The Last Town (Book 5): Fleeing the Dead

by Stephen Knight

“A victim? Of whom?”

  Meredith faced him. Her face was still drawn and pale, but she no longer had the look of some cast-off waif waiting for someone to rescue her. There was a durable hardness there, something he’d never seen before.

  “You know the answer already, Jock. The zombies. The survivors who will want what we have. There’s going to be a lot of violence in the future, and I’m not going to let myself be swallowed up by it without a fight.”

  “So these madmen just let you walk away with guns?” Sinclair asked, pointedly ignoring commenting on her rationale.

  “I earned the right. While you’ve been off pointing your camera at people trying to uncover some dark right-wing conspiracy, I’ve been going to firearms training. I graduated today, so the weapons are mine to keep if I want them.” Meredith looked at him pointedly. “I decided I want them, since I’m going to have to protect myself.”

  “What on earth do you mean by that?”

  Meredith smiled. It wasn’t the pretty, dainty, disarming smile he’d seen at fashion shows or award luncheons or charitable dinners. There was no humor in the display.

  “You aren’t able to protect me, Jock,” she said. “Admit it to yourself. You aren’t even capable of protecting yourself.”

  Sinclair snorted, feeling a queer sense of outrage at the affront to his masculinity, coupled with embarrassment that she was probably quite right. “And you think that guns are the answer to that, darling?” he snapped.

  “Aren’t they? There have been plenty of times when you’ve allowed yourself to be protected by armed security. Remember when you were interviewing those Black Lives Matters protestors in Times Square, and you had two bodyguards with you … just in case? If things had gone bad, how much protection would they have been without guns?”

  “That was a completely different set of circumstances—”

  “How is it different?” she asked. “What will you do when the zombies attack, Jock? Reason with them? Educate them on the virtues of an all-vegan diet, even though you yourself fancy thick steaks, cooked medium rare?” Meredith spread her arms wide. “You’re surrounded by armed men and women right now, Jock. They’ve built walls and defenses, they’ve built housing for those who don’t have any, they’ve provided power and running water, and all they ask is that we throw in with them and help carry the load. Instead of tossing us back into the world, they’ve allowed us to stay. They even gave you a job that you could actually do for once.”

  “What the hell do you mean by that?” Sinclair snarled.

  “I mean that all you have to do is record what’s going on in this town. But instead of capturing the real events, you’re running around trying to get residents to admit that they’re exercising some sort of prejudice, that by saving themselves instead of taking in others and ensuring no one lives past the winter that they’re somehow down and dirty, selfish, hateful bastards.”

  Sinclair snorted again. “Sounds like Barry Corbett to a tee, doesn’t it?”

  “Why do you hate him so much?” Meredith asked. “What has he ever done to you?”

  “It’s not what he’s done to me, it’s what he hasn’t done for others,” Sinclair said. “Don’t you see it, Meredith? He’s taken everything all his life, but never once given back—”

  “Sounds like my father, doesn’t it?” Meredith said. “Yet, you sit around with him smoking Cuban cigars, drinking brandy, and slapping him on the back whenever he tries to tell a joke. He hasn’t done a damn thing for anyone, but so long as you get a piece of the family fortune when he dies, that’s fine with you, right?”

  Sinclair felt his temperature rise. “Meredith, darling. That was a very hateful thing to say.”

  “The truth usually hurts.” Meredith regarded him for a long moment, then turned to the dresser behind her. She opened her pocket book and pulled out an expensive leather wallet. From inside that, she pulled out a gold credit card and a key. She handed them both to Sinclair. Sinclair didn’t know what to make of the key, but the credit card he recognized instantly. A Palladium Card, the most elite credit card issued by J.P. Morgan Chase.

  “What’s this?” he asked, more about the key than the card.

  “The key to a safe deposit vault in the Citibank branch on the corner of Broadway and Pine Street,” Meredith told him. “Inside, there are three hundred and seventy-six gold bars. Each weighs ten ounces. Worth over five million dollars.”

  “Impressive,” Sinclair said. He regarded the key once again.

