The Last Bastion [Book 2] Read online

  He and Charla could see flashing red and blue lights in the streets of Lyons below their building. Several army vehicles were parked askew in their condo building’s lot.

  “I suppose that with law enforcement and army units here, we just have to bide our time and stay put,” Wendell nodded confidently, although the tone of his voice was anything but. “We should probably put some more stuff in front of the door…just in case those biters make it upstairs.”

  When they re-entered their condo, they could hear knocking on their front door.

  “Shhh!” Wendell hissed. “Listen!”

  They heard the knocking again.

  “Well?” Charla eyed her husband expectantly.

  He stared at her, unmoving. “It might be the biters!” he whispered, wide eyed.

  “Ugh,” Charla’s shoulder’s sagged in a combination of disappointment and disgust at her husband’s timidity. “Biters don’t knock,” she shook her head.

  “Wait!” he whispered, holding out a hand as she walked toward the door. “You didn’t see what I saw!”

  Charla peered through the door’s peephole and slid the small bookshelf aside. Then she unlocked the door and stepped back as she opened it, revealing their neighbors, Paul and Diana Richardson.

  “Please, come in,” Charla ushered them quickly inside.

  The Richardsons entered looking worried. Their brows were furrowed and they seemed jittery.

  Wendell rushed up, not to greet their guests but to relock the front door.

  “Did you hear that screaming downstairs?” Diana got right to the point.

  Charla and Wendell nodded in tandem as the foursome gathered in the living room.

  “Biters…they’re in the building,” Wendell explained, finally having calmed slightly from his experience downstairs.

  “What!” Paul exclaimed.

  “Oh…my,” Diana put a hand to her mouth.

  “You’d better stay here for right now. It’s not safe to be going back and forth in the halls,” Wendell advised. “There were a bunch of them in the stairwell, and they were making their way up.”

  “Have you called the police?” Diana asked.

  “Trying,” Charla held up her phone. “No luck. Lines are busy. But it looks like there are police and soldiers outside, so hopefully they’ll have the building cleared if we just sit tight.”

  “We can only pray,” Diana breathed, a hand held to her chest.

  “I think that if we…” Wendell began, but he was stopped by the sound of loud banging coming from outside in the hallway.

  “What in the hell is that?” Paul frowned, turning around to face the door.

  Charla went to the door and peeked out the peephole. Then she unlocked the door and began to open it.

  “Don’t do that!” Wendell hissed, rushing over to the door behind her.

  Charla opened the door just wide enough to stick out her head. After a moment, she pulled it back inside and shut the door behind her. “There are a couple biters down at the end of the hall. It looks like they’re trying to break into one of the end units. They’re beating on the door.”

  “They seem smart enough to know where the food is, but not how to get to it,” Wendell said. “If it’s not a push or pull-open door, they have trouble operating handle mechanisms like doorknobs and locks.”

  “Thank god,” Paul breathed.

  “I wonder if they will learn?” Charla said, half to herself.

  “Let’s hope not,” Paul answered. “I think we’ll be in bad shape if they figure out how to utilize tools or other devices. Even simple objects like rocks or hammers would be of significant use to them as ways to batter through doors and into buildings and homes.”

  “Right now, it seems like they mostly rely on brute force,” Charla said. “But the doors in this place aren’t that strong, so that might be enough.”

  “What about Buttons?” Charla heard Diane say softly to Paul. “If they find her, they’ll eat her for sure,” she choked, on the verge of tears. “We should have brought her with us.”

  “She’s a cat. She’ll be fine. She’ll probably just hide out until they’re gone, and that’s if they manage to get inside,” Paul tried to soothe his wife’s concerns. “We locked our door when we left.”

  “No,” Diana shook her head, tears in her eyes. “You heard Charla. The doors here aren’t that sturdy. And Buttons is a friendly cat. If they get into our condo, she’ll come out to say hello, and they’ll, they’ll…” she couldn’t go on, her emotions getting the better of her.

  “I’ll go back and get her,” Paul volunteered bravely.

