“Check this shit out,” one of the soldiers said.
Narvaez laughed. “Oh, fuck me,” he said, chortling.
Reese rolled up and looked into the ambulance as well. A figure lay strapped into a gurney, thrashing against the restraints. It was a bloodied woman, who had probably still been alive when the ambulance crew had picked her up. She must have turned into a zombie on the way in, for she stared at the four men with hollow, vacant eyes, moaning and hissing as she struggled against the belts that were designed to hold a patient in place while in transit. The zombie didn’t even seem to realize they were there. It just tried to climb off the gurney with all its might. The scene was both horrifying and hilarious.
Reese’s backup, Sergeant Bates, sauntered up to the ambulance with a shotgun of his own. He peered inside the vehicle and grunted.
“Well, at least it’s on wheels,” he said to Reese. “We could roll it back to the stationhouse and leave it in the men’s locker room. You know at least a couple of the guys will try and take a crack at it.”
Narvaez turned away from the ambulance and looked toward the paramedics, who were standing nearby. The driver was inspecting his coworker’s injured wrist.
“You two! Stay right where you are!” he yelled, then nudged one of the soldiers in the side. “Lopatnikov, go keep an eye on them. That guy’s been bitten, so stay sharp.”
“Yes, sir,” the soldier said, not exactly thrilled with the duty.
Narvaez turned back to the restrained zombie, then looked at Reese. “Reese, we good to shoot this thing?”
“Uh, maybe we should get it out of the ambulance first?” Reese said.
Narvaez shook his head. “Fuck that.” He reached up to the front of his helmet and pulled the bulky set of plastic goggles strapped there over his eyes, then moved past Bates and hauled himself into the back of the ambulance. He motioned the other soldier to move closer, and the soldier did, his M4 still shouldered and held on target.
“Narvaez, hold on!” Reese said. “We need a doctor to tell us if that lady’s really a … a zombie.”
The thing in the gurney redoubled its efforts to slip its bonds as Narvaez drew closer to it. It lunged in his direction with enough might to make the ambulance rock on its suspension. Narvaez braced himself against the opposite side of the vehicle and shouldered his rifle, then looked back at Reese.
“Detective, does this thing look at all normal to you?” he asked. “What do you think a doctor’s going to say—‘Don’t worry, she’s just pissed off’?”
“You can’t just shoot her,” Reese said, and his objection sounded unconvincing even to his own ears. As he stood there, watching the thing in the gurney thrash about madly in its attempts to get to Narvaez, he could clearly see there was no humanity left in the woman’s body. It was just a vessel now, a vessel filled by a never-ending, insatiable appetite.
“Your captain said differently.” Narvaez kept his rifle trained on the zombie. “Look, you want me to let the stench go, Detective? Would that make you feel better?”
Reese didn’t say anything.
“Do it,” Bates said. “Get it over with.”
Narvaez pulled the trigger, firing a single shot into the thrashing figure’s head. The ghoul strapped into the gurney stopped moving, sinking back onto the gurney’s frame like a marionette whose strings had been cut. There was no death rattle that Reese could hear, no indication that a life had just passed. The corpse just went back to being a corpse. Narvaez eased toward it a bit, rifle still held at the ready. After inspecting the body for a few moments, he sidled back to the ambulance’s open door and hopped out. Releasing his rifle, he raised his goggles and slipped them back in place across the front of his helmet. There was no joy in his face, but Reese found he was suddenly angry with the Guardsman.
“So what about that guy?” he asked, pointing at the wounded paramedic who stood nearby, cradling his injured wrist. Both he and his unbitten partner stared at the soldiers and police officers with shocked expressions. “You going to shoot him, too?”
Narvaez looked over at the paramedics with a grim expression. Rifle fire crackled in the distance, and the ROVERs Reese and Bates wore squawked as police officers reported another engagement with the dead.
“Not right now,” Narvaez said. “But we’ll probably have to later.”
