Small Talk

Polite conversation disappears when you need to conserve your language. I’ve been communicating with Mike the construction worker I saw across the street when the soldiers were still below. We can’t shout to one another. He’s too far away, and my building isn’t secure. Calling attention to myself with the sea of undead below me is not on the “to do” list. We communicate with each other by writing things down and holding it up for each other to read. I have half a dry erase board I ripped from the wall in the conference room, he has a almost fully used easel pad. With his writing surface slowly running out, we can’t spare any niceties.

I have talked with him for the last week, on and off, a couple of messages a day. We trade stories about what we have to eat and drink, and how we have secured our areas. I tell him I want to come over to him and his group, but he may as well have a base on the surface of Mars. The chances of making it across that zombie laden road below are very, very low.

It’s been three weeks since I came here and holed up. I slept almost the entire first week. I would get up and stumble to rest room, or fill my water, but mostly I slept. I couldn’t leave with my side the way it was, and my body just wanted to shut down anyway. It’s funny, I am normally an insomniac, but I had no issue sleeping at all for a full week. After three weeks of inactivity, my head and shin are fine. My bullet wound was really just a graze, it did no permanent damage, and it is scabbed up quite well. I can move just fine and feel ok, if not a bit tired and hungry.

I woke up depressed and alone. I contemplated killing myself. Go out quick instead of a painful starving or dehydration death. I stopped myself when I thought about my wife. I made a promise to her, “till death do us part.” My interpretation of that does not include death at my own hands.

I find out from our conversations that Mike has 21 people in his building. 14 of them were his crew that is remolding the upper floors. The rest of them are people that came to him looking for help. He says they have enough food to get by, but water is running scarce. He has no way to get any water, and since it hasn’t rained in days, they don’t even have any water from the buckets on the roof. I tell him I have 40 gallons of drinking water in my office alone, not including the rest of the offices. “Doesn’t do me any good over there,” was his only reply.

I break into each of the offices on my floor looking for supplies and useful items. I find some chocolates, batteries, a whistle, a new bag, and lots of other useful things. I knock the lock of Regina’s office. Regina is the president of central processing, and probably one of the most important people on our level. She is at her desk, dead since the beginning I gather. She has her scissors on her desk, and it looks as if she opened her arms with them. She sits in her executive leather office chair. On her mahogany desktop sits her blackberry, and her laptop, below her on her expensive carpeting there is a large patch of dried blood.

She was a stone cold terror in the office. People would see her and walk the other way. The people that worked under her lived in daily fear that she would confront them. I couldn’t imagine her doing something like this. Then I remember that I considered doing something like this. I look at her disgusted. In reflection, I was probably more upset with my weakness than with hers. I storm out of the room and decide on a plan.

I take the bolt off of the industrial size paper cutter in the back office. The paper cutter handle is two and a half feet long and has a nice handle on it. It is the perfect makeshift machete. I grab the cart the water sits on, it’s got slots for 16 bottles, 80 gallons. There are 5 bottles in it. The rest of the offices on my floor fill the cart easily. There is more water here than the Shedd Aquarium. I take the cart to the stairwell and I march each bottle downstairs to the lobby. I don’t run into anything during the 17 trips up and down the stairs, the lobby is clear too. It looks like the soldiers cleared it out for a base of operations. I set the cart up in the dock area and retreat upstairs. I am too tired tonight to even consider it, but tomorrow morning I am making a break for the East Wabash building.

Salvation

I don’t know what kept me staring down the eight floors to the street below. The moment I saw the soldiers my first thought was, “thank god, I’m saved.” But yet I hesitate. Maybe it’s the carnage, the utter bedlam that keeps me watching, like a car accident you don’t want to look at but cannot turn away from. The hordes of undead crash like ships on an unforgiving shore. The soldiers keep firing, on occasion a tank will fire an explosive round blowing up all the ghouls in the area of impact and leaving a crater a few feet deep. The gunshots and shouts thicken the air until the cacophony it nearly too much to bear. My eyes focus on all the action, darting back and forth taking it all in.

