The day after: An apocalyptic morning (75 page)

              "Okay, girls," she said when they had all finished handling the weapon and were all reasonably competent with its mechanics. "Let's go to the firing line, shall we? You're gonna fire three rounds apiece from ten yards at the body silhouettes." She opened a box of .00 buckshot shells and took three out. "Any volunteers to go first?"

              "I will," Maggie said, standing up and taking the rounds. She grabbed the shotgun in her other hand, carrying it, as she had been instructed, with the barrel pointing up and the action open.

              "Very good," Christine said. "Let's get it on."

              The firing line was the open space against the eastern wall of the grocery store. The wall of the store was pockmarked with hundreds of bullet holes from previous training sessions. Christine hung up one of the silhouettes on the wall with a nail and a hammer and then showed Maggie where the ten-yard mark was.

              "Got it," Maggie said, sliding the three rounds into the magazine. Her manicured hands worked the pump on the weapon and jacked one into the chamber.

              "Now point and shoot," Christine said, putting her fingers in her ear to muffle the gunshots. "Remember, this is a weapon of last resort. That man is charging your position and you need to stop him."

              Maggie, who was a shorthaired blonde with surgically enhanced breasts, socked the gun into her shoulder and pulled the trigger. She did not flinch or squeal as the sound of the shot shattered the quiet and the weapon kicked harshly against her. A spray of six holes appeared in the silhouette's chest.

              "Not bad," Christine said. "Again."

              She jacked the next round into the chamber, the expended casing flying out and dropping to the ground at her feet. She sighted quickly and fired again. This time all ten of the pellets found their mark. Her third shot also hit the mark.

              "Very good, Mags," Christine said, offering her a smile. "You killed him deader than shit, as Skip would say."

              "That's what it's all about, right?" Maggie responded, obviously quite pleased with Christine's praise.

              "Right," she answered, looking at her. It was very strange to see this cultured woman striving for her respect. Before the attack on the town, Maggie had been on her top ten list of most irritating women in town. Not quite a crony of Jessica's, she had always tried her damnedest to gain her favor, adopting whatever opinion happened to be tossed around in any particular week, and spreading Jessica's gossip with the zeal of one who strives to be accepted. However, after being in combat that day, after shooting that man with her rifle, she had changed somehow, in some fundamental way. It was almost as if someone had slapped the shit out of her and made her realize what the important things really were. Though many of the townspeople had been similarly affected by the battle and by Skip's speech, Maggie was perhaps the most extreme example. In the battle and the aftermath, Maggie seemed to have found some sense of purpose.

              It was after all of the other women took their turns with the shotgun - their success with it ranging from horrid to not bad - and after Christine had dismissed them to go back to their duties, that Maggie approached her.

              "Do you really think I did good with the guns today?" she asked her, lending a hand piling the weapons and ammo boxes into the back of the Land Cruiser that she had used to transport them out there.

              "You did real good," Christine assured her. "Better than any of the other non-guard women so far."

              "Good enough for the permanent guard force?" she asked slyly.

              Christine gave her a shrewd look. "Skip turned you down in the first round, didn't he?" she asked.

              She shrugged. "I think he had some questions about my loyalties," she said. "I used to be... you know... kind of friendly with Jessica."

              "You used to try to be Jessica," Christine corrected. "You used to go directly to her with every new piece of gossip that passed your way."

              Maggie didn't deny this. "I was dumb," she said. "Like Skip said, I was stuck in a different life and I followed different ideals. I was a follower."

              "And now you're not?"

              She shook her head. "Not like I was before," she said. " Christine, you know me. We fought together during the battle. I killed one of those men myself. I want to be on the permanent force. I can do it."

              "You also were one of the women that was ready to vote Skip out of here for sleeping with me," Christine told her. "I heard you passing the word that day, and that was after the battle."

              Maggie looked shamed at her words. "I'm sorry," she said softly. "I was wrong, as wrong as someone can be. Don't you believe that people can change? That they have a desire to make up for their past mistakes? Don't you realize that a big part of the reason we were so against Skip on that day wasn't anything personal against either you or him, but was a desperate attempt to try to pretend that things were still civilized after what had happened? It wasn't so much Jessica that turned us against him but our own minds trying to pretend we were still in a society with the same morals we used to have."

              Christine looked at her in surprise. "That's some pretty deep shit you're spouting there," she said.

              Maggie smiled. "I have a bachelor's degree in psychology," she said. "Going to UC Davis was a good way to snare the appropriate husband, wasn't it?"

              "I guess you learned a few things there, didn't you?"

              "Yes, mostly how to psychoanalyze myself. Look, I'm being sincere here. I was wrong before, about you, about Skip, about your brother, and about how desperate our situation really is. The battle opened my eyes. We live in a hostile world now where pampered rich women like I used to be don't have any place. I want to help us survive. All I'm asking for is for you to put in a good word for me with Skip. You've seen me on guard duty; you've seen me trying to learn out here. Won't you at least talk to him? Please?"

              Christine, who had become fairly attuned to the moods and motivations of the Garden Hill women in her time there, could sense no deceit in Maggie's words. She seemed to be sincere enough. "I'll put in a good word," she said at last. "The rest will be up to you."

              "Son of a bitch," Skip said, looking through binoculars at what remained of the Cameron Park Airport.

              They were on a small hill overlooking the town, or what was left of the town anyway. Cameron Park, once a booming residential and commercial center along Highway 50, was now nothing more than a flooded mud pit, buried under the eroded hillside that had once been poised above it. The trunks or branches of trees stuck up here and there, but other than that, there was nothing. The airport, on the other hand, as had been predicted, was still recognizable. All the same, it was in no shape to conduct flight operations. All over the tarmac was the wreckage of planes - mostly single engine private aircraft - that had been flipped over and tossed around by the high winds that had followed the impact. Those same winds had knocked flat a good portion of the hanger complexes on the south side of the property. The runway was full of potholes and cracks from the earthquake. Still, about a third of the hanger space was still standing. It was technically possible that the helicopter they sought was still in there.

