SURVIVORS OF THE DEAD: FROM THE ASHES (12 page)

“Yeah
, whatever,” Harry mumbled defensively, more to himself. “No wonder the younger generation is going to shit. Can’t even appreciate good television programming.”

With
that both Derrick and Frank lost it completely, erupting into laughter. Harry just watched them go on for a few moments, finally saying, “Okay, that’s enough from the peanut gallery. Shall we get on with this please?”

Wiping tears from his eyes
, Derrick said, “Yeah, sure, but we have another little problem Harry. Take a look out front.”

Harry walked over to the portion of the balcony that had the best window view of the street and looked out
. “Oh my God,” was his instant response, which was not due to the beautiful, nearly perfect San Francisco day he saw for a split second, with only a slight smoke haze hanging in the air to detract from the otherwise flawless weather. A day that should normally have been reserved for enticing people out to shop or visit their favorite cafes. No, what had prompted Harry’s response, what had immediately grabbed and held his attention, were the dozens of zombies, at least fifty of them he was certain, just milling around on the street in front of the station.

“Guess I
must have attracted some attention getting here,” Harry said in complete amazement.

“The biggest problem
though,” Derrick began, “is that the garage roll up door opens directly onto Vallejo, as you know. The Bearcat is parked on the lower level, so that means we have to drive up the ramp to get out. That thing is powerful, but not sure we could get enough momentum to push through that many bodies and make the turn we will need to make. Not to mention we are going to have a bunch of those things pour through that roll up door once it’s open.”

Harry nodded his head
and stood looking out of the window in thought. After a few minutes he said, “I think I have an idea that might thin them out a bit. When I came in through the side doors I noticed the two radio cars parked out there. The one Frank drove in is trashed and too close to the front of the building. The other one, however, is parked almost next to the side doors. You and Frank go down and get the Bear ready to roll. I’m going to go back out and turn on the lights and siren of the unit, which should draw a bunch of those things to it and hopefully clear us a path in front.”

“I’ll do
it,” Frank instantly said. Harry started to argue the point when Frank interrupted, “Look, no offense or anything, but I
am
younger than you and probably a bit faster.” Frank could see the indecision on Harry’s face. “Really, I got this, Harry.”

“He’s right
, Harry,” Derrick said. “We’ll get the Bear up to the ramp, then radio him when we’re in position.”

Looking at F
rank for several moments, Harry reluctantly agreed with a sigh. “Okay Frank, move to the first set of doors and the sally port. Not sure how much attention that big diesel will create when we start it, but I don’t want you to move until we’ve brought the Bearcat to the bottom of the ramp and shut it down. Once we’re in position, I’ll give you the go ahead. You carry your ass to that car, light it up, and then haul that same ass back in and to the inside garage stairway entrance. I’m coming back up once we get the Bear in position to hold the door open for you, and if I don’t hear the pitter patter of your little feet booking it down the hall I’m coming after you. You copy that, Officer Lewis?”

With
a crooked smile, Frank just repeated, “I got this, Harry.”

“We need to go back to
Dispatch and pull radios ...” Harry said, but stopped as Derrick picked up a nylon ready bag, reached in and handed him and Frank an HT 1000 Motorola hand radio with belt holsters, ear pieces, and corded speaker mics already attached.

Derrick then pulled out another radio for himself
, attaching a third radio to his duty belt. He pulled the speaker mic up and around his left shoulder, attaching that to the radio mic tab sewn onto his jump, then said, “While you two were freshening up a bit I got all the hand helds and chargers out of Dispatch. Put all but these three in the Bear. There were nine fully charged and thought they might come in handy.”

Harry looked at Derrick and said, “I’m going to kiss you right on the mouth
, Derry.”

Putting both large hands in front of him, palms out, Derrick replied, “You stay the fuck away
from this pretty face you freak. I got standards here!”

All three men
laughed at that.

“Okay, so befor
e we get this party on the road, here’s the route to the marina I think we need to take. We’ll exit the garage and turn left on Vallejo and then take a left on Columbus. We’ll go left on Columbus to Bay, taking that all the way to Marina Boulevard and to the entrance of the harbor. We don’t stop for anything and we’ll take alternate routes if necessary, but I want that big beast moving hard. Once we get to the marina, we’re going to look for something to get us onto the Bay waters and then we head for Alcatraz. All copy?” Harry looked at the two of them. Both Derrick and Frank indicated that they understood.

Harry looked toward F
rank and said, “I don’t suppose living in Florida and all you know anything about boats, do you kid?”

“As a matter of fact
, we had a couple large …” Frank began, but Harry waved him silent.

“That’s what I thought
,” Harry said, smiling. “You keep this up and you’re going to be waived through the field training part of your training, Rookie.” Sobering, Harry looked at each of the men and said, “This is going to get serious real fast so we go professional, we go hot, and we reach our goal – and that goal is to survive. This group of people in Southern California has made it, so we have a shot at doing the same. We know there are others in the City we might be able to help, but we will only be able to do that if we get ourselves set up first. Okay, everyone on Channel 3. Unless there’s questions or comments, let’s get this done.”

19

Neither Derrick nor Frank said anything, and after making certain they all had their radios set on Channel 3, Harry and Derrick headed toward the garage while Frank continued to the side entrance to put their escape plan in action.

Derrick
led Harry down four flights of stairs before they reached the lower garage. Harry saw the two vehicles Derrick had mentioned parked in the lower garage area as they entered. One was a white Ford pickup, probably belonging to an officer, and the other was the BearCat Riot Control vehicle. The huge vehicle reminded Harry of an armored car on steroids. It was painted a matte black bearing vehicle logos of a blue seven-point star, outlined in gold, with the letters SFPD in the center also in gold. Those logos were on both the driver and passenger doors as well as on the left-hand side of the double rear cargo doors. What really caught Harry’s attention was the front ram assembly that he knew could be raised and lowered from the cab of the vehicle. “Wow, that’ll do for sure, I think,” Harry said aloud to no one in particular.

