The Last Town

by Knight, Stephen

  First Sergeant Plosser dumped his pack on the table beside Reese’s and lowered his frame into the seat next to Renee. He looked over at Marsh. “Marsh, how are you hanging in?” he asked gruffly.

  “Just fine,” Marsh said in a weak voice.

  Plosser chuckled and turned to Reese. “What do you think, Reese? Two, three minutes until he starts puking his guts out?”

  “I’m giving him five,” Reese said.

  “I’ll do two. Bet?”

  Reese considered it. “What’ve you got?”

  Plosser opened his Army-issue pack and pulled out a bottle of Starbuck’s frappucino coffee drink. “How’s this?”

  Reese was impressed. “Tasty. Where’d you get it?”

  “Picked it up in LA before we bugged out. It’s been with me all this time. A shame to give it up, but I don’t think I’m going to lose this bet.”

  “Fuck both of you,” Marsh said, but he was already gripping the table with both hands.

  “I’ve got some Gatorade,” Reese told Plosser. “That’s about it.”

  Plosser pointed at Reese’s bag. “Got some of that jalapeño cheese spread in any of your MREs?”

  Reese groaned inwardly. Jalapeño cheese spread was quickly becoming the currency of the day, as it was by far the tastiest thing in a Meal, Ready-to-Eat. But it only came in some of them, and Reese had two MREs that did have it. “Yes,” he said.

  “Two Gatorades and one jalapeño cheese spread. Deal?”

  Reese nodded. “Deal.”

  The dive boat rocked as it came off anchor and began powering out of Johnson’s Lee. As the vessel pushed away from the island, the twin bows began to gently rise and fall with the tide. Marsh had a choking noise, got up, and hurried for the door leading to the cockpit. He barely made it across the threshold before he let loose with a gurgling roar. The cops in the salon jeered.

  “Attaboy, Marsh!” Plosser said.

  Reese checked his watch. 5:07. He shook his head. Still the optimist. Marsh stumbled across the back of the boat, slipping in his own vomit.

  Plosser held out his hand, smiling broadly. “You can give me the Gatorades later, but I’ll take the jalapeño spread now, Detective.”

  Reese sighed and opened his backpack. I never was a betting man, and I should have kept it that way.

  ###

  The boat made it to the coastline in just under an hour. By the time the crew started scoping anchor lines, even Reese was feeling a bit nauseous. Marsh had pretty much puked up his own asshole, and he was lying on the floor of the cockpit. The Port Police crew had to step over him to work.

  Reese kicked one of the man’s feet. “Come on, Marsh. Develop some testosterone. We’re here.”

  “I can’t go,” Marsh said weakly.

  “The fuck you’re can’t. If you don’t get up, I’ll throw you over the side and make you swim to shore, you lazy fuck.” Reese kicked him again. “Get up!”

  “Stop that shit!” Marsh snapped, rolling over onto his side. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “You going to open a case on me?” Reese asked. “Gonna file a report? With who? We have a job to do, so let’s get to it. Now, get up!”

  Marsh glared up at him with half-lidded eyes. “You always were an asshole, Reese.”

  “How’s that? I never did anything to you before.”

  “I could just tell.” Marsh slowly started to climb to his feet.

  The boat still rolled from side to side, even though it was anchored well outside the surf line. The day was gray and windy, and the sun was hidden behind the marine layer that hovered over the Pacific. The California coastline was dark and forbidding.

  Reese regarded it from the boat’s cockpit with more than a little dread. He most definitely did not want to go back to where the stenches ruled. It was a potentially suicidal act for very little gain. He tore his eyes away from the landmass. “So you could just tell I was an asshole?” he asked the seasick detective.

  “Yeah,” Marsh said. He retched again, a dry heave punctuated with a small burp. “I could just fucking tell.”

  “So now you become a detective,” Reese snapped. “Great timing, asshole. Come on. We’re going ashore.”

  “What the fuck for?” There was a note of resignation in Marsh’s voice, as if he had already given up the fight and was just going through the motions.

  Reese felt pretty much the same way, but he had no meaningful answer to give. “We’re doing it because we were told to. And that’s all we need to know.”

