White Ash on Bone: A Zombie Novel (18 page)

"What are you going to do when we get to the airport?" Rex asked.

"Do you think it's even worth it at this point?" Alison said.  "I mean the world is ending and he is a piece of shit.  At best, I can't say much better for myself.  I loved him yes, but I stayed in the marriage because of the money he makes as a doctor.  What does that say about me? I'm not much better than a whore.  But I can’t even feel bad about that cause I let those poor kids get killed with their parents."

Alison's knees buckled and hit the gravel on the driveway.  She lowered her face to the ground and dug her fingers into the rocks and squeezed until it hurt. 

"He never would give me kids," she sobbed.

Alison felt soft warm hands lift and separate her face from the ground and she looked up into Ginger's face. 

"I came out to see if I could help with the ammo," Ginger said. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I didn’t know what else to do."

Rex knelt beside Alison and took one her hands clutching the stones.  He eased her hand open letting the gravel to patter against the ground.

"I really need to thank you Alison," Ginger said, "You reminded me that we’re all going to be dealing with things.  I’d rather deal with them together than to lock myself apart.  If you want, you can be part of our family and we’ll deal with whatever comes."

Alison felt the tension ease from the other hand and several stones came tumbling out.  She stopped the last two stones in her hand and held on to them.  "That sounds nice,” Alison said.  “When we get to the airport I have to confront them.  After I do that, if your offer still stands I'll go wherever."

###

Donna stood beside Jack in one of the offices inside a hanger at the airport.  Naomi sat on a desk behind them bathing herself after being cooped up in her carrier for too long. 

She held on to Jack’s hand while they watched the television feed being broadcast from the stadium in Pittsburgh.  The camera zoomed in on a dark winged shape in the sky.

“C-130,” Jack said, “Bet it’s a gun ship.”

The craft dipped a wing and slowly turned to circle the stadium.

“Oh, shit,” Jack said as the plane’s midsection came alive and breathed fire.  The cameraman pulled the zoom back revealing a long chain of tracer fire reaching to the ground.  The hail of bullets ripped into the mass of zombies pushing their way through a fallen gate near a smoldering chopper.  Dozens of the undead fell by the second as fire from heaven rained down on them. 

Donna could tell that the effort was too late.  The dead were pouring in by the hundreds and were fanning out inside the stadium.  The gunners in the plane would be forced to shoot closer and closer to the civilians.

In the middle of the field, a squad of soldiers fought back-to-back while the undead came at them from two different directions. 

“They must be getting through somewhere else to be getting on the field like that,” Donna said.

“I can’t watch this anymore, Donna, it’s making me sick.”

She reached out and turned the television off.  The room filled with silence.  Outside of the room, Donna could hear voices carrying on a conversation in the larger part of the hanger. 

“Jack, can I ask you a question?”

“What do you want to know?”

“I saw a picture of you and your wife back at your house.” Donna said.  “I figure you didn’t get divorced cause it was still hanging up.  What happened?”

“She had a stroke,” he said.  “It’s pretty rare for someone so young to die like that.  We didn’t know it at the time, but she had something called Familial Combined Hyperlipidemia.  She was adopted, so her parents didn’t have her biological family’s history.  She also took birth control that caused an increased risk of stroke.  I had to spend a year fending off lawyers wanting to bring legal action against the pharmaceutical companies.  I didn’t bother; it wasn’t going to bring her back to me.”

“I’m sorry,” Donna said. “I hope I didn’t upset you.”

“I’ve been upset about it for years, you didn’t cause it.”

Donna squeezed his hand then let go, she walked over to the desk and petted the cat.

“What about you?” he asked.

“My dad didn’t let me date a whole lot in high school,” Donna said. “Not that he needed to discourage it. I was pretty shy.  In college I went a little wild at times with the introduction of alcohol, but nothing serious. Oh, I did nearly make a huge mistake on a trip to Europe.”

“What happened?” he asked.

