by Mark Tufo
“Ten miles to go,” Major Jackson said.
“Not going to make it,” Eastman said, I think only for Jackson’s ears, but he’d as of yet not shut off the intercom.
Not going to make it is open to interpretation. Not make the airport? Not make lunch? Not make it at all? Vastly different outcomes…potentially.
The ground, which had merely been a blur of passing landscape, was taking on definition as we fell. Satellite towers, trees, ant farms, they were all coming in with crystal clear, high definition. As far as I knew, BT had yet to open his eyes, but his constant grinding of my free-floating bones into Jell-O worthy components continued. Here’s one for you, just in case you didn’t know. Don’t really care that I’m spilling the beans, I was about to be spread like peanut butter across Nebraskan soil, can’t get back at me after that. Jell-O, the treat we all love, is made from the bones and skin of animals. What’s even worse is that it isn’t overly clear what types of animals. Could be rat, for all I know.
“Landing gear isn’t working!” This I would have heard, speakers or no.
It’s amazing when you have diarrhea and you finally find a toilet seat. No matter how much liquidy shit rips forth from your irritated bowels, there is always more. That was my life. The liquidy shit just keeps coming.
“Crank them down,” Eastman told him.
I could feel the plane slow even further as the landing gear increased our drag. Eastman was fighting with the controls to keep the nose up; he was not winning. I was not going to tip him well if this continued.
“Wish they’d land this thing already.” BT was grimacing.
I wasn’t completely with him on this one. As long as we stayed in the air, we were still alive.
“Too low! Too low!”
My head bounced off my knees as the landing gear caught on something. Then my head was slammed back into the seat as the nose collided with the ground. The damage to the plane was immediate. Wall panels flew off just ahead of us from the buckling, and every inch of me was as rigid as I could make myself. When the rear wheels thumped down, I could feel my spine compress. For some reason, I wondered briefly how Tracy would feel now that I was going to be shorter than her. I think my height had been one reason why she’d kept me around all these years. She never could reach stuff on the top shelf of the grocery store. A branch as thick as BT’s forearms swept in and embedded itself into the seat next to mine. I would never had been able to react in time to avoid it, and the only reason I was in the seat I sat in was because BT wanted to hold my hand. Maybe it was fate, the need for affection, or it was human-manufactured coincidence. The most likely scenario was Poena wasn’t quite done with me yet.
“Holy fuck,” I said as I looked upon the displaced beetle standing on the bark; she was just as confused as I was. We were down but still barreling along at speed. Trees, fences, cars, anything in the way was causing jolts as it was hewn down or tossed aside with reckless abandon. I could see the wide-open expanse of a runway ahead of us; that seemed to be the first good news in a while, a sort of lotion soothing toilet paper to a burning ass type of news. Then we hit the protective fence that circled the entire airport. I was worried that part of it might find its way inside, what happened instead wasn’t much better. The heavy chain link got hung up on the front landing gear and completely sheered it off. Sparks began to fly up and in as we belly-slid along the blacktop, to the point Eastman kept tapping out small fires on his uniform. The grinding of the plane’s front end was deafening, but not the worst thing happening as we began to swivel to the side. We were about to become the world’s largest teacup ride. It was six, stomach-churning revolutions later when we finally, blissfully, came to a complete stop. I didn’t recall breathing the entire time.
Eastman was standing but looked like he was on the deck of a crab boat in the Bering Sea during a raging storm. “Everyone out! Grab your gear and get out!”
I could smell what he was worried about, leaking fuel, and even if it wasn’t ultra-high grade anymore, it was still extremely flammable.
“Worst airlines ever! You can expect a bad review on Yelp!” I told him as I pried my hand free from BT’s grasp and hastily undid my belt. I undid BT’s as well and had to tap him numerous times on the shoulder to get him to finally look around.
