Day by Day Armageddon: Beyond Exile (5 page)

I landed the aircraft and taxied it dangerously close to the fuel truck and told Dean to stay inside. She didn’t like this idea and wanted to help, but I could see in her eyes that she knew I was right. She wasn’t one hundred percent after starving, baking and freezing for a month on that tower, which is why, despite her high flight hours, I kept my hands on or near the controls the entire time she flew. She may have been a better stick, but she was worn down to the wire.

Leaving the engine running, as is my standard operating procedure for a situation like this, I made my way to the fuel truck. It wasn’t long before I had the tanks full and the aircraft positioned to take off again. At the hold short line on the Hobby runway I realized that I hadn’t checked in with Hotel 23 for nearly ten hours, nor did I have the headsets tuned to the VHF radio. Dean and I were talking on the way to Hobby and we were out of range of Hotel 23 anyway, so I’d switched the VHF off after taking off from the interstate to avoid the static. Dean was using the copilot’s controls to get the aircraft airborne in the same manner that she had used them to give control inputs to avoid the corpse on last takeoff. I kept my hands on the pilot controls, shadowing her.

On a side note, as we were taking off and as I began to tune the radios to contact Hotel 23, I noticed a corpse hanging out of the large Boeing aircraft cockpit window that John, Will and I had attempted to explore weeks ago. It was obviously stuck at the waist and I could see its arms moving in a futile attempt to drop itself to the tarmac. All of the recent activity at this airfield must have excited the undead entombed in that large, multi-million-dollar sarcophagus.

I keyed the microphone: “H23, this is Navy One, over.” John came back. He was borderline frantic. Using the proper radio discipline so as to not reveal any names or locations, he came back. “Navy One, this is H23, we have been trying to reach you for hours. It is not safe to land at H23 at this time.” I asked John what was going on. I was instantly worried that the only enemy more dangerous than the dead was attacking again.

He came back and told me that there had been a recent influx of undead to the landing area and the area surrounding the back fence and that it would not be safe to land as there were currently over one hundred of them standing where I would be attempting to touch down. I asked him if there was any way he could clear it out, as I was coming back with “one plus two souls onboard.” He replied that it would be too dark to do anything in twenty minutes. I agreed. It would be suicide to go out there at night and attempt to herd them out of the way, and even then there would be no guarantee that it would work. It would only take one of those things to hit the aircraft at eighty knots to cause terrible structural/engine damage and quick death to all onboard. We had to find somewhere to stay tonight, fast.

Eagle Lake airfield was out of the question for obvious reasons. I would not be willing to take a chance and land the aircraft in an unknown field. I had to find an airfield. I began scanning my chart for any possible candidates. On the chart was a very small airstrip called Stoval about fourteen miles southwest of H23. That would have to do. The sun would be down by the time we were there, so it was going to have to be another NVG landing.

This time I was not willing to cut the engines, as we had no guaranteed shelter to escape to if this went south on us. We had to take our chances with the engine noise. Not knowing how Dean would react, I asked Danny to reach into my bag and pull out the hard plastic green case. He did. Dean was at the controls. I began to explain to her what we had to do and that we basically had no choice in the matter. I asked her to cut the exterior collision lights and be prepared to give me control when it became too dark for her to see any detail on the ground. I pointed out the airfield we were heading for. She slightly altered heading and we made way.

I pulled the NVGs out of the case and strapped them on my head. I wanted to give my eyes plenty of time to adjust, just to make sure. I turned the intensity down so low that the goggles were acting more as a blindfold than a night vision aid. It was getting very dark outside. I asked Dean for the controls just as I adjusted the NVG intensifiers. The landscape below came alive in the familiar green color to which I had become so accustomed.

I began searching for the airfield. It wasn’t there. I kept searching and searching, checking the chart. I was looking for an airstrip with a tower. It took twenty minutes before I realized that we had flown over it several times. This field was abandoned, and didn’t have a tower. The strip was almost grown up to the point that the aircraft could nearly cut the grass with the prop as it landed. I could, however, still see the concrete and make out the strip. There was nothing in the area of this field except one lone hangar. I flew near it to see if any of the doors on it were open. It seemed secure. I brought the plane around for the landing. I had become acclimated to the depth perception problem I was having with the NVGs and made a better landing this time. I positioned the aircraft for tomorrow’s takeoff, cut the engines and kept a vigilant watch.

They are sleeping right now. We landed at about 2100 hrs. I contacted John and told him our coordinates. He said that he and Will would take care of them in the Land Rover tomorrow and not to worry. He laughed and told me to make sure that I turned the radio on in the morning and said that he would be up monitoring his all night. I asked how Tara was doing. John said that she was sitting right next to him and that she said she misses me.

9 Jun

0218

I see movement in the distance at the outer perimeter of the airfield. Not sure what it is. The cabin doors are locked and I am sleepy but refuse to nod off. Dean is awake. I am not telling her what I see.

0354

The movement in the distance turned out to be a family of deer. I could tell they were living creatures by the mirrorlike reflection of their eyes caused by the effects of night vision. The undead do not share this comforting quality.

0622

The sun is up and the radios are on. I have already spoken to John and he will be giving me the go-ahead within the next hour. There is no movement in this area and the family of deer has moved out. Dean and Danny have already eaten much of the food that I have brought. Can’t say that I blame them.

0740

Call made; John says it’s clear. We are taking off shortly.