I find it odd that something outside of this chaos could divert my attention. But as I watch the fight rage on below I see something flicker in the corner of my eye. Someone is looking down as I am; they lean out the window across the street a floor below me. They light a cigarette and watch the action. They are dressed in jeans and a work shirt, with a Florida Marlins cap on. They watch as intently as I, and as if a sixth sense notifies them, they look up at me staring at them.

We look at each other for a moment. He’s older than I. Possibly in his forties. A graying beard and sideburns cover a tanned face. He takes a long drag off his cigarette and slowly shakes his head at me.

I wonder what he is shaking his head about. It’s almost a disapproving shake, the kind your father would make if he caught you sneaking out of the house. I wonder what he disapproves of. Does he know my plan of going to the street below? How could he? Does my face belie my intentions? I wonder about his reaction for a few seconds. This few moments is the only delay I need to make me abandon my plan.

I turn my head as I hear the cries from below. These are not the occasional shrieks of ghouls, or the orders shouted by a sergeant to his troops. No, these are civilians. The tide of undead has slowed considerably from the west. I guess the building a few blocks away housed a group that had the same plan as I. When the street looks clear they start to run. They pour out onto the street, and there are about twenty of them. Some start to run and leave the rest to fend for themselves. Two men push a wheelchair; its passenger, an elderly woman, clings to it for dear life. A few injured people hobble along as best they can. They move quickly, but zombies ooze out of the buildings and from the streets behind.

The living race against the undead in a sick rendition of the tortoise verses the hare. The humans have to stop to pick up the elderly woman, who has fallen out of the wheelchair; others have fallen on the debris or cannot move quickly and need to be helped down the street. What started out as a decent pace has slowed to nearly a crawl when they come to the first sandbag wall two blocks away. The slow and steady ghouls keep moving as the group helps each other over the obstacle. It must be the smell of fresh meat that brings the undead out into the street in such numbers. The refugees are on the cusp of being engulfed by the rolling wave of creatures that fill the road behind them.

That’s when the soldiers open fire. The entire time this group is running, the shots continue to ring out in other directions, so it isn’t the sound of guns that alerts me to the massacre that is about to happen. Instead, I see one of the men helping lift the wheelchair over the sandbags go down as his leg is shredded by gunfire. He screams and clutches his leg as the person next to him is hit in the foot. The people freeze, their eyes sweeping back and forth looking for what is causing this. They realize far too late and cannot gain cover. The bullets tear through the group. The troops are aiming low, trying to disable the civilians. The wave of undead inches closer.
I stand above frozen in horror. I cannot believe what I am seeing. The troops continue to disable to group. It is obvious what they were planning when the first undead dives into toward a helpless woman to feed. His head leans down to bite, and he is shot in the head. The soldiers used the civilians as bait, and the ghouls will now pause to feed on the closer meal. The soldiers ease the pressure on the front line and easily take out a large group. It makes sense, but I am horrified nonetheless. I look back to my counterpart across the valley of buildings and he is still shaking his head.

My knees start to weaken. I feel the adrenaline drain away and I slump against the wall. I turn away and hobble back to my room. I want to take my tire iron and run down break the heads of the soldiers below, but know that my fate would be like those who tried to come to them for salvation. No. I realize that my path home has two obstacles, and the thought is so overwhelming that I nearly faint with despair. Then I realize it is almost certainly the lack of blood that makes me woozy. I walk into my office and close the door. I dig through my bag for my earplugs to try to drown out the sound of gunfire. But nothing will ever quiet the screams of those people. That will ring in my ears for years to come…

To sleep... A chance to dream.

The ground shakes. I hear the megaphone outside.

A shrill almost mechanical voice shouts, “Come out of the pumping house. If you do not comply we will open fire.”

Gabe looks at me from by the controls. He doesn’t say anything, but I can tell from his face that he isn’t going anywhere. I shake my head and go towards the window. I pull up a pistol, break the window with the barrel and point it outside. I say nothing and pull the trigger four times in the direction of the Hummer below, then I drop the ground. Gabe continues to work the controls on the panel.

“We cannot let you leave the area. Come out with you’re hands up and the weapon visible.”

I respond by shooting out the window again, vaguely in their direction. I hear the pumps come on, and Gabe gives me a thumbs up. “You realize,” I say, “There is no way we can hold them off for the 20 minutes it’s going to take to lower the water.”

