Dawn of the Dead (7 page)

All at once, a terrible feeling overcame Steve. He began to put the pieces together: the wholly unprofessional way that the men conducted themselves; their nervousness over the approaching car; their scurrying around for extra supplies. They were on the run, scavengers like Steve himself. Now he began to worry. These were not men to reason with. He prayed that Roger would be in the approaching vehicle.

The man who was carrying the carton rushed back up the dock, having deposited his load in one of the motor launches.

“Can’t all fit,” he commented.

“How many will that thing hold?” the imposter who had inquired after Steve’s identity asked.

“Hey, man, I ain’t goin’ nowhere in nothin’ I can’t drive myself,” the man who had held the gun to Steve in the shack announced belligerently.

“That’s true,” said the man who had returned to the van and was carrying out another carton to the launch. “Somethin’ happens to him and ’stuck. Stay with the launch!”

“Get a lot further in this bird!” said the first imposter.

Suddenly, above the two white headlights of the approaching vehicle, a third red light was visible.

“Hey, that’s a black and white,” said the belligerent one, noticing the spinning bubble-gum top and hearing the blast of the car’s siren.

The officer in the helicopter, still holding his gun to Fran’s head, said, “They’ve seen us!”

“It’s all right,” said the skipper calmly. “We’re police.”

The man who was loading the launch dumped his carton at the edge of the dock and pulled one rifle from his back. “So what!” he yelled at his three accomplices. “Let’s get to the boat!”

The skipper stared hard at Steve. Then, with deliberation, he moved his eyes toward the squad car. Then, back at the young pilot.

“You’re runnin’, ain’t you, Flyboy?”

Steve remained mute. He was more afraid than he’d ever been before. He was glad Fran was there. He had to keep up a good front for her. If he’d been alone, he would have crumbled and begged for mercy.

“You and your friend is runnin’ off in the WGON traffic bird . . .” the skipper taunted him. He started to grin in understanding, feeling more in control of a situation that had been getting out of his reach.

“Sit tight, boys,” he said to the others. “They’re runnin’ too.”

Finally, after what seemed an eternity to Fran and Steve, the police car pulled down the dock. Steve took a few tentative steps toward it, squinting and hoping against hope that he would see Roger inside, but the skipper pushed him back to his former position with the barrel of his gun.

The car screeched to a stop, and two armed S.W.A.T. troopers immediately popped out of the front seat from either door. To Steve’s relief he saw that it was Roger, but he didn’t recognize the big trooper who ran up alongside his friend.

“What’s the problem, officer,” Roger inquired rather innocently. He didn’t make so much as a blink of recognition in Steve’s direction.

“Caught your friends here stealin’ company gasoline,” the skipper told him.

“What do you mean friends?” Roger faked.

“They know, Rog . . .” Steve cut in, afraid that the skipper would play this game to the limit, making Roger look like a fool in the long run. “They’re tryin’ to get out, too.”

“It’d be crazy to start shootin’ at one another, now wouldn’t it?” the skipper asked Roger.

“Sure would,” he answered, relieved that he wouldn’t have to continue with the charade. He was anxious to leave, to get out of this city that held so many bad memories for him.

“All right,” said the man who had been sitting in the helicopter. “Let’s load up.”

He slung his rifle and tossed the other gun back to Fran. Startled, she tried to catch the rifle, but it fell out of her hands and skittered across the dock.

The man looked at her angrily.

“You better learn how to use that thing, woman. Times is tense!”

The bogus policeman turned from the group of the four united friends and started to unload crates and cartons from their van. The big trooper pulled a few supplies from the squad car and carried them toward the helicopter. He hadn’t said a word of greeting to either Fran or Steve, or made any attempt to explain his presence.

Fran ran over to Stephen as he emerged from the guardhouse, carrying the toolbox and the knapsack full of supplies. Relieved, she fell into his arms. Roger saw them and trotted over.

“You OK?” he asked, concerned and puzzled.

“Yeah,” Steve said, nodding. “Who’s he?” he indicated the big trooper.

“His name’s Peter Washington. He’s all right,” Roger said tersely and started moving along toward the helicopter.