  “It’s yours. Take it,” Meredith said. “It’s what you married me for. The card can get you twice that, since it’s linked to the family accounts.”

  “Why are you giving these to me, Meredith?”

  “You want them. I can’t give you enough to make you as rich as Barry Corbett, but with those, your net worth just increased five-fold. Congratulations.”

  “But what about you?”

  Meredith turned and put a hand on the black rifle lying on the bed. “I’ve got what I need, Jock.”

  “You can’t be serious!”

  Meredith looked back at him. “You should try getting to know one, Jock. Because the only way you’re ever going to be able to use what I’ve given you is if you can fight your way to it.”

  Sinclair chuckled. “Oh, you want me to become a gunslinger, do you?”

  “No, Jock. I just hope you won’t continue to be a victim, dependent on other people to save you when things turn south.” She took her hand off the rifle, then straightened up. “I’m going to take a shower. Try not to touch anything you’re afraid of. And if the firearms make you uncomfortable, run out and interview that Hector asshole again. He’s just like you, only not as rich.”

  With that, she turned her back on him and opened one of the dresser drawers, going through her clothes. Sinclair could only blink. What had happened to the woman he’d married?

  It’s the God damned guns, he knew. They corrupted everything.

  ###

  Corbett had just slid into his bed when the radio on the night stand chirped. His eyes hadn’t fully adjusted to the darkness, but the flashing red light on the handset was clearly visible so he managed to grab it without knocking it to the floor.

  “Corbett,” he said.

  “Sir, it’s Walt. We’ve got stenches in the wire.”

  “How many?”

  “Don’t have an accurate count, but maybe fifteen to twenty. All on the eastern side. Looks like they came across Inyos.” The Inyo Mountains were the range that lay to the east of Single Tree, standing opposite the much higher Sierra Nevada range to the town’s west. Single Tree lay in a valley between the two upthrusts.

  “Roger that. Are they contained?”

  “They are. We have them under surveillance. They’re wrapped up in the razor wire, and don’t seem to be going anywhere fast. I have eyes on them now—looks like they were intending to try and reach the wall.” Lennon paused for a moment. “They knew we were here, old man.”

  That unsettled Corbett. One of the reasons he had insisted the walls be erected was to actually hide the town from sight. His reasoning had been that while average people still in possession of their faculties would understand that a community existed on the other side of the steel barricades, such complex reasoning was—should—have been beyond the ken of zombies. While there was information indicating that some of the ghouls retained some vestige of intelligence, he was surprised to discover that first hand.

  “Where along the wall are they hung up?” Corbett asked.

  “Ah, closest road is Mary’s Trail.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  ###

  Victor Kuruk was already there when Corbett rolled up in his truck. He was just about to scale the ladder that led to the parapet at the top of the wall, but when he saw Corbett arrive he hung back. Walt Lennon was with him. On the wall overhead, three men were looking out into the desert through night vision goggles.

  “Victor, what brings you here?” Corbett aske
d as he walked over.

  Victor pointed at his Dodge truck, sitting several yards away in the darkness. “You mean, aside from that?”

  Corbett frowned at the attempted levity. The hour was late, and the circumstances weren’t exactly conducive to belly-laughing. “You know what I mean,” he snapped.

  Victor covered his mouth with one hand and looked back at Corbett, miming wild-eyed fear. “Oh no, did the billionaire not get enough beauty sleep?”

  “The only way sleep will make me beautiful is if I get put in suspended animation,” Corbett replied.

  Victor lowered his hand and smiled. “Yes, give that a million years or so and that might just work.”

  “Victor—”

  “All right, Barry, all right. Don’t be such a snap-ass. One of the patrol officers called me over. Why, is there a problem with my taking an interest in what happens in this town? Because I hadn’t been aware caring was the province of such an exclusive club.” As Victor spoke, Corbett suddenly became aware of just how tired the broad-shouldered tribal leader looked. That wasn’t surprising; while Corbett had been keeping tabs on the big picture, Victor and his mix of local law enforcement and tribal police had to oversee the details, of which there were many. The town and its people were under a great deal of stress, and Victor’s folks would be the first ones to encounter the fallout that generated.

