I Am Automaton

Chapter 14

“Fall back!” Peter ordered.

Their two guests had other ideas. They began to open fire at the approaching ID. The ID stumbled and staggered through the gunfire, but only one that had been hit in the head (probably accidentally) was stopped permanently.

Carl ran up to one of the men and tapped him on the shoulder. The man looked over at Carl angrily as he continued to fire into the closing ID.

Carl made a gun with his thumb and index finger and pantomimed shooting himself in the head. The man shot him a look that could only be construed as pure bile, and then he aimed his rifle higher.

He took out two of the closest ID with headshots, but both men’s bursts were too erratic and uncontrolled. They’d be out of bullets before disposing of the ID.

“Carl!” Peter yelled. Carl turned back to look at Peter. Peter made a swirling motion with his finger and then gestured with all five fingers on a straightened hand to move into the gym.

Peter retreated into the hallway, and his men followed. During the brief pauses between gunfire, Peter heard the tourists on the other side of the convention doors yelling out.

Jorge, don’t open those doors, whatever you do. He tried to open the glass doors to the gym, but they were locked. He smashed the glass with the butt of his rifle and breached the entrance.

All of the men filed into the gym. They began to look around for anything they could use.

Behind them, they heard one of the terrorists screaming and banging on the convention doors. It appeared the ID were doing their thing, and quite effectively from the sounds of it.

“Quick, grab some free weights,” Peter ordered. He went and grabbed a straight bar lying on the floor without weights on it. He wielded it to get a feel for it, like a kid taking a practice swing on deck at a little league game. It was longer and heavier than the baton he carried.

Carl put down his MR.UD and was looking around. “Where’re we making our stand, Lieutenant?”

Peter looked around the gym. There were two sets of stairs separated by a landing leading to the machines upstairs.

“We go up. We can barricade the top with the machines. As they make it up and over one or a couple at a time, we smash their skulls in.”

“Wait,” Carl pointed over to the benches. “Let’s load up the bars with the weights on them and take them up. We can drop them from the top and take a bunch of them down at once.”

“Good idea, Carl. Barnes, Longo, and Munger, help Carl. Mirabella, Hasbro, and Smithe, bring as many free weights as you can up the stairs.”

The hallway was eerily quiet. The ID were feeding.

“Let’s move it, men. We only have until when the ID have finished their snack.”

Carl and Barnes loaded up one bar with heavy weights and each took a side. They walked quickly but carefully towards the stairs, grunting under the weight of their load. Longo and Munger loaded up their bar and were right behind them.

They started up the stairs and were nearly startled into dropping their loads as the back glass door cracked from the impact of a rather large ID. Outside they were being blown all over the place. But the large, glass windows of the modern gym might as well have been a supermarket window, and the ID were getting a good glimpse of the food running around inside.

They all saw Peter and his men, and they were all converging on the gym in their relentless way, persevering in the 175 mile per hour wind.

“Hurry up! We gotta move!” Pete yelled in encouragement. Carl, Barnes, Longo, and Munger just reached the top when the ID started barging into the gym on the other side from the hallway.

“The machines, move ‘em!”

They took treadmills, elliptical machines, anything they could find, and they piled them in a heap at the top of the stairs, wedging them into the rails at the sides.

A few ID burst through the glass doors at the bottom of the stairs and began to make their clumsy ascent. But they were only functioning as they were supposed to. Peter knew this. And having been trained in using them, he had some idea about how to deal with them on the receiving end.

His men moved with a purpose, and so far, no one lost their cool. But the true test of their fortitude was about to begin. It wasn’t just the ID’s appearance that unnerved their prey. It was their slow, steady pursuit. They took just about whatever was thrown at them, and then they kept coming.

But Peter and his men knew how to slow them down, separate them, and dispatch them.

“Bring the first barbell.”

Carl and Barnes lifted it slowly and put it down on the inside of their barricade. The ID made their way up slowly, wheezing and growling, their glassy eyes fixed on their imminent meal and jaws snapping in anticipation.

“Steady. Steady.”

