Dead Frontier/Issue 132

This is Issue #132 of Dead Frontier, titled Wabash. This is the finale of Volume 22.

Issue 132 - Wabash
Heidi can do nothing but stare at the row of monitors before her. She's in this dark room alone, where the walls are covered in television screens of various sizes. Her eyes are glued to a select few. Flashing white letters on the bottom-right corner of the screens say 'Wabash Sector', along with a timestamp. 2:53 AM.

Each screen displays a different angle of the sector's main street, but they all show the same thing. Two infected sprint down the street, and a man runs from them wildly. His feet splash against the puddles that cover the asphalt, and he ends up losing his footing. These cameras don't have any sound, but Heidi can practically hear that awfully familiar scream as the infected reach him. She turns away, about to notify someone, when the door opens.

"Heidi, there was--" Natesh begins as he walks through the door. He has a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other. He taps it against the clipboard but stops when he sees Heidi's face. He doesn't ask any questions and instead turns his head toward the monitor. "What the hell is that?" He takes a few steps forward and puts his face close to the screen. When all of the details become clear, he actually jolts backward slightly.

This new breed has, somehow, found a home right inside their walls. This is so unprecedented that they're both at a loss for what to do, until Natesh makes the first decision. To the right of the monitors, two buttons are embedded into the table, and right above that, a tiny speaker. Natesh presses the red button and holds it down, leaning toward the speaker. In the calmest voice he can muster, he says, "This is Natesh Verma. Please shut down the Wabash sector. Thank you."

"What do you think you're doing?" Heidi says, taking a step toward him. She gives him a small shove and presses down on the red button. "This is Dr. Kastner. Please ignore--" Before she can finish, Natesh grabs her hand and snatches it away. A small burst of static indicates the person on the other end is now free to speak.

"Uh..." says the voice from the speaker. "I'm gonna need the okay from Kastner before we shut down an entire fucking sector." There's another burst of static as the voice waits for a response.

"Don't risk it. Shut it down," Natesh says.

"People will go crazy," she replies. "Are you kidding me?"

His eyes turn to another set of monitors, with a different view of the Wabash sector. Those two infected from before don't compare to these small, but numerous, groups that roam down the block. They stop, apparently seeing something, but it's off camera so Heidi and Natesh aren't sure what it is. And suddenly, a few of them break into a sprint--the rest continue at their slow pace.

"Shut it down while the rest of the city is still asleep," Natesh says quietly. He gives her an encouraging nod, but his grave expression is all that Heidi needs to walk back over to the speaker and press her hand against that red button.

"This is Dr. Kastner," she says. "I'm authorizing a shutdown of the Wabash sector. Thank you."

Hunter awakens with a start. He nearly rolls off his bed in his frantic state, but he catches himself. His head turns to the window next to his bed, where he can hear shouting from down below. "What the hell...?" he mutters, and he pulls the curtains back. People fill the streets, yelling something he can't make out from up here. "Fuckin' crazies." He rises from his bed and heads to kitchen, flipping on the nearby lightswitch. But nothing happens. He gives the switch an almost annoyed look and flips it a few more times, but he still recieves no light. Next, he rushes to the living room and grabs the remote. He presses the 'on' button, pointing the device at the television. Nothing.

He notices the refrigerator isn't making its telltale humming noise, and, as expected, when he goes to open it and stick his hand inside, he's met with warm air. "God damnit..."

He opens his front door and exits into the corridor. He only knows of one person that shares this floor with him, so he proceeds down the hall quickly and stops at one of the rooms. He knocks on the door obnoxiously.

The door flies open. “What the fuck--” Cedric begins, but he cuts himself off when he sees Hunter standing there, still in his tank top and underwear. Instinctively, Cedric takes a step back, prompting Hunter to let out a sigh.

“Don’t be a pussy,” Hunter says. “I’m not here ruin your face again, alright? I need to know if your electricity is working.”

“My electricity?”

“Yes, your electricity. D’you know what that is?” Hunter says, plastering on his most condescending tone. Cedric scoffs and turns back into his apartment.

“Let me check,” he says, and he goes to close the door. Hunter stops it with his hand and puts on an expression of faux hurt.

