The Last Words

From the journal of Jude Guerrero 12/25/2012

It was huge, and close. I felt the shock at the same time that I heard it. Luckily, no heat though, so we were safe…ish.

“What was that?” Cassie asked, guess she could hear it even with her ears plugged and head wrapped. Or maybe she felt it.

We looked at where flames had suddenly roared to life, the plant. The sewage treatment plant.

“Damn,” I said. The smoke was billowing away from us, for now. “Well, Doctor, you called it.”

“Yes, unfortunately, I did. It was only a matter of time; gasses building up, sewage still flowing in, and no one there to stop it or vent the gases.”

“Well, how long do you think we have?”

“Not long. The fire will spread, there is plenty of fuel there. And the wind could shift again at any time, sending toxic smoke right in our direction.”

“Shit smoke, great. You know what this means?” I asked the Doctor.

“Yes, we’ll have to get to the boat. I suppose there is no other way.”

“We’re going to need vehicles and we’re going to need weapons. Any ideas?” I asked the group.

We were in the farthest room, down the corridor now, as far from the affected as we could get, those of us still able to come up with a plan; Eric, Dr. Gates, Tim Tom (hey, why not?), Cassie and myself. Luckily, our affected visitors had left, I guess to go see what the explosion was all about, and our own affected had quieted back down a bit.

Just to be sure, we had a mattress up against the door to keep out sound, because I needed everyone to take out the earplugs and help us figure out what we were going to do.

“There’s a State Police station right here on the campus, just right over there,” said Cassie. She seemed smart, too bad she had to keep isolated behind the ear plugs all the time.

“She’s right, it’s not far, just by the entrance gate,” the Doctor added.

“OK, that’s lucky. That’s our best chance of finding guns and ammunition.”

“So, how do we get over there? This place is still crawling with chanters,” Eric asked.

“There are vans down there,” Cassie replied. “They use them to transport prisoners from jails over to the forensic ward. They already have bars on the back windows, so that might help.”

“You sure do know a lot about the forensic ward and the vans,” Eric sniped.

“I was in the forensic ward for a while before I was transferred over here.”

“You were?” He sounded surprised.

“Yes.”

I didn’t want to ask so instead I asked, “Why did they send you over here?”

“Because I was a model fucking patient.”

I decided to change the subject, “OK, I wonder if we can get some of the bars off these windows too, to cover the front windshield?”

“Tim Tom was in construction,” the Doctor said.

I wasn’t real sure how I was going to communicate this but here it went.

“Can you take these bars,” I pointed, “and cut them off” I moved my hands down, “and weld them to a van?” I made a welding helmet down motion, then pretended to weld, then pretended to drive.

“OK, I got the taking the windows off part, I think. And were you welding?” he replied.

“Yes, yes,” shaking my head.

“But, what else?” he asked.

“And weld them,” welding motion again, “to a van,” driving steering wheel motion again. I felt like an idiot.

“Weld them to a car?”

I made a larger motion with my hands, spreading them.

“A truck?”

Close enough. Thumbs up.

“Um, yeah, sure. No problem. But, are we going to try and get out of here?” I nodded yes. “Holy shit,” was his reply.