Dead Hunger III: The Chatsworth Chronicles (29 page)

“Careful out there,” said Reeves.  “We’ve driven through the facility, but we haven’t cleared the place by any stretch.  It could be a busy little airport at times, so …”

“We get you,” said Gem.  “We’ll be careful.”

“Take Franklin Pierce to Louden and turn right.  From there, cross the river and follow the signs.  You’ll be there in no time.”  Reeves held out his hand.  “And thank you.”

“Just get some of that
z-juice
to everyone in town
,” said Flex.
“
Make sure they know about the rats
, too
.  No basements
until they’re armed and ready
.”

“Everybody has hand-helds, and they’re supposed to be on at all times,” said Reeves.  “We’ll put them on a rotation
to come to the statehouse, and we’ll
get it distributed over the next few days.”

“You’d better find a way to work 24/7, Kev,” said Flex.  “They need this stuff yesterday.”

“
Understood,” said Reeves.  Good luck at the airport.”

We loaded up several spray bottles and set the nozzle to stream. 
Gem had her new Uzi and several replacement magazines, and I carried my crossbow over my shoulder along with two Glocks in drop holsters.  I was confident and secure with my crossbow, but should quarters be too tight to use the weapon, I needed backup.

Flex carried his Daewoo as usual, and Dave carried Hemp’s MP5.

Before we left, Reeves gave us a set of master keys to the airport entrance doors.  They also kept schematics to all major facilities in the city down in the basement, but we wouldn’t be tackling that today, so we’d be feeling our way along. 

The Crown Vic, with its AK-47 on the roof, was the obvious choice, and
Gem drove her baby.  She was very familiar with it, and really handled it better than anyone else, although Cyn had really gotten the hang of maneuvering that car and firing the weapon mounted on top during her drive across several states.

We turned from Loudon onto
Airport Road
, and the signs guided us the rest of the way.  We turned left and wound our way into the parking lot.  With no tow-away zones any longer, we pulled up to the door of the small metal building that served as the terminal.

Dave got out first and stood staring at the parking lot.  After a moment, he said, “About thirty-five cars there.  Hopefully a few of them had already made their flights.”

“Just be ready,” said Gem, more to Dave than to us.  We had an unspoken knowledge of what we needed to be prepared for.

I walked up to Lisa, whose hair was pulled back in a braid and pinned up on her head.  She looked somehow tougher than when we’d found her. 
I gave her a spray bottle.

“Test that real quick, would you?” I said.

“Where, just …”

“Yeah, just spray it.”

She did.  It shot about five feet in a thin stream.

“Good,” I said.  “Lisa, this is all you’ll have for now, but it’s effective as hell.  Spray at their faces to take them down in a second, but anywhere you hit them they’ll basically melt.”

“Got it,” she said.  “By the way, I want to talk to you and Gem later, okay?”

I looked at this pretty, eighteen-year old girl.  She reminded me of when I was young and scared of the world.  The only difference is that Lisa had way better reasons than I did to be scared.

“Sure,” I said.  “Any time.  You know that.”

“I do,” she said.  “Let’s get this over with.”

“Are you sorry you came?” I asked her, smiling.

“Not yet,” she said.  “Give me time.”

Flex had the keys clipped to his belt loop and as he approached the terminal door, he pushed it. 

The keys weren’t necessary.  The door swung in quietly on its hinges.  Flex walked in, followed by Gem, Dave, Lisa and me.

It was only seconds before we were discovered.

Loud moans came from both sides of us, and Dave swung his MP5 around and blasted
a man dressed in a pilot’s uniform in the face.  A deep red spray aspirated through the air, and I felt the particle sized drops wet my skin.

I quickly wiped my face on my sleeve, my eyes pinched closed.  Fucking zombie blood.  It stank.

Now I stank.

When I looked up, something caught my peripheral vision.

“Charlie, behind you!” shouted Flex.

I spun, my crossbow held out, but the creature was so close behind me, the arrow tore across its face.

I jabbed outward, and the arrow pierced its forehead, impaling the zombie there.

I never fired it.  I yanked backward and the arrow came free of my bow.  The zombie fell backward.

More gunshots, and I turned to see Gem and Dave firing on two more.  One was a flight attendant, the other appeared to be an airport worker.  Both had deteriorated terribly, and neither appeared very strong.  Food must have been in short supply here at the old muni airport.

I reached down and withdrew the arrow protruding from the thing’s head
that I’d killed, remounting it in my bow.

For now, that was it.

Lisa stood there, holding that spray bottle out, her arms shaking.  Her eyes were wide and frantic, and Dave approached her, putting his hand gently atop hers, pressing her arms down.

“We got it, sis,” he said.  “It’s cool.  All clear.”

He put an arm over her shoulder and hugged her tight.

She turned her face toward his.  “Yeah?”

“Yeah.  For now.  Good job.”

“But … I didn’t do anything.”

“You would’ve,” he said.  “You had that bottle up and ready.  Showed composure.”

Lisa allowed her arm to relax
, and the bottle hung down by her side.  “I was scared to death
, David
.”

“Good,”
he said, squeezing her again. 
“If you’re not scared, you’re not
prepared
.”

Flex fished a paper out of his jeans pocket.  “I got the tail number from the
chopper
.
  It’s N391RC.  Let’s split up and check it out, then meet back at the door we came out of.  Keep your radios on channel 19 and stay within visual range of everyone else.  If you lose sight of someone, then send out an alert and go to where you last saw them immediately.”