  On two rubber-hulled inflatables, the cops moved through the choppy Pacific surf toward land. Reese found he had to hold on for dear life against the stiff offshore breeze and the pounding waves. On more than one occasion, Reese watched as cavorting seals were attacked from below by sleek sharks that hurtled upward from the steely depths like gray torpedoes. More often than not, the sharks crashed back into the sea with writhing, bleeding seals clamped tight in their powerful jaws. Reese was hardly comforted by the display, which seemed like a bad omen.

  When the blunted bows struck the rock-strewn shore of Hendry’s Beach, Reese and the others disembarked and dragged the inflatables out of the water. The beach was dark and deserted. The area hadn’t been particularly hospitable even before the “zompoc,” as some of the officers called it, so the lack of stenches wasn’t surprising. The beach was overlooked by silent bluffs. Reese regarded them as the breeze tugged at his clothing. He saw nothing moving up there, which was another good sign.

  The element commander, an LAPD sergeant named Manalo, was a burly Filipino man. He had a shaved head and a round face with acne-scarred cheeks. He motioned for the cops to form up on him then set off down the beach. Reese trudged along after him, swinging his rifle into his hands. Plosser pushed past Reese, holding his own weapon in one hand as he fiddled with his helmet’s chin strap. The tall National Guard NCO’s eyes were alert as he scanned the bluffs to their left.

  “Plosser, something up?” Reese asked.

  “If they’re going to come, they’ll come from up there,” Plosser replied. “There’re houses up on the other side of the bluffs. Keep your eyes open.”

  “You know it.”

  Sergeant Manalo led them toward a stand of palm trees, their fronds swaying in the wind-driven gloom. Just beyond them were a parking lot and a dark commercial building. A small stone breakwater stood between the parking lot and the beach. Garbage was strewn everywhere; paper and plastic fluttered in the breeze. Reese caught a whiff of decomposition, and an instant later, he spotted some bones scattered amongst the refuse. Human bones. Hundreds, if not thousands of them.

  The parking lot had been a kill zone. Apparently, it had been used as a rally site for the local community, and it had been overrun. As they stepped around the stone seawall, Reese saw the tattered remains of corpses lying all over the place. The bodies had been pulled apart and stripped clean. Amidst the carnage, some broken bodies stirred.

  Plosser pointed at one. “Watch out for the zombtards.”

  Once a corpse transitioned into a stench, the feeding ghouls would abandon it. But by that time, the zombie was so severely diminished that it couldn’t hunt on its own. Without limbs or enough remaining musculature to support its weight, all it could do was writhe and glare at the passing cops. The “zombtards” were silent, as their diaphragms had been torn away by the feasting horde, so they couldn’t even take in a breath to moan. That made them a little more dangerous, because until they moved, the cops wouldn’t know if they were truly dead or just waiting for a chance to grab a lucky bite.

  Manalo led them past a boathouse that had been made into a restaurant. Its shattered windows seemed to leer at them like dark eyes. In the patio dining area, tattered blue umbrellas fluttered in the breeze. Plosser came to a halt in front of the building and shouldered his rifle as he stared into its dark recesses. Reese knew the Guardsman was waiting for something to emerge from the restaurant and attack them, but the only sounds coming from t
he structure were those made by the wind whistling through jagged glass. Seagulls perched on its roof, watching the cops file past with beady eyes.

  Reese kept going with the others, looking back every now and then to check on Plosser. The tall soldier stood motionless, silhouetted against the gray sea. After a few minutes, he rejoined the formation.

  The street at the end of the parking lot was lined with a residential neighborhood on the left and the shadowy expanse of the Douglas Family Preserve on the right. Between them and the park was a body of water called Arroyo Burro, according to the maps Reese had studied. Nothing moved amongst the trees and scrub. Abandoned cars and trucks filled the debris-strewn road, and silhouetted against the brightening sky to the east, houses crouched on the hilltops overlooking the street. The homes appeared to be abandoned.

  Manalo came to a stop and raised one fist, signaling for the rest of the cops to halt. All the dead traffic and garbage served to make every sightline more complex. While Reese saw no movement, there was a bonanza of hiding places where hungry ghouls might lurk, and standing still made him nervous.

