Gravewalkers: Thunderhead

Gravewalkers

Book Three

Thunderhead

Richard T. Schrader

Copyright © 2013 Richard T. Schrader

Copyright © 2022 Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

Contents

Radio City

The Mad Mirror

Thunder Caller

Devotions

Kings and Castles

Bitter Cups

Flood Waters

Brother Wolf

A Pinch of Salt

The Merits

In Books Lies the Soul

Chapter 1: Radio City

An hour after sunset just as a light rain began to fall accompanied by distant thunder from the south, Fat Jack loaded his Foragers, guards, and laborers into the Big Joe transport to take them over to Foragers’ Castle. It was a short journey that Andy drove without any complications.

The number of infected that wandered the streets near the Tower remained higher than was the norm. Jinglebells’ attack on the Tower lobby they repulsed still had many of his trained freaks prowling about agitated.

Upon their arrival at the Castle, Colonel Hiram Davis with his Gravewalker Platoon, Tony Banjo with his crew, and many of the construction workers with their guards all continued on foot to board the lightrail train at the Rook.

George and his crew took the Big Joe truck back out onto the streets for their night of ghoul fighting and the pillaging of ruins.

While Gloria went to prep the Milk Wagon for travel, Henry approached Critias to ask, What’s your plan for the television studio?

Critias told him, Carmen and I will go in first on foot to reconnoiter that building Kevin is interested in looting. Once we have secured the lower floor and found a place to bring the truck in, we will radio for you to follow.

With that plan in mind, he turned to order Carmen, I want you to plot us a path to this radio building we’re seeking. When you have one, you can lead us there.

As an afterthought, since he had sounded so demanding with her, Critias touched the chin of his helmet with two fingers and then made a gesture to her that meant he kissed her sweetly.

She squirmed inwardly such was her delight over his attention; discipline and romance combined were her idea of heaven.

Carmen quickly composed herself and then thumbed deeper into the Castle while informing him, There are service tunnels that we can use to get up into the park. They are off the Back Hall in the northwest and southwest corners.

The northern exit would take us up into the air-conditioning and mechanicals building, which is up on the surface in the park. The southern tunnel connects to the old shipping and receiving dock near to that old cathedral.

Either of those exits would get us discretely outside in the direction we need to be going. Once we are up in the park, it will only be about two-hundred and fifty meters to the broadcasting station. Most of that distance will be under excellent cover.

That’s my girl, Critias praised her. You planned ahead.

I had a conference with Kevin about your intentions, she meant that it had just taken place near instantaneously.

He made many significant contributions, but my input was also noteworthy since I am more attuned to your preferences.

We’ll be ready when you call, Henry promised as he headed off to join his wife as she prepared their Milk Wagon vehicle for the expedition.

Fat Jack escorted Carmen and Critias to the sloping passage out of the northwest corner of the Back Hall. That way led into the old air-conditioning mechanicals building where they kept their electrical generator.

This side will be easier for you, Jack advised them as they walked. There are paths you can follow; you won’t have to force your way through the undergrowth to reach the streets. The path out from the other side goes around to the south behind the old church. That would take you out of your way.

The surface building that Jack led them to was one that the Foragers had thoroughly reinforced and insulated to conceal the noise of their natural-gas fueled generator.

When they reached the heavily barred door that would let them get outside, Jack told them, This building sits down in a hollow deep in the woods of the park. Just follow the curving roadway up until you reach the pedestrian walk.

Follow that path to your right and it will lead you out of the trees to the street off the corner of the Garden Building. I’ll wait here for ten minutes just in case you run into trouble and decide you want to come back inside.

Carmen assembled the two halves of her bightstaff to have the weapon ready. At the same time, Critias adjusted the velocity setting on his teslaflux rifle for operational silence.

After they gave a final check to their gravewalking disguises, Jack quietly unbarred the metal door to let them out.

Trees and thick underbrush enclosed their drab cubical building. The park had grown wild since the time of the Outbreak, but even before that the landscaping had intentionally surrounded the place to keep it hidden from the view of passing tourists when they visited the national monument.

