Chapter 11 - Home At Last

  I couldn’t help but feel an enormous weight leave my shoulders. We were back in an area of relative safety, with other adults who could help me get these kids home. There were still more unanswered questions left than I could shake a stick at, but at least that was something. I followed Gary across the entry hall to a nook off on one side. He reached into a box and his hands came up filled with plastic water bottles.

  “Who’s thirsty?” Gary asked.

  Twelve hands shot up, followed belatedly by mine. I chuckled. “I think we all are, at this point. Thanks.” I took the bottle he offered, opened it and down half the water right away.

  The kids all huddled around him, each taking a bottle of water. To their credit, all of them remembered their manners enough to thank him for the gift. After the day they’d had, they could have been forgiven if they’d forgotten, but they hadn’t.

  Another reminder that these were good kids.

  I took another gulp, then capped what was left and shoved it into my bag. “You have no idea how glad I was to see you.”

  He grinned. “I might have some idea. It’s been rough all around.”

  “We were on the Red Line across the river when the power went out,” I deadpanned.

  He winced at that. “Shit, that had to suck. No power? Not even your phones, right?”

  I nodded. “That’s right. Anyone know what happened yet?”

  “Nope, not that I know of, anyway. About two hours ago the power went out, and I mean all the power. No electricity, but no cars, either. The engines just died on the spot,” Gary said. “It was just a few minutes after that we started seeing weird shit popping up, like the little green men in the street out there.”

  “The goblins?” I asked.

  “Goblins? Yeah, I guess they do look like something from a fantasy movie, huh?” Gary replied. “I’ve just been calling them little green men. They popped up outta nowhere as people were just trying to figure out what happened. I was on duty at this door, saw the whole thing. It was a mess, I’m telling you. A true and total mess.

  “People got out of their cars, started checking engines and all that,” Gary went on. “While they were confused, that’s when those creatures hit. They ran in from over near the river and just started carving people up. They’re small, ain’t too strong, but they were all armed and vicious, and the people they attacked had nothing to fight back with.”

  “Sounds bad,” I replied.

  “It was. But that wasn’t all. There’s other things, too.” Gary shivered. “I saw the thing over in the station. You see it? You came from over that way.”

  I gave him a nod and a grimace. “I did. We almost walked right into its nest, coming in from the tracks. If I hadn’t spotted something off about the station, we’d probably all be up in its web.”

  “Lucky break, man,” Gary said.

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  “Listen, I need to get these kids home to their parents. You have any way to help me with that?” I asked.

  Gary looked dubious, hesitant all of a sudden, and I could understand why. Nobody would want to leave even the relative safety of a spot like this for the ongoing disaster happening outside. “Where do they live?”

  “Not far. We’re just on the other side of MGH, in Emerson Place.”

  “Okay, that’s maybe more doable,” Gary replied. “I was worried you were gonna say you came from downtown, or worse, the Seaport. I don’t see any way to get more than a couple of blocks, but last I heard the buildings just north of MGH are still pretty safe.”

  That was a relief. “Can you get us there?”

  “Lemme check with my supervisor,” he replied, wandering back toward the entrance again.

  I stood there with the kids as they sucked down water, waiting and hoping that we were finally near the end of this particular journey, at least. I had no illusions that all of this was going to blow over anytime soon, though.

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  What Gary hadn’t said told me as much as what he had. About two hours had passed since everything went to hell, but there hadn’t been an airlift of supplies into the city. He hadn’t talked about seeing rescue teams arriving by air or sea to help with the disaster. Under any sort of normal circumstances, we definitely would have seen help coming in, buckets of it. Probably troops, too.

  Where was the military during all of this? Shouldn’t they be out in the streets, mowing down monsters with machine guns? Seemed to me like that would be logical—if they could.

  Since they weren’t, odds were that was because they couldn’t Either logistically, or because they were overrun themselves.

  No aid drops arriving meant this mess was bigger than just Boston. How big, I didn’t know. Maybe the whole state was affected? The entire east coast? For all I knew, the entire planet was impacted.

  The main point was, I doubted help was coming our way anytime soon. We were going to have to fend for ourselves here, one way or another.

  Gary came back over, a smile on his face. “Sharon says I can take you, if I come right back after. Come on, I’ll lead you through the maze.”

  It really was a maze, too. Massachusetts General Hospital was a massive campus, with about a dozen buildings. Many of them were connected by hallways, while others stood alone. He clearly knew the place by heart, though. He took us down one corridor after another, deftly navigating the complex paths.

