The Last Town

by Knight, Stephen

  “We don’t?” Plosser said. “Speak for yourself, guy.”

  Reese looked back at the lobby. Marsh and Thanh had already opened one of the doors leading to the stairs, and Thanh eased inside, pistol drawn, while Marsh held the door open. The zombies clustered around the truck were losing interest in it, and several started to draw closer to the building, as if they knew fresh prey had taken residence. In the distance, Reese heard a woman screaming, a fierce, guttural cry of pain-fueled terror. Apparently, one of the trapped motorists had been liberated, right into the hands and teeth of the swarming dead.

  “I get it,” Reese said. “The only way we’re getting back to the truck is by the overhang. So we really don’t give a damn if the stenches take the first floor, so long as they can’t make it to the second.”

  Bates tapped his temple. “See, that’s why you’re a detective. We can jump right into the truck from a second-floor window, instead of having to run across the driveway to it.”

  Plosser chuckled, a dry, lifeless sound that barely registered over the thumping of bodies on the other side of the door. “Yeah, okay. That’ll work. We still have more immediate problems, though. We need more guys upstairs to do a recon. For all we know, there could be a horde on the third floor just waiting to come down on our heads.”

  “Roger that,” Bates said. “Let’s get this done, then we’ll get that underway. “Renee, you and the civilians go join Marsh. Get ’em ready to move upstairs. We’ll be with you in a minute.”

  “On my way.” Renee beckoned to the clutch of civilians standing in the corner.

  Reese noticed one man had a shotgun. “Hey, guy, you know how to use that?” he asked.

  The guy nodded. “Of course.”

  “Head to the stairs and back up my guys. That’s a good close-quarters weapon. It might come in handy.”

  “Yeah… okay,” the man said, glancing back at a woman and two kids, who stared at him with terrified eyes.

  “They can go with you,” Reese said, “but they can’t go into the stairway. Not yet.” As he spoke, the things on the other side of the office door redoubled their efforts to escape their temporary prison. The door vibrated in its frame.

  “Let’s get this done,” Bates said. He grabbed a corner of the vending machine. “Come on, guys!”

  Reese stepped out of the way but kept his hand on the doorknob. The cops tipped the vending machine over on its side then stood it up and walked it back to the door. Reese let go of the knob as they pushed the machine across the doorway. Next, they backed the sofa up against the machine.

  “Okay, let’s get the fuck out of here,” Reese said.

  Everyone still in the office headed for the lobby. Once they were all through, Bates pushed the glass doors closed and kicked the doorstops under them, wedging the doors in place. He motioned toward another cop, the one on the bus who had started shooting at people.

  “Kozinksi, give me your nightstick,” Bates said.

  “What the hell for?” Kozinski asked, taking a step back. “I might need it!”

  “You won’t like it when I take it from you by tearing it right through your asshole,” Bates snarled.

  “Fuck!” Reluctantly, Kozinski handed over his nightstick.

  Bates threaded it through the brushed steel handles on the doors. He pulled on them, but the doors didn’t budge. Satisfied, he nodded to Reese. “I think we’ve ridden this one as far as we can go, Detective.”

  Reese turned and headed for the open door that led to the stairwell. Marsh still stood there, holding his rifle and looking like a man about to have explosive diarrhea. But the guy at least looked ready to fight if necessary. The stairway was still illuminated, and he heard soft, shuffling footfalls on one of the landings above.

  “Thanh?” While hardly more than a hoarse whisper, Reese’s voice still echoed inside the concrete chamber.

  “Yeah. Up on the fourth floor. Nothing in the stairway,” Thanh whispered back. “Haven’t heard anything from inside the rooms, either.”

  “Okay, stay there. We’re coming up, then we’ll clear the second floor.”

  “You got it.”

  Reese turned back to the stairwell door. “All right, pile in.”

