The Last Town

by Knight, Stephen

  Corbett swiveled to face Grady. “The Second Amendment doesn’t seem to cover that particular detail, Chief.”

  “That’s not the point!” Hector slapped a hand on the table. “This is a peaceful place to live, and you want to turn it into a right-wing police state!”

  Ignoring Hector, Corbett continued to address Grady. “Chief, I think the answers regarding who can or cannot possess a firearm can be found in the California Firearms Law Summary released by the attorney general’s office. For people who are mentally incompetent or who might be precluded from possessing a firearm due to previous criminal convictions, I have no problem denying access. On the other hand, folks who aren’t in a restricted category should be allowed to learn how to defend themselves, their fellow citizens, and the town. Remember, they’ll be shooting at the walking dead, not live people.”

  “But we don’t even know if these people are actually dead!” Hector snapped. “No one has proven anything. They could simply be very sick people who need our help.”

  “Hector, you saw an attack yourself,” Gemma Washington said, turning toward the mustachioed pharmacy owner. She sat between Hector and Chief Grady. “You were there. Was Wally Wallace still alive when he attacked Lou?”

  Hector rolled his eyes. “Of course he was still alive! How else could he have bitten Lou?”

  Corbett looked back at Grady. “Chief, what’s your take on that?”

  “I’m not a doctor.”

  “No, but you’re a policeman.”

  Grady fidgeted in his seat. “Listen, I’m not qualified to say. I didn’t see him drop. When I got to Hector’s, he had already attacked Lou, and he was going after Hailey, so I did what I had to do. He was definitely dead afterwards, though. That much is certain.”

  Corbett waved a hand dismissively. “All right. To continue, anyone who wants to learn will need instruction on how to handle and use firearms as well as specific defensive tactics. It’s going to take a long time to get all the fortifications made, so folks will have to train up on what we have now then be retrained with what we’ll have in the future.”

  “About some of those plans,” Booker said, speaking for the first time since the session had begun, “are you set on partitioning the town?”

  “I am. It’s the safest bet. If there’s a break-in, we’ll need to be able to shrink our perimeter and still keep everyone safe.”

  Hector snorted. “So not only do you want to put up walls around the town, you want to put them up inside too. That’s simply ridiculous.”

  “I have to say, I’m not much of a fan of it, either,” Booker added.

  Corbett smiled thinly. “No? You’ll think differently when a bunch of slobbering, flesh-hungry ghouls are chasing your ass down Main Street, Max.”

  Anger coursed through Booker. “Hey, I don’t deserve that attitude!”

  Corbett ran a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “Listen, by tomorrow, all the trenching will be complete. We’ll reinforce the sewer and gas lines and the water mains, then we’ll begin erecting walls all around the town. It’ll take two or three weeks to complete. By then, we’ll probably start seeing the effects of what’s happening in the larger cities. Everyone’s going to be fighting for resources. Things are going to get very hairy. Not just competitive, mind you, but outright dangerous. And that’s before the zombies get here. If you’ve been watching the news, you know New York is totally down for the count. The entire Tenth Mountain Division is trying to take northern Manhattan, and they’re getting shut down. Boston is starting to destabilize, and so is DC. Los Angeles is about to go the same way. There’s activity in Vegas that gives ‘high-stakes game’ a new meaning. All this means that there’s going to be a mass migration of frightened, panicked people. They won’t have any way to take care of themselves, not over the long term. Too many people have gotten used to all the modern conveniences. Right now, supermarkets are running out of food. When a man’s family is starving, cold, sick, he’ll do anything to take care of them. Anything.

  “So we can’t leave the town open. Every day we do, we run the risk of something happening to us. To you. To your families. We’ve got to think about cutting ourselves off now, while we can still pick the time and manage things without having to fight off a mob.”

  Booker stared at him. “So what’s your solution to this, Barry?”

  “Like I said in the plan, Max. We need to break the highway on either end of town. Make it so no one can get in.”

