Smith's Monthly #23 Read online

  The biggest problem was going to be clearing out the bodies. I was going to need to do that quickly as soon as I made sure the building actually did have everything I needed.

  By ten in the evening I had borrowed the keys off a guard’s body and found the security room. It had a lot of cameras that all seemed to be working.

  Nothing was moving on any of the cameras.

  Nothing.

  “Benny, you’ve got yourself into a real mess this time.”

  Staring at all the bodies showing on those cameras, I almost decided to just pack and head for Florida. Then I shook that thought away. This city was my home and I’d be damned if I was going to let the fact that most everyone was dead scare me off.

  It took me another half hour in the security room to clear out the guards’ bodies and then to find all the generators for all the floors and the ones that ran the elevator. They had more than enough fuel, and when that ran out I could re-supply easily.

  And there was a good-sized water tank up high that had electrical pumps. I was going to have to check every room to make sure all the water was turned off so that didn’t drain out when the power shut off.

  The Empire State Building was all offices and meeting rooms and tourist stuff. No apartments, so I would have to find a really high office and clean that out and set myself up an apartment. That would be easy to do.

  For the next hour I went around taking all the keys and guns from the guards and then locking the five main entrances to the building. That felt weird, like I was locking out the dead, but if I wanted to be secure, no point in taking any chances that some other survivors had this idea.

  The last thing I needed was survivors with more guns than I had.

  I went back to the main security area and spent the rest of the night making sure I knew all the details of the building, or at least as much as I could find. I didn’t want to be on an elevator with no chance of rescue when the power went out. I needed to know that the backup generators would kick in, and if that didn’t happen, how to do an emergency escape. I was going to be spending a lot of time in those elevators. Being trapped alive in one with no chance of rescue scared me cold.

  FOUR

  Somewhere along the way, I fell asleep for a few hours on a cot in a side room off the security area.

  An alarm woke me up.

  I scrambled to the screens, at first not remembering where I was or what had happened. Then I saw all the bodies and nothing moving.

  An alarm was flashing that it was time to open the doors.

  I shut it off, dropping the room back into silence.

  A radio in the back gave me no more hope than it had yesterday.

  Outside it looked cold and overcast. That was good for the moment, since it would slow down the decay on the people in the streets.

  I banged open a candy machine in the break room and feasted on a breakfast of a couple packs of nuts and a Diet Coke.

  From what I could tell from the ever-changing monitors, there had to have been thousands of people in this building when humanity’s number came up. No way I was going to be able to move all of them before they would start smelling.

  I was just going to have to go up high, to the 102nd-floor observatory, and work my way down, clearing every body I could find from as many of the top floors as I could.

  About a third of the way up, you have to change elevators, and there were a lot of bodies in that area, so I just figured a few more there wouldn’t hurt.

  But when I got to that lobby, I decided that was a bad idea. I was going to have to go through that transition floor all the time. I needed to clear that first.

  I went down three floors, then using a large fire ax, I broke out some of the windows in an office there, letting in the cold wind from outside.

  First I dragged all the bodies in that large office area to the window and just dumped them out. After about thirty bodies, a couple of which could have used less pasta when alive, I decided I was going to need a better system.

  I had no doubt that some of the protections built into the side of the Empire State building to catch falling bodies would stop some of the ones I’d tossed, but after about twenty, the bodies would make it all the way to the street below.

  I got a large cart from the shipping and receiving area and went all the way to the top. It took me two hours to clear off the two-dozen people on the top observation deck and take them down a dozen floors to another empty office suite, where I again broke out a window. Only this time I just stacked the poor souls near the window to take care of later.

  By eleven in the morning I knew that stacking those bodies there wouldn’t help my situation at all. I had to toss them outside. Which meant that by the time I got done clearing out the bodies in this building, there would be a stack of human flesh a story tall around north base. I would be living on a pile of the dead.

  I was moving like a zombie, and considering what I was doing, that seemed about right. Like we used to say in the service, I was walking dead. Not a way to keep from making a mistake and getting injured or killed. I was going to need more food and more rest, if that was possible.

  I went back down to the security area and did a check of the area outside the building.

  Nothing but death.

  I ate a quick lunch of some guard’s sandwich stored in the fridge and then took another nap. Two hours later I was just about ready to go again when my cell phone rang in my pocket and scared hell out of me.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “This is the man you met yesterday with the three college kids,” the voice on the other end said.

  “Find anything?” I asked, for a moment excited at the idea that I might be wrong about everyone being dead.

  “Nothing,” the man said. “We’re coming back to the city. It’s where we all live, doesn’t seem right leaving it. You got any ideas on where to hole up to get through the winter?”

  My stomach twisted in disappointment, then pushed that aside as I had been pushing all feeling aside since this started.

