“Henry,” Gene called as I started back towards the driveway. “Want to go check out the airport, since it doesn’t look like we’re going to get much else done today?”
“The rain could always let up,” I said, perhaps a bit hopefully.
“Yeah,” he said. “And I could grow a second head. This looks like an all-day thing.”
I clumped up the stairs in my heavy rubber boots and dripped on the white-painted boards of the porch as I regarded him.
“We probably should,” I said thoughtfully. “Even those auxiliaries aren’t going to keep you flying forever.”
He shook his head. “About five or six back-and-forth trips to Atlanta, probably. Maybe more.”
“That’s not awful,” I agreed. “And means we can move pretty quickly if there’s an emergency.”
“Yeah,” Gene said. “We can get the Blackhawk in the air pretty quick. There is one thing we really need to do, though.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Well, two things,” he replied. “First, I want to start teaching anyone interested in how to fly it. Second, I want to get a full crew checked out on the guns. We may never need them, and I pray that’s the case, but I’ve got an itchy feeling about the whole situation with those paramilitary yahoos that tried to shoot us off the road.”
“They weren’t as good with that .50 as I expected,” I opined. “The big green truck only had one dangerous hit, and about three or four body hits.”
“Bruce armored that damn thing,” Gene said. “I heard at least ten rounds hit the tailgate, several through the cloth covering, and several along the side. Only two hit anything important, and that was the fuel tank and the tire.”
“Fortunately for us, this isn’t Hollywood, or we’d have gone up in a fireball from that fuel hit.”
Gene snorted and shook his head. We both looked up as Virgil approached with Jackie in his wake.
“Looks like God wants us to take a day off,” the teenager said, and I detected a hopeful note in his voice.
“Looks like,” I agreed.
“You two look like you’re planning something, though,” Jackie said, looking Gene and me over. “Spill.”
“We’re thinking about going to check out the airport,” I told her. “I’m not sure, though. Gene, do you want to drive or fly?”
“Fly, of course,” he said as if there was never any doubt. “Why drive when you have the option?”
“In the rain?” Jackie asked.
“I’ve flown in worse,” Gene replied, grinning. “Much worse.”
33
We ran through the checks, and Gene powered up the Blackhawk. He fiddled around with a couple of controls, shifted a bit in his seat to get comfortable, then he settled back and lifted up slowly on the collective. The engine pitch changed a bit, and the helicopter rose bumpily into the air.
Despite being in the copilot’s position, I kept my hands to myself. This was something I hadn’t been trained on. Still, I’d flown as a passenger enough times to be comfortable with the way a helicopter flew.
“I’m not sure I like the all-digital control panels,” Gene said as we tilted forward a bit and started moving. The nearby farms and homes stretched out below, while rain spattered on the windshield.
“Looks like everything works, though,” I said. “I’m sort of surprised.”
“Well, it’s got all sorts of sensors, plus satellites have their own power, I guess,” Gene explained, then shrugged. “Want to do a flyover?”
“Oh, sure,” I replied, gazing down through the lower windows.
He drifted us over the homestead, then turned and aimed the nose to west-northwest in the direction the GPS showed the airport. The chopper was actually a bit more cutting edge than I’d expected. There were lots of electronics and digital displays that completely replaced the old analog control panel. I could imagine it would take some getting used to, although the data and style did closely resemble what I remembered of a Blackhawk’s instruments from the times I’d been in one.
“This is a great way to explore, I think,” Gene said over the inside radio. “We can range out a little bit and look for other survivors that might be holed up in the more backwoods areas if you’d like.”
“Let’s add that to the list,” I said. “We’ve got a hell of a lot still to do.”
“Don’t you worry about us,” he told me. “Just tell me what we need to do, and I’ll get with Susan and get it done.”
I looked over at the big man and narrowed my eyes a bit.
“You too?” I asked.
“Me too, what?” he glanced back at me.
“Everyone keeps telling me that I’m trying to do too much,” I complained. “I feel like I’m not doing enough.”
“Learn to delegate,” he said. “Did you ever lead a squad or anything bigger during your service time?”
“E-4 Specialist,” I answered. “I was a mechanic. There were a couple of Privates that worked for me.”
“Did you do their work?” Gene asked.
“No.”
“You expected them to know what to do, right?” he continued with the questions while I frowned thoughtfully.
“Yes,” I said slowly.
“That’s how it is,” he told me, nodding. “You’ve got to trust the people around you to get things done. I know you don’t really know some of us, but we all teamed up before Bruce found us, and we were doing okay. Sure, none of us was a mechanic, or able to wire up a solar whatchamacallit, but we had generators and water and plenty of food. We just figured it’d be nicer with more folks, you know?”
“I know,” I said slowly. “I’m just protective, I guess. People have tried to kill me a couple of times now since the virus. I don’t want them to get me or anyone close to me.”
“So you take all the risks?” Gene asked.
“I guess I do,” I replied.
“How is that fair?”
“I--” I stopped and looked away. “I guess it’s not.”