“You have a better idea?” His voice is shaking, he knows there is nothing else we can do.

“I’m not saying… I’m just saying…”

The air around us erupts. I can hear massive gunfire from outside. It thin steel that this shack is made out of is no match for armor piercing bullets. They fly around us and I can hear them zipping past. I lay as low as I can to the ground without sinking into it. I crawl to the back of the office, my stomach never leaves the floor.

I look back and see Gabe has been shot in the throat and chest. He convulses one last time as his body spews out his lifeblood. His eyes stay open, locked open in an unending stare. I have a strange feeling. I don’t mourn him as a person. I mourn his utility. I don’t care that he died, I just wanted him to live because he was useful. I am sad about him dying only in that his death could lead to mine. The thoughts are shocking and alien, and at the same time natural and instinctive.

I hear the gunfire die down and I stand up and fire the gun. I point it in the direction of the soldiers, but I know that I won’t hit them. I just want them to know that I am not only alive, but also that I don’t yield. I lay flat and reload. As soon as I finish I realize it is time to run for it. I can’t wait for the pump and I have to do the rest on foot. I run for the window on the opposite end of the shack. I start to climb halfway out the window when I hear a sound.

“shhhhhhhhhhhhuuuuuuummmmmmp..Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”

I leap out the window and run. The shack behind me explodes in a way only though possible in Hollywood. I am blasted off my feet landing on my face. The debris files past as another explosion rocks the platform where the small pumping station once stood. It’s so powerful I feel the ground shake so hard, I doubt I could have stayed standing if I were on my feet. Another explosion…

***********************************************

I wake. My side is burning. My mouth is parched. My head and back hurt intensely. I try to stand and immediately fall from both severe dizziness and shooting pain in my shin.

“That went well…”

I hear an explosion from outside. The building shakes. I steady myself, grab my tire iron and force myself to stand. I lean heavily on the desk and walk to the door. I sling it open, and look out into my hall. No one is there, the lights are off and I can hear shouts.

I limp down the hall to my boss’s office. I come to the door and it is locked. I bash the handle a few times and it falls off. The door opens easily when nothing holds it in place. I step inside and see his windows are blown out. I can hear shouts and gunfire below on the street. I walk cautiously to the window and look out.

Hundreds of soldiers hold Wabash Avenue below. There are sandbags and tanks. They look as if they are shooting hundreds of undead as the walk toward the barricades on the street. The waves of undead crash against the sandbags, and the soldiers continue firing. The corpses pile up. I have no idea if they will succeed and looking out at the street below and seeing the long line of creatures, I am more doubtful.

But it looks like my only way out…

Running out of Options

Fuck…Leaving Chicago is out of the question. I might have been able to make it out if I had just jumped out of a moving train, or if I had just fallen off the EL platform. Those two injuries have slowed me down considerably. However it was after I got shot that I decided to stay downtown.

I started running on the top of the platform toward the Chicago Board Options Exchange building. It was several blocks away at that point, but all the trains had stopped moving. I ran past two on the way. They were completely abandoned except for two cars. I tried to keep myself from looking inside, but the creatures within slammed themselves up against the doors so hard I thought they would break down instantly. They didn’t make it out, and neither did any survivors in those cards. There were 10 to 20 zombies in each. I tried not to notice the two little girls in the bloodstained dresses and pigtails. I failed.

It was bedlam on the ground and I was glad to be up on the tracks. Cars we smashing into things, groups of people were being chased down the street by the undead. I saw one creature standing at a stoplight. He was an obviously blind human at one point, you could tell by the thick sunglasses on his face. And that his hand was wrapped in a Seeing Eye dog’s harness. The thing is that the dog was still holding him back out of traffic as if it were trying to save him. The creature just kept on trying to cross the street and the dog kept pulling back to make sure it wouldn’t. The creature never tried to attack the dog at all. It didn’t even look like it noticed it. I’m not sure why I focused on that, but looking back it had to be the most absurd thing I had seen all day.

When I got to the CBOE I knew I was in for it. The line for the train was out into the courtyard. People were scrambling and pushing to try to get up to the trains. I scanned the crowd and saw a ton of injured people. Several looked like they had been bitten. The thought of riding home packed in a train car with basically several time bombs in the seats chilled me. I really had no other choice.

