Thunder and Ashes Page 4

  “I say we should at least look in the windows, Private,” came a new voice.

  Brewster and the others turned to see Sherman and Thomas standing in the doorway to the hangar.

  “Well, just as long as I don’t have to go opening any doors,” Brewster said, sighing. “Someone help me push these stairs over.”

  Brewster and Denton laid their rifles on a luggage crate and grabbed hold of a set of rolling stairs. Denton kicked the locks loose and the two pushed and pulled the heavy steel construct up against the side of the dual-prop plane. Another set of kicks locked the stairs in place once more and Brewster grabbed the handrail, climbing slowly.

  “Brewster,” Wilson said, whistling for the soldier’s attention.

  When Brewster looked down, Wilson held up the spotlight, then tossed it in the air. Brewster reached out and caught it with his free hand.

  Brewster took a deep breath as he approached the top of the stairs and held it in unconsciously, clicking the spotlight back on. He raised it slowly until it was level with one of the windows, and peered inside.

  Almost immediately, a pale hand plastered itself against the inside of the window. Brewster jumped, but kept a solid grip on the handrail.

  A low moan, faint and distorted, filled the air inside the hangar. Slowly, other hands appeared in the plane’s windows, followed by sunken faces.

  “Well, there they are,” Krueger said from the hangar floor, arms folded across his chest. “Guess we can stop wondering about that, now.”

  “How many can you see, Brewster?” Sherman called up.

  “Uh, hang on, sir,” Brewster said, trying to track the various infected on the other side of the windows. “Six . . . seven . . . eight . . .”

  “How many?” Thomas repeated.

  “I’m counting, I’m counting!” Brewster protested, waving a hand at Thomas. “Uh, eight. I see eight. All shamblers.”

  “Eight?” Sherman asked. He pressed his lips together and furrowed his brow. “How many were there total again, Thomas?”

  “Eleven, sir. Nine passengers, two crew.”

  “We killed one outside,” volunteered Brewster from the top of the stairs, still peering intently into the windows. “He was dressed like crew.”

  “That still leaves two,” Thomas said.

  The group members looked at one another uneasily, hands falling to rest on weapons. They turned to face the darkness of the hangar, standing almost back-to-back. Brewster flipped the spotlight around in his hand, using his elevation to get a good angle on the hangar floor. The wide beam of light darted around the interior of the structure.

  “Bastards could be anywhere,” Wilson said. “Could be sprinters, could be shamblers. Maybe they wandered off—”

  “Quiet!” Sherman barked, drawing his pistol. “Listen!”

  Silence.

  “I don’t hear anything, Frank,” Denton said after a moment.

  “I know. Shut up,” Sherman said.

  More silence. Then—

  A single footstep. More of a scrape than a footstep, really. It may as well have been a gunshot. Every living set of ears in the building turned toward it immediately. It had come from the direction of the lines of luggage containers. Brewster shone the flashlight toward the containers, panning it slowly left and right.

  “There,” Krueger said softly, thumbing the safety of his rifle off. “In the middle of all that junk. The shamblers’ noises must’ve stirred it up.”

  The barrel was trained on the floor. Krueger had picked out a single white tennis shoe, nearly invisible between the containers. The shoe moved forward, scraping along the cement floor with just the barest of noises. Brewster shifted the spotlight up a degree and lit the break in the containers where the infected would appear. A moment later, a hand groped around the corner, grabbing the edge of the container with white knuckles, and slowly pulled the rest of itself into view.

  This had been the pilot. A sunken face, swollen tongue and rolled-back eyes attested to a slow death by dehydration. Not the most pleasant way to go for an uninfected human. It had probably taken weeks for the infected to die that way. Sherman remembered some of Dr. Demilio’s briefings on the virus. It slowed the host’s metabolism and bodily functions, stretching out life as long as it could. This one had probably been a sprinter until recently, same as the rest in the plane.

  Brewster mentally kicked himself for not having looked in the narrow spaces between the bins. The thing must have been laying in there, dormant, until the moans of the shamblers in the plane had alerted it to prey.