The group from outside rounded the landing and were beginning their ascent of the second staircase, and the group from the hallway crossed the floor with the blood and intestinal juices of the two terrorists smeared across their faces.

The group climbing the stairs was almost all the way up and was reaching for the barricade.

“Okay, NOW.”

Carl and Barnes picked up each end of the barbell and hoisted it up above their heads. They leaned up against their side of the barricade.

“On three,” Carl grunted. Barnes nodded. “One, two, THREE.”

They tossed the barbell down on top of the approaching hoard, catching several of them and pulling them down to the landing.

There was the crunching of bones. A couple were silenced permanently, their heads crushed under the weight. The others kept coming, grabbing onto the overturned equipment.

Those maimed on the landing below were beginning to recover and pulled broken carcasses up the stairs with whatever limbs and appendages they had left.

At least they thinned the herd, and that was the exact effect Peter was looking for. A couple of ID were climbing over the barricade.

Peter brought down his straight bar on the head of the first. He finished the job with a second blow. The one behind it almost made it all the way over, but Longo brought a free weight down on the back of its head, caving in its skull. As it reached out for him he struck again, and then one last time. Blood and grey matter splattered everywhere.

“Don’t get any on you,” Peter warned.

Peter saw they had mere moments before the next wave began climbing the stairs. He handed Barnes his straight bar, and climbed over the barricade. Barnes reached over and handed the bar back to him.

He flew down the stairs, taking two at a time, and began whacking the heads of those ID dragging themselves up.

Carl saw that the next wave was making their way up and closing in on his brother. He climbed the barricade. “I’ll be just a moment.”

He extended his baton and descended the stairs, bringing it down on the skulls of crawling ID alongside his brother.

“Carl, what are you doing?”

“Helping my brother. Look.”

Peter looked up in time to see more ID reaching the landing.

“Let’s go,” he said as he smashed one lying on its back in the face.

Carl brought his baton down on one that grabbed his ankle, and then struck two more times. Peter grabbed him and they both turned around as undead fingertips clawed at their black suits. All of their suits were torn from their fall into the cenote, and the ID tracked their cuts and sweat.

They climbed the stairs as fast as they could, the ID right on their heels, and began to climb the barricade. They were half-way over when the second wave reached the top.

Barnes and Munger reached out and, grabbing their hands, pulled Peter and Carl back over. Longo and Hasbro had the second barbell hoisted in the air.

“NOW,” Peter yelled as he hit the ground on the safe side.

Longo and Hasbro tossed the next barbell over, sending several ID crashing down to the landing below. But this time there was more of them, and they were climbing over the barricade.

They fought some of them off, scoring deadly blows to heads with batons and free weights, but some made it over. Now the men were retreating.

A female ID had climbed on top of Mirabella, opening her mouth wide, flipping the top of her head like a candy dispenser. As she lunged for his face, he pulled out his rather large knife and placed it over his face pointing out.

She fell on the knife, pushing into it as if she was trying to swallow it whole, and the tip came out the back of her head. Viscous black liquid dribbled down the blade and onto his gloved hand and wrist.

He rolled her then motionless carcass over and pulled his knife out of her mouth. Carl pulled him away from the other ID stumbling off the barricade and dragged him back with the other soldiers.

Another young woman in her twenties was crawling over the top of the heap of exercise machines. She got her footing rather quickly and looked at Mirabella with imploring glassy eyes whitewashed with death, an uncanny smile on her face.

He found himself swimming in her lifeless pools gazing into him, unaware of Carl shouting for him to get up. He was tired, so tired, and she at that moment did not look so abhorrent.

He was jarred from his exhausted reverie as she sunk teeth into his upper thigh.

“NO!” Carl yelled as the company drew back. More ID began to climb the barricade and reach the other side. Some piled on Mirabella, ending him.

“Don’t look at their eyes!” Peter shouted.

They had never been on the receiving end of the ID, other than the orientation in the Labyrinth, so this was their first uncontrolled experience with the psychological component of being hunted.

There was the visceral revulsion of encountering an undead drone; the phobias of disease, germs, and being eaten alive, but these drones were once human and still retained many human traits and expressions. It induced a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, where you were so tired of being pursued that you just as well joined them.

