“I remember that,” Oliver said. “Crashed and burned. They almost made it, too.”
Ron didn’t say anything, but he had been there by pure coincidence. If it hadn’t been for a slight miscalculation, whoever had been piloting that plane might have succeeded. The engine had been sputtering, but the guy had brought it in just fine until the Cessna’s wing clipped the body of a derelict Mack truck just after the wheels met the street. After that, the plane had been spun and it slammed into the façade of an auto parts store, exploding in a burst of flames. There had been no screams from the ball of fire and smoke—Ron had been close enough to have heard if there had been any suffering survivors. After that, the explosion and light and heat had attracted a mob of the wandering dead creeps and he had been forced to retreat.
And that had been the last time.
Cutter looked to the sky and finally spotted the plane. It wasn’t a big one. Nothing like the fighter jets that had screamed in over the city the day before.
“What is it?” Jean asked. “Recognize the make?”
Cutter shook his head. “No. I’m not an expert. The only reason I know about the military stuff is that I read up on that shit after agreeing to work with Colonel Dale. Civilian craft are beyond me.”
“How big you think it is?” Oliver piped up.
“I don’t know. Maybe hauling a couple dozen people. Honestly, I just ain’t sure,” he admitted.
They looked up, watching as it passed over them at about 2,000 feet. Much slower than the jets that had blasted the sky the previous day. “Not as noisy as those damned jets. That’s for sure,” Jean stated.
But it was still attracting attention. All of this sudden noise and motion was drawing in the deads from the forests beyond Charlotte. “Nine o’clock,” Ron warned the others.
They all looked. A small knot of staggering creeps were heaving their almost nude, bloated bodies into view, appearing from a side street as they were making their way to the little garage where they had almost succeeded in rebuilding their auto.
“They’re certainly coming into town again,” Jean said. “I hope those jokers are going to bring some firepower and use those jets to help us deal with this shit.” Quickly, she produced the little home-made pistol of her father’s. Both Ron and Oliver held back. They knew that she liked to take care of business alone whenever she drew that weapon. It made sense, too, as it made far less noise than a rifle or any of the more powerful handguns each of them carried.
The .22 popped. A single shot repeated four times as she stopped after each firing to reload, making sure to save the expended cartridges for reloading when they got the chance to take care of it. As first one, and then the other zombies dropped to the ground, becoming nothing more than a rotting, wet mass that would need to be cleaned up and buried, the others continued to plod along, groaning with hunger and something like anger.
“These are definitely strangers to Charlotte,” Jean said after the last one was a still, stinking heap on the sidewalk. “They’re like they used to be before the Colonel and his squads started putting the fear of lead and fire into them.”
It was true. They had begun to be able to tell the difference between what they had started to call wild and tame zombies. Whenever a zombie that had been around the immediate vicinity made any threatening moves, it seemed to be situations of stealth and just opportunity. These days it was more common to see one hiding pitifully or trying to flee at the sight and sound of people. It was only the ones that crept or stumbled accidentally into the city that were anything like the aggressive things that had all but destroyed human society.
With the minor threat neutralized, they headed on toward their hidden garage. It was only a short hike, but they did their best to make sure that they weren’t being followed. Of course, there was the problem of being spied upon at distance, but there was nothing they could do about it, so they didn’t spend any time agonizing over this fact. The most you could do to stop that would be to travel at night, and that was neither safe nor fool-proof.
At Ron’s secret workspace, they unlocked the door and rolled it up, pulling it shut behind them. The SUV was in good shape, with only a slight coating of dust to indicate that any time had passed since they’d last been there to fiddle with the vehicle. In short order, Ron had illuminated the space with an LED lamp powered by four AA batteries. Having been raised on lamps with incandescent bulbs, he was amazed at the effectiveness and range of the LEDs. Of course, when such things began to wear down, there would be no more of them. This was going to be true more now than ever. He almost mentioned it to Jean and Oliver but decided to just keep his thoughts to himself.
“So,” Jean said. “What’s the order of today?”
“We need to load the SUV,” Cutter told them. “I want it ready to roll. We’ve been messing with it long enough. The engine is good. It’s purring as well as we can expect. What we have to do now is pack it so that we can bug out on a second’s notice.” He pointed to the stack of boxes against the wall near the Blazer. “Let’s get that bottled water in the back. And cover it with that nylon tarp.”
They all got busy. Cutter unlocked the Chevy and they began to methodically and neatly load it up. Within an hour, they had it in good shape. Water. First Aid kits. Spare parts. The tires were all new, scrounged from half a dozen places and hauled back to the garage and inspected carefully. One spare was on the hatchback, and Ron and Oliver had rigged another one inside behind the passenger seat.
Occasionally, Jean or Ron went out into the alleyway to check for anyone invading their privacy. They knew that Dale was aware of their privately stashed four-wheel drive, but Ron had no way of knowing for sure if the Colonel had shared that information with anyone else. It was possible, of course, but he rather doubted it. The city was full of people who scrounged for supplies just as Ron was forced to do, so nothing was completely safe from unwanted discovery. All you could do was hide the property and hope for the best.
