The Dying of the Light: Interval

by Kristopher, Jason

  “What are you thinking?” he asked me, following my gaze to the uncovered windows.

  “I dunno, sir,” I said. “I thought I saw something up there a minute ago, but it was probably just a walker. Those windows are our only way in, but we’d have to break them. The question becomes, is it worth the trouble? Do we really need anything inside, or can we just post a guard here while we’re fueling up and otherwise forget about it?”

  “Good point. We’re only going to be here long enough to fuel up, so there’s no real point in getting inside. Let’s—” Our radios blared to life, and I was relieved to see I wasn’t the only one who flinched a bit.

  “Anderson, Reynolds.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Bad news, sir. Looks like these buildings are pretty much toast. Literally. They’re burned to the ground, and there ain’t much left.”

  “Any chance of accessing—”

  “Mahoney here, sir. Fortunately, the tanks are above ground, and I believe we can get the pumps and stuff working again with the portable generators we brought. Problem is, it’s not going to be quick.”

  “How ‘not quick,’ Sergeant?”

  “At least a few days, sir. It’s all burnt to shit in here and I’ll have to— Holy shit!” There was the sound of gunfire, then Mahoney came back. “Sorry, sir, there was a half-burnt walker in here. We missed it, but they’re doing another sweep now.”

  “Everyone all right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Keep checking, see if you can cut down that estimate any.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Anderson leaned back against the wall of the terminal, and I turned to face the airfield. “Looks like we might need that terminal after all,” he said, “if we’re going to be here a few days.”

  I grimaced. “I’d rather sleep in the plane, if it’s all the same to you, Frank.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Going to get awful chilly in there though, without heaters.”

  “It’s always cold in there,” I grumped. “But I get your point. What if we use one of those?” I asked, pointing to one of the mobile stairways. “Wouldn’t be able to get it started, but we could just push it into place, break a window, and we’re in.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Anderson replied. He reached for his radio, but it went off before he could activate it.

  “Gaines here. Captain, you should see this.”

  “What is it?” Anderson asked.

  “It’s the pilot’s log book, sir,” Gaines answered, and we could both hear excited and animated voices coming from the pilots. “I think we’ve found something.”

  “Be right there, Gunny,” Anderson said, putting the radio away. We turned and trotted over to the other plane. The side door to the cargo area was closed, but as we approached, one of Anderson’s soldiers opened it from the inside.

  “They’re in the cockpit, sir,” the soldier said, and Anderson thanked him as we moved to the forward ladder and climbed up. I could hear the pilots talking loudly from the bottom of the ladder and wondered what all the fuss was about. As we climbed into the cockpit, the noise died down, but I was amazed to see big smiles on both Williams and Archer.

  “So, what’s the deal, Gunny?” Anderson asked. Before Gaines could reply, though, Archer began speaking.

  “We know where the plane’s from! And even better, it’s still got nearly almost all its fuel left. It’s still got just under three-quarters in the tanks.”

  “What?”

  “And get this, Captain: it’s from McMurdo!”

  There was dead silence in the room. That expression about a pin dropping? I believed it, now. I was speechless, which didn’t happen often, and looking at Anderson, I could tell he didn’t know what to think, either.

  “Wait, what? This C-5 is from McMurdo? How the hell is that possible?”

  “It looks like it was part of Operation: Deep Freeze—that’s the resupply program for the station—and it got stuck down there on Z-Day.”

  “Yes, but why is it here?”

  Archer looked at Williams, who shrugged. “My guess is that they tried to find out what was going on. This plane hasn’t been here for ten years, that’s for sure. It’s been maintained, and not just there. It’s had ongoing maintenance, sir. It’s in lots better shape than ours, too. I think whoever flew it up here had to have been trying to find survivors, or maybe food, since we know they’re running out down there.”

  “Did Atkins mention any of this to you?” Anderson asked me.

  I shook my head. “No, he never said a word about it, as far as I know. He might’ve said something to Kim or the governor, but I’m sure they would’ve told me.”