SINGLE TREE, CALIFORNIA
THE AFTERNOON WAS bright and hot when Norton and Corbett stepped out of the town hall building, and Norton slipped on his sunglasses against the glare. He looked around, and saw that North Jackson Street was the usual happening scene it always was. An elderly Mexican couple shuffled into the air-conditioned senior center next door. Across the street, a middle-aged man Norton didn’t know was hooking up a Triumph outboard fishing boat to the trailer hitch on the back of his dusty pickup. Norton watched that for a moment, intrigued that someone who lived in a desert at the foot of a mountain range would own a boat. The man had a scraggly beard and a straw cowboy hat on his head, and wore faded jeans and a clean white T-shirt. He looked toward Norton, then touched the brim of his hat. Norton nodded back, and the man went back to securing the little fiberglass boat’s trailer to his truck.
“I guess going out on a boat is as good a response as any,” Corbett said. He waved a leathery hand about as a fly zipped around him, making miniature strafing runs at his face.
“So what’s the plan?” Norton asked. In the distance, he heard a siren wail. Probably some out of towner cracked up his car while burning up Main Street, which doubled as a two-lane state highway that cut through the town’s center.
“We meet back here at eight o’clock, like Max said. Then we suffer the glares and unbelieving guffaws from the resident Indignation Society when we make our pitch,” Corbett said. The older man put his hands on his hips and stretched. “Damn, all this sitting is screwing up my back.”
Two fit-looking men stepped out of the black Ford Expedition SUV that was parked a few spaces down from Corbett’s hulking truck and Norton’s old Jeep Cherokee. Norton recognized them from the airport. Part of Corbett’s crew.
“So who’re those guys you brought with you?” he asked. “Bodyguards?”
“Yes, actually,” Corbett said. “They’ll be useful when the shit hits the fan.”
“Let me ask you something?”
Corbett looked at him, his eyes hidden behind his sunglasses. “Yes, Norton, I did watch Khe Sanh. It was okay, except for the parts with the dink whores. I don’t know why you left them in.”
Norton snorted. “That wasn’t it. My question is, what are you going to do if the shit doesn’t hit the fan?”
Corbett shrugged. “Probably pay a hefty fine to Inyo County. And go ahead and put in that ILS at the airport. But do you think things are going to end up fine and well, Gary? After what you saw in Los Angeles?”
Norton sighed. “I’d be surprised if everything worked out all right.”
“Hope for the best, expect the worst,” Corbett said. He waved the men away, and they climbed back into the running SUV. Its air-conditioning system left a puddle of moisture that slowly oozed across the hot blacktop. Corbett reached into his pocket, and his big blue Super Duty pickup roared to life, its diesel engine cackling lightly beneath the expanse of its hood. The truck’s AC came on with an audible click.
“Anything you think we need to go over before the meeting?” Corbett asked. “I want to head home and take a nap. Don’t sleep so much at nighttime these days, so I usually conk out for a couple of hours in the afternoon after the Dow closes.”
“You have a detailed plan?” Norton asked.
“Yes. You have a secure e-mail account?”
“Well, nothing the NSA couldn’t get into. I can give you either my production company address, or one from Gmail. Take your pick”
Corbett grunted. “Huh. Send it to Gmail, and the next thing you know, it’ll be all over Google for everyone to see. I’ll trust your corporate account.” He pulled out his smartpho
ne. “What is it?” He typed in the address as Norton read it off, confirmed it, then put the phone back in his pocket.
“Check out what I’ll be sending you. All PDF files, password-protected. Password is ‘semper dash fi.’ You can remember that?”
“Semper fi with a dash between the words. Sure, I can remember that,” Norton said.
“All right, then. See you later tonight.”
“Sure. By the way, I left the ‘dink whores’ in because the cable company wanted them. People like some titillation with their war stories,” Norton said, as Corbett turned toward his truck.
“The only people who want titillation with their wars are those who’ve never had to carry a gun,” Corbett responded without breaking stride. He walked to the idling truck, pulled the driver’s door open, and climbed in. Norton watched the old man throw the big truck in reverse, back out of the parking space, and take off down the street. He was shadowed by his bodyguards in the Expedition, who took off after him without sparing Norton so much as a parting glance. Norton stood there in the bright sunlight and watched as the vehicles turned right on Main Street and disappeared from view.
