The Dying of the Light (Book 2): Interval

by Jason Kristopher

  “Ah, three surprises, then.”

  “You’re going with us?”

  Anderson looked around, making sure Morena wasn’t within earshot. “Let’s just say my wife isn’t thrilled about it, but I’m one of the few pilots we had to loan to this mission. Plus, y’all needed someone in command.”

  “Ah,” I said, shaking my head. “Well, then, welcome to the team. Which plane are we taking?”

  He turned me and pointed toward the second C-5 in line. “That’s the one, there. She’s in better shape than the others, but she’s going to need some work. A lot of work. She’s been outside in the elements for ten years with no maintenance. It’s going to be a couple of months before we can leave here.”

  “What about the ones in the hangars?”

  “According to the paperwork we found, they’re all in for major repairs or near-total overhauls. We’re going to have a spotter plane along, too. A Gulfstream G5; we found one in good shape.”

  “OK. We’ll get settled in for a long stay. I talked to the pilots, and they’re going to run some volunteers through basic flight procedures so we have some backup pilots just in case. Since I’m no good with a wrench, I’ll be doing that unless you need some other help.”

  “No, that’s fine. I’ve got twenty guys here to do the job, plus another ten to secure the area. I’m sure Reynolds and Gaines will help with that. I’ll pass the word and see who might be up for some training, too.”

  We stood there, looking at this plane that was meant to take us halfway around the world. “Tell me this isn’t a fool’s errand, Frank.”

  “Well, David, look at it this way: if we don’t go find this Atkins guy, there’ll be a lot less fools in the world soon enough.”

  Somehow, that wasn’t as comforting as I’d hoped.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Two months later

  I looked up at the plane towering over me, and was mesmerized yet again by the sheer size of it. The C-5 was 65 feet high at the tail, and at 247 feet long, it was almost the length of a football field. A quick running play from the tail, and you’d be in the end zone. Its wingspan was nearly the same as its length, and the doors… well, they were just crazy. Lifting the entire nose and tail of an aircraft this size out of the way seemed incredible, but it worked. The first time I’d looked in the cargo area, I’d wondered why these things were only rated to carry four hundred people. You could easily fit a lot more in there. Sure, it wouldn’t be comfortable, and you’d be stacking people like cordwood wherever you could get a spot, but still…

  Even if everyone weighed 200 pounds, you wouldn’t be exceeding the plane’s payload capacity until you hit, what, 1,350 people? I thought. That’s a lot of scientists.

  “David, there you are,” said Anderson, jogging up to me. I kept myself in reasonably decent shape—easy to do on bunker rations—but Captain Anderson was twenty years my senior and looked as healthy as I’d been in my twenties. It made me sick. He’s not even breathing hard.

  “Here I are,” I said, smiling. “What can I do ya for, Cap’n?”

  “Just talked to the pilots, and they said we’re as ready to go as we’re gonna get. Only thing left to do now is take her up for a last test flight and make sure nothing else shakes loose.”

  “So we’ll be ready by, like, tomorrow?”

  Anderson nodded. “Yep. Archer said the weather patterns are as good as they’re gonna get, too. Not going to be an easy flight, that’s for sure. I’m bringing Mahoney and a couple of his guys along with me, just in case. He’s already talked to Williams, who assigned him as the flight engineer for the trip.”

  It was my turn to nod. “Good idea. Mahoney’s a good guy, from what I’ve seen. I’m sure he’ll be able to handle any problems.”

  “I thought so, too. Glad you agree,” he said, then paused. “Hey, listen, if you want to give Kim a call, the gearheads rigged a comm shack over on the other side, near the office. Now’s probably a good time.”

  I shook my head. “Nah, I’ll talk to her when we get to L.A. We just talked the other day.”

  Anderson looked at me intensely for a moment, and I could tell I was about to get an ‘in my day’ speech from him. It wasn’t often that they happened, but what else could you really expect from someone fast approaching their sixties? “Son, if I’ve learned one thing from this fucked-up life of mine,” he said, laying a hand on my shoulder. “It’s that you don’t let chances to talk to your loved ones pass you by. Call her, comprende?” He squeezed my shoulder and then walked off, switching to a jog after a few paces.

