The Last Town

by Knight, Stephen

  Most of the time, Cranston just hung out in his office and read books on his Kindle. He’d even brought in some beer, since it was unlikely anyone was going to bust him for drinking on the job. He was smart enough to keep it hidden from Corbett’s goons, of course. Even if they didn’t report him, they’d likely confiscate it and drink it themselves.

  When the zombies invaded and the shooting began, Cranston had been told that he and Enrico couldn’t leave the airport. At first, he didn’t care. The zombies weren’t interested in the airfield, and his small two-bedroom shack was too close to the action. So as much as he hated being at work, it was preferable to being trapped in his house while a horde of flesh-eating corpses encircled it. But as the battle continued, a sense of worry began to grow inside him. Every now and then, he would hear distant explosions, deep thuds that amped up his nervousness. To take the edge off, he drank beer, but he soon ran out.

  Enrico appeared in the doorway to Cranston’s office. “Hey, Rod, those Army guys are opening up one of the hangars.” His tanned face was worn with worry. Enrico didn’t like the sounds of violence any more than Cranston did.

  “You mean Corbett’s hangar, right?”

  “Nope. The executive hangar.”

  The executive hangar was where expensive airplanes were parked during special events, like the film festival the town put on every year. The only aircraft in it was Gary Norton’s little jet. Cranston frowned, wondering why they were in there.

  He got up and walked past Enrico to the front of the office building. From there, he had a clear view of the hangar in question. Sure enough, the big bifold hangar door was open. And more interestingly, Corbett’s goons had unchocked the tires and hooked up the tow motor to the nose gear on Norton’s jet.

  “Why are they pulling out Norton’s jet?” Cranston asked.

  Enrico shrugged. “Maybe Mr. Norton’s leaving.”

  Cranston had never liked Gary Norton, even when they were kids in school. “The hell he is,” he muttered, balling his hands into fists.

  ###

  They rode to the airport in golf carts, of all things. Norton had a backpack in his lap and his Heckler & Koch 416 rifle between his legs. He’d eschewed the new LWRC carbine for a weapon he knew fully, though he did wear Corbett’s gifted Smith & Wesson M&P45 pistol on his hip. The weapon was close enough in design and function to mirror his everyday carry weapon, the Shield, which was in an appendix holster at his waist. Aside from the clothes on his back and the sunglasses on his nose, he carried nothing else.

  Walter Lennon drove, and two of his men sat in the rear-facing back seats. The electric-powered vehicle was followed by another that carried only two men and the rest of the team’s gear. So far, the trip had been smooth. The zombies were concentrating on the areas where they’d seen prey, and word was that the airport and the fortified approach to it were clear and secure. The golf carts weren’t silent, but they moved fast enough and quietly enough to avoid capturing the interest of the dead.

  “Hey, how much does this gear you have weigh?” Norton asked.

  “What does that matter?” Lennon asked.

  Norton looked at the wiry man beside him. “I guess you weren’t in aviation in the Corps, huh?”

  “Mr. Norton, I’m a little focused on what I’m doing right now. What do you need?”

  “I just need to know how much the gear weighs for weight and balance calculations. Unless you want to try to take off without them, though I hear people have run out of runway in times like that.”

  Lennon frowned. “Maybe three hundred pounds total. Is that too much?”

  “With six guys who weigh about two hundred pounds each? Yeah, you’ll need to leave about two hundred pounds behind. The jet was fully fueled when I arrived.”

  “Maybe you should have mentioned that before we left,” Lennon said, his voice tight.

  “Maybe you guys should have looped me into your plan before the zombies attacked,” Norton retorted.

  “Can you empty fuel from your plane?”

  “I can, but it’s going to take some time. And if we can’t land at Oxnard Airport, we’ll have to hunt around for an alternate.”

  Lennon shook his head. “No alternates. We have transportation at Oxnard. It’s either land there, or land at the marina where your boat is.”

  “Uh, there’s no landing strip at the marina. It’s for boats, not airplanes.”