“You’re not gonna invite me in?” Hunter asks, and he places a hand to his heart.

“Yeah, right,” Cedric says, and Hunter laughs; he waits patiently from his spot right outside the door, with his hands clasped behind his back. As he predicted, when Cedric returns, he just shakes his head.

“It’s out,” Cedric announces.

“You--you’re good with your hands and shit. Can’t you fix it?”

“Not if it’s out everywhere. I’m not a magician.”

Hunter already has his retort in his mind when the door next to Cedric’s swings open. A scrawny man rushes out, nearly running into Hunter, but Hunter stops him with a hand to his chest. “Whoa,” Hunter says. “The hell is your problem?”

“You--you two didn’t hear?” the man says, his eyes shifting from Cedric to Hunter and back again. “They blocked off the entire sector. They said we can’t leave, man.” The man wriggles from Hunter’s grasp and jogs down the hall. Cedric and Hunter watch as he hurriedly bounds down the stairwell to his right.

Dean wakes up with his face smashed into an unfamiliar carpet. He lifts his head with a groan and looks around, blinking his eyes a couple times. The light from the window makes him wince, but he ignores the pain for now and rises to his feet. He stops when he sees Lucy curled up on the couch, a thin and tattered blanket pulled over her. He’d forgotten he was even here, but he’s not surprised he passed out given the beer bottles spread out on the floor around him. He vaguely remembers offering Lucy some, but she wouldn’t even take a sip.

He walks over to the window, which is open slightly, and looks down. There’s faint shouting from somewhere down the street, and he slams the window down, effectively blocking out the noise. Lucy jumps at the sound, and Dean looks back at her, admittedly a little embarrassed. “Sorry,” he says. She rubs her eyes and disregards his apology by waving her hand through the air.

All he remembers is talking. Of course, she needs someone to talk to, and he happened to be there. But when the conversation began to shift to the side of depressing, he thought a few drinks wouldn’t hurt. He didn’t think anything was up when he offered her a drink--maybe she got the wrong idea. What he really found odd was her denial of a quick smoke. He couldn’t imagine a better time than now for a nice cigarette, but she was adamantly against it.

There’s a long silence as he begins to roam around the room. “So…” he says, and she follows him with her eyes. He spots a carton of cigarettes stuffed between the cushions of the other couch, and he pulls them out. “Want one now?” He tosses the small box to her, and she catches it with ease.

Instead of pulling one out, she sets the carton down next to her. “Gonna have to quit those for a while,” she says.

“No beer. No smokes. Since when are you a health nut?” He can practically feel the tension heighten with her lack of response. When she looks up at him, her eyes are misty--and he knows immediately that something isn’t right.

“It’s not for me,” she says vaguely.

“Uh...okay…” he says with an uncomfortable laugh. She’s trying to tell him something, but he can’t put his finger on what quite yet. Until it hits him, out of nowhere. “Wait. Wait.” He scratches his head as he tries to think through his words. “Wait. No fucking way. Are you...you’re--you know--” He waves his hands through the air wildly, expecting her to finish his sentence.

“Pregnant. Yeah. Found out yesterday.”

“Wow. C-congratulations. I mean--yeah, congratulations.” He’s not sure if it’s appropriate to say he’s sorry or not, but he just keeps it at that, even if she does looked more saddened at the news than anything. “Are you...okay? I know with--with everything you...might not--” He decides to stop talking out of fear of saying the wrong thing.

“I’m fine. It’s complicated but I’m...I’m happy. Happy about this.”

The timing of it is the most amazing part to Dean. But he knows that the less he says, the better. His eyes shift around the room for a few seconds until they lock on her again. “Good. Good--and y-yeah, I’m happy for you.”

After hearing the commotion outside, Daniel sprints down the stairs of the apartment building and rushes out the front door. Immediately outside, he sees the backs of Adam and Duke, who watch the crowded street crumble into hysteria. People march down the street, and the crowd eventually halts, but none of them can see where it stops. “Yo!” Daniel calls out to them, and Adam and Duke turn. “What the hell’s going?”

