“It is,” Lennon said.
“Jesus.” Victor looked shaken. “There’s no way we’d be able to kill them all. Not even half that. A quarter of that.”
“To be honest, even the entire US Army probably couldn’t do that very quickly,” Lennon said.
“Marines could,” Corbett said.
Lennon smiled thinly. “No, old man. Even we Marines couldn’t do it, but we’ll certainly give it a go if it comes to that.”
“Excuse me, but what exactly are we discussing?” Gemma asked. “I mean, we’ve had this conversation before, in a couple of different ways. Have things changed?” She turned to Corbett. “Barry, you said we might see tens of thousands of them. If you’re right, are you saying that your plan won’t hold?”
“So long as the walls stay upright, the plan is good,” Lennon said. “But there’s a component to it that we hadn’t thought of.”
“What?”
“Mounding,” Lennon responded.
Gemma cocked her head. “Mounding? What does that mean?”
“It’s a type of attack we’ve heard the dead conduct,” Corbett said. “We found out about it from a ham radio operator in Chicago. Basically, the dead pile up on each other against some kind of obstruction and form a mound. Eventually, it gets so high that the mound collapses, and the zombies fall over whatever obstacle caused the pile up. In our case—the walls.”
Booker leaned forward. “You didn’t think of that?”
Norton added, “Yeah, you didn’t think of that?”
Corbett shot Norton an acidic look then turned back to Booker. “We didn’t know that would be a consideration. But, Max, a break-in was always going to be a possibility, regardless of how it occurred. That’s why we worked hard to erect internal defenses instead of just relying on the outside walls.”
Booker spread his hands. “So why are we here?”
“We’ll need to do some things to help ensure the town remains intact,” Lennon said. “One way to prevent a break-in is to avoid attracting any unwanted attention. Right now, the zombies can’t see us. They just see a wall. Most of them will ignore it, and that’s what we want, for them to see nothing of interest and move on. That means people have to avoid being seen, avoid making noise, avoid anything that might indicate to the dead that there’s something of interest behind the wall.”
Victor raised an eyebrow. “You mean you want the entire town to go quiet? No sound, no scents, no lights at night? That kind of stuff?”
Corbett nodded. “Yeah. That kind of stuff.”
Victor chuckled. “Oh, that’s going to go over well.”
“It does beat the alternative.”
“For how long?” Booker asked.
“We suspect the horde will move on in a few days,” Lennon said. “A great many of the dead are already doing just that. Eventually, they’ll all be gone. We figure five to ten days should do it.”
“Five to ten days,” Booker echoed. “How many days can we live on the prepackaged food you have?”
“At three squares a day for everyone in town, about two months, if necessary,” Lennon said.
“Oh.” That seemed to mollify Booker for the moment.
“Okay, but God damn it, they’d better be good,” Norton said.
“Cooking inside of private homes is probably going to be permissible,” Corbett said. “So long as no one’s making kimchi or something. Right, Walt?”
Lennon shook his head. “I’m against it. That’s a stupid chance to take.”
“I rather agree,” Sinclair said, peering around his camera. Everyone turned to look at him.
“Oh, you’re still here,” Norton said. “I liked it better when you were being quiet. It’s such a rare event, I was relishing it.”
“Sorry to have derailed you,” Sinclair replied. “Would you like to retreat to your safe place?”
“Shut up, Jock,” Corbett snapped. “You’re not involved in this. Be quiet, or get the hell out.”
Sinclair harrumphed and went back to the camera.
Corbett returned to the matter at hand. “So no cooking at all, Walt? Could be a tough sell. What’s your plan for enforcing it?”
Lennon sighed. “Self-control is going to be the requirement. If someone breaks the rule, we can always cut the power to their residence. It might not mean much to an individual, but to a man or woman with a family who’s suffering, that might be a suitable punishment.”
“You want to punish families for eating?” Booker asked.