  “Then I guess Corbett’s plane won’t be the first to ditch in the Pacific today,” Lennon said. “Hope you can swim. How long to offload the fuel?”

  “Depends. It would usually be offloaded into a fuel truck which would take a few minutes, but that’s going to mean engine noise.” Norton thought about that for a moment. “Or we could tow the airplane to another location and open the sumps. Not the most ecologically sound solution, but it would work. That would take thirty or forty minutes. I’d have to offload five hundred pounds, just to be safe.”

  “That’s a long time. How much noise would the truck make?”

  Norton shrugged. “It’s a diesel with a compressor on it, man.”

  Lennon grunted. “Okay. We’ll figure out how to play it when we get there.”

  When they crossed into the airport, the gunfire was still clearly audible, Norton saw no signs of incursion. That wouldn’t last, of course. Once the Phenom’s engines started, the jet’s departure wouldn’t go unnoticed. He mentioned that to Lennon.

  “We have a plan for that,” Lennon told him. “We’ll pour it on at the combat sites, and you’ll make a few low passes over the stenches. It might draw them off and make them forget all about the airport.”

  “Pretty piss-poor plan,” Norton said.

  Lennon set the golf cart’s parking brake. “If you have a better idea, I’m all ears.”

  Before Norton could respond, Rod Cranston trotted over and asked, “What the hell is going on?” As usual, Cranston looked as though he’d just rolled out of bed. His denim shirt was wrinkled, and his wiry red hair was sticking up all over his head. Everyone knew the man liked his beer, and he had the belly to prove it.

  The airport’s only lineman, Enrico, trailed behind Cranston. He nodded to Norton and gave him a tight smile.

  Lennon stepped out of the cart. “Mr. Norton’s flying out a team, but we need to get his aircraft defueled so we can carry our gear. Can that be done immediately?”

  “Flying out to where?” Cranston asked, glaring at Norton.

  “It’s not your concern,” Lennon said. “Can the aircraft be defueled?”

  “Well, sure,” Enrico said. “I can suck some out with the truck.” He turned and pointed at a fuel truck parked next to Corbett’s hangar.

  “I want to know where you’re going!” Cranston demanded.

  “Keep your voice down, please,” Lennon said calmly.

  Cranston smirked. “You’re about to light up a jet airplane, and you’re worried about me being quiet?”

  Norton saw his jet out in front of the hangar, still attached to the tow motor. “Lennon, you have this? I want to preflight.”

  “Yes, go ahead,” Lennon said, waving him off. “Garcia, go with him.”

  “Yes, sir,” said a short, stolid Latino man with a standard Marine haircut.

  “He’s not going anywhere until I get some answers,” Cranston said.

  “Yes, he is.” Lennon took a step forward and got right in Cranston’s face. “I don’t need a gun to kill you, sir. And if you don’t start doing what I ask, then I’ll do that. I have a family here, and their survival depends on Norton being able to get my team out of Single Tree. That’s all you need to know.”

  Cranston looked as though he wanted to protest but thought better of it. He took a step back, glowering.

  Norton grabbed his backpack and rifle then walked briskly toward the waiting Phenom with Garcia. When Norton opened the airplane’s door, the airstair descended on its struts, and the hand rails extended. He climbed inside and stowed his backpack. After doing a
quick check of the instrument panel to ensure all the switches were in the off position, he headed back out to do the physical part of the preflight, starting with the nose gear. He removed the engine plugs and climbed up on the trailing edges of the wings to inspect the fan blades inside each engine. In the service bays, he checked for any leaks or fittings that might need attention. The pitot tubes were clear, and the angle of attack sensors were in perfect condition, moving easily when he touched them. There were no dings, dents, or scratches on the leading-edge surfaces of the wings, on the nose, or on the aircraft’s vertical and horizontal stabilizers, though they were so high up he couldn’t climb up and get a close look at them. All glass was clear and unscathed, and the tires were in good shape and properly inflated. The little jet was good to go, though he would still have to pull the locking pins on the landing gear. He wasn’t sure what the defueling situation would be, so if the airplane was going to be towed to another location, it was safer to leave them in place.

