Time to give it all up, old man, he thought. He returned to the table and picked up his coffee cup, taking one last sip of the cooling Kenyan brew. It was at best lukewarm, but he slugged it down anyway. No sense in letting it go to waste. He took the cup to the kitchen, rinsed it out, and put it in the dishwasher. He returned to the living room, taking the keys to his pickup from the hook on the wall along the way. Reclaiming the radio, he pulled on a jacket and a cap, grabbed the carbine from where it leaned against one wall, and headed for the big house’s garage.
###
“For God’s sakes, Sinclair, help me with this!” Victor snapped as he tore off his jacket and used it to slap out the flames that threatened to engulf Hector Aguilar’s shirt. Sinclair stood where he was, pointing the camera at the pools of flame that dotted the back patio area. Of Aguilar’s much-anticipated steak, there was no sign, and the grill itself had fallen onto its side, scattering its load of hot coals across the cement courtyard. As he quickly panned the camera around, taking in the entire scene (and rather artfully capturing Victor assisting the apparently unconscious Aguilar), he noticed dark tendrils of smoke rising from the house’s roof. The shingles there were starting to burn.
“My goodness,” he muttered. Deciding now was the time to act, he put down the camera and ran over to where the garden hose was neatly coiled on its loop. He pulled the hose away and switched on the water, then grabbed the nozzle at the end. He shot a stream of water upward, dousing the flames on the roof, then hit the coals for good measure. Greasy, gray smoke rose into the air. He then turned the hose toward Aguilar and sprayed him down. The man’s pants and shirts were severely burned, but he seemed otherwise unharmed.
Aguilar came to then, flailing about on the wet concrete. “What! What!” he cried, confused and blinking myopically. His glasses lay beside him, broken in two at the nose piece from Victor’s solid punch.
“You idiot!” Victor shouted at him. “You idiot, now they know we’re here!”
“Who knows we’re here?” Aguilar gasped as the solid police chief dragged him to his feet by his lapels. A harsh buzzing noise ripped through the air, and all three of the men looked south, listening as the sound echoed off the houses. A similar sound erupted from the north, then from the west.
“The zombies, you twat,” Victor said. “Those are the miniguns in the towers. The zombies are coming over the walls!”
“That’s not my fault!” Aguilar shouted. “I was just making a steak!”
Sinclair sighed. “Oh, sod off!” He lifted the hose and shot a powerful stream of water right into Aguilar’s face, making him sputter and choke as he stumbled backwards, arms pinwheeling in the air.
###
“Okay, I have to get to the southern wall,” Danielle said, slinging her rifle. She had already slipped on a tactical vest that was festooned with a vast amount of rifle and pistol magazines that weighed quite a bit. Norton knew this because he’d picked it up to hand it to her, but she swung into it as if its weight was of no consequence. She had already draped a knapsack over one shoulder, which held even more ammunition. Wearing only a thick t-shirt and cargo pants, Norton saw the muscles in her arms move like serpents beneath her tan skin. They had actually just started making love when the explosion rang out; both of them had frozen in mid-caress, wondering just what the hell had happened.
“So, was it as good for you as it was for me?” he had asked, trying to make a joke out of it.
Having none of that, she wriggled out from beneath him and reached for her prosthesis. The loss of her limb didn’t slow her in the slightest; she was dressed and ready to go before he was.
“How are you going to get there?” Norton asked. “You want me to drive you?”
“Truck should roll up to the corner of Main and Bush,” she said. “Can you give me a ride there?”
“Well, we’re not supposed to use any motor vehicles,” Norton said.
There was a sudden ripping sound as first one, then several miniguns opened up. Danielle shrugged.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” she said.
“Well, God damn! I guess not!” Norton looked around the bedroom, found his Shield in its holster, and stuffed it into his belt. “Maybe I should just run you all the way to the wall,” he said.