  Diana looked at him and smiled through her tears. “Would you, sweetie?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Wendell said, his eyes about ready to pop out of his head. “You’re not actually considering going back out there for a cat, are you?”

  “You don’t understand. Buttons is like family,” Paul explained. “Like a child.”

  “I don’t think you understand,” Wendell shook his head incredulously. “Those, those…things are out there,” he pointed toward the door. “It’s no joke. You aren’t just watching this on the evening news. This isn’t some reality television show. This is real. They’re in the building. One of them was eating our downstairs neighbor…and she was still alive!”

  Charla glanced at her husband, not having completely understood the severity of the situation he had encountered earlier.

  “I’ll just be a minute. I’ll be in and out and back with Buttons in a minute…probably less,” Paul assured the group.

  Charla took a deep breath, realizing that Paul and Diana were set on retrieving their pet.

  “You shouldn’t do this alone. I’ll go with you,” Charla said.

  “No,” Wendell stopped her. “I’ll go.” He couldn’t believe he was saying the words. It was as if he’d had to wrench them from somewhere deep inside. But there was no way he was going to let Charla go out there, not after what he’d seen.

  A minute later, the group was hunched up around the condo’s front door.

  “Now make sure you lock the door as soon as we’re gone,” Wendell instructed Charla. “But don’t go far. We’ll be back quick, and we might have biters right behind us, so be ready to let us in fast. Got it?”

  “Got it,” nodded Charla and Diana.

  Wendell looked out the peephole and then cracked the door open about an inch, then wider. He stuck his head out, scanned the hallway, and then closed the door. “They’re gone,” he whispered to the others. “Now is our chance. Let’s go,” he reopened the door, scanned the hall again, and then stepped out. Paul was right behind him.

  They hurried several doors down to the Richardson’s unit where Paul quickly unlocked the door. They were inside with the door relocked behind them in just seconds.

  “Buttons!” Paul whispered hoarsely. “Buttons!” he called again, slightly louder this time. “Here kitty-kitty! Come here girl!”

  Wendell stood waiting impatiently by the door, looking back and forth between the door’s peephole and Paul searching for Buttons.

  “I thought you said she was friendly,” Wendell hissed. “Where the hell is she?”

  “Shhh! You’ll scare her!” Paul whispered back.

  “Looks like she’s scared already…like the rest of us,” Wendell muttered under his breath as Paul moved into the unit’s bedrooms to continue the search for his precious pussycat.

  A minute later, Wendell was still waiting. “Where is this stupid thing?” he muttered to himself, finally abandoning his post near the door to help Paul look.

  He found Paul in the master bedroom, on hands and knees, head stuck beneath the bed. “Buttons! Buttons!” he kept whispering.

  “Paul,” Wendell said. “We need to go.”

  “Just hold on…I’ve almost…” he reached under the bed. “Ha! Got her!” he pulled back and straightened, resting his butt on his heels, the sweet calico Buttons cradled in his arms. “There
, there, sweetie,” he soothed, petting the cat tenderly. “It’ll be all right,” he cooed in its ear.

  Wendell rolled his eyes in disgust. “Okay…you got the cat…now let’s go,” he turned and headed for the door.

  “Wait!” said Paul. “Let me get her favorite toy and her food. She hasn’t had dinner yet.”

  Wendell sighed heavily, his shoulders sagging. He stood, shaking his head as he waited for Paul to grab a small bag of cat food from the kitchen and pick up a small yellow stuffed rat from the floor.

  “Okay,” Paul came around the corner from the kitchen, kitty cradled in one arm, kitty supplies in the other. “I’m ready.”

  “Good,” Wendell nodded, leading the way to the door. “I’m glad we didn’t send your wife over,” he opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. “We might have been here all…”

  His words were cut short as he was flung to the ground.

  Paul was hit as well as he followed Wendell into the hallway, Buttons flying out of his arms and scampering off down the hall.

  Two biters were atop the men, grappling with them, mouths smeared with blood, fangs thrust outward in hideous grimaces as they snapped viciously.

