Turning, Jamie strode across the sectioned-off parking lot and sighed when he caught sight of the body bags stacked against the far wall. They’d have to be burned eventually, before the birds and bugs came in, but that didn’t seem necessary at the moment. Though the perimeter around the building had been secured, the building itself had not.
“You all right?” Erik Roberts asked, brushing up alongside him.
Jamie grunted, head swimming with the lovechild of a headache.
Erik opened the glass door. All eyes turned toward them as they entered. “Listen up,” Jamie said, raising his voice to gather the attention of both the civilians and his fellow soldiers. “Private Roberts and I have been instructed to secure the first floor. Kirn, Wills, I want the two of you to stay here and guard the lobby, stairway and civilians. We’ll need an escape route if something goes wrong.”
“Nothing in here, Corporal,” Wills said.
“Nope,” Kirn added, lifting his cigarette to take a drag. “Anything in here would’ve already heard us.”
“Regardless,” Jamie said, “it’s better we stay smart and safe until we know for sure.”
“Whatever you say, Corporal.”
Though Jamie caught the telltale snicker from Wills and the sarcastic undertone from Kirn, he ignored them, instead making his way toward the hallway that led to the first-floor apartments. He drew his pistol and aimed it toward the ground, waiting until Erik did the same before stepping forward. “Some apartment building,” he mused, admiring the porcelain-white tile and the coal-black plaques embossed upon the doors.
“Didn’t use to be one,” Erik said.
“Huh?”
“This apartment. It’s converted.”
“From what?”
“An asylum.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“Kirn and Wills.”
Talk about creepy, Jamie thought, suppressing the shiver that crested the curve of his spine. He gestured to the first door with a nod of his head and reached for the doorknob, nodding as Erik raised his gun.
“On three. One… two…”
He threw the door open and raised his gun, half-expecting something to lunge out at him. However, when nothing did, he sighed and lowered his weapon, stepping into the room to examine the fine plush carpet and the neatly-redone paneling on the walls.
“They really did some work on it,” Erik said, brushing past the gap between Jamie and the wall. “It doesn’t even look like a holding cell.”
“Is that what this was?”
“I imagine so. Why else would it be so small?”
Convenient living?
The thought made Jamie chuckle. At about thirty feet wide and fifty feet long, the room, though small, held the common necessities that anyone would need—a bed, a bookshelf, storage space on the far wall in the form of a pull-away closet. What looked to be a bathroom opened up at the side, but Jamie doubted they would be using that. “No running water,” he said.
“What?” Erik asked.
“Nothing. Let’s keep going. The Sergeant’ll chew our asses if we don’t secure the first floor.”
They spent the next half-hour clearing the first floor. Having searched a total of twelve rooms, each equipped like the last, they returned to the lobby to find the sergeant conversing with the civilians, all of whom appeared to be shaken up. The boy, who couldn’t have been any older than sixteen, stood in the corner of the room, watching the events of the outside world with wide eyes.
“Kid,” the sergeant said, raising his already-loud voice. “Something bothering you?”
“N-No sir. I’m F-fine,” the boy managed.
“Good,” Jamie said. Then to the Sergeant, “The first floor’s clear, Sergeant Armstrong, sir.”
“Good. Kirn, Wills, I want the two of you to run through the second floor.”
“Aww,” Kirn groaned. “Come on!”
“Don’t be a pussy, deputy. Just do it.”
“I’ll do it,” Kirn grumbled, pushing past Jamie with a rough bump of the shoulder. Jamie caught the tail-end of stupid old motherfucker as the man passed, but didn’t say anything. For such well-thought-of police officers, they seemed less willing to do the sergeant’s bidding than even his own men did.
Guess that’s what you get when you mix two different branches together.
Shaking his head, Jamie seated himself on the leather couch dividing the lobby in two and set his rifle at his side. He lit a cigarette, took a short breath, then offered it to Erik, who took it with a simple shrug of thanks. “Sir,” Jamie said, looking up at the sergeant. “How many floors are we clearing?”
“As many as we can,” the sergeant said, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’d imagine any civilians that were here might have blocked off a stairway or two.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Rash thinking. If you can’t get out, they can’t get in, right?”
“I guess,” Jamie shrugged. In that moment of perpetual thought, he glanced at the civilians, both sad for their discomfort, but glad for their safety. The man he’d come to know as Dustin Bowers stood conversing with his friend, Michael Young, who appeared to be in much better shape than his older companion. He’d caught word that Dustin had lost his wife, but couldn’t be sure, as he hadn’t heard from the source. If that were indeed true, his heart hurt for the man, burned like the intensity of a thousand suns exploding inside a destructive solar system. He couldn’t imagine how Dustin must have felt right now.
You can’t imagine much of anything, his conscience whispered. Because you don’t have anybody to—
“Third floor’s blocked off!” Kirn called down.
“With what?” the sergeant hollered.
“Junk! Chairs mostly, but there’s some junk tangled in some of it.”
“Does it smell!”
“What!”
“I said does it smell?”
“No, sir!”
“Then leave it be. There’s no point in removing it if it’s not doing any harm.” The sergeant turned and looked at the five men in his midst. Then, as an afterthought, he called, “How many rooms are up there?”
“Fifteen, including a dining room, kitchen and lobby.”
“Good,” Armstrong smirked. “That’s more than enough room for all of us.”
They spent the remainder of the day repairing and adding minor adjustments to the first floor. Covering some of the windows with black electrical tape, creating a headquarters in the lobby by rigging up a radio from one of the army jeeps, preparing rooms to turn them into storage closets—the afternoon quickly faded away, and with it all sense of worry. By the time night fell, Jamie collapsed into bed, exhausted from the day’s work. “Long day,” he laughed, glancing up at Erik.
“No kidding,” the younger man said, stripping his shirt off his head. “Still freaks me out though.”
“What?”
“The bars on the windows.”
Jamie looked up. Until that moment, he hadn’t paid them any mind; but now that Erik mentioned it, he couldn’t help but stare. Each of the five bars vertically aligned across the window served testament to the imprisonment they all suffered by being within the apartment building. “Yeah,” Jamie said, tearing his eyes away from the troubling scene. “It does.”
“Does what?”
“Freak me out.”
“At least we know we’re safe,” Erik laughed, settling down on one of the beds. “Right?”
Jamie sighed. “I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Today was just rough, that’s all. We lost six people, two of them ours.”
“You can’t beat yourself up for it though. You tried. We all did.”
“I know. It just…” Jamie sighed. “Sucks.”