However, the ID did no recruiting, and they took no prisoners. When they finished with you, there was nothing left to reanimate. Reanimation only occurred when they were interrupted from completing their ghastly purpose.

Peter looked around frantically. There was a workout room behind them, glass walled and mirrored on the inside, likely a room for classes.

“Into that room,” Peter ordered.

The men fell back, striking blows with whatever they had. Hasbro had misjudged a strike with a hefty free weight, placing his fist directly into a middle-aged Asian man’s mouth. The ID chomped down on his hand as two others reached around and pulled him in, seizing his forearms in their jaws.

Longo lost it and ran to the railing. Before Peter could shout any protest, he flung himself off the second floor in a final act of desperation.

He hit the ground, legs first, shattering his knee joints. As he laid there wailing in pain, two teenage boys began to shuffle their way over to him. He pulled out his baton, but he couldn’t see straight from the pain. The boys closed in on him, their faces wild with cannibalism.

Peter heard Longo’s shrieks as he entered the mirrored room. Barnes, Carl, Munger, and Smithe filed in and Peter closed the glass door, locking it from the inside.

There were now only five of them left, and Peter could not believe how his platoon was being victimized rather effectively by their own training.

The psychological effects were gradually setting in, the effect amplified by the mirrored walls. As the ID pressed themselves up against the glass, the reflections in the mirrors made it appear as if they were surrounded on all four sides.

Their banging on the glass, the hisses, and the moans prevented Peter from thinking straight. His men looked to him for guidance, for the glass would not hold the ID back much longer.

Carl saw his brother’s vexation, so he snatched Peter’s metal bar from his hands and smashed the mirror behind them. Then he did the same with the mirror on the wall to the left, and then on the wall to the right.

The act of Carl shattering the glass and the relief from the hideous reflections allowed Peter to come to his senses again.

“We gotta get out of here, Lieutenant,” Barnes pleaded, his face pale with terror.

If Peter didn’t come up with something quick, his men would descend into madness and let the ID take them.

Carl scanned the room. Suddenly, he was reminded of his experience with the Labyrinth.

“Pete, look up there,” he pointed to a rather large air conditioning vent.

Peter traced the likely path of the duct with his eyes, and saw that it stretched over the gym and out. “Barnes, give Carl a lift up to that vent.”

Barnes nodded and gave Carl a boost up. Carl pulled off the screen and tossed it aside. He stuck his head inside the vent, looked around, and then he pulled it back out.

“We can fit,” he shouted down, “but we should only go one at a time and space ourselves apart. The ventilation shaft won’t hold the weight of too many of us.”

“Carl, you first.”

Carl nodded, and he climbed in. The shaft was wide enough for him to squeeze in with some room to spare. With the power off, it was hot and stuffy. But Carl’s special suit helped, as it was designed to, and he began to commando crawl through.

“Smithe, you’re next,” Peter directed.

Barnes gave Smithe a boost, and Smithe peered into the shaft. He saw Carl crawling away. “He’s outside, Lieutenant.”

Peter looked outside into the gymnasium and above the heads of more than a dozen frenzying ID. He noticed a bulge in the ventilation moving slowly over the gym.

“Good boy, Carl,” he said to himself. Then he nodded to Smithe. Smithe hoisted himself up and into the vent and began his commando crawl across.

The ID were pounding on the glass. Silent spider webs were beginning to form, the cracking of the glass drowned out by the growling of hungry undead and the dull roar of the hurricane outside.

“Munger, now you.”

Carl barely heard the noises of the ID over his own echoed clamoring through the airshaft. The dust was tickling his nose, and he did his best to stifle a sneeze. But he heard several sneezes from someone a ways behind him. He wondered if the ID detected men climbing through the airshafts overhead.

Eventually he took a sharp right turn and a bit of a dip as he figured he likely cleared the gym and was somewhere in the hallway in front of the convention center.