A nearby pond of water made certain that the area always had sufficient moisture to encourage the growth of healthy vegetation. In addition to the other defenses, the area also occupied a sunken sort of low valley that made it all but invisible to outside observers.

It’s this way, Carmen communicated by radio as she went ahead.

They followed Jack’s accurate directions until the single roadway circled up to deposit them onto a cement sidewalk that ran past. She followed the sidewalk in the direction of the Garden Building, which at times they could see where it stood tall beyond the trees only a hundred-thirty meters ahead. The lofty business tower that was their actual destination was nearly as close only further south.

Their path stayed hidden in an alley of ornamental trees until they reached a low fence of cement-stalagmite bollard cylinders that were old security features supposedly impassable to vehicles. The bollards also clearly defined the boundary between their park and the concrete roadways of the city proper.

The rain continued light and steady. It generated good cover noise as it struck the leaves and pavement. Another advantage of the rain was that the ghouls generally disliked being wet or having to hunt for food during inclement weather when the prey animals were themselves in hiding from the uncomfortable downpour.

There was no cover on the first broad roadway that ran parallel to their course. Beyond that was a deep concrete moat that contained the recessed highway.

It had been the construction of that highway project that had sealed off Smugglers’ Passage from its path that had once continued down closer to the river.

Even if the highway had not closed off the tunnel, the construction of the Foragers’ Castle monument would have done it instead. At least then they would have remained close enough together that Jim could have connected them with a tunneling project of his own.

Two nearby roadway bridges spanned the deep-set motorway. They were the only way across in either direction for a good way north or south.

Carmen led the way across the northernmost bridge to put them at the southeastern corner of the Garden Building. At street level on that same corner was the garage door that Jim had used to get his truck out for his attack on Denver.

The garage offered a convenient access for the Milk Wagon if that should later become necessary.

The Garden Building had a complexity of levels, ledges, and balconies. One of the G&P men on duty atop the Garden Building was on a lower rooftop right at the corner. He was close enough to the street to be clearly visible in his hooded rain poncho when he leaned out over the edge to make himself noticed with a wave.

As he watched them passing below him, the guard spoke over the radio, "This is Gardener Two atop the beanstalk. I have a visual on two Milk Wagon hikers. Gardener Two is on alert and standing by. Fire-support upon ground request. Over."

Critias and Carmen turned left to walk south along the sidewalk at the edge of a brambly block of what was yet another overgrown city park.

This is Gardener Four to hikers, another guard transmitted. That whole park is a swimming pool with a mud bottom during rainstorms. Advise you avoid. Over.

That inhospitable city block between the Garden Building horticultural outpost and their target building had a dismal look about it even before they got the radio warning.

It was so densely overgrown with thorny berry vines, tall prairie grasses, and immigrant saplings that visibility into the place was poor at best. Should anyone ever venture into it, they might find that it concealed untold numbers of infected.

Critias took the lead as they approached the tall communications building of perhaps twenty floors. He cautiously avoided the park’s unknown hazards and certain discomforts. Its prairie grasses were tall enough to conceal infected to be sure, tall enough to conceal most anything besides the upper-half of an abandoned armored personnel carrier that sat out toward the middle of the place like a great steel hillock.

As they continued by, Critias commented to Carmen, That seems like a lot of building there for just one radio-video broadcasting center.

It would be, she agreed. Most of the building is dedicated to other business interests of no consequence to us. Based on the nature of their street-level garage access for the satellite vans, I’m operating on the assumption that the place we are seeking will be on or near ground level.

When Critias reached the south corner of the park, he paused there then carefully crept into the border trees that lined the edge of the sidewalk. From that safe position they profited from some visual cover while they carefully examined their target building directly across the street.

Just ahead of them on the edge of the roadway were mounds of headshot infected and some old cars. Big Joe had plowed them aside into that position when the truck had cleared the roadway in years past.

