Biohazard

20

Well, bodies was not exactly accurate, for the pit was actually filled with skeletons that had once been bodies. There was nothing fresh down there. Just what looked like thousands of skeletons heaped and broken, disjointed and blackened. There was ash everywhere. The pit stretched easily for three city blocks in either direction, as far as I could tell.

“Must’ve burned ‘em here,” Mickey said. “I saw a pit like this outside Allentown.”

Texas Slim nodded. “The germs and fallout must have been very bad here. Too close to Chicago. They must have dumped them here and torched them. Judging by the ashes everywhere, I’d say it went on for some time.”

I saw that it wasn’t just bones down there, but the wrecked hulks of cars and trucks. Lots of things had been dumped down there. It was a junkyard.

“You didn’t know this was here?” Janie asked Mickey.

“No…how would I?”

“Well, you led us right to it.”

“So what?”

“So, you’re leading us to that Jeep. You know where it is. You didn’t know this was here?”

“No, I didn’t. I came out here once. But not on foot. We were on the road north of here, on the other side of the river. I-ninety.”

Janie did not look satisfied and I knew I had to get the show rolling again here or another fight would break out. My little group was getting frustrated, tired. They needed something to set their sights on. That’s why I was going after the Jeep now rather than wait until tomorrow. At least, that was one of the reasons. The need to keep moving west was getting very strong, you see.

The sun was hovering just over the horizon now. I saw that there was a trail cut through the pit and up the other side. If we tried to go around, it would probably be dark by the time we hit the river.

“Let’s go,” I said.

“Down there?” Gremlin said. “I’m not going down into that cemetery.”

“Then you can stay behind.”

I started down, moving easy so I didn’t go sliding on the sand. Pebbles and loose rocks went rolling into the bone pit. The others fell in behind me without a word. Gremlin, too. It must have been a quarry or sandpit at one time that had been abandoned and then opened back up, enlarged, when thousands were dying by the day and infectious disease was burning hot through the city.

The hillsides were littered with stray skeletons wrapped in threadbare rags. They were rising from the sand, their bones so white they looked luminous. As we neared the bottom, I noticed there were great jagged slabs of slag everywhere along with sections of broken concrete that looked to have been part of sidewalks at one time. Ancient lengths of cement drainage conduits rose from the refuse along with rusted staffs of rebar and old porcelain sewer piping that must have been down there for decades and decades. Sure, first it had been a quarry, then a junk pit, then a body dump.

The shadows grew long and I felt Janie slide her hand in mine and I was glad for the feel of it. I gripped it tightly. Things rustled in pockets of spreading dark. Birds winged from one wrecked vehicle to the next. A rat stood atop a rusting engine block, watching us pass. The trail wound through the wreckage and bones, zig-zagging this way and that. Somebody had beat the trail through so it was definitely in use.

But I bet they don’t go down here after dark.

I kept going as night settled in. There were things jutting from the shadows everywhere. I tripped over a curled piece of rebar and almost went down. I dug a flashlight from my back. Working batteries were getting scarce now, but I didn’t like the idea of gutting myself on jagged metal.

“Nice place,” Texas Slim said.

“Yeah, nice place to die,” Gremlin added.

I fanned my flashlight around, picking out old refrigerators and heaps of tires, the rusted and pitted remains of an old swingset rising from the sand. And bones, of course. They were everywhere. The light glanced off ribcages and femurs and spinal columns. And skulls. Dozens and dozens of jawless skulls that had been picked clean. Bones rose up in great ramparts through which rats scurried.

When we hit dead center of the pit there was really nothing but skeletons. Some still dressed in rags and articulated, but most blackened and broken and tossed around. I started seeing a lot of small bones and skulls which must have belonged to kids. As we cut around some termite-pitted dock pilings, there was a little baby buggy with weeds growing up through it. I put the light on it out of some ghoulish curiosity and saw that the carriage was all rusted and black, the bonnet burned to flaps. Inside there was a tiny skeleton with jaws wide in a scream.

“Oh God,” Mickey said.

More derelict cars and piping, bones and shattered hills of concrete. I was moving everyone along faster now, needing to get out of there. Maybe it was nerves and maybe it was something else but I was getting very apprehensive. It felt like there were needles in my belly. I was sweating. I could feel the beat of my heart at my temples. Rats squeaked and bats winged overhead.

“We should find the trail up and out in a couple minutes,” I said, either to reassure the others or myself.

“I hope so,” Mickey said. “I don’t think we should be down here.”

“Oh, shut up,” Janie told her. “Don’t be so damn dramatic-”

But her words were cut right off…for somewhere out in the shivering darkness that filled the pit like the blackest oil, there rose up a roaring which sounded positively primeval.

“I’m guessing we’re fucked here,” Texas Slim said.