Got out of the plane easy enough, the cargo door had broken free. I grabbed mine and BT’s rifles and ammo, and BT and Major Eastman grabbed a crate of food. Major Jackson had a hand on Eastman, flying glass had peppered his face; there was so much blood it had pooled in his eyes and he was essentially blind. We got about a hundred yards away. The plane did indeed leak fuel, but considering the size of our transport and the amount of liquid on the ground, it looked like the spillage one might get when they fill their lawnmower. It never did catch on fire.
“How long is the layover?” I asked. My body hurt, whiplash-hurt, like when I tried to stretch, I felt as limber as a potato chip.
“Never getting in a plane again,” BT replied.
In all likelihood, no one alive today was ever going to get into a plane again. Maybe someone would begin refining petroleum products at some point, but there were so many other components that needed to be dealt with, getting the oil, transporting, not to mention having mechanics—qualified mechanics—with access to manufactured parts. No, the modern era had come to dismal finale. I wondered if, in a hundred million years, would the two-legged alligators that dug up our remains ponder over what mass extinction event we went through? I figured it was between them and sharks to take control of the planet, and since alligators had four legs up, so to speak, I figured they’d get the nod.
Eastman had a field kit and was doing his best to clean up his friend.
“How much longer? We need to get moving,” I said. That the zombies had not shown yet was somewhat of a minor miracle. “BT, you see anything we can use as a ride?”
He shook his head.
“I guess we’re walking. Can’t be too far. What, few hundred miles, right?” I asked.
“Failed geography, did we?” he asked back.
“Mitzi Henderson. Girl could poke your eye out on a cold day, if you catch my meaning. She sat one up and over to the side; I spent every class staring, and only got busted a few dozen times. I count that as a win.”
“The fuck is wrong with you?”
“The fuck is wrong with you? I was fifteen and she was, umm, well-endowed.”
“Yeah, you’re right…I wouldn’t have learned much either. Anyway, Omaha to where we’re going is over fifteen hundred miles.”
“Are you shitting me? That’s nearly half the country! Gonna take us a couple of days to walk that far.”
“Company’s coming.” Eastman motioned with his head to the far side of the airport, where zombies were making their way toward us. Luckily they hadn’t thought to use the expressway we’d created, but it wouldn’t be long.
“Can he walk?” I was referring to Jackson. “We should go into the airport, figure out our next move.” I was looking at the building. Eppley may have been the biggest airport in Nebraska, but it was tiny compared to major hubs like O’Hare or LAX. It was more on par with Inouye airport in Hawaii. Eppley had one main building with two, much smaller, annexes, one on either end. BT checked a few of the ground transportation vehicles as we passed; they were all dead. He eventually stopped, as he didn’t want me to use the old definition of insanity on him. Jackson looked like shit, and that wasn’t even taking into account the patched eye and bandaged face.
“Concussion, I think,” Eastman told me as I helped them move along.
I optimistically thought with the elimination of Deneaux that all of our problems would magically disappear. Weird to have seen so much of the world and still be so naïve. By the time we got into the terminal, zombies had made it to the plane. The way they were picking through the wreckage was entirely too human-looking. It was methodical, and they looked pissed off when they yielded no results. We could only hope that the
leap of logic didn’t entail them figuring out where we went. The moment a reaver stepped into the picture, that hope was smashed like a piñata full of shooters at a bachelor party. Except that would be awesome; what was happening to us sucked.
“The fuel should foul up our scents,” Eastman said. We were both off to the side of a large picture window, watching. BT had sat Jackson down and was getting him to drink some water.
“Can’t sleep, Major, let’s just get up and walk around,” BT told him.
“Rimes glood,” was Jackson’s response.
Sounded more like he had a stroke than a concussion, but what did I know.
“Yeah, we’re going for a walk.” BT plucked Jackson up, the major’s head lolling back as he did so. “What’s going on?” BT asked as they came closer.
