by Adam Baker
‘Took a lot of effort, a lot of bullets, to finish the guy. And there are a bunch more out there. Guess we stirred a nest of the creeps at Apache, brought them our way. Out there right now, hiding beneath the sand. We’d need a Gatling gun and grenades to make a fair fight.’
Noble sat in the pilot seat, lifted a blast blind and peered out into the moonlit night.
‘He’s gone. Guthrie. His body is gone.’
‘You’re sure?’
Frost joined him at the window.
Blood on the sand. Bone and brain. But no Guthrie.
‘They took him. He didn’t get up and walk. He’s dead for sure. Guarantee it.’
They listened to the low wind-moan.
‘What time is it?’ asked Frost.
‘No idea. Midnight, at a guess.’
‘How long since you two got any sleep?’
‘Can’t sleep in a situation like this.’
‘How’s your leg?’ asked Noble.
Frost flexed her foot.
‘All right.’
Noble turned to Hancock.
‘How’s your head?’
Hancock gestured to torn flesh and crusted blood.
‘How do you think?’
‘Smells pretty rank.’
‘So everyone keeps telling me. You two aren’t exactly shower-fresh, so pardon me if I invite you both to go fuck yourselves.’
Frost uncapped her canteen. They passed it back and forth. Shallow sips.
Hancock shook the canteen and listened to water slop in the half-empty bottle.
‘Who are we kidding?’ he said. ‘We’re not going anywhere. All of us in fucked-up shape. Guess we could have walked days ago, but the moment has passed.’ He looked around the flight deck. ‘Face it. This place is our tomb.’
Frost looked like she wanted to argue, but didn’t have the energy. She contemplated the gun in her hand. She stroked the grip with her thumb.
‘Don’t let me end up like them,’ she said. ‘Take care of it, all right? Make me that promise. I don’t want a living death.’
‘Maybe you were right all along,’ said Noble, addressing Hancock. ‘Maybe we should fire up the nuke. Take the fuckers with us.’
They sat in silence a while.
Hancock’s eyelids began to droop. His head nodded towards his chest. Deep breaths evolved into a congested snore.
Frost struggled to stand.
The sound of her boots scuffing deck plate jerked Hancock awake.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Hancock.
‘I’m going to take a look at the tail section. Try and figure out what these bastards have planned.’
‘Outside? On your own?’
She shook her head.
‘I’ll cut through the bomb bay.’
‘Then give me a gun. Anything happens to you, Noble and I will be left defenceless.’
Frost thought it over. She took a spare mag from her pocket and tossed it to Noble.
She reached up and fumbled on the ledge above the Electronic Warfare Officer console. She retrieved Hancock’s Beretta. She handed it to him butt first. He loaded a clip and chambered a round.
‘Watch where you’re pointing that thing.’
Noble unclipped a pocket of his survival vest and tossed Frost a radio.
‘If you run into trouble, holler.’
Frost climbed down the ladder to the lower cabin.
She climbed into the crawlspace. She examined the bomb-bay door. The steel hatch was heavily dented. One of the creatures had been unable to figure out the D-ring latches and tried to punch its way inside.
She twisted the latches and pulled back the door.
The interior of the bomb bay glowed infernal red, like she was crawling into a furnace mouth.
She slid from the walkway and stood straight. Trapped day heat. She wiped sweat.
She side-stepped the disassembled Tomahawk hanging from its launch bracket. First glimpse of Hancock’s work. The payload cowling unscrewed and set aside. The physics package disconnected and part removed. Tools scattered on the floor.
She walked the length of the bomb bay, balanced along a narrow grate walkway. She hugged wall conduits and held wall spars for support.
Sudden jolt. Shudder and metal shriek. The airframe shook. Frost fell to her knees. The missile suspended above her creaked and trembled in its cradle.
Static crackle:
‘Frost? You feel that?’
She pulled a radio from her pocket.
‘Yeah. Whole place shook.’
‘Okay down there?’
‘Something going on at the rear of the plane. Fuckers are up to something. Let me check it out.’