“Let’s hustle,” he said, as Fran and Steve followed.

Meticulously and efficiently, Peter had stowed the supplies in the rear of the cockpit. He was distracted by the strong odor of gasoline and noticed the fuel hose lying on the dock. He tried the nozzle in the receptacle on the chopper and held it in until the tank filled.

Down the dock, the other men were swiftly moving cartons of all their supplies from their van into the launch.

“You guys better move off,” Roger shouted to them. “There’s a radio report about the dock bein’ knocked out.”

Fran, Steve and Roger reached the cockpit, which had been filled to the brink with supplies by Peter.

“You sure this’ll carry us all?” Fran asked as she climbed in and crouched on the floor in the rear of the bubble.

“Little harder on the fuel, but we’ll be OK,” Steve reassured her.

As Peter managed just barely to fit his bulk into the helicopter, one of the other men approached Roger.

“Hey,” he asked, putting down the last carton, “you got any cigarettes?”

Roger looked at the others one at a time with a strange expression on his face. Fran shook her head no.

“Sorry,” he said shortly, trotting around to the passenger seat.

“Where ya headed?” Steve asked from the pilot’s seat.

“Down river. Got an idea maybe we can make it to the islands.”

“What islands?”

“Any island. What about you? Where you headed?”

“Straight up,” Steve said with a smile as the propellers lifted the chopper off the ground.

The imposter rushed off with his two partners. As they untied one of the launches from the dock, the WGON helicopter whined loudly overhead, completing a perfect lift-off.

Then, the police launch started without a hitch and pulled out onto the dark river, leaving just the corpses and the strong smell of gasoline on the creaking pier.

Steve, at last, felt in control again. The last hour had really been hairy. He didn’t know if he or Fran would have made it out alive if Roger and Peter hadn’t come along. But, now, as the lights on the helicopter blinked over the city of Philadelphia, Steve felt safe and secure in his metal womb.

He took the bird over his favorite sights, almost a farewell salute. He didn’t know when, or if, they would be coming back.

First they swooped over the art museum, the floodlights illuminating a path up the stone steps. The Rodin museum was a few hundred yards away. Steve wondered if the walking dead would soon make the city unfit for any kind of habitation. Maybe thousands of years from now archaeologists would uncover this city with all its art and treasures and wonder what disaster caused all its inhabitants to flee.

It was an hour or two before dawn, and the city was now empty. Independence Hall, Betsy Ross’s house with the original American flag—all the monuments to a great civilization lay in the grips of an impending disaster. The oldest American heritage stood coldly in the night, awaiting its fate.

For a second, Steve thought of his parents. He hadn’t even tried to contact them and wondered where they were, if they were still alive. They had instilled this love of history in him. As teachers, they were always reading, discussing. They were sorely disappointed when he decided to forsake his college education and try for the glamorous job of a reporter. They had hoped he would go for his doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania. They didn’t care what he studied, as long as he had a PhD after his name.

In the cockpit, Fran surreptitiously lit a cigarette. Roger did, too. The only comment was Peter’s smirk.

The big man leaned back, but was still uncomfortable. He didn’t have room to stretch out his legs. He looked down at the city. A wave of sadness overcame him and he spoke to the group for the first time.

“Any of you leavin’ people behind?”

“An ex-husband,” Fran said without a trace of regret in her voice.

“An ex-wife,” Roger said thoughtfully.

“You, Peter?” Steve asked, his eyes straight ahead.

The trooper was quiet for a moment, his gaze still on the city disappearing below.

“Some brothers.” And the tone of his voice told them that he didn’t want to discuss it any further.

As the copter moved west, the lights on the ground below grew few and far between. It was still dark, even though dawn was approaching. Roger was asleep in the passenger seat, crumpled up like a child on a long journey in a car. Fran and Peter sat very close to each other, cramped in the rear of the cockpit.

Peter was still staring out the window, but Fran could see that his eyes weren’t really focused on anything in particular.

“Real brothers?” she asked, picking up the conversation where they had left it almost an hour before.

He turned to look at her, and she noticed what fine strong features he had.

“Real brothers or street brothers?” she asked tentatively.

