DUSK 2
The sun wasn’t up yet, but Helen paced on the roof while Jack stirred on the floor below her. Between the guests and Phil Harker, she’d been on edge. Sam had advised her to keep an eye on them, but not to get in their way. He hadn’t wanted to give them the impression that there was a hidden agenda. Due to the cramped conditions and lack of privacy, any possible spies would have limited freedom.
This left the new arrivals out of Helen’s control and Phil Harker to worry about. In the past day, he’d stopped Helen twice to tell her about dreams he’d had about his martyred son. He’d expressed that Paul thought Helen had a good soul, and she would be need to be strong in the coming days. To maintain a safe distance from the crazed preacher, Helen had taken to the rooftop.
The undead still pounded on the outside of the building, and Helen wondered what would happen if everyone got inside, turned off the lights, and stayed quiet. Would the undead leave after forgetting why they were trying to get inside? She’d seen similar tricks work before, but a group this large in a space this cramped would be hard to conceal.
On buildings flanking both sides of her rooftop, Helen spotted the other two choppers, still in the positions they had landed the day before. The crew had made themselves comfortable, unpacking camping gear, playing cards, and large, automatic rifles. Although she could watch the men on the other rooftops with her rifle sight, Helen could not hear what they said, which masked their intentions. Had the presence of helicopters not inferred a large, sophisticated settlement with high grade weapons, Helen would have been tempted to slaughter all of the watchers.
Only one more day until the rest of them come...
As a shadow seemed to move behind her, Helen felt a familiar and malevolent presence. She spun around and saw a thirty-two year old guard resting his eyes while two teenaged guards chattered, pointing down at the zombies. One of them waved his armed in the air, as though he were telling a story to the other one who shook his head in disbelief. The story teller punctuated his yarn with a finger gun. Watching the two other teens from the far wall was Ted, who looked like he was suppressing laughter.
Drawn forward, Helen moved to the edge of the rooftop and looked down into the crowd of zombies. The multitudes were made up of former cops, doctors, vagrants, construction workers, clergy, prostitutes, used car sales men, clowns, and any number of other people with the sole purpose of tearing the living to ragged kibbles. All except for one who stood, shrouded in darkness with his head tilted upward. Though Helen could not see the dead man’s face, she spotted a bloody spot on the ghoul’s chest, caused by possibly gunshots or stab wounds. Aiming its face towards Helen, the creature seemed to be making eye contact.
Bitch, a familiar voice echoed in her head. You’re going to wish I had strangled you.
Helen turned white as the blood seemed to leave her body. Resisting the urge to scream and run, Helen turned from the apparition and walked downstairs where Jack slept.
*
Sam hadn’t been able to sleep so he paced the hallways, looking for something to occupy his mind. In his nightmare, he’d been back in the ruined science station’s domed structure’s ballroom. He’d been kneeling in front of one of the victims, holding onto her feet, not wanting to let go. The face had belonged to one of the crucified women from the room, and now the tormented face had a name: Connie. When he looked up, Sam saw Catherine fixed to the wall, wearing a crown of barbed wire. Next to her was Helen.
As though his thought had summoned the girl, Sam spotted Helen hurrying through the hallway. She walked, but quickly as though it was raining inside of the hallway.
“There a fire somewhere?” Sam asked.
The girl’s eyes were distant and she was shaking. Sam stopped her and grabbed her by the shoulders.
“I saw him.”
“What?”
“He’s dead. Really dead. I emptied my gun into his skull, but I saw him standing outside.”
Sam let go of the girl and took a step back, scratching his head. A few bodies slept in the hallway, but none stirred.
“Take it easy. Did you have a nightmare? Who did you see?”
“I need Jack,” she said.
“Who did you see?”
The girl looked past Sam, then into his eyes.
“Phil Harker talked to me yesterday. He said that he’d spoken to his son, Paul,” she said.
“A lot of people think they see loved ones after they die.”
“He knew things, names that only I know. I was afraid to say anything, but I just had an… experience,” she paused, taking a deep breath. “I saw Randal Lenux outside. He told me I was going to wish he’d killed me.”
It was strange that Sam would have a nightmare like his at the same time Helen claimed to see an apparition. Through their time together, the girl had clung to Jack like a security blanket. He’d been the first in the group to trust her, and the one who had accompanied her when she shot the cult leader. She’d soothed Jack during his nightmares, and now she needed the same.
As her face moved into the dim light of an electric lamp, Sam spotted the wet and salty trails of tears on her face.
“It’s okay,” he cooed.
Sam put an arm around the girl’s shoulder and escorted her down the hallway and into the war room, where Jack slept.
The boy on the ground was sleeping a restless sleep of a nightmare when they walked into the room. Leaving Helen in the doorway, Sam kicked Jack’s bare foot. The boy’s head jerked up, and he reached for his rifle.
“Hold your fire,” Sam said.
“What time is it?” Jack moaned, rubbing his eyes.
“Someone needs you.”
Sam took Helen’s hand and guided her to Jack’s corner. She fell into the boy’s arms and cried on his shoulder.
