by L. ROY AIKEN
Inertia makes up for our lack of traction and our front end goes up again. The kid with the neck tattoo who’s been crawling towards me across the hood is slammed face-first against the windshield. We come down the other side, bearing down on one last quartet of living dead. The kid tumbles over, knocking them backwards. Flesh is crushed, bones are snapped.
There’s the freeway entrance ramp, free and clear. We fishtail one last time in the gore before shooting up onto the Interstate. Sunlight pours into the cab like a blessing as we rise into the wide-open lanes of I-70.
“That was close,” says Tanner, looking back over his seat.
“Christ!” I’d go faster but the handling feels funny on the Tank. The tires sound weird, too, making a low, but distinct roaring as we fly over the white slab concrete.
“Sounds like a run-flat tire running flat,” Tanner says. “Might want to slow down in case one of them starts coming apart.”
“So much for the Luxury Tank,” I say, letting my foot relax on the pedal. Only a bit, though. I’ve got my eyes on the sides of the highway, looking down at the throngs milling about the city streets below us.
“I can see how something like this would give you the illusion of safety,” Tanner says. “What you really need, though, is something high off the ground. A truck with a lift-kit and really big, fat tires. The kind you have to climb up into. Even then, you don’t want to let yourself be slowed down by a mob. Of course, you’d be freer to move with those big tires, so that wouldn’t be an issue.”
“So let’s land by a truck dealership,” I say.
“Arapahoe Road by Centennial Airport has dealerships. Anyway, that’s not a bad idea. I’ll have to rely on you to look for places like that while we’re in the air.”
I’m sarcastic; he’s serious. Holy shit, this just might work.
We ride in silence, just the low roar of the left front and right rear tires riding on their reinforced sidewalls, the bluster of the wind in the back where the window is ripped halfway out. It’s all I can do not to collapse into a shivering mess thinking of the different ways this could have gone.
Staying in the city would have been a mistake, I see that now. We were damned lucky the hotel didn’t get swarmed. It would have happened eventually. And with that many of them crowding the lobby and the lower floors (the glass wouldn’t have lasted long) we would never have gotten away. We’d have stayed trapped in the upper floors until we starved to death.
I can only imagine how it’s been going on our side of Colorado Springs. When Claire died. What happened when she came back. I can’t help feeling that even if we could beam ourselves over sci-fi style in the next five minutes, it’s already over. We’ll be lucky if we can save ourselves.
After a while Tanner cuts on the radio. The few stations he finds are on automatic, music and commercials running without intermittent DJ commentary. We catch two stations looping the same Civil Defense bulletin telling us all to stay indoors until otherwise notified. I laugh at that one, but only the first time.
It gets old fast, all of it. There’s a sense we’re not only wasting time, we’re endangering ourselves listening to these old, obsolete messages. Even the music. Tanner cuts the radio off.
We pull onto the exit for the airport. It’s looking good until we start down the main road there. We see the dead walking along the sides of the road, reaching out to us as we drive through. Two here, three there, six walking single file on the left side. All going our way.
“They’ve figured out there’s people here,” said Tanner. “This isn’t going to be safe for long.”
“Is it safe now?” I’m driving as fast as I dare down the middle of the road, praying these things don’t work up the nerve to step in front of us. So far they turn and look and keep walking.
“Let’s see,” Tanner says. “No, that’s the edge of the first wave there. Depending where we’re going here I’d say we’ve got a good half hour before we’re in real trouble.”
“Great,” I say. Thirty minutes to find a plane, make sure it’s airworthy, load it up, gas it up and go. Shit!
“Apparently someone got here just ahead of us. The stumblers we’re seeing here are following the sound of their vehicle.”
“This just keeps getting better.”
“Don’t get discouraged. We’ve gotten this far. I don’t see why we can’t find a plane and get up in the air before we have to fight our way out.”
