The Last Town

by Knight, Stephen

  At the intersection of Mulholland and Outpost Drive, an expensive Bentley coupe had met its end after slamming into a Mercedes GL SUV at a high rate of speed while emerging from a side street. The Mercedes had been blown across Mulholland and lay drunkenly in the ditch, the wheels on its passenger side three feet off the pavement. Shattered glass was scattered across the blacktop, glittering in the fading light of the day. As the truck rolled closer, Reese stood up in the bed and looked over at the accident scene. The Mercedes appeared to be empty, but there was some activity in the Bentley. Thrashing away behind the limp air bags, a zombie sat in the front passenger seat, held in place by the seat belt it was too stupid to unlatch. The truck’s lights revealed it was covered with blood—whether its own or that of the driver it had been feeding on, Reese didn’t know. The presence of the zombie only added to the chaos of the scene. Some passing motorists had apparently stopped to help, and Reese guessed some of them had probably been bitten. They looked up at the truck with hopeful eyes. Their giant vehicle stood out like a sore thumb amidst the expensive European sedans and fancy Japanese light trucks.

  The choices were to stop and attempt to render assistance to those who might be injured, or ignore everything. Reese didn’t even hesitate before making his choice. “Bates, don’t stop!” he shouted over the noisy diesel as the big truck downshifted.

  In response, Bates pressed the horn. Instead of the Godzilla-like blast Reese would have expected, the thing emitted a pale toot that would have been more appropriate coming from a Toyota Prius. The sound wasn’t enough to cause people to step back, but it at least got some attention. When it became clear that Bates wasn’t going to stop, people scattered just before the big truck slammed into the Bentley. The truck’s bumper nailed the zombie in the face as it intruded into the Bentley’s passenger compartment, flaying the roof away. The Bentley was shoved down the road for a few dozen yards before its front end got hung up, then it spun toward the shoulder. The gigantic Army truck bounced up and down as its rear wheels rolled over several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of imported sheet metal, leaving a half-mangled hulk in its wake.

  “Absolutely kick ass!” Detective Marsh yelled. He looked both mortified and excited, like a little kid on his first trip through Disney’s Space Mountain.

  “A HEMT-T wouldn’t even have slowed down,” Plosser said. The National Guard NCO affected a nonchalant air, but Reese saw the tense fear in the man’s eyes, even in the deepening gloom.

  Bates accelerated down the road, the five-ton’s big wheels shimmying a bit as the vehicle wound its way along the hillside. Out past Runyon Canyon, Reese had a good view of downtown Los Angeles. Planes and helicopters of all types orbited over the area, their anti-collision lights winking in the darkening sky. Half the skyscrapers that formed the city’s business nucleus were dark, nothing more than shadowy, bonelike spires reaching for the stars like the talons of some fossilized beast. The Gas Company Tower was ablaze, emitting vast clouds of black smoke that spiraled over a thousand feet into the air. Farther out, the Los Angeles basin was a patchwork quilt of light and darkness, where illuminated neighborhoods that still had power stood out amidst broad swaths of communities where all electricity had failed.

  Reese groaned. Their path would take them through both types of areas, and both conditions would be problematic. Fires raged, isolated infernos that reminded him of the nights during the riots that had gripped the city in 1992. The City of Angels was coming apart at the seams, and as a cop with decades of experience, he knew the zombies were only one threat his fellow Los Angelinos would face that night.

  “We’re going to be going through some of the shit neighborhoods,” Marsh said. “We got to pass through, what? Crenshaw, Gardena, Compton?” He looked around at the others in the truck bed, as if hoping someone would tell him he was full of shit and not to worry. “I mean, there isn’t any way we’re going to be able to take the freeways. They’re loaded up. We’re going to have to take the surface roads, right? Drive through the hoods and barrios in Figueroa, all through South Central and Mid-City?”

  “Knock it off, Marsh,” Reese said.

  “Seriously, what the fuck are we going to do, Reese?”

  Plosser patted his M4. “We shoot anyone who fucks with us. That’s what we do.”