  Reese heard something above the whisper of the sea breeze. Manalo must’ve heard it as well because he pulled his rifle tight against his shoulder as he turned his head, scanning the area. Reese looked toward the rear of the formation, searching for Plosser. The Guardsman was behind everyone and facing the parking lot, his rifle at low ready.

  Reese heard the noise again, a dry, thin moan that came from the other side of a row of tall bushes separating a private residence from the street. It was joined a moment later by another, then another. The bushes rustled.

  “Reese,” Renee said, her voice tight.

  Manalo panned his AR-15 from side to side as he sought a target. When the brush began to part, he turned and sliced a hand toward the parking lot. “Boats! Boats!”

  Dozens of stenches suddenly emerged from the line of bushes. As more zombies pushed aside the bushes, Reese saw dozens, possibly hundreds, of tottering shapes in the gloom on the other side. The first wave ran into a fence that ran through the vegetation. The ones behind them got tangled up, and the entire mess formed a knot of necrotic flesh with flailing limbs.

  But over the din, Reese heard more moaning. On the hillsides and bluffs, more figures appeared, emerging from overrun houses. Most staggered toward the group. Some ran.

  “We got runners!” Plosser yelled.

  “Reese,” Renee said again, eyes wide as she raised her rifle.

  “Forget about them, Renee. Run!” Reese pushed her back toward the way they had come.

  Gunfire rang out, and Reese glanced over his shoulder. Marsh had opened up on the horde, firing into the mass piling up on the other side of the fence. Manalo almost ran into the lane of fire, and he jerked away with a curse. As he did, one of the stenches in the bushes reached out and managed to grab Manalo’s vest. The cop was hauled toward the bushes, where a flurry of pallid hands reached for him. Marsh stopped and stared, a dumbfounded expression on his face, then he lowered his rifle and extended a hand toward Manalo. Manalo grunted and reached for the proffered hand, but the gap was too far.

  Reese shoved Marsh aside and sent him reeling into a nearby car. March bounced off it and collapsed to the street. Reese grabbed Manalo’s arm and tried to yank him free. More hands reached for the Filipino sergeant.

  “Pull harder!” Manalo screamed.

  Reese planted his feet and put his body weight behind the next pull. Another cop wrapped his arms around Reese’s waist and added his strength to the tug of war. Renee raised her rifle and started shooting. Several zombies fell to the ground, and Manalo popped free. A small child-zombie came with him, holding onto the collar of his shirt as it sank its teeth into the back of Manalo’s vest. Reese reached around, grabbed its neck, and ripped the diminutive stench away. It fell to the pavement with a hiss, beady eyes glaring at him.

  “Come on! Let’s get the fuck out of here!” Manalo said. “The shooting’s going to bring them down on us like nobody’s business!”

  “You bit?” Reese asked.

  “Does it matter? Get going!”

  Reese nodded and turned to leave. As he did, he spotted Marsh clambering to his feet. The detective was bleeding from a gash on his forehead.

  Reese went over and hauled him the rest of the way up. “Let’s go, Marsh!” He pushed the cop ahead of him, and Marsh stumbled past Renee, who was still firing into the horde to buy them enough time to move past. Reese glanced at her as he slipped by. Her eyes were flat and expressionless. All she could do was kill zombies. Reese was good with that.

  “You didn’t have to body-slam me,” Marsh said with a whimper. His gait was unsteady, as if he were trying to break into a trot but couldn’t quite make it happen.

  “Marsh, move faster,” Reese said.

  “I’m trying,” Marsh said.

  Plosser appeared on Marsh’s other side and took him by the arm. “I got him. He looks like he has a concussion. Grab my pack and hold on, Marsh. Don’t let go.”

  “Okay.”

  “Renee, let’s go!” Reese yelled over his shoulder then raised his rifle.

  He drilled three stenches as they floundered through the bushes. Their fallen bodies served to break up the advance of their fellows, and Renee hustled over to him. She tried to shoot while moving but wound up missing. Reese cringed inwardly at the wasted ammunition. Even though he had seen the immense ammo cache back at the island, every round they wasted would be a round they might miss later.

