The Last Town (Book 2): Preparing For The Dead (9 page)

“Gary, why don’t you come up and join the rest of us,” Corbett said.

Norton waved the suggestion away. “I’m fine where I am. I like being closer to the door, just in case Hector starts agitating a little too furiously.”

Aguilar glared at him, and Norton shot him the finger. “That’s the number of friends you’ve made over the years, including yourself,” Norton said.

“Outrageous!” Aguilar shouted. “This man has no right to be here!”

Booker got to his feet. “Gary, knock that off right now!”

“Yeah, I’ll handle the confrontations for the moment if you don’t mind, Gary,” Corbett said. He turned back to Booker. “We have everyone present, correct?”

“Everyone is here. As mayor of the town of Single Tree, I call this emergency meeting of the town council into session,” Booker said. “Just some comments before we begin. Earlier today, Mister Barry Corbett and Mister Gary Norton paid me a visit regarding Single Tree’s level of preparation for what’s happening across the country. As everyone is aware, there’s a virus out there that, uh, apparently … well, anyone who dies from it seems to, uh, reanimate.”

“We’ve seen the news, and I’ve seen it for myself,” Aguilar said. “I think it’s a bunch of hooey, but something’s definitely happening. What does this have to do with us meeting here?”

Booker sighed and turned toward Corbett. “Well, Barry, I guess I’ll just turn it over to you.”

Corbett nodded. “Thanks, Max. Folks, in the handout I’ve provided, you’ll find detailed plans to harden this town and fortify it against the coming threat. We’ve already seen how the major cities are faring—New York’s gone, Boston and DC are faltering, and even out here, Los Angeles and San Diego are starting to pop apart at the seams. Whatever this affliction is, it seems that it does enable the dead to walk, and the dead apparently want only one thing: to devour the living. It sounds stupid and it sounds dopey, but there it is. We’re all living in a world where George Romero is the resident god.”

Paper rustled as the people on the council thumbed through their handouts. Norton did the same, even though he’d already reviewed the information on his laptop. The handout was at least a hundred pages long. It included aerial maps of the town and surrounding vicinity, construction diagrams, lists of accumulated materials, inventories, labor projections … everything except for costs. Norton knew that was because Corbett had already bought and paid for everything, and for a billionaire facing the end of the world, getting repayment was low on the list of priorities.

“Mister Corbett, this is … this is certainly an interesting bunch of documents you’ve handed out,” Chief Grady said. “It’s quite thorough.” He looked up from the binder. “If I were to consider this a master plan for defending the town, would I be correct?”

“Yes, Chief. You would be correct. I wanted to bring this to you earlier today, but Max preferred you find out with everyone else.”

Grady nodded and paged through the document some more. “So, uh, you’re basically talking about digging several trenches around the town and erecting steel plank walls topped with concertina wire. And inside the town, you’re talking about erecting additional defenses, so that different parts of the town can be isolated from each other. You’re also talking about building tunnels and bunkers and what have you. Installing underground fuel tanks for gas, diesel, propane, natural gas … all of that.”

“Again, correct.”

Aguilar barked out a laugh. “This is ridiculous! You want to tear up the entire
town
? For what reason? We have police to protect us, and Inyo County has more!” He slapped his binder closed and laughed again. “You’re crazy, Corbett. You’ve got paranoid dementia.”

Norton spoke before Corbett could respond. “Hey, Hector? Just to get this out of the way—fuck you. Like usual, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I flew all over Los Angeles today, from the Pacific Coast to Burbank. That place is falling apart. I watched zombies try and take down a bunch of firemen. I saw all sorts of disasters in the making. From the news, we know that pretty much every major city that accepts international traffic is taking it right in the shorts. New York City is down for the count. Boston. Miami. Makes sense, because this thing has been tearing through Europe and Asia for weeks now. The government’s been playing it down, trying to keep the peace, keep everyone calm, keep everyone compliant. Well guess what? They fucked up. They fucked up so bad that whatever it was that made most of Europe go dark is
here
. Right now, it’s making itself a nice little home in the US of A, and going from what I’ve seen, we’re going to be on our own pretty soon. So you don’t want to deal with it, you stupid Mexican fuck? That’s awesome. Get the fuck out of here and let the rest of us get to work, okay?”

