Preservation (3 page)

I managed to get onto my knees and stand up. I
gasped, a hand over my stomach and bent forward. There was no time to catch my breath. Dave was pinned on the floor and using a forearm to keep from being bitten. I scraped up the machete as I ran toward them. I took a final step closer and swung the blade around. Wasn’t looking to just make it to first base with that swing. I wanted a home run and aimed for the fences. The zombie’s head did not launch toward the hangar’s ceiling the way I’d envisioned, but fell away from the shoulders and bounced twice before it skidded to a stop on the cement flooring.

Dave pushed the remaining torso to the side. More of that thick, black blood oozed from this zombie’s neck and slowly drained from the corpse the way maple syrup pours onto pancakes. “Fuck! He smells,” Dave said. “These things seem like they’re rotting away.”

I kicked the corpse, the finally dead corpse, and offered a hand to Dave. “At least it was worth it,” I said.

“Worth it, how,” he said.

“Look,” I said.

Behind me was a twin engine plane. It filled a good portion of the front of the hangar.

“How do we fuel one of these things up?”

I shook my head. “I guess we need
Palmeri now.”

As I walked toward the door we’d just entered, the Humvee horn blared.

I looked back at Dave.

His eyes were open wide. Horn could only mean one thing
…

Chapter Three

The Humvee’s horn screamed like a bass siren. Palmeri wasn’t just honking it, she was laying on it.

I ran for the door, reached it in four steps and shielded my eyes from the Humvee headlights. The passenger door on the Humvee flew open. “Get back in the truck! Come on, get in!”
Erway waved at Dave and me with frantic hand gestures.

“Dave!” I said.

“I hear it,” he said. “Zombies?”

“
Gotta be!”
We exited the hangar. I couldn’t see what caused the excitement.

“The plane,” Dave said. He pointed back from where we’d come out of, and waved it away, as if saying,
ah forgiddaboudit
.

I climbed into the Humvee. “There’s a plane inside.”

“Zombies coming this way,” Charlene said. She was looking out the side window after Dave got in and shut the door. “I mean, a lot of zombies are coming right at us.”

As soon as Dave was inside and the door closed,
Palmeri gave the vehicle gas. Tires protested on pavement as she cut the wheel one way, then the other to get around the hangar. “They came out of nowhere!”

Then I saw them.

They must have come from the woods. They ran at us. Crazed looking. Some wore military clothing. Others were in flannel and hunting camo. Others were flat out naked, or wearing such torn and tattered clothing that nothing was identifiable.

“Holy shit,” Dave said.

“Now what? We don’t want to just leave the plane,” I said.

“We don’t even know if it’s fueled, or if it’s a plane I can fly,”
Palmeri said.

“It had two propellers.
One on each wing. Is that something you can fly?” Dave said.

“It could be,”
Palmeri said. She drove back toward the way we’d initially come.

“I left the door open to the hangar,” Dave said.

“Forget about it,” I said, and almost laughed.

“What?” Dave said.

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

“How many do you count?”
Erway said. “I see, I’d say, twenty.”

“It’s what I see,” Charlene said.

“We’re not getting out of this Humvee,” I said. Not a chance. “They’re fast, every one of them.”

“While your machete looks really cool,”
Erway said, and held up her AK47, “this is better equipped to handle a situation like this. We need that airplane. I have no idea if Mexico is the answer, but New York is shot to shit. Palmeri, circle back around.”

Palmeri
pursed her lips, but turned the wheel.

“Stop close, but
not too close,” Erway said.

Once the Humvee came to a complete stop,
Erway aimed the AK out the window. “Going to be a little loud, folks,” she said, before squeezing the trigger.

I took Allison’s hand.

Not every shot was a headshot. She dropped three quickly. Blood, brains and skull exploding onto the other walkers. Two, she hit in the gut. Bullets ripped away slabs of flab. It slowed them some, but didn’t stop them. Erway paused and took a deep breath. She exhaled and went back to work.

The sound inside the Humvee was deafening. Allison kept her eyes closed, shoulders hunched.
She twitched as shots were fired. Charlene and I locked eyes.

The remaining zombies closed the gap, getting closer and closer to the Humvee. I watched
Palmeri. She kept both hands on the steering wheel, ready to punch the gas pedal with both feet if those things got too close.

The final few, she took more time.
Aimed. Dropped them one after the other. The last zombie was, at best, twenty feet away from the vehicle. Looked like the bullet pummeled the thing in the left eye socket. It took several stumbling steps forward before another round exploded through its forehead.