  ###

  By the time they cleared the entire building, the sun was up and the marine layer had burned away. The building was a mixed-use affair, housing offices for medical practitioners, an accounting firm, an insurance brokerage, and a media producer. Each floor had a kitchen area with vending machines and a shared conference room. Standing five stories tall, built in the mid-1960s and refreshed sometime in the second decade of the twenty-first century, 8616 La Tijera Boulevard was a flat-topped structure built out of steel and glass. Reese estimated each floor to span roughly eight thousand square feet, which meant the cops and Plosser had a lot of territory to cover. Most of that wasn’t of any use to them. The second floor was their major concern because of the long, narrow steel overhang that extended into the parking lot and right above their five-ton truck. So they decided to camp in an office that had a window above the overhang.

  The cops raided all the vending machines and kitchens then brought the bounty back to the second floor. Afterward, they barricaded the door to the stairs and ensured all the exits to them were closed and locked. The office suite had a generous waiting room with a couple of sofas and several chairs. There were also restroom facilities. The building still had power, and cooled air rumbled through the vents. Two cops were put on guard duty, watching the obstructed stairway door. It was unlikely any zombies would be able to gain quick entry, but Reese felt it was reasonable to have a pair of responders on hand, just in case.

  “We’re set up pretty well,” Plosser said, sitting in one of the waiting room chairs.

  “Yeah, but for how long?” Renee asked. She was sprawled out on one of the couches.

  The family of civilians was on the second one, and the kids were nodding off. They’d had a rough night, but Reese thought they handled themselves better than a lot would have, like Detective Marsh.

  “For as long as it takes,” Reese said. “We’re not going anywhere until there’s a break in the zombie activity. Hopefully, they’ll run out of food sources and have to move on.”

  “So long as they don’t move in,” Plosser said. “We need to keep quiet, people. We have to be disciplined in how we operate in here, because if those things mass, we’re going to be in a heap of trouble.”

  Reese turned to Bates, who was sipping a soda. “What about the boat?”

  Bates checked his watch. “I’ll contact them at one and find out.”

  “Contact them? How?”

  Bates reached inside his tactical vest and pulled out a large black telephone with a fold-down antenna that bore the legend INMARSAT. “With this. It’s a satellite phone. I’m supposed to contact them at one p.m. every day until we can arrange a pickup.”

  “You guys had a plan for this already?” Marsh asked.

  Bates nodded. “Yeah, but it was for today.”

  “Today?” Reese frowned. “What if the Bowl hadn’t been overrun, and we were still there?”

  Bates smiled tightly. “Well, you would still be there, Detective. I would already be gone.”

  “You would have left us?” Renee asked.

  Bates looked at her directly, his blue eyes shining in the morning sunlight entering through the south-facing windows. “Hell, yes. My family’s waiting for me.”

  Renee glared back at him. “You’re an asshole, Bates.”

  “Yeah, well, I think this is where Pee-Wee Herman walks in and says, ‘I know you are, but what am I?’ Right?”

  Reese sighed and left the waiting room, moving deeper into the office suite. Bates’s revelation wasn’t exactly a surprise. Reese didn’t feel any deep sense of betrayal. Dozens of other guys had already walked off the job, like Jerry Whittaker had. A cop would struggle mightily to do his job while wondering what was going on with his or her family. Reese was lucky. H
e was single, with no dependents, and that gave him a lot less to worry about.

  Hanging back a few feet from the large window in one of the private offices, Reese looked down into the parking lot. The truck was still there, and so was the long ribbon of traffic on West Manchester Boulevard, one of the major streets that crossed west to east through the community of Westchester. He knew that Loyola Marymount University was in Westchester and that the fashionable Playa del Rey bordered the neighborhood on the west, while the substantially less urbane Ingleside lay to the east. If he recalled correctly, before its development, Westchester had begun as a hog farm. Now, it was a breeding ground for zombies.

  The stenches mounded over cars and trucks, trying to get at the motorists trapped inside. A long limousine bus had become a cafeteria, with the few remaining people inside wrestling with the encroaching horde that surged through the broken windows like army ants overrunning a plate of glazed doughnuts. Even from where he stood, Reese could hear screams and the occasional muted report of a gunshot.

