Human Extinction Level Loss (Book 1): Nicole's Odyssey (16 page)

Nicole looked down and saw that Jordan was holding DIE HARD and TWILIGHT.  Sam, Billy, Walt and Nicole all shifted nervously and gave every indication they were going to try not to be rude.  Practically in unison they all said, “Die Hard.” 

Paul sighed.  “Oh thank God,” he said. 

Jordan’s head slumped and she stomped her foot, then handed DIE HARD to her father. 

“Maybe we can watch it next time, okay, sweetheart?” Paul said. 

“Okay,” Jordan said. 

As Nicole passed, she saw Jordan smiling.  Jordan looked up at Nicole. 

“I like Die Hard, too.  Bruce Willis is hot!  Just don’t tell my Dad, ‘kay?,” she whispered. 

Nicole smiled and made like she was sealing her lips and throwing away the key.  Jordan jumped with glee and took Nicole’s hand and led her to the middle of the field.  There were blankets and lounge chairs spread out.  In front of them was the massive Jumbo-tron hanging from the ceiling.  Paul huffed it up the steps and disappeared into the control box as everyone took a seat.  On the huge screen, the FBI warning against piracy came up.  Paul huffed it back down and  over to his chair, collapsing into it.  He did not notice immediately that Jordan and Billy were sitting next to each other on one of the large blankets. 

“Are you alright, Daddy?” Jordan asked. 

Paul held up his hand and tried to get the words out, but his lungs were too occupied with trying to inhale. 

“I’m… fine… honey,” he gasped.  Catching his breath, he looked at Billy who was staring at the huge screen, then at his daughter. 

“Come sit over here by me, okay, sweetheart,” he said. 

Jordan, who was lying on her stomach with her hands under her chin hung her head in frustration and knew it was a fight she was not going to win. 

“I have to go sit with my Dad for no reason,” she said to Billy. 

Billy looked away nervously and tapped his foot. 

“It’s okay, I understand,” he said. 

He watched Jordan get up and go over to her dad.  He looked quickly back at the screen when he saw Paul staring at him. 

As John McClane’s flight from New York to Los Angeles landed, Nicole sat in her lounge chair in the middle of Liberty Bell stadium and stared at the Jumbo-tron.  She wanted to let herself enjoy the night, but she couldn’t.  She knew they had to get out of there, and that doing so would probably destroy all the good Paul and Jordan had found.

Twenty-Two

Nicole had not slept much after John McClane was reunited with his estranged wife.  While the others shuffled off, to sleep on improvised beds in the stadium’s subterranean spaces, Nicole had walked.  She started with the massive clear doors on either end of the field.  It was surreal standing in front of all that death, a mere eighteen inches away. The seal made the doors virtually soundproof, creating a vacuum of silence.  She saw the Dead and it made her motionless.  The Dead saw her and it made them agitated.  Like angry, hungry fish in a gruesome aquarium, they thrashed and threw themselves at the clear doors.  Those in front were mashed to pulp, creating smears of gore all across the doors, at times almost obscuring the view.  When those in front were ground to mush, their place was taken by the next row, their bodies being in slightly better condition, the Polycarbonate was wiped clear enough to see through, before they too were squashed to liquid by the sheer numbers of those pressing from behind.  Row upon row upon row stacked up, hungry to get in, hungry for her.  It was the same at the other set of doors and Nicole understood that they were surrounded on all sides. 

She made her way down the field entrance and walked the perimeter of the stadium, the wide hall that opened up to offices and training rooms and all the things it took to run a franchise.  It was as Paul had said, the stadium was locked up tight and she could find no weak points.  She found the players and staff parking lot with its ramp leading up to street level.  A steel roll down door was locked in place.  Against this she heard the Dead pounding.  Pressing her ear to the door she could hear their moans. 

She turned and made her way back down the ramp.  There were no cars in the parking lot.  No one was thinking about football when the apocalypse hit, not the players and certainly not even the most die hard of fans.  Only Paul and his daughter, and for them it was a good choice.  A choice they sacrificed to save her and her group.  It was a good choice that she was going to have to convince him and his daughter to abandon.

