by JE Gurley
“What’s up?” he asked Anson after Tabitha had left.
“Didn’t you think it a bit odd that she didn’t ask us where we came from or why we were here?”
“Now that you mention it, it did seem strange. Maybe she’s just happy to have guests.”
“There’s more. She said she was the operations director, but she’s wearing a badge that says Tabitha Jewels, Maintenance.”
Marino wondered why he had failed to notice any of this, while Anson had. He thought Anson’s suspicions were running away with him. “Maybe she gave herself a promotion,” he suggested.
Anson nodded. “Perhaps, but this plague has taken its toll on people’s minds. We’ve been fighting to escape Antarctica so we’ve been focused on an immediate goal. Someone who has simply waited for help to arrive might not do as well.”
“Like Gilford and Basky.”
“Exactly.”
Marino remembered their near brush with death with Gilford. “Should we leave?”
Anson took a moment to answer. “No. We’ll wait and see. We can’t leave tonight anyway.”
Marino pointed to the unoccupied Lear jet. “I’m locking the door if you expect me to get any sleep.”
Anson smiled, “A proper precaution.”
* * * *
“You two sleeping all morning?” Tabitha yelled through the door.
As she knocked again, Marino jerked awake, briefly confused as to where he was. He looked around at the lavish fittings of the Lear jet and remembered. He and Anson had slept on extremely comfortable couches, the closest thing to a real bed he had slept in many weeks. Anson was already up.
“Just about ready,” he answered Tabitha’s question. He looked over at Marino. “Sleep all right?”
Surprisingly, he had fallen asleep very quickly and had slept quite soundly. He threw back the blanket covering him. “Yeah. Well enough.”
“Good. I want to visit my sister today. It’s not too far from here.”
“I’m coming with you, right?” Marino asked. He didn’t want to be left alone with Tabitha.
“Sure. We’ll take the Ural.” He walked over to the door and opened it. Tabitha stepped inside. She carried a clipboard in her hand.
“You’ll have to taxi the C-130 off the runway to make room for more planes. You can park it in front of the large hangar at the end.” She made a check on the paper. “Hangar Six.”
Anson and Marino exchanged glances at her mention of more planes.
“Certainly,” Anson answered. “Afterwards, Marino and I are going into the city to look for my sister.”
Tabitha’s face turned ashen. “You can’t,” she gasped. “It’s too dangerous.”
Marino noted her extreme reaction. “We’ll be armed,” he said.
“I can’t let you risk your lives. We will need your C-130 to evacuate the city.”
“Can’t let us,” Marino began, getting angry. Anson stopped him.
“We’ll be back soon. Perhaps, we can find another pilot to help with the evacuation. I’m really just a novice.”
She stared at her clipboard and thumped its edge with her thumb before answering. “I suppose that will be okay,” she said slowly. Then she smiled, looked at her watch and said, “Just as long as you’re back for the evacuation.”
“Oh, we will be,” Anson assured her.
“Well, I have to make my rounds.” She slipped the clipboard under her arm. “Will you join me for dinner?”
Anson let a broad smile slide over his face. “We would be honored,” he said.
Marino watched the bizarre exchange with curiosity, taking particular interest in the manner in which Anson kept his voice soft and spoke to her slowly so he did not alarm her. Her fantasy of an evacuation was probably how she had coped with the Demise as well as she had. He rolled the word around his tongue. Demise. He didn’t know who had coined it, but it seemed an appropriate name for the end of the world.
She returned to her Lear jet, humming softly, and closed the door behind her.
“She scares the crap out of me,” he told Anson.
“We won’t be seeing her again after today. We’ll move the C-130 just as she asked. Tomorrow, if I don’t find my sister, we head to Lake Eyre.”
“We’re just going to leave her here?” In spite of his concern for her, he agreed with Anson. He just felt bad not offering a token protest.
“The bike will only seat two if we carry any supplies.” When Marino said nothing, he added, “She’ll be fine. Who knows, another plane may land. Her lights saved our ass.”
