by Frank Tayell
“Cars or trucks,” Helena said. “Must have driven right through the fence, trying to get to the airfield.”
The zombies had followed. There were some on the road, heading in the direction of the breached fence. The gunfire spoke of more creatures already inside. The fusillade was continuous; however, the volume of fire was slackening.
“There’s a dozen zombies outside the front gate,” Helena said.
“No vehicles in the farmhouse,” Tom said. “Might be some on the airfield.”
There was a sound of an explosion. A grenade, he thought.
“What about those trucks by the gate?” Helena suggested. “They might work.”
“Assuming they weren’t disabled in an attempt to make the barricade more formidable.” But they weren’t going to get on the airfield, and there was nothing for them the way they’d come. “No, there are no good choices. Let’s try for those trucks.”
His feet were reluctant to run. They seemed to understand what his brain refused to accept: it was futile. There were over a dozen zombies by the gate, and four more on the road between them and it. At any moment the gunfire could stop as the last remaining people at the airfield boarded a plane. The zombies would follow the sound of its engine, traipsing back out onto the road, and so right into Helena and him. There truly were no other choices. He slung the rifle and pulled out the machete, his eyes never leaving the nearest zombie on the road.
“This reminds me of a story,” he said.
“What?” Helena asked.
The zombie was only forty yards away. Dressed more smartly than most undead he’d seen, it looked as if its left leg was injured. With each faltering step, it seemed like it would topple, yet it remained upright, dragging its wounded limb behind it.
“A story,” Tom said, hefting the machete. It had been a noticeable weight on his belt, getting more burdensome with each step. Now it seemed flimsy and inadequate, but a shot might attract the attention of the zombies further down the road. “It was something Vice President Carpenter told me about the time when he was a general, working as a peacekeeper.”
“This isn’t the time, Tom,” Helena said.
“The punch line,” Tom said, “is that when there are no good choices left, you keep on going as hard and fast as you can.”
General Carpenter’s story had involved an armored convoy, ambushed by a rebellious faction that refused to obey a cease-fire. They’d been on a road that ran through a valley. Armed with decades-old equipment, the rebels wouldn’t have stood a chance against the American convoy in a stand-up fight, but they had been dug in on the high ground. The convoy had got through. The other punch line, the one that had come a long silence later, was illustrated with three photographs. They’d showed the bullet holes and shrapnel scars on the vehicles. On the back of each picture, the general had written the names of the dead. The vehicles had been retrofitted, reinforced against an EMP at the expense of armor that would protect from small arms and IEDs. The story had been told as a way for the general to illustrate that if he was to join the ticket, he wanted structural reform of military procurement. That part of the story, Tom kept to himself.
He raised the machete, focusing on what he would have to do. Swing up, swing down, move on to the next. The zombie’s head bobbed with each limping step, twisting its face in a macabre mockery of human exertion. Its hair was matted with mud and worse. Its chest was stained dark, but there were flecks of white paint on its once-polished shoes.
There was the buzzing whine of an engine. The zombie jerked upright. Its arms flew up and almost around in a circle as it turned its head toward the airfield. The engine-whine grew louder. Tom spared a quick glance. He couldn’t see the plane, but he could see a score of the undead lurching between the buildings that shielded the runway from view. The whine turned to a roar, and Tom turned back to the zombie in front. Suddenly, there was a massive explosion. He staggered sideways. Flames licked upward from the airfield, along with a dense, choking cloud.
Helena grabbed his arm, pulling him upright. “The fuel store,” she said. It wasn’t quite a question, nor a statement, but she needed to say no more.
“The gunfire,” he replied. It had all but stopped. Though he couldn’t see the runway, he knew it must now be strewn with rubble. Whatever fighter jets or other aircraft remained, even if they remained undamaged, none would take off from here. The trucks by the gate took on a new meaning. They represented escape not just for him, but for whoever was left alive inside. A scarce resource they might now have to fight over.