  Muttering to myself, I turned and headed for the comm shack.

  I hate it when he’s right.

  Los Angeles International Airport

  California

  A day later, we were about five miles out of LAX, where we’d be stopping to refuel, when the pilot of our spotter plane radioed back to those of us in the C-5.

  “Uh, guys, this is… this is not good,” reported Myers. “Looks like the only runway that’s open is covered with walkers.”

  “Covered?” asked Anderson, moving to stand at the flight engineer’s console and picking up a headset. Most of us were crowded onto the flight deck, and those at the back were just listening, unable to even see the windows from their location.

  A new voice answered from the Gulfstream. “Gaines here, sir. When he said ‘covered,’ he’s not kidding. We’ve done a few flyovers, and there’s gotta be at least a hundred of the fuckers down there. And that’s the only runway that y’all can use. The others are blocked with wreckage.”

  I looked over at Anderson, and he was looking back at me. I shrugged, then looked at Archer, the lead pilot for this leg. “What’s this thing weigh, Colonel?”

  He thought about it for a moment. “As empty as she is, I’d say just shy of four hundred thousand pounds, sir.”

  Anderson was still looking at me when I turned back. “You’re an evil one, Mr. Blake,” he said with a grin.

  “I know.”

  “Myers, this is Anderson. Continue circling; we’re gonna plow the field for you. Then y’all can come up and keep what’s left off our butts. Once the walkers are clear, we’ll taxi over and refuel. Hopefully, we’ll be able to minimize our time out of the plane.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the pilot of the smaller craft, his voice a bit wobbly. “Out here.”

  “Uh, sir?” asked Williams. “Plow the field?”

  “Take us down, Colonel. And roll right over them.”

  The pilots looked at each other, and I could see Williams swallow hard. I headed back to my seat behind the crew bunks. I wasn’t the only one, either. Even though it had been my idea, I still couldn’t watch it. This isn’t going to be pretty.

  A few minutes later, we began our approach, and I tried not to think about what was going to happen. My only saving grace was the fact that I could barely hear anything but the engines back here. I looked across the aisle at one of the soldiers who’d come with us from Bunker Eight—Markinson, I think—and he was asleep. Leaning back against his seat, eyes closed, head jostling like it does in any airplane, he was snoring. I wondered how a man can sleep at a time like this, but it didn’t really matter, as right about that time we touched down and the jarring thud of our wheels slamming into the asphalt woke him.

  “Take us all the way to the other end, boys,” said Anderson, from the cockpit. “Mow ‘em down.”

  The plane began jarring, bouncing like it was going over potholes, and I knew that it wasn’t potholes, but people that were going under the giant wheels of the plane. Or, at least, former people. There was a sudden change in the pitch from the engines, and Anderson laughed. “Holy shit, I didn’t even think about that. Well, that’s one way to clear them. Not going to hurt the engines, is it?”

  Mahoney responded. “Uh… no, probably not, sir. Those engines might not even notice. I wouldn’t put too many through, though. Excuse me…” There was a clatter and he ran right past me and Markinson, int
o the head. Thankfully, he closed the door, but it wasn’t exactly soundproof, and I heard him retching over and over again. I tried not to think about what he’d seen.

  “We’re almost there, sir,” said one of the pilots. I couldn’t tell which. “About five hundred feet or so.”

  “Roger that. Get on the horn… oh, right.” Another clatter, and Anderson spoke again. “Anderson to Myers.” As the comms weren’t on speaker, I couldn’t hear the other man’s response. “We’ve done about all we can here. Go ahead and begin your run. We’ll try to draw them to us, but it’d be best if you had Gaines and Reynolds helping out. Slow and easy once you’re down, son. Anderson out.”

  Mahoney finished his solo mission to the head and moved back toward the cockpit, deliberately not looking at me. As we rolled to a stop and the pilots began shutting down the engines, I could hear the ever-increasing noise of the walkers outside beating against the hull and moaning. Anderson spoke up from the flight deck. “OK, Williams, Archer, you stay at the controls in case we need anything in a hurry. The rest of you, we’re going topside. Get your weapons and gear from wherever you’ve got them stowed, and meet back here.”