Marino nodded. “You’re right. Okay.”
Anson taxied the Hercules C-130 down the runway to hangar number six and killed the engines. The big plane was never going to fly again without more fuel. He lowered the ramp and rolled the Ural out of the cargo hold.
“We’ll leave the sidecar here,” he said. “That will make it easier to maneuver around obstacles.”
The Russian-made motorcycle cranked on the second try. Anson straddled the seat and Marino hopped on the back. Both carried their rifles slung over their shoulders and their pistols. Marino noticed Tabitha standing at the edge of the hangar door watching them as they rode off. As they passed the international terminal, Marino saw hundreds of zombies milling around inside the building, passengers of the half dozen jets parked on the tarmac outside. Some of the zombies began beating at the glass when they noticed the motorcycle.
“How come there aren’t any zombies outside?” he asked.
“Probably because the new director of operations shot them and dragged their bodies off the field. Couldn’t have a plane trying to dodge zombies, could you?”
In spite of Anson’s sarcasm, he suspected Tabitha had done just that. Then he saw the chains and padlock around the terminal doors and grinned. She had secured the zombies inside the terminal where they would be out of the way.
“She may be crazy,” he said, “but she’s damned efficient.”
The parking lots overflowed with vehicles, some parked on the sides of the road. Wrecks blocked every entrance to the airport. Marino could imagine the chaos as tens of thousands of frightened people attempted to flee the city when the zombie plague struck. Here, decomposed bodies littered the area and hundreds of zombies lumbered about behind a chain link fence.
Anson wisely avoided the A15 and stuck with side roads. Royal Park, where his sister lived, was north of the airport. The trip that normally took half an hour, took them three hours. They backtracked around blocked roads, barricades, wrecks, and crowds of zombies. Marino was thoroughly lost. He hoped that Anson knew where they were. To avoid major highways, they were skirting too close to downtown for Marino’s comfort. Entire city blocks of buildings were now weed-covered mounds of blackened rubble with the occasional broken stump of a chimney protruding like a tombstone. They reminded Marino of ancient burial mounds. He wondered if any future generations of archaeologists would sift through them in an effort to determine the cause of the Demise. From the devastation he could see, he doubted it.
One ruined building seemed particularly troubling to Anson, who stopped the bike and stared at it. Burned vehicles lined the road, jeeps, half-ton trucks, even an armored personnel carrier.
“What was it?” Marino asked.
“Hampstead Barracks. Things must have gotten pretty hairy.”
Marino continued to stare at the building as they rode away wondering what had necessitated its destruction. Anson’s sister lived in a brick bungalow in what had once been a pleasant neighborhood across from an elementary school. The empty swings, abandoned baseball field and broken windows of the school revealed a tale of chaos and carnage repeated a hundredfold throughout the city. This, more than anything he had seen or experienced, brought home the terrible devastation and loss. Marino brushed back a tear.
Anson pulled up in the driveway and killed the engine. The tomb-like silence was an assault on his senses. The missing echoes of school bells, laughing children and ex
asperated teachers hung like an invisible death shroud over the city.
“Her car is here.” The tension is Anson’s voice only heightened Marino’s unease.
“Maybe she left with your brother,” Marino suggested.
At the door, Anson hesitated before trying the knob. Marino saw the big man take a deep breath and enter. He hung back, not wanting to witness the scene that might confront his friend. After a few minutes, Anson emerged. In his hand dangled a piece of paper.
“My brother made it here,” he said, his voice cracking. “They stayed here until three days ago and left for Lake Eyre in his Land Rover. If not for that damn storm . . . He’s a bright lad. They made it okay.”
Marino nodded, unwilling to let his voice betray his doubts. How could anyone have survived the ruin and wreckage that had been Adelaide? He could tell by Anson’s tense stance that he too had doubts, but stubbornly clung to the slim hope that had brought him here from Antarctica. Anson carefully folded the note and put it in his shirt pocket.