  Booker shook his head. “No. No way. We’re not doing that yet.”

  “The longer we wait, the more difficult it’s going to become,” Corbett said. “When we finally seal the town, we can’t have outsiders here. We don’t have the—”

  “Barry, no way,” Booker said, raising his voice. “We can’t close the town. Not yet. It’s not time.”

  Hector turned toward him. “What do you mean, ‘not yet’? You don’t plan on actually going through with his plans, do you?”

  “I thought that was decided,” Gemma said.

  “It was,” Booker said reluctantly. “It is.”

  Corbett raised his hands. “Then I don’t see a problem. Let’s get to it.”

  “No, Barry. It’s happening too fast,” Booker said. “We have obligations to the town, to those who need to pass through, even to the state. We can’t start chopping up a highway and deny access. There’s no other road here people can use. What are we expecting them to do, hike over the mountains to get to where they need to go?” Booker pointed toward the western wall, in the general direction of Mount Whitney.

  Corbett nodded. “If they don’t turn around and head back to wherever they came from, then yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying we do. Listen, we’ve had this discussion already. The people caught out in that traffic? Not our problem, Max. It’s regrettable, and it’s unfortunate, and it’s even sad. There are families out there, people who are just trying to get somewhere safe. But we can’t help them. We can maybe save the town and the people who live in it, but we can’t save everybody else while doing it.”

  Hector huffed. “You mean save yourself.”

  Corbett fixed him with a withering glare. “If saving myself was all I was after, then the only wall being built would be around my property. And I’d probably put up a nice tower, too, just to watch you try to figure out how you could survive on your own, Mr. Aguilar.”

  “Barry, what do we do if the zombies come here and there are still people outside?” Gemma asked. “Do we take them in? Do we turn our backs on them?”

  The question interested Booker greatly. He looked at Corbett, waiting for the response.

  But for once, the rangy billionaire didn’t seem to have a ready answer. He sighed then said, “It’s my hope those people will have moved on.”

  “But what if they don’t?” Gemma pressed. “What if they can’t?”

  Corbett clenched his teeth. “Then we let the chips fall where they may.”

  Hector made a satisfied noise and crossed his arms, a sardonic smile forcing the ends of his mustache upward.

  Gemma shook her head. “I don’t know you very well, Barry, but that answer doesn’t seem to sit well with you.”

  “Should it?” Corbett asked. “Nothing about this sits well with me. But this is the hand we’ve been dealt. We’re going to have to turn a cold shoulder on a lot of people. It’s going to be dirty business, but we have to get on with it.” He turned back to Booker. “Now. Weapons training. We need to start bringing the rest of the town in on this. We’ll need an open meeting. People need to know what’s going on and why we’re doing what we’re doing.”

  “A lot of folks are curious,” Grady said. “My officers are being asked a million questions.”

  “Then let’s give them some answers,” Corbett said. “I suggest we let Gary Norton handle the public side. He’s better at that kind of stuff than I am, and he’d be a good backup for you, Max.”

  Booker leaned back in his chair. Letting Norton take
some of the heat was appealing, but if they turned out to be doing a Chicken Little impression, Booker would still feel the brunt of the blowback. He was the mayor, after all. No one was holding a gun to his head and forcing him to enact Corbett’s plan, though he did figure things might come to that if he outright declined to join in the fun. “I’ll consider that. But you’re right, we need to advise the townspeople about what’s going on. We should call a meeting for tomorrow night.”

  “Tonight would be better,” Corbett said.

  Booker frowned and looked at the clock on the wall above the door. “Barry, it’s almost five o’clock now.”

  Corbett nodded. “Better get on it.”

  “Preposterous!” Hector said.

  “Cluing in the town is preposterous?” Corbett responded.

  “You know what I mean! Calling a meeting at the end of the business day is preposterous!”