 
☣

She did not know how long she slept, but she awoke to the sounds of people and the smell of pancakes.  It was glorious, the smell of breakfast, and for the briefest of moments she thought she was six years old and at home in her room.  Her mother used to make pancakes on Saturday morning.  She would race downstairs in her pajamas and slippers to hot pancakes and Bugs Bunny cartoons.  These were some of her fondest memories.  As her head cleared and the dreams faded, she remembered where she was.  Not bothering to undress for bed the night before, Nicole pulled on her boots and walked the corridor to the cafeteria. 

Inside, Paul and Walt flipped pancakes while Sam, Billy, and Jordan were stuffing their mouths.  Billy and Jordan sat across and down from each other but cast nervous glances back and forth.  Paul cast nervous glances at them both.  Everyone was in good spirits and acted like there wasn’t a thousand hungry mouths to feed just outside.  Nicole stood and took it all in, even more unsure this morning how to proceed than she was last night.  Sam looked up and saw her. 

“Hey, Nicole!  Come get some pancakes!” he screamed at her.  Nicole smiled nervously at him. 

“Maybe in a minute, Sam,” she said. 

Paul and Walt looked up at her.  Walt smiled.  Paul seemed to want to smile but was unsure.  Nicole locked eyes with him and with her head, gestured him over.  Paul wiped his hands on a towel and approached.  Walt was too wrapped up in pouring dough onto the skillet to pay much attention.  As Paul approached, his face told Nicole he knew what she wanted to talk about.  She gestured him outside and the two went out into the corridor. 

Nicole kept her voice low.  “We need to talk about what we’re going to do.  Is there a floor plan or a blueprint of the stadium?” she asked. 

Paul looked at her, then away.  “Yeah, I keep a set in my office, for maintenance,” he said. 

Nicole shifted her rifle in anticipation. “Can you get it?  You know this building like the back of your hand, right?  We need to see what our options are.  I’ve some thoughts, but-” 

Paul cut her off.  “Can’t this wait till… till after breakfast?  I mean-” 

Nicole cut in.  “Look, time is not on our side, here, we can’t wait these things out,” she said. 

Paul backed away, his hands held out in front like he was trying to push her away.  “I know… I know… it’s just that today is pancake day, and… after breakfast I’ll get the plans, I promise…” His words trailed off as he backed away and re-entered the cafeteria. 

Nicole sighed and followed him in.  She took a seat next to Sam, who handed her a heaping stack smothered in syrup.

“Here, I made you a plate.  Everything alright?” he asked. 

Nicole smiled and took a bite of the pancakes.  Sweet maple flavor filled her mouth and she could not help but close her eyes and grunt with pleasure. 

“I know, right?” Sam said, beaming at her reaction. 

Paul went back to the stove and poured another batch. 

“Jordan! Sam!  Billy!  Who wants seconds?” he called. 

All three jumped from the table and stood at the window as Walt filled their plates.

☣
 

After breakfast, Paul retrieved the plans for the stadium and laid them out on a large conference table in one of the meeting rooms.  The group stood around staring down at it, nobody knowing where to begin.  Finally, Paul spoke up.

“Well, maybe we could burn them out, you know.  We’ve got plenty of fuel on sight for the backup generators.  We could somehow spray them with it and then… set them on fire,” he said. 

Walt stared at the plans, contemplating what Paul had proposed.  He rubbed his chin. 

“Nah, man.  I don’t think that would be kosher, you know.  You have outside ventilation to contend with.  A thousand or more Dead guys all burning right outside your door, heck man, we’d smoke us out the whole time you were burnin’ them out,” Walt said. 

The group fell silent, lost in thought.  Billy shifted nervously and debated whether he should try to contribute.  In school he never raised his hand, died a thousand deaths when his teachers would try to draw him out, calling on him anyway.  Nicole had let him come with her, had saved him, so some part of him thought he needed to contribute. 

“Miss Nicole, you have all those guns and bullets… May-maybe we could get somewhere and shoot ‘em all in the head…” he said. 

Billy braced himself for the ridicule from the others.  Nicole looked over at Billy.  She thought this was the first time he had really spoken, to her at least.  She watched as he cast his eyes to the floor.  She took a breath and framed her response. 

“You’re on to something there, Billy.  Those things wouldn’t try to run and hide.  It would be like shooting fish in a barrel.  The thing is, if we dropped them all where they stand then there is no way we can get our vehicles out. There’s just too many of them,” she said. 