As I got to the EL platform I made my way to the exit. It was crowded with hopeful people. You’d be surprised how my wounded wrapped leg and a bloody tire iron get the crowd to part. When I got off the EL I noticed a commotion, people were running from the train and trampling those in front of them. I heard popping, it had to be gunfire. I quickly jumped up on the planter to get out of the way of the crowd and to see what was happening. The crowd was running from a group of police officers. A few people were laying on the ground shot. The cops had their guns out and they were taking aim at people in the crowd. I ducked when I saw them pointing and shooting, even though a gun wasn’t pointed in my direction.

The cops were clearing out the courtyard pretty well. I knew this was my chance to make it to the train. I started heading into the courtyard, and at first it was nigh impossible. But as more people fled, the more room there was to go upstream. I headed along the wall, trying to stay out of sight. I noticed two more people go down. I couldn’t tell what they were doing, but I assumed they were shooting obvious undead. I kept on the wall, and held the tire iron in my hand. My thought process was that I hadn’t seen any undead creature holding anything and this might not make me a target.

It wasn’t until I started moving across the open space toward the escalator that I realized one of the cops was tracking me. I also for that split second got to look at 4 bodies on the ground in front of me and I knew I had made a grave error in trying to run past. My brain put the pattern of what each of these bodies had in common before I even realized it. They were all injured, with bloodstained clothes. They had not changed. The cops were shooting anyone with a noticeable injury. And that’s when I felt it, the bullet when right through my stomach.

It didn’t knock me down, but it spun me sideways. It also hit on the side, a couple of inches from the edge of my body. I was so spiked with adrenaline I didn’t think, I just ran. Lizard brain took over and by tire iron bashed the window of the CBOE and I dove in. I kept running full bore through the building and out the other side. I didn’t realize it at the time but I was running to my office. Everything from when I got shot until I got to my building is a blur. I don’t remember a bit of it. I snapped out of it because it felt like my side was on fire, that I fractured my shin and my ribs were broken. I tried to apply pressure to the wound to get it to stop bleeding.

I ran into my building downstairs and climbed up the stairwell to my floor. That was the toughest set of stairs I have ever climbed. When I got to the 8th floor it was all I could do to not pass out. I stumbled into my office and no one was in. The lights were either off or out. I went to the kitchen and got the first aid kit off the wall and walked back to my office. When I was inside with the door shut I started to dress the wound as best I could. It looked as if he just clipped me, and the bullet went all the way out. But it hurt like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I had no idea if he pierced anything vital or not. It did not want to stop bleeding though. I dressed my leg too, and then pulled out my phone.

There was no signal. I figure that the cell towers were down, but I texted Sarah anyway. Hopefully it would keep trying until it got through. I didn’t tell her anything the happened. I couldn’t fit a good summary in 188 characters. What was I going to say?

Zombies. Bedlam down here. Jumped out of moving train to escape. Fought off several. Fell off EL platform. No trains out tonight. Been shot. Might die of blood loss. Hope I don’t. Love you. Cecil

I settled on something simple and un-alarming. No point in worrying her unnecessarily. I said.

I can’t make it home tonight. The trains aren’t running. I will have to be up here for a day or two. I will be home as soon as I can. Be careful. Stay inside. Love you greatly. Cecil

As soon as I finished my eyes were so heavy I could barely keep them open. I had enough energy to lock my door and crawl under my desk before I passed out.

Herd Behavior

I do not excel at many things. It’s a fact that I think a lot of people deal with. I can do many things passably, and fewer well. I can cook well; I have a “good” sense of humor and can be funny at times; I can read a large book of cryptic philosophy and tell you the gist; and I can do many home improvement tasks with little help. I, however, would never claim that I excel in any of these areas. There are people without as much training as I that can cook far better. There some who can dissect Foucault more thoroughly than I can ever hope to. There are others who can construct a house with little more than a pair of pliers and a bent nail. As a human you come to realize your limitations, and understand your strengths. If you distill this thought process down enough you may come across what it means to be an adult. Knowing where you can excel and following it, and knowing where you can fail and avoiding those situations. In any case, I do excel at one thing: fencing.