  Across the four-lane street stood a church. He studied it closely for a few seconds but saw no signs of life. Further down was a G&M Food Mart that had obviously been looted. Zombies prowled through the wreckage, while more of them shuffled across the parking lot. In the residential area to the north, plumes of smoke rose into the sky. Soon, the entire neighborhood would be awash in flame. The fire was unlikely to get to them, though it would certainly complicate things in the short term.

  Or maybe the smoke would give us enough cover to escape. The idea of driving through stench-filled streets wasn’t appealing in the slightest, but if the smoke was thick enough to keep the zombies from seeing them, it might be worth it. But the possible concealment would work both ways. The shooters in the truck wouldn’t be able to zero in on any stenches until they were practically climbing aboard. Not a lot of good choices in the zombie apocalypse.

  He walked back to the waiting room. “All right, let’s wait and see what happens. We’re in a pretty good space right now, so let’s make the most of it. We’ve still got power and running water. Let’s use both. Charge up your electronics and draw as much water as we can carry. I’m kind of thinking the chances of us finding another watering hole between here and the beach are going to be pretty slim.”

  Plosser nodded. “We should also service our weapons, get ourselves organized, and get some rest. It’s been a ballbuster of a night.” He pointed at the kids sleeping on the couch. “They have the right idea.”

  “I agree,” Reese said. “Let’s take care of the essentials first then get some shut-eye. Bates, you make sure you pass on to us what’s going on with the boat, all right?”

  “No problem with that, Detective.” The tall patrol sergeant was already hooking up his satellite phone to its charger. When he was done, he plugged the charger into a wall socket. “I’ll call in two hours.”

  “So why don’t you just call them now?” Marsh asked.

  “Because they won’t be sitting around waiting for me to call off schedule,” Bates responded.

  “Why’s that?”

  Bates glared at the overwrought detective. “Because they’re disciplined.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?” Marsh snapped.

  “All right, all right,” Reese said. “Knock off the squabbling. We have work to do, so let’s get it done.”

  ###

  A couple of hours later, Bates retreated to one of the offices so he could be closer to a window. He raised the antenna and switched on the phone. Even though it had an advertised standby time of a hundred sixty hours, he kept the unit switched off unless he was going to be using it. He was a little worried he wouldn’t be able to register with one of the INMARSAT satellites while still indoors, but since they had blocked the stairwell, he couldn’t go up to the roof. And they had heard noises from the first floor. The zombies were working at pushing past the hastily erected barricade they’d thrown together down there.

  He stared at the display while the phone booted up then tried to get a connection with a satellite. After a few minutes, the phone chirped, and Bates saw three bars out of five. He hit the speed dial button for his friend Connor Bay, the captain of the Harbor Police diving boat.

  “Bates?” The weak signal made it sound as though Bay was shouting down a narrow tunnel.

  “Yeah. Can you hear me?”

  “Barely. What’s going on? We heard the Bowl got overrun. Where are you?”

  “Things went off the rails. We’re trapped in a building on La Tijera, just off Manchester.”

  “That’s nowhere near where you want to be, pal. And who’s this ‘we’ you’re talking about?”

  In the background, Bates thought he could hear engines and wind noise. “Picked up some LAPD, a National Guard NCO, and a few civilians. All good folks.”

  Bay grunted. “Not like you to go all soft, Bates. You know we aren’t exactly going to be living like kings for the next few months. More mouths to feed and all.”

  “A lot of these guys have skills, Bay. Especially the Guard guy.”

  “Oh yeah? And that’s why you’re stuck in a building in Westchester?”

  “Dude, even God would be stuck at this point,” Bates said. “What’s happening on your end?”

  “We established our base of operations, and when we left this morning, no one had shown up yet. We’ve got full tanks. We’re assisting the Coast Guard with rescue and management operations, but there’s not a hell of a lot we can do. The Coasties are running out of steam. They lost one of their facilities at San Pedro, and their aviation units are operating out of Ontario. Things are kind of messed up, man.”