The office tower’s front entrance had once been an elegant facade of glass and revolving doors until an Outbreak fortification of sandbags and machinegun positions took it over. The shattered entry currently contained what amounted to a dedicated military redoubt.

Rather vigorously defended for being nothing of special consequence, he commented with a note of sarcasm.

They picked an unsuitable location to attempt such a defense, Carmen harshly evaluated its feasibility as she also pointed out that there were more sandbags along the balcony of the second floor.

Every floor had exterior walls of glass plate surrounded by narrow open balconies. Much of the safety glass on the lower floors was either smashed out entirely or it had sporadic bullet holes in it. The damage was testament that plenty of chaotic interior gunfire had taken place when the ghouls finally wiped the place out back in the day.

Since that main entrance was an impassable tangled mess of razor wire entwined with headshot ghoul bodies, Carmen suggested, Let’s jump up there; we can enter by the second floor.

No, Critias declined with a better idea. We go around the building.

He pointed that they should go back out onto the street and then continue south; they could go around to the other side of the block.

We are being watched closely by those guards from the Garden, he cautioned her. I think it best if they don’t witness you performing any superhuman vertical leaps.

That would be a problematic explanation, she agreed. The garage is on the opposite side down that way. Do you want to try entering through there?

He did, "If it’s a secure place for us to bring in the Milk Wagon, that’s our first priority."

Carmen acknowledged his commands with an, As you wish. She affectionately brushed a breast against his arm when she moved ahead to creep back out through the tall grass and shrubbery until they reached the corner.

She entered the open roadway gravewalking. Carmen stayed hunched over in an imitation of a foot-dragger as she jerkily slued her way south.

The west side of their building had no glass along the ground level. It was just a smooth face of stucco cement that verged to the sidewalk. From there they saw that the tower had a long rectangular extension of extra building that jutted out the back, which was only two stories in total height.

Critias stopped at the single steel fire door on that long blank side of the low building.

Open this, he instructed her. There is no way to get those garage doors open from the outside while the power is off, not without breaking them.

Carmen’s amorphous skeleton key easily withdrew the deadbolt, but the door remained firmly sealed. When she pulled on the door handle, it didn’t even rattle.

Her explanation was, They must have barred it from the inside as an extra precaution.

He looked up to consider the possibility of getting them in through the roof, but then a group of ghouls came around the far southern corner of the extended garage.

The infected clearly saw them manhandling the door. All six of the fiends had fresh flamethrower burns they had gotten from the passing Big Joe transport less than an hour earlier. They were still pained and full of vengeful sentiment. If nothing else, they had been out in the rain just to have it soothe some of their misery with its cooling therapeutic touch.

You get the door open, Carmen said as she advanced to dispatch the infected. I’ll take care of them. She readied her bightstaff to knock the interlopers down and then break their necks.

The ghouls hesitated when they sensed no humanity in Carmen.

Seeing that they were uncertain about what they should do with an android, Carmen called to them, Come to Carmen, you crispy vermin. I’ll put an end to your woes.

The infected unexpectedly took fright when they heard Carmen’s words. The ghouls cringed before her and then turned to flee back around the corner from whence they came. Some of them even made furtive backward glances as though they worried she might pursue them or somehow strike them in their backs from range.

Critias braced one foot against the wall to pull on the door so hard that he snapped a piece of lumber within that had barred it closed.

They all ran away, she reported as she returned to his side. What do you make of that?

I saw, he acknowledged while he also peered into the lightless area beyond the open door. Didn’t you say that Jinglebells could tell at a glance that you weren’t entirely human? Maybe they think you’re a Watcher and thought better of bothering you.

He stood aside and then gestured for her to go in before him, After you. A moment before she stepped inside, he had her take pause, Check for tripwires first. Some barricades are never meant to be opened.

To test for possible tripwires that former defenders could have left for extra security, Carmen swept around the doorway with her bightstaff as though she removed cobwebs.

I don’t recall them ever reacting to me in that way before, she said about the ghouls.