He came to a fork, where a shaft went ninety degrees to the left. He figured that was the direction of those hundreds of terrified tourists, so he pushed on forward. He hoped he guessed correctly, as the space was too small to allow him to consult his Mini-com Multi-tasker, which was at the moment strapped to his leg.

Peter and Barnes were the only ones left. The ID had breached the glass, jutting arms and heads through the jagged holes, snapping their jaws while shredding themselves on the shards. However, they didn’t register pain and apparently hadn’t noticed the damage they were inflicting on themselves.

All they noticed was that their prey was thinning in numbers, an apparent realization that seemed to cause them to double their efforts.

“You next, Lieutenant,” Barnes said.

“No, you first,” Peter insisted.

Barnes wanted to argue, but the truth of the matter was that he was scared out of his mind and was relieved at Peter’s insistence that he go first. Who was he to question a commanding officer?

Peter laced his fingers together, palms up, and gave the massive Barnes a boost up. Barnes peeked into the shaft. He didn’t see anyone. He looked down at Peter.

“What about you?”

“I’m right behind you.”

“But how are you…”

“I’m right behind you,” Peter said, voice steady, tone insistent. “Get going. I have to wait until you get far enough away.”

Barnes nodded his understanding rather emphatically and pulled himself into the shaft.

Peter knew he wasn’t going to make it.

The ID were beginning to topple the glass wall entirely and push through the door. For once, he figured he wouldn’t be the last one left. He saw that Carl made it up and out, and his little brother would have to work with the other men to survive the rest of the way.

Since Tijuana, Peter was resolved that he was going to die in action. It was the only decent way to go. To rejoin his old squad. To be with his friend, Apone. To silence his guilt.

Although he was tempted to take his own life on a few occasions, he knew fate would provide the proper venue for his ticket out of this world if he only waited.

No more nightmares. No more blame. Just peace.

Several ID made it fully into the room and began to close in on Peter. But just because he counted on dying, didn’t mean that he had to go quietly. Oh, he planned to fight to the bitter end, exacting what hateful vengeance he had left on the drones right in front of him.

He picked up his metal bar and pounded it into the floor in front of him. “All right, you dead heads. Let’s dance.”

The few closest to him were more than happy to oblige, and he began swinging like Babe Ruth with a curious smile on his face.

Carl saw a grate in the floor of the shaft. He crawled his way over to it and peeked down.

The room below was dark and apparently empty. He saw the top feeders of what must have been copy machines. A long countertop wrapped around an area with printers and fax machines. It looked like the inside of the Business Center.

Carl decided to push the grate down. It fell and clanged on the countertop below. He waited for any kind of movement. After a few minutes of silence, he flicked on his shoulder light. Satisfied that the room was empty, he decided he would drop inside.

He lowered the upper half of his body down through the open grate and hung upside down bent at the waist. As the blood rushed to his head, he took stock of his surroundings.

He grabbed the edge of the opening and flipped slowly, controlling his movements, as he slid his lower body out and assumed a chin-up position.

His fingers gave way under the weight and the clumsy angle, and he fell, landing on the counter on his butt. It wasn’t the most graceful of entrances, but it had to do.

He slid behind the counter for cover as he scanned the room for anything he could use. One-by-one the others would be coming and they’d regroup. Pete would have some kind of plan.

He heard shuffling from somewhere behind him, and he reeled around to see an ID stumbling around behind a large plastic ornamental tree.

Carl switched off his shoulder light, ducked behind the counter, and held his breath as he listened. He didn’t think the ID saw him, but he couldn’t be sure. He mustered up the courage to venture a look.

He slowly peeked above the countertop, and the ID had apparently won its wrestling match with the plastic tree. Free, it was wandering in Carl’s direction. The ID was sniffling and wheezing, and Carl wondered if it had picked up on his scent.

Fortunately, Carl was enclosed in the work area by the counter. But as he traced the perimeter with his eyes, he saw an opening in the counter. If this ID made it around the counter, it would most likely find it, and in turn Carl.

Carl scanned the countertop. There were staplers, two computers, and a paper cutter…the paper cutter. He crawled over as silently as he could to the paper cutter. The wheezing seemed to follow him around.