Lennon looked back at him stoically. “I don’t want to punish anyone, Mayor. But if it comes down to it, inconveniencing a family versus losing the entire town doesn’t seem like a tough choice to me.” He nodded to Corbett. “I’ll leave that to you guys.”
“Let’s get the word out on that immediately. No cooking and no lights at night. We need to keep this place under wraps for as long as we can. Everyone will have to do their part.” Corbett checked his watch. “It’s just after one in the afternoon. We need to start notifying the townspeople. Victor, sorry, but your office is going to be chief enforcer and receiver of complaints.”
“Thank you so much,” Victor said, and Corbett couldn’t tell if the bitterness in his voice was real or sarcasm.
###
The horde kept growing.
Over the course of several days, Single Tree became surrounded by a pulsing mass of the dead. All the razor wire had been trampled flat, and the trenches were filled to capacity with squirming dead bodies. A great number of the zombies trudged back out into the desert after finding nothing that piqued their interest, but several thousand managed to cross over the HESCO barriers and push against the unyielding steel walls, as if trying to find a way into the town. It was almost as if they could sense the presence of the living on the other side, but they weren’t coordinated enough to develop a mound that could overcome the tall partitions.
Despite that, they lingered. Time was on the side of the dead.
###
Hector Aguilar had had enough, enough of being bottled up in his house and being ignored by the council, and enough of Barry Corbett and his heavy-handed ways. He had to live in semidarkness during the long nights, and he couldn’t spend every waking moment in the pharmacy. There was nothing really left there anyway. The entire place had been picked clean, and there was no way to restock it. And while he’d made a tidy profit emptying the store, he had nothing to spend the money on. He couldn’t drive his car, so even if there were someplace to go, he couldn’t get there. So he had no choice but to sit at home and fume and fuss over his lot in life, while nursing his simmering hatred for Barry Corbett.
On the afternoon of the fifth day of his exile, he decided it was time for a nice steak, a grilled steak, not something fried in a pan in his kitchen. He was aware of the edict against cooking, but he considered that to be bullshit. He was certain that Corbett, Gary Norton, and their legion of cronies weren’t sitting around eating prepackaged foods. That was what they wanted the townspeople to think, of course, but Aguilar knew better. He knew the ways of the rich and the powerful, how they always managed to skirt the laws of average men and lead lives of great excess. Today, Hector Aguilar would give all of them the finger.
He had one steak left, a lovely cut that had defrosted overnight in his refrigerator. He pulled it out and seasoned it with a tasty pepper rub. Letting it steep for a bit, he walked outside to the patio and set about getting the charcoal fire lit. It took some doing, but soon, the coals were burning brightly. Once they’d gotten down to a ruddy glow, Aguilar brought the steak out and put it on the grill. Fat sizzled, and greasy smoke rose into the air. He inhaled the aroma, and his mouth practically began to water.
Ah, such a delight!
###
The only vehicles that still ran were golf carts. Sinclair was happy to have hitched a ride on one, even if it was being driven by Victor Kuruk. However, he’d been surprised when the tribal chieftain had offered to take him for a “ride along.
”
From the passenger seat of the golf cart, Sinclair saw much more of the town than he would have managed on foot, albeit at a meager sixteen miles per hour. At first, he was content to document the ongoing changes. The town had been broken up into four different sections, not counting the long stretch that ran to the airport. Each section contained a walled-in neighborhood, complete with fortified pathways that led to the next neighborhood. The walls were still being finished, and where their construction had been suspended, tall fences were erected. Those were being additionally fortified with what looked like big cardboard boxes surrounded by a steel mesh. The workers were dumping soil into each box.
“What are those containers?” Sinclair asked.
“Those are HESCO barriers,” Victor said. “Used by the military for reinforcing revetments and the like. Also useful for things like flood control or making mindless zombies go where you want them to go.”
“Is that so?”
“That’s the plan,” Victor said. Even while speaking, he kept his eyes out, scanning the neighborhood.