Or more specifically re-enacting Renaissance swordplay. I’m very good at it. But I’m not good at just one-on-one competition, I can fight well against large groups. You see, we line up several fighters on each side and fight in large melees against one another. There can be 200 people on each side. I fit a small role whenever we fight in these melees, I am a flanker, or as my friends call me, “a fire and forget missile.” Whenever we fight together they just let me do my own thing, which is taking on large groups by myself. I run to engage the enemy and then fight as many as I can pull away from the group.

I don’t just run up and try to score a touch on a whole group at the same time. Instead, I try to make them see me as a threat and then pull off as many fighters as I can to come chase me. This leaves us with superior numbers and then I wait for my group to come help me. If I have to I can take out a number of fighters all by myself. There are some tactics that I use to help me do this:

• I make sure that I position my opponent in-between the other fighters and myself for as long as possible. This makes my immediate opponent an obstacle and gives me a short time to fight him one on one. I can win most fights one on one if given a few seconds.
• I use natural terrain as obstacles. I will try to fight around trees and brush if available to limit my contact with the group and fight individually.
• If the opportunity arises, I always take out the legs of an opponent. A downed opponent cannot chase you nearly as fast.
• Make sure to keep track of everyone. Don’t let anyone flank you.

There is more to it, but the other points only apply to thinking opponents.

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I slide down the pole quickly, only slowing myself so I don’t turn my ankle or something. When I hit the ground, I can see that they are only a foot or so out or reach. I run as fast as I can to get to the tire iron. It’s very dreamlike, I am leaning very far forward as my legs push me through the air. It feels like I a running in soup, my motions feel slow. It’s the adrenaline altering my perception, I know it, but I can’t make it go away. When I get to the weapon I snatch it off the ground and spin. I see that one or two had turned away from the bus, but they quickly give up chase and go back to pounding on the glass.

I jog quickly back toward them and see a few start to peel off the side. They are lumbering towards me quickly, but not too quick and I start to herd them. I begin to isolate the closest one, and quickly thrust the tip of the tire iron through its head. As he falls I position myself around the body. The others, four of them, keep coming forward, but don’t pay attention to their fallen comrade. The first stumbles over the body and presents the top of his head to me as it catches its balance. I club it and it falls lifeless to the ground. The pile gets larger as the others fall and stumble toward me. I retrieve more after this group is dispatched, and pull them toward the pile. When it gets too high for them to try to step over, they start to step around, and I quickly start to make a pile in another location. The process of pulling the creatures away from the bus takes about a minute and a half. They offer little resistance, and are easily isolated or tripped up.

When there are none in front of the door, the Rastafarian opens it up and begins to shepherd the people out of the bus. He takes out two that get too close to the running people but he never wavers and gets them all out safely, even Juice, who is last. The people scatter in all different directions. He asks me if I want the crowbar back and I tell him to keep it. The tire iron is longer, easier to wield and has a better point. We part as we hear all the sirens coming. I climb back up the el and pull out my cell phone. I typically get Sarah’s voice mail. She’s probably in surgery anyway. I hang up and head down the tracks. The train that was stopped before is still there. I wander past it and hear more shouts, screams, sirens and what can only be gunshots. I jog as quickly as I can down the tracks and head to the train station. I only hope that I can get out of this city by dusk…

Lock Your Doors!

This video was found in a camera that was lost during the panic. It is simply labeled “lock your doors!”

[The video starts out with the camera being turned on and then lifted. Two people converse throughout (referred to in this transcript as A and B). The camera focuses on a high rise about a mile a way. The building is on fire. Screams can be heard in the distance, there is also a blanket of sirens that continue throughout. The camera pans back and you can tell that this is being filmed on a balcony in a major city. The camera pans between two high rises, both are on fire.]

A: “Look at the smoke man, those people above that are fucked.”
B: “Yeah.”

[There are several shrieks that let out below and the camera pans down to see the road beneath the elevated trains. There are several people walking slowly and pacing below the train tracks. They wander with their heads pointing up. They occasionally shriek. The people look as if they are catching rain or snowflakes in their mouths. When the camera zooms in it looks like red liquid. As the camera pans up you can see a stocky man on the elevated tracks, holding a crowbar. His leg is bleeding and dripping below. The people down below seem to be trying to catch the blood in their mouths. ]

B: What the fuck does he think he’s going to do?
A: Get fuckin eaten like the rest of em I guess.

