The next morning, Will learned how Mike and his people left the hospital for supply runs when they couldn’t access any of the lower floors. Mike led him and Gaby up to the roof at an hour past sunup, and if Will thought Mike looked terrible last night, the man could have passed for a scarecrow in the morning light.
A few of Mike’s people followed them up to the rooftop carrying large nylon bags, two of them wearing hard plastic shell helmets. Will heard clinking noises as the men tossed the bags down near the edge of the north tower and began pulling out rappelling equipment.
“Where’d you get these?” Will asked.
“Jen,” Mike said. “When we realized we were essentially trapped on the tenth floor, we used her helicopter to make trips down to the streets for supplies. That wasn’t going to work forever, though. Too much fuel and time. So we raided a surplus store and grabbed these. It’s a pain in the ass, but it has an added benefit.”
“What’s that?”
“It keeps people from wandering outside the building.”
Mike picked up a harness and stepped into it with practiced ease. Two men Will recognized from last night as Paul and Johnson were already doing the same thing. They slipped heavy-duty nylon webbing harnesses between their legs, then around their waists. There was nothing comfortable about the rigs, but they would hold.
Mike’s people had drilled a half dozen anchor points along the rooftop about two meters from the edge, each one attached with a carabiner. The system had a three anchor point redundancy in case one of the anchors gave way. Not a bad idea. Will had seen plenty of rappelling falls, and they were never a pretty sight. Mike’s people had also set up a pulley system where the group that rappelled down could later be pulled back up. He guessed that explained the presence of two muscular guys standing behind them, watching the show. The designated pullers.
“Strap in,” Mike said. “You’ll need to take off your belt.”
Will unslung the M4A1 and took off his gun belt. He handed his rifle to Gaby and his belt to another one of Mike’s men, who put it into a duffel bag already stuffed with supplies.
Gaby picked up one of the harnesses and offered it to him. “You sure you wanna be doing this, boss? Looks like a pretty steep drop.”
“It’s not too bad,” Mike said. “Thirty-six meters, give or take.”
“How much is that in feet?” she asked.
“Each floor is about twelve feet,” Will said. “So ten floors is…”
“One hundred and twenty feet,” Gaby finished. “That’s a long way down. I would totally still respect you in the morning if you change your mind.”
“I’ve rappelled from higher.”
“Off the side of a hospital?”
“Once or twice.” Will slipped on his harness and took a proffered shell helmet from one of the pullers. “How many supply runs do you do in a month?” he asked Mike.
“Two, three times, depending on what we need,” Mike said. “We try to limit it. The creatures aren’t the only problems out there, but you already know that.”
“And you’ve never run across collaborators before?”
“Not yet, just your standard marauders. As far as I know, there are two, maybe three, other groups out there in the city, trying to take the same things we are. I lost a couple of men to them over the months, but I took a couple of theirs, too.”
“We saw plenty of those kinds of people,” Gaby said.
“It’s inevitable,” Mike said. “There will always be people trying to take advantage of a desperate situation.”
Gaby handed Will his rifle, then a pair of leather gloves which he slipped on. “If you fall and break your neck, can I tell Lara I at least tried to stop you?”
He smiled. “Permission granted.”
Will slung his rifle, made sure the gloves were tight, then joined the others taking their positions along four of the anchor points. Mike stepped off the edge first and Will followed, then Paul and Johnson dropped down after them.
It had been a while since he rappelled. Most of it was from his Army Ranger days, but there hadn’t been nearly as much rappelling during his tour with Harris County SWAT. Still, as he went down the tenth floor, passing by a rectangular window, it all came rushing back. Controlling his descent was the hardest part, but muscle memory kicked in around the seventh floor, and the rest was easy.
He landed back on earth between some bushes and overgrown grass. They were at the front of the hospital, with the parking lot on one side and the lobby behind them. Will instantly detached himself from his rig and unslung his M4A1.
Mike did the same thing, unslinging a Mossberg 590 tactical shotgun. Will wished he had brought his Remington from the island. The spreading power of a shotgun always made clearing buildings so much easier.
Paul and Johnson came down on Will’s right. Paul was a big man, and he landed with a loud whump, as if he were out of breath. Johnson was lighter on his feet, probably helped by the fact he was carrying fifty less pounds than Paul. They both unslung AR-15 rifles.
When they were sure there was no one to greet them but dead cars in the parking lot and empty streets to the left and right, Mike looked up and whistled. The men above lowered their weapons bag, tied to a rope.
Out of curiosity, Will moved toward the lobby’s dirt-smeared glass windows and peered into the darkness on the other side. He couldn’t detect very much, but there was the unmistakable hint of movement. The ghouls were creatures of habit, and though they were rarely active in the day, they could be easily awakened to movement.
“Can you see them?” Mike asked from behind him.
“I see some movement.”
“There must be hundreds, maybe thousands, of them in there. It’s a big building. Nine floors’ worth of space.”
“If they ever get onto the tenth floor…” Johnson said, but let his voice trail off.
“Enough chatter,” Mike said. “Gear up. I want to be back here by noon.”
Paul opened the duffel bag and pulled out their gun belts. Will slipped his on after prying himself from the harness. He always carried the cross-knife, and Mike and his people had their own recently made silver-bladed weapons in makeshift sheaths around their waists.
Will tossed his harness back to Paul, who stuffed it into the same bag. When they had all the rappelling equipment inside, Paul stood up and whistled, and the bag was pulled back up to the rooftop by a half-hidden figure high above them.
Mike unzipped his backpack, pulled out four empty gym bags, and handed them out. “For supplies.”
A shadow fell over Will and he glanced up, saw Gaby looking back down at him over the edge. “Don’t get dead!” she shouted down.
He gave her a brief salute.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” Mike said, and began moving out.
Will followed. “How far is the Archers?”
“Two blocks. The last time we tried it, there were less than a hundred undead things inside. If these silver bullets of yours actually work, we shouldn’t have any problems clearing the place out.”
“Sounds like you have it all figured out.”
Mike grinned. “That’s the trick, isn’t it? Making the plan work without everyone getting killed.”
Will was intimately familiar with Archers Sports and Outdoors, a warehouse store that sold everything from fishing supplies to hunting gear and everything in-between. It was at an Archers in Houston where he and Danny spent the night after The Purge, making the very first batch of silver bullets. It brought back memories, along with the phantom smell of explosives, courtesy of Danny’s C4.
“They’re in the back,” Mike said. “Away from the sunlight during the day. The last time we tried this, we got halfway inside before it became too dangerous. We did our best to stick to the light, grab what we could off the racks, but all the good stuff’s in the back.”