The Last Town

by Knight, Stephen

  Victor batted the can away, and it flew past Sinclair and tumbled right into the grill.

  “Oh my,” Sinclair said. He started for the grill, but Aguilar shrieked and pushed him aside as he lurched toward Victor, his arms held straight out like Frankenstein’s monster.

  What manner of lunacy is this? Trying to regain his footing, Sinclair came perilously close to dropping the Canon EOS camera, but he managed to hold onto it even as he tottered around the patio like a man on a drunken bender. From the corner of his eye, he saw a bright weal of flame rise from the grill. “The grill!” he shouted.

  Aguilar reached the officer and tried to slip his hands around the Indian’s neck. Victor lashed out with one punch, a solid left to Aguilar’s forehead. The pharmacist collapsed to the ground, his breath leaving him in a rush.

  “I told you you’d be passing out again,” Victor said, looking down at Aguilar’s supine form.

  “The grill!” Sinclair shouted again, torn between trying to do something and running away.

  As Victor turned to look, the can of lighter fluid exploded, sending flaming liquid flying everywhere.

  ###

  The sound rippled through the still air like a small thunderclap. Without any ambient noise to mask it, the explosion—even though quite small—attracted the mass of dead outside the town walls like a clarion call. Thousands of carnivorous corpses paused in their shuffle past the fortified community and regarded the wall with equally blank stares. The muted detonation had captured their attention, though on the whole, the zombie horde did not know why.

  When black smoke curled into the air, the town’s fate was sealed. To the dead, smoke and sound meant life, and life meant food.

  The horde shambled toward the walls, clambering over the various barriers and impediments that lay in their path. It surrounded the town from all directions, pushing against the walls. Climbing over each other, the dead mindlessly formed tall, undulating mounds.

  ###

  Corbett’s radio crackled with the panicked message, “They’re coming over the walls!”

  The speaker went on to repeat the message several times, cutting off other transmissions on the same frequency until the cool voice of Walter Lennon managed to jump in. Lennon instructed the personnel manning the towers to prepare to fire on the horde with the miniguns.

  At the moment, Corbett was alone in his house, sitting at the dining room table. His tepid cup of coffee was cooling in the light breeze that entered through the open sliding-glass door. With a heavy sigh, he pushed back in his chair and got to his feet. His right hand drifted down to the .45-caliber pistol on his hip. He would soon be needing it.

  “Damn it,” he muttered, listening to the talk on the radio. He stepped closer to the open door and peered out into his backyard. He’d thought about having his coffee out on his patio, but the sun was sliding toward the western horizon, and the air was a bit too cold to suit his old bones. He realized that he should have toughed it out, because he’d probably never again have the opportunity to grab a few minutes of peace in the tranquil environment he’d had constructed just for him.

  How long can we hold out? How long before the zombies overrun the entire town?

  There was more chatter over the radio as Corbett’s security people asserted themselves and began taking control of the situation. He didn’t hear any firing yet, which meant the reports of zombies coming over the walls was still being assessed. But he did hear engines firing up, so stealth was being sacrificed for speed. So the reports were probably true, and it didn’t surprise him, given the explosion that had rung out minutes ago.

  Time to give it all up, old man. He returned to the table and picked up his coffee cup to finish the cooling Kenyan brew. No sense in letting it go to waste. Afterward, he took the empty cup to the kitchen, rinsed it out, and put it in the dishwasher. That made him pause for a moment. Why am I putting it in the dishwasher? he asked himself. Do I plan on running it ever again? He returned to the living room, grabbing the keys to his pickup from the hook on the wall along the way. He pulled on a jacket and a cap, grabbed his carbine and radio, and headed for the garage.

  ###

  “For God’s sakes, Sinclair, help me with this!” Victor snapped as he tore off his jacket. He used it to beat at 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 patio area. Of Aguilar’s much-anticipated steak, there was no sign, and the grill 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.

  “My goodness,” Sinclair muttered. He put down the camera and ran over to the garden hose. He unspooled the hose and switched on the water. Aiming the nozzle upward, he squeezed the trigger, dousing the flames on the roof. Next, he hit the coals with a few spurts for good measure. Greasy, gray smoke rose into the air. Last, he turned the hose on Aguilar and sprayed him down. The man’s pants and shirt were smoldering, but he seemed otherwise unharmed.

  Aguilar came to, 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 Aguilar. “You idiot, now they know we’re here!”

  “Who knows we’re here?” Aguilar gasped as the police chief dragged him to his feet by his lapels.

  A harsh buzzing noise ripped through the air, and all three of them looked south, listening as the sound echoed off the houses. A similar sound erupted from the north, then another came 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 backward, arms pinwheeling.

