Fountain of the Dead by Scott T. Goudsward

baseball bat in the other.
    “I’m trying, Mom.” Grace answered. She swept black hair from her eyes with thin fingertips and kept typing.
    “That’s it sweetie, now quickly, change servers.” Marjorie glanced over to Lyle who was looking through the cracked door up and down the hallway.
    “Really, Mom, what good is this going to do? How much tech is going to be left after this is fixed?”
    “When it is fixed, Sweetie, you’ll need to do something. And I really don’t see you hunting and gathering.” Grace opened a text box and typed in a new IP address. “There you go. Always hide your trail. Keep private you never know who can be tracing you.”
    “I hear something coming,” Lyle whispered. “Hurry up.” Grace closed the browser and pushed back from the desk letting the wheeled chair carry her across the room.
    “Where will we go?” Grace said standing.
    “We’ll run back to our offices. We’ve been safe there so far.”
    “It’s only been a few days.” They stopped and turned at the shuffle-steps coming down the hall. Lyle eased the door shut and ducked down. He stared up at the clouded glass of the door.  Several figures shambled past. Marjorie covered Grace’s mouth sensing a scream coming. She looked deep in her eyes and nodded, but still kept her hand covering her mouth. Lyle pressed his ear to the door and listened. He slid away from the door shaking his head.
    “They’re still out there,” he whispered. “We need to get out of here.” The only other door in the computer lab was the emergency exit. “We go through there and everything will come after us. It might be a good diversion though. Get them in here while we run.”
    “Dad, no. Just sit it out.”
    “One hour, then we run.” They sat in silence, holding hands, listening to the re-assuring hum of the computer fans. Lyle checked his watch often. They had no supplies in the lab. All the water and food was in their adjoined offices, across the quad and three parking lots and a ball field away.
    A shadowy figure went by the window and then another. The computer Grace had worked on chimed out. The server had crashed. The door window filled with shadows. Marjorie jumped up to close the server window and silence the alarm when the glass broke from on the door.
    Grace screamed and ran towards the emergency exit. “Not yet!” Lyle yelled. He grabbed the shotgun and the bat as fresh dead arms ripped and shredded from the glass reached through for him. When they were all at the door, Lyle counted down with his fingers from three. He pushed through the door and the alarm sounded. The street between buildings was clogged with the dead.
    “Run!” he screamed and fired into the bodies with the shotgun. He tossed the bat to Marjorie who swung at anything that moved. Grace did her best to stay between them. When the shotgun shells ran out, Lyle used the gun like a club. The sounds of metal against skulls echoed across the street.
    “Run, Grace. Now.”
    “I won’t leave!” Marjorie grabbed her daughter’s shoulder and shoved her towards the hole they made. They turned at the scream and saw Lyle pulled down into the press of bodies. Marjorie watched Grace running towards the parking lot and turned with the baseball bat.
     
    * * * * *
    The midday sun hovered high in the sky. Wisps of clouds flitted by on a sea of blue. Crenshaw sat on his desk chair and over looked the ruins of Boston. The office, in its day, had been the most sought after in the firm. Co-worker versus co-worker, conniving, needling, lying, and bribes had taken place. Before the Night Storm, Crenshaw had helped a young man into an empty elevator shaft. It got him the promotion he wanted and the office he desired, with a firm handshake and plastic smile. Of course he lied about what happened to his co-worker. Said it was stress and he couldn’t open a window to jump from. So instead he jumped down the elevator shaft.
    The amount of backstabbing became legendary among