              "What do you think?" asked Mick, who was lying on his belly next to him, looking through a pair of his own binoculars.

              "It's pretty trashed," Skip said doubtfully. "But all hope is not lost just yet. We need to at least go take a look."

              "How do we get in?" Paula wanted to know. "There's no way we can move through all of that mud on the hillside."

              "We'll have to go north for about a mile and then cut over," Skip told her. "It looks like we can work our way down that hill over there to the perimeter fence."

              "No sign of people?" Jack asked, thinking about the cannibals and just where they might be based.

              "Not that I can see," Skip replied. "That doesn't mean that nobody is there though. Let's keep a sharp eye out as we move."

              It took them the better part of two hours to march over to the north side. On the way they passed through an abandoned residential area, half of which was nothing but rubble. They saw no signs of current human habitation but it was clear that the houses still standing had been poked through many times since the impact. A few bodies, all long dead, were rotting in front of some of them.

              They stayed in position by the perimeter fence for more than thirty minutes, hidden carefully in the dead brush, watching the airport and looking for signs of life. There appeared to be none but the airport was nothing but flat, open ground - killing ground if it were being defended - and Skip did not want to take any chances. At last, with nothing to gain by waiting further, he ordered Jack and Paula forward to penetrate the fence.

              They used a set of bolt cutters that had been taken from Paul's fire engine, making a neat hole in the chain link. Then, while Skip and Mick covered them, they went through it, keeping low as they dashed to the wreckage of a Piper about fifty yards inside the fence. Once they were in position, Skip and Mick made their own dash, diving through the fence and moving quickly to another wrecked aircraft in front of the first one.

              In this manner, leapfrogging past each other, they moved across the airport until they were near the still-intact hangers. Nobody shot at them or otherwise made their presence known. If anyone was there, they were keeping well hidden.

              The hangers were shed-like buildings constructed of corrugated steel. They were of rather flimsy design and it was only because they were on the leeward side of a hill that they had been spared from the wrath of the hurricane winds that had accompanied the initial rainstorm. Skip gave hand signals to Paula and Jack, telling them to hold in place and keep them covered.

              He and Mick then made the last dash across the open ground, ending up safely in front of the first of the hangers. Its large, roll-up door was open, its interior empty except for standing water and a few engine parts. They moved on to the next, which was closed and locked. Five minutes of work with a pair of channel-lock pliers and a screwdriver took care this problem, but opening the door revealed nothing but another empty space.

              "Shit," Skip muttered, stashing his tools back away. "I was hoping this would be the one."

              "Let's try the next one," Mick suggested. He was standing with his back to Skip, his weapon trained out over the tarmac. "It looked like it was open."

              "Right," Skip said. He gave a signal to the cover troops, letting them know they were on the move again, and then they made the dash.

              The roll-up door was indeed partially open by about two feet. While Mick took up a firing position to cover the inside, Skip grasped the bottom of the door and heaved it upward. It went reluctantly, screeching out a shrill protest as its un-lubricated mechanism was forced to move. As soon as it was high enough, Skip stepped back and pointed his rifle into the interior.

              "I'll be goddamned," he said as he saw the inside.

              "Will you look at that," Mick echoed beside him.

              Inside of the hanger were two aircraft sitting side by side. The first was a Cessna 150 with black wings and a white body. The emblem of the California Highway Patrol was prominently displayed on its doors. The second aircraft was a McDonnell-Douglas 500, single engine helicopter, its doors marked with the same symbol.

              "Paul was right," Skip said. "Goddamn if it's not here."

              "Will it fly?" Mick asked, looking at it almost as a religious object.

              "I'll have to look it over to tell," he answered. "And before I can do that, we need to make sure the rest of this airport is secure. Let's get it done."

              "Right," Mick said.

              With that, they moved to the next hanger, and then the next. They found two more Cessnas and a Piper parked in them, one of the Cessnas an impressive twin-engine model capable of carrying ten passengers. They found no people, nor did they find any signs that people had been there recently. At last, Skip waved Paula and Jack forward, giving them the all-clear signal.

              "Is it there?" both asked in unison as they came close, their faces strained with anticipation.

              "It's there," Skip told them. "Now let's go have a look at it."

              It was the classic teardrop shape that was associated with McDonnell-Douglas light helicopters. Mostly black, with white trim, its high clearance skids sat atop the ground handling wheels that allowed it to be pushed in and out of the hangar. It's four-bladed rotor stood idle, the blades hanging down with an almost imperceptible droop. Paul, when describing the helicopter to him, had told him that it was "one of those quiet ones that don't make any noise". Skip saw now that he had been entirely correct. It was a NOTAR model, meaning it had no tail rotor. Instead of a propeller to counteract the torque from the main rotor, it blasted air out of a port on the back of the tail. Since the distinctive chopping sound of a helicopter was produced by the collision of air from the main rotor hitting the tail rotor, this aircraft would be almost silent when it was in flight. Mounted on its belly were a high intensity spotlight and a forward looking infrared pod, or FLIR, which would be able to see in the darkness. Its doors were standing open and it was obvious that someone had rummaged through it at some point, looking for useful supplies. But it did not appear, at least at first glance, that any damage had been inflicted upon it. It still had the two helmet headsets sitting on the front seats, still had the removable patient litter and the medical supplies neatly stored in its cabinets.