Whatever It Takes (23 page)

The first bedroom had a second cot set up in it that didn’t match the Transformers décor of the rest of the room. The second, which also had a window that faced the street, had the bed moved from the center of the room to the side. A stool was positioned before the window and set far enough back to comfortably sit behind a long rifle and use the window ledge as a shooting platform.

From this vantage point, Percival could see most of the neighborhood street, including the alleyway where he and Andrina had snuck forward to take a look at the horde. Percival had the distinct feeling he’d come across where the shot that’d killed Andrina had been fired from.

It seemed that whoever had resided in the building, until recently, had moved on. He led the way back out of the bedroom and returned to the living room. He chose to check the door beneath the stairs and discovered a dark stairwell leading into a basement. He clicked on his flashlight and descended the stairs carefully. In the basement he discovered a small generator with a heavy, black cable coming out of it and running up the stairs.

The rest of the basement held a variety of stores from old chinaware to pickling jars. A couple empty jerry-cans that still reeked of diesel were discarded next to the empty generator. He took a seat at the foot of the stairs and looked at Carlos and Sarah. “What’s going on here?”

Sarah shook her head. “Someone set up shop here and it’s just a lucky coincidence we didn’t check this house when we initially came through here. What happened in the game room?”

“We were attacked and I shot someone,” Percival said quietly. “Miss Delores Finnen of the Army.”

Sarah frowned more. “Seriously?”

“More legit than the folks I was with at the depot,” Carlos said.

Percival nodded. “She seemed more… together than the depot group. And had a pair of tags on her even.”

“She say anything about what was going on?”

Percival shook his head. “She was tight lipped despite being in the process of bleeding out onto the carpet.”

“And you left her there?” Sarah asked. Her pretty features were twisted into a look of awe and shock for a moment. They then quickly took on a look of quiet fear as the sound of the front door opening above them split the relative quiet.

The footfalls that Percival could clearly hear drummed a symphony of doom. Someone, he suspected some Army unit, was back at their field house and he didn’t expect to exactly be welcomed with open arms.

Percival immediately crouched down and killed his flashlight. He was silent as he could be and yet painfully aware of the noise his, and his companions’, breaths made. At least their heartbeats wouldn’t give them away. Percival was nearly convinced that his pounding heart would draw attention from whoever’d come in.

Initially he’d heard three distinct footfalls, but more had followed and now he wasn’t sure just how many people waited above. More than three, less than seven. Maybe. He could hear some voices above him, but nothing distinct. All of them were male, but that didn’t mean everyone who was up there was speaking.

He took a deep breath and held it as though that would help him overhear some clue as to who had crashed their investigation. He twisted to look around the basement as his eyes adjusted to the darkness allowing him to make out vague shapes. If whoever was above came charging down the stairs, he’d have the advantage. Assuming they didn’t bring a light source.

If they were truly lucky, the intrusive group above would leave the basement unsearched. If that were the case, the small side door on the stairs didn’t appear to actually lead anywhere, Percival, Carlos, and Sarah would be in for a long, dark day and night waiting the people above out.

He swept his gaze around the basement as the vague shapes faded into stark outlines and hard edges of black and not quite black. He singled out the lithely humanoid shape he assumed to be Sarah and bent low, pushing one hand on the floor ahead of him as he moved forward.

Moving agonizingly slow, he crept across the basement. He moved in such a manner to avoid bumping anything that might topple over and create a cacophony of ruckus noise that would draw unwanted attention. After minutes that seemed like hours of slow movement had passed, he rose to a full crouch beside Sarah.

“What the fuck?” she asked. She kept her voice pitched to the barest of whispers and Percival had difficulty making her out even in his proximity to her. He smiled despite the grim situation they were in. He lifted his visor.

“I want to know the same thing,” he answered. He did his best to keep his voice just as low as she did. “No idea who is above us.”

“Someone with tech,” Sarah barely murmured.

“Maybe the Army buddies of the woman in Roy Joy’s house.”

“Let’s hope not. They didn’t seem to be too terribly friendly.”

“Understatement of the year,” Percival grunted. “Hopefully if they’re the guys with the tech, they didn’t bring it with them.”

Almost as though his words were some tail end of a summoning ritual and harbinger of doom and bad timing, the door at the top of the stairs opened with a cascade of creaking noise. Light from the upper floor filtered down giving more than enough light for Percival to make out many things in shades of gray rather than lines of black.