“We don’t know!” Duke says, but he’s forced to yell over the rest of the shouting. “We woke up--all the power was out! Now everyone’s...freaking the hell out!”

“No one wants to tell us anything!” Adam adds in. He scans the street, and when he spots a familiar face, he cups his hands over his mouth. “Andrew! Andrew!” he shouts, but Andrew doesn’t react. “Andrew! Roth!” Finally, Andrew’s head turns in their direction, and he pushes past a few people to reach them.

“Hey,” Andrew greets as he jogs over.

“What’s the problem?” Adam asks.

“Uh--something’s going on a few blocks away. But the guards are blocking it off--we can’t leave, either.”

“Can’t leave?”

“Nah, man. We--” They all turn at the sound of gunshots, but where they come from is unknown. “Y-yeah, I don’t know what’s going on. It’s freaking me out.” He looks between their nervous faces and crosses his arms to ward off some of the cold. “We could always find out.”

“Find out?” Duke echoes.

“Yeah. Find a way to sneak past them. Get into the other part of the sector and see what’s going on.”

“And they’ll shoot us on sight, right?”

“Maybe not. Probably, but maybe not.” Duke laughs at the ridiculousness of the suggestion, but Andrew is more than ready to defend himself. “Or we can sit here and worry like fucking idiots. Or we can actually do something about this. I’ve had enough of this place kicking me in the nuts, so I’ll go by myself if I have to.” There’s a short pause. “And I know my way around.”

“Kid’s got a point,” Daniel says.

“Thank you.” It’s not hard for Andrew to see Duke and Adam’s uneasiness. “This might just be nothing, or something really fucked up can be going down. And if it is something really fucked up...someone’s gotta find out.”

Tora opens the door to Farrah’s room and finds her sitting on the couch with a blank expression. Tora hesitates in the doorway before uttering a simple, “Good morning.” It’s almost like Farrah doesn’t hear her, but a few seconds later Farrah turns her head and returns the greeting. “Brought you some food. I know you said you were running low.” The lifts up the plastic bag in her hand.

“Your power’s not out?” Farrah asks.

“It is. This is just some stuff from my pantry.” Tora steps inside and closes the door behind her. However, she’s wary of coming in any further. Farrah wordlessly stares down at the brace on her ankle. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine but--I kind of have someone over--” Just as she says it, a man comes trudging out of the room, scratching his backside. He wears a tanktop and jeans and gives Tora an odd look. Tora just stares at him in response.

“‘Sup?” he says as he slips his shoes on near the door.

“H-hi,” Tora says, and she moves out of the way to give him room to leave. Once the door closes, they fall into an uncomfortable silence. “I’ll...leave this here.” She walks the short distance to the counter and sets the heavy bag on top of it. “If you want to talk or something--”

“Thank you. For the food.”

Tora takes the hint and nods. She forces a smile and shoves her hands into her pockets--but expression shifts to something more worried when she hears gunshots outside. Instead of leaving like she’d planned, she moves over to the window across the room. A woman stands in the middle of the street, holding onto a bloody wound on her shoulder. Several people have made a circle around her. Watching her. Tora opens the window just an inch so she can hear some of what’s going on.

“It’s not a bite!” the woman shouts in the face of a guard with a rifle. The gun is pointed directly at her face.

The guard shouts an order for everyone to disperse, and he even fires his gun into the air as a pointed threat, but it’s not followed. All eyes are glued to the woman. Just when Tora is sure the guard is going to blow this woman away, someone emerges from the wall of people. Tora feels her fingers clench around the windowsill. “Daniel!” she screams.

“Let’s just go, man!” Adam calls from the crowd, but Daniel doesn’t listen. “This isn’t part of the fucking plan!” He and Duke eventually did agree to go along with Andrew and sneak into the blocked off part of the sector, but now another obstacle stands in their way. Daniel could have ignored the commotion, but something told him not to.

“Hey!” Daniel shouts at the guard. “She says it’s not a bite? It’s not a bite. Let’s go.” She puts a comforting arm around the woman’s shoulder, but the guard’s decision to switch his aim toward Daniel makes them stop.