  Anderson looked as puzzled as we all felt. “You’d think he would’ve at least mentioned it. I suppose it doesn’t really matter now, though. Is this bird in shape to fly? Can we take both down to McMurdo?”

  “I’d say so,” said Williams. “It made it here just fine, and it’s in much better shape than ours.”

  “Think we could cram everyone else into it?”

  Williams glanced at Archer, then back to Anderson. “A crowded plane is better than freezing to death, sir. We’ll pack ‘em in like sardines, if we have to. We’ll bring everyone back.”

  “Good. No sense going down twice if we can avoid it. Just wish we could let those folks know, somehow.”

  “Sir, this bird has had regular maintenance. Recently. By someone who knew what they were doing. As good as we are,” he said, motioning to Archer. “We can’t fly two planes by ourselves, even with Blake’s help. If they know enough to repair it, they might know enough to fly it, too.”

  “But who are they? Where are they?” Anderson and I looked at each other, and I could see we’d had the same thought again. “That shadow you saw in the terminal,” he said to me. “What if it was one of these people? The ones who came up here and are still maintaining this bird?”

  “If that’s true, then…”

  Anderson snatched radio off his belt. “Alert: there may be hostiles in the area. Stay on your toes, people. Report anything unusual.”

  “Are you real?” said a new voice, scratchy and hoarse, from the direction of the ladder. We all jumped a bit, and I glanced down the ladder, as the person with the best view, having been last up.

  I had to stop myself from going for my gun as a walker began coming up after me. Fortunately, I retained my composure, and looked past the scrawny arms and bearded, sunken cheeks to realize that walkers don’t speak. Or climb ladders, for that matter.

  Belatedly, I noticed the 9mm Beretta in his grip, and backed away, as did the others, following my lead as the man slowly climbed all the way onto the deck. Dressed in a tattered, bedraggled, and stained Air Force flight suit, the figure stopped, the gun in his left hand held steady on the group of us.

  “Are…” he said, then started again. “Are you real?”

  No one made a move, not sure what to do.

  “Please,” he continued. “Please be real.” He moved the gun from one of us to the next. “Please be real, please be real…”

  Anderson lowered his hands, and we followed suit, none of us making any sudden movements. Nobody wanted to fly thousands of miles to get shot down by one of our own. Anderson spoke quietly. “We’re real, son. As real as you are. We’re friends.”

  The man flashed a grisly, crazy sort of smile. “Thank God, because this gun’s empty,” he said, dropping it to the deck and swaying slightly.

  “What’s your name?” asked Anderson.

  The man made an attempt to stand straight, his hand coming up in a salute as nearly perfect as I’d seen since Gunny Rains started teaching it to his security forces.

  “Major William Shaw, reporting for duty,” he said as he crumpled to the deck.

  One of Anderson’s medics had Shaw in a chair in the passenger compartment, and had rigged up an IV for him, along with a cocktail of various things from his kit. I could already see a change in t
he man, like it was liquid life being pumped into his veins. We’d filled the major in on our purpose in flying down, and what we were after, but he was a bit out of it. Hardly surprising, given what he’d been through.

  The medic looked at the captain, the pilots, and me. “He needs rest. Real rest, not the catnaps he’s been getting. Keep it short. Uh… sir,” said the medic. He took his kit and walked to the crew area.

  As he closed the door with a click, Shaw’s head whipped around at the sound, and he went still. So still, I wondered if he was breathing. The only time I’d ever seen anything like that was with frightened animals. Then he relaxed, when he realized what the sound had been.

  “Thank you, Captain,” Shaw said to Anderson after a moment, taking a deep breath and shaking his head. “I’m… I’m sorry about your man. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone, but he surprised me, and…”

  We all glanced over at Markinson, the guard who’d been knocked out when Shaw had entered the plane. It was just dumb luck that the major had only knocked him out and not killed him outright. In Shaw’s condition, anything would’ve been possible.

