Impact

by Adam Baker

40

  The lower cabin.

  Hancock pulled the barricade aside as quietly as he could and leant through the fissure in the fuselage wall. The desert night. Deep darkness. He shone his flashlight left and right. Undisturbed sand.

  ‘Frost?’

  He reluctantly stepped from the plane, torch in one hand, Beretta in the other.

  ‘Frost? You still there?’

  He approached the extinct signal fire. Anxious three-sixty scan of surrounding dunes.

  Frost still knelt with a leash round her neck, arms locked cruciform.

  ‘You okay?’

  She looked up. She didn’t speak. Haunted, terrified eyes.

  He held the flashlight under his armpit, took a knife from his pocket and flicked it open. He cut the leash.

  ‘Let’s get inside.’

  Hancock rebuilt the barricade.

  He cut Frost free of the crutch. She sank to the floor, still set cruciform. She slowly flexed her shoulders, winced as she tried to bend her elbows and lower her arms. Sensation gradually returned to numb limbs.

  Hancock kept the gun trained on her head.

  ‘Climb the ladder.’

  Frost pulled herself upright. She gripped the ladder for support.

  ‘Take a long, hard look at yourself,’ said Hancock. ‘Dead on your feet. Planning to throw some kung fu my way? Best think again.’

  She gripped the ladder rungs. She tried to climb. She gnashed her teeth and snorted in pain as her injured leg refused to hold her weight.

  Hancock pushed her ass, forced her up onto the flight deck.

  She fell on her hands and knees.

  He climbed the ladder. He stood over her, pistol trained at her head.

  He took wire from his pocket and bound her hands to a wall stanchion.

  ‘Stay there. Don’t fuck around.’

  He set his flashlight on top of the avionics console.

  An eerie stillness. They could hear a rising night wind whistling through the broken cockpit windows, fluttering the nuclear blast curtains. They could hear the tick and creak of the plane’s superstructure contracting in the evening cool.

  The flashlight beam flickered and dimmed. A dying battery. They stared at it, like they were contemplating a guttering candle flame.

  ‘We need more light,’ said Hancock. He checked lockers.

  ‘Why did you change your mind?’ asked Frost. ‘Why bring me inside?’

  ‘I got lonesome.’

  He found a large 3xD cell Maglite. He tested the beam.

  ‘You were out there, in the dark, for a full hour,’ he said. ‘See anything? Hear anything?’

  ‘I heard them walking around. They paced the site like they were checking it out.’

  ‘They didn’t come near you?’

  ‘One of them stood behind me,’ said Frost. ‘I didn’t dare move. He stood there a long while. Stank to high heaven. Then he moved off.’

  ‘Why did he leave you alone?’

  ‘No idea.’

  He sat in the pilot seat, lifted one of the blast screens and peered into the dark.

  ‘Anything?’ asked Frost.

  ‘No. But I reckon they’re out there, circling like sharks. Wish I could make sense of it. Fucking mind games. It’s as if they’re trying to drive us nuts.’

  ‘Doing a pretty good job,’ muttered Frost.

  ‘It’s a virus. Nothing more than a strain of flu. Hard to credit any kind of smarts. Maybe it’s studying us. Testing our resolve, trying to find a common breaking point. Sort of thing a general might do in wartime, right? Send out a raiding party. Use provocation to draw the enemy out, gauge the strength of its forces.’

  Frost shook her head.

  ‘It’s already got the measure of us.’

  ‘Well, in that case, maybe it’s just having fun.’

  Hancock bent and peered through a vacant cockpit window.

  ‘I can see one of them. About fifty yards, dead ahead. Just standing there, in the moonlight.’

  ‘Who? Pinback?’

  ‘Can’t tell.’

  Hancock continued to squint into the darkness.

  ‘What’s it doing?’ asked Frost.

  ‘Nothing. Just standing there, looking at us.’

  ‘Looks like we got a straight choice. Hide in here all night and hope they don’t attack or suit up and take the fight to them. I vote we head outside and push for a stand-up fight. Fuckers aren’t supernatural. They’re flesh and blood, just like us. A well-placed bullet will put them down for good.’

  ‘You shot Guthrie in the head. Didn’t slow him down much.’

  ‘Then let me finish the job. Put a round in his medulla. That’ll stop his clock.’

