Norton opened the baggage compartment beneath the left engine and turned to Mendoza. “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,” Mendoza said. “We may not have the time to offload the airplane, so we’ll need it where we can get to it in a hurry.”
Norton considered that. It really didn’t matter to him, so he shrugged. “Okay. Just keep the cockpit area clear.”
Mendoza motioned to the rest of his guys as Lennon turned and walked toward the aircraft, leaving a fuming Cranston behind. Norton waited by the air stair.
“Is there any chance we can burn off enough fuel during the takeoff run?” Lennon asked.
“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 fly over the wall, or crash right through it.”
Lennon checked his watch. He 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,” Norton said. “What do you want me to do?”
“Prepare for departure,” Lennon said. “That’s what I want you to do.”
“Okay. Are we starting up where we are, or are we moving the airplane somewhere else?”
Lennon considered that. “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.”
“Okay. I like that,” Lennon said.
“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 could live without. They were joined by two other men from Corbett’s hangar, and they removed the excess gear and lugged it 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 looked into the distance. “Really? All that way?”
Norton pointed to the closer end of the long landing strip. “We’ll take off of 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 Mister 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 be needing the GPU?”
“I’ll let you know, but probably not,” Norton said. “Let me get on that. Stay here.” With that, he 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 the minimum, so firing up the ground power unit to start the jet wouldn’t be necessary—he had enough juice for three or four attempts. 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 retreated back to the cockpit. While the day was still chilly, it was starting to get warm inside the jet. He couldn’t really start the full pre-start checklist until the airplane was moved to its final position, but he did switch 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 one hundred percent current, he would presume that 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—forty-five feet, he knew, and it likely hadn’t changed—and the departure altitude for Single Tree was already set. He placed the weather radar in standby, checked to ensure cabin pressure was set to automatic, then went through the fire and stall warning checks. As the system announced “Fire! Fire!” Lennon and his men were coming aboard, and they looked at him with alert eyes.
“Just a system test,” he told them. When Lennon started to climb into the front right seat, Norton snapped, “Not yet, please.” He pulled back the control yoke, and when 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 really did, so once they were aboard Norton again extricated himself from the cockpit, stepped over a black nylon bag lying on the floor, and pulled the door closed. He shot Enrico a thumbs-up, and Enrico returned the gesture before hopping onto the small tow motor and starting it up.
“How long do we need to take off after you start up?” Lennon asked. He buckled his seat belt.
“Two minutes, usually,” Norton said. “Need to check the fuel flows and make sure everything’s copacetic before we start our run. I’ll also need 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 and used it to help him calculate takeoff speeds. This would be the first time he’d ever flown the little jet at almost maximum gross. As he started, he realized he had forgotten to weigh the bags.
“Listen, 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.”
“So I should just trust you on that, Lennon?”
Lennon shrugged. “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—after all, 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. After that, he was good to go on the engine start.
“Okay, we’re good to go here,” Norton said.
Lennon spoke into his radio and gave instructions to whoever was on the other end. A few moments later, large explosions sounded in the near distance, audible even inside the airplane.
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. 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. Norton checked the
flat-screen displays before him, 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. He wasted no time in firing up the left engine once the first had stabilized, and it moaned to life without incident. In thirty seconds, both engines were spooled up and operating normally. Fuel flows looked good, and there were no issues with any of the systems. Checking to ensure the anti-ice gear was operating, 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 jet 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 it was a fighter, roaring into the bright blue sky. Norton retracted the gear as the jet buzzed over the fence, and he glanced out the side window. There were zombies everywhere, their pallid, filthy faces turning upward to look at the jet as it roared past.
“Whoa,” he said.
“Buzz ’em,” Lennon directed. “Nice and low. Pull ’em out into the desert.”
“You serious?” Norton asked.
“Just like a heart attack, guy. Get it done.”
Norton took a breath. High-speed approaches close to the ground wasn’t something he’d really ever practiced, so he took his time in setting up. He canceled the climb and kept 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.”
“What? What the fuck do you think this is, an A-10?”
“Norton, just fucking do it, all right?” Lennon snapped.
Norton pushed down on the control column, keeping an eye on the altitude tape on the main display. As soon as he passed through two hundred fifty feet, the system gave off audible altitude alerts. “Terrain! Pull up!” Norton ignored them as he felt sweat break out across his brow. He pushed the jet lower, and the landscape seemed to rush past in a blur. He was traveling at over three hundred knots, faster than he’d ever flown at this altitude. It was horrifying, as a single misstep would result in his instant death amidst a booming fireball. But at the same time, it was also exhilarating.
So this is what a combat pilot feels like, he thought.
The jet roared over the zombie hordes at a hair under one hundred feet, racing alongside the town. Once it was past, Norton climbed out and turned back. He dropped to a hundred feet again and duplicated the maneuver, this time heading in the opposite direction. He flew back for another pass, then rudder-turned to the left, blasting out into the desert. During each pass, he had a vague impression that the stinking corpses below were actually reaching for the little jet as it zipped past, as if they thought they might be able to pull it from the sky.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Norton said.
“I agree. Pretty good flying, Norton. I thought you were going to bury the nose in the dirt,” Lennon said.
“Wait until we try and land at Oxnard,” Norton said. “You might get to experience that.”
Lennon chuckled as Norton pulled the jet into a steady climb. From the passenger compartment, one of the men seated there said, “Hey, this is really a nice little plane. Bet you get laid all the time when you take a girl out on a date in this thing. Right, Mister Norton?”