“Right,” the older man said. “Let the rest of us do our fair share.”
“How d'you figure this out so fast?” I wanted to know.
“I know how to watch,” he answered, chuckling. “And how to read between the lines when Bruce says something.”
“Heh,” I looked back out the window. We were fast approaching the Auburn University Airport. “You know,” I said after a minute or so. “Other than the lack of cars on the roads, everything looks almost normal from up here.”
“It does,” Gene agreed. “Pretty strange, really, but then, I think you lose the close-range perspective when you’re looking down on the world.”
“True, but you can see the big picture,” I opined.
“Ah,” he laughed, “the whole forest/trees dilemma.”
“Pretty much,” I said, grinning.
“Anyway, this looks promising.” He looked out and down at the airport as we drew nearer. There was a single main runway, with two sets of hangers. One was a smaller set of private ones, then the more public, larger set. A few planes even sat out on the tarmac.
“Where do you want to set down?” I asked.
“The bigger hangers, I think,” he replied. “At least at first. I reckon they’re more likely to have the right kind of fuel for this thing.”
“So,” I drawled. “You mean to set up a refueling station here and back at Atlanta?”
“Yep,” he replied, banking us onto a more direct course for the hangars as we descended.
A short time later, we settled onto the tarmac a short walk from the hangars and disembarked. The rain had picked up a little, and the two of us ran for the shelter of the closest hangar. Its main doors gaped open to reveal a dark interior, dimly lit by the light that filtered through the clouds above.
Once we were inside the relatively dry shelter, we put our backs to the door and gazed into the interior while our eyes adjusted.
A few planes, including a small jet, sat in the darkness insi
de.
“Another good sign,” Gene said. “Let’s see if we can find the refueling depot.”
More walking through darkened hangers and offices, then back into the rain as we explored the relatively small, public-use airport. I really didn’t know much about it, since there were no commercial flights here, but still, it was interesting to look around.
Of course, we did find a couple of dead during our search and took the time to cover them. The strange effect of the virus on corpses still bothered me whenever I actually came across it now, but I didn’t see a need to delve too deeply into that topic.
“Think you could fly the jet?” I asked as we stood in a doorway, waiting for a sudden downpour to let up.
“Sure,” Gene replied. “Right into the ground, or a wall, or something. Just because I can fly a helicopter…”
“How hard could it be?” I teased.
He just gave me a dirty look and shook his head.
“You’re a strange one,” he told me and looked back out into the rain. “Of course. Now, my arthritis decides to act up.” With a sigh, the older man leaned against the door frame and closed his eyes.
“Want to abort mission and head home?” I asked, concerned.
Gene shook his head. “No,” he said firmly. “We’re here. No pulling out now.”
“That’s what she said,” I muttered.
He barked a laugh and shook his head as he looked back at me and said, “That one never gets old.”
I just grinned back.
Eventually, we made it to the refueling depot. Two trucks sat under a carport with clearly labeled fuel tanks, and two large aboveground tanks rested on concrete slabs beyond.
“So we’ve got...100-LL and Jet-A,” I reported. “What did we fuel it up with back at the guard base?”
“JP-8,” he replied. “It’s compatible with the Jet-A, so that’s not too much of a problem.”
“I know there’s a difference, but I don’t remember what it is,” I said thoughtfully, staring at the tanks.
“JP-8 is the military’s version of Jet-A,” Gene explained. “It’s got additives to improve overall performance. We can use this, but it’ll probably increase the need for regular maintenance.”
“I can deal with regular maintenance,” I said. “You have to do it frequently. That’s why it’s called regular.”
He heaved a sigh.
“Okay, Henry,” he said, glaring at me. “That’s enough. I don’t know why you’re testing out your comedy routine on me, but I really need you to stop.”
“Sorry,” I said, smiling. “I just wanted to distract you a bit from hurting.”
“You just hurt my soul,” he grumbled. “Okay, though, I’m good to head back, unless you want to do a bit more recon flying.”
“I want to,” I said. “I’m just not sure I want to waste the fuel at this point.”
“How about a compromise,” he said as we walked through the rain back towards the Blackhawk. “We’ll do a five-mile circle at about a thousand feet, just to see if there’s anything interesting.”
“I don’t think we’ll find anything,” I said, thoughtfully. Five miles wasn’t a bad buffer, and at that altitude, we’d get a pretty good view. “Alright, though. Let’s do it.” I actually suspected that Gene wanted to do a little more flying than just to the airport and back. Besides, we were good on fuel for now, and maybe we’d find something. The woods could hide a lot.
Once we were back in the air, Gene hovered the Blackhawk at around a thousand feet and spun it in a slow circle while we gazed at the view below.
“I see what you mean,” I said, figuring that he’d done this as a demonstration.
“Thought you might,” he said, and that confirmed my suspicion.
“This kind of has me thinking,” I said as he pointed us back towards the homestead. “It might be easier to search for other survivors from the air.”
“We can cover a lot more ground,” he said, nodding.
