Free Left With the Dead by Stephen Knight Page A

Over.”
    “Roger that, Terminator. By the way, news for you. First Chinook unit is setting down right now. We’re using the parking lots outside of Yankee Stadium as an assembly area. We already have HEMT-T tankers there,” Falcon reported. He pronounced HEMT-T as “hemmit”, and Gartrell knew they were huge, multi-wheeled trucks that could be configured for a variety of missions, in this case transporting aviation fuel. “Summit Six is lobbying to get a bird out to you directly. He wants you here, as a source of intel. Over.”
    “Falcon, this is Terminator. Tell Six I’ll even fetch his coffee and give him foot rubs if he can get us out of here—though do pass on that I’m hardly an expert at either. Over.”
    Falcon laughed over the radio. “Good one, Terminator. I’ll pass that on. If you—”
    Jolie shrieked suddenly from somewhere in the apartment, and Gartrell tuned out Falcon as he bolted out of the bedroom, his pistol ready in his right hand. He found Jolie kneeling on the floor, clutching Jaden to her as Jaden reached past her shoulder for the curtains. Gartrell saw he’d already been able to pull them half-open.
    “Is everything all right? What happened?” he asked, hurrying toward them.
    “Dah. Dee,” Jaden said gently, still reaching for the window.
    “He’s out there,” Jolie said. Her voice quaked in fear, and her shoulders shook. “Jaden opened the curtains before I could stop him…and when I looked out, I saw him outside .”
    “You saw who outside?”
    She looked up at him, and tears spilled from her big blue eyes. “Jack. My husband. Jaden’s father.”
    “Dah. Dee.”
    “Terminator, this is Falcon…you still there? Over.”
    “Falcon, Terminator. Stand by, something’s up on my end, over.” Gartrell stepped past them and peeked past the open curtain at the street below. The stenches were still walking north, but there was a congregation of about ten or fifteen standing right below. One of them—a man in a blood-spattered French blue shirt blazer and tan slacks—looked up at the apartment building with flat, dead eyes, his face pale and bloodless. A huge rent had been torn through his bearded cheek, and one of his hands was wrapped up in a bloodstained handkerchief. Flies flitted about the corpses below. Gartrell watched as they crawled in and out of the man-thing’s mouth and nostrils. The stench didn’t appear to care; it just stared up at the building.
    At the windows of the apartment next door. Jolie and Jaden’s apartment.
    “Dah. Dee,” Jaden said again, and this time there was an edge to his voice.
    “Take him out of here,” Gartrell said. He moved the pistol’s fire selector to SAFE and slid it into its holster, his eyes still on the group of zeds below. As he watched, the stench he figured to be Jolie’s husband—who in the pictures on the wall was hale and hearty, unlike this scraggly figure below—reached into one of its trouser pockets. It pulled something out and, for the first time, slowly looked down. It opened its hand and stared at what lay inside.
    It was a key ring.
    Oh, fuck me. Gartrell thought he had seen it all when zeds drove vehicles and fired guns, but if they could start unlocking doors with keys…that was even worse, somehow.
    “Dah-dee!” Jaden said, this time with much more force.
    “Take him back to your apartment!” Gartrell shook Jolie’s shoulder. “Jolie! Get him out of here! Now! ”
    “All right!” she snapped back, her voice marred by a sudden sob. “We’re going!” She picked up Jaden and hurried back to the bedroom, sniffling. Jaden struggled against her, but she held him tight. Gartrell turned back to the window and slowly edged closer. Sure enough, Jolie’s dead husband was going through the keys on the ring, and he finally settled on one. Moving with a stupid slowness, the ghoul advanced toward the apartment building, holding the key out before it like it was some sort of weapon. Gartrell leaned forward a