As she walked in to gaze about in the total darkness using ultraviolet and infrared vision, Carmen reported, This is a stairwell. The lower floor here has a door that leads into the garage parking area. If we take these stairs up, they will probably get us closer to the media broadcasting studio, which I suspect is on the upper floor of this section.

Take us into the garage first, Critias instructed as he followed her inside the stairwell. He closed and relocked the outside door behind them.

Thusly secure from any new exterior troubles, Critias explained his plan, "First we need to see about those garage doors to get the Milk Wagon inside. I also want to see these satellite uplink vehicles you mentioned."

Critias readied his teslaflux rifle as he added, We can use regular lights while we’re away from any windows. He switched on its underslung lamplight.

Carmen shined the diode flashlight from the transparent strip at the crown of the bight on her staff. One of the first things she noticed was the amount of rubbish on the floor.

She alerted him to her observations, I see signs this building was inhabited before experiencing a rapidly unfolding hectic downturn.

Photographs, Critias said as he reached down and then picked one up from the floor. There were six of them for him to choose from just at their feet.

After a glance at the photo of a young woman in an officer’s uniform, he handed it to Carmen, Old Earth continental military were in here. That explains the fort they built at the front entrance.

She went ahead into the parking garage then used her staff’s light to illuminate all the tightly packed vehicles right in front of them. It was readily apparent that the larger military vehicles closest to the entry doors had pushed the many lighter automobiles forward, cramming them tightly together in an effort to create more available floor space.

They made an outpost in here all right, Carmen agreed as she inspected one of the four rugged Humvee off-road military cars that were present. There was also a behemoth eight-wheeled Stryker armored personnel carrier that sported a somewhat rusty .50 caliber mounted machinegun.

Critias recognized the enormous battlewagon as being much akin to the one he had seen mired in the overgrown park they had passed on their way in.

He also noticed a fair number of luxury sedans among the herringboned vehicles. The garage seemed like a desperate effort by the vehicle crews to get off the streets. It was hard to say where they went after that. Perhaps they died defending the building.

He asked her, Is this the spore of a hasty retreat?

She considered it, The sound strategy would have been to maintain control of the lightrail system from where they could perform an orderly withdraw by train to the Airforce base east of the river. Why retreat here when there is nothing here to withdraw to anyway?

Rooftop air extraction, he guessed. They were leaving by their primitive flying machines. Perhaps they wanted to maintain control of the news broadcasts to have management over the people during the crisis.

While she approached one of the military cars to check it out, Carmen reasoned, There will likely be abandoned valuables inside many of these vehicles.

Her amorphous passkey perfectly unlocked the door on her first turn. A full camouflage backpack was on the passenger seat. It contained some binoculars, a collapsible camp shovel, a touch-screen battlefield radio, and some various other unimportant knickknacks.

She discarded all the clothing and other personal effects that were of no interest to her and then shouldered the backpack as she closed the door on the vehicle.

We have all night, he said as he climbed onto the hood of a car. Critias realized that it would be easiest for him to get around if he just walked over the top of them. As he went ahead, he told her, You can search them all later if you want.

They found that the western half of the parking area had a larger garage door of sufficient height to receive tall vehicles like their Big Joe semi-tractor transport.

Carmen illuminated three of the news team vans she had spoken of with their articulated satellite dishes mounted on them. There were six more armored cars jammed in there with a second of the angular-plated personnel carriers.

"This is not good for getting the Milk Wagon in here, he commented to draw her suggestion. There is barely room to walk as it is."

Carmen recommended, Gloria and Henry can bring a crew of drivers with them. She and I can get some of these larger vehicles started and then they can drive them back to the Castle. They are in perfect condition from being in here out of the weather.

The two larger damnation battlewagons impressed Critias enough to make them worth taking.

He ordered her, Call Fat Jack on the radio and describe your plans to him; see if he will go along with it. If he is willing, you can get us started.

Critias headed through the garage to locate the entrance going back into the main building. If mechanics were going to work on engines for a while, he would need to close off the area for their safety.