“Let’s get back to the airport and grab our stuff. We can be at Lake Eyre in a few days.”
“Why not take the Lear jet?”
Anson smiled. “The Lear needs a long runway. We might not find one where we’re going.”
“Okay,” Marino said, conceding the point.
On the return trip, Anson avoided as many neighborhoods as possible by taking a small road through a park following the river. Twice, they had to stop and shoot zombies who stumbled out of the brush and into the street in front of them. They followed a railroad past what had once been a major power grid for the city. Twisted, blackened girders were all that remained of it.
Tabitha was not around when they made it back to the hangar, making her rounds in the jeep. Twice they heard rifle fire nearby. Marino suspected it was Tabitha eliminating zombies. A short time later, as they fueled the Ural, she walked in and stared at them and the loaded motorcycle.
Tabitha shook her head. “I don’t believe you. You’re running away, like the others.” She raised the rifle and pointed it at Anson’s chest. “You can’t leave. People depend on us.”
Marino felt the weight of the pistol on his hip, wondering if he could get to it before she got off a shot. The thought that she was probably a better shot than he was stayed his hand. He hoped Anson could talk some sense into her.
“We’ll be back with more help, more pilots,” Anson said, walking slowly toward her.
She appeared confused, but Anson’s calm voice finally got through to her. She lowered the rifle and nodded. “Yes, more pilots. We need more pilots for the evacuation. See if you can locate the new base. I’ve seen helicopters fly over and head back east.”
“Helicopters?” Marino asked, excited at her revelation. “What kind? How many?”
Anson motioned for him to calm down and then turned to Tabitha. “Government helicopters?”
She nodded. “Big, twin rotor jobs. One flew over last week. I tried to signal, but I was too late.”
“We’ll find it,” Anson promised, “and tell them what a fine job you’ve been doing preparing for the evacuation.”
She smiled, “Just doing my duty.”
“We’ll wait until daylight to leave.”
Marino wanted to shout, “No, leave now and get away from the crazy woman with the gun,” but Anson was the pilot. His decision carried the weight.
“That’s the best time,” she said.
She smiled, slung her rifle over her shoulder, and walked back outside through a small side door. Marino hadn’t realized he had been holding his breath until he exhaled loudly.
“The woman’s cracked,” he said.
Anson held out two fingers just millimeters apart and frowned. “You came this close to getting shot. What were you thinking?”
“I, uh, I don’t know. She just got on my nerves. Jesus! Didn’t anybody survive this, but crackpots and crazy people?”
Anson glared at him. Marino realized he had just included Anson’s brother and sister in his rant.
“I didn’t mean … I just … Oh, hell, I’ve got a big mouth.”
After a few seconds, the tension drained from Anson’s face. “Forget it.”
* * * *
The next morning, riding out of the city, Anson did not speak for some time. He had been silent since rising. Finally, after maneuvering the bike around numerous auto accidents and hastily erected barricades, he pulled to the side of the street and killed the engine.
“This will take hours, and we’ve got more cities to pass through as we head north. I’ve been thinking.”
“That could be a problem,” Marino joked, but Anson acted as if he had not heard.
“Parafield is near here. It’s a smaller airport where I took my training. If there are any light aircraft, we could be at Eyre in hours.”
Marino shrugged. He was just a passenger. “Whatever you think best.”
Anson cranked the bike and drove with renewed determination. Parafield proved indeed a smaller airport with shorter runways and just a few hangars. One stood at the end of the field. Anson drove toward it as if familiar with it. Dismounting from the bike, they carefully entered the hangar through the partially open door. Three small aircraft emerged from the shadows as they slid the door open wider.
“Isn’t it a beauty?” Anson declared, staring at a small, yellow airplane.
Marino stood in front of the Piper Cub and eyed it with doubt. It looked too flimsy to fly. “It looks like it belongs in a museum.”