  Marsh let out a high-pitched, almost girlish laugh. “Oh, yeah? You think you and your rifle are going to mean shit to a bunch of Central American gang members?”

  Reese moved over and leaned in, getting right in Marsh’s face. “Knock that shit off. Right now.” He jerked his chin toward Plosser. “You’re frightening the women.”

  Plosser snorted.

  Marsh shook his head. “Reese, the world’s coming unglued.”

  “So what? So fucking what, Marsh? We just ran out on a couple thousand civilians. You think shooting Crips and Bloods is going to be any big thing?”

  Marsh smirked. “Having an attack of the guilts?”

  Reese turned away from him. “Fuck you, man. Fuck you.”

  The trip down from the hills took over an hour, mainly because Bates stayed on Mulholland well past the point where Reese expected him to start the descent. Instead, the patrol sergeant didn’t veer off until they came to a fire trail. The metal gate that barred entry proved to be no match for the five-ton’s heavy bumper, and it practically exploded as the truck blasted through it. The big rig swayed from side to side as its tall tires dug into the hard-packed soil of the trail. The darkness was almost absolute. Military helicopters and transport planes flitted about the black sky. The hilltops were silhouetted against the pulsing, orange glows of fires burning away in the city.

  “Not likely to be many zombies up this way, right?” Renee Gonzales asked over the thrum of the diesel engine.

  “Probably not,” Reese agreed. “Not enough people up here to make it worth their while. But don’t take anything for granted. Stay sharp.”

  “You got it.” Her features were unreadable in the dark.

  “Hopefully, we’re not going to drive into a brush fire,” Plosser said as he pushed his way to the front of the truck bed and looked over the cab. He had his helmet-mounted night vision monocle lowered over his right eye. “We need to keep that in mind, too. This fire trail’s pretty big, but we don’t want to get caught up in something we can’t make a three-point turn to get away from.”

  Reese shrugged. “How well can you see with that thing?”

  “Real well. Don’t worry. I’ll start screaming and hollering if something’s about to go sideways.”

  “What, they haven’t already?” Renee asked.

  Plosser chuckled.

  A group of dirt bikers squirted past the lumbering five-ton, heading north. Reese spotted some backpackers as well, forging their own way off the path. Many carried weapons, and they regarded the passing truck with suspicious eyes as it passed. Reese idly wondered if stopping to talk with the people might be a good idea, in case they knew of a hot spot up ahead. Bates didn’t seem interested in slowing down for a chat, so it was a moot point.

  Occasionally, gunfire rang out. On a hillside that was briefly visible through the skeletal branches of looming trees, Reese saw muzzle flashes from two groups, oriented toward each other. Someone was in a firefight, but they weren’t shooting at the truck, so they weren’t his problem.

  “If you can see well enough with that night vision device, Plosser, maybe you should take over so we can kill the lights,” Reese said. The five-ton’s headlights were pretty much the only constant source of illumination in the area, which meant they could draw a lot of unwanted attention.

  “Don’t think it’s going to be necessary.” Plosser pointed over the cab. “I see a road up ahead.”

  Reese squinted but couldn’t see anything outside the narrow path illuminated by the truck’s lights. “I don’t see anything.”

  “It’s there,” Plosser said. “Trust me.”

  Five minutes later, the five-ton rolled through the fire trail�
��s exit and onto a backcountry road. Single-story buildings stood off to the left, and to the right was a flagpole in the yard, sporting the American and California state flags. There were vehicles parked around the buildings. Most were white pickup trucks with the California park service logo on the doors, but there were also some golf carts and California Highway Patrol cruisers.

  A lot of people were outside, and they appeared to be running everywhere. Some stopped to gawk at the big National Guard truck as it emerged from the fire trail.

  “Hey, stop! Stop!” a park ranger shouted, running toward the truck while waving his hands over his head. A CHP officer joined him, sweeping a flashlight back and forth.

  Bates downshifted and slowed to a crawl, but he didn’t bring the truck to a complete halt.

  Reese leaned over the bed rail to address the two men. “What’s the deal?”

  “Who are you guys?” the ranger asked.

  “LAPD and California National Guard.”