“Every time I take your mother out, that’s for sure,” Norton responded. The men in the back laughed, and even Lennon cracked a grin. Norton ignored them and set climb power as he raised the jet’s nose. Even twenty thousand feet wasn’t far enough away from the stenches.
Victor Kuruk spent the next couple of hours speeding back and forth between engagement areas on his motorcycle, checking on the police under his command and trying his best to put forth a brave face for the people inside the walls surrounding Single Tree. All the while, he ignored the calls over his radio for him to return to the police station and meet Corbett. Victor decided that could wait; Corbett really didn’t need him at the moment, but the people of Single Tree did. There were several major incursions into the town, and while the people were fighting valiantly alongside Corbett’s men, they needed to see a familiar face. Victor’s people and the town had lived side-by-side for many, many decades, and to the residents of Single Tree, Victor was one of their own. While this was usually the kind of operation that should have been undertaken by a member of the town’s political class, namely Max Booker, Victor didn’t think he would be of much help. The truth of the matter was, the town was close to unwinding, and the people needed to see the face of a warrior, not a politician.
Not that Victor felt much like a warrior at the moment. What was happening was terrifying in the extreme. The sounds of combat alone were jarring, threatening to overwhelm every sense. Then there were the zombies themselves. They poured over the walls like army ants and streamed toward the array of defenses facing them, focused on the defenders manning them. Their outright disregard for their personal safety was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing for the very fact that the zombies would willingly walk right into choke points and fatal funnels without hesitation, and that act meant their very doom. A curse in that it was chilling in the extreme to watch the dead allow themselves to be so thoroughly massacred, without even giving the aspect a second thought … and then to see two more take the place of one that was gunned down. Single Tree was truly an island surrounded by a sea of the dead, and the grim reality was there was no escape. Not everyone knew this, or would even consider it, but Victor Kuruk knew this to be true. His old bones told him that he was staring down his last days on this Earth, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
Just the same, he rode his motorcycle from point to point, meeting with the people, exhorting them to give their best in defending the town. It didn’t matter if they were his native people or Anglos; right now, at the end of the world, they were all one tribe, and they would have to fight as a tribe. Neighbors were now as valuable as blood family, and Victor did what little he could to inspire them, to give them hope, to instill in them the will to fight.
Even if he knew it was all for nothing.
It was hardest when he came across the children in the town. There were so many of them, and only a fraction of them could be saved, if any. He wasn’t an overly emotional man, but stoicism could only carry him so far. Victor didn’t interact with them any longer than necessary, for fear he might explode into a torrent of tears.
Nevertheless, he did his part. Racing from site to site, rallying people where he could, making arrangements for supplies, touching base with the law enforcement officers under his command. Already, two officers were gone, taken down by the hordes. Another fifteen townspeople had also been lost, either to the zombies or to accidents that occurred during panicked retreat. Victor regretted each death, even if it was someone he didn’t personally know. It meant there was one less person to perhaps pick up the pieces and continue on, if the gods were to allow such a thing.
Civilization ends, Victor thought. Out here, in the desert below Mount Whitney.
And with that, he found he needed to stay closer to his niece. Norton’s jet had roared off almost an hour ago after making several low passes over the zombie hordes. It hadn’t helped much. While thousands of zombies had turned and tried to follow the plane, they eventually lost interest and returned to the town, lured back by the din of combat. He’d done what he could to bolster the town, and truth be told, he knew his encouragement was starting to fall on deaf ears. Soon, the second line of defenses would be overrun, and the townspeople would have to fall back to the final ring of barriers. And once those were overrun, those still
surviving would have to seek shelter wherever they could. The school, the town hall, the police station and the nearby fire house had all been hastily fortified and stocked. A few hundred people might be able to hold out for a few weeks, trapped inside by the questing stenches as they roamed the town, hunting down whatever fresh meat might remain. Victor figured that would be his fate, huddled down in stinking darkness with several dozen other people, waiting for the zombies to break in and finish them all. And if they didn’t, then he would follow his fellow refugees into death’s lasting embrace as they finally starved to death.
But not Suzy. She was the youngest and brightest in his family, and while he’d never had the opportunity to have children of his own, he had found all he needed in her. She was bright, intelligent, respectful of her elders, and far wiser than he had been at her age. Whatever humanity might survive in the end wouldn’t be well served by Victor Kuruk. But his niece was a different matter entirely. She was a perfect specimen of humanity—altruistic, realistic, and compassionate. If he had ever possessed those traits, Victor knew, he had lost them decades ago chasing silly Hollywood dreams while playing the part of the red-skinned minstrel for the Tinseltown elite.
After making one last stop, this time at the eastern wall where the action wasn’t quite so frantic, he climbed back on his bike. He needed to ensure Suzy stayed with Corbett, because the old man was her only ticket out of hell. Victor smiled inwardly at that. It would be sweet to watch Suzy inevitably break the old man and force him to bend to her will, but that was an unlikely event. Victor knew his place was with his people, and that meant staying in the desert.
Actually, it means dying in the desert, he reminded himself.
“Vic! Where the hell have you been?” Corbett snapped when Victor rolled up on his bike. He had fallen back with the rest of what served as the town’s command group to the police station, where they could coordinate offenses and defenses.
“Did I miss something other than the zombies attacking the town?” Victor asked as he lowered his bike’s kickstand and swung off the gleaming chrome machine. He peeled off his gloves, while looking up at Corbett. He stood by the door to the station house, glaring down at Victor from behind the handrail. The entrance to the station house was elevated a few feet, and Victor was kind of glad to only be the acting chief of police. Walking up and down those six steps several times a day made his knees ache.
The Last Town (Book 6): Surviving the Dead Page 5
