Thunder and Ashes

by Z. A. Recht

  When Stiles was in front of the door, he froze again.

  What was behind the door? It could have been just one sprinter, but the stench told him there was a corpse in there somewhere. Was the corpse a shambler, or was it truly dead? Or, perhaps, was there more than one sprinter behind the door, and he’d only heard the one?

  Stiles’ hand hovered over the doorknob for a while, then pulled away. No, that was too risky. Better to fight them on his terms.

  Stiles backed away, put a brace of meters between himself and the door, and knelt down on the floor. He took aim at the doorway, took another deep breath to steady himself, and then flat-palmed the wall repeatedly, making the hallway shudder. He whistled a piercing note, held it for as long as he could, and then started the litany of insults he’d used in the streets all over again:

  “Hey, hey fucker! Yeah, you in the room! You ugly, mangy, infected bastard! How about a quick snack, huh? You want a Stiles steak? Well, you’re going to have to work for it, you rotten piece of god-da—”

  The door blew off its hinges, hanging limply, and the infected came crashing into the hallway. It was large—at least two hundred pounds—and had the look of a linebacker, complete with a bloodstained, ripped sports jersey.

  It swiveled its head in Stiles’s direction, fixed him with a baleful stare, and roared.

  “Hi,” Stiles said.

  The rifle was already leveled.

  All he had to do was squeeze the trigger.

  The round caught the infected in the side of its forehead, and its head snapped back. A look of confused frustration played across its face, then it wobbled on its feet and fell forward to the floor. The whole hallway shuddered with the impact.

  Stiles levered another round into the chamber and rose to his feet, keeping the rifle trained on the body. He held his position for a few seconds, but the corpse didn’t move. Blood, black in the dimness, began to spread out in a pool under the infected’s head.

  Stiles sidestepped the corpse and made his way to the room the infected had occupied. He peered around the corner, aimed his flashlight in, and gagged.

  He wasn’t sure if he was looking at the infected’s wife, girlfriend, or acquiantance, but whoever she had been in life didn’t much matter now. The infected had torn her apart. The room was a bedroom, and the victim had been in bed, maybe even asleep, when she had been attacked. The sheets had once been white, but were now black and crusted with dried blood. The walls beside the bed were similarly marred. The only noise in the room was the sound of a pair of flies buzzing around the body in the darkness. One arm stuck up from the corpse, fingers curled and rigid in decay. The mouth hung open and a swollen tongue protruded from it, hanging over cracked lips. It looked like the corpse was pleading for some kind of release.

  Stiles backpedaled and held a hand up to his mouth, then turned and bolted for the staircase leading back down to the stockroom. He made it as far as the clerk’s desk before surrendering to the urge. He fell to his knees and vomited up his candy bar into a trash bin. He remained there for a few minutes, heaving every now and then, and finally fell away from the bin, his back against the wall.

  “Damn it,” he muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  At that moment he comprehended that he was going to end up like the poor bastard he’d just shot upstairs, and it was only a slightly better fate than ending up like the woman in the bed. He looked down again at his leg and nearly sobbed, reminded once more of the fact that he’d be joining the ranks of the infected in a few days.

  He wondered if he had the willpower to turn his rifle on himself.

  He would just have to give it time and see how things turned out.

  Private Mark Stiles sat alone in the darkness of Hyattsburg and waited.

  March 03, 2007

  East of Aspen, Colorado

  1456 hrs_

  A STRANGE-LOOKING CONVOY ROUNDED a bend on the narrow mountain road, engines roaring. In the lead was a utility truck, white panels painted over in flat greens and browns, a mottled, homemade camouflage. Barbed wire had been bolted to the sides and front of the truck, giving it a bristly, uneven look.

  Next came a sedan, a battered, twenty-year-old Mercury that had been painted over in a fashion similar to the truck. Splashes of the paint had gotten on the windows, and the vehicle was filled to the brim with passengers and backpacks. A luggage rack had been strapped to the roof, and it, too, was filled to capacity with odds and ends, from tents to red plastic gas cans. The latter would have blown away if they hadn’t been roped down; the cans jostled one another as the wind whistled past and rang hollow when they struck.