“Reaver.” It was the only word I needed to say. Once it picked up our trail, oh and it would, we needed to be gone. Just this morning, I had kissed my wife and family, and now I was fifteen hundred miles away, with no way to get back, and about to be pursued again by a deadly predator. Then the unimaginable happened—something so convenient and unexpected as to be a cheap solution. Like a lazy author destroying the protagonist's archenemy by an out-of-the-blue meteor strike, or maybe a piano falling from a penthouse window. Too coincidental to ever happen in real life, but it did. Sort of. This narrative decided to go the other way. I know, shocker, right?
I automatically ducked down when I heard the sound of gunfire, even though I had no idea where it was coming from. Zombies around the plane began to fall, the reaver hightailed it to parts unknown, the rest of the zombies were running toward the assault. I hoped our saviors were well stocked on ammo, as I wanted to be able to thank them for their help. A pick-up truck that looked as if it had been stolen from a two-bit warlord barreled onto the runway. The thing was beat to shit, and there was a man standing in the bed shooting a mounted machinegun.
“Fucking awesome!” I raised my fist and was half a beat from silhouetting myself in the window when BT put a huge damper on my mood with one word: name, actually, but same thing.
“Knox.”
“What? No. How can you know that?” I asked.
“Red star on the door.”
“I’m taking it this Knox person is no friend of yours?” Major Eastman asked.
“You could say that. Big fellah here beat about half of his troops to death with a baseball bat, naked,” I told him.
“I don’t think I want to know the rest of the details,” Eastman wisely replied.
“What is he doing way out here?” BT asked.
“We encountered him on the East Coast,” I explained. “He said he was going to rule the country. This could be an extension of those troops,” I offered.
“What happens if they find us?” Eastman asked.
“As long as Knox, or anyone from the East, isn’t here, we’d be taken prisoner and conscripted into his army. If Knox is here, then we probably should have gone kamikaze with the nuke.”
“Two incredibly great options. Tell me again why I brought the Apocalypse’s Most Wanted with me?”
“To be fair, Major, the plane was going to crash with or without us, and you’d be in the very same position, only down by two guns. And Knox doesn’t take kindly to injured. If you were captured, Jackson would be considered unfit for duty and shot. That’d leave you as a foot soldier in a tyrannical mumblecrust’s army,” I told him.
“A what?” BT swiveled his head toward me.
“Mumblecrust.”
“What the fuck is that?”
“Like an old-timey douche. I like to switch out my swear words from time to time.” Thankfully I was spared any more questioning as another machine gun-toting pickup entered the fray. “You thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked.
“God would find himself impotent to help if we were all thinking what you are at any given time,” BT said.
“There’s our ride.”
“Yeah, just what I was thinking because I’m sure they’d be more than happy to give it to us.”
“Give, take, just words.”
“Those might just be words, but those are bullets.”
The machineguns made short work of the zombies. More would come because of the noise but for now, the only monsters out there were people.
“I count six.” Two from the first pickup had exited and were looking around the wreckage and the gunner was on high alert.
“We give ourselves up now before anyone else comes and the odds are in our favor,” I said.
“You want to give ourselves up?” Eastman asked incredulously.
“The second we step out there, we’ll be staring down the barrel of their weapons and zip-tied or handcuffed, brought to wherever they’re calling their headquarters, and you know the rest.” BT was referring to the barbaric initiation.
“We could take out the two gunners from here; we’d need to end this quickly before any others come.” The gears in my head were spinning quickly though they seemed to be spaced far enough apart that the cogs weren’t engaging to create any real thoughts, nothing of value, anyway.
“Not a good plan,” BT replied.
“Better come up with a better one and quick.” I nodded to one of the men that was looking toward the airport building and pointing. After a short conference, the two men got back in the truck and were approaching slowly; the other truck stayed behind. They knew what they were doing—making it difficult for us to do an assault on both vehicles.
“We could let them come in…overpower them at that point,” Eastman offered.
I thought that would be ideal, but it was likely that none would enter. Why would they? They effectively had us trapped. They’d keep an eye out until they could bring in enough troops to sweep the building. The truck stopped some twenty yards from us, none of them moved.
