Siege (31 page)

Everyone was staring at her, taking in her words.

“The Senator did ask me to return with the fort leader for negotiations for the turnover,” Kevin said finally.

Katie felt her jaw set and knew her eyes were determined. “I can talk to her. I have argued her into corners before. I had the displeasure of meeting her at more than one dinner party. She had a real issue with me being married to a woman and I argued her into a corner on that subject,”

Katie said in a low, terse voice. “I can face her again.”

This comment elicited raised eyebrows and looks of curiosity, but Katie didn’t care.

Travis kissed her temple softly Travis’s lips were warm against her skin and she looked up into his eyes. He smiled sadly down at her. “Okay, then I go, too.” He immediately turned and pointed at Nerit. “And you are not stopping me this time!”

Nerit inclined her head. “I agree with you. This time.”

Katie smiled at him and kissed him lightly. His body was tense and she knew he wanted to argue with her, but she loved that he respected her enough not to.

“So if the Senator says yes and there is a horde of zombies outside of the mall, how do we get the people out?” Curtis was looking very uncomfortable with everything going on and his foot was rapidly tapping the floor.

“Airlift. We got three other helicopters other than my bird,” Greta answered.

“We’ve been using an abandoned commercial airstrip for refueling. We cleared out the zombies and have been refueling there regularly,” Kevin explained. “It will take a lot of trips, but it would be the safest. We do have explosives on all the gates out of the mall, but if we do that, there is a good chance of the last part of the convoy being overrun.”

“We can coordinate and figure out how to make the airlift work then,”

Nerit assured Kevin. “As long as the helicopters don’t pull in any zombie mobs, we can run regular pickups out to the helicopters to pick up the people.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Travis said in a low voice. ” A workable, needs to be fine-tuned plan.”

The tension in the room had dissipated and now there was a sense of tentative camaraderie. It would be rough bringing everyone here, Katie knew that, but they could do it. And perhaps they could use the Senator’s contacts within the East Texas compound to their advantage. Travis rubbed Katie’s back gently as she leaned into him. She loved him so much, but it was time for her to do what she did best. Beyond that, she felt a great need to go to the mall. She wanted to see what had happened there and see her father. She wanted to bring him home as well as Jenni. The thought of both of them trapped there made her feel sick to her stomach.

“We should get to planning then,” Nerit decided.

Kevin nodded. “Absolutely.”

Calhoun burst into the room, wide-eyed, jabbering, and wielding his camera. With a scream that made Katie jump, Calhoun raced toward Kevin, his hands stretched out.

Valerie swung her rifle out from under her chair, rose easily to her feet, and nailed the old man with a sharp crack to the forehead. Calhoun fell back, blood running down his face, the camera falling to the floor. Thomas aimed his revolver at Calhoun’s head and everyone heard the safety snap off.

Everyone began shouting as chaos erupted.

Nerit calmly stepped in front of Thomas, blocking Calhoun. “Stand down.”

“It’s a fucking zombie,” Thomas shouted at her.

“...damn clones…” Calhoun muttered.

“He’s just a crazy old man!” Katarina had her gun pointed at Thomas.

“Stand down!”

“He looks like a fucking zombie,” Valerie protested.

“Do zombies talk?” Katie stepped forward and she felt Travis holding her arm, making sure she didn’t rush forward.

“...Government set them free…Amazonian conspiracy…gawdamn aliens…”

Calhoun was saying in a low voice as he lay on the floor. Kevin gently pushed the weapons down that his people had trained on the old man. “He smells dead.”

“But he’s not,” Nerit assured them. “He’s just crazy.”

Thomas and Valerie slowly relaxed, looking confused.

“Curtis, get Charlotte,” Travis ordered. “I think he’s hurt pretty bad.”

Katie leaned down and moved the broken camera out of the way. Gently, cautiously, she touched the old man’s matted hair. “Calhoun?”

His eyes, dazed and filled with blood, glanced toward her. “…they are hiding secrets…aliens…you know…and clones…and my head hurts real bad.”

“Sorry,” Valerie said uneasily.

“I think it’s broken…” Calhoun whispered and his eyes rolled up.