  Markinson got up and took his rifle down from the storage locker, checking to make sure it was ready to go. He glanced over at me and grinned. “Time to go to work!”

  I just sighed, and reached for my pack as he moved forward, forming up with the others. I’d never actually liked killing walkers, it was just something that needed to be done. Some of these guys, though… I wondered if they’d actually passed the psychological tests the bunker gave regularly, or if someone had slid them by, figuring that an eager walker-killer was better than someone who, like me, only did it out of necessity. In the end, today, it didn’t matter. It was, as he’d said, time to go to work.

  This late in the year, the weather was fantastic as we headed out onto the roof of the plane. About seventy degrees, with no humidity to speak of, and the sun was bright, shining down on all the decrepit flesh moaning and jostling below us. We spaced out several feet between us, and readied ourselves for the task ahead. I did a rough count, and stopped when I got to around sixty walkers. I’d never seen so many in one place, like cattle in a pen. Except these cattle were deadly.

  I tried not to look at the bloodstains and chunky bits all over the wings, especially around the engines. It’s just red paint, I thought. They painted the front red as a warning, that’s all. Red paint. With bits in. I felt the nausea boiling up and turned away, closing my eyes and taking deep, deep breaths. Which, as it turned out, was a mistake, as there was nothing like taking a deep breath of the rotting odor of nearly a hundred corpses.

  Fortunately, no one said a word or even batted an eye as I heaved over the side. Markinson—next to me up here as well—handed me a canteen, and I gratefully took it, wiping my mouth with my sleeve before taking a swig, rinsing and spitting, then taking a longer drink. I handed it back to him with a nod that he returned, then made ready to fire. I, too, hefted my own rifle.

  Anderson had to shout to make himself heard over the din coming from below. “All right, ladies, we’ve got fish in a barrel down there. Take your time and pick your shots carefully. One shot, one kill. Conserve your ammo.” He crouched down near the emergency exit, over the cockpit, and held up one hand. He’d have the more wide range of targets there, by far, being at the front of the plane, but we were all going to need to reload at least once. “Fire!” he yelled, throwing his hand down and suiting action to words himself.

  The noise was nearly deafening, or it would have been had I not been on one of the loudest planes ever made for several hours just prior. Walkers died by the handfuls, gore splattering everywhere as the bullets laid them to their final rest. I must’ve shot at least two dozen myself. It took nearly ten minutes of concentrated fire to kill all the ones we could see, but the design of the plane kept us from having a shot on the ones closest to it. So we carefully and slowly crept out onto the wings, lying on our stomachs, some facing forward, some back, and we were just getting ready to fire again as I noticed the smaller Gulfstream moving toward us on the runway. Nowhere near as loud as our own plane, the new sound was still loud enough to draw some of our assailants toward the smaller craft.

  The command to fire came again, and a ripple of shots cracked out, along with quite a few ricochets. I ducked lower as one zinged past, and I saw a crack spreading in the windshield of the Gulfstream. I couldn’t tell if anyone was hit, but I did see Gaines and Reynolds leaning out the open door. They’d somehow managed to tie off the ramp to the interior so it didn’t provide access to the oncoming walkers, which I thought was ingenious. They were making their standard excellent shots, picking off the few walkers moving their way. The din and rattle of gunfire died down, and eventually stopped. I looked back to my own plane, the C-5, and that was when I got my first real sight of the carnage I’d created with my ‘plow the field’ idea. The walkers crowding around the plane had blocked my view at first, and then added to the mess with their own deaths, but this… this was horrible.

  The entire lower third of the plane looked like it had been painted red, and the wheels… I wasn’t the only one heaving over the side, this time. The entire suspension system of the plane looked like it had been dunked in marinara sauce—with meatballs. Bits of bone and tissue dripped off the struts and wheels. Horrific isn’t the right word. There is no word for this. Massacre, decimation, carnage… none of them are strong enough for this.

