Earth's Karma, page 4
part #1 of Karmanator Series
Kat nodded approval and Jessie wound her way back toward the desks by the elevators with the elderly, yet peppy, volunteer who proceeded to hand her a clipboard with a lengthy form. “Your feedback helps us make sure our tours are meeting your needs. Please be honest and descriptive,” she encouraged the student teacher who began to diligently fill in the information requested.
Back at Bill’s bat cave, both adults and students were happily engaged in a variety of interactive demonstrations Old Bill had prepared for them. They had just completed “10 Creative Ways to Use Duct Tape”, which they all thoroughly enjoyed. Next, Bill held up a plastic strip and asked the group if anyone knew what it was. When the words ‘zip tie’ popped out of Ryan’s mouth, everyone stared, amazed, not that he knew the answer, but that he volunteered it.
Old Bill, unaware of the immensity of the moment, congratulated Ryan for having the right answer and informed the group that along with duct tape, one should never travel without zip ties. He listed a variety of possible uses for them and ended with the word, “handcuffs”. Both Ray and Liam perked up at that and looked closer at the various sized zip ties Bill had on display.
“Yes, handcuffs. I see that caught your attention,” Bill said, noticing the boys’ interest. “Ms. K., may I demonstrate on these young men?” he asked. Kat thought better of it, picturing headlines the next day about how her juvenile delinquents had to be zip tied at the hospital during a field trip. Instead, she stepped forward, offering to be the guinea pig for his next demonstration.
“Different police departments and even the military will use zip ties as handcuffs, usually when there are large numbers of people to be detained,” Bill explained as the short man zipped Kat’s hands together in front of her, he asked her if she could get loose. Kat, in fact, did know how to break free, but winked at him and shook her head, no. Bill gave her a few simple instructions which she followed. Lisa, Joe and the students were amazed to see Kat break out of the restrictive bands.
Kat grinned, rubbing her wrists. She told the group that she hoped they were never in a position in which this maneuver would be needed, wondering to herself if this whole thing was a good idea. When Ray challenged Bill to try it with hands behind the back, Kat sighed and figured, in for a penny, in for a pound. Just as Kat demonstrated the reverse escape, to everyone’s admiration, an odd vibration caused them all to grab their ears in pain. For some reason, Bill ran toward the door and slammed it shut, sealing them in the dated chamber.
∆∆∆
Chapter Three
Los Moribundos
Odd noises and sensations filled the room around them. The vibrating was not quite as painful with the door shut, and Bill, who had been leaning against it, stepped forward telling them all to stay calm. The kids huddled together, warily removing their hands from their ears. It was still loud, but bearable. The floor jolted once and went back to vibrating.
“Is it an earthquake?” shouted Lisa, who grabbed onto a nearby table and then onto Kat who was trying to stabilize herself with her cane. Joe and the kids were all reaching for whatever solid item was near. Bill made it back to the group and held on to the same heavy, wooden worktable.
“I don’t think so,” Kat yelled, trying to get her bearings, as the lights swayed and flickered in their little cages. She felt so disoriented, but she was aware enough to notice that nothing was falling over like it was in a small quake she experienced while vacationing in California. The sound was different as well. This did not feel like anything she had felt before. “It feels like the ground is…. shivering,” she added.
After about sixty seconds, the vibrations, noise and disorientation began slowly dissipating. As the group found their feet and cleared their heads, the questions flew with a hint of panic behind them.
“What was that?”
“I’m scared.”
“Are we trapped?”
“Is everyone ok?” Kat asked the group, making eye contact with all of them. Six student heads nodded, while fearful eyes peered at her for leadership. “Lisa? Bill? Joe?” Kat looked at the adults who all seemed physically fine but very bewildered. Once the group checked out ok, Kat moved toward the door asking, “Bill, you sure moved fast! Do you think it is safe to open this up?”
“Well now, I am going to tell you all something. This here shelter was supposedly built to withstand an atomic bomb. Now I am not sure what just happened, but it wasn’t a bomb. No ma’am, not a bomb. Let’s go see what that was,” the old man said adamantly while grabbing the handle to unlatch the large metal door and slowly pull it open.
