by Frank Tayell
“Complete with mirror-polished shoes? That’s Julio,” Tom said.
“Right, he said he didn’t know of anywhere. I guess the pilots who’d landed their planes on his airfield didn’t know of anywhere either. Their passengers must have thought the airfield was just a stepping-stone to somewhere else. Somewhere safe. There was a nearly a riot last night. A group tried to storm a plane. It’s why I kept the kids in the fire truck. Good thing, too. I might be wrong, but I think the fence was broken when people decided to break out. Around dawn, there was more shooting, and the planes started to take off. I think Julio and the captain had decided it was time to go. Or maybe they made that decision when the fence broke and the zombies got inside. I guess when people were told there was no seat on a plane, they stopped helping kill the zombies. I’m not sure. It all fell apart so quickly. I kept the kids in the truck, waiting to get them onto the plane, but then… you saw the rest.”
Tom glanced down the road, then at the gate to the farm. “Here.” He held out the rifle to Kaitlin. She frowned. “You’re military, aren’t you? You know how to use it, probably better than me.”
She took it, though with an air of reluctant suspicion. Tom walked over to the lockers on the side of the fire truck. He slid open one, and then the next until he found the tools. He took out a fire-axe. Short-handled, with a reinforced blade and comfortable grip, it felt far more like a real weapon than the machete had.
“What are you going to do with that?” Kaitlin asked.
“Don’t you hear it?” Tom asked. “It’s coming from behind the house. A living person would have come to investigate the sound of the engines.” He hefted the axe. “And we need to save ammunition.”
The creature wasn’t behind the house, but inside. Its arms waved through the broken kitchen window. Skin caught and tore on jagged shards of glass as it thrashed more violently when it saw him approach. Tom shook his head, gesturing with his axe toward the door.
“There’s an open door not five feet away, and you didn’t have the sense to use it. Maybe there is hope for us.”
Air hissed from the zombie’s snarling mouth. Tom waited until it threw an arm forward, and its head was jutting out. He swung the axe down. The blade sliced neatly through scalp and bone and brain, and came free. The creature sagged, motionless, on the window frame.
“It’s dead,” he called, watching brown-red gore drip from the creature’s fingers down onto a plastic tray of blue-petaled bedding plants. The flowerbed under the window had been dug over, but the plants were still in their pots. That must have been what someone was planning to do, the day of the outbreak. With the edge of the axe, he nudged the plants away from the slowly dripping blood.
“Nothing on the road,” Helena called back. Tom hadn’t been waiting for her reply, but listening for a response from any other undead inside the house.
“I’m checking inside,” he called, again listening for a response from the interior of the house. When none came, he pushed the door wide open. It led into a utility room, on the floor of which was a dead zombie dressed like the creature he’d just killed. From the clothing, the crowbar on the ground, and the pair of half-filled bags, he took them as looters rather than friends or family of the farmer who’d owned the property. It took another five minutes to confirm the farmhouse was truly empty, and that the scavengers’ bags contained the best of the meager loot to be found in the house.
“Two zombies,” he said when he got back to the truck. “One already dead. I killed the other. Looked like looters, or, hell, I guess they’re survivors like us. Not sure how the first one got infected, but I think the other killed him before succumbing to the virus.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Kaitlin said. “This place is too close to the airfield. We can’t stay here.”
“Where were you heading before you found the airfield?” Helena asked. “I mean, I take it that wasn’t your original destination.”
“No, we stumbled across it,” Kaitlin said. “We were heading west. Just trying to get away. What about you? Where are you two going now?”
“I… I don’t know,” Helena said. “Tom?”
“You said there was diesel here?” Tom asked.
“Behind the barn,” Kaitlin said.
“We’ll need it. Fuel is hard to find. I said I’d show you some proof.” He took out the tablet and sat-phone. “By the time we’ve found the fuel and any food left in the house, they’ll have charged. While we’re looking, I’ll tell you what happened, and how we came to be here.”