  ###

  “Okay, I have to get to the southern wall,” Danielle said, slinging her rifle.

  She wore a tactical vest festooned with a vast amount of rifle and pistol magazines. Norton knew it was heavy because he’d picked it up to hand it to her, but she had swung into it as if its weight was of no consequence. The knapsack over her shoulder held even more ammunition. The muscles in her arms moved like serpents beneath her tan skin.

  They had just started making love when the explosion rang out. Both of them froze in mid-caress, wondering what had happened.

  “So, was it as good for you as it was for me?” he asked jokingly.

  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 had been 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.

  A sudden ripping sound came as first one, then several miniguns opened up.

  Danielle shrugged. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”

  “Well, damn! I guess not!” Norton found his Shield in its holster and stuffed it into his belt. “Maybe I should just run you all the way to the wall.”

  Danielle shook her head. “You have your parents to look after. But if you have 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 re
main 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 gun battles was a little outside his scope of capability.

  Funny how his one-legged daughter doesn’t have that problem… Norton nodded. “Yeah, sure. I’ll bring him over here.”

  “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.

  “Yeah, I have two, actually. One in my Jeep, the other in the kitchen.”

  She checked her rifle then the Smith & Wesson pistol at her hip. “Why do you have two?”

  “Well, in case you needed one, actually.”

  Danielle looked up at him again and smiled. She stepped over and threw her arms around his neck, hugging him close. It was an awkward embrace because of all her gear, but that didn’t bother Norton in the slightest as he put his arms around her.

  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 could have had any girl you wanted. I’m amazed you wound up with me.”

  “I did get the girl I want.” He raised his eyebrows. “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. A second later, 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 are 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 seat belt 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 narrowed her eyes. “Is there seriously a plan for you guys to fly out of here?”

  Norton nodded. “There is a bare-bones sketch of a plan, but it hasn’t been fully fleshed out yet. Or if it has, no one’s given me any details.”

  “Find out more about that. 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 the 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 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 had gone past the town were slowly turning back, but they were farther away from the activity. A good number of them might continue their northerly advance, having forgotten all about Single Tree. 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.

  Corbett drove up to the southern wall in his massive pickup. Both towers were actively firing, sending expended cartridges raining down to the ground below. Most of the security personnel were 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.

  Even while seated inside the cab of his F-350 with the windows rolled up, he could tell the din was already extreme. He tucked his foam hearing protectors into his ears before opening the door and stepping outside. He pulled out the rifle then slammed the door.

  Police officers, his security teams, and townspeople were all surging into the area. 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. The plan saved the vehicles and left the engagement area uncongested.

  The miniguns in the guard towers continued blazing away as 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 to ensure there were no breakthroughs.

  Corbett walked over to the tactical operations center, an area of sandbagged revetments where Walt Lennon and his merry band of fighters would marshal the initial engagements. Several people were already there, including Lennon, who had just arrived from the looks of it.

  “Old man, what are you doing here?” Lennon asked.

  “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. “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. That 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 group standing with Lennon. “Get back to work, Walt. I’ll be gone in a minute.”

  Lennon eyed Corbett for a few seconds then turned back to his reports. Corbett left the revetments and walked toward the wall. A row of HESCOs stood between it and him, angled inward to form 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 recognized a few faces. Danielle Kennedy was among them.

  He ambled toward her, one hand on his rifle. “Hello, Dani,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the gunfire.

  She turned and said something he didn’t hear because one of the miniguns opened up at the same time.

  He stepped 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.”

  “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 arched one eyebrow. “Never thought you’d be one to cut and run, Marine.”

  Corbett shook his head. “I’m not, but I’m not against a tactical retreat if necessary.”

  “How many can go?”

  That wasn’
t a question Corbett was prepared to answer, so he stalled. “What?”

  “I said, how many can go?”

  “Don’t worry, Dani. You and your dad will get seats. I promise.”

  Behind him, the firing rate picked up. 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. They crashed onto the walkway on the town side. A few bounced and fell to the ground, landing out of sight behind the HESCO barriers. The miniguns were firing constantly, and the troops on the wall tried to dispatch the zombies coming over it. But more dead clambered over the steel escarpment in different locations.

  Corbett pulled his rifle off his shoulder as one defender was taken down from behind by three zombies. The man struggled, 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.

  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 sufficient firepower.

  Corbett raised his rifle and peered through the sight. At three hundred yards, it wasn’t going to be an easy shot while standing unbraced. 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 ahead, rifle shouldered but held at low ready, attacking forward, like any good Marine should do. Corbett started 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 yelled, 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!”