  “Sir?” Krueger asked. He was holding his rifle steady, having drawn a bead on the infected’s forehead.

  Sherman nodded, then realized Krueger couldn’t see the motion with his eye pressed up to the scope. “Drop him.”

  Krueger fired a single shot, and the infected’s head snapped back. It vanished, falling back in between the luggage containers. A muted thud echoed through the hangar as the body hit. The white-shoe clad feet were still visible, the left twitching a few times before settling into death.

  “One more down,” Brewster said from the top of the staircase, still fixing the corpse with the beam of the spotlight. “That leaves us one unaccounted for, right?”

  “Right,” Denton said, releasing a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “And it won’t be a crewman.”

  “Better get the gas while the gettin’s good, sir,” Thomas said, gesturing at the plane.

  “Good idea, Thomas. Wilson, Brewster, Krueger, get the fuel,” Sherman said. “Denton, Thomas, let’s get back to the terminal, move everyone over to the tower, and button it up. If there’s another shambler wandering around this place I want a defensible perimeter.”

  “Yes, sir,” Krueger said, grabbing the loop of hose from Wilson’s shoulder and jogging over to the plane. “Wilson, grab a couple of those empty cans on top of that dolly and bring ‘em over here!”

  Brewster slid down the staircase and ran over to join Krueger by the plane’s fuel tank, holding up the spotlight to give the soldier some light to work by.

  Behind the trio, Sherman, Thomas, and Denton ducked out of the hangar, jogging across the runway toward the tower.

  “How many gallons do you think this plane holds?” Wilson asked, dropping off a pair of empty five-gallon fuel cans and running back for more.

  “I don’t know,” Krueger replied, feeding one end of the hose into the open tank. “It sure ain’t a Geo, that’s for sure. Gotta be a hundred gallons or more.”

  “Damn,” Brewster whistled. “If we’re catching this fucker at full cap, it’ll get us most of the rest of the way to Omaha.”

  “Keep an eye out, Wilson,” Krueger said, pointing over Wilson’s shoulder at the rest of the hangar. “Don’t want to get snuck up on.”

  “Right,” Wilson replied, turning his back on Brewster and Krueger and scanning the darkness with narrowed eyes.

  Krueger sucked on the end of the hose until he got a mouthful of fuel, spat it out with a grimace, and fed the tube into the first gas can. The soldiers could hear the sound of sloshing as the can filled up. For a few moments, the gasoline and hushed breaths were the only sounds in the hangar. Then Krueger nudged the can with his boot to check its fullness, crimped the hose, and shoved the can across the floor to Brewster.

  “What do you want me to do with this?” Brewster asked, hefting the heavy can in his arms.

  “Find something to put it in,” Krueger stage-whispered back.

  “Like fucking what?” Brewster asked, gesturing around himself.

  “Get a luggage cart, dipshit,” Krueger said, pointing over Brewster’s shoulder. “We’ll run ‘em across five or six at a time until this tank’s empty. Wilson. Wilson!”

  “Huh?” the soldier started, dropping his gaze from the windows of the plane. He’d been staring at the infected, still pounding away slowly from inside.

  “You want to pay attention?” Krueger admonished. “You’re going to get us
turned into carrier chow.”

  “Sorry.”

  A pounding on the metal staircase alerted Rebecca, Mbutu and the others that Sherman’s group had arrived in the tower.

  “Ahoy the tower!” came Denton’s voice. “How’re things looking up there?”

  Rebecca leaned out over the railing far above and shouted down, “Desolate!”

  “Wish we had some lights in this place,” Ron added, poking his head out next to Rebecca’s.

  “What, and advertise a free buffet to any infected nearby?” Sherman said, grabbing hold of the handrail and taking the stairs two at a time. “Hope you lot enjoyed your break. Time to get back to work. We’re going to camp up here for the night. That means we need to set a guard down below and figure a way to lock those doors.”

  “That will not be a problem,” Mbutu said from the other side of the tower floor. Sherman looked over to see the tall man spinning a keyring on one finger and grinning. “These places, they are the same the world over. The supervisor had these in his desk. They should take care of the doors.”