“Aren’t you the little organizer,” Gem said.

“I learned it from you,
baby doll
,” he said.
  “Again, the number is N391RC.  Sequential, other RC numbers, anything.  They’ll all start with N if they’re US registered numbers.”

“This seems like a bullshit long shot,” I said.

“Charlie,” said Gem.

“I
know
,” I said.
  “I just feel like he’s slipping farther and farther away from me every second.”

“
That’s your imagination,” said Gem.  “W
e have to start somewhere.”

I nodded.  “Fine,” I said.  “Let’s start.”

We all went outside. 
Rows
of small commuter and private planes
sat
dirt-covered and silent
on the macadam of two large
parking areas
. 

It was where we would start.

****

Dave came with me, and Lisa went with Gem and Flex. 
There were two lots, so we jogged over to the far lot and started running up and down the rows of planes.

The weather was brisk; not really cold, but the air held the promise of the coming winter.  There was a light breeze blowing from the direction of town, and
after we ran up and down the rows of aircraft, I was glad of it. 

Dave kept reciting the numbers out loud, and it was good, because my mind was so often on Hemp that I couldn’t remember it for more than thirty seconds.

I reached the last row on the south side of the airport, and looked at Gem and Flex in the north lot.  Flex threw his had up and gave an exaggerated shrug.

I knew we’d all struck out.

A strange sound floated on the breeze.  Then it was gone.

As another gust came, the sound returned briefly, then was gone as quickly as it had come; too brief to be sure it wasn’t imagination.

And it was there again.  Louder.  Dave walked up beside me, breathing hard.  He looked at my face.

“Hey.  Your brow’s all furrowed.  What’s up?”

“Charl
i
e!  Dave!  Look!”

We looked at Flex and Gem, and they were jumping and pointing toward the runways. 

Dave and I looked.  At first we didn’t see anything.  We checked the near runways. 
Normal
.

Then we looked at the far runways. 

“What the hell are they pointing at?” asked Dave.

“I don’t know … what is that?  There, at the end of that runway?”

There were two main runways, both running north-south.  The other runways were shorter, and ran east west, crossing the two main
strips.

“Looks like a sinkhole,” I said.

“Only it’s not sinking,” said Dave.  “Fuck!  Charlie, it’s moving!”

We both squinted, and saw the dark black asphalt looked fluid, as though it were rippling.

“Fucking rats, Charlie!  And look!” He pointed.  Beyond the rats were several people crawling out of the ravine beyond the runway.
  Once on the blacktop, it was as if they floated among the rippling asphalt.

Floated in our direction.

“Are those infecteds?” I asked.

“I don’t know what the fuck you mean by that, but they’re zombies, Charlie.”

The sound was the rats’ tiny claws clicking and scraping the pavement as they ran in our direction.

Dave ran over to a luggage car that was
parked
about five feet away.  He jumped in and turned the key
, then hit the accelerator
. 
It was electric and still held a charge, because it
jolted forward.  Dave looked up and waved me over.

“C’mon, Charlie!  Run and get in, now!”

“Move!” shouted Gem.  “Get to the door!”

I was twenty feet from where Dave sat in the cart.  “Go, go!” I shouted, running for him.

My legs were pumping full steam toward the cart, and when it took off, I was still gaining.  I held my crossbow in one hand and put all my energy into each push off my boots, and as I reached the cart, I threw myself inside, landing awkwardly beside Dave on the passenger side.

The rats were only about fifteen feet behind us.  The zombies staggering along with them were farther back, but there were about twenty of them now.

“Where the hell did they come from?” asked Dave, his face flushed, but his expression wild, as though this exhilarated him.

“Some of them look like diggers,” I said.  Nice dresses – at one time, at least – and suits.”

“Jesus,” said Dave.  “We gonna make it?”

“We’ll beat the diggers.  The rats are anybody’s guess.”

Flex and Gem, who were closer to the terminal entry door, had reached it.  They went inside and stood there, watching us.

Thirty yards.

Twenty yards.

Ten yards.

The rats were back far enough for us to abandon the cart and run to the door.

“Charlie, I’m going to pull alongside the door about five feet away.  I’m not stopping, so when you see me bail, you do the same, okay?”

“Got it.  Just say go or something.”

Three seconds later, Dave yelled, “Go!”

We both jumped off, landing in a full run, and reached the
door.  Flex had it pulled open by the time we reached it, and pushed it closed behind us.

“Latch it!  Slide that latch up!” shouted Gem.  “They’re coming, Flex!”

The rats moved as the others had.  Like a tidal wave of black, clawing and climbing over one another as they advanced along the ground.  When they reached the building, it was like a wave crashing against the face of an oceanfront cliff.  The doors pressed against their latches as they slammed into them, clawing and scratching, some making it three to four feet up the glass by pure momentum, then curling back over and falling among their dead compatriots like whitewater after the break.

Thousands of them.  You could no longer see the ground.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” said Dave.  “We’d have been dead, Charlie.”

Nobody answered him.  His exhilaration had vanished now, replaced by pure fear.  Then he pointed.

“Look,” he said.  “Over there.”

“They’re different,” said Flex.  “They’re not interested in us.”

“What are there?  Like thirty or so?”

The rats looked the same as the rest.  The only difference is they weren’t pressing against the glass, drawn to us.  They stayed on the outskirts of the pack, looking confused.