To find the airfield on roads designed to take passengers to and from their flights…eventually I come across a closed access gate. I get out of the truck. I pull the chain the lock’s attached to and see it’s already been shot apart. I hold it up for Tanner to see before sliding open the gate.
“These things really key in on gunfire,” Tanner says as I climb back in. “Explains the size of the herd coming towards us down the road.”
“Our more immediate problem is inside this gate,” I say, pulling ahead slowly.
“If we steer clear of them we should have no problem. They just want to get out of here same as—”
A slug explodes through the left rear window behind me and out through the right. I turn the wheel and stomp the gas pedal. I try driving in an irregular zigzag pattern to elude further shots but the handling is difficult, as if the power steering was out. We’ve got a wide expanse of runway to cross and I can hear where the rubber is coming off one of the rims.
“It’s all right,” says Tanner, looking back. “The guy seems satisfied we’re not trying to steal his little Piper. Assuming that’s really his, of course.”
We come to a row of hangars. Tanner seems encouraged that someone thought to close them up. Still, that means we have to tap out locks. Tanner almost used his gun but it occurred to me to use the hammer. Which, as it turns out, is almost as loud. Sound carries across the tarmac, across the remains of the prairie, to all that hear in this dead quiet world.
We open the overhead door only to see the aircraft’s starboard engine in pieces on the floor. So we roll over to the next hangar. It’s a Gulfstream IV. “I don’t know anything about jets,” Tanner says. “A shame, because we’d be in Colorado in an hour.”
I’m hoping the third time is the charm but it’s the fifth that gifts us with the dual-prop commuter plane built to take a dozen passengers and their gear. It doesn’t belong to an airline; for all I know some rich Mormon kept it so he could fly his largish family to wherever they cared to go. Bottom line: no grease-blackened parts lying around the hangar. The plane looks clean and well-taken care of. We can only hope it’s gassed up and good to go.
You can see them now outside, lumbering dark and graceless through the stately blonde grasses stretching behind our hangar. Even if the Luxury Tank had all its tires and windows intact I’m not sure I could get us out.
A shriek rises from the hangar on the other side of the tarmac. Gunfire. More gunfire.
Our thirty minutes are up.
“I was really hoping to taxi her up and down the runway so I could listen to the engine,” Tanner says. “Topping off the tank would be nice, too.”
“Forget it! Let’s see if the engine starts!”
We kick away the chocks on the wheels and scramble up the ladder. Tanner doesn’t waste time strapping in. The twin props roar into life, the wash knocking the tool chests and other items about the hangar. Tanner lets the plane roll out of the hangar into the sunlight. He pulls up alongside the remains of the Luxury Tank. I’ve popped the hatch with the remote; we jump down the ladder and run to pull out our luggage. I’m able to carry all of mine up the ladder and into the cabin. I take Tanner’s gear as he hands it up to me.
I figure I’m doing pretty good at not making a face when he brings over his golf clubs, but it’s Tanner’s expression that startles me. He’s looking at something, something I can’t hear over the roaring props. He throws bag of clubs at me and the force nearly knocks me back into the cabin. He’s clambering up the ladder two steps at a time. “Pull that thing up NOW!
” he shouts, throwing himself into the pilot’s seat.” Over his shoulder I see the big SUV bearing down on us from across the runway. From the hangar where they were shooting at us.
From where the dead were attacking.
Tanner has the plane rolling as I pull the ladder up. I slam the door just as he brakes hard, throwing me forward.
I pick myself up to see the big SUV has parked athwart our front wheel. A woman with a bright red headband and big sunglasses is jumping out the driver’s side, waving her hands in front of her as if to say Don’t shoot. Tanner and I both have our nines in hand when we go to meet her at the hatch.
“Good! Good!” she says. “Look, I’m glad I caught you! Our plane’s been—we’ve been overwhelmed. I need to go with you.”
“No, you don’t,” says Tanner.
“Look, my husband was the one shooting at you, not me, okay? Not even my son, and they got him, too! They’re dead now, okay! Satisfied? Now let me up! They’re going to be here soon!”
