Winchester: Over (Winchester Undead) (4 page)

South of
Mexia, Texas

The sun was low on the horizon, and the drive was slow-going for Bexar and his family. A surprisingly large number of semi-trailer trucks were on Texas-14 when the EMP hit, leaving the southbound highway clogged with trucks. Bexar drove into the ditch around yet another accident blocking the small two-lane highway. He wasn’t sure why there were so many trucks on SH14; maybe some sort of advanced warning had come across the CB channels before his police dispatch had gotten the teletype? What Bexar wouldn’t give to be able to turn on the radio and get some updated news.

“
Are you even listening to me?” Jessie asked loudly.

“
Uh, yeah honey, go get a mani-pedi, you deserve one.”

“
You dick, that’s not what I was talking about, but if you see a little Vietnamese guy with a nail file out here in Bumfuck Egypt during the end of the world, pull over so I can get one.”

Bexar laughed.
“Okay, seriously, what were you saying?”

“
I don’t think it would be smart to drive through the night, but I don’t want to pitch the tent; I don’t think it would be safe out here,” Jessie repeated.

“
Well, I don’t think I’ll be able to find anywhere that will honor my Hilton Honors points, so where were you thinking?”

“
I don’t know,” she sighed, “but we need to find somewhere safe.”

“
Okay, we have about thirty minutes until sunset; let me figure out where we can circle the wagons.”

Bexar scanned the area around the highway, but in central Texas ranch country, there wasn’t much
shelter to choose from—just a lot of open land, deer, cattle, single wide trailers, and probably a few meth labs. Slowing the truck, Bexar turned to Jessie. “What about that airport?”

“
Babe, there’s a plane on fire at the end of the runway, I’m not so sure that would be a good place.”

“
No,” he replied, “the other end, with the hangars. What if we break into one of the hangars, push the plane out, and pull the truck in. We would at least be hidden and have shelter. Besides, if a plane’s burning at the south end of the airport and no one cares, then surely no one will notice if we’re there for a night. And look at all that junk piled up next to the hangars. I seriously doubt anyone would notice us.” When Amber shrugged, Bexar made his decision.

He
turned into the airport and took a right away from the FBO, driving past the large hangars and tie-downs to the open-ended T-hangars. One was empty, so he backed the truck into it.

Walking around
the hangar, Bexar found a large blue tarp covering a partially disassembled aircraft in the tie-downs. He cut the tarp loose and brought it back to the hangar. Using some 550 parachute cord, he hung the tarp in front of the truck in the hangar, blocking the truck from view. The tarp wasn’t quite long enough to cover the entire opening, but he figured that the gap left between the top of the tarp and the hangar gave him a good vantage point from the gear rack of the truck to see out into the airport without being seen.

Jessie walked
around the hangar to make sure the Jeep wasn’t visible and, satisfied with their safety for the night, took two large rocks and weighted the bottom of the tarp to keep it in place.

Surveying her work, she said
“This will do honey, but I think we should keep a watch tonight. If you sleep first, I’ll trade out after a few hours.”

Bexar looked at the watch on his wrist
. “Fine, you take first watch. Give me four hours and I’ll take the rest of the night. We can leave at sunrise … goddamnit!” he exclaimed.

“
What?”

“
My watch is dead. I really liked this watch.” Jessie had given Bexar the watch, a G-Shock Riseman, for his last birthday, and he loved it; he had wanted one for some time. Holding his hand up to the western sky, Bexar squinted and said, “Two fingers, only about thirty minutes left until sunset.”

Jessie gave Keeley a cereal bar while she warmed up some canned chili on their Coleman stove.
After eating, Bexar took one of the big red jerry cans of gas down from the back of the Jeep and poured the whole can into the Jeep’s tank. They were going to have to find more fuel if they didn’t get to Maypearl soon. After laying Keeley down to sleep in the back seat of the Jeep, Bexar curled up on the ground with a woolen surplus Army blanket, and Jessie climbed on top of the roof rack with the AR for first watch.

“
I love you Bexar, sleep fast,” she whispered.

Air Force One

Agent McFarland knocked
on the door to the President’s in-air office.

“
Mr. President,” he announced, “we have lost communication with command at Denver. Current satellite imagery shows that most of Washington, D.C. is on fire, and there are swarms of reanimates moving throughout the destruction. Colonel Olive has informed us that we have approximately four hours of fuel remaining and then we will be forced to land.”

The strain showing in his face, the President replied
, “Why can’t we refuel in-air again?”

“
Sir, the last KC-135 over CONUS had to land to refuel, but Colonel Olive said that after the pilot advised that the approach for MacDill was overrun with reanimates, he hasn’t been able to raise the crew nor any of the other ground assets in the Air Mobility Command. He is suggesting we land at Groom Lake. We still have some communication with them, and we think it would be the best choice for your safety.”