Erway
smiled, sat back, butt of the AK on the Humvee car mat. “I cannot lie. I kind of enjoyed that.”

I didn’t smile and could not see how cutting down even twenty zombies would be enjoyable. These were people at one time, still were, actually. My stomach churned some.

Allison shook her head, staring at me.

“
We going back for the plane?” Charlene said.

“I think we should. All that gunfire is bound to attract more of them to the area. We either try to get out of here in the air, or I say we hit the road and just start heading south,” Dave said.

“I agree,” Sues said.

“Ok,”
Palmeri said. “We’re going back.”

“You can do this?
” Allison said. She leaned up front between the set of seats. “Fly a plane? I mean, you’ve got a license, I know. You said that, but fly a plane, a big military plane?”

I touched Allison on the back. Her fear of flying was borderline psychotic. Many people did not like flying, but flew. Allison flew once with her family when she was young. They were going on a family vacation to California. The flight was choppy at best, as if pockets of turbulence aligned specifically for the plane she and her family were in. Her mother had a hell of a time getting her to fly back home when the trip came to an end. There were bribery attempts and promises made, but it came down to flat out threats and damning punishments that finally convinced her to get on the flight home. That had been seven days later, so there was a good chance they’d have bett
er weather on that flight. Only Allison was not so lucky. The turbulence was worse. The landing gear wouldn’t lower. Fire trucks and ambulances were on standby at the end of the runway when they landed. Allison didn’t just fear flying, she hated it.

“We’ll
know, once we get in the hangar,” Palmeri said. That hadn’t exactly been a reassuring statement, however, it had been honest. “If I can’t fly it, I won’t. No sense getting something up in the air just because I can, if I am not completely confident I can bring her back down safely.”

I wanted to clap a hand against my forehead. Did she really just say that?

Allison sat back, her eyes filled with terror. Her lips quivered and her body trembled. I don’t think she could’ve spoken a word if she wanted. I pulled her into my arms, hugged her tight. Charlene just looked at me with a look I knew all too well. I arched my eyebrows, hopefully telling my daughter to show some compassion. Instead, Charlene rolled her eyes and turned away.

The Humvee stopped by the hangar’s back door. We sat inside because it seemed like no one wanted to move just yet.

Palmeri shut the engine, put the keys in her breast pocket. “On three, we make a run for the hangar.”

“A run?”
Sues said. “I don’t see any more zombies.”

“That don’t mean it’s time to walk,”
Erway said.

“I don’t think I can do this,” Allison said.

“What’s wrong?” Dave said.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Chase.” Allison fisted my shirt as she lifted her head off my chest. “We should drive to Mexico. We should.”

“Why do you want to drive?” Sues said.

“She’s afraid to fly.” Charlene crossed her arms. “Dad, we don’t have time for this.”

My daughter was right. We didn’t have time for this. “Honey, more zombies will be coming. They heard the gunshots. They are going to come from every direction. We’re kind of committed--”

“To flying? No we’re not.” Allison narrowed her eyes at me, wanting me to know there was still room to debate.

There wasn’t. “This flight will not be like the other two you were on.”

“You don’t know that. What did you say? You said this plane, the one in there, has two propellers? Propellers, Chase? I was on a plane with engines. Jet engines. The one in that hangar has propellers, and you think a flight to Mexico with a pilot who happens to have a license is going to be smoother than JetBlue? No offense, Elysia.”

“None taken,” she said.

“We’re going to check out the plane,” I said.

“I’ll wait here while you check.
Elysia, may I have the keys?” Allison held out her hand.

“Dad?”
Charlene raised her eyebrow at me, this time. She wasn’t asking me to be compassionate though.

“We’re all going into the hangar, Alley. I am not leaving you out here.”

“We’re going on three.” Erway put her hand on the door handle.

“Wait, wait,
wait!” Allison grabbed onto my arm. “This isn’t a good idea. Flying to Mexico. It’s not a good idea. We should drive.”

“You said that, already.” Charlene placed a hand on Allison’s shoulder. “We have to go. You can do this. You can hold my hand the entire time. I won’t let go
, not once, but we need to move. We need to keep moving and we need to stay together. We’re not going to leave you alone in this truck, and I’m not going to let go of your hand on that plane.”

Allison loosened her grip on my shirt. “Thank you.”

They hugged.

“This is great, but we really, really need to get inside that hangar.”
Erway pushed open her door.

