A New World [7] Takedown (18 page)

“That’s just not right,” Speer comments, fumbling in his pockets and withdrawing a handful of brochures.

“So, one of you two want to tell us what happened?” Franklin asks. Krandle relates what happened from his perspective.

“I guess that means no more going into buildings,” Franklin states as the others shake their heads in disbelief.

“I know you won’t find me going into any more. That was freaky as fuck,” Speer says.

“We’ll evaluate each situation as we come to it, but yes, I’m inclined to adopt that strategy,” Krandle replies.

With the rest of them maintaining a watch and with eyes stealing to the hotel entrance periodically, Speer begins looking through the papers he retrieved.

“Okay, boys and girls, there’s a lot to see and do, but we have to choose carefully as we won’t have enough time to see them all. We can walk the historic promenade and see a statue of Lewis and Clark, go to the arcade or aquarium, or take in the many shopping venues. Oh wait, there’s also the historical museum or we can have a romantic getaway. They all sound so appealing that I’m having a hard time deciding. Hmmm…there’s a Hood-to-Coast thing hosted here, whatever that is. I don’t know. What do you think we should do first, Dad?” Speer says, rifling through the cards as if on vacation. Quiet chuckles emit from the team.

“Go fly a kite, Speer,” Krandle says, knowing exactly what is coming next.

“Oh, it says we can do that here,” Speer replies, handing a brochure over.

“Just find one with a decent map on it,” Krandle says, looking warily down the alley.

His heart is only now slowing to the point that it feels like it’s actually a beat rather than an electric Gatling gun spitting out thousands of rounds per minute. Speer unfolds one that has all of the town’s attractions on a map that encompasses the entire inside of the tri-fold pamphlet.

“I think we can rule the hotels out,” Krandle says, looking at the map. “That leaves the police station and hospital to check.”

They creep through the silent, downtown streets. There are some cars parked along the side of the roads, all of which have sand piles built up against the tires. That and the dirty windows indicate they’ve been there for a while. Several of the shops, mostly of the touristy variety, have their windows broken out. The rest look like they haven’t been acquainted with Windex in some time rendering them opaque.

Speer is on point with the rest of the team spread at intervals. They alertly and warily proceed down the wind swept streets. Speer gets Krandle’s attention, pointing to a vehicle in the middle of the road ahead. It appears to have slammed into the side of a motor home. A body lies spread in the road adjacent to a car with the windows broken out.

Signaling the rest of the team to hold, Krandle walks ahead and crosses the street. Drawing nearer to the body, he sees that it has been there for a while by the small drifts of sand piled up against it. Something doesn’t look exactly right and, as he approaches, he sees what is wrong. Almost the entire body is skeletal with most of the skin and tissue missing. Hair clings to parts of the skull and the bones are only held together by strips of dried ligaments. The legs of the jeans have been shredded, leaving them looking like a deeply stained pair of shorts which are loosely wrapped around the waist. Shoes and socks barely adhere to the stripped clean body. Pieces of decayed internals lie in the rib cage mixed with sand and other small pieces of debris.

Looking to the vehicle, he notices the shredded remains of a red t-shirt wrapped around the rear wheel and partially covered with sand. Disgusted, Krandle steps up to the car and peers inside. Glass litters the floorboards and the front seat and rear seats. Another body in the same condition as the first lies stretched across the center console from the passenger to the rear seat. The longer, brown hair lies in a tangled mess across the rear seat. Lying along the rear seat, partially hidden under the dirty mop of hair, is a smaller body – obviously that of a child. The stained, torn, and shredded remains of a summer dress lies in a heap on the rear floorboard.

Krandle envisions what the final, terror-filled moments of this family must have been like. It must have been at night if they were indeed attacked by night runners as it appears they were. They may have been fleeing from the chaos around – a night filled with the horror of night runners attacking. Running down the hallway of the hotel, hearing the shrieks of night runners and the high-pitched, terror and pain-filled screams of others. No one understanding what is truly going but chaos reigning everywhere. The parents racing down the stairs to escape, fearful for their daughter. Making it outside into the darkness of the night where only hours before they were enjoying a vacation at the beach. The run to their car with the images and sounds of others as they flee through the streets. Jumping inside the car and perhaps feeling a margin of safety thinking they might actually escape the madness, only to be brought up short here in the road. The sudden appearance of the motor home and hitting it. Quickly surrounded – screams filling the car from both outside and inside, fists pounding on the windows, the absolute terror for your family and not able to move the car. The horrifying sound of the glass cracking and giving way. The knowledge that there isn’t a damn thing you can do but still fighting to the end. Being pulled from the car with your family inside shrieking in terror. The pain of the night runners tearing into flesh. The mom’s last lunge to the rear seat to protect her daughter.

Fucking heartbreaking
, Krandle thinks, shaking his head and walking away from the horrible scene of death.
This exact thing must have been played out millions of times across the country…across the world
.

They leave the downtown area and enter a residential district as they slowly head toward the police station marked on the map. It’s more of the same – broken windows and busted doors. They see a few more bodies lying in the taller grass of overgrown yards, in driveways, and porches.

In order to reach the station, they have to cross the river that bisects the town before it empties into the sea. Barricades have been set up across the road and multiple bodies lie before them. Upon closer inspection, Krandle sees these are fully clad with decayed skin still intact. Through the decay, several injuries are obvious. A few other bodies lie on the other side of the barriers but these are naked and have been stripped like the family at the car. Several handguns and shotguns lie near the desiccated and stripped bodies. The handguns have the bolts in the locked back position indicating empty mags. It definitely carries the look of a stand being taken and lost.