  Anderson snorted. “Don’t worry about that. His headache will be enough of a lesson about letting people sneak up on you, I think. Major, you say you’ve been here six years by yourself?”

  “Almost exactly, sir. I’m sorry, sir, about the gun. I wasn’t sure… I thought I was seeing things again,” he said, running a hand across his face. “It’s been… difficult.”

  “I can only imagine. Speaking of… how did you get that close to us? None of us even heard you start up the ladder.”

  “When I heard your bird go over, it actually woke me up. I watched for a while after you landed. I saw the plane, and you folks get out of it, but I still didn’t know who you were, or if you were some product of a mind that had finally broken. So I figured I’d sneak down and find out.” He smiled, clearly exhausted after his long ordeal, and the sedatives and meds were obviously kicking in. “It helps to be quiet around the walkers, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “I killed them all.”

  “We know that, too. We wondered who had done that.”

  “It was harder at first,” he said, his words beginning to slur a bit as the sedatives took hold. “There were more of them.”

  “You did a good job, Major. Can you tell me anything more about McMurdo? They never mentioned you or your plane when we spoke to them.”

  Suddenly, Shaw’s eyes cleared, and he snatched at Anderson’s wrist. “Jenny! Did you talk to her? Is she alive? You have to let her know I’m all right!”

  “We will. We will,” Anderson said. He knew as well as I did that we couldn’t communicate with McMurdo anytime soon, but we needed to calm the man down.

  Shaw flopped back, looking less distraught. “You have to tell her…” His voice faded, and as he fell asleep, his head tilted back and to the side, and he looked finally peaceful and calm.

  Somehow, he’d lived here alone with nothing but walkers, and killed them all for six years. “How did he pull it off? How did he stay alive?” I asked, talking to myself, but Anderson heard and answered me anyway.

  He pointed to a patch on Shaw’s upper arm. “That’s how.”

  Like the rest of his uniform, it was dirty, stained, and nearly unrecognizable. As I looked closer, I could make it out a bit better. It was sewn on, but appeared to have originally been on something else. The patch depicted an eagle’s head behind barbed wire and some unreadable text below it. I looked up at Anderson, shrugging.

  “It says, ‘Return With Honor,’” he said, shaking his head. “Air Force SERE training.”

  When I didn’t immediately clue in, he continued, “Stands for ‘Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape.’ It’s some of the hardest training in the military, and all the branches have a variant. Went through it myself, back in the day.” He shook his head again. “That is one tough mother, right there. Doesn’t surprise me at all that he took out all those walkers and survived off what he could scrounge.”

  With newfound respect, I looked down at the snoring major. How long has it been since he’s really been able to sleep? Cooped up in that building for six years… It was only then that I noticed the ring on his finger. Jenny must be his wife. Odd that Atkins never mentioned her, either…

  The giant engines were making a lot of noise as Anderson, Gaines, Reynolds and I talked off to one side. We were preparing to leave, but as it turned out, some of my friends wouldn’t be making the trip down to McMurdo with us.

  “You boys have everything you need?” Anderson asked for what I was sure was the billionth time.

  Gaines and Reynolds nodded in sync. “Yes, sir,” said Reynolds, technically the ranking officer. “We’ve got a good little team here with the men you’re leaving us. We’ll be fine, as long as you folks don’t take more than a week or so. After that, we’ll have to start checking those snares and traps Shaw told us about.”

  “Don’t worry, sir,” said Gaines. “I’ve been hunting since I was little. I’m sure there’s some game around here somewhere.”

  I turned to Anderson. “I’m still not sure this is the right idea, Frank.”

  “Look, Mahoney needs more time to get those fuel tanks accessible so we can make it back home, right? And he can’t work on them and defend himself and his boys at the same time. Plus, we don’t want those Humvees taking up all the room in the planes, anyway, especially if there are as many people down there as Shaw says. It just makes sense.”