  I glanced at the security cameras showing room after room of bodies and shrugged. Why not? I could use the help.

  “I’m setting up in the Empire State Building,” I said. “It won’t burn, it’s got generators, a great security system, and a good water supply. It can be defended.”

  “And it’s high enough to escape some of the smell,” the guy said.

  I was impressed. He had been worrying about the same thing.

  “You and your merry band want to join me?” I asked. “There’s a lot of work to do.”

  “It will take us about three hours to get there,” he said. “Thanks.”

  “Pick up anyone else you see that looks sane along the way,” I said. “This is one big building. Go to the South Entrance. I’ll be waiting there in three hours.”

  “Okay,” the professor said.

  “And one more thing. Stay away from the north side of the building.”

  “Why?” he asked, then before I could tell him he said, “Oh, I understand.”

  This guy really was smart. That was good. It was going to take my street smarts and military training and his brains to keep any of us alive through the winter.

  “Three hours; call me if you get stuck or run into problems.”

  “Three hours,” he said and hung up.

  I once again checked the television and radio. Nothing.

  At least I was going to have help.

  FIVE

  I took some lumber from the maintenance area and went back up to the floor where I had broken out the window. There I spent an hour building a ramp for the shipping cart that slanted slowly up to the broken window.

  Then I went back to the floor under the top observation platform and worked my way down, room-by-room, office-by-office, floor-by-floor, using the cart to take the bodies I found to the ramp and dumping them out the window. Luckily for me, some of those floors were empty, thanks to the recession.

  Or a slow da
y at the office.

  In one office, it made me sad when I found twenty very attractive women. I would have dated any of them. And that thought made me miss Maggie.

  I even missed Madge.

  I just hoped that some women had survived besides that panicked college girl. With luck, we would build a nice little community right here in the Empire State building.

  With luck.

  I found a nice hide-a-bed couch in one executive’s office on the seventy-ninth floor, and decided that’s where I would bunk for the night later. The office also had a really nice bathroom and shower, and I was really needing a shower.

  Exhausted, I went downstairs to the south entrance at three hours, making sure my .45 was still tucked in my pocket.

  No sign of the professor and his class; so I went across the street to a deli and got some great roast beef from the fridge and made myself a sandwich. I was really going to miss fresh meat.

  I got enough food for three meals tomorrow and went back across the street.

  There were three bodies in the deli, and another near the door, but I just didn’t have the energy to do anything with them at the moment. But I would have to, since that deli had a back room full of supplies and some nice freezers full of meat. If I could get a couple of those freezers across the street and hooked up to a generator, maybe I’d have meat for the winter.

  I was back inside the lobby of the Empire State Building, and was about to lock the door, when I saw the professor and his three charges winding their way along the sidewalk.

  They all looked tired and clearly depressed, and the girl had lost her backpack along the way.

  I propped the door open and waited for them, chewing on the sandwich.

  “Thanks, Benny,” the professor said, extending his hand. “My name is Professor C.M. Green.” He laughed. “Not sure what I’m a professor of anymore.”

  He had managed to pull back his long hair and tie it, and I could tell he had been a gym rat. He was strong, of that I had no doubt. He had a firm grip, but I could tell that the last day had really worn on him. I’m sure I looked just as bad to him.

  He quickly introduced me to the two college boys. The redhead with bright freckles who stood about six foot high, was called David. The other kid, shorter with a lot of pimples, was Freddy. Both looked like they could use some muscle and about fifty pounds. The girl was named Constance. She had long brown hair, long fingernails, and the remains of some makeup on her brown eyes. She looked like she was about to pass out.

  “You had any food?” I asked them.

  The professor shook his head. “Just snacks is all.”

  “So that’s job one,” I said.

  I had them leave their stuff just inside the building entrance, tossed the professor a group of keys from a guard, locked up the building, then headed across the street to the deli.

  “Boys,” I said, “can you clear out those bodies and move them a little ways down the sidewalk while the professor and I fix you something to eat?”

  Both boys looked horrified that they would have to touch a dead body, and the professor didn’t look too pleased himself.

  “Do it this way,” I said, grabbing the man’s body near the door by both feet right at the ankle. Then I just dragged him away from the door and down the sidewalk. “Don’t try to pick them up, and if you don’t want to use your bare hands, there’s a store two doors down that has leather gloves. Bring me and the professor back two pair of larges each as well.”

  I stopped dragging the body, then led the professor and the girl into the deli as the two boys went for gloves.

  “There’s a lot of work to get that building ready,” I said as the professor and I went in behind the counter.

  “I can’t even imagine,” he said.

  “You won’t have to imagine,” I said. “You’re going to get to see it for yourself as soon as we’re done eating.”

