We were in the farthest room, down the corridor now, as far from the affected as we could get, those of us still able to come up with a plan; Eric, Dr. Gates, Tim Tom (hey, why not?), Cassie and myself. Luckily, our affected visitors had left, I guess to go see what the explosion was all about, and our own affected had quieted back down a bit.
Just to be sure, we had a mattress up against the door to keep out sound, because I needed everyone to take out the earplugs and help us figure out what we were going to do.
“There’s a State Police station right here on the campus, just right over there,” said Cassie. She seemed smart, too bad she had to keep isolated behind the ear plugs all the time.
“She’s right, it’s not far, just by the entrance gate,” the Doctor added.
“OK, that’s lucky. That’s our best chance of finding guns and ammunition.”
“So, how do we get over there? This place is still crawling with chanters,” Eric asked.
“There are vans down there,” Cassie replied. “They use them to transport prisoners from jails over to the forensic ward. They already have bars on the back windows, so that might help.”
“You sure do know a lot about the forensic ward and the vans,” Eric sniped.
“I was in the forensic ward for a while before I was transferred over here.”
“You were?” He sounded surprised.
“Yes.”
I didn’t want to ask so instead I asked, “Why did they send you over here?”
“Because I was a model fucking patient.”
I decided to change the subject, “OK, I wonder if we can get some of the bars off these windows too, to cover the front windshield?”
“Tim Tom was in construction,” the Doctor said.
I wasn’t real sure how I was going to communicate this but here it went.
“Can you take these bars,” I pointed, “and cut them off” I moved my hands down, “and weld them to a van?” I made a welding helmet down motion, then pretended to weld, then pretended to drive.
“OK, I got the taking the windows off part, I think. And were you welding?” he replied.
“Yes, yes,” shaking my head.
“But, what else?” he asked.
“And weld them,” welding motion again, “to a van,” driving steering wheel motion again. I felt like an idiot.
“Weld them to a car?”
I made a larger motion with my hands, spreading them.
“A truck?”
Close enough. Thumbs up.
“Um, yeah, sure. No problem. But, are we going to try and get out of here?” I nodded yes. “Holy shit,” was his reply.
CHAPTER TWELVE
From the journal of Jude Guerrero
12/25/2012
The Doctor had remembered the welding tools he’d seen on the truck down where they were building an outbuilding. It was convenient that they were building out there, but pretty damn inconvenient that it was all outside the gate. So, the first part of our plan depended on us being able to get out of this gate and down the stairs, through the chanters, outside the double chain link razor wire fence, past the chanters wandering about outside, get the equipment, then make it back. No problem.
I went through all the possible scenarios, writing them down to keep them in my mind. We could try a distraction, make a run for it and hope none of the affected saw us. Eric could probably rig another explosion somehow. But would that really get all of them over to the other side of the building?
I could wait until night falls, try stealth. I’m pretty sure I could even do it, God knows I’ve had to infiltrate buildings in the dead of night without being caught, and that was against an intelligent adversary with guns. But, it was still risky, especially with my memory, I might get trapped somewhere and forget what I’m even doing there. More important, I’m not sure we could wait that long. Who knows when the smoke will come our way? I could only think of one other way to do it.
“What, no, are you insane?” Cassie yelled. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Really, you, that’s the craziest?”
“I’m going to have to agree with her on this one, Jude. That is, well, that’s suicide,” the doctor added.
“No, I really think this will work.”
“Jude, without you, what will become of us? Honestly, none of us have your training, your background. If you die, there is a good chance we all die.”
“Bullshit, you can figure out another plan, you can make this work without me. Besides, I’m not going to die.”
“I’m pretty sure you will,” Eric chimed in.
“No, I’m telling you, that’s why they don’t attack each other, because they’re chanting. They won’t attack someone else who is chanting.”
“Jude, I mean, that makes sense to some degree, but, the risk involved, and your theory is untested.”
“Well then we’ll test it.”
So we did. Down the hall we went, after everyone but Tim Tom and I had covered their ears.
As they heard us coming the chorus at the end of the hall piped up, chanting those damn words; …ear rye spider dance… and I started chanting along, using the phrase I had written down for some reason. I’d kept it in my journal with a note that it was there if I ever needed it. Well, now I did.
So I started chanting, and, as the others watched from a distance so the affected couldn’t see them, the people in the cells settled down, stopped howling at me and banging against the doors, and started chanting with me. Their chants all lined up and they calmed down and we were all chanting in chorus. And they stared at me, their eyes pleading, probably wondering in their demented minds if I was going to let them out, let them out so we could kill the others, now that I was one of them. I couldn’t handle it any more.
I walked away and we went back to the safe room down the hall.
“Well, it worked.”
“I saw,” said the Doctor. “I saw, but I still don’t like this.”
Truth be told, I didn’t like it either. But it’s what I did, blend in, make my way through a strange land, speaking a foreign tongue, not attracting attention to myself, gathering intelligence, finding a position, or, in this case, grabbing a welding rig.
I had the phrase in my hand, maybe I could’ve written it in marker on my arm but I didn’t want to risk not being able to get it off and someone seeing it. So here I was looking down at my hand, chanting the phrase that ended the world, over and over again, and getting ready to walk right into a crowd of fucking cannibals.
The crazies at the gate had wandered off, probably to another floor to look for food. As I got past the gate and made my way down the stairs I only made it down two flights before I got to test the phrase out in the real world. And it was one hell of a test; a group of seven going down the stairs, three carrying pipes, and here I was, with just a knife hidden at the small of my back. Moment of truth.
“Worm milk chest mouth…” I mumbled, my mouth going dry. They turned to look at me, eyes full of fury. I got louder, “wound sea moth oil…”
They started chanting louder, in unison, and I had to look down at my paper to get to the same place they were.
It worked. Holy hell it worked.
They turned and kept going back downstairs, seemingly sure I was one of them, not food. And I followed them, my new buddies, all of us heading down.
They went down to the first floor and started heading toward the lobby as I just glided my own little way, heading toward the docks, hoping they wouldn’t notice, and they didn’t.
I slipped out the dock and waited, looking around for more affected. A couple of loners were wandering around outside the gate so I waited.