He reached up and began to unscrew the hinge from which the large blade and wooden handle jutted out. It was one of those industrial strength paper cutters that could chop through a good batch of paper if the proper amount of force was applied.

As he loosened the screw it squeaked softly, and the ID seemed to grunt in response. Carl stopped, straining his ears. After a few heartbeats, the ID resumed its shuffling.

Carl removed the screw and reached up with both hands, cradling the large blade. He gently slid the blade off, making a small noise as metal scraped on metal at the joint.

The shuffling and gurgling was now past him and moving in the direction of the opening in the countertop. Carl crawled over towards the opening, dragging the large blade silently on the carpet beside him.

He got to his feet, but in a hunched position, and grabbed the blade’s handle in his right hand. He waited, as the shuffling grew nearer. He prepared himself. His strike would have to be quick and accurate. He probably had only one shot to cleave this bastard’s head open before it grabbed him.

The ID padded in front of the opening, and it looked like it was going to keep on going by. But it suddenly stopped, sniffing the air and wheezing like a set of old bagpipes.

Carl braced himself, hoping it would continue past. He would then run up behind the ID and strike his blow.

However, the ID looked in the gap and then down at Carl with those white eyes. The man looked like he must have been young, sturdy, and even handsome in his heyday.

Carl stood up and brought the blade back behind his head with both hands as the ID growled at him like a bobcat. Before it could reach out for him, Carl brought the blade down on its head.

But something went wrong. The ID staggered backward, losing its balance for a moment, but other than that, appeared undamaged.

Carl looked in his hands and saw that in his nervous haste, he brought down the dull end on the fiend’s head. Cursing his carelessness, Carl spun the blade handle and leapt forward bringing the sharp end down on its skull.

The ID fell to the floor in a prone position, flailing about but still quite undead. Carl lined the blade up, drew it back over his head, and brought it down on the back of its neck. The blade sliced through half of its neck, and it flopped around on the floor at Carl’s feet like a

flounder on the deck of a boat. Carl put his foot on its head to keep it still, and he brought the blade down two more times, severing the head from its body.

It lay there still as Carl caught his breath. He wheeled around as he heard a crash behind him, raising the blade above his head again.

Smithe stood up and rubbed his head sheepishly.

“Jesus, Smithe. What took you so long?”

Smithe looked down at the decapitated ID at Carl’s feet. “Kick ass, Birdsall.”

“Did Pete make it out?”

“I don’t know. Someone’s not too far behind me, but I’m not sure who.” Smithe looked around. “So this is the Business Center. Nice. I have to have my next business conference here.”

“The ID in the gym are going to figure out that their meal vamoosed, and they’ll be searching for us. We don’t have much time,” Carl said with urgency.

“There’s nowhere for us to go,” Smithe said, “We can’t go outside. It’s too dangerous.”

“How many you figure we got in the gym?”

Smithe looked like he was doing quick calculations in his head. “Several, I’d say. Maybe a dozen.”

“Shit, there’s more than several coming for us. We can’t keep running around the Business Wing killing a few at a time. We need to find a way to take them out in bunches.”

Munger poked his head through the vent. “Hey, guys.”

He lowered himself down a little more gracefully than Smithe. He hit the countertop on his side and then swung himself over to the outside of the work area. He looked down at the decapitated ID.

“Christ.”

“Birdsall’s handiwork,” Smithe announced proudly.

“Nice job, Birdsall,” said Munger, obviously impressed. “Any others?”

“Yeah, but we saved ‘em for you, Munger,” Smithe said sarcastically.

“Screw you, Smithe.”

“Good one. I think the ID have wittier comebacks,” Smithe taunted.

Carl was walking around the Business Center while the other two were exchanging sophomoric insults. He peeked out the glass doors. The room in front of the convention center was empty…for the moment.

He reached out and tugged on the door handle. It opened a little. Carl closed it and looked down. There was a small bolt. He pushed it down with his foot, driving it home and locking the doors.

There was another crash behind them.

“GODDAMMIT.”

It was Barnes. The mountain of a man had come crashing down behind the countertop. Smithe and Munger rushed around to the opening in the countertop.