‘Watch yourself.’
She got to her feet.
She reached the rear hatch.
She crouched and released the door latches.
She opened the door slowly, pistol in one hand, flashlight in the other.
She shone her flashlight into the narrow crawl channel. She climbed inside and headed for the tail.
Fifteen yards of conduit that took her past the aft gear well and fuel bladders towards the ECM equipment.
She reached a seam of ragged metal and scraps of foil insulation. The tail had been restored, crudely shunted back in position. She probed the crude join with her fingers. Glimpse of stars through fissured metal. Whistling night wind.
The flight deck.
Frost sat on the floor and wiped sweat from her face.
‘They’ve shunted the tail back in position. God knows how. Didn’t see anyone. Just reached the rear, and there it was. Think they’re planning to fly out of here? Jam this bird back together, take her for a ride?’
Hancock sat staring at her. A look of apprehension on his face. He nodded towards the pilot seat.
‘What’s up?’
He mimed hush.
Frost got to her feet. She pulled the pistol from her waistband. She crept towards the pilot seat.
Noble reclined in the chair. His flight suit was unzipped. His belly was a blackened mess. He stroked the metallic spines that furred his skin like chest hairs and stared, unfocused, at the flight controls in front of him.
‘Oh Christ.’
‘Best stay away,’ he said, without looking round.
‘Dude, I’m sorry.’
He shrugged.
‘When did it happen?’ asked Frost.
‘I honestly don’t know.’
‘Said you were attacked on your way back from Apache. The limo. Reckon you got bitten?’
‘Before then, I think. Maybe back in Vegas.’
‘You can’t remember?’
‘Maybe the virus breached the wire. Obvious scenario: one of Trenchman’s guys got bit when he left the compound on a supply run. A raiding party sent out to loot a supermarket. They got jumped while they loaded a train of trolleys with canned goods. Kind of situation they could deal with easy enough. Minor skirmish in the grocery aisles. Bunch of headshots. But one of the guys got bitten on the wrist or ankle, and hid the wound from his buddies. He brought the disease back to camp and, in the days that followed, started to infect his comrades. Picked his moment. In the showers, in the barracks. Waited till he was alone with a guy, then took them out. The virus quietly, methodically, taking over the camp.’
‘A hunch, right?’
‘Yeah. Supposition. We arrived on base. Someone infected Guthrie. Guthrie infected me. Then we all climbed aboard the plane.’
‘He bit you?’
‘Maybe he spat in my food. Or maybe he sneezed. Ever think of that? The virus could, under the right circumstances, be inhaled. The nasal membrane is pretty thin. It would be an effective entry point.’
‘You’ve been sick the whole time we were out here?’
‘I think so.’
‘How can you not know? We’re talking like it’s guesswork. Why can’t you remember any of this shit?’
‘I’m not real any more. I’m a simulation. I have Noble’s memories
. I have the architecture of his personality. But Noble’s long gone.’
‘You’re here, now, talking to me.’
‘But no longer conscious.’
‘You’re aware that you’re unaware?’
‘I’m not aware of anything. You ask a question. The ruin of Noble’s mind vocalises a response. It’s not a conversation. More of a seance.’
‘What does it want? This disease. This sentient cancer. What does it want with us?’
‘An unanswerable question. It’s a viral organism. You can’t judge it on human terms. You can’t hope to understand its designs and desires.’
Noble casually reached up and tore a flap of skin from his forehead. The ribbon of dried flesh tore away revealing glistening muscle and, beneath it, white bone.
A dribble of blood rolled down his temple. He wiped it with the back of his hand like he was mopping sweat.
He reached up and tore his hair away like he was peeling off a wig. He threw the scalp aside. It hit the deck with a wet slap.
Frost adjusted her grip on the Beretta. Safety to Off.
‘One last question. The crash. Mechanical failure? Or did you guys sabotage the plane?’
Noble turned and smiled. He leapt onto the pilot seat, punched his way through the patched ejection hatch and began to haul himself out onto the roof.