“I was dating this French political science major,” Donna said.  “One day he got pretty drunk in front of his friends and started ranting about how America was the source of everything wrong with the world.  He blamed me for being part of it. He called me his charity case.  I was devastated.  He was my first real crush and he turned out to be such a jerk.  It’s kind of like that for me.  I date the wrong guys to find out they have other intentions.  It’s like there is something wrong with me that they can zero in on.  It’s kind of kept me from dating anyone seriously for the past couple of years.”

###

Captain Rick Anderson’s convoy arrived at the airport to the cheers of civilians and militia at the gate.  The convoy had cut its way through the carnage. 

Anderson stepped out of his Stryker and was greeted by a younger man extending his hand to the Captain.  “Pleased to meet you in person Captain, I’m Paul Sulla.”

“Let me introduce Sergeant Ryan Winters, he is my acting number two,” said Anderson.  Sulla and Winters shook hands.

“Captain what do you need from us?” Sulla said.

“I’d like to set up in the main hanger with my vehicles and unload supplies,” Anderson said.  “If you can take the civilians off my hands we can focus on breaking and blowing things up.  I also have a population of armed civilians that I can turn over to your militia.  For now, I’d like to keep things separate when it comes to unit organization.  I can also pass out a little heavier hardware than the deer rifles your boys seem to be carrying.”

An hour later, Anderson and Winters sat around a conference table with a number of people; Sulla introduced the panel to the Captain.  In the background, a muted television played scenes of the undead attacks from around the country.

“This is Dr. Mike Carson; he represents three physicians and two nurses here,” Sulla said.

Anderson saw a man across the table from the doctor stiffen at the doctor’s name and drop a hand as if to reach for a gun on his hip.  Anderson automatically did the same, but stopped short of pulling it out.  The man turned his head to face Anderson and for an instant they locked eyes.  The man nodded and smiled at Anderson, no one else in the room had the faintest idea the exchange had occurred.  Sulla continued the introductions.

“Jack Cotta is representing the 10 pilots that we have at the airport, and Mr. Cotta, why do you have a cat?”

“Co-pilot,” Jack said. “I can’t navigate worth shit without her.” 

Sulla rolled his eyes and continued.

“Seated across from the doctor is Rex Weyland.  He’s an old friend of mine who showed up a few minutes ago.  Rex did something or other for Homeland Security and is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, so I wanted him here.”

Anderson took note of Rex; he looked tired from the night but still sharp.  That man is dangerous, Anderson thought, and he apparently has a reason to hate the doctor.

“Captain Anderson will give us a brief outline about the larger picture,” Sulla said.

Anderson cleared his throat and picked up a sheet of paper.  “At 0800 this morning, I left the Reserve depot with roughly 200 civilians and a platoon of Guardsmen.  The convoy consisted of 15 Humvees, 10 Strykers, 5 Water Buffalos, 2 fuel tankers and 10 M35A2 flatbed trucks.  The M35’s hauled 50,000 MRE rations, 600 blankets, 5 diesel generators, 300 M-16s, 500,000 rounds of 5.56, 10,000 rounds of 9mm, and 3,000 rounds of 12 gauge shotgun cartridges.  We also stashed in 10,000 rounds of old .30-06 that has been left lying around since World War II.  I have Sergeant Winters preparing another list of equipment that we will be handing out to your people as soon as we can get it unpacked.  There will be some goodies such as field radios and night vision for sentries.”

“Our overall situation,” Anderson continued, “is that, as you can see on the television, we are completely boxed in from every direction.  There may be smaller pockets of resistance in the area, but short of Pittsburgh, this facility is the only safe zone.  I use the term loosely.  Western Pennsylvania is looking to be the worst disaster area in regard to a loss to human life since Haiti.  That will be shortly replaced by projections from New York that estimate greater than 3,000 uncontained zombies in the streets.  In a dense area like New York, we estimate that a single zombie can kill 2 to 5 people in an hour.  The police were pro-active in putting the early zombies down, but panic in the streets caused a monster of a traffic jam.  The police could only trickle into the area and there were 30 percent casualties to NYPD officers in the first few hours.”