  “How’d you guys manage to keep this place secure, anyway?” I asked. I was impressed by what I was seeing. Every door to the outside we passed was either guarded or barricaded with some serious hardware. One emergency exit had steel bars welded across it. “From what I saw outside, there’s a lot of places that couldn’t.”

  “It was a near thing, right at first. The security teams helped a lot,” he replied. “We realized right quick that our guns and tasers didn’t work, which sucked.”

  “Wait, what?” I asked. The tasers made sense, I guess. They were electrical, like the phones. But why weren’t firearms working?

  “Yup. No guns. Same as the cars. No combustion engines, either. It’s not just the electronics. Heard some of the doctors talking about it earlier. Nothing will explode anymore, not like it should, anyway. So no guns.”

  That was weird, but so was everything else that was happening, so I filed the information away and gestured for him to continue.

  “Well, those creatures attacked, and we pushed back. I think the main advantage we had was the hospital employs a lot of people, and we were pretty organized,” Gary said. “Used to following orders, y’know? That got us working together fast, when other people were panicking. It’s just hard to panic an ER nurse, if you know what I mean.”

  I didn’t have direct experience, but I’d seen enough TV shows to have an idea, so I nodded. “What’s the plan for the long term, though?”

  Gary shrugged. “Beats me, but I’m sure the folks in charge here are working the problem. They’ll figure it out.”

  I let it go. There was no point in scaring the guy, but…I knew this city well. I was also smart enough and well-educated enough to know there were going to be some major problems, if we didn’t get the power back on soon, or get supplies and aid shipped in. Either would work. But left on our own? I figured there was maybe a day’s worth of drinking water left in the city’s pipes, assuming people were smart and didn’t waste any of it.

  After that, the real troubles would begin. Our only local source of fresh water was the Charles River, which was notoriously undrinkable. It was considered sorta safe to swim in it, most days, but it was definitely not safe to drink. There were sewage overflows, high bacteria levels… If you boiled it, that would probably work okay, but we didn’t have electricity for our stoves anymore, either.

  People were going to get thirsty, and then they were going to get mean. Or sick from drinking bad water. Or both. It wasn’t going to be pretty, anyway.

  But Gary was a nice sort, and he seemed oblivious to the problems I knew had to be on the near horizon, so I let it be. He’d be a little sheltered, so long as he stayed at the hospital. That would keep him safe for a while, at least.

  All at once we were at another door, this one guarded instead of barricaded. Gary went up to the guards, spoke with them briefly, then waved me and the kids forward.

  “This is Tom,” Gary said. “Tom, this is Cameron. He’s trying to get these kids home to Emerson.”

  Tom reached out a hand, and I shook it. He was maybe fifty, with greying hair, especially around his temples, cut in a style that was almost military, but not quite. I pegged him as a veteran. Probably one of the reasons this place was still standing. He wore a security guard’s uniform, but he had a machete hooked to his belt. That made me feel a little better about the makeshift spear I was still carrying.

  “Good to meet you, Cameron,” Tom said. “Yes, we can get you safely across the street. There’s guards in the Emerson Place building who are holding the lobby, but I’ll get you in there in one piece. Follow me.”

  We left Gary behind as I followed Tom out through the first set of doors. We paused before opening the outer ones, though. Tom eyed the street with care, taking his time to scan in all directions.

  “Can’t be too careful. I don’t know what these things are out there, or where they came from, but they’re all over,” Tom told me.

  “Yeah, ran into a few myself,” I replied.

  “Took them down, then?” Tom asked.

  I nodded.

  He clapped me on the shoulder. “Good man. Good on you for bringing these children home, too. You end up looking for work, you come find me, eh? Name’s Tom Harrison. We could use more people willing to stand up for others.”

  “I might just do that,” I replied. I sure wasn’t going back to my day job anytime soon.

  Tom must have decided the coast was clear, because he opened the door and then stepped outside, pausing to watch for any movement. He beckoned, and I had the kids hurry out, rushing across the abandoned street to the building on the far side. The guards on watch in the lobby must have recognized Tom or something, because they had the door open for us before we got there.

  Tom didn’t come inside with us. Instead, he shook my hand again as the kids rushed into the relative safety of the lobby. “You remember what I said. This is going to be a rough time, and we could use more men willing to fight. Come see me, if you want.”

  “Thanks again,” I told him, then turned to follow the kids inside.

  We were home at last.