Looks like I got my wish, Sam thought, moving back into the hallway to find Catherine and Frank.
*
Frank rubbed the stubble on his chin, as he sat in the hallway trying to look like he was fully off duty. The four visitors had been given one of the rooms on the second floor, where they slept in shifts. They’d brought a deck of cards and had spent the previous evening playing Texas Hold ‘Em. Perhaps knowing that they did not have the privacy to spy or that there was no top secret information, they had stayed in their quarters through most of their visit.
Now the group’s pilot, a man named Douglass Wassen, and Grant Sobczak were awake and gazing out of the doorway at Frank. They knew he was watching, but they’d been told that there would be a guard stationed at their door for both security and to make sure their needs were met. Frank just wondered if they bought the story. They didn’t pay much attention to their door man, but he could feel the suspicion radiating from them.
Leaning his head against the wall, Frank stretched his legs out in front of him, and shut his eyes, wishing he was in his bed. The current situation reminded him of the beginning. He’d been seventeen and stuck in the same building as Sam and Robert Thorn. Though young and the only survivor from his family, Frank had fought along side the others to keep the undead outside of their temporary fortress, and volunteered for guard and scout duty as soon as they found other survivors. He’d been under Sam’s command ever since, and though the former police officer had no faith in himself, Frank never had a reason to doubt him.
“Hey Frank!” Sam shouted.
He moved down the hallway with a guard named Luke at his side.
“You’re off duty.”
“Thank you, sir,” Frank said as he stood.
As Luke stood in the doorway across from the strangers, Frank followed Sam to the stairwell.
“It seems a few of us have been seeing the dead,” Sam said, “and I’m not talking zombies.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“In all of our missions, have you ever seen anything out of the ordinary?”
“You mean something stranger than a walking corpse?”
Frank supposed that the undead were mundane and standard by now. They certainly weren’t shocking and surprising like they had been when he’d first spotted them from the driver’s side window of his 1967 El Camino. He’d been on his way home from his job at the local Cineplex when he saw three of them attack the car next to him at a red light. The seiged car had attempted to flee through the busy intersection only to be clobbered by a bus. Frank had turned right, and floored the accelerator. He’d expected to get pulled over by the fuzz, but the police were nowhere to be seen. Later, he’d heard sirens everywhere, both in the distance and just out of sight.
“I mean any…” Sam paused, searching for the right words. “Have you seen anything that might be called supernatural, like doors opening and closing by themselves, strange apparitions, heard voices…”
“What’s this about?”
“A few people around here seem to be seeing ghosts, and their stories are credible. Phil Harker clamed to have talked to his son and he gave names that only Helen knew.”
Frank’s jaw dropped.
“You’re kidding!”
He remembered one old store that always felt strange, like someone was watching. There had been undead, but they all seemed distracted. They didn’t notice the food walking within arm’s reach and the mission had gone off without a hitch. Frank had always thought the feeling was nerves and that the zombie behavior had been a strange quirk.
“Helen claims to have seen a man named Randal Lenux.”
Sam’s eyes widened and his mouth went tight. His hands turned palms up and his fingertips bent towards him.
“This man was a monster and if Helen is right, then we could all be in danger.”
“I take it you know him too.”
“Yeah. Jack killed him and Helen made sure he wouldn’t get up again. I just hope he hasn’t found another way to come back.”
“First zombies, now this.”
“If there’s something too it, it looks like we have a friend too. Keep an eye open for anything strange. I don’t want any more surprises until we’re on sturdier ground.”
“Got it.”
“And don’t breathe a word of this to anyone else.”
“Of course.”
*
“I thought he was dead. You killed him. I finished him,” Helen said between sobs.
“Shhhhh… It’s okay. You had a traumatic experience and you’re still shaken. He’s been dead for less than a week…” Jack’s voice trailed off as though he was afraid to vocalize how Lenux had raped Helen weeks before his death and how he would have done it again as he choked the life out of her if Jack had not been around to stop him.
She hugged Jack tighter.
“I wish I could believe that, but I doubt you even buy it.”
Jack sighed.
“Lenux has been in a few of my nightmares, but I’m used to those.”
Jack’s dreamt about him too?
As the boy ran his fingers through Helen’s hair, she pulled his head close and kissed him on the lips. Her shivering subsided as Jack’s arms enveloped her.
“You rescued me once, and I think we’re going to need each other to get through this.”
Her tongue probed the inside of Jack’s mouth. He let it linger for a moment before he pulled his head back, ending the kiss. Through the darkness, Helen could sense red in his cheeks.
“What if someone sees us?” he asked.
“Who cares? Don’t let go of me.”
*
“What the hell was that about?” Wassen asked. “They just switched baby sitters on us.”
To disguise their muffled conversation, they played Black Jack.
“I don’t know, but now isn’t a good time to find out,” Grant said, motioning to the hallway where another guard watched their movements. Hit.”
Wassen passed a card to Grant. The card was the ten of diamonds, which pushed Grant’s hand to twenty-six.
“We still have at least a good six hours before pickup comes. I want to talk around after daybreak and I bust.”