Danielle shook her head. “You have your parents to look after. But if you have the time, maybe you could go over to my place and get my father? I mean, just look in on him. Make sure he’s okay. He really doesn’t have a role to play in all of this.” Those who weren’t in any real shape to wage combat against the dead had been cautioned to remain in their homes and await further instructions. Single Tree had a fair population of elderly, and while Martin Kennedy was still good to go when it came to running his gas station, getting into running gun battles was a little outside his normal scope of capability.
Funny how his one-legged daughter doesn’t have that problem…
“Yeah, sure. I’ll bring him over here,” Norton said.
“That would be great. Make sure he gets his go bag, all right?” Danielle began patting down her vest, checking to make sure everything was where she needed it. “It’s going to be night soon. He might be with you for a while, so I want to make sure he has whatever he needs, in case he can’t go back to the house.”
“Okay.”
“Do you have yours?” she asked, glancing up at him before she checked her rifle, then the Smith & Wesson pistol at her hip.
“Yeah, I have two, actually. One in my Jeep, the other in the kitchen.”
“Why do you have two?”
“Well, in case you needed one, actually.”
Danielle looked up at him again and smiled. She stepped over to him and threw her arms around his neck, hugging him close. It was an awkward embrace because of all the gear she carried, but that didn’t bother Norton in the slightest. He hugged her back, and she kissed him gently on the lips.
“I have two things to say to you,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“One: thanks for looking after my dad. Two: thanks for being with me. You can have any girl you want, I’m amazed you wound up with me.”
“I did get the girl I want,” he said. “Or am I counting my chickens before they hatch?”
She kissed him again. “You’re not, if I’m what you really want.” More gunfire rippled through the air, and this time, a fusillade of rifle fire was added to the mix. Danielle rested her head against Norton’s chest. “Damn, I hate the zombie apocalypse. It’s so inconvenient—I wanted you to pound me all night.”
“Ah, I’m approaching fifty, so you’d be lucky to get two to three minutes of ‘poundage’ before I’d need to be taken to the hospital, young lady.”
“Hold that thought, old guy. I want to circle back to where we were right now, minus the guns and stuff.” She pulled away. “But I think I need to go, now. Do you have a duty position?”
Norton shook his head. “Corbett doesn’t want me getting engaged with the dead. If things go sideways, he has this vision of me flying a load of people out of here. I’m thinking maybe you, your dad, and my parents—and maybe Corbett, if he doesn’t mind getting stuffed into the restroom area. There’s a seatbelt for the toilet.”
“That’s all?”
“Plane only seats six, babe—seven if you count the john, which would be King Barry’s throne. Presuming he doesn’t get on his own big jetliner and take off.”
Danielle looked up at him, eyes narrowed. “Is there seriously a plan for you guys to fly out of here?”
Norton nodded. “There is a barebones sketch of a plan, but it hasn’t been fully fleshed out yet,” he said. “Or if it has, it hasn’t been socialized with me…”
“Find out more about that,” she said. “Because I’m kind of thinking there are more people in Single Tree than two airplanes can carry.”
Norton nodded slowly. She was right; even Corbett’s plane could only carry twenty or so people, unless th
e billionaire was going to pull out all the seats. That was something he hadn’t considered… but at the same time, he also hadn’t considered leaving the town to be anything other than a contingency plan that would gather dust.
“I will,” he said, wondering what Corbett had in mind.
###
Most of the action was occurring in the south, where the dead were beginning to pile up against the wall. From what Corbett had been told, the overflow was creeping up the sides of the town’s outer perimeter. Those stenches that made continued past the town were slowly turning back, but they were father away from the activity; a good number of them might continue their northerly advance, having forgotten all about Single Tree entirely. Corbett wasn’t counting on that, but he considered it to be small nugget of good news in the middle of what was quickly becoming a large shit sandwich.