  I couldn’t fault his logic, but that didn’t mean I had to like the idea. “Fine,” I said, turning back to the other men. “But you two stay alive, or it’ll be my ass in a sling when Kim finds out.”

  They looked at each other and laughed. “We’ll do our best,” said Gaines, clapping me on the shoulder. “Who knows? Might be fun being outside for a while.”

  I shook my head. Only Marines would find the idea of being surrounded by walkers for more than a week with only limited supplies and personnel fun. “You’re crazy, you know that, right?”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  We shook hands and Anderson and I climbed into the two planes we’d designated Rescue One and Rescue Two. He, of course, went to the first, and I the second. I was hoping to get some more flight time during the crossing. As I looked back before securing the hatch and saw the remaining men climb into their Humvee, I shivered.

  I just hope they’re still alive when we get back.

  AEGIS Rescue Two

  Over the Southern Ocean

  I was in the copilot seat of the McMurdo C-5—now headed back there, once again—as Shaw walked into the cockpit. I was busy with my ongoing training from Archer, in the other seat, who was going over some of the finer points of flying, when Shaw spoke up.

  “Thanks for the rest. It’s been a long time since I was able to sleep that long. I don’t sleep well anymore.”

  I turned in my seat and smiled. “No problem, Major. You looked like you could use it. I took the liberty of leaving out some of my gear in the head, if you’d like a shave and a trim.”

  Shaw ran a hand through his mop of hair and the beard that had taken over his face. “I guess this isn’t exactly Air Force regulation style, anymore.” His eyes went far away for a moment, then came back. “It’s been a while since I bothered with it. Didn’t really seem to matter. Thanks, though. I’ll get to it in a bit. Is there any coffee, by chance?”

  I shook my head. “I’m afraid not, sir,” I said, embarrassed. “We… uh, we used the last of it on the way down.”

  Shaw just sighed. Moving forward, he took a look at the instruments and then out the cockpit windows. “How long was I out? I don’t even remember taking off.”

  “Somewhere around thirteen hours, I think,” I said. “Medic said to leave you be, so we did. How long’s it been since you got some real rest?”

  He turned to look at me, and a bit of the crazy that he’d been just a few hours before showed th
rough. “A long time. That’s when they come for you, when you’re sleeping. When you let your guard down. You get to be a real light sleeper,” he said, his eyes glazing over a little. “It didn’t take long for me to learn, that’s for sure.”

  He shook his head and yawned, a real jaw-cracker, and I could see he hadn’t been able to keep up with his teeth, either. “Feel free to use the spare toothbrush in the kit, too,” I said, deadpan.

  Shaw looked at me, then grinned. “That bad, eh? I guess I’ve let a few things go. So where are we?”

  Archer glanced over his shoulder. “We’re about halfway there, Major. We weren’t able to raise them on the radio before we left Christchurch, but Myers there was about to try again. Would you like to do the honors?”

  Shaw turned to Myers, who had assigned himself as our flight engineer, since his shoulder injury kept him from flying. “No, I don’t think so. Actually, if you could, don’t mention you found me,” said Shaw.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Really? Why’s that?”

  Shaw said, “I’ve been thinking since I woke up. There’s something off about this whole thing. First, they don’t tell you about our expedition at all. Even though it was six years ago, you’d think they’d have at least said something about it. Second, you haven’t been able to get them on the radio. If it were me, and I was waiting for a rescue, I’d be sleeping in the Shack day and night just in case someone called. Why weren’t they there? And third, my wife was the Area Director when I left. If Atkins hasn’t mentioned her, then something’s up, and I’d rather wait and see what it is than spoil the surprise, if you know what I mean. Did you ever talk to anyone but Atkins?” he asked.

  I thought back to the conversations, and realized that we hadn’t. “Now that you mention it, we never did. It was always him we went through. I mean, initially our call was answered by Dr. Tanner, but after that it was all Atkins. Although he did mention someone once…” I racked my brain trying to think of the name. “Warner! That was it.”

  Shaw’s face turned dark. “Jack Warner?”