With the sound of plinking, cracking metal to their left, they ran on. The limping zombie had been knocked from its feet by the blast. Its arms flailed as they drew near. Tom kicked its hands clear. There wasn’t time to kill it. The zombies further down the road had seen him and Helena, and were drifting toward them. The nearest was only ten feet away. Still running, he raised the machete, swinging it down on the zombie’s skull. The force of the blow split bone and brought Tom to a staggering halt. The blade was stuck. He stamped down on the creature to free it. There was a shot. A zombie fifteen feet from him spun backward. Helena stood, legs braced, carefully aiming. She fired again. The zombie collapsed, but Tom saw what she hadn’t. Inside the chain-link fence, shadowy figures staggered through the smoke.
“Move!” he yelled. The zombie she’d shot was back on its feet, brown-red gore dripping from the wound in its shoulder. He ran forward, hacking the machete into its leg. It sliced through muscle. He drew the blade back as the zombie fell, and swung it down onto its head.
Helena fired again, a head shot that meant only the zombies by the gates, and those staggering across the airfield, were left.
“Only?” he muttered, hooking the machete back onto his belt. He unslung the rifle.
“The road beyond the trucks looks clear,” he said as Helena drew level. He aimed. Fired. Aimed. Fired, and with each shot he took a step toward the zombies. Helena was firing, too. Part of him wanted to tell her to save her ammunition. A larger part wanted to tell her to run, to save herself, but distance didn’t offer salvation, not here, not now. Alone, together, on foot or on wheels, nowhere was safe.
When the magazine was empty, there were only two zombies left. He reloaded, but slung the rifle. He had two magazines left, and they would need those if they were to see the sunset. Before he could draw the machete, Helena fired, unloading her pistol into the nearest. At least one of the half-dozen shots hit its skull, but that left the last creature. With no mud stains, or rips in its clothing, and no obvious wounds or bandages, it was only its slack-skinned rictus that showed it was dead. Tom hacked through its clawing hands. He kicked out at its knee. It staggered. He swung down, the blade smashing through its temple. It fell, taking the machete with it. He gave a tug, but it was stuck fast. Before he could pull it out, he saw the trucks, and realized what a fool’s refuge it was.
The air had been let out of the tires. Cement had been poured on a mess of wood and metal in front of the vehicles. There was no escape there.
“One magazine left,” Helena said.
“We need to keep walking,” he said, gesturing down the road. “There’s too many zombies here to look for any supplies Julio’s left. We have to keep moving.”
“Yeah. Keep moving. Always moving. Wait, do you hear that?”
It was an engine, coming from inside the pall of choking fumes. It wasn’t a plane, but something far larger than a pickup. A fire truck appeared out of the smoke, heading straight for them. The padlock went flying, and the gate burst apart as the vehicle slammed into it the barricade. Tom leaped aside, but the truck had slowed. There was a grinding of gears, a scraping of metal, a spinning of wheels. The barricade didn’t move.
“That way!” Helena yelled at the driver, pointing toward the nearest breach in the chain-link fence. “The fence is broken! Twenty-five yards. Drive that way.”
The woman behind the wheel nodded. The truck reversed. Helena started to move. Tom grabbed
her arm.
“Wait. Wait to see which way it goes.” It might head for a different breach, and that truck represented the only way they were going to escape. The truck sped backward. There was a trio of dull, meaty thuds as it hit unseen ambulatory death, and then it changed direction.
“Come on!” Tom yelled, running along the fence, parallel to the truck.
They reached the breach, but eight zombies had got there first. They were staggering out from the airfield, toward the road. He raised the rifle, firing without aiming, downing four before the truck appeared out of the smoke. It smashed into the remaining creatures, dragging them beneath its wheels. The truck swerved onto the road, and almost into the ditch on the other side. There was a hiss of brakes, a roar from the engine, and it drove off.