Gunfire. Frost aimed for a headshot, but Noble was already half through the aperture. Bullets blew chunks out of his chest. Spark and metal-slam as a round ricocheted from the hatch frame, deflected off a couple of control surfaces. Frost ducked. Hancock covered his head. The bullet punched a neat exit hole in the fuselage. A pencil beam of moonlight shone into the flight deck, projecting a radiant disc on the floor like a shiny nickel.
Frost stood on the pilot seat, intending to follow Noble out the plane. She glanced at her weapon. The gun was jammed slide-back with a spent cartridge case wedged in the breech.
Frost worked the slide, struggled to clear the mechanism. Rasp of sand-clogged metal.
‘Motherfuck.’
She stepped down from the pilot chair and backed away from the ejector hatch.
Hancock struggled to his feet.
‘This is so fucked. We can’t stay here. We need to get somewhere more secure.’
51
The bomb bay.
Hancock removed fresh bandages from his head and examined the near-gangrenous wound using a pocket signal mirror.
Frost disassembled her Beretta and blew grit from the mechanism.
‘Noble was infected,’ said Hancock, ‘but he didn’t know.’
‘It wasn’t him any more. Nothing but a shell.’
She reassembled and reloaded the weapon.
‘Makes you wonder,’ said Hancock. ‘If I were infected, how would I know? I think I’m real. I think I’m me. But I can’t be sure.’
Frost didn’t reply. She retreated to the corner of the bay, balanced the video camera on a thick wall cable and hit REC.
She looked at her image in the playback window. Cheeks sunken with dehydration. Eyes dark with exhaustion. Hair matted with dust. She looked like she had aged twenty years.
She tried to compose her thoughts. ‘It’s Thursday. Thursday? Yeah, Thursday. Must be one, maybe two in the morning. It’s cold. Got to admit, I’m tired. Bone tired.’
She coughed.
‘I can hear them outside. They’re moving stuff around, moving with a purpose. Get the crazy impression they are trying to rebuild the plane. No point trying to understand, I guess.
‘We’re the last survivors. Myself and Captain Hancock. We’re sealed in the bomb bay. Seems the safest place. Easy to defend. Easier than the flight deck, at any rate. Nothing to do but wait until dawn. We’ll have more options once the sun comes up.’
She sipped water.
‘There was a mist in the sky yesterday, way to the east. A dark haze. I didn’t pay it any mind. But only one thing it could be. Vegas. Unchecked fires setting whole streets ablaze. Plenty of timber structures in the older suburbs, whole neighbourhoods baking in the sun, waiting for a spark. Must be a hell of a firestorm.’
She rubbed her eyes.
‘New York. Chicago. Los Angeles. All those cities. Hard to picture the death, the desolation. The horror is too damned big for my head.
‘I mean, Washington is gone. Who gives a shit, right? Piss on them. But Jesus. The White House. The Capitol. America, the idea of America, swept away. Nice while it lasted.’
She glanced up as red compartment lights flickered.
‘Not sure how much longer we’ll have power.
‘Know what? I haven’t smoked since college but, Jesus, I could use a cigarette right now.’
She reached for the camera and signed off.
‘Lieutenant LaNitra Frost, United States Air Force.’
She pressed Stop. She stuffed the camcorder in her pocket.
Frost and Hancock sat side by side, backs to the curve of the fuselage wall, each lost in thought.
‘So hungry I could weep,’ said Hancock.
‘Yeah?’
‘Been craving apples. Lovely crisp apples. Hard to think of anything else. Tried singing to myself. Doesn’t help. Can’t get them off my mind.’
Frost glanced at the Tomahawk suspended above them.
‘So how about it?’ she asked. ‘Want to disable this thing, or detonate?’
‘Tempted to fire her up. Painless way to go. And we’d have the satisfaction of taking those fuckers outside with us. How about you? Want to call it quits?’
Frost thought it over. She shook her head.
‘Think I’d rather go down fighting.’
Hancock stood up. His laptop balanced on the hull of the missile. He refreshed the screen. A winking cursor. An eight-digit input screen.
