The next morning, we awoke just as fatigued and emotionally drained as the day before, but at least our bodies were somewhat rested. When I first opened my eyes, I was disoriented and thought for a brief second that I was at home in bed beside Diane. As my mind focused and I realized where I actually was, I was suddenly very depressed that the previous day had not been a nightmare. Diane was the only thing on my mind that morning; I just wanted to hold her in my arms, or, at the very least, to hear her voice. I had to make contacting Diane my number two priority today, only after staying alive.
We listened through the steel gates for any sounds or activity, but heard nothing. No voices, no running, no mass hysteria. We pocketed a few more candy bars and armed ourselves with whatever we could find to use as weapons. Thom found a good sized chunk of lumber in the back room, I had a steel bar that looked like it came from some sort of display unit, and Isabel had a large pair of scissors that looked like they would have been owned by some character played by Bette Davis or Joan Crawford in an old thriller movie. We opened the doors, and started out along the second half of the walkway system. We were walking for about 10 minutes when we reached a stairwell that ascended to the surface. The daylight shone a curtain of light down the stairs and onto the stained tile floor. We moved forward slowly, listening for noise from above, but heard nothing. We tread lightly up each step until we had a view of the street.
Back in the seventies and eighties, I was a big fan of the now-classic George A. Romero zombie films. Even into the eighties and beyond, I loved anything post-apocalyptic, Night of the Comet, The Day After, 28 Days Later. When we reached the top of those stairs, it was as if I was watching one of those movies come to life. Front Street was completely abandoned. Cars were everywhere, some with opened doors, some with people still in them, although they weren't in any shape to fill us in on what had happened. There was even the odd newspaper blowing around in the street for effect. All that was missing was the infamous "The Dead Walk" headline on the front page. It was looking a lot like a zombie movie, but this was reality. We didn't have 'zombies' in Toronto. Or anywhere else for that matter. That left us wondering what in God's name was happening here.
We heard a low rumbling from somewhere up Bay Street, and a more distant rumbling from further down Front Street. We all ducked back into the stairwell and poked our heads out to see what, if anything, would materialize from the direction of the thunderous clatter. From north of the intersection, coming out of the financial district, crawled a huge, drab olive tank, steadily rolling through the intersection like an angular metal elephant. It was prceded by six soldiers armed with AR-15's, and was followed by a parade of similar looking army men marching behind. The tank turned right onto Front Street, the pavement crackling under the heavy treads. The ground shook beneath our feet, and all the way down the street we could see tiny stones on the pavement jumping frantically in the air like fizz off a glass of Coke. Thom turned to me looking quite happy.
"This is it, they can help us, what are we waiting for?"
I couldn't be as certain. Being a movie buff, my mind automatically shifted to the rule that if things are going bad and the military shows up, things are probably not about to get better. However, it did make a heap more sense than hiding in a gift shop.
"Alright." I said, "But let's go slowly . . ."
The three of us started up the steps with our hands raised; the last thing we needed was to be shot dead by other non-infected people. Just as our heads barely got in the clear, we heard a massive crash from west, further down Front Street. It sounded like glass breaking and metal clanging, but on a very large scale, like a construction site accident. We froze in our tracks, and the soldiers did the same. Their guns rose to attention, sights aligned with well-trained eyes. The tank hit an abrupt stop as well, tossing some pavement chunks into the air in front of the treads as it lurched forward and then settled back. We were all waiting, and it was so quiet you could hear army-issue boots shifting in road gravel. Then the sound reached our ears and the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up. A din, a unified noise of many separate noises. I squinted and looked down Front Street, trying to make out something, anything. All I could see was the familiar haze of heat rising from the hot blacktop. Then, within the haze, something moved; at first, in the dead center of the air distortion, then straight across the entire road. The sound grew louder. It was the sound of voices, except that they were random, like animal grunting and groaning, instead of words. After another 30 seconds that felt like hours, they were finally visible. There must have been thousands of people, of all sizes, shapes and races. There was a lot of colour, bright clothing, hats, capes, and jackets. Large cardboard things hung on their backs. They held staffs and wore helmets. Then my eye caught a familiar sight. A Stormtrooper? Then another. Batman? Was I at some point hit on the head with a blunt object? The call echoed out in the street from the soldiers' radios, who braced themselves and repositioned, readied, and re-aimed their weapons. As the mob grew closer, it was an all-too-familiar sight. The science fiction/comic/horror convention was happening that day, and the geeks came out in drones. All of them. Infected. And all looking for something to kill. I spun around to Thom and Isabel, and with my eyes as unintentionally wide as they could go, motioned for them to go back down the stairwell, but they were one step ahead of me and already moving. As we turned our backs and ran, the loud firecracker popping of machine gun fire erupted in the street above, followed by a large boom that rattled debris from the ceiling above us. We ran back to the gift shop, but stopped short. We all looked at each other with the same thought in our heads. Did we really want to be stuck in a shop with no back door with thousands of those things behind us? We scrambled around looking for alternatives. After a few seconds of searching, Isabel found a door marked Maintenance, and it seemed to have a slightly bent doorknob that prevented it from closing securely. We looked inside to see a long tunnel with industrial lighting along the walls. We decided to take our chances in there; at least it might lead somewhere and although there may be some of those things in there, it was doubtful there were thousands. Thom and I heaved on the door once inside, forcing it shut and turning the automatic lock to click into place, popping the push bar back out on our side. We began a quick trot down the dirty hallway for a few minutes until we reached an arched metal door with a lever handle. Above the door, an old, rusted sign read 'Sewer Access'. I raised my eyebrows and looked at my two travelling companions. Thom shrugged as if to say 'after you, kind sir'. I cranked the lever and opened the door, which produced a high-pitched squeal that made the three of us wince. Inside the door, there was a hole in the metal floor, and a steel rung ladder descended into an area that gave off the least alluring aroma I have ever encountered. I stepped onto the first rung and prayed silently that I wasn't leading us into our final resting place. I might die trying to get home, but I didn't want it to be in a sewer.