There was a growing amount of activity along the southern wall as Corbett drove up in his massive pickup. Both towers were actively firing, sending showers of expended cartridges raining down to the ground below. Plenty of security personnel were already on the wall, most aiming outward, but some seemed to be firing straight down. Corbett wondered what that was all about, but he had a good idea. The stenches were mounding against the wall, and the men and women on the wall were trying to hold them back. The din was already extreme, even while seated inside the cab of his F-350 with the windows rolled up. He pulled out foam hearing protectors and inserted them into his ears, then pushed open the door and stepped outside. He was glad he’d had the foresight to bring hearing protection. Things were definitely getting loud.
He pulled the rifle out with him, then slammed the truck’s door closed. Taking a moment to examine the lay of the land before deciding what to do next, Corbett looked around. He saw police officers, his security teams, and townspeople all surging into the area. There was a lot going on. Several Native Americans were joining the fray as well, rolling up on ATVs or in old pickup trucks. While the townspeople parked their vehicles and climbed out, the drivers from the reservation unloaded their people and drove off. Corbett thought that was a good idea. Save the vehicles, leave the engagement area uncongested, and generally stay the hell out of the way unless you had something to do.
The miniguns in the guard towers continued blazing away, and as Corbett watched, cans of ammo were pulled up by ropes. The big guns would run dry quickly due to their high cyclic rate, but they weren’t of much use in keeping the walls clear. They were positioned for firing at more distant targets. It was up to the troops on the walls themselves to ensure there were no breakthroughs.
He walked over to an area of sandbagged revetments. This was the tactical operations center, where Walt Lennon and his merry band of fighters would marshal the initial engagements. Several people were already there, including Lennon; he had just arrived, from the looks of it.
“Old man, what are you doing here?” he asked, looking away from the tight circle of people he was talking with.
“Just taking a temperature check,” Corbett said. “Don’t mind me.”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“Like I said, don’t worry about me, Walt. Defend the town, and I’ll get along nicely.”
Lennon cocked his head to one side. “Listen, I really don’t want you here. It would be better if you were to fall back to at least the first contingency wall.” Pointing up Main Street, Lennon indicated the first of several secondary barriers that had been erected. This one had a sliding gate built into it, to allow traffic to move in and out of the southern engagement area.
“I’ll be moving along shortly,” Corbett said. “I just wanted to put eyes on target myself, make sure everything is coming along.” He motioned toward the rest of the men and women standing with Lennon. “Get back to work, Walt. I’ll be gone in a moment.”
Lennon looked at Corbett for a long moment, then turned back to his reports. Corbett left the revetments and slowly walked toward the wall. A row of HESCOs stood between it and him, angled inward, forming a narrowing funnel. If the dead managed to come across the wall in sufficient numbers, then the thinking was the barrier would push them into a kill zone so that troops on the second wall could service them. At least, that was the theory.
A van pulled up and disgorged more fighters. Corbett watched them exit from the vehicle, and he recognized a few faces. Danielle Kennedy was among them. He turned away from the action on the wall and ambled toward her, one hand on his rifle.
“Hello, Dani,” he said, speaking above the gunfire.
She turned and saw him, then asked a question he didn’t hear—one of the miniguns opened up at the same time. He leaned closer. “What?”
“I said, what’s this about the planes?” she asked.
“Planes?”
“Yeah. Gary told me there’s a plan to fly out in the airplanes if the town gets overrun,” she said.
“Oh. Well, it’s no big secret—it’s our final option if things go totally south. Don’t worry, you’ll have a seat, Dani. I guarantee it.”
She looked up at him in the late afternoon sunlight. “Never thought you’d be one to cut and run, Marine,” she said.
Corbett shook his head. “I’m not, but I’m not against a tactical retreat if necessary.”
“How many can go?” she asked.
That wasn’t a question Corbett was prepared to answer. “What?”
“I said, how many can go?”
“Don’t worry, Dani. You and your dad will get seats. I promise.” Behind him, the firing seemed to grow, telling Corbett that things were suddenly lurching out of hand.