She looked at Billy and smiled.  Billy smiled back at her, then his face flushed with embarrassment and he looked away.  His face went hot, but Billy felt a rush through his whole body.  He had suggested something and no one laughed at him. 

Nicole looked around at the others.  All had their eyes locked on the plans.  Nicole waited for somebody else to say something.  When nobody did, she cleared her throat. 

“Paul, tell me about this lower level.  This corridor goes all the way around the stadium down here?” she asked. 

Paul rested one hand on the table and leaned in.  With the other, he gestured to the subterranean corridor that ran all around the stadium. 

“Yeah, the field entrance is here leading down to the corridor which circles all the way around,” he said. 

Nicole looked at the plans.  “And on the other side of that corridor, all this stuff in the middle, what’s that?” Nicole asked. 

“Some of it you’ve seen, cafeteria, clubhouse, training rooms.  There are four accesses along the corridor leading up to front offices, Admin stuff, here, here, here, and here,” Paul said as he gestured to the four doors spaced at the “corners” of the circle which was really more oblong. 

“And is there field access from those offices or do you need to come back down to the corridor to get to the field?” Nicole asked. 

Paul raised his eyebrows, curious as to her line of thought. “No, you can access the field from up top.  Why, what are you thinking?” he asked. 

“You’re not going to like it, but we can’t just open the doors and try to drive out, we would be mobbed like before, and we can’t do anything about that horde from in here…” Nicole’s words trailed off. 

She looked around at their faces.  They were not getting what she was driving at. 

“Sam, tell them what they don’t want to hear,” she said. 

“We are going to have to let those things in here, but then…” Sam didn’t finish. 

“Then, we are going to have to herd them away, down into this circular corridor to give us enough time to get in our vehicles and get away,” Nicole said.

Walt broke the long pregnant silence that followed.  “That’s impossible, man.  There’s no way we can control where that horde will go, not without them… chasing us,” Walt said, realization dawning on him. 

“Paul when we pulled in here you were pretty mad at us.  You said something about getting them to move in all one direction.  Care to tell us how you did that?” Nicole asked. 

Paul sighed and looked around the group.  “The Dead, they don’t think.  They don’t plan or debate their next move.  They will move after what they think will feed their hunger until distracted by something else.  It’s how we got them to move around the central hub, how I was able to give us a window of time, where I knew they would all be,” Paul said. 

Paul looked around and when nobody said anything, he continued.  “The thing is… it’s crazy.  Trevor and I figured the best way to get them where we wanted to go was to give them the scent and lead them, and the best way to give them the scent was… to use bait,” Paul let his words hang in the air. 

Walt stared at Paul.  “What did you use for bait, man?” Walt asked. 

Paul looked at Walt.  “Sometimes Trevor, sometimes me.  One of us would get on a bike tied to the rear of the truck and get towed out in front of the smaller groups.  It’s how we herded them from all over the city down to the central hub, got them moving in a circle,” Paul said. 

Walt stared in unbelief.  “Where’s this Trevor, now, man?” Walt asked. 

Paul looked sorrowfully at the group.  “Trevor didn’t make it…” Paul said. 

Walt shook his head.  “No way, man!  That is no kind of plan, Dude!” Walt said. 

“Well, we don’t have a truck or a bike in here anyway, so…” Sam said. 

Paul looked away. “We have the golf carts we use in the corridor…” 

Walt looked at Paul.  “Okay, man, but how are you going to tow somebody, IF anybody would be crazy enough to do it, which I can guarantee nobody here is,” Walt said as he looked around the group. 

Jordan spoke up.  “I have my skates, I could do it.  I’m a great skater,” she said. 

“NO!  NO!  Don’t think for one second that I am allowing any of you to put my daughter at risk!” Paul shouted.  He was beside himself with agitation.  The group fell silent. 

Nicole let the group calm down.  She knew what had to be done and Paul’s baiting technique was the best way to do it, but she couldn’t force the issue, they would have to come to the conclusion that there was no other option.  The silence stretched for long seconds before Billy spoke up again. 

“I could do it.” 

All eyes turned to Billy.  His eyes shifted nervously to each of those standing around him.