He found the entry into the main tower easily enough. Critias saw surprisingly little evidence of ghoul battle damage. He kept going to explore further.

The real horror show didn’t appear until he had reached the main lobby. That was where he found the interior side of the razor-wire defended street entrance that they had seen from the edge of the park when they first approached from the Castle.

He counted at least a hundred headshot infected littering that portico with their undead bodies. Their immortal tissue made for a mushy carpet that had a generous seeding of spent brass cartridge casings. There were inert bodies flopped over the receptions counter, in the filthy cushioned chairs, and hanging puppet-like in the spiraling concertina wire that spider-webbed across the entry gaps.

To reconstruct the final retreat of the last lobby defenders, Critias expertly read the bullet patterns that swept the walls in discernible head-level suppression. The soldiers had left the lobby by ascending the tower’s internal fire-escape stairwell.

It was curious because Critias did not get the impression that the retreating soldiers were overly concerned about ghoulish pursuers. He saw that much of the shooting they had done in there had aimed upward and forward as they had frantically climbed the steps that were slick with infectious blood and stumble-trapped with the accumulated bodies.

Carmen radioed, Gloria and Henry are coming in twenty minutes. We are meeting them at that same door we used. After a pause, she asked, How high up are you going?

Critias used simian movements as he climbed up the core of the stairwell, staying up on the hand railings so that he could avoid treading on all the headshot bodies of which there were many.

He radioed back, How do you know where I am? Are you looking through my helmet cameras?

Yes, she confirmed it, but even if I couldn’t observe your progress by tapping into your visor’s video feed, all your transmissions carry a global positioning tag along with the timestamp as part of their diagnostic packet.

When we upgraded your mechsuit, Kevin recalibrated your systems to monitor the primitive positioning satellites of this era. I suppose, even if I could not do any of that, I could still triangulate the direction and distance to your transmitter by crude computational insight.

He told her, The last survivors here were shooting their way up through descending ghouls in considerable numbers. What do you make of that?

Carmen needed a moment to consider such a scenario before she surmised, My first guess is that they were having problems similar to what you encountered in Beijing.

The most probable scenario is simply that they were suffering under the classic military principle of having their enemy outflank them. A significant force of ghouls attacked their unprotected rear, severed their lines of resupply, and cut off the forward defenders from their avenue of retreat.

Right, he agreed with all that, but if I’m going up a building, they would get in here how from where? Are they coming in through the windows?

She didn’t think so, The most probable explanation is that there is a connection on an upper floor with the hotel building adjacently west of this one. It should not be up any higher than the seventh floor of this building since the hotel is not tall enough to accommodate anything more.

I’m on the landing of the fifth floor, he reported, and it looks like this is the one the bad guys came in through first.

Critias saw battle damaged bodies sprawled in the doorway off the stairwell so that the undead meat propped it open.

The dehydrated mummies of headshot ghouls lay four deep across the whole floor space. The clothing on the bodies told Critias that they were ghouls from during the early Outbreak.

The women still had ribbons in their hair, necklaces, and even remains of makeup they had applied in normal life. A goodly percentage of them wore an assortment of monochrome or camouflage uniforms, often with sidearm holsters.

Another variety of bodies that shared a common appearance were naked or in medical inspection gowns, but invariably tagged with plastic hospital identification bracelets.

Since Carmen already had a video link to the images, Critias asked her, What does all this mean to you?

Carmen interpreted the codes on one of the bracelets, The writing says that they came from a federally managed medical rescue station.

Medical rescue station would mean medical supplies, he reasoned for her possible objection. What is a Federal?

That was their name for their continental government authority, she informed him before advising, If you’re determined to keep going, go up the stairs first.

Presumably, any survivors would have retreated higher where it was cleaner. Furthermore, we are still assuming that you are correct in your estimation that they finally evacuated by some form of air transport, which means they went to the roof.