  “No. Thanks for coming. I was just surprised to see you here,” Corbett said. It sounded lame even to him.

  “You think I could sleep through our first zombie contact?” Victor asked.

  Corbett turned to Lennon. “Okay, Walt. Let’s see what you’ve got for me.”

  Lennon pointed at the ladder. “Try not to fall and break your ass, old man.”

  Corbett grunted and made for the ladder. As Victor stepped aside to allow him access to the first rungs, he said, “You know, Barry, I really do like Walter’s pet name for you. ‘Old man’ fits very, very well.”

  “Shut the fuck up, youngster,” Corbett said, and not without humor.

  Victor snorted.

  Corbett climbed up the ladder. It took him a moment to make the transition to the landing—there wasn’t really a convenient handhold from him to latch onto, and the edge of the wall was just outside his grasp. He levered one of his legs over the top of the ladder and tried to stand on the landing, but the angle was a little off. He just didn’t have the strength to push off onto that one leg with the other straight out on the ladder.

  God damn, getting old sucks!

  “Here, sir,” said one of the former Marines positioned nearby. He grabbed onto Corbett’s right shoulder and helped him up.

  “Thanks, son. Sorry, when you get into your seventies, you’ll have the same problem.”

  The guard smiled beneath his night vision goggles. “Here’s hoping I live that long.”

  Corbett moved aside as Victor came up behind him. Even though he wasn’t a great deal younger, Victor managed to pull himself onto the landing without needing anyone’s help. He glanced at Corbett in the darkness. Corbett thought he saw him wink, even though there was no real illumination to see him by.

  “I recommend yoga,” Victor said. “It keeps you limber, and strengthens your core.”

  “I’d rather just keep drinking Budweiser,” Corbett responded.

  Lennon darted up the ladder after that, and sidled around Corbett while simultaneously steering him toward the wall. “Here, take a look through this,” he said, handing the older man a night vision monocle. Corbett raised it to his eye. The unit was already switched on, but the field of view was so narrow he saw only a small swath of desert. Lennon put his hands on Corbett’s shoulders and turned him to the left a bit, and then, Corbett saw them. Several man-sized shapes caught in the first barrier of razor wire. He studied them closely. They were a mixture of men and woman, except for a significantly smaller one at the far end. That one had gotten deeper into the razor wire, and it flailed out there, hung up with its feet off the ground. At first, he believed it was child. After examining it for a moment longer, he suddenly started chuckling.

  “Is one of them really a dwarf?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir. We thought it was a kid at first, but it’s actually a real midget,” one of the guards said.

  “A travel-sized zombie,” said another.

  Corbett spent another moment examining the zombies, then handed the monocle back to Lennon. “Okay. Thanks,” he said.

  “Hey, I’d like a look,” Victor said.

  Lennon handed the night vision device to him, and Victor eagerly brought it up to his eye. “Wow, this is really something. And yes, that is definitely a zombie midget down there. Fascinating.”

  Lennon looked at Corbett. “Instructions, old man?”

  “Sure. Shoot them,” Corbett said.

  Victor lowered the monocle from his eye. “Could it perhaps wait until tomorrow?” he asked. “It’s late. Everyone’s already on edge. Gunfire in the middle of the night won’t help anyone, and the zombies are hung up. They’re not going anywhere, and if they do—can they possibly get through the walls?”

  Corbett considered that. “Walt?”

  Lennon shrugged. “I guess it won’t make much difference if we wait until after sun up.”

  “Let’s do that, then.” Corbett paused for a moment. “Oh. Do me a favor—before anyone takes them out, get Sinclair over here with his camera. I want him to record it.”

  Lennon frowned. “Why?”

  “Because we have nothing to hide, and our first interaction with a meaningful zombie presence should be taken down for the record,” Corbett said.

  Lennon grunted. “You really think that guy’s going to make an honest record of what’s happening here?”