Chapter Four

1540 hours

We stood inside the hangar with the doors closed and the Humvee parked just outside the back door in case the plane option didn’t pan out. Staring at the size of the plane, I couldn’t help feeling a bit apprehensive. It was fat, bulky. Despite propellers on each wing, I didn’t think this thing was ever built to fly.
Aerodynamically challenged
is what I would have labeled it.

“Zombie!”
Charlene raised her machete, pointing the tip of the blade behind us.

Dave had left the hangar doors open when we escaped earlier. Something must have gotten in.

Erway aimed her AK 47.

“No!”
Palmeri held up her hand. “You can’t fire a gun in here. There might be fuel around.”

The zombie was by a red toolbox on wheels. It held a wrench in one hand. It didn’t look so much like a weapon as it did a tool, like the thing wanted to get back to work and make repairs on the plane.

What repairs did the plane need?

Then the mechanic-zombie charged. I raised my machete and used a sweep of my arm to push Charlene behind me before taking several steps forward. It came at me fast. I held the handle with two hands and let out a roar as I chopped at its head.

The blade buried itself more than an inch into the thing’s forehead and face, parting the bridge of its nose nearly in half. Its eyes rolled upward, as a thick black tongue protruded from the corner torn flesh of its mouth.

“Check around,
and make sure this was the only one,” I said. The hangar didn’t have rooms. It was basically big, and empty, except for the large plane.

“Clear,” Charlene said, she held onto her machete with two hands. “I don’t see anymore.”

We encircled Palmeri, then, and waited.

“Well?” Sues said, finally. “Is it something you can fly?”

Palmeri nodded and walked from the back of the plane around to the front, and back again. The rest of us stood still, silent, and continued waiting.

“I’ve not flown one of
these
.” Palmeri pointed at the plane. “However, I have flown twin propeller planes before. Just not one like this, this…big.”

“So we’re driving?” Allison held onto Charlene’s hand. I saw how white their
knuckles were. Alley must have been squeezing the hell out of my daughter.

“This is a cargo plane, but
it can seat up to thirty people.” Palmeri moved a four-step ladder close to the door on the side of the plane. “With a full tank of gas, she’ll take us, three, three hundred and fifty miles?”

“Mexico is a lot further than that,” Sues said.

“It’s a three hundred mile head start. Will put us somewhere in, I don’t know exactly, like southern New York, or Pennsylvania?” Dave said. “How long will a flight like that take?”

“We should hit Pennsylvania for sure.
And In this? It’ll take roughly a few hours. Figure we can cruise a little over two hundred miles an hour. Thing is, the plane’s not pressurized.” Palmeri climbed the steps and opened the side door.

“What’s that? I mean, what’s that mean?” Allison shook her head, let go of my daughter and
walked toward the steps.

“It means the back door on this baby doesn’t seal right.
Going to be a little loud and a little cold back there. Wasn’t exactly built for luxury. It’s a nice plane, though. Solid. It’s about fifty-eight feet long, with a seventy-four foot wingspan.” Palmeri sounded like she might be talking to herself, going over what she knew, and what she thought she might need to know to about flying this plane. She disappeared inside the plane.

“Chase, I don’t like this.
Any of it. She doesn’t know how to fly this. She admitted it. She said she’d never flown a plane this big. What did she tell me in the truck, huh? She said if she couldn’t fly it, she wouldn’t. Sounds to me like she can’t fly it, so we shouldn’t risk it.”

“Give her a minute,” I said. “Let her look around, take a peek at the controls. If she sounds hesitant, we’ll drive.”

“We will? You promise? Because right now, I look like the crazy one.”

“You don’t look crazy. You look scared. It’s okay to be scared.”

“Promise me. Just say it. Say you promise we’ll drive if she doesn’t sound like she knows what she’s doing.”

“I promise.”

Charlene grunted and walked away.

Erway
appeared impatient. She held onto her AK and walked around the plane. “I don’t think we can start this thing up in here.”

“We can’t.”
Palmeri was at the doorway. “See that buggy? Once we open the hangar doors, it will pull us out of the hangar toward the runway. Once outside, we can fire up the engines.”

“Propellers,” Allison said.

“Can you fly it?” Sues said.

“I can. I’m going to need someone up front with me, assisting with the controls. It’s a two-pilot job,” she said.

Allison stared at me. I couldn’t say anything. Palmeri sounded confident.

“Shotgun,”
Erway said.

Palmeri
came down the stairs. She took a thick braided rope with a hook from the back of the buggy and hooked it onto the front of the plane. “Going to need to open the hangar doors and for someone to drive this thing.”