  Norton opened the baggage compartment beneath the left engine and turned to Garcia, who had followed him all around like a loyal puppy. “You guys can put your shit in here. Anything that doesn’t fit can go in the cabin. There’s also a small compartment in the nose.”

  “We’ll bring it inside with us,” Garcia said. “We may not have the time to offload the airplane, so we’ll need our gear where we can get to it in a hurry.”

  Norton shrugged. “Okay. Just keep the cockpit area clear.”

  Garcia motioned to the rest of his guys. Lennon walked toward the aircraft, leaving a fuming Cranston behind.

  “Is there any chance we can burn off enough fuel during the takeoff run?” Lennon asked.

  Norton shook his head. “Not a chance. We’d need to burn over seventy gallons. That’d take an hour of just taxiing around.”

  Lennon looked at the runway. “We don’t have enough runway to make it with the weight we need to carry?”

  “Maybe. But we wouldn’t know until we flew over the wall or crashed through it.”

  Lennon checked his watch then sighed. “Well, we have a time problem.”

  “No, we have a weight problem,” Norton said. “I take it the truck would be too noisy?”

  “Yep.”

  “Then I can open the fuel dump valves and let the fuel piss out. It’s going to take a while, though.”

  Lennon considered that for a moment then shook his head. “No. We’ll split off some of the gear. We’re all Marines. We’ll adapt.”

  “Okay. Are we starting up where we are, or are we moving the airplane somewhere else?”

  “You tell me. Should we move it?”

  Norton pointed to the end of the runway. “If Enrico moves it there, we can start up and take off without needing to taxi. That’s actually the wrong end of the runway, but I don’t think that’s going to make a difference. We’re not likely to meet anyone coming in.”

  Lennon nodded. “Okay. I like that.”

  “Then let’s get all your shit onboard.”

  It took about five minutes for Lennon and his men to parse through their gear and remove whatever they felt they could live without. After they were joined by two other men from Corbett’s hangar, they lugged the excess gear back to the large concrete building.

  Norton flagged down Enrico. “We’ll be wanting you to tow us to the runway,” he told the young man.

  Enrico glanced in that direction. “Really? All that way?”

  Norton pointed to the closer end of the long landing strip. “We’ll take off on thirteen. I know it’s normal for traffic to use three-ten, but we need to get out of here as fast as we can. You walk the runways?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. And the taxiways, too. They’re clean. Nothing on them, I promise.” Enrico hesitated. “You know, Cranston’s gonna blow a bowel over you guys taking off down here.”

  “Enrico, when was the last time you guys recovered an airplane?”

  “Well, that was Mr. Corbett’s jet.”

  “Then I don’t think we have to worry about a midair. Right?”

  Enrico considered that. “Yeah, I guess you’re right, sir.”

  “Okay. We’re going to start loading up. Once we’re inside and the door’s closed, pull us over.”

  “You gonna need the GPU?”

  “I’ll let you know but probably not,” Norton said. “Let me get on that. Stay here.” He turned and climbed back into the airplane. Sliding into the pilot’s seat, he broke with procedure and checked the charge on the batteries. They were well above minimum charge, so firing up the ground power unit to start the jet wouldn’t be necessary. He climbed out of the seat and went back to the open door. “Enrico, I have enough power for three or four start attempts. Once the number two engine is up, you disconnect and get the hell out of sight. All right?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Norton went back to the cockpit. While the day was still chilly, the interior of the jet was starting to get warm. He couldn’t do the full pre-start checklist until the airplane was moved to its final position, but he switched on the batteries and the radios. Tuning to the weather frequency, he was surprised to discover the automated weather advisories out of Bishop were still working. He grabbed his notepad and wrote down the temperatures and anticipated weather conditions for the greater Los Angeles area. Even if they weren’t current, he would assume there was potential for icing, which meant he’d have to ensure all the deicing equipment was functioning before rotating off the runway. He dialed in the elevation for Oxnard Airport in Ventura, and the departure altitude for Single Tree was already set. After placing the weather radar in standby, he checked to make sure the cabin pressure was set to automatic then went through the fire and stall warning checks. The system announced, “Fire! Fire!” Lennon and his men were coming aboard, and they looked startled.