“
No!” The President was adamant. “We will not hide in the desert; tell the colonel that we’re going to Denver so we can reestablish contact with the VP, and try to take back control of my country.”

“
Sir, I strongly suggest—”

“
I don’t care what you suggest, tell Olive those are my orders,” the President said, dismissing him.

Outside of Mansfield, Texas

Jack and Sandra’s trip on TX-287 was taking much longer than they had possibly imagined. The roadway was a nearly impassible nightmare, and Jack was spending a lot of time driving around disabled vehicles and wrecks. He gave up staying in the southbound lanes, traversing the median if he needed to clear an impasse. The only living people they had seen in the past two hours were a handful of people fleeing on bicycles to the north; the other dozen or so they had seen were dead in the road. All of them had bite marks and head wounds, and all were being picked apart by large turkey vultures.

They passed a
burning gas station, and Jack looked down at the gas gauge on his FJ. “We’ve burned about half a tank, after using the gas in our jerry cans, and I’m not sure what we’ll be able to find for gas.” Gunfire rang out in the near distance. “I think we’d better find a safe spot to hole up for the night. We’re not going to make it ‘til tomorrow, and I don’t want to drive through the night, it just wouldn’t be safe.”

Their son
Will sat quietly in the back seat, staring out the window at all the death and destruction. Although he wasn’t able to fully comprehend what was going on, he knew that something was really wrong, and that his parents were scared.

Jack
drove for another half-hour, finally reaching the first turn towards Maypearl. As they passed an RV park, a naked man ran by a large fifth-wheel RV, three undead shambling after him.

Soon
Jack saw a row of industrial buildings on his left, with no cars in the parking lot. “Let’s see if we can get any of those overhead doors open, then we can park and hide in the building for the night. I think it would be a lot safer that way.”

All of the rollup doors were locked, but
Jack found an unlocked door at the back of the building beside a picnic table and a butt-can for cigarettes. Walking into the building, Jack reached out and flipped the light switch next to the door by habit; when nothing happened, he looked around sheepishly, glad no one had seen him trying the light switch. He pulled open the first overhead door and Sandra backed the FJ into the space.

“
Too bad we don’t need a new countertop,” she said, “those granite pieces would look real nice.”

“
Yeah they would, but I don’t know when we’ll get to go back to even enjoy our kitchen, if ever,” Jack mused.

Sandra took out the family’s trusty old Coleman lantern and stove
, while Jack shut and secured the doors in the building. The family ate boiled deer sausage in silence, then, wrapping themselves in woolen Hudson Bay blankets, lay down on the hard concrete floor to sleep as best they could in their frightening new world.

December 27
th

Denver International Airport
(DIA), Colorado

Shortly after midnight, Air Force One began a hard fast combat approach to DIA. Instead of the usual gentle gliding approach like an airliner, Colonel Olive pushed the nose of the big modified 747 forward while applying some rudder input to drop altitude quickly, making a large spiral towards Runway 34-L. No lights were visible on the airport grounds, and the runway lights were dark as well, although there were some smoldering aircraft wrecks near some of the other runways. In fact, the only light that Colonel Olive had seen while approaching DIA was from Denver, and it was all from fires.

Col
onel Olive hadn’t had to land a plane wearing night vision goggles in some time, but after the many years he’d spent in the Air Force, he was confident just the same; an extraordinary level of skill and confidence had marked his rise through the Air Force ranks, and had paved the way for being given flight command of Air Force One. Olive was confident that the landing would be easy, but he was worried about taxiing across the airport to Concourse C, where the President would exit the aircraft and enter the tunnel leading to the secure structure six stories beneath The Great Hall.

Landing roughly,
Colonel Olive pushed the reverse thrusters as far as they would go while giving some rudder input to move past some debris on the runway he hadn’t been able to see on approach. The input was too late, and two of the tires on the right main were ruptured by the bent aluminum, causing the large aircraft to yaw violently to the right towards a large lump that had just appeared out of the shallow depth of his night vision goggles. That lump was, in fact, an overturned fire apparatus, but in the last few seconds of Olive’s life, he wouldn’t know what happened—that the rightmost CF6 engine had struck the fire apparatus, setting off a chain reaction of disaster.

The engine was ripped from under the wing and the aircraft spun violently to the right, still traveling over
one hundred miles per hour, and the plane began to roll, digging the left wingtip into the tarmac. The wing succumbed to the force of the strike and broke, causing the fuselage to roll while spraying fuel from the wing tanks. The fuel ignited on the still-running large General Electric turbofans, and as it continued rolling down the runway, Air Force One erupted in a large ball of fire.