Leaving Helena to watch over the children, he and Kaitlin headed toward house. The food left in the kitchen, or that portion of it not now contaminated by the two zombies, fit into a very small box. By the time it was filled, Tom had explained about Project Archangel. The diesel was in a large storage tank behind the barn. By the time they’d confirmed there was enough to fill the fire truck a dozen times over, he’d told her about Farley, the election, and Powell. When they got back to the truck, there was enough charge on the tablet to show her the video of the journalist’s murder, and a handful of documents that he hoped proved his case.
“And you’re hunting these people?” Kaitlin asked.
“We were,” Tom said. He looked at Helena, and at the truck, and the faces of the children. The door was open, and they were all watching, terrified and curious. “I was. I never stood much chance of finding them, and my odds now are worse. The airfield was the last idea I had. I have a cottage in Maine. There are supplies there, hidden where no scavenger will find them. It’s on the other side of a bay from a fishing village that’s popular in the summer, but almost empty at this time of year. It’s remote, far more remote than this, and if nowhere is remote enough, I have a boat. If we fill up the fire truck’s water reservoir with diesel, we’ll have more than enough fuel to get there. And we could be there by tomorrow.”
“And if the zombies are already there?” Kaitlin asked.
“They’re everywhere,” Tom said. “But where else is there? We started in New York and went west almost as far as Lake Erie. The only places that had people and walls weren’t welcoming strangers. We saw one overrun. It’s likely that same fate will befall the rest. No, unless you know of somewhere you’ll be welcomed, then Maine, and the supplies there and the boat in the bay, is the closest I can think of to safety.”
“What about this conspiracy? The people you’ve been chasing?” Kaitlin asked.
Helena echoed the question. “Yes, what about them? What if Powell’s still alive?”
“I’m not going to find them. On the upside, they’re not going to find me, either. No, they wanted to rule the world, but the world’s gone. If they are still alive, they’ll be in some bunker somewhere. Well, let them rule that. It’s time I forget the past and see instead if we can make something of the future.”
“The kids came from a foster home?” Tom asked as they filled the fire truck’s water reservoir with diesel.
“Emerald, Amber, and Jade lived next door; the others came from the home,” Kaitlin corrected him.
“And how did you end up with them here?” he asked.
“Does it matter?” She looked around as if she wanted to kick something. “I grew up there. Sort of. Same building, different foster parents. Me and Laurie…” She trailed off. “I got out. Joined up. She…”
“She didn’t?” Tom asked.
“What? No. Well, yes. She took over the home. Ran it. She died three days ago. Ripped apart by zombies. When it all started, when the news filled with those accounts from New York, I went to see if she needed a hand with the kids. I thought there’d be some kind of plan. I thought someone would have thought of all the children. Of course they hadn’t. Emerald, Amber, and Jade’s mother went out looking for food. She didn’t come back. I went looking for her, and I found her. She’d been infected. I killed her. That’s when we left. Now we’re here.”
There was a lot more to the story, but the woman clearly didn’t want to tell it.
“The reservoir’s full,” Tom said. “We should go.”
Chapter 6 - A Very Grand House
Lycoming County, Pennsylvania
“I think that’s got it,” Tom said quietly. The motion of the truck had lulled the children to sleep.
“You think?” Helena asked.
“I’ve never altered the orbit of a satellite before,” he said. “If I’m honest, I’m not sure that I’ve done it now. Theoretically, there’re only a few parameters to change. Actually, it’s more accurate to say that there’s only a few parameters I can change. Realistically, I’ve either done nothing, or what I’ve done will be noticed and undone, or the satellite will crash into the atmosphere.”
“But if it works?” Kaitlin asked.
“Then we should get some images of the country north and east of here, all the way to the Atlantic coast,” he said. “At least, the part of it that isn’t obscured by clouds.”
“Good.” She stopped the truck. They were on the crest of a hill. “If you’re done, then it’s your turn.”