Crossing through the barrier, the team picks up the weapons and searches for ammo amongst the tattered clothing strewn about but without luck. The police station comes into view a few blocks later. The parking lot has a few cars and pickups parked haphazardly within it as if they pulled in quickly and the occupants rapidly disembarked. Looking to the department entrance, Krandle sees that the glass doors have been broken in. Like at the barriers, several clad, decayed bodies line the area in front.

Setting the team in a perimeter around the lot, Krandle steps around the bodies to the doorway. Just inside, lit by radiant light flowing in through the doors and windows lining the room, sits a small lobby with a glass-shielded reception area. Splashes of dried blood coat the walls and the glass covering the reception window. Two skeletal remains lie on a floor covered with glass shards. A hallway leads from the room extending farther into the building. A short distance down it, the light dims and fades into blackness. Dark smears streak the tiled floor leading down the corridor.

Krandle pauses for a few moments listening for anything within the structure. Hearing nothing, he calls out, “Anyone here?”

Stepping in quickly, he retrieves another handgun lying against one of the far walls. It too is empty but he pockets it along with one other he picked up at the barricade. This building too holds the scene of terror-filled moments leading to a last stand. It feels like the very walls breathe the memory of the night and wishes to tell the tale. It’s a story that will be carried by this place for a long while to come. Not wishing to relive the last moments of those within in his mind, he steps across the floor with glass crunching under his feet, and exits.

He relates his findings to the rest of the team. “You know, I’m with you whatever you decide, but do you think we really need to go to the hospital? It seems to me that we already have the evidence we searching for. This is a dead town,” Franklin says.

Krandle looks toward at the sun which lies almost directly overhead, casting a knifepoint shadow from the flagpole mounted near the station. The attached flag stirs occasionally as each breeze passes through. The fact that it is still up indicates that the madness started during the day and there was either no one around to take it down before sunset or they were too busy. There were obviously other priorities to attend to.

“We still have quite a bit of daylight left. It’s not that far, so let’s at least go take a look. You never know,” Krandle responds.

“Alright, let’s do it,” Franklin says.

The fact of the matter is, Krandle agrees with Franklin’s assessment, but he is having trouble wrapping his mind around the whole situation. He thinks seeing more of it will hopefully allow everything to settle in. He knows the parameters and new rules of the game but that is different than having his mind comprehend it. It’s eerie walking through an empty town. Well, that is empty of people. The event at the hotel showed that they aren’t exactly alone here. The Philippines, seeing the night runners running through the streets of Seattle, and now experiencing it close up truly brings home that they are living in a different world. The words of Captain Walker play in his mind and he sorts through each and every one of them trying to gain every ounce of knowledge he can as they walk through the hushed streets.

The trip through the rest of the town is much the same – broken windows and a few bodies of both night runners and the skeletal remains of people that Krandle suspects were eaten. The hospital itself presents an even more chaotic scene. The parking lots are filled with cars. In one lot, most of the cars are burned-out husks. The remains of a helicopter lie on its side in the midst of the pile with one of its rotors broken off and pointing skyward. A helipad sits nearby. To all appearances, it looks as if a life-flight helicopter crashed into the cars while either trying to land or take off.

Journeying warily around the building, he notices that several of the glass doors have been broken into like many of the other buildings they’ve visited. Remembering Walker’s words about night runner signs, he knows that the hospital has been overrun as well.

“Okay, ladies, we’ve seen enough now. Let’s go home,” Krandle says.

The team is silent as they make their way back through town. Although alert, they are all in their own thoughts. The reality of what the world is like now has been brought home and they each are dealing with it in their own way. The feeling is a melancholy one – almost depressing – as they trudge through this once summer vacation town. They pass the family in the car that almost made it – although for how long they would have, who knows.

At the beach, Krandle signals the sub that they are on their way. Leonard briefed them that he would remain at periscope depth with the radio antenna extended in case they ran into trouble and needed a quick extraction. The team grabs the Zodiac and reverses their process down to the water. The tide has come in a fair ways since they came ashore so the trek across the soft sand isn’t nearly as long.

They enter the water and Krandle takes a last look at the abandoned town. There isn’t much to see from his vantage point, mostly the retaining wall and beach. The volleyball nets hang limply, billowing with each breath of wind that blows through. The beach, which would normally be marred by thousands of footprints digging into the soft sand, is smooth with the exception of the two drag marks made by the Zodiac and the trails left by him and his men. Normally, they would have carried the Zodiac aloft and erased their tracks both in and out. However, they weren’t trying to hide their presence. Krandle knows that in a few more days, even those tracks will vanish with the wind and this town will be left solely to the night runners.

They push the rubber craft into deeper water and board. The motor is lowered and they are soon powering their way through the small surf for their rendezvous with the sub. The way out is a rougher ride as they have to go against the waves. The craft hits each rolling wave with a splash before riding up and over it. They are soon out of the surf and into the swells. As with the surf, going against the swells makes for a more turbulent ride, but the Zodiac manages it with ease. Ahead and slightly to the right, against the lowering sun, Krandle sees the conning tower of the sub rise out of the rolling waves. With water streaming from its surfaces, it rises higher until the lower deck is barely above the surface. They drive the Zodiac onto the deck, cutting off the motor and lifting it at the last moment.

Stowing their gear, they drop below deck and feel the sub immediately begin a slow descent into the depths once again. They change out of their wet gear and Krandle briefs Captain Leonard on what transpired onshore. Leonard listens and then asks a few questions, some of which Krandle can answer and some that he doesn’t know the answer to. There are many more of the latter than the former. In some instances, Krandle speculates but tells the captain that it’s only a guess based on what he observed.