Chapter 7
“Sky, stay with him, you come with me.”
Smith began taking control of the situation as he ordered us into position; he knew what the consequences of being overly exposed and wanted us back in the sewer ASAP. He had been in similar circumstances before, if not here most definitely in his previous line of employment. It was as obvious as daylight the Smith was used to deliberating orders, telling people what to do simply came naturally to him. With being such a high ranking officer it was rare when the pressure of tasking units was not entirely his responsibility. Sure he had made some bad calls in the past, but had learnt from his mistakes, and the best lesson he had learnt was to never second guess his gut feeling. This place was just as bad as any war zone, desert or jungle, he had toured. So Smith knew he would have to trust his judgment more than ever before. He knew that with our lack of training he would have to be just as hard and direct, as he was on his previous platoon. It was strange, the closest thing I could compare his contrasting characters to was a schizophrenic teddy bear, in the bunker so loving and calm, as he played with Zara tossing her up into the air and catching her ever so gently. To this man who now stood in front of me, ice-cold, a calculated controlled Cy-Borg
Like sheep to a Sheppard we flocked to Smith waiting for him to lead us out of this precarious situation. Sky bent over Sharif’s body and examined the wound just as Smith had ordered. The bite was deep; it had broken the skin and severed through his flesh, causing severe tissue damage. Sky started taking care of the wound, the bleeding could be stopped, but the real killer out here was infections. If it was not properly disinfected, gangrene would set in, which meant amputation of the limb. Once again the knowledge Sky had obtained in her previous career was vital to our survival.
While she cleaned and dressed the wound she could not help herself from repeating her old instructor’s teachings.”Now remember class, the human mouth contains from 500 to 1000 different types of bacteria, most regular brushers have 1000 to 100 000 different type of bacteria living in their mouth alone.”
”What does this mean if you are...”Sharif grabbed Sky as he winced under the pain and tugged at her arm, gesturing she stop her repetitive annoyance. She immediately got the picture and continued dressing his wound in complete silence.
Smith was already bee-lining towards the grocery store and had set a brisk pace; the old man was walking with intention, clearly forgetting about my frail conditions. I looked across the street where Sharif and Sky sat, undecided if I was merely checking up on Sharif’s condition, or making sure the man whole was not too far out of reach. I knew exactly where I was heading if another one of those things popped up!
We entered the automatic door of the grocery store, which now was only a frame, hopelessly sliding away as we stepped in. The left side of the building immediately caught my eye, as I remembered how the man in the pinstripe went smashing through the large window. Chunks of his flesh still hung from the blood stained glass pane. The feeling was so overwhelming I could just imagine the pain a normal human would go though, if they tried lifting themselves from the jagged frame as he did. But he did not flinch, he did not react to anything, he clearly was not a normal human being! With my head turned to the glass and still walking forward, I collided into the old man’s back; he did not move an inch. He was still solid and strong despite his age. Smith stopped, looked around making sure everything was in order then gave Sky the thumbs up, who the mimicked the gesture from across the road.”
Smith turned to me, his voice so serious, so full of passion; he placed his right hand on my shoulder. “We need to make sure we protect this place, think of this place as our new heart Cairo,””It is worth us risking our lives for, it’s the only liable food source we have for miles, we have to lay our lives on the line to protect this place.”
I seemed to understand now, they needed this shop, and this shop meant everything to them. It had comforted them in hard times; it had been a constant, always providing them with what essential’s they needed to sustain their way of living. They knew if it fell, they would have to leave the safety and relative comfort of the bunker in search of a new home, which was too risky, especial with the young girls. To think they were willing to risk their lives for the store, but why? When the obvious was to just transport the food down to the sewer, and have it all right beside them, why take the unnecessary trip each time? I had to ask Smith,
“So why not gather the food and take it down with you, it’s just the practical thing to do Smith?” Smith nodded in agreement, “It may seem that way Cairo, and it would take a lot of strain off all of us don’t you agree, but just think about this for a second.”
”In those dark and damp conditions the food would spoil much quicker than up in the fresh air of the store, plus like I explained this is not just your ordinary store, we have invested countless hours in this place.””So you see all those fridges in the corner?” If you look close enough you will be amazed to see they are still running.”Smith was right, how the hell was that possible, all the power in the entire block was dead let alone the city, how did these fridges manage to work? But no matter how hard I pondered the complexity of these working fridges. It made no difference because they were in front of my very own eyes perfectly cool and crisp.