Everyone gawked at him, including Hector, whose eyes were wide and bright behind his glasses. Even Corbett and his Marine pals looked impressed. Norton found he was standing on his feet, and he hadn’t just spoken the last few lines, he had shouted them, firing them across the room like they were bullets. He was angry, and he didn’t quite know why. And bubbling away beneath the anger was fear. He knew where that came from. He had glimpsed perhaps only the tiniest glimmer of the hell that was building outside Single Tree, and that had been enough. Gary Norton was a believer. The zombie apocalypse was coming, just as Barry Corbett had said.

“Uh, thanks for the support, Norton,” Corbett said finally. “Really, you should try out for a cheerleader squad or something.”

“I’ve never been so offended in my life,” Hector said, his voice barely a gasp. “You vile,
racist
little man—”

“Oh, Hector, he’s right. Just shut the fuck up,” Gemma Washington said. “Let’s hear what Corbett has to say. You’ll get your turn, don’t worry.”

Corbett nodded to her. “Thank you, ma’am.” He turned to Norton. “Like I said earlier, I’m in charge of agitating at the moment. Got everything off your chest?”

Norton sank back into his seat, mortally embarrassed by his outburst. “Yeah. Yeah. I apologize for that.”

“No need to apologize, Norton. You’ve got it all on the ball, and you’ve seen more of this than we have.” Corbett turned back to the town council. “Okay. Getting back to it. Yes, Aguilar, I might be overreacting. But I don’t think so. We’ve seen a good share of civilization drop off the map, and now it’s here, all around home plate. We have to start making preparations. I’ve been doing a lot of legwork, and I’ve been talking to a lot of people all over the country. Non-military government services are failing. The markets are collapsing. Transportation is grinding to a halt—we already know that air travel is no longer available, which means that people aren’t going to be able to get their Amazon packages and Omaha steaks for a while. Pretty soon, grocery stores will be running out of goods, everything from free-range chicken and eggs to underarm deodorant. Ammunition is pretty much gone, and I’ve been provided with evidence that local police forces have walked into dealers and helped themselves to as much as they could carry, which was pretty much all of it. Up north, in Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas, Minnesota, people are already doing what I’m suggesting we do here. Winter’s coming, and those people up there don’t have a lot of time to prepare, so they’re starting right now. Down south, it’s more or less the same thing. South Texas is pulling its shit together, and the Texas legislature has, I’m told, already decided to activate the entire National Guard. I’ve also heard that if the president decides to federalize those troops, the governor will not recognize the change in status.

“The East Coast is getting hammered the hardest. From Miami to Boston, things are going bad. Manhattan and DC are basically tits up. The government is still throwing a lot of resources at them, but it’s too late. I’ve been told that there is activity as close to us as Las Vegas, which is not surprising, as it’s a destination for transients and foreign nationals who were likely infected before the quarantines went up. Basically, this is like the Ebola scare of a couple of years ago, only much, much worse.” He looked at Grady and Aguilar. “And I heard we had a deadrise already, right here in town. Old Wally dropped dead in your pharmacy, Aguilar, then reanimated and took a chunk right out of one of your employees. By the way, Lou’s in isolation up in Bishop, at Inyo County Hospital. Along with eighteen others. That’s eighteen people already, folks.”

“But how did Whittaker get bitten?” Gemma asked. “This disease, it’s transferred through bites, from exposure to an infected’s bodily fluids. How did he get it?”

“Yeah, let’s talk about that real quick,” Corbett said. “When Norton said the government was soft-shoeing it, he should have been more direct. The government’s been outright lying. We’re all infected. Whatever this virus is, we all have it, and when we die, we’re going to reanimate, and the newly arrived dead will have a hankering for meat. Unfortunately, burgers from Carl’s Jr. aren’t going to satisfy that special craving.”

“Wait, wait! Stop right there!” Chief Grady raised his hand, motioning Corbett to stop talking. “How do you know this? That everyone’s infected?”

“Because I heard it from the chief of the global health security branch at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta,” Corbett said.