  “Outstanding,” Sherman nodded. “Don’t lock up yet; we’re still waiting on Brewster, Wilson, and Krueger to get back from the hangars.”

  “They did find gas, right?” Katie asked.

  “Yes,” Sherman replied. “And a plane full of infected.”

  Mbutu frowned. “Is it safe to stay here if . . . ?”

  “Oh, yes,” Sherman went on. “They’re locked up tight. And even if they did manage to break free—which I doubt, seeing as they’ve been in there a good month—they wouldn’t know where we’d gone to.”

  “I’d sleep a lot better if they were dead,” Ron said. “Why don’t we go in there and wipe ‘em out?”

  “Unnecessary risk,” Sherman replied, shaking his head in a negative. Behind him, Thomas nodded slowly in agreement.

  “Here comes Krueger and the others,” Katie said, leaning over a console and pointing out the tower window.

  Sherman walked over to join her, followed closely by Thomas. Far below, they could see the three soldiers moving quickly across the runway, pushing a loaded luggage cart in front of them. It was filled nearly to the brim with red plastic gas cans. They seemed to be having a bit of trouble keeping the cart on an even keel. It wobbled slightly and continually pulled to the right. Wilson was having to throw his entire body weight into the side of the cart to keep it headed in a straight line toward the terminal and tower.

  “Looks like we’ve got enough fuel in that thing to get us out of these damn mountains,” Denton said, grinning.

  “You’re Canadian,” Rebecca ribbed. “Thought you were used to mountains.”

  “I’m used to lakes,” Denton corrected. “Lakes and snow.”

  “And maple syrup and bad beer and hockey,” Ron added, chuckling.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” Denton said, glaring. “Watch it with the beer commentary, eh?”

  The soldiers vanished from sight below as they drew nearer the tower. Sight was replaced by sound; the group in the tower could hear the rumbling of the cart’s wheels and the curses of the soldiers as they rounded the structure and made a beeline for the vehicles parked behind the terminal.

  “Thomas, do me a favor—run down there and tell them not to bother fueling the vehicles tonight. Just get ‘em in the tower. We’ll button up and settle in for the night, get some rest. We’ll take care of the rest of the work tomorrow morning,” Sherman said.

  “Yes, sir,” Thomas grumbled. He took off down the stairs at a run, glad to have an order to follow—even if it was phrased as a suggestion.

  Sherman turned to the remaining group members. “Well, pick a spot and sack out, folks. We did pretty well for ourselves tonight. No fatalities, and we’re coming out ahead in fuel and food.”

  “If you can call it food,” Denton said, pulling bags of potato chips from his pack and tossing them around the tower.

  Ron caught one of the bags and tore it open with his teeth. “Hey, food’s food. I’ll take what I can get.”

  “It ain’t the Atkins diet,” Katie said, frowning at the label on her bag. “But I agree, I’ll take what I can get.”

  Rebecca waved off Denton and unstrapped her sleeping bag from the top of her pack, throwing it out in a corner of the tower. “I’m fine.”

  “You sure?” Denton asked, waving the food in her direction.

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” she replied.

  “Suit yourself,” Denton said, opening the bag and digging in.

  The sound of feet on metal from below meant the soldiers had entered the tower. The structure reverberated slightly as the doors were slammed shut.

  “Mbutu,” Sherman said. He held up his hands. “Keys.”

  Mbutu tossed the keys to Sherman underhanded. He caught them, turned, whistled to get Thomas’ attention, and dropped them over the side of the railing. Below, Thomas grabbed them as they fell, then turned and sorted through them one-by-one until he found the one that matched the tower doors. He locked them, pulled on them to double check they were secure, then turned to face Brewster. He shoved the keyring into Brewster’s chest and grinned.

  “First watch, Private,” Thomas said, then gestured for Wilson and Krueger to follow him upstairs.

  “Oh, that’s fucking bullshit,” Brewster said, looking up after the Sergeant Major. “I ain’t in the Army anymore, Sarge!”

  Despite his bluster, Brewster lowered himself onto the stairs, sighed, and settled in for a guard shift, scratching at an itch on the back of his neck.