  Third in the line was a Ford pickup truck. It had gotten the least amount of effort, it seemed, paint-wise, having only received a coat of flat green, but the tires had been replaced with heavy-duty off-road numbers, and the front grill had been reinforced with steel rebar. The bed had received work as well. More rebar had been added, making a vertical fence that ran along the outside of the truck. Barbed wire had been strung between the steel bars, wound tightly enough that it was hard to see through. Narrow slits cut through the wire on either side provided the occupants with a way of both seeing and shooting anything hostile that tried to approach.

  The convoy was making good time. They’d come almost a thousand miles in almost two weeks, which was much faster than they’d thought they’d be able to maintain. They wouldn’t be able to keep it up for much longer, though.

  In the lead vehicle, the utility truck, Command Sergeant Major Thomas sat at the wheel, deftly negotiating the treacherous curves and dips of the mountain roads. He was clean-shaven, as was his passenger, having made it a point to maintain his appearance despite the end of the world. Old soldiers had standards. His graying hair, once kept close-cropped, was beginning to grow out, and Thomas had tucked it up under a rapidly fading cap.

  Next to him sat Frank Sherman, formerly Lieutenant General in command of the coalition forces at the Suez canal quarantine zone. He no longer considered himself an officer, but some of the survivors in the ragtag group that followed him still addressed him as one, including Thomas. He was dressed in civilian hunting clothes and dinged-up combat boots, swearing at a map he had held up in front of his face.

  “This is ridiculous,” Sherman said, trying to smooth out a crease in the map. “This road was supposed to intersect with an interstate a good twenty miles back. Are you sure we didn’t miss it?”

  “Yes, sir,” Thomas said. “Didn’t see no signs. No entry ramps. Nothing. We just haven’t gotten to it yet, sir.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Sherman said, disgruntled. He looked out the window into the sideview mirror at the vehicles following behind them. “We’re going to have to do something soon. How much fuel is left?”

  “Quarter tank, sir,” Thomas said.

  “That’s not much,” Sherman sighed. “Gives us just under a hundred miles’ range to find another gas station with something left in the pumps or we’ll be walking the rest of the way to Omaha.”

  “Airports, sir,” Thomas suggested.

  “What?”

  “Check on that map of yours for airports. Most of the gas stations we’ve passed have been picked clean by civvies running out of the towns and into the country. They’re convenient and they’re easy. Airports, on the other hand—”

  “—most people won’t even think to check those. Good idea, Thomas,” Sherman said, peering closer at the map. “Yeah, perfect, looks like there’s a regional field a little bit north of us. Maybe thirty miles. Have you seen any signs? What’s the next road we’ll be coming to?”

  “Should be Route 13,” Thomas said.

  Sherman chuckled. “That’s lucky.”

  “No disrespect intended, sir, but since when do you give a crap about superstition?”

  “I don’t, Thomas. It just struck me funny. Take 13 North.”

  “Yes, sir. And it could be worse, sir,” Thomas said.

  “How so?”
/>   “Could be Route 666.”

  Sherman chuckled again. “Didn’t know you had a sense of humor.”

  “Sometimes I feel generous, sir.”

  Thomas pointed out the windshield at an approaching sign that said the junction with Route 13 was a mile ahead. Sherman nodded.

  “How were the food supplies looking this morning?” Sherman asked after a moment had passed in silence.

  “On the low side, sir,” Thomas said. “We have enough to keep us going another few days. We could stretch it to a week if we cut back on rations, but we’re already on diets as it is.”

  “I don’t think more rationing would go over very well either,” Sherman agreed. “That’s something else we’ll have to remedy soon. Too bad airlines aren’t known for their food.”

  “Oh, you’re a riot today, sir,” Thomas drawled.

  Sherman grinned. “Still, let’s set a detail to look for anything edible when we get to the field. You never know.”