  The boys cleared the bodies out of the deli and then we all sat and ate sandwiches with soda. It almost seemed normal. The professor told me how far they had walked before turning back. They had stayed the night in a furniture store, but most of them hadn’t slept much.

  All of them had families they were convinced were dead, and the professor had a wife. “We’re all going to need to find our families and check on them,” he said. “It’s why we came back.”

  My only family had been Madge and Maggie. Both my parents had died in a boating accident while I was in Iraq. I knew Maggie and Madge were dead. I would have looked for them as well if I hadn’t known. Especially Maggie.

  “I can understand that,” I said.

  He nodded thanks.

  “Any idea at all what caused this?” I asked as the conversation lagged.

  “Quasar pulse,” Freddy said.

  “Aliens,” David said.

  The professor shook his head. “All kinds of theories; no facts.”

  I nodded. “Well, back to the task of survival then. We need to get as much of the building cleared and set up before things turn really sour.”

  “You mean everything smells?” the girl asked.

  “It will. Worse than you can imagine,” I said. “We’ll work some more tonight, and then you all need some rest. How about tomorrow you take a student and go out one at a time to find that person’s family? And maybe look for more sane people to join us. The rest of us will keep working.”

  “That’s a really good plan,” the professor said, trying and failing to sound upbeat. “Everyone up for that?”

  They all just nodded and kept eating. If nothing else, this was the most well-behaved and smallest class I had ever seen.

  After dinner, I first took them up to the security room and made sure they all knew the same things I did about the emergency generators and how to escape if they were stuck in an elevator when the power went out.

  Then, pulling the professor aside, I suggested that the two boys start working on clearing out the main lobbies downstairs, dragging the bodies away from the main doors, that sort of thing. I then suggested that he and Constance start on the floor where I’d left off and check every bathroom in every office to make sure the water was turned off in every bathroom and lunchroom. Even the public ones in the lobbies.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked, after he sent the two boys off with their assignments and instructions to call him on his cell if they needed him.

  “I am going to keep working my way down, floor-by-floor, clearing bodies.”

  All three of us went all the way back to the top, double-checking to make sure I hadn’t missed anyone in a maintenance area or in a back office, and that all the water was turned off. We worked our way down by taking the stairs.

  I showed the professor and Constance my cart set-up and ramp when we reached that floor, then they went off checking the water and I kept working my way down, one body, one floor at a time. By the time two hours had gone by and it was dark, I had the top thirty floors completely cleared of bodies.

  I had scouted the neighborhood a little, mostly with the exterior security cameras, and I knew there was another restaurant nearby, so we all headed there to scrounge for food, then a couple stores down to find bedding and to a neighboring store to find changes of clothes.

  We cleared the bodies out of both places in only minutes, since we were going to need to use both places in the future.

  I was starting to feel better by the minute.

  It had only been a little over a day since the world ended and I had a hunch this new way of living just might work. We might actually have a way to survive, with enough help.

  And a little more time.

  SIX

  We got the time.

  For the next five days we tried to prepare the big building as much as we could. After dumping a few hundred bodies through windows, you started to get numb to what you were doing. And after the first few days, we were wearing masks and tossing our clothes out after working and taking long hot showers to try to clear the smell from
our noses.

  But we finally got every body we could find out of the big building.

  The city was starting to smell as well, mostly from the bodies inside the other buildings. So after clearing the bodies from the entire building, our focus turned completely to stocking up on bedding, food, clothing, and just about anything else we thought we might need and could get on carts or carry.

  I took the top office floor and the professor and his kids stocked up the twenty-second floor, since there were six bathrooms and lots of offices that could be made into bedrooms.

  I wanted us to be prepared for a hundred people living in the building instead of just five, even though we hadn’t seen anyone else since the first day. And the professor agreed. So we stocked food and blankets and propane heaters and lighting and everything else on a dozen different floors.

  “The moment the lights go out in the city and lights are on in this building, people from all over will see us. We need to be ready.”

  All the kids had found their families, all dead. And every so often I would run across one of them crying. Nothing I could say to cheer them up. They were either going to make it or they weren’t.

  My counselor had taught me that. I had decided after that session that I would be one of the soldiers that made it. And I would make it this time as well.

  Constance just slowly withdrew, working and eating less and less, no matter what any of us said. On the fifth morning she vanished, going out the south door before any of us got up. I had no doubt she wouldn’t be back, but the professor wanted to go in search of her.

  He took two gas masks we had gotten for long trips outside into the smell and he and Freddy went looking for her without luck.

  As he and David were about to go out on a third search party trip, I stopped him. “It’s safe out there. She knows where we are. If she wants to come back, she will.”

  We both knew by that point she never would.