Carl ran over. He heard Barnes gasping in pain. “You all right?”

Barnes tried to get up, but he winced in pain and fell back down. “I think my leg’s broke.”

“Great,” Munger said, “now we have to drag his huge ass around while we run from the ID.”

Munger was right. Barnes was a large man, an asset in hand-to-hand combat with the ID. However, with a broken leg, he became their biggest liability.

“Did Pete make it into the shaft?” Carl asked, hopeful.

Munger and Smithe helped Barnes up, who was balancing on his good leg. “I don’t know. I told him to go first, but he insisted I go.”

That was Peter. The hero. Everyone’s big brother. Carl began to pace back and forth. Barnes sensed his anxiety.

“Your brother’s a tough bastard, kid. I’m sure he made it.” But Barnes’ sentiment offered Carl no comfort.

“Birdsall was just saying that picking the ID off one-by-one won’t work. We need to find a way to kill lots of them at once,” Smithe said.

“He’s right,” said Barnes, “There’s too many of them for this cat-and-mouse bullshit.”

“What are we going to do? Kill them with paper clips and staples?” Munger remarked.

Carl was lost in his own thoughts.

“What are you thinking, kid?” Barnes asked.

“The steakhouse.”

“What about the steakhouse?”

“Check it out. Birdsall’s hungry,” joked Smithe.

“There are steaks. Lots of meat.”

“Yeah, so? What do you have in mind?” Barnes asked.

“We can put it all out in one pile. It would attract the ID. They’d smell it.”

“But that would just buy us some time,” said Munger.

“No, it would get them in one place,” Barnes corrected. “But then what?”

“We blow the steakhouse,” Carl said gravely.

“How,” Munger began.

“The gas still works,” Barnes said. “The power’s out, but I bet the gas still works.”

“But wouldn’t the government have turned off the gas with the power?” Smithe reminded.

“The Lieutenant said it wasn’t the government that cut the power, remember? It was Lorenzo.” Barnes said.

Peter. Carl was wondering what was taking him so long. He continued explaining his plan.

“The government would only cut the gas in the event of an earthquake. We fill the restaurant with gas, get as many of those ID in there as we can, and we blow it up.”

“But the fire,” Barnes said, “we wouldn’t be able to control the fire. We have a convention center filled with hundreds of tourists down the hall.”

“We grab as many fire extinguishers as we can, and we wait outside. We spray any fire that tries to make it down the hall.”

“I don’t know, kid. It’s awful chancy. Things can get messy.”

“Barnes, if we don’t do something, those tourists are as good as dead anyway, and you know it.”

Barnes looked down at his feet, weighing the options. Smithe and Munger were Indians, not Chiefs. Barnes was the oldest, and the closest thing to a leader without Peter. They looked at Barnes for his approval.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

“But what about Pete? We have to wait for him,” Carl interrupted.

Barnes, Smithe, and Munger all exchanged nervous glances.

“I don’t think he’s coming, kid.”

Carl did not believe what he was hearing. “What are you talking about? He’ll be here any minute.”

“He would’ve been here by now,” Smithe said, the humor in his voice replaced with sympathy. “It didn’t take us that long to get here.”

Dammit. Carl didn’t want to believe it, but he knew they were probably right. But there was no time for panic or grief.

“Okay, let’s go.”

“Help me up,” Barnes said. Smithe and Munger each put an arm around their shoulders and hoisted him up.

Carl ran behind the counter, looking for something.

“What are you doing?” Smithe asked.

Carl grabbed a marker and a piece of paper.

“He’s leaving the Lieutenant a note,” Barnes explained. Smithe shook his head but said nothing.

After Carl scribbled on the paper, he taped it to the countertop just below the airshaft.

“Okay, let’s go,” he said.

They made their way to the steakhouse without incident. The ID from the gym had apparently not made it back around yet. Night had fallen, and everything was dark. They walked by the illumination of their shoulder lights.

As they entered through the broken glass doors, they heard the wind roaring through the broken doors to the outside on the far end of the restaurant.

