Read Online The Parasite War by Tim Sullivan - Free Book Online Page B

later Alex heard lumber being moved above them.
    "Holy shit!" came Flash's muffled cry. "C'mere and have a look at this!"
    Jo and Alex took the stairs two at a time. They joined Flash, who was on his knees before a section of floor that had come up like a trap door.
    "I'll have a look," Alex said, climbing down into the secret room. "Not enough room down here to swing a cat."
    It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness, but he was delighted when he saw what was stacked on either side of the coffinlike space.
    "Paydirt!" he yelled.
    Boxes of ammunition lined one wall, and the other held medical supplies: first aid kits, Ace bandages, hypodermic needles, bottles of antibiotics, and even vitamins. There were several rifles and semi-automatic weapons leaning against the narrow wall at the end, four handguns, and—perhaps most useful of all—two drums marked "flammable."
    "There's kerosene or gasoline down here," Alex said. "So don't light a match."
    He began to hand up boxes of ammunition. "We'll take as much as we can carry today, and tomorrow we'll send out another group to get as much as they can bring back. We'll have to pour the kerosene into smaller containers to get it back to the park, but it shouldn't take more than a week with seven people working."
    "What a find," Flash said, beginning to appreciate the enormity of their discovery as the material was handed up to him a bit at a time.
    When they had as much as they could hope to carry, Alex clambered out with the help of Jo and Flash. The diagonal positioning of the wall made egress easy.
    Jo smiled in wonderment. "How do you suppose Victor ever came up with that?"
    "I'd say this house was built during the twenties," Alex said. "During prohibition. Bootleggers must have had this secret room built to hide booze."
    "Thank God for devious minds," Flash said. "Bootleggers, dope runners, and all the other outlaws have their purpose in the scheme of things, just as I always suspected."
    Burdened with bullets and medical supplies, each of them carrying one new semi-automatic and one new handgun, they started back toward the park.
    "You know, if we go down this hill, we'll meet up with the tunnel just as quickly, and it'll be a lot easier on us," Alex said.
    "I don't know," Jo cautioned. "Let's not push our luck."
    "What do you mean?"
    "I mean that we may run into infected people if we go that way."
    "Why should there be any more of them that way than the way we came?"
    "We know the way we came is clear. So let's go back by the same route."
    "Jo, you're still thinking of our first visit to Ishan Street. We have no reason to believe that there's any real danger around here today."
    "I'd rather not, Alex."
    "Look, if we're gonna fight back, we'd better start now. If we're afraid of our own shadows, we're not going to succeed."
    "Well, aren't you infused with fighting spirit today," she said.
    "Come on," Alex said. "How about you, Flash?"
    "I'll go down the hill, I guess," Flash replied. "Why not? Like you said, we got to start fighting back sometime."
    "There you have it," Alex said. "You're outnumbered, Jo."
    "Once again, macho adventurism wins out over reason."
    The street curved down the side of the hill, obscuring what was ahead. Alex felt fortunate, as though things were at last going their way. Perhaps there was a chance after all. And then they came around the shell of a ruined rowhouse, seeing what was at the bottom of the hill.
    Dozens of shambling figures milled in the street near a three storey, brick building with a peaked roof and red door. This rather large structure and the surrounding blocks had been left untouched by rocket fire during the war.
    "Ironic," Alex said, drawing back behind the rubble.
    "Ironic that we came this way?" Jo asked.
    "That, too, I guess. But I was talking about that building down there. The big one without a scratch on it."
    "What is it?" Jo demanded. "Some kind of government building?"
    "You bet your sweet patoot it's a gummint