The Cure, page 22
“A diversion could indicate that they intended to just pass through town,” George said. “This could also indicate a reasonably intelligent group that came through here. We could use a few more people in our group with these kind of skills.”
John was quiet for a moment.
“They could also be a problem,” John replied. “Civilization broke down in only two days after the zombie attacks started. I’m sure you saw it, people doing anything to survive, ignoring others in trouble just so they could save their own skins. It was becoming a free for all. It was every man for himself out there. I saw adults throwing kids to the zombies just so they could have a chance to escape. Instead of trying to help others, people just shut their doors and let the zombies take those that were trapped out on the streets.”
“I see your point,” George said. “But this,” George pointed to the canoes and the cut away screen, “indicates people that were working together.”
“Billy the Kid and his gang worked together like a well-oiled machine when they robbed banks,” John replied. “I’m just saying, if we run into anyone else down here, we need to consider them hostile until we have reason to believe otherwise.”
“Agreed,” George replied. “I guess we can’t be too careful after everything that has happened. After all, we are fighting for our lives.”
John nodded, “Let’s get the others and get over to Troy Hill before the dead find their way in here.”
“I’ll have Jim fasten the bottom half of the screen back in place,” George said. “It won’t keep anyone out for long but at a glance it should discourage anyone from attempting to get through it.”
“Unless they have a hacksaw,” John replied. “But you’re right, at least it will look secure. Do it.”
While Jim was working on the screen, George climbed back up into the room.
He motioned for the others to follow him back down into the sewer then disappeared out of sight.
Kimmy looked at Diane, “Where are we going now?”
“Are we going back across the river?” Bobby asked.
“I don’t know,” Diane replied. “I guess we will find out when we get below. Just stay close to me.”
Diane went down first. Kimmy and Bobby came down next, staying close to Diane. Patrick followed and Frank was the last one down, pulling the manhole cover back in place.
When everyone was down in the sewer pipe, George spoke, “Listen up. We are going to follow the sewer line through town. Our objective is to exit the line at the Troy Hill shopping center.”
“We also need for everyone to be quiet,” John added. “We have found evidence that there may be other people down in the sewers with us. We don’t know if they are friendly or not. Until we know, I need everyone to stay quiet and stay together.”
“My men and I will take the point,” George said. “John will follow us. Diane, you and the two kids will follow next. Frank and Patrick will bring up the rear. It isn’t likely that anyone will come in behind us, but I need you to consider that a possibility and stay alert.”
Try not to slosh around too much in the water,” John added. “That sound will carry a long way down here.”
George turned on the light on his hat.
Jim, Larry and Joe turned their lights on when they saw George turn on his light.
“The first sign of any activity in front of us,” George said, “Turn off you lights, move as close to the side of the pipe as you can and get down.”
Everyone took their positions and began to move slowly and quietly down the passage, following Larry who had the point.
When they reached Grant Street, George turned back to face the group.
Diane and the others held their hands up to shade their eyes from the light coming from George’s hat.
It wasn’t a bright light, but in the total darkness of the passage, it felt like they had just come out of a tunnel into the blinding sun light.
The light was painful to look at.
“Watch where you walk up ahead,” George said. “There are about fifteen bodies lying in the middle of the pipe from our trip down to Cabela’s the other day.”
Bobby looked out from behind Diane.
“Did you shoot someone?” Bobby asked.
Kimmy elbowed Bobby in the side and motioned for him to be quiet.
“No,” George replied, “Someone had taken the cover off of the manhole at Grant Street and some zombies came down into the sewer. We hit them over the head with hockey sticks. We pushed them off to the side of the pipe as much as we could.”
“Are you sure they are all dead?” Patrick asked.
“Since they were dead before we clubbed them,” George replied sounding sarcastic, “I’m sure they are all dead.”
“I know that much,” Patrick chuckled, “I just didn’t want one of those things to bite me in the ankle.”
“Just watch where you step,” John added, “and don’t stick your foot in their mouth. That would be as bad as if they bit you. Right Diane?”
“Probably,” Diane replied. “If you broke the skin on your foot or ankle with their teeth, the virus they carry could still infect you.”
“If you fell and landed on your ass on top of one of them,” Larry chuckled, “It would be like getting bitten in the ass.”
“No one asked you Larry,” George said. Everyone could hear the amusement in George’s voice. “Just pay attention and watch what the hell is going on in front of you.”
When they reached the first body, George and Jim hung back and shined their lights over the bodies so the others could see enough to get by them and avoid tripping over or stepping on the bodies.
When the group was past the last of the bodies, George and Jim moved through the group to take their places near the front of the line.
