by James Hunt
With all the eyes watching, Kate tucked the pistol back inside her coat. She darted through the crowd, weaving her way deeper into the hangars on the field.
Whatever security the airfield possessed was no longer in place. Luggage and cars were parked right next to planes, and a line of jets was being pulled by ropes. Pilots and mechanics were hunched over open engine covers, tools on the ground, and the hands meant to use them were instead scratching heads.
Families huddled together in cars, children staring at the blank screens of phones. Empty oil drums had been placed along the airfield, billowing smoke from orange flames as people gathered around them for warmth.
A fight broke out past the fuel tanks, two men ramming fists into one another while their respective groups tried to pull them apart. Kate noted the red gas cans that each group held, and then scurried past before she was sucked into a brawl.
Tension and frustration had reached the boiling point. Fear was guiding people’s decisions now. And Kate didn’t want to be anywhere near here when those primal instincts surfaced. She’d seen enough of that in the city.
Kate slipped past unnoticed and headed for the south end of the field, away from the modern jets and planes that required circuit boards and digital navigation displays to pilot the skies. Judging by the way everyone was still standing around, it looked as though no one had thought of trying older planes as she had. Either that, or the old planes were already gone.
The silver hangar where she remembered that the old planes were stored was the last hangar on the left. The closer she drew to it, the faster she ran, and with only a few dozen yards left, she broke into a sprint, drawing attention be damned.
Shadows kept the inside of the hangar hidden, and it wasn’t until Kate stepped inside and her vision adjusted to the darkness that her heart sank.
Empty. Not a single prop plane left. Canvas tarps littered the floor, and Kate lifted one up as if she could find one of the planes still hidden beneath. She dropped the tarp and then collapsed to the floor with it.
This was her chance, her one idea to get her son back. Walking wasn’t an option, and neither was driving. She could find a bicycle maybe, but that would still take too long. Flying was her best chance, and now that had disappeared.
A heavy clang echoed outside the hangar walls, followed by an angry voice that muttered a flurry of curses. Kate arched an eyebrow and pushed herself off the cold concrete. She ventured out of the hangar and stepped around the side, following the random curses and clanks, which grew louder the closer she moved.
When Kate rounded the corner of the hangar’s wall, a propeller came into view. The engine hatch was open, and Kate recognized the red-and-blue coloring of the rest of the plane. She’d seen it in the air show last spring.
It was a 1946 Commonwealth Skyranger 185. It was a single-pilot aircraft but could transport two people and had a range of around six hundred miles with a cruising speed of around one hundred miles per hour. Fairfax, Virginia, was around two hundred and twenty miles from the airfield. She could fly there and back before nightfall, with just enough fuel to make it to the cabin. Which was good, because it didn’t look like the fuel pumps were working either.
Kate’s eyes drifted to the gas cans near the tail of the plane then darted toward the cabin when she heard another sputtering curse as a pair of legs dangled out of the cockpit, kicking angrily.
“Damned machine!” The legs wiggled ferociously yet impotently, as they couldn’t yet touch the ground. “Help!”
Kate darted over, grabbed hold of the pair of legs, and guided the man down, revealing an old man with snow-white hair sticking straight up, a pair of glasses sitting crookedly on his face. His cheeks were a cherry red, and a few stray whiskers protruded from his chin. He flattened his shirt, which had ridden up his stomach and chest, and then adjusted his glasses.
“Thank you,” he said, still panting heavily. “I just don’t seem to get in and out of there as easy as I used to.” He glanced up at the plane and then gave it a few hearty pats. He was shorter than Kate, barely over five feet. “The old gal can be more stubborn than my late wife.” He laughed at the joke, and Kate smiled. He extended his hand. “Roger Haywell.”
“Kate Hillman.” After they shook, she tried not to eyeball the craft too obviously. “Mr. Haywell, I’d like to buy your plane from you.”
Roger laughed. “It’s not for sale.” He walked toward the tail and wiped his hands with an old rag.
