Aftermath (Book 1): Only The Head Will Take Them Down (34 page)

The mass of concrete and brickwork in front bore every hallmark of a building long since abandoned, and probably one that was in fact still overrun. Numerous shapes shifted slowly from side to side, clearly visible through the many smashed windows and collapsed walls. Worse still was that the walkways remained intact, meaning that whatever had gotten into the first overrun building, would no doubt have spread to the remaining areas. Instantly both men felt a sense of disappointment, and knew there would be little here of use. However, keen to cover every base, they drove further in, John dictating the route as they moved, his eyes flicking from the map in front of him, to the roads ahead.

“Left here”, John instructed, as the truck turned into the first of its scheduled through roads. The sight of a second overhead walkway came quickly into view, again still intact, and by the looks of the shapes inside, just as occupied with the dead as every other building they had so far seen.
“There must be thousands around here”, John stated as he looked upwards to the many moving figures above.
“No wonder they tried to take the city back”, Andrew replied. “Surprised they didn’t just cut their losses and burn it down”, he added, immediately regretting the words that had escaped his mouth, knowing how much they would hurt his companion, “Sorry”, he said quickly, awkwardly closing his eyes as well as his mouth as tightly as possible, waiting in agony for John’s reaction.
To Andrew’s surprise however, it came only in the form of a limp hand, waving off the remark as he continued to look around. Much to Andrew’s relief, he was clearly more occupied with the search than anything else.

Before long it was obvious the hospital was a bust, and after a few minutes the truck had fully circled the complex, ready to move on to the next building. The growing sense of disappointment on John’s face became increasingly obvious, not only to Andrew, but to Andrew’s family too.
“We’ll find them Mr John”, Hannah said chirpily from the back seat, her ever delighted tone just powerful enough to squeeze a quick smile out of the stone faced front passenger, before he returned to his somewhat morbid usual expression.
“Onto the college?”, Andrew asked, as he spotted a sign pointing towards the nearby technical college, the next stop on their list of potential campsite locations.
“Guess so”, John said, after giving one final look to the nearest hospital building, and seeing nothing more than the dead, and the carnage and havoc they had wreaked.

Chapter 35: Creating a Following

By the time they had departed from their penultimate location – a museum that turned out to be devoid of anything, living or dead – the relatively loud and significantly large Ford had attracted quite a fan-fare, in the form of twenty or so corpses that followed blindly a few hundred metres to its rear.
“How do they keep finding us?”, Andrew asked of John, hoping for some sort of reassurance as he grew increasingly worried at the horde’s slow but persistent presence.
“Not sure they’re the same ones”, John replied.
“They’re…what?”, Andrew asked, confused.
“They look like a different group, probably picked ‘em up at the courthouse”, John explained, referring to their previous stop, a courthouse just a mile or so further back. “If we keep rounding them up like this and then losing them there’s gonna be a whole lot of hordes just roaming the city”, he added.
“So what do you suppose we do?”, Andrew asked, concerned that they might be empowering the enemy by grouping them together, but also unable to ignore the fact that soon enough, it would hopefully be none of their concern.
“Nothing we can do. Just got to hope we don’t see them again”, John said.

For a few moments Andrew remained silent, content with the idea of moving on to the final waypoint, ignoring anything but their targeted stop. However the idea of John potentially staying behind was slowly getting to him, and before long, he was forced to ask the all-important question.
“How can you even think about staying here? If we don’t find them?”, Andrew asked.
“What?”, John responded, somewhat startled slightly by the directness of the question.
“If they’re not there, at the Museum”, Andrew started, referring to the building they had designated as their final destination, “How can you see all of the biters, all the ruined buildings, all the horrors of this place, and still want to keep looking?”.
“You know the answer to that”, John replied.
“Sure, I did, but now I’m not so sure”, Andrew said.
“What?”, John asked again.
“What if they’re not here John? What if they’re in Chicago? What if they’re sitting pretty, safe, and you die out here trying to find them?”, he asked. “What if we get there and find them, and all we can do is tell them you’re here, probably dead, or at least close to it”.
“I’d rather die looking for my family, than give up and leave, only to find out I was in the same god damn city”, John replied.
“John, be realistic here”, Andrew started again, “One flat tire, one empty fuel tank, one breakdown, and you’re trapped here, hordes and all, waiting for death”, he said bluntly. “You’re no use to anybody dead”.