  “Stop shooting and run, damn it!” he snapped.

  Renee lowered her weapon and broke into a sprint. She darted past him, her plump legs pumping hard.

  Zombies were appearing everywhere, tumbling down the bluffs, creeping down driveways, and even pushing through the brush in the nature preserve to their left. Plosser had to practically drag Marsh, since the cop couldn’t move fast enough to suit the tall Guardsman. By the time the group made it back to the inflatables, a horde of at least a hundred stenches was on their trail. A few of the ghouls were still in good shape and moved closer than the rest. Reese killed one, while Manalo dropped the other two. As Reese turned back around, he spotted some blood on the Filipino sergeant’s neck. He wondered if Manalo knew he was a walking dead man.

  Because of the endless waves, getting the boats back into the surf was much more difficult than bringing them in. The delay allowed the herd of stenches to creep that much closer. It seemed to take forever to get the small boats into the water and their engines started. High-stepping through the surf, one of the cops stumbled and went down. The zombies converged on him instantly. The rest of the cops opened up in a bid to save the man, but they were either in the bouncing boats or had been trying to clamber aboard.

  Reese stood in thigh-deep water, and the cold waves ruined his aim as they slammed into him from behind. He caught a glimpse of the downed cop’s pale, panicked face. Snot was streaming from his nose, and his eyes were wide with fear. Seawater rushed over him, and he tried to swim away, pushing off into the waves. One of the stenches caught his ankle and held on, and that was all it took. The other ghouls tackled him like filthy linebackers, pinning him to the sandy floor of the surf line. There was no saving him.

  An outboard engine roared, and one of the boats took off, its bow smashing through the waves. As the rest of the horde oriented on Reese, the cops in the second inflatable yelled for him to climb in. They fired over his head, but Reese knew that wasn’t going to work. The little boat made for a poor shooting platform.

  He tossed his rifle into the boat and grabbed onto the side. “Go! Go!” he shouted.

  The cop manning the outboard added some power, and the boat accelerated away, bouncing across the wave tops. Reese held on for dear life, the water pulling at his body. Renee reached over and grabbed one of his wrists. Her grip was like iron. Once the boat had moved deeper into the surf, it slowed, and Manalo and another guy pulled him in.

  “You okay?” Manalo as
ked.

  “Yeah,” Reese said. He coughed, and salt water burned his throat.

  “Thanks for saving me back there, man,” Manalo said.

  Reese pointed at Manalo’s neck. “You’re bleeding.”

  Manalo nodded, but there was no emotion on his blunt, acne-scarred face. “Yeah, I know. It was the smaller one hanging on my back. It got a little chunk of me.”

  Reese ducked his head and looked back at Hendry Beach. Ghouls were still streaming into the water, fighting against the waves as they tried to pursue the two inflatables. They had no chance of catching them, but logic was lost on the dead. They simply pushed deeper and deeper into the water until they disappeared beneath the waves.

  SINGLE TREE, CALIFORNIA

  Like everyone in Single Tree, Rod Cranston had been elated when the walls started going up around the town, converting it into a sort of medieval fortress. He’d then become a bit depressed when those walls were extended to surround the airport because that meant he couldn’t stay at home, drinking Bud and whacking off to monster porn on his Kindle. Even with flesh-eating zombies threatening to take over the world, Cranston still had to go to work. The airport was pretty desolate with no flights scheduled, which made for a boring day. There wasn’t even regulatory paperwork to fill out since, as far as he knew, the FAA had ceased to exist. He’d even accompanied Enrico around the airport a few times to check the buildings, fuel supplies, and the maintenance area. He’d finally given up on that because Cranston didn’t like walking.

  Corbett’s people would drop by and visit the airport on occasion. They were principally interested in their boss’s shiny Gulfstream, but they also went through the motions of verifying the defenses were in place. A few shooters were on station as well, but they kept out of sight in Corbett’s custom-built hangar. Cranston wasn’t allowed to go in there unless someone escorted him, which was fine with him.