So, I’m finally quit of Barry Corbett. I wonder just what the hell I’ve gotten myself into, here.
Walking to his old Jeep Cherokee Chief, he dug around in his pocket for the keys. Unlike Corbett, his ride didn’t have a remote starter, so he’d have to turn it over and drive with the windows cranked open for a while until the air-conditioning could catch up. The vehicle was a little dirty; even though he left it in the hangar, there was still a fine patina of dust spread across its firecracker red paint that hadn’t lifted off during the drive up from the airport. He decided he’d take it over to Watson’s Self-Serve Car Wash for a welcome home bath, then get on home. He unlocked the Cherokee and slid into its hot interior, thankful that it had cloth seats instead of vinyl. It cranked up right away, and after switching on the air-conditioning, he cranked down the driver and passenger side windows. The Cherokee had been bought new in 1979 by his father, and it had been passed on to Norton in his senior year in high school. Even though it was severely dated by modern standards, Norton still felt a small thrill every time he climbed inside the trusty four-wheel drive. It was like he was a teenager all over again, and Norton relished the feeling. Being forty-nine going on eighteen wasn’t so bad.
He backed out of the parking space and accelerated toward Main Street, the Cherokee’s big tires whirring across the cracked blacktop. He heard more sirens, and as he drew close to the intersection, he saw a couple of cars and a battered pickup truck pull to the right. A moment later, an ambulance sped past, headed south. Norton wondered what was going on, and a small worm of dread squirmed about in his belly.
Take it easy, Hoss. Someone just got hurt in a fender bender, or something, he told himself as he brought the Cherokee to a halt at the intersection and flipped on the right turn signal. After making sure the approaching lanes were clear, he made his turn and headed north up Main Street. Traffic was a bit thicker than what he thought was normal, but that happened fairly often. Main Street was part of US Highway 395, an artery that ran from north to south, connecting Single Tree with Inyo County and the rest of the great state of California. It wasn’t unusual for a good amount of traffic to roll through the town, and while occasionally inconvenient, it was mostly a good thing. Single Tree needed the dollars that travelers left behind while purchasing gasoline or food. But given what was happening in the rest of the world, Norton wondered if this time there wasn’t a more insidious reason behind the increased traffic.
After watching LA dissembling from a helicopter and joining forces with Corbett to try and save Single Tree from a threat he still couldn’t completely believe in, Norton found he was one worked up guy. For years, his existence had been a mostly peaceful one. Sure, there had been times of great stress—Hollywood was a shark tank, after all, not to mention going through not one but two disastrous marriages. But in the end, Norton had risen to a level where he was finally above most of it. Secure in his career, he had made big, big bank, so much so that he could maintain a lavish lifestyle for the rest of his days without having to worry about anything, even if he lived to be a hundred twenty years old. He would have been content to spend his days putting together a show or two while loafing around his coastal home and building up some hours flying around the country. It had been a solitary life, but Norton found he preferred it that way. And while he was never lacking for companionship when he desired it, Norton preferred making movies, driving fast cars, shooting guns, and piloting boats and airplanes to dalliances with women. He shook his head at the thought. Remaining untangled with women had removed a huge amount of complexity from his life. He wondered if he would ever be able to reclaim his old life, now that things had taken a dramatic change for the worse. Norton almost wished Walid hadn’t called and jarred him out of his otherwise serene existence.
But then, I’d be zombie chow eventually, wouldn’t I? Despite everything, Norton realized he wouldn’t have stood a chance of getting out of Los Angeles if Walid hadn’t given him a call, and there was some irony there. He, a resident of the freest nation in the world, had to be told the truth by a man who lived in one of the most restrictive societies on the planet. It was an interesting turn of events.