[The camera slides right and focuses on four more people walking strangely. They stumble on the tracks as if they don’t understand that there is a space in between the wooden ties. Every few feet someone’s leg falls in up to the knee and they fall, they struggle to get back up. These are certainly the walking dead. The man stands on a small section of the tracks that had no gaps in the ties. He holds the crowbar by the curve and had a grey piece of clothing wrapped around his left arm. The crowbar end is pointed out at the creatures as if it were a sword. His right leg is forward and his left leg is turned to the side as if he were in a fencing stance. ]

A: Who does he think he is? Fuckin Aragorn and shit?
B: I guess, what a dumbass.

[Because of the clumsy nature of the creatures the zombies come in slowly and in large intervals, instead of in a pack. The first one reaches for the man and he sidesteps while shoving the crowbar through the eye of the ghoul.]

A: DAMN!
B: He fucked him up bro!

[There is a sound of hands slapping and the camera jiggles a little. The man removes the bar from the creature’s head and swings at the next one. He comes across the side of the head with the iron, and it topples to the side, falling off the elevated tracks.]

A: [shouting out to the street] Whoop his ass dog!
B: Fuck him up!

[The last two are closer together. The first creature swipes at the man. He leans to the side, his left leg sliding out. The man grabs the zombie by the front of the shirt and pivots, pulling the creature off balance and it falls off trying to grasp at the man. ]

A: That’s what you gotta do man, use their own momentum against them…
B: Listen to you – Lucky I got John Madden up here to give me the play by play.

[slight pause]

A: Fuck off homes…

[The other reaches for the man but stumbles on the ties. His foot catches and he lands face first onto the tracks. The man stomps the back of the head repeatedly until the creature stops trying to get up. It looks as if the man is going to stomp one more time when there is a large shriek – it is unmistakably the breaks on a large vehicle. ]

[The camera pans back a bit and catches a bus traveling at a high speed swerve around the pack of zombies huddled below lapping up the injured man’s blood. The bus plows through a couple of them, while it skids out of control. The man on the track turns just and the bus slams into the support for the el. He is off balance and near the edge of the tracks. The jarring collision is enough to make him lose his balance completely and he falls off el. His back slams into the top of the bus his crowbar leaves his grasp but is still on top of the vehicle with him. The camera focuses on him for almost thirty seconds; he does not stir.]

A: That was fuckin lame.
B: Yeah, that dude was a bitch.
A: Yeah, he’s lunch now.
B. What a shame…. AAAAAAAAA

[The camera spins to see man B getting attacked from behind. A ghoul has bitten into his neck. The camera falls as the cameraman grabs the ghoul and tries to pull him off his friend. There is a slight struggle as the zombie will not let go of the man he is attacking. The cameraman grabs the zombie by the shirt and tugs very hard. The zombie lets go of the injured man and the momentum pulls the two out of camera range. ]


A: Wha….AAAAAAAaaaaaaaa…

[There is dull thud in the distance about 4 seconds later. The man who was injured holds his neck for a moment or two and then collapses on the floor in front of the camera. He bleeds profusely from his neck. His eyes close, and thirty seconds later they open again. His bleeding has stopped, he slowly rises and heads back into the apartment. The camera watches him as he wanders right through the dwelling. The shot is framed perfectly as the creature walks right out the open front door. ]

Fuck Karma

Things that I have going for me:

• I always ride in the last car on the train. I ride there mainly because of laziness. It is the closest to the stairs at both the starting and stopping point.
• The back door of the train was not locked. Sometimes the last car on the brown line can have the operator door closed. Today the door was open.
• I came to work dressed to move boxes. I have on jeans, a t-shirt, my Colombia hiking boots, and I am carrying my hoodie.
• I came to move boxes so I brought my Gerber multi-tool. I use it to cut the shrink wrap on pallets.
• My wife is safely out of the largest population center in the Midwest getting surgery today.
  