  Hancock thought it over.

  ‘Time to decide,’ said Frost. ‘You wanted to be AC. You wanted to be the boss. So how do you intend to play it? Do we cower in here all night, or head outside and seize the initiative?’

  Hancock sipped from his canteen.

  Frost watched him drink, listened to liquid slosh in the metal flask. She was tempted to lick parched lips, but didn’t want to betray any signs of weakness.

  He saw her attention fixed on the canteen.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said. He toasted her and took another gratuitously long sip. He screwed the cap back on the metal bottle.

  ‘You know the deal. All the water you want, in return for the code.’

  ‘I told you. I don’t remember a single digit.’

  ‘You’ll remember. When you are strung out, desperate enough. Your subconscious will offer it up.’

  ‘Untie my hands, at least. What if those things outside decide to attack? I got a right to defend myself.’

  Hancock shook his head.

  ‘Ain’t got the energy to keep chasing you around. I’m going to keep you on a very short leash from now on.’

  ‘You got the gun,’ she said. ‘I’m in no shape to give any trouble.’

  He thought it over.

  ‘All right.’

  He cut her free from the wall stanchion.

  ‘Thanks.’

  She flexed her arms and rubbed wrist welts.

  ‘Hold out your hands.’

  ‘For God’s sake.’

  ‘If they attack, you can run. Save yourself. But that’s all you get.’

  He retied her hands.

  ‘Shift that trunk. Block the ladder.’

  A Peli trunk full of life preservers. Frost shunted the box to cover the ladderway hatch.

  She gestured to the windows.

  ‘Maybe you should check outside one more time. See what those bastards are doing.’

  He hesitated. He didn’t want Frost to call the shots.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We need to know what’s going on out there.’

  Hancock crossed the flight deck and pulled back a blast screen. He checked over his shoulder to make sure Frost was still sat on the floor.

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Nothing. No sign.’

  Hancock sat opposite Frost.

  Frost exhaled and watched her breath fog the air.

  ‘Getting pretty cold.’

  He didn’t reply. He stifled a yawn.

  ‘Long night, huh?’ she said. ‘How long do you think you can stay awake?’

  ‘I’ll sleep sound enough, once you’re lashed to the wall.’

  Frost cocked her head.

  ‘Hear that?’

  ‘Best if you shut up a while. I’m done talking.’

  ‘No. Seriously. Listen.’

  Faint footfalls. Boots on metal.

  ‘Something’s walking the port wing.’

  Brief pause.

  Heavy footsteps above them.

  ‘It’s climbed the fuselage,’ whispered Frost. ‘It’s on the roof.’

  They both slowly got to their feet and looked up at support spars, cable conduits and escape hatches, trying to project their vision through the superstructure like X-ray.

  Footfalls directly above their head
s. Shuffle and scuff. The thing on the roof had come to a standstill.

  ‘It’s right above us.’

  Hancock instinctively raised his pistol and trained it at the roof.

  ‘What the fuck?’ he murmured.

  ‘Pinback,’ whispered Frost. ‘Heaviest of the bunch. Got to be Pinback.’

  Hancock adjusted his grip on the pistol, like he intended to shoot.

  ‘Don’t. Wait for a clear shot.’

  ‘What do you think it’s doing?’ he murmured.

  ‘Messing with our heads. Trying to spook us out.’

  Bootsteps moved towards the front of the plane.

  Hancock edged towards the pilot seat, swinging the pistol back and forth, trying to keep Frost covered and trying to position himself in case Pinback dropped through a vacant ejection hatch.

  The footsteps reversed direction. They slowly retraced their path, walked overhead and aft towards the rear of the aircraft. Bootfall reverberation diminished to silence.

  ‘Think he’ll be back?’ he asked, attention still fixed on the roof.

  Frost grabbed the pistol with bound hands and pushed it aside. Gunshot. Spark and ricocheted whine. The bullet exited the plane leaving a neat, smoking hole in the fuselage.

  Vicious headbutt. Hancock staggered backwards snorting blood.

  He tried to take aim. Frost knocked his weapon aside, balled her bound fists and delivered a double rabbit punch to his shattered nose. He yelled with pain. He kicked. She twisted and evaded the flailing boot.