‘There’s a disable code?’
‘Yeah,’ said Hancock. ‘Shuts it down, nice and simple.’
Fingers poised over the keyboard.
A hand erupted from the sand floor of the bomb bay. It seized Frost’s ankle.
‘Fuck,’ she yelled. ‘Got my leg.’
Her injured leg hauled knee-deep below the sand. She snatched her pistol from her shoulder rig and fired a volley, kicking up dust.
Hancock grabbed the collar of her flight suit and tried to drag her clear.
‘Hands. Claws. Pulling me down.’
She kicked with her good foot, tried to push herself clear. She felt herself dragged deeper. She thrashed. She strained.
‘Help me for God’s sake.’
Hancock pulled the Beretta from his waistband and fired into the dust near Frost’s feet.
Frost jerked her leg free. The fabric of her suit was torn. Her makeshift splint had been ripped away.
‘Help me up.’
Hancock helped Frost to her feet.
The ground bulged and seethed.
‘Got to get out of here.’
They lunged for the crawlspace hatch. Frost scrambled inside. Hancock followed.
Frost shuffled on hands and knees towards the crew cabin.
‘Shit. They got me.’ Hancock’s voice resonated loud and metallic in the confined space.
Frost squirmed around and trained her flashlight.
Hancock scrabbling for purchase on the smooth sides of the conduit.
‘They got my leg.’
Frost grabbed his wrists, but he was wrenched from her grasp.
‘Jesus, help.’
His hands slapped and squeaked as he tried to grip smooth metal. He was relentlessly dragged backwards towards the bomb bay.
‘Shoot me,’ shouted Hancock. ‘Fucking shoot me.’
Frost drew her pistol, but he was wrenched out of sight.
She crawled forwards, approached the infernal compartment light of the payload bay.
More screams.
She reached the hatchway.
Hancock chest deep and sinking fast.
She took aim.
‘Do it.’
She fi
red. His head jerked back. Neat bullet hole between the eyes.
His limp body was pulled beneath the dust. Sand closed over his head. Arms and hands dragged below ground.
Sudden stillness.
52
The flight deck.
Frost slowly climbed the ladder. She crouched, weapon raised. Sweep of the compartment, flashlight in one hand, Beretta in the other. A vague plan. Twelve rounds in the clip. Eleven for any prowler she might confront. Last bullet for herself.
The two missing ejector seats, co-pilot and electronic warfare, were back at their stations. She shone her flashlight at the roof. The jettisoned ejection hatches were jammed back in position.
She stood and approached the flight controls. Glittering chunks of polycarbon piled on the sill above the EVS controls. She picked up a transparent chunk and turned it in her hand. Fragments of cockpit window. Collected from the half-mile debris trench. Picked from the sand, and mounded next to the empty window frame. A crude restoration.
The blast screens flapped and billowed. A rising night wind. She tore a couple of strips of duct tape to lash them down, but the screens tore open immediately. She tossed the tape aside.
Hard to estimate time. Must be heading towards dawn.
She looked down at Noble’s backpack. Maybe she should strike out at dawn. Pack water and meds and head into the desert at sunrise. But she was overcome by an enervating wave of what’s-the-point. The infected crewmen hiding amongst the dunes wouldn’t let her leave. She was a part of their unfathomable plan.
Thud. A tremor ran through the plane. Frost pulled back a blast blind and stared out into the darkness.
Swirling sand. Brief moonlight.
The engines were back in position. The connecting pylons were a fractured mess of fuel line and cable, but the turbojet pods were stationed neatly beneath each wing.
She glanced around the flight deck looking for anything that might provide additional firepower.
A thin steel wall pipe running the length of the cockpit at eye level. The hydraulic line. She traced the pipe and found a screw joint. Leatherman pliers. She pinched the joint, loosened the screw for a moment. Hydraulic fluid dripped onto the deck plate at her feet.
She crouched, flicked open her butane lighter and sparked a flame. The fluid fizzed and burned blue.