They all continued to move along slowly, until five minutes later when George stopped and looked at the small pipe near the top of the main line.
He shined his light on the spot where the smaller pipe came into the main line.
“That’s how we got into Cabela’s,” George said softly to John.
“I see what you meant about all of us not being able to get through there,” John replied. “My ass would definitely not get through that pipe.”
George chuckled and moved on.
Five minutes later, Larry stopped and held up his hand.
“We’re at the spot where the main line comes to an intersection,” he informed George. “The other line looks to run east and west. It smells like hell up here too.”
“The whole sewer smells like hell,” Jim laughed quietly. “It all smells the same to me.”
“This is different,” Larry replied. “I can’t put my finger on it, but the shit here smells different than it did before.”
George turned back and quietly called out to Frank.
“Frank, if we were to turn right, where would this lead us?” George asked.
“To the right would take us into the main part of town,” Frank replied, “I would strongly advise against going in that direction. The sewer runs down the middle of Main Street. From what we could see from the top of the hospital, there would be no way we would want to get out there.”
George nodded and turned back to face the men in the front of the line. “Lights off,” he ordered quietly.
When all the lights had been turned off, George said, “Larry, walk out into the intersection and see if you can see any light out in the passage before we start down that way.”
“OK Cap,” Larry replied.
They all stood motionless and listened.
They could all hear Larry wading through the ankle deep water.
The next thing they heard was Larry walking into the side of the pipe and then they heard a loud splash as Larry landed on his ass in the middle of the water.
“Ah shit,” Larry exclaimed.
Jim and George chuckled as George turned his light on to reveal Larry sitting in the middle of the pipe with water covering his legs.
“I guess you didn’t see any light out in the other line,” George said.
“I couldn’t see shit,” Larry griped.
Larry got back to his feet. Water ran from his soaked clothes and dripped down into the water in the bottom of the sewer pipe.
The water dripping from Larry’s clothes splashed into the shallow stream running down the center of the pipe and echoed in the passage around the group.
“You sound like a leaky faucet,” Jim chuckled. “You want me to call a plumber for you?”
“Kiss my soggy ass,” Larry replied.
George grinned, “Jim, take the point and give Larry a break. Let’s keep moving, the shopping center shouldn’t be far from here.”
They moved out into the other line and went down the left passage. They walked for another ten minutes.
When they came to where the line turned to the right, Jim studied the layout of the pipe.
He then turned off his light and walked carefully out into the bend.
Jim slowly backed up and moved back to where George and Larry waited.
“I can see light up that way. It looks like the light is shining down into the sewer from above,” Jim said. “It reminds me of how the light came down into the sewer back at Grant Street when the manhole cover was missing. It looks brighter down this way. I guess there isn’t a car parked over the hole like before.”
George turned and called back to Frank.
“Frank, where exactly does that manhole come up?” George asked.
“If I remember correctly, it’s been a while since I was down that way,” Frank replied. “But I believe it comes up in the middle of the plaza.”
“Where is the plaza?” George asked. “Is it in the shopping center, in front of the center or behind the shopping center?”
“There is an entrance to Troy Hill from Johnston Avenue. The entrance road goes through about two hundred feet of parking lot,” Frank replied. “At the end of the parking lot there is a street that separates the parking lot from the shopping center.
The shopping center is built in a U shape. The open end of the U faces the parking lots. In that U is a one-hundred foot square plaza. The doors from all the shops open up into the plaza. The plaza has clumps of trees and shrubs. There are about ten park type benches in the plaza for the shoppers to sit and relax. The manhole comes up behind a clump of shrubs in the center of the plaza where the benches are.”
“So we should have some cover when we go up through the opening?” George asked.
“We should have enough cover for two or three guys to stay out of sight after they climb out,” Frank replied.
“Did you ever have any trouble with the kids stealing that cover?” John asked.
“Not that one,” Frank replied. “There were always too many people around that area and the area was always well lighted. That was one of the few manhole covers the kids didn’t mess with.”
“It’s my guess this is where those people must have gone out of the sewer line,” John said. “For some reason they didn’t think it was necessary to re-cover the hole.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” George said, “unless they didn’t have any intention of coming back this way. I would want to be sure I had a safe route to fall back to if I wasn’t able to get out of the shopping center.”
“I would want that too,” John replied. “Maybe we overestimated the skills or intelligence of that group?”
“Or maybe they weren’t able to cover the manhole,” George added. “Maybe they had to make a run for it and didn’t have time to re-cover the manhole.”
“If they ran into trouble,” John said, “Why didn’t they just come back down in the sewer, cover the hole and go look for another place to get out. They had come this far in the sewer, why get out now if there were problems above?”