  They fell to the floor and wrestled for the Beretta. Frost drove her elbow into the bandage covering his rotted, vacant socket. Bubbling pus and blood. He screamed. He convulsed and released his grip on the pistol.

  Frost jammed the smoking weapon against his temple. He recoiled from the hot gun barrel. A faint circle and a trace of the front sight, branded on his skin.

  ‘Don’t move. Do. Not. Fucking. Move.’

  She got to her feet. They glared at each other, both panting, both catching their breath.

  ‘Empty your pockets.’

  He reluctantly tossed spare mags.

  ‘And the knives.’

  Her K-Bar was tucked behind the webbing of his chest rig. He pulled it free and tossed it clattering on the floor.

  ‘And the other one.’

  He pulled a lock knife from his pocket and threw it at her feet.

  ‘Sit on your hands.’

  He sat cross-legged on his hands.

  She picked up her knife, reversed the blade and cut her wrist restraints.

  ‘Over there.’

  She gestured to the wall stanchion. He shifted position, as if he were about to stand.

  ‘No, stay down.’

  He crawled to the wall. He sat, resigned, as she bound his wrists to the fuselage frame.

  She lowered herself to the floor. She uncapped Hancock’s canteen and drank deep.

  He used his sleeve to wipe blood from his nose and upper lip. He stared at Frost, beaming cold hate.

  She stretched, massaged her injured leg.

  Hancock opened his mouth like he was about to speak, but Frost suddenly froze and mimed hush.

  Footsteps on the lower deck. Someone moving around in the cabin beneath them.

  They stared at the trunk blocking the hatchway to the compartment below. They listened to the muffled clump of boots, the clatter of equipment and survival gear thrown aside.

  ‘Shoot,’ said Hancock. He spat blood onto the deck plate beside him. ‘Pull the box aside. Do it quick. Put a bullet in the top of the fuck’s head.’

  Frost looked towards the hatchway. She listened as the lower cabin got ransacked.

  ‘Think it knows we’re here?’ asked Hancock.

  ‘Of course.’

  She slid across the floor to the trunk. She gripped the sides of the box, prepped to push it aside, then changed her mind.

  ‘Hey,’ she shouted. ‘Hear me down there?’

  Sounds from below abruptly ceased.

  ‘Pinback? Is that you?’

  ‘Bitch, you’re going to get us killed,’ murmured Hancock.

  ‘Pinback. Daniel Pinback. Do you remember your own name?’

  Long pause.

  ‘Think, Daniel. Think back. Reach deep. Your wife. Michelle. Remember Michelle? The plans you made. The house you were going to build.’

  Crash from down below. Tools kicked by stumbling feet. Pinback resumed his search of the plane.

  Frost barked a bunch of take-off commands:

  ‘Engine four start. Spooling. Increase thrust.’

  Sudden silence.

  ‘Yeah. You remember how to pilot a plane well enough. The very last thing you would forget.’

  No sound.

  ‘Pinback? You still there?’

  No sound.

  She ejected the mag from the pistol. Couple of rounds left. She loaded a fresh clip.

  She slowly pushed the trunk aside and shone a flashlight down the ladderwell.

  The lower cabin was empty. A couple of lockers torn open. Tools strewn across the deck.

  Frost sat on the lip of the hatchway and contemplated the detritus.

  ‘What were you doing down there, Pinback?’ she murmured. ‘What was on your mind?’

  41

  Sunrise.

  Noble and Trenchman walked through the ruined compound.

  Absolute devastation. Not a building or vehicle untouched.

  A couple of smouldering SUVs. Melted plastic trim sent up black smoke.

  ‘Site Apache,’ said Trenchman. ‘CIA oversight. Been here three months.’

  Scattered shell casings. Fragments of rotor blade. An exploded kerosene drum, sides peeled back like the petals of a steel flower.

  ‘Jesus.’

  Trenchman shrugged.

  ‘I wasn’t here when it happened, but I heard them screaming for help over the radio. Infected broke out of their pens. Things got apocalyptic.’

  Noble kicked the dirt. Enamel white shards. He crouched. Scattered teeth.

  ‘So how many people died out here? In total?’

  ‘A bunch.’

  ‘Where are the bodies? Who cleaned up?’

