The Last Town (Book 5): Fleeing the Dead

by Stephen Knight

  THE LAST TOWN #5

  FLEEING THE DEAD

  By Stephen Knight

  © 2016 by Stephen Knight

  dramatis persona

  Single Tree, California

  Barry Corbett, billionaire resident of Single Tree, California

  Gary Norton, movie producer originally from Single Tree

  Max Booker, mayor of Single Tree

  Roxanne Booker, Max’s wife

  Chief Greg Grady, Single Tree police chief

  Danielle Kennedy, waitress and former Marine

  Hector Aguilar, pharmacy owner and member of Single Tree town council

  Gemma Washington, member of the Single Tree town council

  Jock Sinclair, brash British television journalist

  Meredith Sinclair, Jock’s wife, former fashion model

  Walter Lennon, head of Corbett’s security detail

  Victor Kuruk, leader of a Native American tribe living on a reservation next to Single Tree

  Suzy Kuruk, Victor’s niece and tribal reservation police officer

  Officer Mike Hailey, Single Tree police officer

  Officer Santoro, Single Tree police officer

  Officer Whitter, Single Tree police officer

  Officer John Lasher, Single Tree police officer

  Arthur Norton, Gary’s father

  Beatrice Norton, Gary’s mother

  Estelle Garcia, Singe Tree resident

  Martin Kennedy, Danielle’s father

  Raoul Salcedo, diner owner

  Jason Donner, short order cook

  Ernesta, Single Tree Pharmacy employee

  Lou, Single Tree Pharmacy pharmacist

  Rod Cranston, Single Tree airport manager

  Enrico, Single Tree airport FBO employee

  Randall Klaff, construction foreman

  Danny Tresko, construction foreman

  Chester Dawson, construction worker

  Jose Ramos, construction worker

  Bill Rollins, trucker

  Los Angeles, California

  Detective III Reese, LAPD

  Patrol Sergeant Bates, LAPD

  Detective I Renee Gonzales, LAPD, Reese’s partner

  Detective II Jerry Whittaker, LAPD, Reese’s partner

  Captain Miriam Pallata, commanding officer of the LAPD’s North Hollywood Station

  Captain Marshall, Pallata’s predecessor

  Lieutenant Newman, LAPD

  Detective II Marsh, LAPD

  PO Kozinski, LAPD

  Lieutenant Colonel James Morton, battalion commander, California Army National Guard

  Sergeant Kidd, enlisted noncommissioned officer

  Captain Bobby Narvaez, company commander, California Army National Guard

  First Sergeant Plosser, company NCO, California Army National Guard

  Jed Simpkiss, helicopter pilot

  Captain III Fontenoy, commanding officer of Wilshire Station

  Lieutenant Toomey, Wilshire Station, LAPD

  Others

  Clarence Doddridge, convict

  Auto, convict

  Big Tone, convict

  Shaliq, convict

  Bruce, convict

  SINGLE TREE, CALIFORNIA

  With the decision made to secure the town, Corbett’s teams went into overdrive. The trenches were completed in less than three days, and tall, sandy berms stood between them and the town. These would serve as temporary barriers until the steel walls could go up. Those would take longer to erect, so the berms would be reinforced with razor wire to slow down any zombies which might arrive before the walls were erected.

  After the trench line around the town was completed, a second series was begun, extending toward the airport. The plan included maintaining a narrow, protected channel to the airfield where a final evacuation could take place if the town was compromised and couldn’t be held. Eventually, the perimeter would expand to the airport itself. It would take weeks, but now that the entire town was onboard, the workforce would grow. Corbett’s people would have an additional pool of labor available to further expedite the construction of the town defenses.

  Simultaneously, temporary housing would be set up for Victor Kuruk’s people, along with depots for all manner of supplies, each segregated from each other and independently defended in the event of a partial collapse of the town wall. Funnel points would be constructed that would channelize the dead into pre-zeroed killing areas, so they could be serviced before they were able to make further incursions into the town. They would have to burn the dead during the lulls in action, and Corbett wondered if that would even be possible.

  What if there are no lulls? he asked himself, as he drove from one end of town to the other in his big F-series Super Duty, tailed by his security detail. What if a hundred thousand zombies show up at once? What if it’s a million?

  The only answer he could come up with wasn’t pretty.

  And the rest of the country was slowly being driven to its knees. Most of the major cities in the east had gone dark, save for a few irregular reports coming out of the outer boroughs of Manhattan, the suburbs surrounding Washington and Atlanta, and the northernmost parts of the eastern seaboard. Not that Portland, Maine had the most stimulating newsfeeds, but they were at least more exciting than before the zombie apocalypse had arrived.

  Closer to home, things were deteriorating, though not as swiftly. Los Angeles was on the slow slide into obscurity, as was Las Vegas. Even Bishop, just up the highway from Single Tree, was having issues. As Corbett had feared, the streams of refugees coming in from both directions were introducing infected people into the population, and both the local PD and the California Highway Patrol were struggling to deal with the effects. The governor had activated the state National Guard, but there was no chance of any troop deployments to places like Bishop, not when the larger metropolises were fast approaching their tipping points. The hordes of displaced persons seeking shelter were increasing, and behind them would come the zombies. Corbett anxiously awaited the moment they could fully seal Single Tree.