“What’s more,” I continued. “There are railroad tracks around that we could follow. I think that culture still existed when--” I waved a hand vaguely.
“What?” he said. “Hobos?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Other survivors might walk the rails, too, or some crazy son-of-a-bitch might even have decided to set off in a train. Look at Bruce and his cross-country trek from Arizona, and us in a helicopter.”
“Bruce mentioned that he contacted other survivalists,” Gene said thoughtfully. “And that he saw people along his route.”
“Think we should try to reach out to them?” I wondered aloud. “Jackie does, and I’m starting to believe that we’d have a better chance together.”
“That Price fella uses radio, but there aren’t that many people using shortwave. We only found out about him and Bruce because of Penny,” Gene said. “She found an old HAM set-up in a shed near where we all shacked up and started listening.”
He gave me a strange, sidelong look.
“Ever hear of numbers stations?”
“Yeah,” I answered. “Stations in various parts of different bands that rattle off strings of numbers every so often. Didn’t those go away after the Cold War?”
“Nope,” he replied. “She found a couple of them, too. They’re still going.”
“Weird,” I said, then shrugged and squirmed in my seat to get a better look groundward. The rain did a halfway decent job of obscuring earth below, but I could tell we were over the interstate and following it east. “Still, that doesn’t really help with contacting other folks.”
“Make your own broadcast,” he suggested. “Compete with Price. Maybe we can get lucky.”
“That might be our best bet, then,” I said. “Barring a road trip.”
“Bruce is talking about going back to Arizona,” Gene mused. “Maybe take advantage of that.”
“Huh,” I said. “There’s a thought.”
The Blackhawk swung south as we approached five miles out from the farm. I focused my attention on the ground to play spotter while Gene flew. We slowed a bit, and I peered as closely as I could through the mist below and the falling rain. A few dirt tracks wound here and there, along with houses and trailers tucked into out of the way spots.
I spied the Boutwell place, and the little trailer park Tammy Knox ran. Out in the woods back of it was a small clearing that would have been easy to miss if I hadn’t been looking for it once I saw the park. I chuckled over the cockpit radio.
“What?” Gene wanted to know.
“Down there’s a clearing,” told him. “Some folks from that little trailer park had a small grow operation going. Mostly for personal use, too, but they sold for really cheap to their friends.”
“Nice folks,” he said. “Feeling ambitious?”
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “That’s probably something I’ll delegate.”
“Good man.”
We kept on circling, flying over solid forest with the occasional clearing or trail. Eventually, I spied the hunt club grounds and pointed them out to Gene, too. Was that smoke coming from the chimney of the little log-cabin lodge? I shifted for a better look.
“Gene,” I said. “Slow down and ease a bit south, but don’t drop any lower.”
“See something?”
“Maybe,” I replied. “There’s a little log cabin hunting lodge that a bunch of locals built back when I was a kid. The place is about three miles from the homestead. Right down there to your left. Do you see it?”
“Yeah, I do,” he answered.
“I thought I saw smoke coming from the chimney,” I told him. “But I don’t see it now.”
“Think it’s worth checking out further?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “I think I do. Just not in this weather.”
“I didn’t see anything,” he replied. “Probably just a trick of the light.”
I looked thoughtfully around the cockpit.
“Any idea if this thing has thermal optic
s or anything?” I asked.
“No idea,” Gene replied. “The older ones only mounted them for mission-specific operations. Pretty much, this is a workhorse. Still, I’ll finish digging through the manual and see if I missed something.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Besides,” he said, glancing over at me. “It was probably just the mist and the rain.”
“You’re probably right,” I said while thinking to myself, “but what if you aren’t?”
34
I must have decided that Gene was right because it wasn’t until a few days later that I remembered wanting to check out the little hunt lodge. A lot had happened in those days, though. First off, when Virgil and Tommy came to meet us upon our return from the airport, both of them were wearing helmets.
The rain had subsided to a fine mist, so they were out and about again. Once Gene and I disembarked, Tommy ran over to me and hugged me tight around the waist. I just barely managed to turn enough not to end up on the post-apocalyptic version of America’s Funniest Home Videos.
“What’s with this, kiddo?” I asked, rapping him on the top of his helmet.
Virgil joined us, looking a bit chagrined. “Mister Foreman explained how getting hurt in the head, now, was a lot worse than it was before, so he helped us find some helmets over at the Boutwell place after I showed him where it was.”
“I’m dangerous!” Tommy shouted, and I caught him just before he headbutted me.
“Behave,” I told him flatly.
The kid froze at the tone of my voice.
“I think,” Gene said as he hobbled by. “That I’ll leave you to it.”
“Are you okay?” I called after him.
He waved me off. “Arthritis, Henry,” he said. “Like I told you.”
I watched him go for a moment, then looked down at Tommy. He gazed up at me with big, liquid eyes.
“Don’t headbutt people,” I told him. “It’s rude.”
“Yessir,” he ran together, then bounced in place.
After The Virus (Book 2): Homesteading Page 24