  

Things that suck:

• I happen to be 25 blocks from my train home.
• I just leaped from a moving El and gashed my leg pretty bad.
• I’ve studied a western martial art for the better part of 13 years. It just so happens that the martial art in question (1500’s rapier combat) is primarily thrust attacks with a weapon that is basically useless when fighting the living dead, nor do I have access to any sort of weapon that resembles a rapier.
• I should be off today with my wife. The only reason I am in Chicago is because I had to come and unload books. Today was actually the start of a week’s vacation.

I do my best to hobble to the last station. The train continues on and then stops about 50 yards away. The station is close, but the stopped train is closer. People leap from the inside of the last car. No one but me was brave enough to do it before the thing stopped moving, but now I feel like a putz because I am the only one injured from it. The last guy out is hurt pretty bad, grabbing his neck, after him a few undead fall out and regain their footing. The injured man can’t move fast enough, he is descended upon.

I usher those that are ok to follow me. We move quickly to the Sedgwick stop. Some of them are sobbing others can’t believe what is happening, and we move without much talk – all of us are in shock. There are seven of us, two women, 2 children and three men. We make it to the El stop quickly and climb up the side. I turn back to see that the 3 that were feeding on the injured man are following, and the injured man’s death makes it four. I scan the area.

Let me chalk another thing that I have going for me. They are doing construction on this stop and the workers are gone. In fact we are the only ones on the platform but the workers left their tools. I find a small hammer that I quickly drop. I see the nail gun and snatch it up, but the compressor is electric and for some reason it isn’t functioning. I leave it for a small 2 x 4. I swing it once to check its balance. I turn back to the group of living dead when I catch it out of the corner of my eye.

It as if God himself has placed it there for my personal use. Too bad I don’t believe in God. Maybe karma feels bad about what it did to me. In any case the crowbar is exactly what I was looking for. The 2x4 hits the ground, the crowbar is taken up. The survivors of the brown line train have all left the platform. I could run, but judging from the sirens below and all the screams, I am safer up here.

I climb the steps back down to the tracks and start making my way toward them. My leg is bleeding and I think they smell it. They start to move faster and moan louder. I find a place to stand that isn’t separated ties, it is a patch of wood that is solid… I wait.

Cecil

Elevated train disturbance, CPD, FDC - 11:54:07[1]

Chicago PD Dispatcher 1313: Police operator 1313, what is your emergency?

Caller: Yes, I am on the brown line heading south to the loop. We just passed a red line train heading south. It was stopped on the tracks. One of the cars had blood all over the windows and it looked like there was a fight or a stabbing going on inside…

[interrupted by the operator]

Chicago PD Dispatcher 1313: Do you remember what car it was?

Caller: Yeah – it was the second from the last car.

Chicago PD Dispatcher 1313: Where was that train located?

Caller: It was on the slope that heads to the subway. Just after the brown line Armitage stop.

Chicago PD Dispatcher 1313: And it was stopped?

Caller: Yes ma’am.

Chicago PD Dispatcher 1313: Did you get a clear look as to what was happening inside the car?

Caller: Not really, there was a lot of blood on the windows. It looked like someone was being attacked because I saw some bodies slamming up against the doors. It might have been a shooting of a stabbing, but I can’t be sure.

Chicago PD Dispatcher 1313: Did you hear any gunshots?

Caller: No ma’am – but the train here is pretty loud.

[Intercom on train: “This is Sedgwick, next stop is Chicago.”]

Chicago PD Dispatcher 1313: Were the windows in tact? Any bullet holes in the windows?

Caller: In my recollection the windows were all in tact. I didn’t see any bullet holes. You should be sending an ambulance along with the police though.

Chicago PD Dispatcher 1313: An ambulance, police and fire have already been dispatched sir.

[Interrupting operator]

Caller: because there was a whole lot of blood. If someone isn’t dead already, they probably will be soon.

Chicago PD Dispatcher 1313: What’s your name sir?

Caller: It’s Brian Ci*********.

[Intercom on train: (3 loud beeps) “We are being delayed because of signals ahead. We hope to be moving shortly and we regret the inconvenience.”]

Chicago PD Dispatcher 1313: Well Brian, is there any other information that you could give us that might help us?

Caller: I don’t think so. I would hurry though. It looked pretty bad.

[Passengers begin screaming in background]

Chicago PD Dispatcher 1313: Brian? Is everything all right?

Caller: Oh, Fuck me….

[Call dropped]