“What? Hey you want it running again, I need to go turn the generator back on,” a gruff male voice shouted from the top of the stairs. It sounded as though the owner of the voice smoked three packs a day. “Your battery ain’t gonna last forever and the relay only works with external power.”

“Fine. You’re right.” The second speaker sounded years younger than the first. “Relay’s more secure too and we need to check in.”

If they were so brazenly speaking it meant a couple different things: no zombies were near the house, and they didn’t expect anyone else to be nearby. Percival held his breath and crept slowly away from the generator. He slid the M16 forward, just in case.

“Think we really should be in all that big of a hurry to check in, Mark?” the gruff voice called as heavy footsteps started down the stairs.

“Better we tell the Major about our loss sooner rather than later,” Mark answered.

“Military?” Sarah mouthed silently.

Percival shrugged. He couldn’t tell for certain; though the mention of a lost member and ranks led him to believe so.

“Sure. Gonna miss Finnen. She was quite the firecracker,” gruff’s feet hit the bottom stair. A flashlight clicked on before he rounded the corner. “Who do you think kneecapped her and left her to be zombie chow?”

Percival expected something different from this interaction. Some sort of emotional attachment, but this sounded more like the pair was discussing the evening news rather than a fallen ally.

“How should I fuckin’ know? She was out on her own when she wasn’t s’posed to be and got herself shot. Maybe by the same group we saw yesterday.” Mark’s tone started off annoyed and quickly escalated to outright pissed off. It was the sort of tone Percival had expected.

“Alright, alright.” Gruff’s flashlight swung back toward the top of the stairs. “Take it easy, man.”

“Cut the chatter. Greyson, get the generator back on,” a third voice cut through the air and provided a name for gruff. “Mark, get the computer up and running while he does. Less time we spend in this shithole, the better.”

“Yes, sir,” Greyson grumbled, barely loud enough to be heard in the basement. Percival doubted the officer upstairs heard it. The flashlight swung in an arc as Greyson stepped into the basement proper. The beam swept, by pure chance, across Percival’s eyes, blinding him.

He jerked his hand up to intercept the beam of light as everything flashed white.

“Shit!” Greyson shouted. His stumbled steps receding up the stairs before Percival had blinked his vision clear or his friends fired a shot. “Contact! Maybe multiple!”

“Where?” the officer shouted. The rumble of feet above them echoed through the basement. “Where Greyson? How many?”

“One, maybe two, or three. But definitely one. Down in the basement near the generator. They’re hiding down there,” Greyson answered. “Sir.”

“Shit,” Sarah said quietly. She looked toward Percival. “What do we do?”

“I don’t know,” he muttered. He blinked the last of the spots out of his vision. “It sounds like they’ve a lot more people up there than we’ve got down here, and they know we’re here.”

“I don’t think there’s another way out of the basement either,” Carlos said quietly.

“Are they friendly?” the officer asked upstairs.

“Maybe they’re not the shoot first ask questions never types,” Percival said. While they might not be that sort, someone among them had shot Andrina without the intent of ever asking questions. Just the thought alone drove him to want to light up anyone who came down the staircase.

Regardless of whether or not they deserved it.

He took a deep breath.

“I’m not gonna hold my breath,” Sarah said at the same time that Greyson answered with: “Contact had a big gun pointed at me.”

The sound of shuffling feet coursed down the stairwell. Percival could imagine the troops upstairs positioning themselves to rain lead down the stairwell.

“To the individual or individuals in the basement of 4431 Pacific Way, this is First Lieutenant Elias Proxies of the United States Army. Please identify yourselves in a peaceful manner or we’ll be forced to take your trespassing as hostile,” The officer called down from the top of the stairs.

Sarah looked at Percival for guidance. The thing was, he didn’t trust the men above them. They were discovered, that much was obvious, but the Army men didn’t know just how many of them were down there. Certainly Greyson had seen Percival, but not necessarily Sarah or Carlos.

And the last time they’d trusted strangers hadn’t exactly ended up the best either. Outside of Carlos, who had proven himself to be a valuable asset and ally, the last group of military, even pseudo-military, hadn’t had everyone’s best interests in mind.

And if Percival could give himself up with hopes that the other two would go undiscovered, but that would only last as long as it took for Greyson, or someone else, to come down into the basement to restart the generator.

There simply wasn’t enough space or obstacles down there to hide behind and provide cover or concealment. If Percival was caught in a lie, it might make it worse for them as a whole. Percival hated being leader sometimes. It outright sucked. He looked between Sarah and Carlos.

“We need an answer, please. No need to make this unpleasant for everyone. We will be forced to use force.”