Fugazi, he thought, recalling a distant term from his days in Vietnam. Back when he was still young, dumb, and bulletproof. Shit’s going fugazi.
He turned back to the wall just in time to see several stenches fall over it, ignoring the bullets that tore through their bodies as they crashed onto the walkway on the other side. A few went all the way, bouncing off the walkway and falling to the ground below, landing out of sight behind the HESCO barriers. The miniguns were firing fulltime now, and as Corbett watched, the troops on the wall tried to dispatch the zombies coming over it. But more incursions appeared, as additional stenches clambered over the steel escarpment in different locations. Corbett pulled his rifle off his shoulder and into his hands as one defender was taken down from behind by three stenches while shooting one up front. The man struggled with them, and all four bodies fell off the ledge. Totally unfazed by the sudden descent, the zombies held onto the man during the entire ride down.
All hell broke loose. The gunners on the walls were besieged by the emerging dead that suddenly came across the top of the wall in different places. The miniguns couldn’t depress enough to rake across them, and there weren’t enough people in position to add enough firepower to hold the dead back. Corbett raised his rifle and peered through the sight. At three hundred or so yards, it wasn’t going to be an easy shoot while standing unbraced, but he wasn’t in a hurry, and there were a lot of targets. He fired, dropped one. Fired again, missed. His follow-up shot took down the target. Hot brass cartridges hit the ground. Around him, other shooters opened up. From the corner of his eye, he caught Danielle moving forward, rifle shouldered but held at low ready. Attacking forward, like any good Marine should do.
Corbett made to follow her, but hands grabbed him from behind and yanked him back. “Oh, no you don’t old man!” Lennon shouted. “Get the fuck out of here! Now!”
“Everyone has to fight!” Corbett shouted back, furious.
“Not you! Not yet!” Lennon pushed Corbett in the general direction of his truck. “Go home! Wait for us there, we’ll be in contact! Go on!”
“You need every gun you can get, Walt!” Corbett shot back.
“Later! We don’t have control here, you’ll get your chance later! Don’t make me cold-cock you, you son of a bitch—get gone!” He looked over his shoulder at a solid Latino standing nearby. “Garcia, get this man to his truck and make sure he lea
ves. If you have to, put him in a headlock and toss him into the back of his truck and hogtie him. Just make sure he goes!”
“Okay, Walt. Whatever you say, man.”
More gunfire erupted from around the HESCOs. Corbett looked over and saw Danielle leading a group of townspeople into the fray, firing at the few zombies which crawled about on the ground, their limbs shattered after they tumbled from the steel walls. From the secondary wall behind him, Corbett heard more gunfire, erratic at first but becoming more purposeful as additional gunners moved into position. Bodies began to fall from the wall as zombies were taken out, but more and more grotesque corpses sidled over the barrier. For every one that was killed, three more took its place. Lennon looked back at Garcia and pointed at Corbett.
“Get him out of here!” he shouted, then ran forward with the rest of his men.
“Come on, Mr. Corbett,” said the Latino. He grabbed Corbett’s arm in a steely grip.
“You go on, Garcia,” Corbett said. “I don’t want to be taking a gun out of the fight.”
“Then get in your truck and drive back, before they close the interior gate,” Garcia said. “Do it now, so I can get to business, sir.”
Corbett grunted, a sound that was probably audible only to him. He retreated back to his truck, glancing over his shoulder every now and then. Garcia watched him, face impassive despite all the commotion going on behind him. Corbett could tell the man wanted to get into the action, so he climbed into his truck, started it, and pulled away.
###
Danielle led four men down the line of angled HESCO barriers. They were tall enough that she couldn’t see over them, but it wasn’t necessary to maintain a full field of view. The stenches weren’t armed, and they didn’t have very many tricks up their sleeves. They would attack wherever they could, without any degree of guile or deception. Basically, they would launch frontal assaults until they were stopped.
The Last Town (Book 5): Fleeing the Dead Page 18