“Sir, please step away from her,” the guard says. “She’s a ticking time bomb.” They hear a scream from up above, and all heads turn upwards to see Tora sticking her head out the window of one of the apartment buildings. But Daniel knows he has to stay focused on this.

“We can take her to the hospital--she’ll be fine. C’mon.” Daniel locks eyes with him for a second, and the guard drops his rifle. Daniel mutters some comforting words to the young woman and they walk back toward everyone else. However, Daniel freezes when he sees everyone shriek and bring their hands to their mouths.

The bullet flies through the back of the woman’s head with ease, and blood splatters all over Daniel’s face and shirt. He lets her go, and she hits the frozen ground with a heavy, sickening thud.

Daniel slowly turns to the guard and wipes the blood off his face with the palm of his hand. The guard’s stare is almost daring, but Daniel knows he has no chance. He has a terrible feeling in the bottom of his gut, and if Adam and Duke had any hesitation about getting to the root of this madness, it’s all gone now. And the simple firing of that shot sets their plan in motion.

“Can’t be that hard. Just...feed the thing, toss it in a crib for the night,” Dean says with a shrug. He knows he probably had enough to drink last night, but he takes another sip from the bottle in his hand. He sits next to Lucy on one of the couches; with the power out, the commotion from outside provides the only background noise. They’ve decided to ignore it for now, not really in the mood to involve themselves in whatever problems are emerging.

“For some reason, I don’t think it’s that easy,” Lucy says.

“It can be. You’d just be a terrible mother. But I think...you’ll do good.” She smiles, turns her gaze toward the blank television screen, and leans her head back to she’s looking at the ceiling.

“I don’t know. I hope.” She places an unconscious hand over her stomach and closes her eyes. “I think I want a girl.”

“Huh. Really?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s wrong with guys?”

“I had a little brother, and I knew all his friends. Guys are assholes when they’re kids, there’s no denying it.”

“I wasn’t,” he disagrees.

“Oh. What happened?”

He scoffs, a smile breaking through, and he stands with the empty bottle. “Very funny,” he says as he walks to the garbage can in the kitchen. “My little sisters weren’t really a joy to deal with. But I guess I can’t really--”

He flinches at the sound of gunshots, and the bottle falls out of his hands and shatters against the floor. “Jesus fucking Christ--” he exclaims. He turns, but Lucy is already at the window. He squeezes in next to her to get a view of outside, and he pulls the curtain to the right for a better look.

The crowd has shifted somewhere east down the street, and they can’t see much. The gunshots were amazingly clear however, and soon, there’s another shot, along with a chorus of screams.

“Okay, you stay here,” Dean says. “I’ll check it out.”

“Don’t go out there. Are you crazy?” Lucy says.

He’s going to protest, but there’s another round of shouting, but this time, the sound reeks of excitement--such a drastic change from the screeching of just a few seconds ago. The shouts are punctuated by sudden bangs on the door, along with yelling from somewhere in the hall.

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” someone says from outside the room. Each order is followed by a pounding on the door. Dean hurries to the door and puts his ear close to it.

“What the hell is your problem?” Dean shouts back.

“Yo--someone’s in here! You helping out or what?”

“Helping out--what are you talking about?”

“Guards outside are going apeshit, man. Locked us in here and won’t let us out.”

Dean is still confused, but he can tell the man has already departed. He looks back at Lucy, entirely unsure what they’re next course of action should be. “We’ll...we'll just wait,” he suggests.

"I knew this was a terrible idea," Heidi says with a shake of her head. She sits at a table stationed in the center of a large room lined with televisions and computers. The largest screen displays the Wabash sector, where several unruly crowds are being detained. The guards aren't having any trouble, but Heidi still feels anxious.

Natesh, sitting on her left, gives her a disapproving look. "We also could have let word get out that the infected have gotten in somehow. That wouldn't cause any type of outrage--no no, of course not." She scoffs at his heavy sarcasm.

"If the breach is as bad as they're saying, locking them all in there is a death sentence."

"They'll get it under control." Heidi has a hard time believing it, and she doesn't bother to conceal her doubt. "What about the other sectors? People are going to start asking questions."