Mexia, Texas

Bexar was exhausted. Jessie had woken him to switch places, and as he climbed on top of the Jeep’s roof, he cursed silently. Jessie quickly fell asleep, leaving Bexar to stare out into the darkness.

He couldn’t see anything past the tie
-down aircraft outside of their hangar, although there was a glow from the still-burning aircraft at the other end of the runway. Staring into the darkness, his eyes began playing tricks on him, seeing movement in the shadows where there was none.

Climbing off the roof, Bexar found his small backpacking stove and pulled his worn Zippo
lighter out of his pocket to light the stove. He’d quit smoking years ago, but had kept the lighter for sentimental reasons. Jessie had given him the custom-engraved lighter for their first anniversary. With the fuel tab lit, he poured some water into an old blue enamel camping cup and waited for the water to boil. Instant coffee tasted like instant coffee, but it was better than no coffee. Seeing movement out of the corner of his eye, Bexar quickly turned, his rifle coming up instinctively towards the threat, safety thumbed off, only to find Keeley standing next to the Jeep, clutching her blanket.

“
Hey baby girl, go get some sleep so we can enjoy our camping trip and our drive tomorrow. You might even get to see Will tomorrow afternoon.”

Without a word, Keeley climbed back into the back
seat of the Jeep and lay down. “I’m sorry the world is ending, we were just trying to build a nice life for you,” Bexar thought to himself. Climbing back onto the roof of the Jeep to continue watch, Bexar drank his burnt-tasting coffee, all the while fighting the fear of the dark and the pull of sleep.

“
WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?”

Bexar
jerked awake, knocking over his blue coffee cup and sending it clattering to the hangar floor. Looking over the top of the tarp, he could see the sun coming up, and about a dozen people slowly shuffling from around the tied-down aircraft towards his hangar.
How long was I asleep?
he thought over and over. He was puzzled by the group of people until one of them moaned—it was a guttural animal moan, a call to feed, and Bexar shivered at the sound.

“
Shit shit shit shit, Jess, damnit, toss everything in the Jeep, we’ve got to go! Give me a second and then drive off.” Stepping onto the hood of the Jeep, Bexar pulled the C-M Forge knife from his belt and cut the tarp down. Now with a clear view, he sat back on the roof rack, feet still on the hood of his truck, and raised his rifle, lining up his sight and squeezing the trigger. Left hand out on the end of his rifle, pulling against the LaRue FUG, Bexar stabilized the rifle and quickly drove the muzzle to the next threat as the back of the first undead’s head exploded outward from the energy of the Black Hills 55-grain bullet.

Breath
e, red-dot, squeeze, drive, breathe
, Bexar continued his rhythm while Jessie started the Jeep and put it in gear.
Breathe, red-dot, squeeze
… nothing. Nothing happened. Bexar slapped the bottom of the magazine and brought his left hand up to pull the big Badger Latch to cycle his AR, but the bolt wouldn’t move. Bexar rolled the rifle to the left as he stood up on the hood and brought the rifle down to his side.
Fuck, bolt over
, ran through Bexar’s head as his right hand found the grip of the Kimber on his right hip. Well-practiced, he let the rifle hang on the sling to his left side and brought up his left hand to support the grip of his pistol. Taking aim at the next threat, there was suddenly only blackness.

Dazed
, Bexar woke up at the other end of the airport. He could see the blue sky, and could hear noises off in the distance, but everything felt like it was a thousand miles away, like in a dream. Sitting up, he saw he was next to the Jeep, Jessie about twenty feet in front of him, pistol up, shooting.

Crashing back to reality
, he heard Keeley screaming and crying from inside the Jeep. The jammed AR was still slung across his torso, so Bexar mortared the rifle to force the bolt over to clear and discarded the damaged round. Swapping in a fresh Pmag from his belt, he stood up, but the world spun and forced him to his knees.

“Jess, what the fuck …?” he called.

“
Babe, you hit your head on the hangar as we drove out; you’ve been out cold for about five minutes. We’re about to be overrun, about fifteen more coming our way!” she called back, her voice shrill with tension.

Bexar laid flat on his belly,
taking a prone firing position so he wouldn’t get dizzy and could fire his rifle accurately. Trying to slow his breathing, he took aim.
Squeeze, breathe, and drive to the next target
, he chanted silently. In less than a minute the rest of the shambling threats were down, and Jessie helped Bexar into the passenger seat before pointing the Jeep at the entry gate and quickly driving away from the airport where they had nearly died.

Bexar dug in the glove box and found two packets of BC Powder.
Although he knew it wouldn’t help with a concussion, he hoped it would maybe dull some of the pain throbbing between his ears.