He continued his climb up the central spiral of the stairwell as hastily as he could skillfully manage since he wanted to make it back down in time for the Milk Wagon’s arrival that was only minutes away. His ascent ended at a barricade between the eighth and ninth floors.

It was a sort of crudely entangled jumble of accumulated office furniture and filing cabinets. The defenders had hurled all that junk down the stairs from above. It had accumulated into such a depth that it would be a time consuming labor to dig a way past it. Even then, doing so from below invited the unstable heap to simply collapse down upon the laborers.

Strong barricade just below the ninth floor, he radioed to Carmen. I’m coming back down now.

Meet me at the door, she replied.

The rain fell much harder by the time Critias made his way back to street level where the truck would arrive.

According to Jack’s instructions, Carmen unhinged the door from the wall while Critias held it for her. She popped the pins from the hinges using a screwdriver, which caused the door to fall free from its frame.

They positioned the loose door down on its side, propped against the outside wall to form a barrier across the bottom third of the open doorway. It was in position just in time for Gloria to back in the Milk Wagon as she drove swiftly through the stormy darkness.

She pinned the truck’s rear door firmly against the building right at their doorway. Direct pressure from the rear bumper held the detached door in place as a shield across the lower part of the entry.

The back hatch of the Milk Wagon lined up perfectly with the remaining upper portion of the doorway. Henry clipped a pair of grapple hooks on the insides of the doorframe so their electric chain winch could lock their hard docking into place.

After Henry disembarked, Fat Jack followed after him; then came two aspiring road mechanics and two volunteer drivers who had come over from guard and patrol; also counting Gloria, it made for a total crew of seven.

Fat Jack instructed, Show us to this garage. We’ll get the two armored carriers started and three of the hummers. We can load each of them with as much forage as they can carry and then caravan out of here.

One of the crew, a female, she carried her own toolbox, which revealed that she was a road mechanic.

Snips, she gave her name as a polite greeting as she passed.

A second mechanic who lugged his own box of tools followed behind her. He offered only a nervous wave as he slunk sullenly past, as though perhaps he wondered just how long he had to live while working out in the wilds.

The last two arrivals were armed G&P drivers who would also perform guard duties around the working mechanics.

Carmen removed the portable electric generator from the Milk Wagon and then handed it to Critias. Once he had it, she selected the right cargo straps. Carmen would use them to ratchet the burdensome machine onto his back, which would make it slightly less inconvenient for him to carry.

As she rigged him up, Carmen filled him in on her plan, You need to hump this up to the top of the building so that we can install it over the main elevator shaft. We will be able to find the drive motor and control unit there. I can use my key to activate the fire-service override panel in the car. We’ll be able to direct the lift to any floor you desire.

While she prepared the straps on the generator, he told her, I think I have a good idea for getting around that barricade I ran into.

Once she had strapped the generator snugly onto his back, Critias handed her his teslaflux rifle since there was no longer any way for him to sling it. He instructed her, You carry this for me. I need my hands free to climb.

Critias led her by the same route he had used before. They climbed the stairwell until they reached the eighth floor where the impacted office accessories created a blockage that closed off the stairs. From there, he took the door onto that floor off the landing.

They followed a damp breeze of fresh air to the nearest broken window that provided them easy access out onto the very narrow ledge of balcony. Once outside, Critias climbed up onto the thick cement guardrail and then held one of the vertical pillars to steady his stance.

She asked, What do you want me to do?

He told her his plan, Climb up here, stand on my shoulders, and then hook your bight onto the next ledge above us.

She nimbly obliged and once standing on his shoulders, she found the next level of balcony was within easy reach of her hook.

After she had a solid hold, she told him, Climb over me.

He was doubtful that was a reasonable notion, Are you sure?

Carmen even used a free hand to ease his ascending, I’m stronger than I look.

He reached the higher ledge to discover that the windows on that floor were still in firm condition. A pair of sandbags on the railing down to his left led his curiosity that way. There he discovered a narrow window washer’s access door that went inside from the ledge.

There must have been a sniper keeping watch from here, he said to explain the presence of the sandbags on