“Stop the bleeding,” Nerit ordered as she pulled a small pillow from a chair and handed it to Katie.

“He looked like a zombie,” Thomas said softly.

“Shit,” Kevin muttered.

Calhoun lay silent, blood seeping into the carpet around him.

1. Entering the Parlor

This is hell, Jenni thought as she walked through the mall after a few hours of scrubbing toilets and sinks with five other ladies. The mall stank of human sweat and fear. Despite all the cleaning they did, personal hygiene was not a luxury the common people enjoyed. According to one of the ladies she had been working with, only a few showers existed in the mall and most of them were upstairs where the Senator and her entourage lived. The two showers on the main level were rigidly scheduled and each person was allowed a two minute shower every four days.

She felt nasty and raw, but according to the schedule, she wasn’t to have a shower for another two days.

The mall was a weird design. Its bottom floor was v-shaped with a long corridor connecting the two sides of the v halfway to form an “A.” The crossing corridor was the food court and public area, complete with a twostory waterfall that fell into a pool of water. Jenni had already been told the waterfall was off limits. It was seen as a reserve water source. Considering how little water they were given, she wondered why it wasn’t being used yet.

As she entered the food court, she saw people sitting down silently eating their rations. It looked like beans with bits of hot dog was the meal. A few kids were running around in the playscape near the waterfall, but otherwise, the scene was depressing. Soon after the news of the fort had spread, other news had countered it. Word was out that the Senator was seizing control of the fort. Hope had slowly sizzled out of everyone. An enormous skylight let in the outside light and illuminated the area. She noticed a crisscross of catwalks that sprawled over the entire court. What looked like a fire escape-like metal stairway snaked up the back wall and over the empty fast food stalls.

She fell in behind other people waiting for food and let her hair down from its ponytail. After a few minutes in line, she was handed her bowl of beans and wieners and headed over to sit with Bill. He was eating slowly, watching the children with a sad look on his face.

“They’re just waiting to die,” he said as she sat down.

“Aren’t we all?” she answered a tad flippantly.

“No, not really. At the fort we were actually living. You and Juan together. Katie pregnant. Folks do things like movie nights and special dance nights. We actually live.” Bill spooned more food into his mouth and chewed.

“True,” Jenni admitted. She shook her head a little to clear her thoughts. Without Juan and Katie, it had grown easier for her to hide inside herself and disassociate from her surroundings. Much to her distaste, she was reverting to the old, quiet Jenni who waited for her husband to unleash on her. Except now, she was waiting for something very wrong to go down. The Senator scared her shitless. Every time the attractive, yet imposing woman appeared looking down at the main floor, Jenni felt her skin crawl.

“No, no, you’re right. We are different at the fort,” she admitted. “We actually are living. This is just existing. It’s not right.”

Bill sighed. “I was gonna ask Katarina out to disco night. I actually asked her out for a beer when we got back from the hospital.”

“Really?” Jenni grinned at him. “Good for you!”

“I felt kinda guilty at first liking her. My wife died a year ago, so…” Bill shrugged. “You know what I mean.”

Jenni actually didn’t, but she nodded anyway. She felt no remorse about her relationship with Juan or any guilt. But then again, she had pretty much hated her husband.

“But I figure that in this world, you gotta just take your chance at happiness. So I got up the guts to do that. Besides, I guess we are all walking around with some survivor guilt. I feel it now. Looking at these people. I mean the fort hasn’t been a cake walk, but we sure as hell had it better than these folks.”

Jenni slowly ate, looking at the people around her. They were muted. Shadows. People powered down and living on what remained of their energy.

“This rumor about the Senator taking over the fort,” Jenni started slowly as she stirred her meal.

“I bet it’s real. It won’t happen though. Can’t. Notice how the high and mightys live up on the second floor? That shit won’t work with us. I can’t see it happening.”

“The military though,” Jenni said softly.

Bill sighed softly. “I know.”

They fell into silence for a few minutes, eating slowly.

“Since coming here, I have been thinking a lot about the first day,” Jenni said at last.

Bill looked at her curiously.