“It didn’t stop,” Helena hissed.
The truck had crushed the legs of one of the zombies, but the creature wasn’t dead. It raised an arm. Tom fired a quick shot into its head.
“It didn’t—” Helena began. “It did! It’s stopped.”
They ran.
They undead were tumbling out of the airfield, through the now-broken gate, and out of the gaps in the fence. Some wore uniforms, some didn’t, and many looked recently alive.
Helena reached the truck first. Tom had only one foot on the running board and one hand on the guide-bar before the truck started moving again, accelerating away from the airfield.
Chapter 5 - Brothers and Sisters
Mifflin County, Pennsylvania
Ten minutes later, the truck stopped at an intersection. Tom jumped down, shaking the stiffness out of his wrists.
“Never done that before,” Helena said. “Not sure I’d have been able to hold on for much longer.”
“I know what you mean,” he said, but that minor discomfort was forgotten when he looked back the way they’d come. The intersection was on a slight rise that offered a clear view of the inferno engulfing the airfield. Dirty-grey smoke enveloped the runway. Flames had spread to the control tower, licking upward and out.
“They’re not alive,” Helena said. “They’re not, are they? No. They can’t be.”
He turned his attention to the figures drifting in and out of the gaps in the fence, heedless of fumes and flames alike. There was a lack of urgency to their movement that confirmed Helena was right. They were undead.
The truck door slammed closed as the driver climbed out. She had a gun holstered at her belt, a blue scarf tucked into a black leather jacket, and an expression of tightly controlled anxiety on her face.
“Kaitlin,” she said, half raising her hand. She let it fall before properly offering it.
“Helena.”
“Tom.” It was hard to know what to say next. “Um… The guy who ran the airfield, Julio, do you know if… if…” He wasn’t sure how to finish, but Kaitlin knew what he was asking.
“Don’t know,” she said. “He was a pilot, right?”
“He owned that place,” Tom said.
“Then he might have been on one of the planes which got out,” Kaitlin said. “I’m not sure. We only arrived last night. We were the last in, so we were going to be the last out on the last plane to leave.” There was a muffled explosion from the airfield. “Maybe he got out. Was that why you came here?”
“Kind of,” Helena said.
The door to the cab opened. A tousle-haired girl stuck her head out. “Is this the crossroads, Katie?”
“Close the door! Go back inside,” Kaitlin snapped.
“They said we had to go to the crossroads. Is this it?” the girl asked.
“Yes. Look,” Kaitlin waved her arms to take in the intersecting roads. As she did, her sleeve rolled up, and Tom caught sight of the edge of a regimental tattoo.
“There was a plan in case the airfield got overrun?” Helena asked.
“Yeah.” Kaitlin turned back to the cab. “Close the door. Now!” The door reluctantly closed. “Yeah, there was a plan. Kind of. If the airfield was overrun, get in the cars and trucks, and drive away. Stop here and wait for everyone else.”
Tom looked back at the airfield, at the flames, the wreckage, and the distant specks shambling up the road.
“No one’s coming,” he said, voicing what the woman must be thinking, knowing that the sooner she accepted it, the sooner they could all continue an escape that was only half done. Helena, he noticed, wasn’t looking at the airfield, but at the cab, and with a thoughtful expression.
“Give it five minutes,” Kaitlin said. “We can wait that long.”
The cab’s door opened. This time it was a boy in the doorway. He was a little younger than the girl, perhaps eight or nine, but like the girl, he bore no resemblance to the soldier.
“Katie,” the boy said, “after the crossroads, we have to go to the farm, remember? Do you remember what they said? The farm with the red water tower, that’s where we have to go. Do you remember?”
“I know,” Kaitlin said. “Close the door, we’ll be going in a moment.”
“The red water tower,” the boy said, closing the door with no sense of urgency.
“They your kids?” Tom asked, though the woman looked too young, perhaps in her early-to mid twenties, and the children too dissimilar to each other and her.