He checked outside the window before he opened the door and climbed up onto the roof. They’d stopped frequently, always on raised ground, to pinpoint plumes of distant smoke, scan for survivors, and to check the vehicle for damage after collisions with the undead. There had been no signs of other people, but there had been plenty of zombies. The truck was too cumbersome to steer around the undead, but it was bulky enough to drive through them, and that was what they’d done. He clambered over the ladder-platform, walking along the roof of the tender to get a better view of the road they’d just traveled. It was empty. He jumped down, inspecting the damage. There were dents and dark stains, flecks of drying gore and pieces of dead flesh stuck to the side and tires, but nothing he would call serious. He walked back to the cab.
“See anything?” Helena asked.
“Nothing. No zombies. No people.”
It was more than just eerie. After being surrounded by so many refugees during their flight from the motel, finding roads almost completely absent of vehicles didn’t seem natural. The few they did pass had crashed, or been abandoned with someone infected in the back who had since turned into one of the undead. There had been no contrails in the sky, or people hitching along the road. The few plumes of smoke they’d seen had been monstrous clouds, squatting over burning towns, almost as if they’d been signs warning the living away. He shook his head, trying to rid it of that grim thought.
“But there’s a house about a mile ahead,” he said. “Set about fifty yards from the road. It’s not a farm, but it’d be a reasonable place to stop for the night.”
“We’ve another hour of daylight left,” Kaitlin said. “I’d rather keep going.”
“We might make another forty miles,” Tom said, “but we’ll have to stop. We don’t want to spend the night in the open.”
“Rest tonight, and we’ll be in Maine tomorrow afternoon,” Helena said. “If there’s no zombies in sight, maybe there’s none within hearing range. A night’s rest, some food, it’s what we all need.”
“You’re in charge,” Kaitlin said to Soanna. “Make sure everyone stays inside the truck.” The girl puffed up with her deputized authority. Kaitlin closed the door.
“It’s a nice place,” Helena said.
Tom turned his attention away from the hills behind the house to give it a proper inspection. She was right. It was nice, but strangely so. The house was large. If it had been built somewhere less remote, it would have been described as a mansion. Going by the windows, there were three floors. Ivy trailed almost up to the eaves on the south-facing side, except around the windows where it had been cut back to within an arm’s reach of the frame. Made of stone and brick, it had the style of a New England townhouse, but set in a rambling overgrown garden. At one time, there had been a wall ringing the grounds. In most places the stones had crumbled and were now covered by a creeping sea of grass. Where the wall still stood, it was only because of the metal brackets propping it up.
“Yeah. It’s the kind of place you drive past and imagine living in,” he said, “but if it came on the market, you’d never seriously consider buying it.”
“Are we going in?” Kaitlin asked.
Three granite steps led to the house. Worn in the middle by the passage of at least a century of feet, they looked far older than the building. He tried the door. It was unlocked and swung open with an almost comical creak. Inside, the light was dim. The doors leading off the hall were closed.
“Here.” Kaitlin turned on a flashlight that had come from the equipment store on the truck. Dust danced in its beam as she shone it at each closed door, then up the ominously steep staircase. A floorboard gave a creak that would almost have been comical if it wasn’t for the long, echoing scrape that came from somewhere inside.
“Occupied,” he whispered, trying to place the sound.
“The power’s out,” Helena whispered trying the switch. “Do we split up to search?”
“No need.” Tom stamped his foot on the floor. The response, a clattering rattle, came almost immediately, and it came from below.
“The basement,” Kaitlin said.
A door at the end of the hall led to an empty kitchen. Beyond that was a door that Tom was certain led down to the cellar. Unlike the others leading from the hall, this one was locked. There was no key.
“Check the rest of the house first?” Tom suggested, more out of a desire to put off the inevitable than from necessity. It was unoccupied, and the doors were all unlocked, except for the one to the basement.
Helena shone the flashlight on the door. Kaitlin raised the rifle. Tom raised the axe and swung it down. The lock splintered. The door swung open. He stepped back, giving the soldier a clear line of fire. The sound grew louder, but not closer.