  “Probably not, but it’s the only game in town. Make sure he’s here, Walt.”

  “Well, okay. If that’s what you want.”

  “It is.”

  ###

  Sinclair found himself scaling the ladder in the early morning chill, his camera bag swinging from his shoulder as he climbed up to the top of the wall. There were several men there already—none of them were locals, they were all Corbett’s hired hands. One them steadied Sinclair as he rather gracelessly stepped onto the ledge behind the wall.

  Couldn’t they have built stairs? he wondered. He was bleary eyed, having spent much of the night cutting together the footage he’d shot and adding some voiceover narration. By the time he’d made it to bed, sleep was long in coming. Meredith was a chilly presence beside him, and leaning against the wall on her side of the bed was the black rifle she’d become so enamored of. On the night stand was the pistol. Before switching off the light on his side, he’d taken a moment to examine the weapons from across the bed. They looked evil. And also queerly seductive, in a dark sort of way.

  Sinclair wondered what the hell was happening to him. He’d never had any use for guns, but here he was, regarding them from a near distance … and wondering what it would be like to hold one.

  Rubbish, he told himself. You’re just tired, old boy. Leave the playthings to the Neanderthals.

  “So what is it that you kind gentlemen rousted me out of a warm bed for?” he asked. He moved to the edge of the wall, and looked down when he heard something hissing in the distance. Razor wire scratched across dry rock, and that was when he saw the zombies. Well over a dozen of them, writhing about in the security fencing that had been spread out across the desert. They all had grievous wounds, deep slashes from the blades that had split open their pallid skin. Some of them oozed a black, syrupy substance that he could see even from well over one hundred feet away. Most of them were virtually naked, their clothing having been torn off their bodies as they pushed relentless against the razor wire fencing. It was disgusting.

  “Dear Lord,” he said. He felt suddenly sick to his stomach.

  “You see them?” asked the head security man, Lennon. He looked at Sinclair with bleary eyes, and Sinclair wondered when it was the man had last
slept.

  “Yes, I see them,” Sinclair said. “You’re just going to leave them like that?”

  “No. We’re going to take care of them. But Barry wanted you to get some footage of them first, before we start taking them out.” Lennon sniffed in the chilly air. The sun hadn’t yet risen over the peaks to the east, and everything was still cast in shadow. Sinclair turned away from Lennon and looked back at the zombies. He began counting them, and had gotten up to twenty-six before stopping in horror.

  “My God, is one of them a child?” he asked, shocked.

  “No, it’s a midget,” Lennon said. “But child zombies are a possibility. Probably going to be pretty rare, though.”

  “Why is that?”

  “It’s easier for them to totally consume a kid than it is an adult,” Lennon said. “Adults can fight back. Greater chance of them getting away. Of course, they’re infected by then, so they’ll die and turn. I’d imagine kids would be so badly damaged that they won’t reanimate, even if they’re not stripped down to the bones.”

  “Do you—” A sudden bolt of nausea hit Sinclair, and his mouth filled up with saliva. He spit over the side of the wall and took a deep breath. The queasiness subsided after a moment, and he was thankful for that. He really didn’t want to hurl whatever remained of last night’s meal in front of these men. “Do you hear what you’re saying? We’re talking about children, for the love of God!”

  Lennon stared at him with empty eyes. “Yes, we are, aren’t we? So what?”

  Sinclair regarded the horrible commotion in the wire for a moment. “So what do you intend to do?”

  “We intend to kill them. Corbett wants you to record the encounter.”

  “Very well.” Sinclair opened his camera bag and pulled out Norton’s pricey Canon camera. He dithered over which lens to use, then settled on a zoom so he could capture a variety of shots at different settings. He mounted the lens on the camera, then switched on the unit. Only after it had booted up did he remove the lens cap.

  “How many of them are there?” he asked.

  “Thirty-one. Last night, there were only maybe fifteen. More joined in overnight.” Lennon pointed to his left. “Down there would be a better position for you to shoot from. That way, cartridges won’t be bouncing off you when we start.”