  If it had been up to him, he would have cut the roads already and started turning the traffic back. But the town council, led by Mayor Max Booker, had finally asserted itself. Booker had argued that not only did a state highway run right through the center of town, but that the people trying to use it deserved a chance to reach some sort of safe harbor. Corbett understood the argument well, and he took no pleasure in depriving families a chance at safety, but the potential cost to the town was too high for him to tolerate. Already, they’d had occurrences of walking corpses springing up inside the town limits. While two of those had been homegrown, the others were not. Corbett had stated his case and essentially told Booker and the town council to go someplace private and jump up and down for a while until their collective balls finally dropped; there was nothing they could do to stop him.

  But surprisingly, Victor Kuruk could.

  “Not yet, Barry,” the newly-installed acting chief of police said, collaring him outside the town hall. “Give them some more time.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Corbett had railed.

  “No, not about this,” Victor said, apparently unflustered by Corbett’s combative response. That was one of the things that really needled Corbett; he was used to being able to bigfoot his way around to get things done, but that had never really worked with Victor. It wasn’t the tribal leader’s way.

  “We’re going to have all the time in the world to turn them away, Barry,” Victor had continued. “For now, we just deny them all but the most essential services, and keep them going. We close all the restaurants and shops and gas stations along Main Street and don’
t give them a reason to stop. We keep the traffic flowing, and work on building those internal barricades you have planned out. It’ll be difficult work with the extra traffic, but as Americans, we have to give these people a chance.”

  “Some speech, coming from you,” Corbett groused.

  “My people even believe in letting even Anglo usurpers live, wherever possible,” Victor countered.

  “No time for this,” Corbett had said. “Things have changed.”

  “Just a little longer, Barry,” Victor replied. “Just a little longer. Let them try and get to where they need to go.”

  “What if they’re driving straight into the teeth of a zombie horde?”

  “Then they’ll have no chance. But that’s not on us. It’s on them.”

  Disgusted with himself for being so weak and taking the easy out, Corbett agreed to instruct his construction teams to work on fortifying the town, while leaving the highway uncut. For now. He figured it would be something he’d come to regret in the short order, but that was just how things had to be. Besides, Victor was right. These were his fellow Americans, and he owed them the opportunity to find someplace where they might be safe.

  Or, at the very least, die in the close company of family and friends.

  ###

  So many weapons, Danielle Kennedy thought as she helped uncrate and categorize hundreds of black AR-style rifles and .45 caliber pistols. She hadn’t seen so many firearms in one place since leaving the Marine Corps, and it was an amazing sight. All the rifles were LWRC piston weapons, which while virtually identical to the M16 rifle she’d used during her stint in the Corps, they were functionally different. Instead of using the gas generated during firing to move the bolt back and forth—known as direct impingement, a process that also served to foul the entire carrier group and eventually lead to malfunctions—the LWRC Individual Carbine Systems used the gas blowback to operate a piston that would mechanically return the bolt carrier group to a firing position. The excess gas was expelled from the front of the rifle instead of through the ejection port, theoretically leaving the breech area free of any fouling residue. The tradeoff was that the rifles were nominally heavier than their gas impingement brethren, due to the additional hardware required to do the work. But when Dani hefted one, it didn’t feel much different at all, only a few ounces of additional weight. Not enough to bother her, but she knew that holding a rifle for hours in a fight could become surprisingly taxing.

  Deal with that when it comes, girl.

  Working inside the shade provided by a hastily-erected fiberglass shelter, Dani worked with three other people at one end of the structure uncrating the rifles, which were brought in by a small forklift on pallets. At the other end, four people worked on unboxing and servicing the Smith & Wesson M&P .45 caliber pistols. One of those people was Gary Norton, and Dani found herself looking up from her work every now and then to check him out. He was a good twenty years older than she was, but he was in great shape. Dressed in faded blue jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan “Life is Good”, he didn’t look very much like a multimillionaire movie producer. But he didn’t act like just another guy from around town, either. He moved with a self-confident grace that was quite different from, say, Barry Corbett. Corbett just plowed around like king of the walk, whereas Norton was more content to stay below the radar, like a lion slowly stalking its prey from the concealment of thick brush. His dark hair was starting to go gray at the temples, lending him a distinguished presence. His tanned face was the perfect picture of concentration as he worked on breaking down the pistols set out on the table before him, removing the slide from each weapon’s frame before pulling out the spring and barrel for inspection. He held up each component and examined them thoroughly before giving them a quick cleaning, his angular hands handling the pieces with a deft quickness. Basically, Norton looked like someone’s super-hot dad, and Dani found herself wondering what he looked like without any clothes.

  Girl, you’re a one-legged freak. Get over it, that kind of man is way out of your league.

  Norton looked over suddenly and met her eyes. He gave her a quick smile, then went back to the task before him as she smiled back reflexively.