“Give me that.” Wanting it to be over, Tom grabbed the flashlight from Helena and stepped through the door. The doorway was narrow. The stairs were steep. He could hear the creature, and something else. Something metal. He stopped, halfway down, tracking the light across the space. It illuminated wooden shelves, sheet-covered furniture, a rusting tool rack, and, in the corner, a zombie that had been an old woman a few weeks before. One end of a long chain was wrapped around her feet; the other was attached to the metal bracket of a workbench. The rattling of the chain grew more strident as he shone the light into her eyes. The arms clawed at the air between them, the mouth snapped, but the chain held. He scanned the rest of the room, then forced himself down the remaining stairs.
“Your life shouldn’t have ended like this.” He swung the axe down. The zombie was still.
“Tom? You okay?” Helena called.
“An old woman chained herself up down here,” he called back. He found a rag on the workbench, cleaned the axe, and then he went back upstairs. “Must have lived here.”
“Then this is a safe place to spend the night,” Helena said to Kaitlin.
“As safe as anywhere,” she said.
He went outside, leaving it to Kaitlin and Helena to gather the children. He walked out into the road, checking it was still empty, and then wandered the garden until he found a well-worn bench. The wood was warped, the varnish flaking. Helena found him there, twenty minutes later.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“It’s the old woman. It’s all the zombies. It’s all the people they were, the lives they could have led.” He gestured at what he’d been looking at. In front of the bench were a row of grave markers. “Do you see the dates? They correspond to Vietnam, Korea, Germany in both wars, Gettysburg, and Antietam.”
“It’s a military family,” Helena said. “There’re photographs in the hall, and in the main room.”
“It’s a family that gave so much, until now there’s no one left to give. How do the politicians repay that sacrifice? They conspire to rig the election, just so that history will remember their names. And it wil
l. If there ever is a history, it will remember Farley and Sterling. It will even remember Powell, but it won’t know any of these people.”
“There’re photographs inside of a young man in uniform,” Helena said. “They look recent. You now what I think these graves show? That some died, but others came back. They went out into the world and made a life for themselves. That woman didn’t, sure. She stayed and tended the family home. It doesn’t mean the rest are dead, or make their sacrifice any less meaningful. That’s not what’s bothering you.”
“It’s not?”
“You think that you should still be hunting for Farley, that you’ve given up. You know that when we get to Maine, you might find some clues on the computers you have there, but you also know you’ll never be able to act on them. You said as much and think that means you’re handing the world to the cabal. You aren’t. You won. The conspiracy is over, Tom. You only have to look about you to realize that Farley has lost. I think Powell’s attack on the motel was a last desperate attempt at revenge after their organization was destroyed.”
“And if it wasn’t?”
“Think about it. It was just him and a couple of people. If the cabal was still a viable force, then where were the rest of them? No, he’s dead, Tom. I bet Farley is, too.”
“And what if you’re wrong? What if I’m wrong?”
“You’ll never know,” she said. “We’ll never know. After what they did, I want justice as much as you. Knowledge that they failed is as close to it as we’re going to get. Whether you did all you could, or could have done more, it’s over. You know it, and now you have to accept it. Those children need to be protected, and whether you like it or not, that’s your job, now. More immediately,” she added, standing up, “they need to be persuaded to wash in cold water, be fed, and put to bed. You can only mourn the dead, but you can help the living. Come on.”
Leaving the children to Kaitlin and Helena, he took on the equally unfamiliar task of making a meal. He’d never cooked much, and his solitary lifestyle meant there were few occasions when he’d had someone to cook for. Since his arrival in America, he’d always had the money to eat out. More recently, he hadn’t the time to shop, let alone learn. Opening packets and pressing switches was about his level of comfort. Fortunately, the woman who’d owned the house had a simple diet. There was little variety in her larder, and it gave him little choice in what to prepare. The freezer was full, but had defrosted. The stove was electric, and that had him hunting for a generator. It was in a garage to the side of the house, was powered by gasoline, and was empty. So were the fuel tanks of the two cars – one a lovingly restored relic, the other a poorly maintained runabout.