It was late afternoon, but there was a hint of chill in the air. While jackets weren’t yet required during the day, a long-sleeved shirt was a great idea. Victor wore a police uniform with Single Tree PD patches on the shoulder, but on his breast was a reservation tribal pin. Sinclair was curious about that.
“Say, mate, could I interview you?” Sinclair asked.
“Sure,” Victor said.
Sinclair turned his camera toward the broad-shouldered man and worked on the focus a bit. “How does it feel, serving two masters?”
“Sorry?”
Sinclair jerked a thumb toward Victor’s uniform. “You’re wearing a Single Tree police department uniform, but you have some insignia that looks tribal to me. Is there more to that?”
“I represent the people of Single Tree in law enforcement matters during the crisis, since the death of the previous police chief,” Victor said. “At the same time, I’m also chief of the tribal police from the reservation. I don’t view it was having two masters. We’re the same people, trapped in the same boat.”
“Which do you give greater priority?”
“Like I said, Mr. Sinclair, we’re in this together. My approach is to treat everyone equally.”
“Does that include Barry Corbett?”
Victor looked over and gave him a small smile. He looked only at Sinclair, not the camera. He’d obviously had some training. “Didn’t take you long to go there, Sinclair,” he said.
“Well, he is calling the shots, isn’t he?”
Victor faced forward and slowed as he steered around a crew filling HESCOs. It looked like back-breaking work, hauling soil from loaded wheelbarrows and dumping them into the waiting containers. Since there was a moratorium on engine noise, everything had to be done by hand, which meant everything took twenty times longer.
Victor called out to some of the workers and thanked them for their hard labor. There was a mayoral presence to the Native American, something solid and calming. Sinclair wondered if that would show up on camera.
Pulling away from the work site, Victor guided the golf cart down one of the narrow thoroughfares that led to another walled neighborhood. All the homes were neat and well-tended. Several were two-story affairs, though the lawns were starting to go to seed. Some enterprising individuals had even started fortifying their own residences, as if they could somehow survive a zombie invasion by sheltering in place.
“Yes, Barry is calling the shots,” Victor said. “But he doesn’t hold himself above anyone. We’re all in this together. He might have some guys around to provide personal protection, but their families are here too, so it remains to be seen how long they’ll stick around for him.”
“Didn’t he give you your job?” Sinclair asked.
“In a roundabout way, I suppose. Barry and I have known each other for over forty years. As we grew older, we found we actually enjoyed each other’s company on occasion. But the fact of the matter is, I’m already a federally trained law enforcement officer. I’m senior in grade, and even though Single Tree’s top cop is an elected post, I’m serving only in an interim capacity. There’s not a lot of nepotism going on here. I’m a bit of a known entity in town, and since I already represent the residents of the reservation who had relocated here, I really was the logical choice.”
“You seem quite sure of yourself, if I might say that,” Sinclair said.
“I’m sure of the circumstances that led to me wearing this uniform, Sinclair. That’s all.” Victor glanced at him again, and there was a coldness about the set of his mouth.
Sinclair realized that he had overplayed his hand. He was about to apologize, when he noticed a small tendril of smoke curling into the air from the next street. “Excuse me, but is that smoke?” He pointed in that direction.
Victor turned and looked, then brought the golf cart to a halt. “Huh. It sure is.” He scanned the quiet street as if getting his bearings then took off again. “Well, if my memory serves, that would be your friend’s residence.”
Sinclair frowned. “My friend?”
“Hector Aguilar,” Victor said with another small smile. “You don’t think we didn’t know the two of you would lift a bottle every now and then, do you?”
“Oh, well. He’s hardly a friend—”
“Good. Then I expect you won’t interfere when I stop to arrest him.”
“Arrest him? Whatever for?”
Victor sighed. “I realize you come from a culture where people prepare your food for you, Sinclair. But over here, folks can pretty much recognize grill smoke when they see it. Hector’s cooking.”