  “What about Long Beach?”

  “Yeah, you don’t want to go there,” Bay said. “It’s going to be gone in about forty-five minutes. There’s a natural gas freighter that’s gone all zombie. It’s about forty-five minutes out of Long Beach, and it’s still under power. We figure it’s on autopilot. Coasties are trying to get a cutter there to take it out, but it’s never going to happen. The big boats with the big guns are down near San Diego. They’ve issued a sécurité alert about the ship, but that’s going to be about as effective as a feminist rally in downtown Riyadh.”

  “No idea what you just said, pal. What’s sécurité?”

  “It’s a maritime safety message, but that’s not important. What is important is that you forget about Long Beach for the moment. You guys secure where you are?”

  “We’re good, but it’s not a long-term solution,” Bates said.

  “Understood. Listen, we’re about four miles offshore. I’m not taking us in any closer until we know where that freighter is going to wind up. For all we know, the military might try to take it out, so I’m planning on staying about ten miles away from it at all times. But I’m guessing it’s going to make landfall somewhere around Long Beach, and that’s going to be a hell of a bang.” Bay fell silent for a couple of seconds. “How’re you doing on power?”

  “Phone’s fully charged, and we have electricity where I’m at. No telling for how long, though.”

  “Keep your phone charged. Voice takes up a lot of power, so we’ll text from now on. Once that ship does whatever it’s going to do, we’ll need some time to reassess our options for picking you guys up. You might need to backtrack, maybe head over to Santa Monica. You have wheels?”

  “Army five-ton, right outside,” Bates said. “We can get to it if we need to, but we’d rather wait for the stenches to move out.”

  “You have a five-ton truck? Damn! Nice work, bro.”

  “It’s just a truck, not a tank.”

  “Yeah, well, the stenches’ll have a tough time taking you out in that as long as you keep moving,” Bay replied. “How are the roads?”

  “They suck, just like always.” Bates looked out the window at Manchester. The roadway was still clogged. Most of the people who could get out had already fled, disappearing into the surrounding neighborhoods. Those who remained were trapped ins
ide their vehicles, surrounded by the dead. They would either bake to death in the heat of the day or eventually starve. Or be eaten by the dead.

  “Think you can make it to Santa Monica?” Bay asked.

  “Do we have a choice?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You hear anything from the LAPD at all? We have ROVERs with us, but no one’s talking.”

  “We hear some things, but nothing good,” Bay said. “No coordinated efforts, just isolated units looking for a way out the nightmare. No one in your area, though, at least not that we know about.”

  “What about the National Guard?”

  “They’re falling back to the north. Anything south of Marina del Rey on the coast and West Hollywood on the inland side is a lost cause. They’re hoping to be able to reconsolidate on the other side of the hills, but I don’t know about that. The San Fernando’s not exactly safe right now, either. Heard there’s a big firefight in Glendale already.”

  Bates sighed. “Dude, you’re a downer.”

  “Yeah, well, things are okay on the boat, so I can at least offer you that.”

  “Outstanding. We just have to get there.” Bates shook his head. “Hey, any contact with an aviation unit? Maybe the fire department?”

  Bay laughed. “Bro, any aircraft that’s still in service isn’t going to come get you. You can forget about that. Hey, hold on.”

  Bates heard voices and the crackle of a radio in the background.

  Bay’s voice was muted as he spoke to someone else on the boat, then he came back on the line. “Okay, listen. Coast Guard doesn’t have a chance in hell of stopping that LNG freighter, and no one’s been able to make contact with the crew. No military assets are going to become available to take care of it, so no matter what, you guys need to stay clear of the coastline south of Santa Monica. You get all that?”

  “Yeah. Long Beach is a no-go. I’m not worried about us getting there anytime soon.” Bates paused. “Hey, just how big will this explosion be?”