“The call has been made. We fight or we run.” I looked back to Jackson, who wasn’t in a condition to do either. Running with a man we would effectively be dragging, held no appeal. That idling truck, though, looked like a pot of gold. “I’m going to surrender. BT, you’ll stay by the door and shoot the gunner when I give the signal.”
“The signal being?”
“Right after they tell me to get on my knees and one of the men in the cab gets out to restrain my hands, I’ll wink.”
He smirked. “And if I miss?”
“Then I’ll haunt you for the rest of your life. You’ll never have a private moment again. You go to be with my sister, in the biblical sense, my ghost will stand next to you and wink. You go to take a shit, I’ll be in there with you, making extra loud grunting noises and winking.”
“That’s just gross.”
“Yeah, that might have been a little too far. Major, I need your sidearm.” He handed it over, I tucked it between my pants and my backside. “I’ll give it back when this is over.”
“You going commando?” BT asked.
“Always,” I told him.
“You keep it,” Eastman said. “I’ll find another.”
“This sucks,” I said as I opened the door we’d come in through. BT was on the floor, only the very tip of his barrel sticking out of the doorway. The gunner had me in his sights before I’d hit the second step down. I raised my rifle into the air.
“Drop the weapon, asshole!” the gunner shouted.
“You don’t even know me,” I told him. “And this is a nice rifle…can I at least get to the bottom step and place it down?”
“These are fifty caliber bullets, asshole. You can either drop the rifle on your own or parts of you will fall with it.
I winced as I let go of the weapon and it hit the ground hard.
“Now the pistol!”
“Dickwad,” I mumbled as I slowly pulled the gun free from its holster and dropped it to the ground some ten feet below.
“Now come down the stairs, real slow! Hands in the air!”
“These steps are steep!” I had one hand on the railing.
&nb
sp; “Falling ain’t your biggest concern right now.”
I was halfway down when I figured BT now had a clear shot. I was tempted to give him the signal.
“Who’s in there with you?”
“Just my co-pilot, but he’s injured.”
“Make him come out.”
“He’s out cold, and even if he wasn’t, the amount of blood loss he has would keep him from walking.”
The gunner didn’t like that answer, not one bit. He didn’t like any of this at all; he was clearly on edge. “I’m supposed to believe that it was only two people on that entire plane?”
“We were heading to Illinois, pick up supplies from another fort—our fuel went bad and, well, here we are.”
“Here we are. Linden, tie this asshole up. We’ll let the general deal with him.”
I’d hoped it would be the driver, but the passenger door opened, and a young man who appeared as if he spent most of his free time in the gym, exited. He had a .45 pointed at me as he tossed a pair of silver handcuffs. “Put ‘em on.” The voice a much higher register than the body would imply, I wondered if that was steroid-induced. “Behind your back,” he added when I grabbed them.
I ratcheted one down, then made like I was fumbling with the other side while I grabbed the hidden gun.
“Hurry up!” He kept looking up at the airport.
“I’m surrendering…” Didn’t have time to tell him anything else. The gunner’s head snapped back and his eyes crossed as he slumped over the machinegun. I put one in Linden’s throat and chest as he was turning to see what happened to the other man. The driver was not going to stick around and see how either of the others were doing, but he was in Drive and had to come closer in order to get away. I was up on the runningboard, my gun pointed at his face. “Take your foot off the gas; not a chance you can shake me loose before I fuck up your dental work.” Not my best threat, but it got the message across. He complied quickly enough, unfortunately, the covering truck did not. The rear windshield blew inwards as the other opened fire on us. Ironically, the driver of the truck I was on was the first casualty. Possible it was punishment for allowing himself to be captured; maybe he had some super secret information they didn’t want tortured out of him. I pulled myself completely in and dove toward the floorboards. There wasn’t nearly enough metal between me and the heavy rounds. The dashboard was being completely riddled—plastic, glass, dust and fibers from the insulation were clogging the cramped space. The stick shift exploded inches from my face then the steering wheel was segmented, the steering column blown apart, and finally, the truck shook, sputtered, and died. There went our getaway.