  “Thank God! We can use your help here!” The ranger turned and gestured toward the parking lot. “We’ve got a couple of thousand people up here, and they need help. We can’t keep this area secure.”

  Bates called over the idling engine, “Not stopping here, Detective.”

  “We’re rolling through. We can’t stop,” Reese said. “We have orders down south.”

  “Down south?” the highway patrolman asked incredulously. “Are you guys crazy? Do you have any idea what’s down there?”

  “You mean other than Santa Monica?”

  “It’s zombie central down there, man. They’re pushing everyone out. Thousands of them, and I mean tens of thousands.”

  Reese didn’t doubt him, but he’d already seen thousands of zombies with his own eyes. “I get it,” he said. “But we have to go where we’re told to go.”

  “But you’ll never make it!” the park ranger shouted. “You don’t know what you’re driving into!”

  “Hey, we just made our way across from the Hollywood Bowl, and before that, we were at Cedars-Sinai,” Bates snapped. “You think we don’t know what’s down there?”

  The highway patrolman stepped closer. “What happened at the Bowl?” His voice had a peculiar quality, a kind of desperation that sounded odd even under the current circumstances.

  Why would a CHP officer be so interested in the Hollywood Bowl? Did he have family there? Reese sensed something was about to go wrong, and he wanted to get the hell away from it. “Okay, yeah, we need to go.”

  “What happened at the Bowl?” the man asked again. His right hand went to the Glock on his hip. He moved closer to the truck.

  Plosser’s M4 came up in response. “Step away from the vehicle, or you will be shot!”

  “Hey, hey, let’s take it easy!” the ranger said. He held up his hands and backed up, looking from the patrolman to Plosser.

  “Just tell me what happened at the Bowl,” the patrolman said, walking along with the truck. “Please.”

  The boy Reese had picked up back at the Bowl began to cry, his face buried against his mother’s shoulder.

  Reese looked down at the patrolman, whose features were blurred in the shadowy gloom. “The Bowl is gone,” he said. “It was a hell of a fight, but the zombies won.”

  “Fuck.” The man lowered his hand from his weapon. “Fuck.”

  With a thunk, Bates dropped the truck into neutral and revved its engine, signaling his intent to move on.

  Reese turned to the civilians in the truck. “You heard the guy. We’re going to be driving through zombie central. You people want to get out here?”

  “Hell, no,” said the father of the young boy. “We’re with you guys.”

  The rest of the civilians remained silent.

  Reese shrugged then looked at Marsh. “How about you?”

  Marsh gazed at him with wide eyes. “What about me, Reese? Jesus, you’re not kicking me out, are you?”

  “No, Marsh. Just making sure you want to come along for the ride.”

  “Fuck yes, I’m coming along!”

  Reese glanced back at the highway patrolman, but the man just stood there, shoulders hunched, watching the big five-ton truck trundle away. Reese turned and faced front, keeping an eye out for trouble.

  ###

  Coming down from the Temescal Gateway Park, the truck approached the intersection with Sunset Boulevard. So far to the west, the place was almost deserted. Across the street, a blinged-out Ford Raptor lay on its side. Reese couldn’t tell what had happened, since there was no sign of an accident. Not a soul, living or dead, was on the sidewalks, and the single house he could see across the street was dark and silent.

  Bates crossed Sunset and stayed on Temescal Canyon Road, heading south. The truck rumbled past the Theatre Palisades. A Neil Simon show was advertised on the dark marquee, but the theatre’s glass atrium was blank and vacant. Reese thought he heard a panicked shout from the apartment building behind it, but he couldn’t be sure. Beside him, Plosser kept his face pointed forward, watching the world through his night vision monocle.

  They rolled past quiet houses and an empty community athletic stadium. Reese hadn’t spent much time in the Pacific Palisades, but he recalled that it was almost bucolic with its leafy trees and lack of high-rise buildings. It was a family community, and he wondered where all the families were.

  Bates cut the wheel to the left, turning off the street before the intersection with the Pacific Coast Highway. Sticking to meandering residential streets, he paralleled the 405 freeway. The neighborhoods on the west side were more affluent suburbs, which Reese figured might be a bit safer for travel.