  “Okay, princess, let’s get back to work,” said the man who was working with Dani. He was definitely a former Marine, despite his full beard and shaggy hair. Sweat stains stood out on the armpits of his drab T-shirt. “We’ve got a lot more work to do, then we have to break these babies down, do an initial service, then start test-firing.”

  “We going to do all of them?” Danielle asked.

  “’Course not,” the man said. “Just enough to sample.” He looked at her for a long moment. “So what happened to the leg?”

  “Iraq,” Danielle said.

  The man grunted and went back to his work. “Yeah, that happened to a lot of us.”

  “You were there?”

  “Not the second round, but the first one. DESERT STORM. Was in the first unit to make contact with the Iraqis, in Khafji.”

  “Khafji, huh?”

  “Yeah. You know it?”

  Danielle snorted as she unboxed another weapon. “Yeah, they taught us a bit about it. Who were you with?”

  “Recon, First Marines,” the man said. “They thought they had us boxed up in that town, but the ragheads got a hell of a surprise when we started coordinating artillery fires on them. They never got us.”

  “Sounds like it was a tough night, anyway.”

  The man shrugged. “It was, but it looks like things are going to be just as tough here if we don’t get our shit squared away. So let’s get to it, girl.”

  “You got it.”

  ###

  After the power had gone out, one of the first items on the task list to be accomplished was restoring it. There was no way to tell if the outage was long-term, but it was certainly more than just a brown out; the entire town was in the dark, with the only illumination coming from the headlights of the traffic that streamed endlessly through the town, or from those buildings and residences which had emergency power generators. Sinclair was disgusted (but not surprised) to discover the roach coach he and Miriam were staying in was not equipped with a secondary source of power. Without even the vague amenity afforded by the motel’s highly-touted free HBO, staying in the darkened room was hardly ever going to help the establishment increase its Forbes star rating.

  Just the same, by the next day, teams of people working for Barry Corbett were busy at work, splicing power generators into the system. One team was even constructing what appeared to be a wind turbine on the grounds of the high school. Sinclair was heartened by that. If nothing else, it meant he could charge his phone and continue documenting the travesty that was about to occur, notably Barry Corbett’s brutal campaign to deny safe harbor to those in need. Sinclair knew deep down that he actually agreed with the billionaire’s stance on the situation, and he had already decided that as long as Sinclair actually benefited from the circumstance, then he wouldn’t decry the actions too loudly. But he also realized a time would come when the emergency was over, when normalcy would return. And he had to be ready for that, which meant he had to have a story to tell. And the narrative he had chosen was one that would cast Barry Corbett and his ridiculous sycophants like that fool Norton as black-hearted opportunists who overwhelmed the good graces of the embattled townspeople to enact an “us versus them” meme which was so utterly Republican that it made Sinclair want to scream.

  But not so loudly that it got him thrown out, of course.

  Nevertheless, he was deeply shocked when none other than Gary Norton arrived at the Trail’s End Motel in his crusty old Jeep SUV. With his broad shoulders, sun-kissed skin, and dark hair that was beginning to show just a touch of gray at the temples, Norton appeared to be the epitome of a Hollywood power broker, even when wearing a simple long-sleeved shirt, vest, leather boots, and indigo blue jeans. His casual attire did nothing to diminish the fact that his wealth dw
arfed Sinclair’s by a huge margin, and the easy confidence he exuded didn’t even pretend to dispel the fact he was a high-caste member of the accursed one percent. Sinclair hated him for that, despite the fact that he himself lived on a high floor condominium in New York’s 15 Central Park West, two floors above Denzel Washington.

  “Sinclair, I have a gift for you,” the movie producer said after Sinclair opened the motel room door. He looked past Sinclair’s shoulder, where Miriam sat on the bed. “Ma’am.”

  “Hello,” Miriam responded, her attitude mute and distant.

  “Norton—what is it that you want?” Sinclair asked, a little testily. He didn’t like surprises, and he very much doubted that Corbett had sent his chief lackey to simply check on Sinclair’s health.

  Norton unslung the big backpack he was carrying. “Barry wanted you to have this.”

  Sinclair regarded the backpack suspiciously, as if it might contain a bomb and the man holding it might actually be an operative of the Islamic State. “And what is that?”

  “Can I come in? I’ll have to show you and walk you through some things.”

  Sinclair dithered for a moment, unsure of what to do. Finally, he stepped back and pushed the open the motel room door. “Pardon the disarray, the maid hasn’t arrived yet.”

  “Not a problem for me.” Norton stepped inside and sauntered over to the bed and placed the backpack on it. He nodded to Miriam, smiling a winning smile. “Are you able to get some sleep, ma’am?”

  Miriam smiled back. “Not as much as I’d like. Lots of noise from the traffic outside.” She pointed toward the window, where the drapes had been pulled back. Outside lay the parking lot, including a good view of Norton’s Jeep, and the slowly-moving traffic on Main Street.

  “Well, that’s not going to last forever. Hang in there,” Norton said.

  “Norton, what is this ‘gift’ you say you have? Is it a helicopter, perhaps?” Sinclair asked.

  Norton unzipped the bag and pulled out several boxes, cables, flash cards, lenses, and at last, a bulky camera. He lined everything up next to the television on the motel room’s dresser.