Anson was smiling broadly. “It’s a 1948 Piper PA-15 Vagabond. They produced only about 600. You were right about it being a museum piece, but someone has put a lot of love into its upkeep. It has a 65 horsepower Lycoming engine with a maximum speed of 163 kilometers per hour.”
“That’s a smaller engine than the Ural. Are you sure you want to take this instead?”
“Oh, ye of little faith. This sweet thing will get us there in style.”
They located aviation fuel drums outside the hangar and used a hand pump to fill the tanks. As Marino ferried supplies from the Hercules to the Piper, and stowed them in the tiny rear of the plane, he had an idea.
“What if we take the Ural apart? Will it fit then?”
Anson stared at him in bewilderment before smiling. “You just earned your passage, Val my boy. Great idea.”
Marino was surprised at how much his friend’s praise meant to him. He hadn’t exactly tried to curry favor from the big Aussie since they had gone out on the ice together, but Anson’s compliments were few and far between.
“The tanks are full, and food and ammo stored. All that’s left is the bike.”
After cramming the dismantled bike, minus the sidecar, in the rear of the airplane, Marino stared at the yellow Piper with some trepidation.
“I hope the hell this isn’t a mistake,” he said to himself.
22
Sept. 6, 2013 Camp Rapier, Woomera, Australia–
When that lovely, wonderful voice burst from the radio, Alex’s doubts fell away like an encumbering cocoon, leaving him a newborn butterfly, unfettered and light. Hope flowed from an unending fountain inside, washing over Nicole as well. She almost swooned, sagging against Alex and repeatedly digging her nails into his shoulder. There were survivors at Camp Rapier. The ADF was still in control.
“MCP 229. It’s good to hear a new voice. How many survived.”
“KRT 615. Six. I’m afraid we lost one yesterday.”
Alex felt Nicole’s grip on his shoulder tighten as his own relief slowly vanished. “Six? Only six?”
“KRT 615. We are a secure military research facility. We are surrounded by zombies. Repeat, do not attempt to reach us. It is too dangerous.”
Alex laughed into the mic. “Dangerous? Tell me about dangerous. We’ve been fighting zombies for weeks. It’s hell out here.”
“I’m sorry. I know how you must feel. We can’t reach you, and you can’t reach us, but you can help us.”
> “How?”
“We’ve been doing research on the Demise. Any observations you might relate to us concerning the Demise, how it developed in your city, how many resurrected, how many infected would be useful to us. We’ve been stuck here unable to make direct observations except for our immediate vicinity and it has, er, cost us.”
Alex’s hand tightened on the mic. He swallowed to moisten his suddenly dry throat. Had he heard right? “Infected? I thought the infected died quickly and came back as zombies a day or so later. I’ve seen a few people immune to the plague.”
“No one is immune to the virus. The nanites might remain inactive for some time in certain people, but they are not dead. Eventually, everyone will succumb to the plague.”
The words seemed to fade away as Alex dropped the mic. He stood, his legs wobbly, and shuffled in a small circle around the radio, unsure what to do. Everything he had fought for, all he had done to survive meant nothing. He glanced at Nicole. Her eyes were blank holes in an ashen face as she digested the radio’s sentence of death. They were both walking dead, maybe moments away from becoming the thing they both abhorred.
He saw Nicole’s hand go to her side and touch the butt of her pistol, caressing it with two fingers. He knew what she intended, but couldn’t find a reason to stop her. Maybe they should do each other and end their futile search for refuge in a dead and dying world. The voice on the radio droned on, the words meaning nothing, until one sentence broke through the gloom that had descended on him, consuming him from the inside – “… We are very close to a cure.”
He grabbed the microphone. “Say again MCP 229,” he almost shouted in his eagerness, his words catching in his throat.
“I said we might have a way to deactivate the nanite virus, but we need to test it on live zombies. Our attempts to secure test subjects have been disastrous. We’ve lost two of our researchers trying.”
Alex clung to the iota of hope offered by the disembodied voice on the other end of the radio like a man dangling from root over a bottomless precipice.