“Crap,” Carl said, “that’s going to make it difficult for gas to build up in here.”

“We’re going to have to do the best we can,” Barnes said. “The kitchen.”

They entered the kitchen, and Carl opened up a large stainless steel refrigerator. “There’s a ton of meat in here. And there are three other fridges. Plenty of bait. Help me haul it out there.”

Smithe and Munger leaned Barnes up against a stainless steel counter and joined Carl by the refrigerator. They began to load themselves up with meat. They hauled the meat out into the middle of the restaurant and began to make a pile in the middle of the floor.

After dropping a load, Carl stood there surveying the room. “Keep going, guys. I have an idea.”

Smithe shrugged at Munger, and they went back into the kitchen to load up with more meat.

Carl began to move tables. He dragged them around the pile and tipped them over, forming a perimeter but leaving a wide opening facing the doors to the hallway.

Smithe and Munger came back out loaded up with beef. They dropped their loads onto the growing pile.

“That’s not going to keep them in,” said Munger in reference to the semi-circle of tables turned sideways.

“They’re not a barrier. They’re more like blinders,” Carl explained.

“Guys, come in here,” they heard Barnes call from the kitchen. They came running in and found him by the stove.

“What’s up?” Carl asked.

Barnes turned the knob on the stove. There was no hiss of escaping gas. “No gas, boys.”

“Shit!” said Smithe.

“The government must’ve cut power and gas anyway,” Barnes said.

“Well, there goes that plan,” said Munger. “What are we going to do now? We have a pile of bait out there but no trap.”

Carl started looking around the kitchen.

“What are you looking for now?” demanded Smithe with more than a little impatience in his tone.

“A-ha,” said Carl, “here it is.”

He reached up, grabbed a red lever on a pipe, and pulled it. “The master switch. They must’ve pulled it before closing the restaurant.”

He pointed to Barnes, who turned the knob on the stove again. He heard the faint hiss of the gas.

“We’re in business, kid. Nice work.”

“What about the ignition?” Munger asked.

Carl went back out to the dining room and grabbed a few candles off the tables. He put them on a table next to the circle with the pile of meat. “Somebody find me some matches.”

Munger ran back into the kitchen. Barnes was already holding a book of matches. He grabbed the matches from Barnes and ran back out, but he almost tripped over himself.

He didn’t see Carl or Smithe anywhere, but there were three ID already hobbling in. He covered his shoulder light with his right hand and backed behind a tiled pillar, praying they didn’t see him.

When he peeked around the pillar, he saw that they were heading straight for the pile of meat. He looked around, and he saw Carl peeking over the top of one of the tables, his body concealed by the tablecloth.

Carl silently pointed to the next table, and Munger saw Smithe peeking over that table. They were both only a row over from the table with the candles.

Munger knew he had to get the matches over to Carl somehow so he could light the candles. Then, somehow, they had to leave undetected before the gas filled the dining room and reached the lit candles.

Munger held up the matches. Carl nodded and motioned for him to get the matches over there. The three ID descended on the meat and, crouching like cavemen, began to rip at the beef with their teeth.

Munger considered crawling on his belly around the outside of the enclosed portion of the circle where the three ID fed. But it was a long way across, and if they caught him in such a compromising position unarmed, he was toast.

He grabbed a cloth napkin off a nearby table and an empty glass. He put the book of matches in the glass and wrapped it in the napkin. He figured the glass would provide the weight for it to be thrown far, and the cloth napkin would muffle the sound of its landing…in theory.

But he didn’t have anything to keep the napkin around the glass. If he threw it as it was, the napkin would fall off and the glass would shatter on the hard tiled floor.

He grabbed the edge of a tablecloth and cut a long ribbon with his knife. He then cut a second one. He put his knife back in its sheath and began to tie the napkin around the glass by crisscrossing the ribbons like a Christmas present.

Just then, two more ID staggered into the steakhouse sniffing the air and grunting. They too saw the meat just lying there like it fell from the heavens, and so they too walked over to the pile.

Munger waited until they descended upon the meat pile, and then he showed Carl the glass. Carl gave a thumbs up.