We all needed to take turns. It was the one thing that kept coming around. Just like there were a million things to volunteer for before now, there will be this instance, and then a million more after. Each time the threat of danger and dying would be possible, if not probable and prevalent.

“I’ve got it,” Sues said, and raised her hand like she was about to answer a question.

Dave grabbed her arm. She shrugged out of his hold. “Sues,” he said.

“I can’t sit anymore,” she said. “I can’t just be on the sidelines. We’re a family. Chase said so more than once. And we need to take turns doing these crazy things. We need to. This, driving that buggy and pulling this plane out of the hangar, this is my crazy thing I get to do. You need to let me, Dave. I need to do this.”

Palmeri
pointed. “Dave, Chase, move those blocks set in front of and behind the wheels. Everyone else, get on the plane.”

“She’ll be okay,” I said to Dave.

“I don’t like this.” He sounded like Allison. “I’m opening the hangar door. She can pull the plane out, but I’m not getting on until she does.”

“I’m not arguing. That’s what you should do. It’s what I’d do.” I smiled.

“You would?”

“Yes. If it were Allison, it’s what I’d do.
Same thing.”

“Okay. Good. Go get on the plane. We got this,” Dave said.  

I moved the rolling steps out of the way, kicked it toward the hangar wall and hoisted myself up and into the plane.

“Where’s Dave?” Allison stood next to my daughter. They were still hand holding.

I’d never been inside a plane like this. Saw them in movies. To my right were roughly twenty fold-down seats, ten on each side of the fuselage. “Is this where we sit?”

“Did you see them?” Allison pointed. “Those don’t look safe to sit in at a picnic, much
less going three hundred miles an hour thirty-thousand feet in the sky.”

“I think she said we’ll go around two hundred miles an hour,” my daughter said.

“Char,” I said.

“Sorry.”

“Why don’t you two go get buckled in,” I said.

“Wait. Dave. Where’s Dave?” Allison said.

“He’s going to open the hangar door for Sues,” I said. “Go buckle in.”

On the left was the door to the cockpit. I opened it. There was room to walk in, but then the pilot and co-pilot needed to climb up and over the center console to slide into their seats.
Erway and Palmeri were packed in tight.

“We set in back,”
Erway said.

“Seems like it.” I stared out the front window. Dave was just about to pull open the hangar doors.
Palmeri had maps unfolded in front of her. “What are you working on?”

“Flight plan.
GPS is down. Would have been able to plug in to in an airport, or something. Doing it old school. Charting our course. Good thing is, I don’t expect too much company in the sky. Think we’re going to have it pretty much to ourselves,” Palmeri said.

The hangar door was open all the way, and now Dave ran the hook from the back of the buggy toward the front of the plane. I lost sight of him.

The plane rocked forward. I held onto the cockpit walls for balance, to keep from falling backward. “We’re really doing this?”

“We are.”
Palmeri held the W-shaped control wheel between her thighs, a hand on each grip.

We were slowly wheeled out of the hangar. Sues led us cautiously toward the runway.
“That enough runway to get us out of here?”

“Has to be.
They landed this thing here, right?” Palmeri said.

I shook my head. “Really doesn’t look long enough.”

Palmeri didn’t say a word. Possibly she agreed, and if she did so out loud, knew it would make everyone that much more apprehensive about flying.

Sues stopped the buggy, turned with one arm draped over the seat and stared at the plane. Without being able to see what was happening, I’d guess Dave was running to unhook the rope from the front.

“Go get your seat. Buckle in. It’s going to be bumpy, loud and cold.”

“Yeah, I get that,” I said, and turned to leave but stopped. “Will there be any movie, or meal served? I didn’t see a single stewardess--”

“Ask a flight attendant,” Erway said. “We’re pilots.”

“Right,” I said, and
smiled, knowing the slight attempt at humor was appreciated. “Well, there were no flight attendants anywhere--”

Palmeri
yelled. “Ah, shit! They need help!” 

I looked out the window again. I couldn’t see what caused alarm, but neither was I going to wait
to find out. I ran out of the cockpit.

“What is it?” Allison said.

“Stay!” I said.

I went out the opened door on the side of the plane and jumped the few feet down to the tarmac. “Dave!”

The buggy was off to the side, a chopped up zombie on the ground beside it. Dave held Sues in his arms. “She’s not dead! She’s okay. She’s going to be fine, Chase. She’s all right.”