  Corbett shrugged. “Special circumstances, Hector.” He nodded at Booker. “Up to you guys to figure that out. Circling back to weapons training. I’ll ask Danielle Kennedy to assist, since she has all the training we need and pretty much everyone knows her. For advanced training”—Corbett pointed at his men sitting in the auditorium behind him—“we have some skilled personnel here.”

  Hector started to bloviate again but was interrupted by the radio Grady wore on his belt.

  “Fourteen, copy.”

  “Sorry,” Grady said as he reached for the microphone clipped to his left shoulder. “Fourteen, go ahead.”

  “Fourteen, reported ten-fifty at the two-mile marker on 395. Corrections bus from upstate. Can’t get through to the Highway Patrol. J four.”

  “Ten-four. Clear and direct.” Grady pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “Sorry, gotta go. Some sort of traffic incident involving a bus.”

  “A Corrections bus?” Corbett asked. “Prisoner transport?”

  Grady shrugged as he walked around the table. “Don’t know. I guess the other guys are busy, so I won’t know anything until I get out there.”

  Corbett turned and looked at his bodyguards. “You want some company, Chief?”

  “No,” Grady said, “I don’t. But before I go, when were you planning to start this weapons training, and where did you want to hold it?”

  “On my land. I’ve got fourteen acres and a big berm laid out to keep stray rounds from going anywhere but into the desert.”

  Grady nodded and looked back at Booker. “I’d let him do it, Max. It’s not going to hurt anything.”

  “I’ll take that under advisement,” Booker said. “You sure you don’t need some help?”

  Grady shot him a thumbs-up on his way out the door. “I’m good to go.”

  ###

  Sinclair watched as Los Angeles slowly died and became resurrected. That was the wonderful thing about twenty-four-hour news channels—the truth was always exposed, or at least what part of the truth fit the agenda. He had no idea whose agenda might include broadcasting the shambling dead, but Sinclair never passed up the opportunity to stay abreast of current affairs.

  After tuning in to find out about what was happening in New York, he’d been momentarily pleased to see his building, the revered 15 Central Park West, silhouetted against a smoke-filled sky but still standing tall. Then the camera widened the view. Central Park was full of military personnel that were being overrun by legions of dead. Sinclair watched in horrified fascination as the video feed continued, even though the camera, probably mounted to a remote unit, had long been abandoned.

  Slow, creeping figures overwhelmed the soldiers through sheer numbers alone. And interspersed among them were faster ones, those who hadn’t been damaged too badly in their transition from life to death. They didn’t seem to tire and slowed only when they were hit by a hail of bullets or when they came upon a living person. When that happened, the dead mounded over their quarry, ripping the unfortunate soul to pieces. The dead surged aboard grounded helicopters, ignoring the gunfire and savaging the crews. Two helicopters lifted off, but several of the dead managed to get aboard one of them. The aircraft heeled over and crashed back to the ground, its slashing rotors obliterating several zombies before coming to a halt. In what seemed to be seconds, the chopper had been overrun by a tidal wave, the zombies flailing as they each tried to gain their pound of flesh.

  Sinclair knew then that he would never return to 15 Central Park West.

  The news had then switched to Los Angeles. The City of Angels was more spread out than the Big Apple, so the disease had spread more slowly. But it still couldn’t be contained. A great herd of the dead shuffled along Interstate 405, attacking stranded motorists caught in the nearly motionless traffic, a great conga line eating its way down the miles. Several California Highway Patrol vehicles were overwhelmed. The patrolmen were killed as they tried to flee, their bodies illuminated by the sporadic flashes of emergency lights. News helicopters captured everything, zooming in so Sinclair could watch as the patrolmen met the grisliest of fates in full 720p, which was the highest resolution the blasted hotel’s television could manage. It was enough. By the end of it, Sinclair was sickened by what he had seen and frightened almost out of his mind.