“There are over 8 million people in the city,” Carson said.

“Correct,” Anderson said. “And half of them have ignored warnings to stay indoors and are fleeing on foot for their lives.  If they can’t get the numbers of expansion in check, New York will be looking at over 100,000 undead attacking the city in a few hours.  The math after that makes our problems look like a vacation.  With the outbreak spreading like it is, I can’t stress enough that we are unlikely to get help.  Ever.”

The last word left a long silence in the room.

“What about the rest of the country?” Jack Cotta said.

“Panicked,” replied Anderson.  “The President and his staff left Washington aboard Air Force One.  The vast majority of the country is still untouched by the outbreaks, but roadblocks are starting to go up on State boarders.  We expect to see martial law declared before this evening.”

Jack raised his hand, “I have a question.  If we’re unlikely to get help, how long can we last here?”

All eyes turned to Captain Anderson.  “I’d comfortably say from the set up we have here, we have weeks to months.  Let me also say, however, that a week ago if you would have asked me how long we could hold out against the undead I would have thought you were crazy.  Today, I have to stop and wonder if there are going to be any other insane possibilities that decide to blow up in my face.”

“You mean like Shippingport,” Rex added.

Anderson had a bad feeling that he wasn’t going to like what he heard next, “What about it?”

Rex scratched his beard, “If I remember correctly, its twenty-ish miles west of us and is home to a reactor.”

“Do we need to worry about it?” Sulla said.

“Yeah,” Rex replied, “There are people that maintain it as well as some fail-safes, but I worked with a guy who worked there.  He liked to talk endlessly about the plant.  I don’t know if you have ever seen the clouds the reactor forms, but that is water vapor.  Those radioactive rods are really hot and need the water to keep them from catching fire.  Even if the plant goes into standby mode, the water still needs to be cycled and replaced.  If that plant is left alone long enough, think Chernobyl.  Heck, think of Japan.”

“So that’s it,” Sulla said, “Unless the situation takes a 180 degree turn we are looking at that reactor finishing off anything left in Western Pennsylvania.”

“So what are our options?” Carson said.

“Driving out is possible,” Anderson said, “But highly problematic.”

“How about it Jack?” Sulla asked.

“Yeah, given enough time we could fly everyone out, but to where?” Jack said.

“Let’s put aside the where for now, what kind of capacity do we have?” Anderson said.

“There are ten of us who can fly at the moment, two of whom can handle those Learjet 60s in hanger three.  Capacity though as the Captain here asked about, is going to be the problem.  Stand alone, we can haul thirty people out of here per trip with an extremely light cargo load.  Those numbers could change quite a bit depending on where.  So to work with just moving people out, that’s something like twenty round trips.  It’s an undertaking, but possible with time.  If you want to move some of the hardware, it’ll take more and frankly some of it won’t fit.  There is another option however.”

“Go on,” said Anderson.

“A couple of the pilots are commercial and can handle much heavier craft, if we want to go get bigger planes from somewhere else.  Or you can get a couple of those C-130’s from the 911
^th
in Pittsburgh.”

“This is a lot to chew on,” Sulla said. “What do you think Captain?”

“I need time,” Anderson replied. “Let me try and bump this up the chain, I doubt they will send us the planes, but I can at least try.  As an officer, I can’t condone theft, especially if Martial Law is declared; however, Sulla, you still have jurisdiction here and we are still operating separately.”

The cat that had been sleeping on Jack Cotta’s lap woke up and sniffed at the air.  Anderson watched the owner pet the cat, but it jumped up on the table continuing to sniff.  Its nose slowed down and zeroed in on one direction.  The cat took a tentative step and halted as its tail grew to three times the size in width. 

“What’s wrong Naomi?” Jack said.

The cat’s ears bent back and she stepped away from Carson and then she hissed at him.

Jack grabbed the cat and pulled her away from the table.