“They either didn’t realize there were problems up top,” George said, “or they didn’t have a choice.”
“Why wouldn’t they have a choice?” Larry asked.
“Unknown,” George replied.
“Maybe they didn’t even come this way,” Larry added. “Maybe they turned right where we turned left.”
“He could be right,” John said. “Maybe we are just over thinking this. I say we go up for a look. If we see anything suspicious, we move on. Frank what is further down the line?”
“Not much,” Frank replied. “This is near the edge of town and past this point the line forms a big Y shape. Both parts of the Y dead end in another two blocks or so.”
“Are there anymore exits in those directions?” George asked.
“Two in each direction,” Frank replied, “but they come up in the middle of the street. That’s why I suggested the Troy Hill exit, it’s the only exit that has some cover, is back in off the streets and is out of sight. If you try to get out one of the other places, you will be coming up in plain sight of whoever is out there.”
George walked over to John, “I think we have to at least go up for a look. Even if we decide not to get out here, we need to know what we will be exposing our back side to if we continue down the line.”
“I agree,” John replied. “Send a couple of men up and see if we want to get out here. If not, we can always go back to the hospital and use those canoes and go down the river. That wouldn’t be my first choice, at least not yet.”
“Mine either,” George said. “The sewer smells like hell but it is at least somewhere the dead haven’t overrun yet. It’s a damn zoo out there. I would rather take my chances down here.”
John and George’s conversation was interrupted when Frank and Patrick came running over.
“John, we hear noise coming in behind us,” Frank said nervously.
“What kind of noise?” John asked.
“It sounded like voices and water splashing,” Frank replied. “It seems to be getting closer.”
George turned and quickly shouted out, “Jim, go up top and take a look. Just stick your head up and whatever you do, don’t let anything see you. Larry, cover his ass. Joe, you’re with me.”
George turned off the light on his hat and began to follow John, Frank and Patrick back towards where the sewer line turned to the left.
Frank and Patrick stopped before the passage turned.
“Listen,” Frank said. “Can you hear it?”
The men listened.
They could hear what sounded like someone running and splashing in the stream of water that ran through the middle of the sewer.
There could tell there was more than one person in the line as the unintelligible sounds of shouting echoed down the pipeline.
The sounds were way off down the line but they were coming this way.
“I’ll take a look,” George said.
He got down on his hands and knees as close to the side of the pipe as he could to avoid the water and sludge in the sewer. It helped a little but not much.
George was a wet muddy mess after crawling the few feet needed to reach the bend in the pipe, but he ignored the filth and discomfort. His mind was too occupied with the idea of being trapped down in the sewer to worry about being knee deep in shit.
George pushed his head around the corner and looked down the pipeline.
He stared into the darkness for a minute then called back to John.
“John, come look at this,” George whispered loudly.
John moved up next to George, then pushed out into the bend of the pipe.
About three hundred feet down the line, they could see what appeared to be three flashlight beams dancing wildly over the inside of the pipeline.
The three individuals with the flashlights were running in single file through the distant passage.
As the flashlight beams swung wildly, dark silhouettes of men running moved in and out of the beams of light.
Suddenly the last man tripped and fell. The flashlight he had been carrying bounced off the side of the pipe and rolled down into the center of the pipe, where it sank down into the water.
The water glowed for a second before the light went out.
The man called out to his friends for help.
The other two men turned and shined their lights back towards their fallen friend.
George could see the man lying on his stomach in the water and sludge. His head was turned and he was staring back, looking down the passage where the men had just come.
It was then George began to see hundreds of twinkling reflections dancing behind the fallen man.
The dark passage way behind the man looked like a clear night sky, dotted with countless stars.
The two men that had stopped to look back began to run towards their friend.
They had just reached their friend when he began to scream.
In the beams of light, George imagined he was seeing falling stars streaking towards the earth.
When the dark deformed bodies of the dead began to take shape as they swarmed over the fallen man, George whispered to John.
“Keep an eye on this,” George said. “I’m going back and see what Jim found up top. Whether we want to or not, we are going to have to get out of the sewers here. I don’t think the people that left their canoes back at the hospital went out at the shopping center.”
“Yeah,” John replied. “They must have turned right and went up the line into the center of town and came up into a hornet’s nest.”
George got up and ran back towards the manhole.
Jim reached the top of the ladder.
He stopped and listened.
The only sounds he could hear were coming from below.
The sounds below were getting louder and more intense.
Jim knew the sounds meant trouble was coming.
One of two things would happen next.
They would either have to go into the shopping center or they would have to make a stand down in the sewer.
Jim was hoping for the shopping center.
He took another step up the ladder, high enough to push his head up out of the manhole so he could survey the area around the hole.
