“That was nothing.” Corbett waved a hand at the misery playing out on the highway. “I’m being a whole lot harder on a bunch of other people.”
“Having second thoughts?”
Corbett considered the question. Closing off the town of Single Tree was the hardest decision he had ever made, but no one else was going to do it. If it was going to happen, he would have to assert himself and see it through. But he did wonder if he was strong enough to live with himself after it was all said and done.
“No,” he said finally. “No second thoughts. But I sure do wish it didn’t come at such a damn cost.”
SINGLE TREE, CALIFORNIA
TWO WEEKS LATER
The walls were up around the majority of the town, and all the roadway approaches had been fortified. The plan was to extend the walls out to the airport, which was only surrounded by razor wire and temporary fencing on top of a large berm. Neither of those would be able to hold back a dedicated attack, but the work was going more slowly. The work crews were exhausted, even with townspeople helping with the more mundane tasks, such as loading and unloading supplies, driving trucks, delivering food, and providing security. Corbett worried about the pace. While he had no immediate plans to use the airport, it was their final fallback point if things truly went south. If it wasn’t properly secured, it would be of no value.
Temporary housing had been erected from the modular units that Corbett’s people had brought. All around the high school and the eastern side of the town, single-story dwellings were popping up behind the twenty-foot walls. The first ones were taken by Corbett’s workers. The next batch was for Victor’s people from the reservation. At the same time, additional structures were being hardened and turned into mini-fortresses stocked with food, weapons, water, and medical supplies. If portions of the town were cut off from each other, residents in those areas could shelter in place. The high school was one such building, and it was perfect for the job. Even in backwater Single Tree, the high school was in virtual lockdown when classes were in session, with thick reinforced doors and narrow slits for windows. Additional fortifications had transformed it into one of the safest places in town, and hundreds of people could conceivably exist there for months.
One thing Corbett hadn’t anticipated was the chilly reception some of the townspeople gave their neighbors from the reservation. He was taken aback to discover that not only had there been some violence between the two groups, but that Jock Sinclair had dutifully recorded some of it. When the preening Englishman had proudly shown his footage to Corbett while declaring that the townspeople had started the altercation, Corbett wanted to lash out at someone, starting with Sinclair. His first reaction was to accuse Sinclair of editing the footage to present a specific bias. He was further infuriated when Sinclair showed him the raw captures, which while longer and a bit more ham-handed than the “finished” product, did nothing to diminish Sinclair’s assessment of the situation. A group of young townies had jumped a smaller group of Native Americans and had even broken one eighty-year-old man’s arm. The good news was that they’d been able to track down the kids using Sinclair’s footage. The Single Tree PD already knew most of the actors involved, so it wasn’t a big problem to pick them up. The instigators were a mix of white and Latino high schoolers, all underachievers and incubating lowlifes. There had been some consternation amongst the parents, but in the end, justice was served.
Victor had intended to lock them up for a hundred twenty days, but there were too many of them. Plus, the three prisoners already in the jail were taking all the room. There weren’t enough cells. Corbett asked Victor to turn the hooligans over to him. He could use extra hands in the field, and having them working off their debt to society was preferable to them sitting in a holding cell, doing nothing. Victor readily agreed. The parents of the youths complained—well, most of them, anyway—but their protests went unheard. Even Max Booker didn’t take up their cause, and that was one of the most telling things of all. Corbett essentially owned the town.
Single Tree still had power, thanks to the multitude of generators spliced into the electrical system. Solar arrays were also erected, some inside the walls and some outside. The solar farms served to charge a vast bank of batteries that could be used to power water pumps, lights, and more in the event the emergency lasted longer than their fuel supplies. The batteries offered substantially less output than diesel-powered electrical generators, but they were better than nothing. Corbett hoped things wouldn’t come to that, but if they did, then Single Tree was about as well prepared as it could be.
At a snail’s pace, the walls were extended toward the airport, buttressed by coils of razor wire. The surrounding trenches were five to six feet deep, with tall earthen berms that would hopefully serve to slow any attackers’ advance. Enclosed observation towers were erected, each topped with solar panels to power ventilation to keep the occupants from baking to death during the heat of the day. In each tower, observers could regard the approaches to the town through mirrored glass panels without fear of being seen.
Well over a hundred townspeople had wanted to become certified in firearms. For several hours each day, they worked hard on improving their shooting skills at the gunnery range. The only way to drop a zombie was to shoot it in the head. Doing that repeatedly took practice. Corbett knew that galled Hector Aguilar, not to mention Jock Sinclair. Sinclair was especially troubled when his own wife signed up for the training. That pleased Corbett to no end.
The last open-air broadcasts from the local television stations had ended days ago, replaced by sporadic broadcasts from the National Emergency Broadcast System. The messages weren’t particularly informative. The entire nation was under a state of emergency, and all but the most essential interstate travel had been banned. Air and rail travel, aside from that required by the military or other government agencies, was suspended. The US Navy and Coast Guard had established a maritime blockade around most of the major ports of entry, preventing anyone from entering the nation without permission. Corbett wondered if that meant people also couldn’t leave, but the broadcasts didn’t go into that.