  However, the truck soon began moving into the more organized urban gridwork of the Mid-City neighborhoods. Those were less lily-white, more immigrant-fed communities. Reese was surprised to see that the power was still on. Streetlights burned brightly, and both pedestrian and vehicular traffic became more common. There was more of a frantic bustle, and from the sacked convenience stores and supermarkets, Reese could see that circumstances were going to become more problematic.

  Bates turned inland for a few miles then made a right onto Lincoln Boulevard, taking them through the eastern end of Santa Monica. The houses were a mix of residential luxury and old Los Angeles bungalows, one of the few areas in Santa Monica where high-net-worth individuals mixed with middle-income families.

  The truck began to slow. Ahead, a Time Warner Cable TV van had been T-boned by a school bus. Both vehicles were empty, lying in a broad field of shattered glass. Torn clothing and personal items were scattered about, much of it bloodstained. In the glow of the streetlights, Reese saw raw tissue glistening in the night, and bloody footprints led off in almost every direction. They had missed the carnage, and if the school bus had been full at the time of the accident, Reese was glad to have forgone the show.

  “Okay, there’s something up ahead,” Plosser said, suddenly animated. “I see a lot of cops and civilians. Looks like a roadblock. Lots of bodies, too.” As he spoke the last sentence, several weapons fired, not at them, but not far away, either.

  Reese peered ahead and spotted several LAPD tactical vehicles and squad cars, and beyond those, bulky figures moved about. In the background were the slab-sided walls of Roosevelt Elementary School, one of the designated evacuation centers. It was still operational, which didn’t surprise Reese in the slightest. Virtually every LA-area school had been turned into a fortress, under total lockdown even when things were fine and right in the world. It would take one hell of a horde to get inside.

  Reese grabbed the ROVER handset on his shoulder and announced himself but received no response. The radios had been silent for the past couple of hours, broken only occasionally by fragmented calls from patrol units that had wandered onto their frequency while searching for support.

  The truck bumped a bit as it rolled over a score of bodies lying in the street. Reese grasped the side of the bed and looked over the edge of the truck. The bodies were bullet-riddled
, all of them killed by shots to the head. In the back of the truck, someone retched. The stench of decomposition was powerful, especially as the weight of the truck compressed the corpses, causing them to split open and void the contents of their dead bowels.

  “Reese! What are we doing here?” Bates shouted.

  “Make contact. They’re our guys,” he said.

  “Like hell, these are west-side guys.”

  “Well, then they shouldn’t be too surprised when we stop and ask for autographs, since they think they’re celebrities anyway. Right?”

  Bates cackled in the cab and continued toward the roadblock. One of the cops there started waving them away frantically.

  “What’s his problem?” Marsh was on his feet, looking over the top of the cab with Reese and Plosser.

  “We’re going to cause a lot of attention,” Plosser said. “I get the idea these guys don’t want anyone or anything coming around to check out the truck.”

  “Bates, turn off!” Reese shouted. “Go down Alta.”

  Bates flipped on the turn signal. The cops at the roadblock remained crouched behind their vehicles, weapons shouldered, as they stared at the rows of houses beside the school. A figure hustled out of one home and down the driveway, loping toward the grille of the truck. Some of the dead could move frighteningly fast, and the one headed for them was a prime example.

  Bates sped up and ran it down. Reese heard the thing bumping and thrashing beneath the truck, and he hoped the rig’s giant transmission hub would brain it.

  No such luck. As the truck cleared the body, the ghoul scrambled back to its feet and tried to pursue. It was moving a lot slower, probably because both its legs were broken. But that didn’t stop it from following as long as they were in its line of sight. The thing rose, stumbled, fell, then repeated the process.

  “Leave it,” Reese told Renee when she raised her rifle. “Let the guys on security take care of it. They don’t want any loud noises around here unless it has to happen, and right now, it doesn’t.”

  “How many people are in that school, do you think?” one of the civilians asked. The narrow-faced man was staring behind them at the elementary school.