  Thomas nodded and flicked on his left turn signal. The junction with Route 13 was coming up fast, and he wanted to make sure the drivers behind him followed when he took the turn.

  Behind the utility truck, in the cab of the pickup, sat Ewan Brewster, riding shotgun. He tapped his foot against the floorboard in time to the beat of the country ballad playing through the speakers, and turned up the cassette player in the dash. He hung his head out the passenger window and narrowed his eyes at the utility truck ahead of them with its blinking turn signal, then turned to Mbutu Ngasy, who was sitting at the wheel.

  “Looks like Thomas found the road he was looking for,” Brewster said over the music. “Left turn coming up.”

  “Very good,” Mbutu said. He knocked his hand against the rear window, alerting the passengers in the back that something was up.

  A moment later, the window was pulled open, and Denton stuck his head in, looking left and right at the two occupants.

  “What’s up?” he asked. The Canadian photographer looked the most at home on the road out of anyone in the group; he’d gotten used to roughing it on assignments that had taken him around the world several times over before the pandemic had struck. He seemed relaxed and composed compared to the rest.

  “Hold on. We’re turning,” Mbutu said.

  “Gotcha,” Denton replied. He pulled himself free and turned to the other passengers to pass the message along. “Sit down, we’re turning.”

  “Does this mean we’re not lost anymore?” Ron asked, sitting with his back to the tailgate.

  “I don’t know,” Denton shrugged. “I hope not. We put the last of the fuel into the tanks this morning. If we don’t find a station soon to get a refill we’ll be hitching.”

  “Hell, that wasn’t safe before the pandemic,” said Rebecca Hall, fixing Denton with a stare. “It’s probably murder now. Count me out. I’ll just walk the rest of the way to Omaha.”

  Denton grinned at the medic. “Then we’ll see you in six months, because it’s going to take you that long to get there on foot.”

  “Better than being carrier chow,” she shot back.

  “Given,” Denton said, shrugging.

  Jack, a civilian contractor who’d proved his worth in Hyattsburg weeks earlier, was sitting along one side of the bed next to Mitsui, another contractor, trying to get the gist of the conversation across to the slight Japanese man via simple words and hand signs. He managed to communicate Rebecca’s desire to walk if worse came to worst by pointing at her and then “walking” a pair of fingers across his palm. Mitsui looked at Rebecca and grinned.

  “What the hell are you looking it?” she snapped.

  “Don’t let them bother you,” Katie Dawson said, leaning on Rebecca’s shoulder. “Construction workers are all the same around the world, I guess.”

  “Hey, I’m not a construction worker. I’m a government contractor,” Jack protested.

  The pickup truck slowed and went into a tight turn, following the utility truck in the lead. A bright white sign with the number 13 centered on it flashed past, and the convoy straightened out on its new course, northward bound.

  1701 hrs_

  The regional airfield looked at first glance to be deserted, but the survivors had long ago learned to be immediately suspicious of anything that looked like a free lunch. The vehicles pulled up to the main gate and stopped. Doors opened and people dismounted, wandering to the front of the small convoy to survey what lay in front of them.

  Sherman stood with his arms folded, looking through the chain link gate that stood in their way across the field to the airport itself. It was small as far as airports went: a single story, around two hundred feet long, with a control tower that jutted up from one end and a pair of modest hangars just across a narrow runway. It was built out of poured concrete, with wide, floor-to-ceiling glass panels all along the front. The doors were shut tightly. No lights lit the runway or structures in the quickly dimming evening. No noises disturbed the calm except for a few birds in the treeline off in the distance. Their calls seemed muted and reluctant.

  Sherman sighed, then turned to face Thomas, who was standing just behind him, arms akimbo.

  “How much fuel is left now?”

  “Eighth of a tank, sir. Forty mile range, tops,” Thomas said.

  “Looks like we don’t have a choice. Krueger! Brewster! Up front!” Sherman called out.

  The two soldiers appeared immediately. Krueger saluted. Brewster waved.

  “Sir?” Krueger asked.