The ham radio broadcasts yielded substantially more information. The zombie epidemic had spread to become a coast-to-coast affair, though there appeared to be an east-to-west migration occurring. No one knew exactly why, but millions of zombies had vacated the east coast to progress all the way to Texas, clustering around Odessa. The grouping had provided the government with a terrific opportunity, and a nuclear weapon was deployed. Most of the zombie horde was incinerated, but thousands more stumbled out of the nuclear morass, still able to function despite the grievous injuries and the exposure to radiation. Later, word was passed around the ham community that a good number of those surviving zombies did expire. No one knew exactly why, but it was presumed the radiation had something to do with it.
Well, that’s fine and dandy, Corbett had thought. I just need a nuke, and I’m all set.
There was continuous talk of a cure. The rumored vaccine apparently couldn’t reverse the effects of zombiism, but it could prevent those who were bitten from turning. More importantly, it also served to short-circuit the virus replicating inside patients who had contracted the disease during the original outbreak. It was believed that the United States, Canada, and parts of Asia were still functional, despite the arrival of the zombie apocalypse, so the vaccine would be of some use. But for Europe and the Middle East, it was possibly too late. The die off and ensuing reanimations had resulted in millions upon millions of zombies which now roamed throughout Europe and western China. The Middle East was completely dark. If any life remained there, it was hunkering down and staying completely off the grid.
No one knew exactly how many zombies were in the continental United States. Estimates ranged from three million to as many as ninety million. While the nuclear strike in Texas had destroyed millions, that couldn’t be a continuous application. Destroying all the zombies in the country wouldn’t amount to
much if the entire environment was so heavily irradiated that human beings couldn’t live in it.
The migrations were Corbett’s main concern. He had planned on his town eventually being besieged by thousands of zombies, but millions would be a problem. There was talk of heavily fortified military installations being overrun. If that was the case, then Single Tree was living on borrowed time.
But they were doing all they could. The workers were working, the townspeople were preparing, and Corbett was overseeing it all. He delegated when possible and pressed Gary Norton into service as being the face of the operation. That allowed Corbett to coordinate things from his home and tool around town, checking on all the construction developments. Every evening, Norton would give him the rundown on what was happening among the town’s former leadership. Even though Corbett was running things in a de facto manner, Booker, Aguilar, and Gemma were still the town council, advised by Victor Kuruk as the primary manager of the town’s emergency responders. The people still looked to them for official guidance, which suited Corbett just fine. They could render their decisions and do what they thought was right for the town, and so long as their decrees didn’t interfere with what Corbett needed to do, he was good with that. He didn’t even bother going to meetings anymore. He left that to Norton, though the Hollywood producer was beginning to lose a bit of his edge. Corbett soon began to lean more on Victor.
Corbett had been able to position a generous amount of supplies that would see them through at least one year. Raoul’s diner was still open, cooking food from Corbett’s larders. Everyone would have enough beans, bullets, and fuel to get them through the coming winter, which had been one of Corbett’s major planning points. Once the defenses were fully configured, the town would have a fighting chance.
And if that miracle vaccine the feds had come up with actually worked, he hoped a year might be long enough.
###
Part of the job was working the walls, which didn’t particularly suit Officer Mike Hailey. While one could hardly claim patrolling the town in a squad SUV was the pinnacle of excitement, it had been enough to keep the young policeman’s professional life in perspective. If someone was in crisis, he would drive to where they were and help sort things out. With lights and siren, he could traverse the entire town in less than three minutes. He’d had to do that a handful of times, usually late at night when he was one of four officers on duty. But the excitement had certainly run out the night Chief Grady had been killed.
Since Victor Kuruk had taken over the department, the Single Tree PD had been pressed into the business of supporting Barry Corbett and his grand plan. Hailey hadn’t really thought such a thing was possible, but he had to admit, he was impressed by the transformation the town had undergone in just a few short weeks.
But because of that, instead of prowling through the town in a police Expedition, Hailey was just a glorified security guard, standing on a steel wall overlooking the main highway. Not that anyone was ever going to be able to get into the town. First, they would have to cross a deep trench hidden behind a mass of HESCO barriers fronted by razor wire, which the men called the “shorty wall.” Then, they’d have to scale a soil berm in plain sight of everyone manning the wall. If they managed to get that far, they would have to figure out how to climb twenty vertical feet of steel planking without being shot.
The only good thing about the zombie apocalypse was that Hailey got to spend a lot of quality time with Suzy. She’d essentially moved in with him. He rented a small one-bedroom house on the southern edge of town, just off the back road to the airport. His view of the eastern mountain range was gone because the wall cut through his backyard, but he was having a better time calculating the twin peaks of Suzy’s range every night. Fortunately, Victor Kuruk didn’t seem to notice what was going on with his niece and his deputy.
Hailey was manning the shorty wall with a couple of other cops when he heard motors revving in the distance. He raised his binoculars, just as the radio he wore came to life.