The first thing the group noticed as they stepped out of the shelter into the downstairs maintenance area, was a heavy dust floating in the air along with an eerie silence. The electricity was on, but the hum of machinery had stopped. The only real noise Kat could hear was a loud whining in her ears that reminded her of how things had sounded after the IED had exploded under her Hummer.
“Damn, my ears are clogged and I’m all dizzy, just like when my unit got hit in ‘Nam,” Old Bill said, rubbing his ears, shaking his head and following them out. “But I still say it wasn’t a bomb.”
“I agree,” said Kat, noting the military reference. “This was very different.” She slowly and cautiously led the group back around the tiled hallway, remembering the way back to the elevators. Her hearing was slowly improving as they moved along. She came to a sudden halt upon rounding the last corner with Lisa, who had been staying close, almost knocking into her. Instinctively, Kat threw up her fist, signaling everyone to halt, almost smacking her sister-in-law in the face.
Unfortunately, the group did not stop soon enough. They all saw their beloved Jessie sprawled on the floor, a clipboard and papers scattered about her. She was twitching and moaning. Kat quickly moved to her and motioned for the rest to stay put. She could see the young woman was bleeding from the ears, nose and mouth.
As Kat reached her, Jessie’s eyes popped open, and focused on her. The injured girl attempted to raise an arm toward her mentor, then slumped back. Her eyes were bloodied and glazed. A weak breath left her, pushing a glob of deep, red blood from her mouth. Kat knew she was dead, and she felt her throat constrict with a mixture of grief and confusion.
“Oh my god, it’s Miss Jessie,” Bella screamed holding on to her arch enemy, Nevaeh. The group slowly moved closer as Kat knelt on her good knee to double check her vitals, then close Jessie’s eyes. Lisa and Joe kept the kids in a tight cluster, feeling protective.
“Is she dead?” asked Liam, who with his height advantage could see a bit more detail.
“Dude, ella esta muerta,” Ray responded without much emotion. He seemed to be in shock standing next to Kat, watching his teacher as she knelt next to the body.
“Woah, I’ve never seen someone dead before,” Nevaeh said without thought.
“Shut up, you freak! That’s Miss Jessie!” Bella yelled at the girl. The two girls began to fuss at each other, but no one seemed to notice or care.
Suddenly, Skyler, who had been near the rear of the group with Ryan, shrieked and dropped her notebook. Everyone looked in the direction she was staring. A pair of white Hush Puppy shoes were peeking out from behind the desk just beyond the spot where Jessie lay.
Kat began to struggle to her feet, using her cane for support, when someone burst out of the swinging doors to the laundry room. Dressed in blue housekeeping scrubs, a rotund, African American woman ran screeching toward the group. She fully tackled the off-balance Kat, sending them both crashing to the floor. The entire gang was yelling now, but their screams of fear were different than the primal screeches of rage coming from this lady on top of their teacher.
Kat was on the defensive, holding her cane sideways against the woman’s neck to keep this crazy lady’s face away from hers. It took every ounce of strength she had to hold this lunatic at bay. The wild woman was literally trying to take chunks out of Kat with her teeth, gnashing and snarling the whole time. Kat saw that the whites of the woman’s eyes were blood red and that her pupils were a murky black. This behavior was not human. It seemed as if she were wrestling a wild beast. Kat felt the crazed lady get a mouthful of her upper arm and could feel the teeth tearing into her flesh, right through her jersey.
Kat was gritting her teeth against the pain when she saw a brown arm wrap around the beast lady’s neck and another arm tugging the woman’s elbow. Slowly the screeching was smothered by a strangle hold and Kat saw Liam and Joe pulling the struggling person from her. As the woman got close to being upright, she let loose a burst of energy that did not seem possible. Liam went flying into the desk behind him and Joe fell backwards to the floor, his head hitting the tile with a sickening smack.
Lisa, torn between helping Kat and keeping the kids back from the danger, stood between the crazed woman and the students. She too saw the blood red eyes, and now the blood dripping from this creature’s mouth. This thing was not human. Maybe it was at one time, but it wasn’t anymore.
It snarled at Lisa and stumbled a step toward her, getting tangled with Liam’s long legs. He quickly drew them back and sat cradling his arm, his eyes wide in pain and fear.
