sounds of the moaning dead floated on the air.

“Is he here?” Gartrell asked. He cradled his AA-12 in both hands as a stench staggered past outside. Its shoulder rubbed against the pane glass window, leaving a vague trail of ichor behind it.

“No. He’s upstairs. Asleep.”

“Upstairs where?”

“Our apartment.” He looked down at her as she pointed toward the coffee shop’s ceiling. “We live on the fourth floor of the building.”

Gartrell considered that. The sun would be coming up soon, and his preference was to be above street level when that happened. Things were dicey enough when it was dark out; during the day, the dead would be able to hunt more easily.

“How do we get there?”

She gathered the sacks of cake and stuffed them into a large handbag that hung from her shoulder. She then rose to her feet.

“Follow me,” she said.

She started off toward the dining area. Gartrell moved to follow, then checked himself. He went back to the display case and filled two bags with cinnamon coffee cake. He then stuffed water bottles into the cargo pockets on his BDU trousers. Only then did he hurry after the woman as she slowly picked her way through the dark dining area. He couldn’t quite figure out where she was going, then he saw it: the long window overlooking the dining area was gone. It lay scattered throughout the dining area in thousands of shards. The glass made crunching, popping noises as they walked across it.

I guess she didn’t know the front door was open.

“I used the window because the apartment building is right next door,” she said, as if reading his mind. “If I’d tried to use the front door, I would have had to walk around the corner, and those things would have got me.”

“You broke the window yourself?”

“No.”

She stepped onto a chair and boosted herself onto the window sill. Gartrell was impressed that she was able to step onto it without any kind of handhold, and in total darkness at the same time. He reached out and touched her ankle, preventing her from stepping out of the Starbucks.

“I’ll go first,” he whispered. She nodded and pulled the revolver from the waistband of her jeans where she’d put it. Her index finger fell upon the trigger guard. Gartrell stepped onto the chair and, mindful of the broken glass, hoisted himself up to join her. He leaned out into the street, moving slowly, cautiously. Shapes moved in the gloom, but he remained undetected. Gartrell motioned Jolie outside, and followed her as she darted to a nearby door. She inserted a key into the lock and twisted it. Gartrell thought the lock disengaged with all the subtlety of a gunshot in a mausoleum, but the noise did not attract any unwanted attention-yet. Jolie pulled open the door and held it for him as he backed inside, keeping his AA-12 oriented toward the street. He caught the door as it closed and gently sealed it with no noise whatsoever. And just in time; a dark shape loomed right outside the glass. Gartrell grabbed Jolie’s arm and held her rooted to the spot as the zed lurched against the door and peered inside with milky, stupid eyes. Its mouth was open, and its blackening tongue lolled between a gap in its teeth. Gartrell practically held his breath, his automatic shotgun in both hands, its barrel pointed directly at the ghoul as it looked right at him without seeing him. Gartrell wondered if it would be content to stare into the apartment building’s darkened entry hall until the sun rose.

After a time, it finally shambled off into the night.

Guess even they can get bored.

“We should go,” Jolie said finally. “Can you let go of my arm? You’re squeezing it a bit too hard.”

Gartrell did as she asked, and she rubbed her forearm with her hand. She pocketed the key and slipped the revolver back into the waistband of her jeans, then turned toward the hallway behind them. She slowly picked her way to a white door and reached for its brass knob.

“Hold up,” Gartrell said.

She stopped with her hand only an inch from the doorknob. “Why?”

“Give me a second.” Gartrell looked around the lobby. It was a pre-war building, one of those many structures that had been built before World War II. The lobby had been regentrified, with a granite floor and an ornate ceiling from which hung art deco light fixtures that would remain dark for quite a while longer. A row of mailboxes were set into the wall near the door, across from a desk where the doorman would normally be stationed.

“What’s on this floor?” he asked.

“Laundry. Elevators. Stairs. Storage, with more below.”

“How many stories?”

“Sixteen.”

“And how many people are left in the building?”