After getting the Jeep washed, he drove back to his home on Bush Street. His house was on a corner lot, and he had bought the neighboring lot from a resident who had moved back east. Combining them, he had built a modern but understated craftsman bungalow style residence, complete with a swimming pool and two-car garage that was heated in the winter. Solar panels graced part of the roof, generating enough charge to heat the water and keep the pool pump running, but not much else. The house was big for the area, almost two thousand five hundred square feet, but not so huge that it overshadowed the rest of the neighborhood’s ranch-style homes. Originally, he had wanted to make it two stories, but the town zoning board wouldn’t hear of it, so he had settled on a single-floor residence. In the end, he didn’t mind. Twenty-five hundred square feet was more than enough for one man, especially when he only lived there for less than two months a year.
After dumping his luggage inside and taking the time to ensure the firearms were locked up in the master bedroom’s gun safe, he stepped back out into the hot day. His original home was next door, and he could see two cars in the driveway, which meant his parents were both at home. He sauntered across the grass, still green and lush thanks to the automatic sprinkler system he’d put in, and let himself inside the house after knocking once on the front door.
“Hey, guys, it’s Gary,” he said as he stepped inside.
His father waved at him from the couch in the living room, which was just off the entry hall. Arthur Norton was a thin man in his late seventies who wore wire-rimmed bifocal glasses perched on the tip of his nose. His steel gray hair was neatly combed, and there was nary a whisker on his chin that Norton could see. His father was the type of man who shaved every day, whereas Norton had no problem going a week without shaving if it suited him. The older man had a bandage across the top of his right ear, and Norton frowned a bit when he saw that. He closed the door behind him as he walked into the living room. From deeper in the house, he heard his mother talking, probably on the phone.
Arthur motioned toward the flat-screen television. “New York City’s on fire!” he said.
“What happened to your ear?” Norton asked.
“What? Oh, some skin cancer, nothing major,” his father said. “You hear what I said? New York’s—”
“On fire, yeah. I heard. LA’s headed that way, too. That’s why I’m here. Dad, do you guys still have all that emergency food I bought for you guys a while back?”
Arthur seemed not to hear. He stared at the television. Norton walked over and sat down on the other end of the big couch and glanced at the screen again. Sure enough, the NBC affiliate in New York was broadcasting helicopter footage of a gigantic fire that w
as raging across the tip of Manhattan. It looked like the area had been bombed, and for the second time in his life, Norton saw the World Trade Center area was again on fire. The skyscraper formerly known as the Freedom Tower now belched black smoke much the same way the Twin Towers had done fifteen years earlier. It was a depressing sight.
“This is huge, son,” Arthur said, his voice full of emotion. “Huge.”
“Dad, the food. You guys still have it, right?”
Arthur finally tore his eyes away from the television. “What food?”
“Those six big buckets of food that I put in the third bedroom a couple of years ago?”
“Oh, those. No, they’re out in the garage. Your mom didn’t like them in the closet.”
Norton put his face in his hand. “Dad, that stuff needs to be kept in a temperate environment. Extremes ruin the lifespan.”
Arthur waved Norton’s words away. “A little heat isn’t going to hurt anything, Gary. It’s all vacuum sealed. Everything’s fine. So what was this you said about Los Angeles? Did you know the governor called up the National Guard? I heard the airport’s closed, too. Did you drive in?”
“All the airports are closed, and I got here a couple of hours ago. And yes, I know about the Guard being called up. And in a couple of days, Los Angeles is going to wind up just like that.” Norton pointed at the fiery devastation on the TV.
“Really,” Arthur said, his voice small. “So this isn’t just another scare, like the bird flu or Ebola, this time?”
“Doesn’t look like it. Are your cars gassed up?”
“We going somewhere?”
“Dad, no. I’m just trying to figure out how you guys are squared away. Are the tanks full? Is there enough food in the house?”
“Well, sure, we have enough food,” Arthur said. “Your mom’s not into cooking much anymore, so most of it’s frozen or in cans.” He turned from the television and looked at Norton directly. “So, you think this is going to be something serious and long term?”
The Last Town (Book 2): Preparing For The Dead Page 4