  Wendell, still wearing the leather coat he’d put on to go out on the balcony, pushed a forearm up to keep the biter’s teeth away. But the biter attacked with ferocity, lunging forward, mouth agape, sinking its fangs into Wendell’s arm. Its teeth sliced into the leather of Wendell’s coat, but then their invasive drive toward his skin slowed and stopped just before striking tender flesh. Between the leather and the thick knit sweater that Wendell wore beneath it, the combination of heavy materials was enough to stop the penetration of the biter’s teeth.

  Paul wasn’t so lucky. Because he had been holding Buttons and the cat supplies, he wasn’t able to get his arms up in time to block his biter’s attack. Instead, the biter’s sharpened fangs sank deep into the fleshy side of his neck where they clamped down and then ripped a huge chunk of flesh away. The bite severed Paul’s jugular vein and left a gaping hole in his neck.

  But Wendell was too busy with his own biter to notice his neighbor’s dilemma. Wendell’s biter now seemed confused, its mouth firmly affixed to Wendell’s arm were its teeth had become ensnared in the mixture of coat and sweater material. The biter frantically began jerking its head back, trying to tear away from Wendell’s arm.

  The biter had just torn free when something heavy and solid collided with its head from behind. Wendell watched as the biter’s eyes rolled back into its head and it half slid, half rolled from its position atop him. It was then that he found himself staring up at his neighbor, Chris. Chris stood over Wendell, baseball bat in hand.

  “Come on! Get up!” Chris urged. He turned and landed the bat with a crack against the head of the biter currently feasting on Paul who now lay motionless on the floor beside Wendell. The biter slumped atop Paul and fell still, its mouth still full of flesh.

  Wendell scrambled to his feet, unable to avert his eyes from his fallen neighbor. Paul’s blood had saturated the hallway carpet around where he lay, turning it from bright beige to a dark maroon.

  “You okay?” Chris asked.

  “Uh…yeah,” Wendell nodded, open-mouthed and in shock from what had just happened.

  “Come on, let’s go,” Chris grabbed Wendell by the arm and guided him back to where Charla and Diana were waiting for them inside the condo.

  “Where’s Paul?” Diana shrieked her greeting to the two men. A look of tension-filled horror was smeared across her face upon seeing Chris and Wendell return without her husband.

  Wendell just shook his head, breathing heavily.

  “Didn’t make it,” Chris said as he hauled Wendell over to the living room sofa and plopped him down.

  “Didn’t make it?” Diana breathed aloud, a look of confused consternation coming over her.

  “Make sure that door gets locked!” Chris called to Charla. “Biters are out there. I used the bat on them, but I don’t think they’re dead,” he inspected his hardwood bat now smeared with patches of blood.

  Charla clicked the multiple locks on their front door and then hustled over to where Diana had collapsed on the floor. She was sobbing and shaking her head. “No…no…no,” she kept saying over again through her tears.

  Diana was completely distraught. In one five-minute period, she had not only lost her husband of twenty-five years, but her precious Buttons as well. And as Charla did her best to console her friend and neighbor, Chris urged Wendell to give him a hand.

  After having made a quick inspection of their condo, Chris found what he was looking for.

  “Help me get this desk over in front of the door,” he called to Wendell from the condo’s converted second bedroom that served as Wendell’s office.

  Wendell moved slowly, almost mechanically to help. He was in utter shock.

  “I think that if we place it right, it’ll wedge in tight against the front door,” Chris explained. “That’ll help block access should the biters try to make their way inside.”

  Wendell just nodded and cleared a few of his more cherished possessions from the desktop before helping Chris heft it into place before the front door. Before blocking the door completely, Chris made one more quick check of the hall. The biters were still there.

  With the condo secure, all attention turned to trying to get Diana calm. After she realized that Paul was out in the hallway with the biters, she had become hysterical. Chris tried to explain to her that there was no hope, that Paul was dead. The number of biters in the hall had now swelled to at least half a dozen. And trying to retrieve Paul’s body would only further endanger the others. It seemed that with a ready-made meal in the hallway, the scent of fresh meat seemed to draw biters like flies.