“No. I mean, yeah. Sort of,” Kaitlin said. She turned her eyes back to the airfield.
He understood. She’d offered them a ride out of immediate danger, but was trying to find a way for them not to travel together any further. A dozen persuasive lines jumped to the forefront of his brain, swiftly followed by just as many lies, any one of which he was sure she’d believe. That was how he’d have secured a ride a few weeks before, but the world had changed and so had he. He opted for honesty instead.
“My name’s Tom Clemens. I worked for the president. We were trying to get to Washington to give him some information he really needed to know.”
“About the zombies?” Kaitlin asked, giving him a more considered examination.
“Sort of. There’s a conspiracy at the heart of all of this, and I was trying to stop it. Did you hear about his address to the nation? After the broadcast, we decided to come here. I thought I could enlist the help of the Air Force personnel stationed at the airfield to hunt down the conspirators.”
“Oh? What agency are you two with?” Kaitlin asked.
“Oh no,” Helena said. “I’m a teacher from New York. I… We sort of ended up traveling together.”
“You have any I.D.?” she asked Tom.
“No, and I didn’t work for an agency. I do have proof.” He took out the tablet. “But the battery’s dead. The journey to this farm with the red water-tower should be long enough to charge it.”
There was another muffled explosion from the airfield.
“The zombies are getting nearer,” Helena said. “They’ll be here in another twenty minutes. We should get moving.”
“Yeah.” Kaitlin gave them both another brief but thorough inspection before reaching some internal decision. “Yeah, we should. Get in.”
When Tom reached the door to the cab, he saw why this woman was so reluctant to offer assistance to two people who’d helped her escape the airfield. The back of the cab was filled with children.
Helena paused in the doorway, making eye contact with each child in turn. “You know,” she said brightly as she climbed in, “this will be the third time I’ve ridden in a fire truck. The other two times were when they brought one to the school where I teach, to show my pupils what a firefighter does. Now, let me see, my students are about… your age. What’s your name?”
“Soanna,” the girl who’d opened the door said. “What’s yours?”
As the truck begin to move, Tom closed his eyes and allowed himself to relax. Helena chattered on with the children in a way that could almost, almost, make him believe the world was back to normal.
There were eight children. Four boys and four girls. Soanna did most of the talking, with occasional corrections from Luke, the
boy who’d opened the cab door. At eleven, Soanna was the oldest. Ramon, at seven, was the youngest. The other boys, Caleb and Tyler, were too terrified to talk. The other girls were introduced by Soanna as Emerald, Amber, and Jade.
“Are you sisters?” Helena asked.
“We all are,” Soanna said firmly. “We’re all brothers and sisters now.”
“They’re from a foster home,” Kaitlin said. “Emerald, Amber, and Jade lived next door. There, a red painted water tower. That must be it.” She stopped the truck by a closed five-bar gate and turned around to face the children. “You stay inside. I mean it this time.”
Tom got out and walked a little way down the road, checking in either direction. He saw no zombies, but he saw no vehicles either.
“What was the rest of the escape plan after you got here?” Helena asked after Kaitlin had closed the door to the cab.
“There wasn’t one,” Kaitlin said. “We got to the airfield last night, and by that time there were already too many people for the planes. The seats were going to be for children and pilots, and no one else. There was a farmer there, he said he owned this place, and if the airfield was overrun, everyone should come here. He said he had a well, and a store of agricultural diesel behind the barn. If you want to call that a plan, then that’s the extent of it.”
“You mean it was only children on the plane?” Helena asked. “So that plane that crashed, it was… God!”
Kaitlin walked out into the road. “The real plan was to hold on for as long as possible, not to flee,” she said. “Certainly not to flee before they found somewhere to land. The pilots were flying sorties every day, looking for a landing field. They hadn’t found one. This guy, he had grey hair, a jet-black goatee, he was impeccably dressed—”