The pain in my back had subsided to a solid ache, but the stabbing pains were gone. ‘No time like the present to start this shindig,’ I thought to myself.
With that, I leaned back on two legs and then over on to one leg. I bounced three times on that one leg before the chair splintered, and I collapsed in a heap, causing the stabbing pain to return. I laid there on the ground trying to straighten my legs without wrenching my back. Once they were out from under me, I rolled over on my side and started working my wrists back and forth. The duct tape stretched some, rolled a little and little by little I worked my hands free. If my back had not been so sore, the process would have gone much faster. As it was, I didn’t have much strength to flex my shoulders; every time I tried it took a number of minutes before I could breathe again. Finally free, I removed the blind fold and discovered I was indeed in the pitch blackness. A quick check of my pockets showed I’d been searched and everything taken. I picked up one of the chair legs, and started slowly feeling my way to the wall.
I managed to find the wall, only cracking my shin once on a chair. I was glad that this was a sound proof room as the chair skittered loudly across the concrete floor I must have been just to the left of the door. I turned right at the wall and followed it around all four corners, past the locked vault door. Finally I found the door to the stairway, those two things confirming that I was in the vault.
The doorway was locked, but right inside the doorway I found the light switch. I flipped on the lights, and to my surprise, they came on.
The room was empty, except for two chairs, a bench rest, and the small pile of lumber that was the chair I’d been in. There was no telling when they would come for me, but I had no expectations of living through that encounter.
I had a sense that I’d been out for a couple of hours, although really I had no idea how long I was. It could have been an hour, or it could have been a day. If they’d captured or killed John, Leo would come looking for us when we weren’t back by midnight or so. If John had escaped, it was only a short walk to the farm. He would load up on guns and ammunition, bring Leo and the two of them would come for me. I hoped they were careful; the thought of anything happening to them on my account was unbearable. They were special, they were more than friends, they were my family, but more than all of that, they were Max’s protectors. We all were.
John had the Glock with him, which had a magazine capacity of seventeen rounds. He had two extra magazines - fifty-one bullets, plus one in the chamber to start with. John could have taken out up to fifty-two zombies. Or people, whichever these were. Mr. Spaulding had been the only living person we’d encountered, and he was infected by the time we got to him. If there had been more than fifty-two people here, what would drive them to continue the fight taking those kinds of losses? When you combine his speed and accuracy, any humans would have run away, unless something very scary was driving them. It was much more likely that it was zombies. If there were more smart zombies like Penelope, they could have collected undead from a long way away. There was only one reason I could think of for them to be staging a zombie army two miles from my doorstep. I felt so stupid, we’d been so focused on looking for survivors, looking for supplies, building up our own defenses, and I never thought to send out a scout. I had no idea what was at the edge of my property.
There wasn’t anything I could do, the heavy steel door wasn’t going to budge, I had nothing with which to even try to pick the lock; but besides that, I had no real idea how to.
I turned off the lights again, and stood just inside the door with my ear to the cinder block wall. I spent the next four hours counting seconds and wondering how long it would take for something to happen.
16. Escape
Finally, I heard something muffled through the cinder block wall. It sounded like footsteps coming down the stairs, and they were fast. I scrambled to my feet, and prepared myself as I heard the key in the lock. As the door started to open, I raised my chair leg over my head. The door opened, and I swung my chair leg like a bat. The first man through the door dropped like a stone. I caught his outstretched wrist with my second swing before he hit the ground, breaking his arm. The pistol fell to the floor.
I dove around the open door, which had swung into the room, and braced my feet against the wall and my hands against the back of the door. With all of my strength, I slammed the door into the second to enter the room. My back screamed in agony with the pressure. The door smashed the second man’s face in, I heard him hit the wall behind the door and slide to the floor.
The first guy’s gun was on the concrete next to him, and then it was in my hand, where it felt very familiar. The fucker had my Sig! That pissed me off, coming at me with my own gun. One hand pulled the door open, the other holding my gun. As the door cracked, I peeked around the corner. Every inch I opened the door, I could peer another ten degrees around the corner, until I’d methodically made sure the entire stairway was clear.
The second guy was holding a Glock of some sort; I didn’t immediately recognize the model. They were all such ugly guns, I never paid much attention. The Glock John carried was my first pistol, purchased for the name, before I knew any better. It was a solid gun though; John was certainly deadly enough with it.
I took a moment to check the pockets of both the dead guards; the first had the two extra magazines for my Sig, and a set of keys. I took his pocket knife, cigarettes and lighter. The next guy really had nothing of value, besides an extra mag for his pistol. From the top bullet I could see in the magazine, this was a .45 caliber. More powerful than my Sig, but not that much, and it felt oddly front-heavy in my hand. I put it in my waistband at the small of my back, and the magazine for it in my left back pocket. The Sig magazines went into my right back pocket where my wallet had been for years. I’d only recently stopped carrying my wallet. It seemed kind of silly now. No word on television for weeks. No planes flying overhead. There was nothing but static on the radio, even on the emergency frequencies. We’re within AM radio range of Washington D.C. We were operating under the assumption that the government had fallen, and operating under rules of personal survival.
There was no door at the top of the stairs. I didn’t want to leave these guys behind me, so I dragged them into the range and locked the door behind me as I headed up the steps. About four steps from the top, I leaned forward and put my eye almost level with the floor to peer out of the stairs. The store at the top of the stairs appeared empty. I almost giggled with delight to see the Barrett .50 still sitting on a shelf behind the counter. From my position, I could see the magazine still in the receiver, and a can of bullets behind it. I watched, waited, and listened for a few minutes, but heard nothing. A glance out the windows told me it was night time.
‘That’s a good sign; hopefully it’s the same night I was captured.’ I thought to myself. I crawled low and as quickly as my back would allow across the store to the wall of backpacks and grabbed the first one I could get to. It happened to be pink and gray digital camouflage. Leo would never let me live that down, but I wasn’t sticking around to be choosy. I slid and crawled behind the counter, and began to pull boxes of ammunition from the shelves below the glass case. Four boxes of 9mm, ten boxes of .45, ten boxes of .40 caliber, went in the pack. I found a single box of .12 gauge shells, before I slid the very heavy pack up onto my shoulders. I stood up long enough to grab the Barrett and box of ammo, and then sat down behind the counter.