  ‘Handful of survivors.’

  ‘You’ve checked the place out? Done a thorough search? Anything to scavenge?’

  ‘Not a whole lot.’

  ‘So what’s the story?’ asked Noble. ‘What was going on out here?’

  ‘Do you really need me to spell it out?’ Trenchman gestured to the freight container cells. ‘Seems pretty self-evident. They were a bunch of CDC specialists out here studying the virus. Bunch of guys from Fort Detrick. They needed test subjects. They got convicts trucked in from Lovelock and Ely. Kept them penned, fed and watered, while they waited to go under the knife.’

  ‘Humans? Used as labs rats?’

  ‘Murderers. Rapists. Pederasts.’

  ‘But people.’

  ‘Barely. In a fucked-up world, this was one of the easier decisions.’

  ‘Kept them like cattle.’

  ‘Look around. Agency guys didn’t live much better. Human race hanging in the balance. It was tough for everyone. Nobody relished what they were doing. Death stink and merciless heat. All the docs, all the guards, sitting around guzzling Tequila. Cork high and bottle deep, all day long.’

  ‘How many guys did they kill?’

  ‘Couple of hundred. But they would have died anyway. The penitentiaries were abandoned. COs fled, leaving convicts in their cells to starve. It’s not like anyone was going to throw open the prison gates and let a bunch of gangbangers and maniacs loose on the streets. This way, they got a few days more life.’

  ‘What was your part in all this?’

  ‘Logistics. Second Wing delivered some of the trailers. Sling loads beneath the Chinook. Brought a couple of CDC guys from Florida as well. Want me to feel bad about it? The killing? The guys working out here were fucking heroic. Proud to play a part.’

  They kept wa
lking.

  A burned-out office unit. No roof. A single wall left standing.

  The unit looked like it had been converted to a bio containment lab. Scraps of polythene suggested the unit might once have been hermetically sealed. Lengths of silver hose suggested elaborate air filtration. The skeletal frame sagging against the unit suggested a sequence of decon showers.

  Toppled drums of solvent. Discarded bottles of bleach. A couple of ripped Tyvek suits.

  Noble approached the charred wreckage. A zinc necropsy table at the centre of the ruined lab.

  He kicked at sample containers among the debris, the kind of high-impact, flip-latch boxes used to transport donor organs.

  Some kind of weird half-skull symbol on the lids, like someone improvised danger signs with a Sharpie.

  ‘I’d stay away from that shit, if I were you,’ said Trenchman. ‘That was the dissection room. They used to joke about it. Called it The Deli, cause people got laid on the counter and sliced real fine. They played music over the tannoy, but it didn’t smother the screams. Everyone hated the place. Seriously. Keep away. Bad hoodoo.’

  Trenchman led Noble across the helipad to a mobile office unit. They ducked inside.

  Scattered papers. Toppled chairs.

  Trenchman sat on a desk.

  Noble picked a ring binder from the floor and flipped pages.

  ‘Doesn’t anyone else want this stuff?’ asked Noble. ‘All this research, whatever the fuck it is. Might be useful to someone. Ought to be preserved.’

  ‘There’s nobody left. There used to be a mirror team working out of Bellevue, New York. Guess they died when the bomb dropped. Another bunch down a missile silo in Florida. Lost contact a while back.’

  A sheaf of black and white photographs.

  A convict strapped to a chair. A big, Slavic guy with a biker beard. A swastika tattooed at the centre of his forehead, Manson style. He exhibited the first signs of infection: one eyeball haemorrhaged black and a bunch of irregularities beneath the chest fabric of his jumpsuit hinting at the tumourous knots and ropes erupting from his skin.

  A couple of tripod microphones set up in front of the guy. Headphones clamped to his head.

  ‘What’s the deal with the microphones? Some kind of indoctrination? Were they trying to create super-soldiers or something?’

  Trenchman shook his head.

  ‘Most infected folk are dumber than cockroaches. Trace metabolic function. Negligible brain activity. No memories, emotions. They are effectively dead. But now and again one of these bastards starts to demonstrate a sly intelligence. And one or two of them can talk.’ Trenchman gestured to the photo in Noble’s hand. ‘That guy. Valdemar. Russian mob. Low-level enforcer. He was a star exhibit.’