“Both.”

“How many real ones?”

“Two.”

“Two,” she repeated.

“One’s in jail. The other’s a pro ballplayer. But we catch up to each other once in a while.”

He turned his head, and Fran didn’t know quite how to respond. It seemed as if he wanted to cut off any communication and human contact.

But Peter Washington turned his head so that the woman couldn’t see the tears that were welling up in his eyes. How could he go off and leave them now? But there wasn’t anything he could do. Sammy was locked away in that prison. For what?—for stealing a few bucks from that rip-off liquor store in the ghetto. The guy deserved it. He’d been charging the poor people two, sometimes three, dollars over the standard price for years.

And Tommy? He was a big superjock now. On the road somewhere. Hopefully in the Midwest. At least both of them would be relatively safe.

Peter was really all the family they had left. Their father had deserted them when Peter was still in his teens. And as the eldest brother, he was responsible now. And Mama. Thank God she wasn’t alive. Even though she had probably worked herself to death trying to make ends meet, this night would have killed her for sure. But, at least she would have been proud of her eldest boy—he had realized long ago that the only way to make it was on his strength and guts, and he had certainly proved it tonight. All of them in this whirlybird had one thing in common, he thought to himself. They all had the will to survive.

Peter turned toward the slender, blonde-haired, shivering woman beside him. Nodding toward Steve, who wouldn’t be able to hear the conversation over the roar of the engine, he asked, “He your man now?”

Fran was taken off guard by Peter’s sudden return to conversation. She smiled slightly.

“Most of the time, yeah,” she whispered, shaking the hair out of her eyes.

“Just like to know who everybody is,” Peter said, a genuine smile coming over his face for the first time in a long time.

“Yeah, me too,” she agreed, snuggling down in the seat.

As the light finally dawned on the horizon, the little helicopter chugged through the varying shades of blue and pink, toward an unknown destiny.

4

The morning light now streamed into the helicopter bubble. The brightness caused Peter to shade his eyes with his hand. He hadn’t slept at all. His eyes were bloodshot, and they still itched from the tear gas. Fran was still asleep, crushed against the side of the rear cockpit. She seemed so peaceful. And Roger snored happily. Peter didn’t know how he could do it.

As far as he could tell, they were somewhere beyond Harrisburg, and had been flying due west since they’d left Philadelphia. He had recognized the Piedmont Plateau of Lancaster. He wondered what the Amish people thought of this disaster, if they realized what was happening. Maybe they believed, as many did, that it was a punishment for the sins of modern living.

They had flown over the lush Lebanon and Cumberland Valleys, which the mighty Susquehanna River nourished and which surrounded the state capital of Harrisburg. Now, as far as Peter could tell from his high school geography, they were passing into the Appalachian Mountains, which would lead them to the Allegheny Mountains and finally on to Johnstown and Pittsburgh.

A sudden twitching of Steve’s head made Peter notice that the pilot was falling asleep. With a swift movement, Peter kicked him gently in the shoulder. Startled, Steve looked behind him, surprised that the big trooper was still awake. Steve smiled slightly, but Peter only stared back coldly.

He’s a weird one, thought Steve. Wonder why Roger ever thought to take him along.

“Any more water?” Steve asked, rubbing his face violently and pulling at the skin below his eyes to stay awake.

Peter reached behind him to the supplies and pulled out a plastic container of water. Steve took a deep slug, and then felt guilty for taking so much. More cautiously, he splashed some on his face to revitalize himself. He didn’t know how long he had been awake, but it had to be at least twenty-four hours. He knew he had been at the TV station the day before at 4 a.m., and now it was way past that.

He passed the plastic container back to Peter, who also took a hit.

Suddenly, Fran stiffened and woke up with a start, as if from a bad dream. Peter’s expression softened when he looked at her. For a moment, she didn’t know where she was or who this man was, or even why her bones ached so and her head spun. Then she remembered and the thought made her cringe.

“You know where we are?” Peter asked Stephen.

“I know exactly where we are,” Steve said aggressively. He didn’t like Peter’s attitude toward him, and also he had noticed Peter’s change of attitude whenever he spoke to Fran.