Munger used to play baseball in high school, so he knew how to throw. He gauged the distance between him and Carl and how hard he would have to throw.

Then he wound up and tossed the napkin-wrapped glass over-handed in a nice arc over the feeding ID. It landed on a table near Carl and rolled off and onto the floor. There was a muffled thud, and one ID looked up like a meerkat, but he quickly returned to his feast.

Munger breathed a sigh of relief and crept low behind the tables back to the kitchen.

“What’s going on out there?” Barnes asked, sensing something was amiss.

“We already have a few guests. I tossed the matches over to Birdsall. We gotta get out of here.”

“Here.” Barnes handed him a rather large chef’s meat cleaver.

Munger took it. Barnes grabbed one for him and put his arm around Munger. They nodded to each other and began their three-legged walk to the kitchen door. Thankfully, it had one of those diamond-shaped windows. They peered into the dining room.

Several more ID were entering the restaurant. By the table with the candles, they saw Carl crouching.

“Wait, kid. Let them pass,” Barnes said to himself.

Carl, as if he heard Barnes, waited patiently behind the table as the new guests shuffled on past to join the others.

“Good,” Barnes muttered with relief. If the kid got himself in a jam, he was in no condition to help.

Carl must’ve struck a match behind the table, because when he raised his hand the match he was holding was already lit. It glowed eerily in the dark dining room.

He quickly lit the wicks of the candles and blew out the match. But a few of the ID had taken notice of the light.

They straightened up and looked in the direction of the light, sniffing the air like decrepit bloodhounds. Munger saw Carl and Smithe moving in the shadows around the periphery of the room as a couple of the alerted ID stood and walked over to the candles.

Shit, Munger thought. If they messed with the candles, the plan wouldn’t work. So he left Barnes and stepped into the dining room, took his shoulder light off his suit, and tossed it towards the doors to the outside. He then grabbed a glass off a table and lobbed it in the same direction.

When the glass shattered on the tile by the detached shoulder light, the two ID and a couple of others took notice and began to move in the direction of the light and sound, ignoring the candles for the moment.

At this point, the smell of gas was growing more palpable, and it was time for them to make their exit. Carl and Smithe were on their own. Munger propped the kitchen door open with a chair to allow the gas into the dining room. Then, he helped Barnes walk in the dark as they too kept to the periphery.

Munger nearly jumped out of his skin as someone grabbed him by the arm in the darkness.

“Munger.”

It was Carl.

“We have to exit the other way,” he whispered. “There’s more ID in the hallway. They’re going to be piling in here in a moment.”

“But I just threw my shoulder light and a glass in the other direction to get them away from the candles,” Munger whispered back.

“There’s only a few. We’ll have to take ‘em out,” said Barnes.

“With what?” Carl asked.

“With these.” Barnes held up his meat cleaver. Carl uncovered his shoulder light with his right hand enough to see it glinting in the light. Then he covered it up again.

“Okay. That’ll have to work.”

“But the hurricane. Is it safe?” Smithe asked concerned.

“It’s safer than in here. There’ll be dozens of ID, and this place is going to blow. I’ll take my chances with the hurricane,” explained Carl.

“But what about the fire extinguishers and controlling the fire?”

“No time. We have to move and hope for the best.”

So they crept back the other way. Carl and Smithe walked in front with their hands titrating out trace amounts of illumination from their shoulder lights. They each held a meat cleaver. Munger and Barnes trailed behind.

Carl remembered his combat training. He flanked an ID groping for them in the dark and struck it in the head with his baton. It dropped to the floor.

Smithe took care of another one, and the third was wandering back toward the meat pile. They regrouped and made their way to the broken doors to the exterior. The winds were howling and debris flew by.

“Okay,” Carl said, “if I remember the map correctly, there should be a swimming pool and two buildings across from here. We make it across as quickly as possible, and we get to one of the buildings.”

They all nodded. The room was beginning to reek of gas. They heard more shuffling and grunting as more ID entered the steakhouse, and the sounds of ravenous chewing and slurping was enough to turn the strongest stomach.

It was time to go.