Kate followed him. “Then I’d like to rent it from you for the next few hours.”
Roger sighed, dropped the rag, and then placed his hands on his hips. “Young lady, you seem smarter than all of those other buffoons standing next to those jets, wondering why in the sam hell they’re not working, so I’d like you to extend to me the same courtesy.” He raised his thick white eyebrows when she didn’t answer. “You and I both know that if I give you this plane, I’m not getting it back.”
For a brief second, Kate thought of the pistol at her back in her waistband. All she had to do was shoot the man and then hop in the plane. She was close enough now to see that the gas cans were empty, which meant that the plane was fueled. And the old Skyranger was close enough to the field for her to wheel it over by herself. The more time she spent bickering with this old man was less time she had to get Luke.
And then she frowned, her cheeks reddening with shame. She stepped back from the old man, shaking her head. So she’d just take what she wanted because she could? If she did that, then she was no better than the men who attacked her on the road.
A sudden pain split through her head, and the past twenty-four hours caught up with her. She lowered her hand from her temple. “I need to get to Fairfax, Virginia.”
“Virginia?” Roger asked, surprised. “Sweetheart, you don’t want to go down there. It’s a goddamn war zone.”
“What?” Flashes of Luke lying in rubble, bloodied and dead, played in her mind. She gripped the old man by the shoulders, unaware of how hard she was squeezing him. “What’s happened?”
Roger gently lifted his hands and removed Kate’s arms from his shoulders. “There was a national guard unit that was stationed up here that marched through yesterday evening. Said they were ordered to go down and reinforce the capital. Whoever started all of this means to finish it.”
The color drained from Kate’s face, and she wobbled unsteadily on her feet, using the plane to keep herself from falling.
“Ma’am, are you all right?”
Kate swallowed, trying to steady her voice. “My son is down there.” Tears were on the cusp of pouring down her cheeks, but she drew in a breath and fought them back. “Do you have children, Roger?”
“I do,” he answered solemnly. “Three. They’re all on the west coast.” He chuckled and then looked off into the distance. “Got as far away from me as they possibly could, I suppose.”
“Then help me,” Kate said, pulling Roger’s attention back to her.
Roger crossed his arms. “So you want to just take my plane and fly down into a war zone and try and find your son, who you have no way of contacting to see if he’s even still there?” Roger gave a gut-busting burst of laughter and stepped back from Kate, shaking his head. “You know, I used to think my first ex-wife was the craziest woman to ever walk the earth, but she’ll be glad to know I was wrong.” He passed her and returned to the door to the cockpit. He paused and then tossed a glare back at Kate. “I assume you know how to fly.”
“I’ve flown everything from seaplanes to 747s,” Kate said, looking past Roger and to the Skyranger. “But none of them were this long in the tooth.”
“Well, you’re never too old to learn new things,” Roger said, stepping inside the cabin. “I’ll show you the controls.”
Kate pulled on his shoulder. “You’re letting me take it?”
“Listen, crazy woman, don’t let me second-guess myself here, all right? And besides,” he said, turning back toward the cabin door. “I wouldn�
��t want you to shoot me with that .38 special in the back of your waistband.”
Kate frowned and then reached back toward the weapon to make sure it was still there. “How’d you know I was carrying a gun?”
“I was a cop for thirty-five years,” Roger said, focusing on the screwdriver in his hand, placing the control panel over the gauges. “And from the smell of things, it sounds like you’ve already had to use it today.” He cast her a side-eye. “I suppose I should be thankful that action wasn’t repeated on me.”
“It was self-defense,” Kate said. “I didn’t want to add to the noise unless I had to.”
Roger smiled. “I suppose I could be giving my plane away to someone less worthy.” He finished screwing the cover back over the console. “She’s pretty stubborn, so don’t be afraid to knock her around a bit.” Roger rattled the stick around like a concrete stirrer. “But she’ll bite you back if you push it too hard. Just fiddle around with it for a bit while you’re up there, and I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it.”
“Right,” Kate said.