Ron decided to top off the tank. They had painstakingly located and filtered roughly fifty gallons of gasoline. Most petrol they encountered was ruined, beyond salvaging. But through a few lucky finds, they had managed to accumulate what was now stored in five ten-gallon jerry cans. The SUV had dual tanks that each held 18 gallons. He made sure to top those off, which took an entire container full of gasoline. That left them with four, and they locked those up securely in the same steel tool shed in the garage.
After that, they stood and just looked around the space, trying to think of anything they had missed.
“What’s left to do?” Oliver asked.
“All I want to do is start her up one time and make sure the engine’s running smoothly. After that…all we need to do is lock up and head back.” Ron climbed in while the other two stood by the partially raised loading dock. He started the vehicle and it sprang to life. The engine muttered comfortably and Cutter took the chance to rev the motor, hoping that nothing would hear the sound and come toward them. Since the door was three quarters closed, he felt the sound would be dampened enough so that at the worst no one would be able to pinpoint the source of the noise if they heard it at all.
And with that, he shut the motor down, climbed out, locked the doors, and shrugged. “I think that’s all for today,” he told his family. “Now…we can go. We’ve got it as ready for the road as we can get it, I think.”
At that, they raised the door and walked out, then silently closed it behind them and padlocked it. All three of them had copies of the keys to both the padlock and the Blazer. Ron still had not been able to teach Oliver how to handle the vehicle effectively, but there might be time for that later. He wasn’t sure.
With their hidden project locked up securely, they headed away from its obscure location and walked toward a main street that would wind them back toward their blockhouse home above the streets.
NEXT
That night, Ron surprised Jean and Oliver with a treat. He’d been secretly hoarding foil packs o
f both smoked salmon and albacore tuna in water. As soon as they’d gotten back to the building and climbed the stairs to their rooftop, he had gone straight inside and produced the food.
“You cad,” Jean told him. “How’d you manage to hide this from us?”
Oliver was smiling, happy to see the fish. He hadn’t had anything quite like that in some time. A couple of times he had thought of fishing for his supper, but the only time he’d tried venturing onto a lake shore he’d had to contend with a rotter that had been lying in the shallows, oblivious to its surrounding until it had detected the boy, rising up as an algae-encrusted mass, grasping for him.
“Just shows how trustworthy you two are,” he said. “These packets have been right here in my wardrobe for weeks. All you had to do was poke around. But I knew you wouldn’t, so why hide them somewhere sneaky?” It was true. None of them ever stuck their noses where they didn’t belong or wouldn’t be welcome. There was something about the desperate lives they’d been leading that had produced that attitude in them.
“What else have you been hiding over there?” Jean said. And as she looked on, Ron produced first a king-sized bar of milk chocolate and a bottle of Maker’s Mark whisky.
“Oliver…the chocolate is for you, but the whisky is for me and Jean.”
“Hey. I’ve tasted that stuff. It’s nasty!” Oliver told them. “I got the best half of this deal!”
Later, after they had steamed rice and hydrated some green beans, they sat and consumed the feast, once again enjoying the recent bounty and relative security they were enjoying. Then they quickly cleared the table, washed the dishes and cleaned the living space.
“Oliver, I want you to help me pick out some books from the shelves. We need to get some of the small-engine repair manuals, the how-two electrical wiring book, and one on woodworking. You get those while I gather up some other ones.”
“Okay,” the boy told him.
And while their adopted boy busied himself with the task, Ron motioned to Jean to hold back where they were standing on the far side of the single room. He switched on their CD player, burning some of their precious batteries to fill the space with some Buck Owens music.
One questioning look from Jean was all it took to let him know that she understood something big was about to happen.
“We’re going to have to leave,” he told her.
“When?”
“Soon. Colonel Dale says maybe in a couple of days. Maybe in a week. He’s not quite sure. But things are going to get bad, and we need to be able to pull out in a hurry.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, glancing across the room where Oliver was searching the big shelves for the list of books Ron had told him to find.
“These new arrivals,” he said, snapping his head in the general direction of the airport. “They’re not exactly friendly people.”
“Who are they? Why are they bad news?” Her brow was furrowed in confusion.
“For want of a better term…they’re the 2%.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The folk who owned everything before this whole undead thing brought everything down. Well, at least what’s left of them. It’s kind of complicated, and I can explain it all later, but they’re here, and to make it short and sweet, they’re going to wrap up everything in a neat legal bundle and back it up with force to make sure that as they put things back together the way they want them, the rest of us are going to end up under their thumbs just like we were before.”
She shook her head, her golden hair tossing from side to side. “If they’re coming to put things back together, and they’re bringing the firepower to do it, then why is that a reason to leave? That should be a reason to celebrate,” she insisted.
“Well…if that’s the way it ends up looking, then we don’t have anything to worry about. But the Colonel told me that’s not the way it’s going to be. What we’re going to have to do is be their slaves.”
“Slaves. And you believe that?”
Ron nodded. “Yes, I do. It makes sense. And I listened in on a satellite exchange between Colonel Dale and the people who are coming. Everything I heard backs up what he’s been telling me.”