“Don’t make me flip my bitch switch,” Lisa warned the thing, moving back and herding the screaming kids with her. She looked around desperately for a weapon. Just as the shrieking thing started to lunge, Kat managed to flip over and grab its foot. The former laundry worker hit the ground howling. Old Bill came out from behind the desk with a pair of laundry shears. Moving quicker than seemingly possible for the odd-looking man, he slammed them into the base of the beast’s skull.
Instantly, the attacker’s body fell limp and the group was enveloped once again with eerie silence. “Holy shit!” Lisa finally offered. Silence returned for several seconds, then they all started talking at once. Kat grabbed her bleeding bicep with her right hand and let Joe help her to her feet. He nodded to her that he was ok even though he had a huge goose egg forming on his forehead. She took her cane from Skyler who picked it up for her. Hobbling over to Liam, who was being helped to his feet by Lisa and Old Bill, she could see he was hurt.
“Liam, thanks for having my back. Are you ok?” Kat spoke calmly even though her heart was racing and adrenaline was coursing through her body. The boy’s lower left arm was bent at an odd angle and she knew it was broken. Quickly assessing the shocked condition of everyone else, as well as her own injury, she decided to go with ‘safety first’.
“Bill let’s get everyone back to your room. We can try to figure things out from there and take care of injuries.” The old man nodded, gazing sadly behind the desk. Kat moved to him and looked down to see their sweet guide, Mrs. Connelly, lying on the floor. Her eyes were wide open in shock or pain, it was hard to tell. Blood from her nose and mouth was already beginning to dry along its path to the floor.
“Pauline was one of the good ones. I am going to really miss her. Do you think that thing killed them?” he asked, gesturing toward the blue clad body on the floor.
“I don’t know, but it came from here,” Kat said limping a few more steps to the swinging doors. She pushed one until she could peer into the laundry room. Everyone could now see the interior of the laundry room and the several bodies lying on the floor, all sporting blue scrubs like the lady who had attacked them. “What the…,” Kat began but quickly stepped back as another inhuman shriek met their ears.
This time a thin, middle aged, white man came limping toward them from across the laundry room. He did not move nearly as fast as the woman, but he sounded similar. The group froze, watching the approach, too stunned to move. As this new threat came to the door, Kat let it swing shut and raised her cane above her head. Another screech and the door flew open, as the angry thing came struggling out of the laundry room. Kat saw that the whites of his eyes were bloody red and his pupils an oily black just like the other one who had attacked them.
She did not hesitate to swing the silver tip of her cane into the side of the thing’s forehead with all her might. There was a sickening crunch and the screaming brute collapsed. Kat made sure the guy was down for good, then motioned for everyone to get going down the hall, putting her finger to her lips to encourage them to be quiet.
The group made it safely back to Bill’s workshop. He shut and latched the door behind them. Everyone was quiet for a moment, but Kat quickly took charge. She and Bill guided Liam to a faded, old couch and helped him to sit. The students were sniffling, openly crying, or silent with shock. While Bill got a large backpack marked with a red cross, Kat assessed the injured boy’s arm.
Meanwhile, Joe had the rest of the kids pull up various chairs and have a seat, while Lisa gently pulled Kat away from Liam to have a look at the bite on her upper left arm. It was bleeding steadily, and the sleeve of Kat’s jersey was turning red. Bill bustled about gathering a few more items, handing an instant ice pack to Joe for his head. He also found a bottle of antiseptic spray, gauze bandages, and scissors for Lisa to use on Kat.
“You seem ready for anything,” Kat said as she sat on the couch with Liam. Bill nodded with a grim face. She watched Lisa cut off the sleeve of her school jersey to reveal the large bite. It had torn away a flap of flesh that was hanging loosely.
“That is nasty,” Bella sniffled. “Was that woman a zombie? Did she kill Miss Jessie and the old lady?”
“Yeah Ms. K.,” Nevaeh said, trying to regain her tough girl composure, but the fear on her face was plain to see. “She was trying to eat you. Did you see her freaky eyes? And that other guy had eyes like that, too.”
Ray added his two bits, “Damn, did you see the old man take her out? Just stuck her good! And Ms. K, just whacked that dude in the head and he was down!” The graphic violence he had just witnessed was hard to process.