“We don’t have enough fuel!” says Tanner. “We can’t afford your weight! Move your vehicle! Now!”
She holds up one hand while reaching into her purse. “Listen, I’m not some silly yuppie soccer mom, all right? I’m Lieutenant Colonel Sheryl Handler of the United States Air Force! My husband was Colonel Handler, and we were…look, even if I could talk, we don’t have time! Let me aboard!”
“Move your vehicle!”
“You don’t understand!” she says. “We were on our way to a classified location! I’m pretty sure if you take me there they’ll let you in, too. I don’t see them turning away pilots handy with guns. Seriously, forget my husband, I’ve got my own connections! We can work something out!”
Tanner looks at me. I shake my head.
“Okay, I know I’m not in uniform but I’ve got my ID and copies of the invita—uh, orders! Look, let me show them to you on the way! You don’t believe me, set me down somewhere! For God’s sake, they’re coming!”
I look past Tanner to the cockpit windows. Already half a dozen are shambling towards us from her hangar. And those are just the ones I can see.
“We’ve got just over a quarter tank of fuel and we’re wasting it talking to you,” Tanner says. “I’m going to ask you once to move your vehicle and let us by.”
“You’re kidding, right? You’re just going to leave me here!”
Tanner brings his other hand up to steady his aim. “You have your vehicle. Get in it and go. If I have to come down and move it myself you will not like the way this ends!”
The woman lifts her chin. “No,” she says. “No. I think I’ll just stand here until we’re all surrounded. If you can’t spare an innocent woman’s life, I see no reason two heartless cowards should live!”
Tanner looks towards the cockpit window. He sighs, lowers his gun. “Okay, fine.” He nods at me to get the ladder.
“So who’s moving my car?” she says as I set the ladder. “I’m not, you know.”
“I’ll do it!” says Tanner. “Hurry, get up here!”
“Okay!” The woman takes hold of the rails and climbs up the steps. As soon as her head comes over the hatch sill, Tanner raises his Glock and fires a round through the top of her skull.
He kicks the woman’s body away and jumps to the tarmac. He disappears around the front of the plane. Seconds later I’m stepping away from the hatch as Tanner huffs back through.
“Get that closed we gotta go!” Tanner drops into the pilot’s seat and we’re rolling forward. Pulling up the ladder is tricky with the plane in motion. Trying to get the hatch closed as we approach take-off is even more difficult. The tarmac falls away beneath us.
I’m leaning back with all my weight to pull the hatch shut and I see their faces. So many faces showing us their teeth, roaring their hunger at us as we climb into the late morning sky….
10
“Is it secure?” he says as I crouch-walk to my seat in the cockpit.
“Oh yeah.”
“We almost didn’t make it,” says Tanner.
“Well, we did. Think we can make it to Colorado?”
“Not with this much fuel. We’re going to have to set down somewhere.”
“How far can we go on the fuel we’ve got?”
“I honestly don’t know.” Tanner’s gaze flits between the windshield and the instruments.
“You did what you had to do,” I say. “A shame she couldn’t have just driven away, but there it is.”
Tanner shakes his head. “My friend, my accomplice, whatever you are, there was no escape! They were coming in thick from all sides! You have no idea how close I came to colliding with that bunch on the runway!”
“I saw ‘em. Did we find I-70?”
“We’re headed due west right over it. Not hard to find, considering how we got to the airport.”
“Good.” I go into the back cabin and open my suitcase. I pull out some sausage patties and bacon, bring them to the front.
“After all we’ve been through, we’re going to eat?” says Tanner.
“Figured we could use a little comfort food right now.”
“Are you bothered by what we did back there?”
I take a bite from a sausage patty, savoring the soon-to-be-extinct flavor. “No,” I say after a while. “If I’m bothered, it’s that that I’m not bothered.” I’m about to take another bite when it occurs to me: “Although, frankly, that doesn’t bother me either.”