For the next few moments, as Andrew continued to drive on towards their final stop, John mulled over his companion’s words. His heart, head and conscience were all fighting over the options in front of him, and he was trying as hard as he could to rationalise the idea of staying. The worst part however, was that the more he thought about them, the more he remembered exactly what he’d always taught them, how he’d always insisted that they should flee to safety at the first sign of trouble. Realistically, if they’d listened to anything he’d said, they’d be in Chicago right now, safe, secure, and waiting for him.

“From Chicago, you can still look for them. But if you stay, and you don’t make it out, then this is all for nothing, this is all just… done”, Andrew said, with a tone that John knew meant it was his last attempt at persuasion.
“Alright”, John eventually replied. “I’ll come with you, but I won’t stop looking”, he explained.
“Neither will I John”, Andrew said with slight remnants of a smile spreading across his face, coupled with a sigh of great relief, “Neither will I”.

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The Milwaukee art museum was half conventional building, half modern, futuristic looking architectural phenomenon. The more cultured side of it erupted spectacularly from the ground, its huge white suspension cables stretching high into the sky above, despite the bulk of the building itself being just two stories high. For years it had brought in visitors en masse, its design prowess alone enough to attract people from far and wide, regardless of the many treasures housed inside. But today, in a world where looks and elegance were worth no more than the ground they were placed on, each of its spectacular features simply sank into the darkened landscape, nothing more than yet another sorry sight.

What was of use however, was its location. The main entrance to the museum sat just metres from the waters of lake Michigan, and was joined via an open aired, overhead walkway, to a purpose built car-park on the other side of the road it resided on. What this meant on the face of things, was that a reasonably large, but not unmanageable section of the museum, was bordered on one side by open lake, and included an escape route to the other, covering just about every possible eventuality. In addition, what lay in front of the museum - Underneath the overhead walkway – was a large, open area of grass and water features, giving a field of view around the entire building. In survival terms, it was a gold mine, and it was that exact reason that brought such shock to both John and Andrew, as their truck approached the front of the building, and they began to see it in its more current light.

“My God”, Andrew said, his eyes wide and gazing over to the middle section of the museum, its entire structure completely collapsed, as if hit by a series of huge explosions.
The central area of the museum – which previously linked the more artistic and cultural Southern structure with its much larger, much more conventional Northern building – now remained as nothing more than rubble. Brought down by some mighty mass, it had been completely decimated, and now provided a direct view into the still-standing North and South sides, the exposed area allowed line of sight into the various exhibits lining each edge.
“What happened here”, Andrew half asked, not expecting an answer, but feeling obliged to at least pose the question.
“Something big”, John replied un-informatively. “Something big enough to bring a lot of attention”, John added, his finger raising up to point to a particular area of the Southern section.

The front of the building’s main entrance was almost completely glass, huge floor to ceiling panels, separated only by the struts that kept them in place. Stretching across multiple floors and up into the roof above, they gave an almost completely transparent view into the building, save for the thick layer of dirt that had accumulated along it. What this sight exposed however, was much more troubling than the notion of dirtied and occasionally cracked glass, as the sight of hundreds of the undead, all of them packed tight against the windows, came into view.

“Jesus Christ”, Andrew exclaimed, How in the hell did so many turn in one place?”, he asked, this time hoping for a more informed response, “Do you think… do you think that was the campsite?”.
“There’s too many there for that”, John replied, “If they’d all been in there alive, all been human when they started turning, someone would have broken a window, or a door or something”, he suggested.
John was right of course. Only now, after what looked to have been months of imprisonment, did the biters stand dormant. Had they all turned in there at some point, it was almost certain that more chaos would have ensued, and that the desperate few yet to turn would no doubt have headed for the exits, smashing windows where none could be reached. Shortly afterwards, John’s theory was further compounded, as the front doors of the museum’s south side came into view.