  “Just a system test,” Norton told them. When Lennon started to climb into the front right seat, Norton snapped, “Not yet, please.” He pulled back the control yoke, and the system announced, “Stall! Stall!” He waited until the system yanked the yoke back toward the console. Both systems were functioning as they should.

  “Okay, go ahead,” he told Lennon. “Any of your guys know how to close the door?”

  No one did, so once they were aboard Norton again extricated himself from the cockpit, stepped over a black nylon bag, and pulled the door closed. He shot Enrico a thumbs-up, and Enrico returned the gesture before hopping onto the small tow motor.

  “How long do we need to take off after you start up?” Lennon asked, buckling his seat belt.

  “Two minutes, usually,” Norton said. “I need to check the fuel flows and make sure everything’s copacetic before we start our run. I’ll also have to exit the aircraft and pull the landing gear pins.” As the plane started moving, Norton pulled the flight manual from the storage slot behind his seat so he could calculate takeoff speeds. It would be the first time he’d ever flown the little jet at almost maximum gross. As he started doing the math, he realized he had forgotten to weigh the bags. “Are you guys sure you took out enough weight?” he asked.

  “We’re sure,” Lennon said. “I know exactly how much each item weighs. My life depends on it. Don’t worry, Norton. I took out some more, just in case. If I got it wrong, feel free to knock my teeth out before we plow through the wall.”

  Norton grunted. “You can count on that.”

  Once the airplane was positioned, Norton exited and went through the entire external inspection since the jet had been relocated. Aside from pulling the pins from the landing gear, everything was the same. He returned to the airplane, pulled the door closed, and finished the internal side of the preflight.

  “Okay, we’re good to go here,” Norton said.

  Lennon spoke into his radio and gave instructions to whomever was on the other end. A few seconds later, large explosions, audible even inside the airplane, occurred in the near distance.

  What the fuck is that? Norton wondered.

  “
Dynamite,” Lennon said, as if reading his mind. “Or the military equivalent of it. Should capture the attention of every stench standing outside the wall. There’s smoke, too, just to give them a visual cue.”

  “Nice,” Norton said. After ensuring the thrust levers were in idle, he spooled up the right engine. It came to life normally, generating not only the ability for the aircraft to fly but for the pressurization system to come to life. He checked the flat-screen displays, decided all was in order, and shot Enrico another thumbs-up.

  Enrico detached the tow motor and took off without looking back. Norton didn’t blame him. The shrieking jet engine was probably like a dinner bell, explosions and smoke bombs aside. Once the first had stabilized, Norton wasted no time in firing up the left, which moaned to life without incident. The fuel flows looked good, so after confirming the anti-ice gear was operational, Norton released the parking brake.

  “Anytime you’re ready, Norton,” Lennon said.

  Norton toed the brakes and did a quick run-up. The engines responded as designed, so he eased off the brakes and advanced the thrust levers for a full-power takeoff. “Here we go,” he said.

  The little Phenom 100 accelerated slowly at first then gained speed almost exponentially. It became airborne at precisely the velocity Norton had programmed, and he rotated off the runway at one hundred twenty-six knots. The little jet climbed like a fighter, roaring into the bright-blue sky. As the jet buzzed over the fence, he retracted the gear and glanced out the side window. Zombies were everywhere, their pallid, filthy faces turning upward to look at the jet as it roared past.

  “Buzz ’em,” Lennon directed. “Nice and low. Pull ’em out into the desert.”

  “You serious?” Norton asked.

  “As a heart attack, guy. Get it done.”

  High-speed approaches close to the ground wasn’t something Norton had practiced, so he took his time in setting up. He canceled the climb, keeping the airplane at five hundred feet, then turned back toward the wall surrounding the airport.

  “You’re too high,” Lennon said. “I want a hundred or lower.”