"Appease them. Make something up."

"And when they find out I'm bluffing?"

"Let them be angry. It'll be better for all of us in the long run."

Heidi sighs and taps her fingers on the cold surface of the table. "Okay," she says finally.

Adam, Duke, Daniel, and Andrew make their way through the angry clusters of people placed all around the sector. They try to draw the least amount of attention to themselves as possible. Andrew easily swerves through the streets and back alleys, and the other three follow him silently. It doesn't take long to find the part of Wabash that's been sectioned off. A row of guards stands in front of a flimsy steel gate that looks like it could have been set up in minutes. Behind them, the apparently forbidden area of the sector is silent. Peaceful.

An unruly group of people stands before the guards, most of them pleading for access, claiming they have family in that area. But the guards are completely unresponsive.

A familiar face stands among them--Karl is at the forefront, speaking frantically to a guard. "If you just tell us the problem--we'll go," Karl offers. "I'll lead everyone outta here. But we live here, and we wanna know what the hell is going on! We deserve that much."

"No, you don't," a guard says, and he snaps his mouth shut again.

Adam knows he doesn't have time to bring Karl along, so after a brief moment of hesitation, he continues following Andrew, Duke, and Daniel.

"They're not watching the rooftops," Andrew says. "Come on." Without asking questions, they follow him into the back door of a crumbling building. It's deserted, dark because of the boarded over windows. The stairs creak under their weight, and as Adam, who trails behind, jumps from the top step and onto the second floor, part of the staircase collapses. He takes a second to look back, but moves on by proceeding up more stairs. It takes several flights to reach the roof, and when they do finally emerge out into the bitter cold, much of Denver in view, Andrew stops them.

"Try to stay low," Andrew advises, and he urges them on with a nod. "Follow me. And don't be nervous."

He walks over to the edge of the building, shielding his hands over his eyes as he looks out. The rest of Wabash is absolutely silent, and he can't see a soul. He looks down at the shorter building below--he's pretty sure he can make this jump without hurting himself too bad. And so he goes for it.

"Hell no, man," Duke groans after Andrew makes the jump.

"Just--come on," Andrew calls out, trying to keep his voice as low as possible. From this roof, Andrew sees that he's made it past that gate, and the guards that stand before it. He just hopes they don't turn, afraid that his position will be given away if they do.

Adam steps forward and looks down. "It's...it's not that high," Adam says.

"Yeah," Andrew adds. "I'm fuckin' a-okay down here." He prods Adam with a waving gesture of his hand.

Adam takes a deep breath, and with a surprising amount of certainty, takes the plunge. He lands unsteadily, but Andrew keeps him upright. Duke and Daniel have no choice but to follow his lead, and soon, they're bounding down the stairs of that equally dark and rugged apartment building.

"Let's see, let's see, let's see..." Andrew mutters to himself as he takes a sharp turn out of an alley, and quickly diverges into another one. "Over there. Look." He stops Adam, Duke, and Daniel by holding his arm out, and he points to a trio of guards marching into a building. Except they don't hold guns. At least, they don't look like guns to Andrew. They wait nervously, and it only takes a few minutes for them to hear a high-pitched scream that is clearly subdued. Then, one of the building's rooms bursts into flames, leading the four of them to jump backward. "What in the fuck...?" Andrew says. They continue to watch: flames shoot out of window after window, until most of the building is a charred mess.

The guards march right back out soon after, and head down the block.

“Did they just...what the fuck?” Duke says. “Did they kill everybody in there?”

“I don’t know, man. Holy shit. Let’s just...let’s go,” Andrew says. They’re about to head back into the building when they hear the crackle of several speakers, and then a familiar voice.

“Hello, this is Dr. Heidi Kastner,” the voice begins. “Residents of the Wabash sector--please, stay calm. Last night, there was a breach, and our guards are working to contain it. It is in your best interest that you cooperate. All will be cleared up soon, and your electricity will return as soon as possible. Thank you.”

“Bull-fucking-shit,” Andrew spits. “Come on--”

“Hey!” someone shouts from behind them--and as soon as they turn, they see that a new group of guards has spotted them.