“If you think the outside i
s pretty, wait until you see the inside,” Derrick said as he walked up to the rear double doors, inserting a key and swinging them open. Harry walked to the open doors and could only stare in astonishment at the neatly stacked boxes of ammo, various supplies, and the weapons that had been secured to racks on the inside walls of the Bearcat. He also noticed at least a dozen cases of MREs lining one area of the compartment. Seeing Harry looking at those, Derrick said, “Oh, we found the MREs in the supply room along with about thirty gallons of water before you showed up at our back door. We’d thought maybe those would also come in handy, so the Rook and I loaded it all.”

“Derrick,
not only am I going to kiss you, I might even give you some tongue!” Harry said with a huge grin, still looking into the compartment.

“Dude, seriously!
I already spoke to you about this pretty face and all!” Derrick replied, chuckling.

Harry stepped up into the compartment and
, although a bit tight with all the items Derrick and Frank had loaded, there was still plenty of room to move comfortably. Harry looked at the center roof hatch then, reaching up, he tried to unlatch and push it open but it would not budge.

“No, you open like this
,” Derrick said, stepping into the rear compartment and showing Harry a toggle switch just to the left of the hatch. Harry flipped the toggle forward and was a bit surprised to see the hatch rise approximately five inches, then slide back toward the rear of the vehicle.

Derrick then
reached toward a recessed lever on the right side of the compartment wall, pulling it outward. Harry heard what reminded him of air brakes as they released pressure and then watched as a small platform rose from the floor just under the ceiling hatch. It stopped after reaching a height of about two feet.

“That’s awesome
.” Harry said as he excitedly stepped up on the platform to look out the hatch.

“Careful
, Harry,” Derrick said, knowing his warning was too late.

Harry stepped up, put his upper body through the open hatch, and immediately banged the top of his head on a ceiling light fixture that was hanging above the Bearcat.
Ducking back down, rubbing the top of his head while spewing several verbal metaphors, he looked at Derrick as if he had set him up.

“Told you to be careful.
We only have about a ten-inch ceiling clearance here,” Derrick replied, shrugging at Harry’s accusatory gaze.

“Whatever
,” Harry replied, stepping off the platform and exiting the rear of the vehicle still rubbing the top of his head. “Let’s just get this done. Damn that hurts!”

“I’ll kiss your boo-boo later
,” Derrick responded as he went to the driver’s door and got in. Harry gave Derrick’s back a one-fingered salute and closed the two rear doors.

Walking up to Derrick
’s door, Harry said, “Go ahead and move it to the bottom of the ramp. When I hear you shut it back down I’ll go up and radio the kid, then wait for him at the stairway door.”

Derrick gave him
thumbs up and started the BCRC. Harry was pleased at how quiet the big V-8 turbo turned out to be. It was not as loud as he had first feared, and he knew that would be to their benefit. He watched for a moment as Derrick maneuvered the big vehicle down the garage and toward the ramp, then turned and ascended the stairs, going back to the first floor entrance.

As soon as he
reached the stairway door and opened it he radioed, “Frank, it’s Harry, you ready?”

Frank instantly replied back and said, “I picked up the unit’s keys from the intake desk and am lo
oking out of the street door now. Looks clear so I’m ready when you are.”

“Okay, just remember the plan
, kid. Out the door, start the car; activate the lights and siren, then book it back in. You even think there’s danger you abort and head back here. Got it?” Harry said with growing anxiety, and then muttered, “I should have gone myself.”

“Don’t worry
,
Dad,”
Frank responded with what Harry thought for sure was some form of teenage angst. “I’ve got this, okay. Ready?”

Harry had been listening to the Bearcat while he
spoke to Frank, the rumble of its engine quite clear in the quiet and empty garage. After a couple of minutes he heard the engine go quiet, indicating that Derrick must be in position and had turned the truck off.

“Do it
,” Harry said into the radio mic. From Harry’s location he would not be able to hear anything other than the siren if all went according to plan. He would give it a slow count of ten, then he would run to Frank’s position. He knew if anything did go wrong he would be far too late to help by then. He cursed again, second-guessing himself.

Harry
had not even reached the count of eight when the wail of an electronic siren became very evident from outside.

“Frank, you okay
? FRANK!” Harry shouted into the radio mic as he rushed out the stairway and into the main floor.

“On
… the ... way …” Frank finally replied, obviously running and speaking between breaths. “There … in … a … few ...”

Harry let out
his own breath that he had been holding while relief washed over him. He had already started toward the inner hall that led to the side doors when he reached a count of four. Knowing that Frank was headed back in one piece, Harry immediately veered his direction and took the stairs onto the balcony proper. Once he reached the balcony, he looked out of the windows onto the street in front of the station. He was relieved to see the Zs making their way toward the side of the building and the sound of the siren. Some ran like Olympic athletes, while other shambled slowly like they didn’t have a care in the world. A few, he noticed to his complete disgust, were dragging themselves along with what appeared to have been broken and mangled legs, but they still moved with dogged determination. “It’s working,” he said to himself as he descended the stairs to wait for Frank. He didn’t have to wait long.

As Harry reach
ed the bottom stair he saw Frank run around the corner into the lobby. He was clutching his AR to his chest, and sweat was pouring down his face. Stooping in front of Harry, leaning over and placing his hands on his knees, Frank gasped, “That was intense.”