“I’m just suspicious, Ron. I mean…I don’t even believe that guy’s name is really Dale. I mean…who ever heard of an English lord with the last name of Dale.”
Ron had to chuckle at that one. “Well, you’re right. That’s not exactly the name. But it’s what he uses because Americans just aren’t hip to traditional British names. He just simplified it is all.”
“But, Ron…leaving? We have to leave? Just based on what the Colonel is telling you? Without any proof?”
He looked back to make sure that Oliver was still pulling the books he wanted. The boy had a small stack on the floor but was still searching for titles.
“Yes,” he told her. “I believe him.”
“Trust, but verify,” she said. “I don’t want to leave unless I know it has to be.”
Ron could not come up with a valid argument for that, and it wasn’t actually outside of his own way of thinking. “Fair enough,” he told her. “We’ll wait and see. But if we wait too long, I don’t know if we’ll be able to get out if push comes to shove.”
“We’ll wait, then. We’ll wait and see.”
NEXT
Darkness had fallen. The nights were definitely getting cold. There was more than just a snap of chill in the air. There was a hint of real winter coming down on them. Cutter had both a wood-burning stove and an oil-burning heater that he had cobbled together and created that was effective, Jean had found. It wasn’t up to the specs that her father would have demanded of such a thing, but it got the job done. Still, she worried a little over carbon monoxide when they used it, making sure to keep some air circulating to prevent an accident. They’d all hunted for a working carbon gas detector, but had never located one.
Jean looked up. The stars were shining clear, more brilliant than she had ever seen them. There was no moon and the night was extremely dark. She was hard pressed to tell the rooftop from the waist-high wall that kept them all from wandering off the edge.
Of course, there was one direction where there was no problem seeing. Off to the west she had no trouble at all making out the dimensions of Douglas Airport.
“Jesus,” she whispered. The thing was lit up like a circus. The sight and incongruity of it was amplified by the fact that there was almost no other artificial light visible anywhere else on the horizon. As far as you could see in every direction, there was nothing but looming black. But there, nearby, was that huge blight of yellow and white gleaming in the night.
Jean could even hear the place over the distance of its miles. It was humming with life and activity. And occasionally there came the muffled crump of a small explosion. Either a land-mine going off or the detonations of what Ron had told her were mortar rounds. The deaders were coming out of the surrounding lands, attracted by the light and smells and activity. What shamblers were not wiped out or that did not collect in vast clots of stinking flesh at the airport fences were being diverted around the perimeter, many of them finding their ways to the city center.
She listened as Ron came out of the house, his boots crunching along the rooftop as he wound his way toward her until she could feel him standing beside her.
“The zombies are coming out of the forest. Those idiots are pulling them in for miles and miles around with their ‘round the clock work.”
“The Colonel warned me that it would be like this,” he said. He felt a mild breeze slicing across the roof, its power magnified by the drop in temperature.
“Couldn’t they work just in daylight? Take some time to whittle the deaders’ numbers down while it’s light out?”
“They’re not concerned with that,” Ron explained. “All they want to do is get the work done so that the rest of them can fly in and get things started.”
With that, she turned and put her arms around Cutter, f
eeling the warmth of his body. Here was the strongest man she’d met since her father had been cut down by cowards.
“I believe you,” she said. “About these people. The new ones.” Turning her head, she peered at the lights glaring out that allowed the workers out there to labor through the night, clearing the runways, reinforcing the fences, repairing the neglected infrastructure. “They don’t care about us.”
Ron put his arms around his woman, his beauty. “Oh, they care about us. Just not in the way you might want them to. Not the way you and I care about one another. Like we care about Oliver and how Oliver cares about us.” He paused. “They’re not family, that’s for sure.”
“Should we just head out? Now? Before they get here?”
Cutter was silent, considering their options as he always did, the wheels that never stopped spinning. “Not quite yet,” he told her. “But probably soon.” If he had to, he knew that he could get Jean and Oliver out of the city; headed toward somewhere they could be safe for a while. But he didn’t tell her about his promise to the Colonel. Not because he didn’t think he could trust her with the knowledge, but because he wasn’t completely sure that he would keep that promise.
Across the distance, the two of them stood and watched the activity—not unlike the buzz and drone of some kind of automated colony of machines.
NEXT
A few days later, a second gigantic Galaxy aircraft appeared in the skies. It came in from the west, circled lazily around the city, then headed in for another of those amazing slow-motion approaches. The engines roared. Far off, as it touched down, everyone could hear the moan of the multitudes of the dead—a sound they’d almost forgotten but which was once again very real.
“What are they doing out there?” Oliver asked. They were all on the roof looking toward the new center of everyone’s attention: the airport.
“They’re getting ready to make Charlotte their new home,” Ron told him. “They’ve come with their heavy weapons and their creature comforts and they’re going to live here.” He pointed to the Trust Tower, empty now of its crazed former denizen. “That’s going to be their home…their castle.”
The Coalition: Part III 2% Solution Of The Dead (COALITON OF THE LIVING Book 3) Page 8