The rest of the controls were basic and self-explanatory as Roger went over them. Fuel, altimeter, airspeed indicator, turn and bank indicator, vertical speed indicator, artificial horizon, heading indicator. All completely analog, along with its engine.
“And you’re sure it starts?” Kate asked. “I mean, have you tried it yet?”
“And grab the attention of those nut jobs down there? No.” Roger opened his side door and nearly fell out before he managed to steady himself on the edge of the plane. Once he safely had both feet on the ground, Kate stepped out.
“So how do you know it’ll work?” Kate asked.
“The same reason you were looking for one of these old planes, sweetheart.” Roger tapped the engine casing. “Everything that has stopped working has a computer chip in it. My neighbor has an old 1959 Chevy, and while his wife’s new Malibu wouldn’t start, his fired up just fine. Whatever those people did was meant to wipe out our modern conveniences.” He paused and then stared down the growing hordes of people arriving at the private airfield, hoping for a ride. “I heard people willing to pay all sorts of things for a ride out of here or to go and pick up family. Houses, investment fortunes, savings accounts—all of them were willing to empty everything for a chance to see someone that just yesterday they could have called on the phone.”
Kate followed the old man’s gaze and knew that the moment the engine started, they’d be swarmed. Having a plane that worked was akin to having a target strapped to her back, something she’d have to remember once she landed in Fairfax. “We’ll need to push it over to the strip. And we’ll need to do it quickly.” She turned back to the old man. “It’s already fueled, right?”
“Topped it off when I got here,” Roger answered. “She should make it the full six hundred miles of range, but she’s been prone to leakage lately, so I wouldn’t push her past five hundred.”
Kate bit her lip. That was pushing it. She ran the calculations through her head again. “It’ll get me close enough.” She climbed inside the cockpit and got a feel for the stick. “Walk me through the ignition sequence.”
It only took her one try to get it down, and then she loaded her pack into the storage compartment and kicked off the blocks in front of the wheels. “You take the left wing, and I’ll take the right.”
They pushed the plane out to the field, and the moment they emerged from hiding, Kate looked toward the huddled masses and the graveyard of dead planes. They were far enough away to where she couldn’t see the detail of their faces, but still she felt their stares.
Once on the stretch of field she’d use as a runway, Kate retreated toward the tail. “All right, let’s straighten it out.”
Snow broke free from the sky in lazy drifts, and once they had a clear path on the runway, Roger plugged in a starter for the engine. “Make sure you pump the primer three times. Any more, and she’ll flood. Any less, and you’ll have to use another starter.”
Kate flashed a thumbs-up from the cockpit and pushed the rubber bulge three times. “Primer set!” She watched the old man reach for the prop to pull down, and just beyond him, a crowd had gathered along the field. They were pointing at her.
Roger pulled down on the prop hard, a series of firework-like pops belted from the engine, and the propeller spun wildly in front of her windshield, slightly distorting the field of view. She glanced over to Roger, who pointed up and to the left of the airfield and then wildly gestured for her to take off.
Hundreds more had gathered at the field’s edge, and then a dozen men burst from the sideline, each of their hands holding something. It wasn’t until she heard the first gunshot that she realized they were guns.
Roger banged on the door, making Kate jump, screaming at her to take off. She reached for the throttle and shoved it forward.
The plane’s speed ticked up slowly, and the snow fell in heavier drifts. Kate bounced around the inside of the cockpit as the plane tumbled down the grassy runway. The gunmen drew closer, closing the gap, their weapons aimed, their screams muted by the engine.
The old Skyranger hopped, gaining some lift as the speed increased, but then thumped back onto grass and snow. A gust of wind vibrated the plane fiercely from the east and lifted the left side up. It flew up three feet before Kate corrected with the foot pedals and the stick, leaning her body into the turn that leveled the craft back to the ground.
Another gunshot fired, and Kate saw the gunmen were directly parallel with her now and close enough for her to see their expressions of panic. Their faces were filled with the same wild fear she had seen on the people in New York on the metro train, and then the bridge, and finally the docks where she barely escaped with her family and her life.