Smith went on;”This is because Sharif and I have been working on those damn things for years now; we have managed to rewire their motors and connect them to a School bus parked outside.” I looked towards the two tall Cola refrigerators which had a bundle of wires running across the floor, up the wall and out the window, to the large school bus battery parked outside. Smith continued his explanation of his little experiment which they had developed. “Twice a week we come up, start the engine and let the bus idle, giving our food a chance to freeze until we return.””Look most of our food is canned, some as you know hardly regarded as food.”Smith giggled, “Anyway even preserved can food has its expiry dates, this way the food has a bit of a longer life span.”
Smith walked towards the fridges and did a quick routine check; he gave it a little kick in the corner which seemed to jolt up the motor sending the fridge into a vibrating frenzy. He then walked in the opposite direction. Treading across a pile of scattered boxes, can and roof debris. He began examining a row of large shelves, which were still stacked with detergents, toiletries and the other essential the group used, helping them make their uncomfortable lives a bit more tolerable. The pin stripped man or animal, or whatever the hell he was had not made it into the store so everything still seemed intact,
As Smith walked back to me he shouted, “Thank goodness for Sharif’s sneaky little trap! “”Seems like everything is okay in here Cairo, lets head back to the others, time to get our asses back home.”
When he reached me he threw his arm over my shoulder, turned me around and we walked towards the door. It seemed he had forgotten about my medical condition as he leaned his entire body weight on my shoulder. “We better get outta here now Cairo, unless you want to wait around for another one of those things, truthfully speaking I like killing a few of these bastards once in a while it keeps me on my toes.”The old man’s psychotic humour frightened me. I franticly shook my head in disagreement, even though it was obvious he was making a joke, I was taking no chances.
As we walked towards Sharif and Sky I worried about the tall Arab, I wanted to know exactly what was going to happen to him. I never knew how to address the topic, the things I wanted to ask Smith sounded so ridiculous in my head, now imagine how crazy I would sound once I said them out loud. The eagerness to know more about what would happen to the Arab man, who I presumed was now infected pestered me so badly I had to come out and ask Smith.
”So what’s going to happen to Sharif, will he...you know” Smith looked at me ever so confused, “No I don’t, will he what?”,
’’Well will he turn into one of those things; I mean it bit him quite deep and generally isn’t that how it works?”
He turned to me and looked me dead in the eyes, his nose was practically touching mine and once again I could feel that rancid warm breath against my face. I was terrified even more so than before, after seeing firsthand what he could do with that machete. Then he burst out into laughter.
”HAHAHA turn into them, what you think these things are, Zombies kid?””No you don’t turn into them, if that was the case Id be turned four or five times by now.””Hell I get bitten by those things on a weekly basis.” He pulled back his collar showing me the mark in his neck where one of the creatures snuck in its blunt teeth, then he lifted his left pants leg, exposing another bite in the middle of his calve, and those where only two of the many bites on Smiths body.
His domineer changed and he became more serious.”Listen to me boy, these things aren’t like any of those science fiction movie type living dead creatures, no these are much freaking worse. Think of them as wild predators that walk upright, have opposable thumbs and have the brain capacity to do only one thing, hunt.” “They don’t bite you and turn you, they rip the flesh from your bones while you still alive.”
“They hunt in small packs each with a leader, their ways similar to that of wild dogs.””Thankfully all we’ve had to deal with is the occasional stray, like our friend over there.”Smith pointed to the creature in the pin stripe suit that now had a hole in its head as deep as a crater.
“A whole pack would annihilate us, we’d never stand a chance, their newly developed strength and speed already puts us at a huge disadvantage and a pack would completely tear us to shreds””Truthfully the only weapon we have against them is their degenerated brains, making us the smarter of the two species.” “So don’t think some slow rotting corpse with their arms extended is going to come trotting up to you.” “These things are faster and stronger than they were as humans and a thousand more times tenacious!””You have to be smart kid, work together and learn to think under pressure.””We have been doing this for a while and each time it feels as if it’s my first, trust me we have become monsters in our own right, most of us weren’t hardwired to be killers but we are creatures of evolution and have adapted to become hunters, hunting the same thing which preys on us.