11 Jun

0940

We arrived at Hotel 23 on the morning of the ninth without incident. Jan stayed in touch via the VHF radios and relayed John and Will’s position to us in the air as they herded the undead mob safely away from our landing spot. Before we touched down at H23, I told Dean not to expect much of our shelter and that there would now only be nine of us (including Annabelle). Danny was wearing a headset in the backseat. It was too big for him and I found it funny how it kept slipping off as he asked the question, “Who is Annabelle?” I told Danny that we had a puppy at Hotel 23 and that her name is Annabelle and she loves little boys. Danny began to tear up in happiness at the prospect of touching something truly good again and not having to look at the “ugly people,” as he had been calling them.

I saved Laura as a surprise for him. I can’t imagine the joy in his heart when he saw another child to play with, even though she was a
girl
. Although it only comes to me once in a great many years, a flash of memory, a familiar smell from an old cedar chest of keepsakes . . . I still remember what it was like being twelve.

14 Jun

2247

We had a meeting today. All nine of us attended although Laura, Danny and Annabelle did not pay attention. They were quietly playing in the corner as we talked. Dean is looking much better. I caught her up on the recent events at Hotel 23 regarding the bandits and basically gave her a rundown on everyone here and how we came to find each other.

She had a few stories of survival herself regarding the months leading up to her imprisonment at the “Tower of Charles.” She spoke of how she and little Danny had been in New Orleans and had heard the warning that the Big Easy would be a target and how they had taken off in her aircraft for the nearest safe zone. She never found it. They had spent months bouncing from airport to airport, scavenging food, water and fuel until their luck finally ran out.

Dean has become the resident grandmother around here, taking care of the kids and offering advice. She even approached me yesterday in private to tell me that she could see that Tara was fond of me. I had known this for a little while but have been too preoccupied with staying alive to do anything about it. She asked me what the purpose of survival was if I had no one to love and be loved by. I didn’t really answer that. I was in no mood for emotion. We were still in some serious trouble and I felt like I have no time for love or romance.

I asked her if she had run across any survivors in her airport-hopping campaign. She told another grisly tale in which she and Danny attempted to rescue two survivors signaling for them from a field below.
They were being flanked by hundreds of undead that they could not see over an adjacent hill. Dean had tried to warn them by flying over the area where the dead were advancing. However, it was too late. By the time they realized what was going on, the dead had topped the hill. The sheer number of them picked them clean like African driver ants.

Dean had felt guilty about that incident and often wondered if they were in that field solely to signal her and Danny. I tried to comfort her by saying that they were probably already there and that she had just flown over at the right time. Odds are, she probably did draw them out into the open to signal her, but what would be the point in presenting that gruesome thought?

I have gotten into a pretty good routine of exercise lately. The undead numbers have greatly declined around the complex since the raider attack. I have installed a pull-up bar in the control room. I constructed it out of scrap, using twine to secure it to the overhead beams.

John has been monitoring the radios and has had no sign of encrypted comms, or any chatter for that matter. Dean seems to think that we could be safe here as long as we keep aware of our surroundings. I informed her that there is more than one way in and out of the complex. I will be giving her a full tour of Hotel 23 in the coming days. She is no novice with firearms and I feel that she could handle herself if need be. She is a tough old bird, a product of old-fashioned upbringing. She lost her husband to natural causes years before the undead walked. She is no stranger to death, just a stranger to death walking.

17 Jun

2106

GPS is gone. I’m sure the satellites are still up there, but without ground station intervention to regularly recalibrate them they cannot transmit properly and I cannot get a receiver lock. The internal DVD/GPS navigation system in the Land Rover is useless. Because of the loss of GPS, I was eager to test the SATphones. They worked fine. John and I went topside with them and I dialed the number imprinted on a barcode on the side of the phone
John was holding. It rang through and John did the same with the phone I was carrying. Although an excellent means of communication, they could not be considered reliable. The same goes for any communication that depends on complex third-party mechanisms. I have been sleeping in the environmental control room as I have given up my living quarters to Dean and Danny.

It is a little cooler in my new quarters. There are plenty of other compartments to choose from; I just like being somewhat close to everyone else. There is even a rather large compartment with lockers and folding cots. I am sure they are probably for civilian survivors that would encounter this place during and after a nuclear exchange. I just wish I had something useful and positive to accomplish, besides staying alive.

I pulled my wallet out of my personal belongings today and looked at my Armed Forces Identification Card. The man depicted on that card didn’t look like me. Sure, it was my face, name and Social Security number, however . . . the eyes. They were different. The eyes in the photo didn’t have the same gaze as those of the man I see in the mirror now. I will keep it. Keep it as a memento of what I once was; a cog in the wheel of something greater. It has been six months to the day since the first time I saw one of them eye-to-eye. They still have the same chilling effect. I am certain they always will.

20 Jun

2309

It is raining very hard right now. The weather is playing hell with the closed-circuit TV, causing static and loss of v-hold. The undead in this area are pretty spread out, but I can still make them out during an intense lightning flash. Still no joy on the radios. There is no one out there, or at least no one in our range. I have been flipping through the watchman’s diary to pass the time during the storm. I sort of forgot about it due to the current events at Hotel 23.

I had gone to my old quarters last night to pick up the last of my personal effects when it resurfaced. Dean had packed my cardboard box for me and told me how nice I was for giving up my
space for her and Danny. She told me that she had found my personal diary, but wouldn’t dare take a peek. I explained to her that it wasn’t mine and that it belonged to a person who was formerly posted here. I told her that I was keeping it for him. She understood and handed it to me, trying to figure out whether she had said something wrong.

I gave her a reassuring smile as I took the diary out of her hand, threw it into the box and started walking to my new quarters in the environmental control room. It wasn’t until tonight that I reopened Captain Baker’s personal log. January 10 was dog-eared, as I had remembered reading it before. I turned the page, and began reading January 11.