  We have to get out of here. The statement played through his mind on an endless loop, but escape from Single Tree was virtually impossible until the next morning, when he and Meredith would board a bus for Reno. From there, they would try to cut across California and get to the relative safety of San Francisco. The Bay Area was hardly trouble free at the moment, but San Francisco was holding out. Geography worked to its advantage, channeling the dead into a narrow area of approach where the SFPD and National Guard could make a stand. While most of the coverage focused on Los Angeles, a few details about the preparations in San Francisco did get some airtime. A great swath of the city’s southern boundary was being fortified as the authorities prepared to face the inevitable: a great mob of dead that would eventually be coming in search of more prey.

  “Jock, turn it off,” Meredith whispered from the bed. “Please. Just turn it off.”

  Sinclair, sitting on the foot of the bed, turned and looked at her. Meredith was hunkered down under the thin covers, her eyes wide and terrified. She seemed to have aged a dozen years in the past two days. Sinclair sniffed and wondered why he couldn’t have found someone with just as much wealth who was a little hardier. And younger.

  With a sigh, he switched off the television and tossed the remote onto the pillow next to her. “Fine. Watch some Big Bang Theory or something, darling. In the meantime, I’ll go out and try to find us something to eat.”

  LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

  “Okay, the station house is gone for good, and the hospital’s out of commission,” Reese told the rest of the cops in the mobile command center. “The Guard can’t hold back the dead anymore. We’re going to have to consider pulling out and setting up somewhere else.”

  As he spoke, more hovering Apaches poured fire at the advancing zombie hordes. In less than a week, their numbers had grown to be in the thousands, and according to some of the hospital staff, their reproduction rate had been severely underestimated. At first, the medical community had thought they were dealing with a simple virus, a type of respiratory syndrome that was both fatal and untreatable when contracted. But restricting its spread was thought to be relatively easy, and there had been indications that the original viral outbreak had been abating. But those who died from the virus—about one out of ten people—rose up again anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours after expiring. The virus those risen dead carried was much more efficient and able to replicate at an astounding rate the second it was introduced into a living host. Bitten people had only hours to live, and conversion into what was known as a necromorph or a reanimant was guaranteed. Reese thought of all the people who had been bitten in the sprawling hospital. Even though the Guard had been systematically exterminating any zombies it found, there was little chance they’d found all of them, which meant Reese and his
meager command were sitting ducks.

  The Apaches had managed to hold off the hordes for a little while until their weapons ran dry. A rotation was going on, in which dry aircraft were replaced by helicopters with full magazines and rocket pods, but that meant there were gaps in the coverage. Without enough helicopters to go around, requests for what the Guard called CAS were going through the roof. So the Guard troops on the ground had to engage, and according to the latest report from Colonel Morton, they were running out of .50-caliber ammunition. Soon, the great guns in the Humvees would fall silent, and those were the only weapons that could keep the multitude of stenches at bay.

  “So where are we going to go?” asked one of the cops. “Hollywood Station is gone, and we’re not in contact with any other units. Where the hell do you suggest we go, Detective?”

  Reese rubbed his face. His eyes burned as if they were on fire. His hands shook, and he smelled as if he’d been at the firing range for two days. He looked over at Sergeant Bates, who leaned against an interior wall. Bates stared back, his blue eyes vacant but still sharp.

  Outside, the pounding rotor beats changed in pitch. The latest pair of Apaches to arrive was heading back to LAX for more ammo and fuel. Reese listened to the sound of their passage, whirling rotors growing more and more distant. No other aircraft approached, aside from the drone of a single news helicopter orbiting high overhead. One of the tri-barreled .50-calibers opened up, spitting out a short burst.

  “We could try for the Bowl,” Reese said. “A lot of civilians were relocated there. They’ll need our help.”

  Bates shook his head. “Those people are going to need more help than what we can give, Reese.”

  “No,” Marsh said. He was a plainclothes detective who worked the Gang and Narcotics desk at Hollywood Station. “No, the Bowl is where we need to go.”

  Bates frowned. “What the hell for?”