“My children died,” Jenni said, her gaze straying to the playground where too-thin kids played with stifled energy. “I didn’t fight to save my son Mikey. I just ran. I can’t explain what I was thinking, I just ran. I wanted to get away, survive. I know that much. But I ended up outside of my house, with the front door closed and Mikey…”

Bill touched her hand gently, trying to soothe her.

“I heard him die, Bill. I heard it. I heard him screaming ‘Mommy’ and I didn’t go back in.” There she had said it. Admitted it. She had admitted it to herself and someone else. It felt like something large, inky, and horrible broke inside her.

“There is nothing you could have done,” Bill said softly. Jenni tried hard not to cry as she ran her hand over her long hair. “I know that, but I didn’t even try. I didn’t know what was even happening, but when I heard those horrible noises, I didn’t move. I just stood there.” She looked around at the people, noting that Amy sat nearby with her children eating. “How can I possibly ever make up for that?’

“You’ve gone out and rescued people. You’ve done a lot.”

Jenni sighed, wiping a tear away. “I just…Bill, maybe this is survivor’s guilt, but sometimes, especially now, I feel I should be the one who died.”

Bill enfolded her in a big bear hug, holding her tightly. “Jenni, you’re a good girl. You’ve done lots of brave things. Just because you didn’t act the way you wished you had that doesn’t make you a bad person. Hell, it’s damn lucky any of us are alive. It all went to shit so fast.”

Jenni snuggled into Bill’s warm shoulder and whispered back, “I just feel so guilty.”

“Well, don’t. You got a fine boy waiting for you back at the fort and Juan loves you something awful. We’ll get the hell out of here and get these people to a good life. You deserve it as much as anyone.” Bill gave her a gruff kiss on the cheek and let her go.

Jenni forced a smile, looking around. “I even feel kinda guilty for having been at the fort and not here.”

Bill frowned at her. “Jenni, stop that.”

Jenni pouted at him then said, “Seriously, Bill. What if I was supposed to die that day? What does that say about my life now?”

“That you got a second chance.” Bill shook his head. “Or maybe you were supposed to survive that day so you could help rescue all these people.”

Jenni considered this. “You think so?” Her dream returned vividly to her mind.

“Why not? If destiny…fate…whatever has anything to do with our lives, then maybe this is what you were supposed to live to do.”

Thinking back on her dream about Lydia, Jenni remembered what she had said about choices made and not made. She was Catholic. She believed in things greater than herself. She believed in the mysteries of the spiritual, therefore, she truly believed Lydia had come to her. Lydia had said she would soon be afraid and she was now very afraid. She could feel the great clock of fate ticking downward. She knew soon she would face a difficult choice. She hoped she would make the right one and that she would get back to Juan and Jason.

“I guess you’re right. I mean...I made the choice to leave home at seventeen and move in with my grandma. I made the choice to work at Pizza Hut where I met Lloyd. I was married and pregnant with Mikey at eighteen. Was a friendless trophy wife for years. And then it all went to hell. I screamed. Katie found me...then...It’s kinda like all these choices I made just...” Jenni waved her hand. “They landed me here.”

“To save these folks maybe.” Bill shrugged. “Kinda weird seeing all that coming together, huh?”

“I just hope we can get these people to a better life,” Jenni said with a sigh.

“We just got the military and zombies standing in our way,” Bill decided.

“Piece of cake.”

As they finished eating, they heard the sound of the helicopter returning. Its shadow filled the food court as it flew over the enormous skylight, then it settled down somewhere beyond the mall’s walls.

Jenni stood up to turn in her bowl and spoon to the cleanup crew. She saw movement out of the corner of her eye. Turning, Jenni saw the handsome black soldier walking in with a few other people. The bowl and spoon clattered to the floor when she saw Katie and Travis among them.

“Katie!”

Jenni pushed past people and rushed toward her friend. Katie saw her, called out her name and pulled away from Travis. Like some stupid movie, they ran to each other and flung their arms around each other. Katie squeezed her so tight Jenni could hardly breathe. Pressing kisses to her best friend’s cheek, Jenni felt her tears falling down her face, hot and fierce.

Then Travis was there, hugging her tight, kissing her cheek while Bill bear hugged Katie and lifted her off the ground. They fell into a sort of fourway hug, tears and laughter spilling out of all of them.