  The group of neighbors taking shelter together feared that Diana’s continual cries might entice the biters to attempt a break-in of the condo. Therefore, they had eventually escorted the now grieving widow out onto the balcony. There, they hoped that the combination of fresh air and the chilly December temperatures would help calm her. And somewhat to their surprise, the change of environment worked. Diana calmed noticeably after a few minutes outside. The sub-freezing temperatures seemed to extract some of the energy she was putting toward mourning her dead husband.

  After they’d soothed Diana to what they felt was an acceptable level, Wendell and Chris went back inside. They left Charla to attempt some “woman talk” as Chris put it to Wendell once out of earshot of Diana.

  The two men worked to further bolster their bulwarks at the front door. They added several small but heavy bookshelves (filled to near bursting with some of Wendell’s library of historical tomes), to help solidify the desk’s position before the door.

  “Thanks for what you did out there,” Wendell said to Chris somewhat sullenly.

  “No problem. I’m sure you would have done the same for me,” Chris shrugged, nonchalantly. “So you guys went out there to rescue a cat?” he squinted at Wendell with a disbelieving look.

  “Yeah,” Wendell nodded. “Buttons…Paul and Diana’s cat.”

  Chris took a deep breath and shook his head, “People and their pets. I’m not a big animal guy personally. Wouldn’t mind having a dog, but I wouldn’t want to leave it alone all day while I’m at work. Just doesn’t seem right.”

  “Yeah…I guess not,” Wendell nodded, not really paying much attention to what Chris was saying. His thoughts were elsewhere, split between an array of far more important matters. He kept having flashbacks to the attack in the hallway, to the woman being eaten downstairs, to Paul being eaten…still being eaten in the hallway just outside. His thoughts were also on their current predicament and how long they’d have to wait for authorities to clear the building of biters. The longer they had to wait, the longer Chris might stick around. And the longer Chris stuck around, the longer Wendell had to worry about him getting cozy with Charla.

  As they positioned another bookshelf, Wendell l
ooked at the beefcake across from him and wondered how he could get him to go out into the hallway with the biters. It didn’t matter. The door was secured and it would be too much work. He was going to have to ride this thing out with super-hunk strutting around, flexing his muscles, giving orders, and saving the day whenever he got the chance. At least Diana was here. She worked to distract from what could be an extremely uncomfortable situation otherwise. The thought of being the only thing standing between Chris and Charla gave Wendell pangs of nervous concern. One good whack from Chris with that bat would be all it took to steal Charla from him. And in the apocalyptic world that seemed to be unfolding around them, such a blow would be easy enough to explain away.

  “Well…I thought he was a biter. He came at me and I just reacted,” Wendell could see Chris explaining to the police with his 1000-watt smile.

  “Sure, we get it,” the responding officer would nod. “Easy to make a mistake like that. If you’d just sign this affidavit that it was indeed an accident, we’ll be happy to haul off the remains and get on to more important matters.”

  Wendell shook his head and frowned. He could just see it. Then Wendell would be out of the picture and Chris would have Charla all to himself. But Diana would keep Charla busy until the police got things under control. Then Chris could strut back to his condo, and things would get back to normal.

  Suddenly there was the sound of shouting from outside on the balcony. Wendell and Chris both turned to see Charla waving her arms and then trying to pull Diana back from where she had climbed over the railing.

  A second later and it was all over. Diana’s outline disappeared from view and Charla was left staring at an empty void where her friend and neighbor had stood just moments earlier.

  Wendell and Chris both rushed outside and joined Charla who was looking over the balcony railing. Six stories beneath their condo balcony, they could see Diana lying limp and lifeless on the pavement below.

  Chapter 3

  The half-block portion of Brookfield, Illinois, where the citizens had formed a neighborhood social club known as the Block Enders or “Blenders” for short, was abuzz with activity. There was a flurry of organized chaos as the seven households – comprised of 13 adults and 9 children – rushed to ready their vehicles for departure.