Percival lowered the M16 and stood up straight. Even though the men shouting down at him couldn’t see, the gesture made him feel better.

“I’m Percival Polz. I’m here with two others, Sarah Josephewitz, and Carlos Redmont. We’re armed, but not hostile. We weren’t aware of your base here.” Percival shut up after that. Sarah had already followed his lead, standing up and lowering her weapon. After a few seconds, Carlos did the same thing.

“I’m glad you chose to be cooperative, Mister Polz,” Proxies said. “Lay down your arms where we can see them at the base of the stairs and we’ll escort you safely from this region.”

Sarah shook her head vehemently no. “Bad idea. Really bad idea,” she said quietly.

Not for the first time, Percival agreed with her.

“Not meaning to be rude, or disrespectful of your generous offer, Lieutenant, but we prefer to keep our weapons.” He had a sinking feeling that if he released any weapon into this Army-asshat’s hands he’d never see it again. And that it’d leave him next to defenseless against people who may well be far better trained than him in hand-to-hand combat.

He did only have two semesters of Judo under his belt. Something he wasn’t quick to forget, but also not something he wanted to overestimate. It wasn’t as though he were a 7th Don capable of taking on seasoned masters. And Judo was primarily a throwing art, rather than a striking art, meaning he’d need to get in close and endure possible punches and kicks that could be debilitating in their own right.

“Just as I know you can understand my plight with not having you disarmed before we come down there,” Proxies said. “Look, neither of us wants to see bloodshed today. If you just look at it from this direction…”

“How about we’ll sling our weapons and come out with our hands up?” Percival asked.

“That doesn’t leave us in much of a better situation than turning our guns in,” Carlos said hurriedly.

“No go,” Proxies said. “We’ve got protocol we have to follow up here.”

Percival looked around the darkened basement desperately hoping to have overlooked something that would help them out of the predicament they now found themselves in. “Can I have a moment to talk it over with my companions?”

“Of course, Mister Polz,” Proxies said. “We’ll give you five minutes. But I think you’ll come to our side of thinking well before that time’s up.”

Percival frowned looked between Sarah and Carlos. His two remaining teammates and allies. His lover and unexpected friend. “What do you two think?”

“It’s a load of horseshit,” Carlos said quietly. “If they’re operating under some sort of SOP that has them shooting civilians, it’s not an SOP I want to be underneath.”

Percival nodded. “Sarah?”

“We go into this guns blazing and it guarantees that they’ll return fire. I don’t like the prospect of turning my guns and crowbar and knife over to them, but,” she said.

“But?” Percival prompted.

“But if they’re operating under orders to escort people out of a combat zone provided they’re harmless, might be our way out. We do have more supplies at the Humvee.”

“And if they’re just trying to get us to disarm before shooting us?” Carlos demanded, his voice rising an octave. “Bitch in Roy Joy’s house shot first and never asked questions.”

“One of them did say she was off on her own,” Percival said. “She might have been a rogue member or outlier of some sort.”

“Three more minutes, Mister Polz. Then we need an answer,” Proxies said.

“And she’s missed regardless of whether or not she was an ‘outlier,’” Carlos said. “And you’ve got her tags. How much do you want to bet they’ll search you before they let us go?”

Percival frowned again. He’d taken the tags with the intention of returning them to whatever military faction she’d come from. He just hadn’t counted on that faction to be overtly hostile.

“You took her tags?” Sarah asked. Disbelief ran rampant in her voice. “Her gun and ammo I can understand. But, her tags?”

“I had intended to return them to whomever she’d been working with,” Percival explained. “So they would know what happened to her. Not knowing is sometimes worse and… They wouldn’t have had to know that she met her demise at my hands.”

Sarah shook her head.

“Sixty seconds.”

“Just a minute more,” Percival shouted back.

“Non-negotiable,” Proxies said.

“Or what?”

“You’re wasting time, Mister Polz. We’re not here to hurt you, but we can’t be unsafe in this matter either.”

Percival agreed wholeheartedly with half of that statement. He wondered if his face would ever get out of the frown he was letting it creep into. He slowly unslung the M16. “Do we have much of a choice? There’s at least three of them up there, likely more given the foot traffic we’ve heard. And we don’t know what sort of armament they’re toting.”

“We can assume at least what Finnen had. So an automatic rifle and spare ammunition. Maybe a military shotgun, grenades, explosives, a turret, powered armor?” Carlos said. His grim tone accented the frustration lying beneath his words.