“There”, John pointed again, “They’ve been barricaded, someone locked them in there after they’d turned”, he said, gesturing towards an assortment of bars and planks boarding up the entrance from the outside.
“But, why would someone do that?”, Andrew asked.
“Beats me. That many of ‘em though, would have taken a lot of bullets, someone probably saved a whole lot of resources by just leading them in there and trapping them”, John suggested. “They probably found a way to climb up to the upper floor, then walked right out those doors”, he said, pointing to the exit that led out onto the overhead walkway. “Then they go back downstairs and seal the doors behind them, problem solved”.

The theory was complex, but a good one nonetheless. Although difficult, it was entirely possible to lead a large horde in such a way – it had been exactly what John and Andrew had been doing their whole time in Milwaukee – and if someone was able to lead enough of them into a closed off building such as this one, they would almost certainly save themselves some serious ammo, as well as the trauma and effort of killing so many of the undead.

“Well”, Andrew said after a few moments of quiet contemplation over what the sights in front of them meant, “That’s it then I guess”.
John slowly opened his door, climbing out to the ground below, his stern posture and stance more powerful than yelling the words “I will not give up”, but the ruined museum in front of him all but shoving that back in his face.
“John”, Andrew said again, “I think that’s it”.
“I know”, John replied, withdrawing the scrap of paper on which he’d written the eight possible destinations, and taking one final look up at what he had been sure was their best bet. After a few final moments, he looked back down at the tattered paper, and scratched off the final entry, before saying those painful words once more, “I know”.

For Andrew, that very moment felt eerier than any other. It was like the world had taken on a new level of silence, a new example of just what emptiness really was. Strangely, all of it was coming from just looking at the face of his companion, as John span around looking at everything and anything nearby, desperate for the slightest reason not to give up. Andrew couldn’t blame him of course, what he was asking him to do was to stop a search for his own flesh and blood, a noble quest that any man would consider, but only the best of men would undertake. Andrew hated that he was asking him to do such a thing, but he knew, beyond any reasonable doubt, that if John stayed here alone, in a truck with just a few hours of fuel left, that he would die here.

Before long, John had done a full circle, and then another, and then another. By the time he eventually stopped, he’d looked at just about every building of interest nearby, and not a single one had fit the bill for a campsite, a stronghold, or even a place of interest to any of the few survivors that might remain in the city. He came to a standstill once more just a few metres from the truck, his body defiantly facing away from the museum, as if shutting out the biggest failure of the list.

The sun was just beginning to crack through the thick clouds above, casting the odd ray of light down across the bay behind him. But John had no interest in what seemed like the first light of the day, his eyes instead drawn into the rear seats of the nearby Ford, where Andrew’s wife and daughter sat patiently. He longed for his own family more than ever as he caught sight of Sarah and Hannah, before quickly looking up and away from the pair, knowing that the sight of them would only make the pain worse.

Instead he found himself looking at the museum’s car-park. Its great concrete mass was a stark contrast to the elegant, sophisticated design of the museum that connected to it, and the dark, dreary shadows of its two covered floors appeared much less welcoming than the overpass with which it adjoined. John knew that the next step of their journey now hinged on them obtaining a boat, readying themselves, and then setting off for Chicago, and so if nothing else, he was sure it would make for a good preparation area.

As he inspected the roof of the structure, his lips reluctantly opening up, ready to verbally formulate the next stage of the plan, a slight glimmer of light suddenly caught his eye, before quickly disappearing. In a normal situation, a glimmer of light like this one was perfectly normal, whether it be a moving vehicle’s paintwork reflecting the afternoon sun, or the light of a swinging bulb ricocheting off of a nearby window. But no longer were moving vehicles common place enough to explain the brief glare, and nor was there more than a few sources of bulb-powering electricity remaining, none of which John had witnessed since arriving in Milwaukee.