On the next street, Victor brought the golf cart to a stop in front of a neat, two-story Spanish villa-style home. It was one of the nicer houses on the street, and it pretty much took up all the corner lot. Victor climbed out of the cart and walked up the driveway, and Sinclair hurried to keep up, keeping the camera focused on the acting police chief’s back. Instead of going for the door, Victor walked around the garage, to the back gate.
“Are you going to just walk in, uninvited?” Sinclair asked. “Don’t you need a warrant or something?”
“The smoke is probable cause,” Victor said. “But you can bet that, with or without a warrant, Hector’s going to cry like a baby about me violating his civil rights.”
“Well, you are, aren’t you?”
Victor stopped. “Look, you want to go wait in the cart?”
“Well, no, I should document this,” Sinclair said. “For the record.”
“Then be quiet and document.” Victor pushed open the wooden gate.
The backyard was nicely landscaped, but the grass was turning dusty brown from lack of water. Sinclair followed Victor around the house to the patio in the rear. Sure enough, Hector Aguilar, Sinclair’s barroom confidant, was standing over a grill that held a sizzling steak. The scent of cooking meat hit him, and saliva pooled in Sinclair’s mouth, making him feel like one of Pavlov’s dogs.
“Smells great, Hector. What cut is that?” Victor asked.
Aguilar looked up, a big grill fork in one hand. His dark-rimmed glasses made his eyes appear owlish as they widened in surprise. “What are you doing back here?” he snapped, taking a step back. “This is private property!”
Sinclair looked around the camera at Aguilar. The man seemed little afraid. Sinclair wondered what that was all about, but he wasn’t too surprised. He’d developed the strong impression during their conversations that the pharmacy owner wasn’t exactly the bravest of souls.
“I’m here because you’re breaking the law, Hector,” Victor said. “You know there’s a ban on open-air cooking.”
Aguilar sneered. “We voted on no such ordinance!”
“No vote required. It was made in the interest of public safety, which is well inside the scope of authority of the Single Tree police department,” Victor said.
“But you aren’t a legal representative of the law h
ere! Your jurisdiction is on the res, not in Single Tree!”
Victor sighed. “Hector, that was decided a long time ago. We need to put that fire out.” He pointed at the grill. “Like, right now.”
“No.” Aguilar’s face took on a hard set that looked so ridiculous that Sinclair almost laughed out loud. Try as he may, it was impossible for the pharmacy owner to hide the fact that Victor Kuruk intimidated him furiously. “No, I’m not going to do that.”
Victor put his hands on his hips. “Hector, you do what I tell you to do, or you’re going to pass out in front of me again.”
Aguilar’s eyes widened even more, and he turned to Sinclair with a beseeching look. “You see he’s threatening me, don’t you? Here on my own property, without me having committed any crime whatsoever.”
“Well, listen, mate. You can save yourself some trouble by taking the steak inside, right?” Sinclair offered.
Aguilar scowled and pointed at Victor with the grill fork. “This is my property! You can’t stop me from doing whatever I want on my property!” He made jabbing motions with the fork as he spoke, and Victor stepped back.
Sinclair followed suit, just in case. “Calm down, Hector,” he said. “It’s not a big deal now, is it?”
“It is a big deal!” Aguilar shouted. “This is my house! My land! Mine! Not Barry Corbett’s, mine!”
“Hector, let’s start with you putting the fork down,” Victor said evenly. “I’m too old to start throwing punches, but you’re about to get my dander up.”
Aguilar made a strangled noise and tossed the fork. Right at Victor. Victor jumped to one side, and the implement missed him by a wide margin, but Sinclair could see the useless attack infuriated the lawman to no end.
“Hector, come on now!” Sinclair said.
“Fuck you! Fuck you, Victor!” Aguilar screamed, his voice high and strangled. He bent down, scooped up the can of lighter fluid, and hurled it at Victor’s head.
The Last Town Page 46