  Rebecca awoke suddenly, sitting bolt upright and clutching her sleeping bag to her chest. She took a deep, shuddering breath and let it out slowly.

  “Must’ve been a bad dream,” she whispered to herself.

  She looked around the darkened tower. The group’s flashlights had been turned off to save battery power and the only light came from the waxing moon, half-full in a cloudless sky. The group lay sleeping around her, some in bags, others stretched out between blankets.

  She slowly laid herself back on the floor and closed her eyes, determined to fall back asleep.

  Her eyes shot back open a moment later. Something was wrong.

  She sat up again and studied the scene in front of her. Everyone was accounted for. Nothing was out of place. Must have just been her imagination.

  Then it hit her—Ron wasn’t snoring. The man was notorious for it. Nearly every night someone had to wake him up or kick him to get him to roll over, and those were on the nights when he didn’t wake himself up with his racket. Once she noticed that, she began to notice other things that were awry. No one was moving, not even those subtle, tiny sleep movements—a twitch of a finger, a reflexive swallow, a mumble. More than that, though. No one was breathing.

  Rebecca felt fear solidify in the pit of her stomach, but she had long since learned to deal with fear. She rationalized it, shoved it into a corner of her brain and made it work for her instead of against her. Fear just let a person know they were still alive. She narrowed her eyes and rooted around in her sleeping bag until she came up with her flashlight, but didn’t click it on immediately. She reached behind her back, feeling around in the darkness until her fingers bumped into the leather of her holster and pistol belt. She dragged it closer, grabbed for her weapon, and froze.

  Her pistol was gone.

  Now the fear threatened to overwhelm her. She hadn’t been without a weapon since she’d shot Decker on the USS Ramage, and she realized she felt completely naked without one.

  “Okay, okay, stay calm—everyone up here has a weapon. Get one of theirs. No problem,” Rebecca whispered to herself.

  She pushed herself to her feet, held the flashlight out in front of her and clicked it on, playing the beam over the floor in front of her. Her eyes went wide.

  The beam had landed on Thomas’ face first. His eyes were sunken, half open, and rolled back into his head. He looked long dead. Rebecca blanched, swallowed, and let the beam play over Thomas’ gear, se
arching for his weapon. She located his holster, but it, too, was empty.

  Krueger was at Thomas’ head, stretched out in his sleeping bag. His face was just as pale and unmoving as Thomas’, eyes open and pupils fixed and dilated. Rebecca knew Krueger never let his rifle out of arm’s reach. He lived with his rifle, loved his rifle, took better care of his rifle than he would a wife, most likely—yet it was nowhere to be found.

  Rebecca felt her breath coming in short gasps, realized she was on the verge of hyperventilating, and worked on slowing herself down, taking deeper, longer breaths.

  One by one, she checked the members of the group. All dead. No weapons. Not a mark on them.

  “The food,” she said to herself. “I was the only one who didn’t eat the food.”

  She stopped, struck by a thought. What about Brewster?

  She stepped gingerly between the bodies, moved over to the railing, and leaned over, shining the flashlight down into the darkness.

  “Brewster?” she called out. “Brewster, are you down there?”

  There was no reply.

  “Oh, no,” she said, crumpling to the floor and holding onto the railing with a white-knuckled grip. “Am I the only one left? Am I—”

  Booted footsteps rang out on metal from below, clear, slow, and steady.

  Rebecca’s face was a mask of apprehension as she shifted the flashlight in her hand, playing the beam along the stairs.

  “Brewster?” she called out once more.

  The beam fell on Brewster’s face, halfway up the staircase.

  “Oh, shit,” Rebecca breathed.

  Brewster was just as dead as the rest of the group. His jaw hung open, his tongue lolled out the side, skin pale as the moonlight outside. Well, perhaps not just as dead—he was shambling up the stairs, stumbling a bit but making steady progress.

  “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Rebecca chanted like a panicked mantra. She dropped the flashlight and began desperately tearing through blankets and sleeping bags, not caring if she disturbed the bodies within. She needed a weapon, any weapon. She’d settle for a knife. The sound of booted footsteps grew ever nearer.