  “Get this gate open, then follow us in. We’ll be staying here tonight, after we clear the buildings,” Sherman said.

  “Yes, sir,” Krueger replied.

  “You got it,” Brewster said.

  The two grabbed hold of the gate and pulled it open, grunting with the strain, as the rest of the group piled back into the vehicles.

  “Come on, come on, put your back into it,” Brewster chuckled.

  “I am,” Krueger said, gritting his teeth. “Heavier than I thought it would be.”

  “Just a little farther,” Brewster said, putting in one final burst of effort. The gate slid back and caught in the open position. “There! Got it!”

  The convoy roared to life, headlights came on, and the vehicles rolled forward through the breach. Krueger and Brewster snapped up their weapons, having leaned them against the fence to free up their hands, and followed them through. They stopped on the other side of the fence and grabbed the gate once more, this time pulling it shut behind themselves. The two trucks and the sedan continued on down the concrete road, eventually pulling to a complete stop in front of the main building’s entrance. They angled themselves so the headlights were facing into the building, cutting a wide swath through the darkness.

  By the time Brewster and Krueger had caught up, the remainder of the survivors had disembarked and armed themselves.

  “Gate’s shut, sir,” Krueger said to Sherman.

  “Excellent. The fence around the edge of this place makes for a good line of defense, but we’ll still have to make sure we’re alone before we can relax,” Sherman said. He turned away from the group, let his eyes play over the structures in front of him, and formulated a quick plan. “All right, let’s divide into three groups. One group clears the tower, one clears the terminal, and the third will clear the hangars down there, hooah?”

  The survivors nodded their assent and began to break off into groups. It was an inevitable part of any group dynamic that cliques had begun to form on the road between Hyattsburg and their current location, and it was into those cliques that the survivors broke.

  “We’ve got the tower,” Ron said, pointing up at the structure with his free hand. His other gripped his weapon of choice, a dented, stained machete. Following close behind him were Katie and Rebecca.

  Mbutu trailed after the trio, shouldering a rifle. He called back over his shoulder, “I will go with them.”

  “I suppose we’ll take the hangars,” Brewster said, cracking open his double-
barreled shotgun and checking to make certain it was loaded. “Coming, guys?”

  “Right behind you, man,” Krueger said, working the bolt on his .30–06.

  “Time to go play tag with Death again, eh?” Denton said, following after them.

  A third soldier, Wilson, jogged after them as well.

  “I guess that leaves us the terminal,” Sherman said, checking his pistol and glancing sideways at Thomas, who was eyeing the building with suspicion.

  “We’re right behind you, General,” Jack said. Mitsui needed no translation for that, and nodded in agreement.

  “No time like the present,” Thomas said. He pushed open the terminal doors and entered, weapon at the ready.

  The tower’s entrance was a pair of steel double doors at ground level. They looked sturdy enough to stand up to a car running full bore into them, but luckily, they were unlocked.

  Ron pulled both of them open, allowing what little natural light remained to flood the interior of the structure. The ground floor, at least, was devoid of occupants, living or dead. A wide spiral staircase led straight up to the tower itself.

  “This reminds me of home,” Mbutu said, poking his head in the doorway and looking up.

  “That’s right, you were an air traffic controller, weren’t you?” Katie asked.

  “Yes,” Mbutu said, “In Mombasa.”

  “It was one of the first cities to be overwhelmed,” Rebecca added, stepping past the others and entering the tower first. “He was lucky to make it out alive.”

  “Let’s hope that luck is sticking around,” Ron said. “Let’s go.”

  The group made their way up the spiral staircase, taking their time, using their ears more than their eyes in the dimness. No sounds could be heard ahead of them, but they weren’t about to let their guard down. The stairs wound around twice before they arrived at the top.

  The tower was empty. Chairs had been tucked in under consoles and screens had been covered with clear plastic sheeting to protect them against dust and time. A coffee pot sat on a folding table near the top of the stairs, clean as the day it was purchased. All the power indicators were off.