Ryan and Skyler sat together. Skyler had been looking at her phone. “Ms. K., my phone is on, but I have no signal. I tried to call 911. Are those things going to get us?” Ryan was also looking at his phone with some concern and kept glancing about, nervously jumping at any noise.
Bill, who was bringing duct tape and an old magazine over to Liam, told the group that reception was spotty in the bomb shelter. He set his supplies down for a moment and went to his desk to pick up the office phone. Tapping a few buttons, he replaced the receiver on the hook and said to no one in particular, “This phone’s not working either.”
The old man returned to Liam and said, “Well young man, it looks like we are your first responders. Let’s get that arm fixed up.” He picked up the magazine he had placed on a side table. “We can at least make you more comfortable.”
“Yo Liam, you can read Good Housekeeping while Mr. Bill fixes your arm with duct tape,” Ray teased. “11 Cool Things to Do With Duct Tape.” Liam’s smile was more of a grimace.
“You may joke, my friend, but don’t dismiss things so lightly. Everything has a potential use,” Bill gently chastised. He then proceeded to handily splint Liam’s forearm with the magazine, securing it with the duct tape. He reached into his red cross bag and produced a small cardboard box. Opening it, Bill pulled out a linen sling which he draped about Liam’s neck and shoulders. When he had it in the correct position, he tied it in a handy knot. Liam looked down to see his arm protected as well as supported and let out the deep breath he had been holding. It still hurt but felt better.
Lisa in the meantime, had succeeded in cleaning Kat’s wound without getting too grossed out. Kat calmly instructed her to apply a gauze pad and directed her to use a roll of gauze bandages to wrap the injured area of the arm. Like Liam, it still hurt but felt better and Kat thanked Lisa for her help. Her sister-in-law looked a little green but was keeping it together.
Old Bill came over to check on the bandaging job and remarked that he had to make sure Kat was wrapped up right because, “Her blood was worth its weight in gold.” He winked at Kat when he said it and then waddled off to clean up the mess they had made. It made Kat wonder, since she really did have ‘golden blood’, what the old man meant, but for now she wanted to figure out their situation.
“Okay, we have everyone safe and treated. Let’s talk for a minute,” Kat began. “Here is what we know. An unexplained event happened that caused the noise and vibrations. At the same time, something killed Jessie, Mrs. Connelly and the people we saw in the laundry.”
“Don’t forget the zombies,” Bella added worriedly. Nevaeh nodded next to her.
“I don’t know what happened to those people who attacked us. For some reason, I don’t think they killed Jessie and our guide. Their bodies did not have fight injuries, they just looked like they dropped where they were. I don’t know why they died. But they were not being eaten,” Kat explained.
“Those people were not zombies. Zombies want to eat people and are basically dead but still able to move around. Am I on the right track?” Kat invited the kids’ input, hoping to keep them focused and not lose anyone to shock. She looked around at nodding heads indicating their agreement with her statement.
Kat continued,” The woman was warm, not dead. She seemed like she wanted to kill me, not eat me. She was trying to take me down for some reason. Without Liam and Joe, she might have succeeded,” she added, nodding her thanks to her helpers. Joe was gingerly prodding the large bump on his head and acknowledged the compliment.
“Ms. K. is right. That lady wasn’t dead. She felt warm. Zombies would be all cold,” Liam said thoughtfully, looking a bit gray in color. He was stoically trying to ignore the pain from his broken arm. Bill, noticing the boy’s pallor, brought the teen a blue hospital blanket and tucked it around him.
So, what IS going on?” Lisa asked, her voice shaking with emotion. “People are dead, these things are attacking us, we can’t call for help…” Her voice trailed off and she stared down at Kat’s blood on her hands.
“I am not sure, sweetie. My gut tells me this is something big,” Kat said simply. “I’ve got to go for help. Our vehicles are parked two floors up at the loading dock. I am going to get upstairs, and if things are bad up there, I am heading to my car to get my gun. We need some firepower right now. I’ll see if I can bring back help.” Before they arrived that morning, Mrs. Connelly had guided the group to special parking because of Kat’s handicap and the terrible weather. The vehicles were near a side door at a loading dock on ground level.