“Funny how we’re obliged to feel a certain way about things, in spite of the rational outcome.”
“I hear you. Look, how far out are we now?
“Look down. What do you see?”
“Looks like we’re coming up fast on Topeka.”
“We’d be past Topeka already if we weren’t so low on gas. I figure I’ve got just enough airspeed to keep us up.”
“We still made better time than driving. Any idea on when it gets critical?”
“I honestly can’t say. I don’t know this plane. I’m just conserving as best I know. The needle’s going down, that’s all.”
“Would it hurt to bring us in lower? I want to see what’s going on.”
“Once we get on the other side of town let’s look for a truck stop or something. If we’re going to make it to Colorado we’ve got to gas up sooner than later.”
My ears pop as we descend, a little more steeply than I’d like before leveling out. Tanner steers us a little to the left. We jolt from the change in heat radiant from the surface below but I can see the Interstate a lot more clearly now. And the nature of the black dots along the parallel strips of white....
“Shit.”
“What?”
“Well, maybe we’re a little too close to the city,” I say.
“A bunch of abandoned cars?”
“No. Everyone here went home to die, too. Thing is….”
“What?”
“The westbound people are headed west, the eastbound east. It’s the damnedest thing. It’s like they’re commuting!”
“Well, can I land the plane?”
“No.”
“No?”
“You could look for yourself.”
Tanner snaps on the auto-pilot. After a second and third glance at his instruments he unbuckles and leans towards my side of the cockpit. He takes his look, curses under his breath before thumping back into his seat and buckling up.
Tanner disengages the autopilot. “We’ve got to get on the other side of this city,” he says, as we ascend. We fly between a couple of hi-rises on either side of the Interstate before Tanner takes us sharply up. I look down. Traffic’s thick. Where do these things think they’re going?
Goddamn, this all started with a flu!
“Tanner, what the hell do you think happened here?”
“What do you mean? I’ve got to land this thing!”
“Never mind.”
We cross the narrow squiggle of the Kansas River, buzz the western half of the crowded city. In another minu
te we’re out over the rolling grassland. Still a lot of deaders out here, but their numbers are thinning the further we go.
“My best guess,” Tanner says, taking us over the northern edge of the Interstate, “is that one of the pharmaceutical companies came up with this by way of having a vaccine and a cure for it. The sloppy way everyone’s been doing business over the last decade or so neither their vaccine nor their cure worked.”
“They were making a big deal of everyone getting that flu shot last winter,” I say. “A lot bigger than usual, it seems.”
Tanner doesn’t seem to have heard me. His attention is fixed on the Interstate. He takes us lower, edging carefully over the narrow white strips below. I look nervously at the wind turbines we’re passing between, their huge blades chopping the air so close to the wing it rocks the plane.
“Between you and me,” says Tanner, “I don’t think there’s much that hasn’t happened on purpose in the last twenty years. For all we know this is all about thinning out the herd. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Lt. Col. What’sername really was trying to get to a pre-arranged location for the elites and their favored servants. It stands to reason those elites would arrange transport for everyone they wanted to save. That the woman’s family had to arrange their own transportation makes me wonder if they were really invited.”
The sudden silence of the props hits like a physical blow. Tanner and I look at each other.
“Ready or not,” says Tanner.
He brings us over the eastbound lanes. Tanner is slowing us as best as he can with the flaps, his hands white-knuckled on the tiller. We’re coming in fast. We bump onto the white slab asphalt of I-70 and it’s all we can do to hold steady at 90 mph.
Tanner works the brakes and we’re at 60 mph when our wheels explode beneath us. The nose is tilting sharply down and the last thing I’m thinking before impact is….
TWO
Crash
11
I feel the hands gripping me. Fingers tightening about my limbs. Terror rises—and sinks again. My conscious—what? Can’t make myself stay. Not that I want to be “here” when the teeth tear into my flesh, feeling their cold, dry tongues working in, scraping across my bones….