The Skyranger lifted again, this time with a steadier angle, and Kate jerked back hard on the stick. The engine whined in frustration from the steep climb, but between the gunmen and the end of the runway, Kate was out of time.
Another gunshot sounded, and a harsh thump immediately reverberated through the cabin, but it didn’t matter. Kate glanced down at her altimeter, which climbed to twenty feet, then fifty feet, then ninety feet as she continued her angle toward the sky. She was off the ground. She was flying.
5
The cold was a relentless bitch. It curled its icy grip around everything it touched and numbed the mind and body. It clouded thoughts and judgment and made you slow and cumbersome, and Dennis wasn’t sure how much more of it he could take.
Sleep had evaded him the night before, but by the time he awoke in the backseat of the Mercedes he found abandoned on the highway, the sun had been up for a long time. He groaned from the ache in his bones as he reached for the bottle of water he found in the backseat. It was half drunk, but it did the job of keeping him alive. He still hadn’t found any food other than chips and crackers. He had walked all day yesterday, stealing what he could find to keep warm and alive.
The water had nearly frozen in the night, and Dennis felt the few chunks of ice that floated through the bottle’s mouth and down his throat. He drained it and chucked it on the floorboard.
The windows of the sedan were frosted over, blocking his view to the outside. He wasn’t sure how many other inmates were still here.
After the escape from the prison, anyone in an orange jumpsuit huddled together, everyone weaving their way through the forest. But once they reached the road, people started to break apart. No one understood what had happened, and even if they did, they were too cold to care.
It was like the world had stopped. No matter where they turned, nothing worked. No phones. No cars. Nothing.
The freezing masses of inmates had a string of theories that worked their way through the ranks: aliens, invasion, some kind of super virus, the second coming, the final apocalypse. But while the bulk of the inmates chattered like schoolgirls, Dennis noticed a common thread—computers.
At first he thought it might have been just limited to the
prison, but after seeing the cars and the phones and computers that he found left behind and broken. And the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. The prison was run on computers, and so were most cars nowadays. Hell, everything had some type of computer component to it, right?
Power plants, water treatment facilities, planes, every major consumer good or convenience were all attached to a grid that was run by software. But who had done it and why didn’t matter. Hell, this was a godsend.
A fist knocked on the window, snapping Dennis out of his stupor. “Hey! You up?”
Dennis forced himself to an upright position, but the door opened before he could even reach it. A head poked inside, covered in a frost-thickened beard, dark circles beneath a pair of angry blue eyes. “What the fuck are you doing? Everyone’s freezing their asses off out here. We going or what?”
Dennis kicked the door with his foot, flinging Jimmy back with it. “Yeah, we’re fucking going.” He grunted on his exit from the car and squinted back behind him to the sight of a few dozen men wrapped in whatever jackets they could find, but nearly everyone still in their orange jumpsuits underneath. Dennis included.
Jimmy stepped forward, those blue eyes as sharp as the bits of ice that formed in his beard. He was a wiry, energetic man, and the moment everyone started talking when they exited the forest, Jimmy was the first to point out that Dennis had a gun and that he had been the one to suggest using the dead bodies to rush the guards.
It was a thin thread to leadership, but the dumbasses behind him figured that it was enough to follow him. Over the course of yesterday and last night, almost half of the group they’d started with had disappeared. They slipped away in ones, twos, and threes, leaving without a word or cause.
One of the men behind him, a big man with a beard that stretched down to his chest, snuffed out the cigarette he was puffing and broke from the group of guys he was chatting up. He was really the only reason the majority of the people had stayed. John Mulls was Dennis’s one friend in prison, and the pair had formed a strong relationship over the years. He was an older guy, and Dennis supposed that he looked at him like a son of sorts. But all Dennis cared about was the fact that after Mulls became his friend, the raping stopped. That was the only sign of friendship he needed.