“South short wall, vehicles coming up the highway,” one of the lookouts on the tall wall reported.
Hailey spoke into the radio transceiver at his shoulder. “We hear them. What are they?” They were still too far away for him to see, hidden behind the stalled traffic scattered across the highway.
“Looks like bikers. Make that a lot of bikers.”
“Roger that.” Hailey thought he could hear the throaty rumble of Harleys mixed in with the higher, more nasal blare of Japanese sport bikes. Peering into the night, he caught glimpses of riders wending their bikes through the dead vehicle obstacle course. As they got closer, the roar of engines filled the air, and the racket made Hailey think of a swarm of angry bees that had somehow crossbred with rolling thunder.
Several dozen motorcycles came to a halt just outside the first layer of razor wire. Hailey almost laughed. They looked like rejects from The Road Warrior, all duded out in studded leather and piercings. They also looked grimy as hell. They had obviously been on the road for a while. Hailey noticed that almost all of them were armed, most with firearms, some with blades and even bats.
A thin man astride a Harley-Davidson Road King planted his feet on the roadway. He raised his goggles and regarded the layers of razor wire and the walls. Hailey looked down the line. Everyone was in their hide sites, areas in the HESCO line that allowed them to observe the road without being readily seen. The bikers talked amongst themselves for a few minutes. Hailey could hear their voices, but he couldn’t make out the words. One biker pointed at a hide-site position, and the bikers all turned in that direction. Someone had been seen.
“Yo! You guys behind the wall!” the lead biker shouted.
“Short wall, go ahead and see what they want,” Walter Lennon said over the radio. “We’ve got your back.”
Hailey reluctantly stood up, raising his LWRC rifle. He tucked the stock against his shoulder, holding it in a ready-low position. He didn’t intend to start shooting, and if someone else did, the first thing he would do would be to drop down beneath the HESCOs and let them take the punishment for him. As it was, the barrier was four-and-a-half feet tall, so he was only partially exposed. The bikers all turned his way. Some of them were a bit twitchy, and they reached for their weapons.
“Afternoon,” Hailey said.
“Same to you, brother,” the lead biker said. “If you guys have a safe place, we’d like to come in for a while.”
“Can’t do that. Town’s closed.”
“We’ll work for you,” the guy said. “We’ll do whatever it takes, man. We don’t want any trouble.”
“Not so sure about that, boss. You guys look a little edgy. Where are you coming from?”
“Vegas. We left there about a week ago. We tried to make it to San Diego, but that was a bust. We heard LA’s socked in with the dead, so we’ve been moving north.”
“What’s going on down south? Say around Ridgecrest?” Hailey had already heard that Ridgecrest was in dire straits, but the Naval proving grounds at China Lake had been fortified and was currently in a sustainment mode. Just a few days ago, they had glimpsed some Navy SH-60 helicopters flying along the mountains to the west, so the Navy installation was still holding out. The same could not be said for Ridgecrest.
“Let us in, and we’ll tell you all about it,” the biker said.
“How many of you are there?”
“A little over a hundred. Size matters now, man.”
“Wait for a minute.” Hailey dropped down behind the HESCO line and reached for the radio at this shoulder. He looked back toward the tall wall. One of the observation towers had already been completed, and it rose sixty feet into the air. Two others were in various stages of completion, but Hailey didn’t believe any of them were manned. “This is South Short Wall. I’m told there are about a hundred bikers out there, and they’ve come up from the south. Originally from Vegas, tried to get to San Diego, but couldn’t make it. They want to come in, and they’re wil
ling to exchange information for the opportunity. Over.”
“Negative on that. Tell them the town’s closed and that they need to turn around and find another place to hole up.” Lennon’s tone was casual but direct.
“We might be able to use some more information about what’s going on out there,” Hailey said.
“Again: Negative on that. We know what we need to know. Single Tree is closed. Pass that on.”
Hailey sighed and looked over at the cops manning the line with him. They were all sitting with their backs against the wire mesh encasing the HESCOs.
One of them shrugged. “Tough job, but someone’s got to deliver the bad news.”
Hailey grunted. Pulling his rifle to his shoulder, he straightened to full height and looked across the line of barriers at the bikers. The leader stood in the same spot, but some of the other bikers were rooting around through the abandoned vehicles on the highway. “Sorry, guy. Answer’s no. You need to move on. Single Tree’s closed up.”
The biker glared at him, and Hailey could see the fury, and the desperation, in the man’s eyes even from a hundred feet away. “You all got no right to turn us away,” he said.
“That’s what’s happening. You guys need to roll on.”
“Come on, man. Don’t do this to us.”
Hailey said, “It’s not my decision to make, guy. Sorry, but you need to get going.”
“You think you’re safe behind those little walls?” the biker asked. “You think you’re going to be able to survive what’s coming? Time runs out for everybody. Even you, fucker.”
A few of the bikers not looting the cars raised their weapons.
“Let’s not get excited and do anything stupid,” Hailey said. “You need to take a second and think through how this might actually play out—”
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