“And why would he tell you?”

“For a couple of reasons. One, because I contribute almost sixty million dollars a year to healthcare research organizations he chairs, in addition to his duties at the CDC. And because he needed my help, Chief Grady. I sent a plane for his family that transported them to Minneapolis. Which, incidentally, is how I know the city is fortifying itself for whatever comes their way. Commercial flights have been packed solid for five days, and he wanted to ensure they got to where they needed to be. The information paid for their passage.”

“You trade in lives now, Barry?” Booker asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

Corbett shook his head. “Protecting women and children is in my DNA, Max. But the good doctor felt indebted, and I accepted his offer of information. And it was crucial information—if I didn’t know that, I might not be here.”

“This friend of yours, is he a smart guy?” Victor asked. “I mean, smart enough to maybe unravel what’s causing all of this?”

“I know where you’re going, Victor. Yes, he might be, but he needs the facilities at the CDC. I offered to transplant him north with his wife and family where he could continue his research up at the Mayo Clinic, but he needed to defer his departure. Unfortunately, the FAA and Department of Homeland Security sanitized the airspace, so he’s stuck in Atlanta. Nothing more I can do, none of my pilots are going to risk a Sidewinder missile up the ass. I do have contingency plans to extract him, if at all possible, but for now he’s probably pretty safe.” Corbett turned back to Booker and the rest of the town council. “All of this aside, and getting down to brass tacks: I fully expect the lion’s share of government services, excluding the military, to fail in two to three weeks. We’re already seeing an increase in traffic through town, as people try and get to wherever it is they’re headed. All those transients are consuming resources we need, and they pose a risk toward accelerating infection here in town. We can’t allow that to continue.”

Booker shook his head, incredulous. “So what are you proposing, Corbett? That we somehow close US 395?”

“That’s on page eleven of the planning guide I handed out. I have enough demolition explosives to take out both ends of the highway on either side of town, and we can use heavy construction equipment to dig trench lines wide enough to keep anyone from driving around. At the same time, we’ll need to dig trenches around the town to slow down anyone who tries to get in on foot.”

“And what about the people who manage to get past the trenches?” Booker asked.

You’re not going to like that answer, Max,
Norton thought.

“We throw up concertina wire barriers until we get the steel fencing in,” Corbett said. “And if anyone gets through those … well, we’ll have to decide on that later.”

“You plan to kill them,” Grady said.

Corbett looked at him. “I prefer nonlethal methods, but some people won’t be easily dissuaded.”

“I thought you said protecting women and children was in your DNA,” Gemma said. Her eyes were hard and bright beneath her graying brow.

“It is,” Corbett said. “But only God can save everyone, and He’s apparently got a lot on his plate right now.”

Grady shook his head, absolutely gobsmacked. “So who do you think is going to do this work, Corbett? The Single Tree police?”

Corbett pointed to the three men with him. “These men, and the twenty others who came with me, are ready to do the heavy lifting. In return for my sponsorship, which includes keeping their families safe for as long as I can.” He paused for a moment. “And myself, of course. I’ll do what it takes to protect the town.”

Victor Kuruk closed the binder on his lap and got to his feet. He took off his glasses and regarded Corbett directly. Corbett, Norton noticed, did not meet his gaze.

“That would be an incredible burden for any man to carry,” Victor said after a long moment. “Even for you boys, wouldn’t it? Killing defenseless families who are desperate for shelter, safety?”

The oldest of the three men Corbett had brought with him looked at Victor. He was in his fifties, and he had a face that looked well worn and well traveled. From the way he carried himself, it was easy to see he had been a career military man. In fact, he reminded Norton of what Corbett had been like a couple of decades in the past.

“Sir, for my family, I will do anything,” the man said. “If this comes to pass, then I’ll be ready to do whatever it takes to protect them. I will not like it, I will try and avoid it, and I will never look forward to it. I understand it will eventually be my undoing, because there are some things I will never be able to forget. But for my family, I would sacrifice myself in a heartbeat.” He motioned to the two men beside him. “As will they. As will Mister Corbett. And, if you’re truthful with yourself … so will you.”