  The soldiers, including Reynolds and Gaines, were piling out of the other plane onto the tarmac, occasionally firing at slower walkers nearby. Gaines looked somehow different without his .50-caliber sniper rifle, and the smaller FN SCAR was toy-like in his hands. A deadly toy, to be sure. He and Reynolds looked up at us as we lay on the wings of the big plane and the others created a perimeter around it.

  “You planning to get some work done today, boss?” Reynolds asked me, a grin on his face.

  “Fuck you,” I said, my intelligence and large vocabulary naturally coming to the fore. “I need a drink.”

  “No time for that, I’m afraid,” said Anderson, walking over and squatting down near me. “As soon as we’re refueled, it’s time to get these birds back in the air.”

  “No can do, sir,” said Gaines. “I’m afraid Myers is in no shape to fly. Neither is the G5, for that matter. Windshield’s busted.”

  “What’s wrong with Myers?”

  “A round took him in the shoulder, sir. Must’ve been a ricochet. It’s not too bad, but he can’t handle a plane now. One of the medics is looking him over.”

  “Shit,” Anderson replied. “Well, I’ll send Archer over, and he can follow us over to the fuel. We’ll move all the gear over to the C-5 and leave the Gulfstream behind. Reynolds, Gaines, you’ll be escort for Archer. The rest of you down there, mount up as soon as the personnel doors are opened.”

  “Yes, sir,” both men said, and moved toward the side door of the plane.

  The rest of us stood up and moved back to the emergency hatch, still walking carefully. A fall from this height wouldn’t kill you, probably, but it’d still fuck up your day.

  Soon enough, we were taxiing over to the fuel dump for the airport, hoping that the relatively mild southern California weather had been kind enough to keep it useful. The planes maneuvered around, the G5 off to one side, as it would no longer be needed.

  As the others began transferring gear to the bigger plane, I helped Gaines move the injured Myers onto the C-5 and up to the passenger compartment. One of the medics made sure he was taken care of as I stood back.

  “Well done, Myers,” Myers said to himself, for our benefit. “Never even left the plane and you still got shot.” He laughed and then winced as the movement jarred his injured left shoulder.

  It was a nasty wound, or at least looked nasty, but apparently the round had gone through-and-through, burying itself deep into the bank of electronics behind the pilot.

  “Shaddup,
man. You’re lucky. A few inches to the right and we’d be burying you,” I said.

  “Yep. Gotta look on the bright si—ow! Shit, Doc, that hurt worse than the bullet! What’d you give…” His voice trailed off and he slumped back and began snoring softly.

  I looked over at the medic, and she shrugged.

  “Just a mild sedative. He’ll stop moving around and worsening the injury, this way.”

  “Good thinking. His voice was beginning to grate, anyway,” I said, laughing as I went back down the ladder.

  Williams and Archer were outside, supervising the fueling into the plane’s tanks.

  “How long will this take?” I asked.

  Williams had lightened up some in the past couple months, and I’d discovered he wasn’t nearly the stone-cold hard-ass I’d thought. He was actually a nice guy, if a bit anal-retentive. Couldn’t fault him for that, though. “Oh, I’d say at least a couple hours with these improvised systems. We have to make sure we get every drop. Christchurch is right at the end of our range. We’re likely to be on fumes when we get there, and even that’s only because we’re unloaded.”

  “What about the Humvees?”

  “Negligible, in this case. What worries me is getting back.”

  “Could four hundred and fifty people really weigh all that much?”

  “Hell, yes. Even if they each weighed only a hundred and fifty pounds, that’s sixty thousand pounds. That makes a difference in our fuel consumption. Add another twelve thousand pounds in the Humvees, and we could probably make it back, but there’s no guarantee.”

  “We’re not bringing those back, but still…” I was suddenly very, very nervous. “No one mentioned this in the briefings.”

  “That’s because no one bothered talking to us, sir,” he said with a look that spoke volumes. He moved away to check on the fueling, and I looked around for Anderson. I didn’t see him, so I toggled my radio on.

  “Anderson, this is Blake.”