Day by Day Armageddon (9 page)

  The jets flew overhead today at around noon and dropped their payload.

  I know it must be loud if I can hear it from this far. It is sort of a high-pitched, oscillating whine.

  Annabelle doesn't like it, but she is getting used to it.

  It's hard to believe January will be over in a few minutes. John and I had to use our "mailbox sound device" today while loading the H2. This was a couple hours after the military dropped the sound decoy. The things were coming out of the woodwork and many of them were milling around our street. We made four trips until the things destroyed John's noisy invention. One of them finally yanked it out of the mailbox and used it as a bludgeon, denting the mailbox top. We loaded everything up and it's almost time to leave. It's dark outside and I have turned the lights off so that when we leave, our natural night vision will be already adjusted. John and I will be flying cast in our small aircraft. I have studied the manuals over and over. Not much else to do besides countdown hours.

  I think we may be a little overweight on the bird. Oh well. I will get her in the air. Ten hours until the end of the world.

  The three of us (including Annabelle) slipped out the back last night and made for the H2. Our eyes were adjusted. Apparently Annabelle's were also, as she warned us of a ghoul lurking in the shadows. John told me he felt the hair stand up on her back (he was carrying her) and we could both hear her quiet barks through the muzzle. I dispatched the creature with an aluminium bat and continued on to our vehicle. There were a few lurking around behind the vehicle, but they were a safe distance away and we were able to make it inside.

  The drive to the racetrack was pretty much uneventful. I drove slowly and kept my headlights off. Other than the occasional thump, of one of those things off my fender, there was nothing. The moonlight showed me the way.

  We pulled up to the chain link gate that led to the track. I turned on my headlights and the c-clamp was still there just as I left it. Me and my rifle exited the H2 and went over to the gate and unlatched the clamp. Although I didn't see any of them around, I could smell them and sense their presence in the distance.

  After pulling the Hummer in, I reattached the c-clamp.
A
hundred yards off I could faintly see the outline of one of the un-dead. No matter. It would take at least a hundred of them to breach the fence.

  John and I unloaded the H2 and packed up the Cessna. I performed the pre-flight checklist and got her ready to take to the air. I got in the cockpit and performed the engine start checklist. She started with no difficulty. Checked the fuel pressure and quantity and it was ill I in the green. John and I both latched our exterior doors and I turned on my landing/takeoff lights. It was then that I had remembered my gruesome discovery a few days before, the poor mechanic that been crushed under a lift and dined upon.

  I also remembered my encounter with one of them, and how I killed it, and put a 55 gallon oil drum in front of the door to keep whatever else was in there from getting out.

  My landing lights were pointing at the garage door. The door was wide open, the barrel was on its side. It was then, when the garages mystery resident showed itself. A loud thump on the pilots side window, and the thing was there…drooling and pressing its lips to the cockpit glass like one of those algae suckers in a fish tank. It scared the shit out of me. I can't believe I forgot about the garage until I was in the plane. That could have been my demise. I started to taxi in my takeoff area, the thing was shuffling after the plane. I tried to avoid hitting it with my propeller, as I didn't want to risk any damage.

  I pushed the throttle to full power, and fed a rich mixture of fuel into the engine. We started to lurch forward. My anti-collision breaks were making the stadium look like it was in a thunderstorm. I looked in my rear view mirror and could see two ghouls inside the perimeter shambling toward me.

  50 knots…
60
knots… 75 knots…I pulled the controls back and started to climb. It was going to be close. The engine strained as I put her at max blast. I could almost swear that I felt my main landing gear touch one of the bleachers as I cleared the top row of seats.

  We were airborne, and flying SSE in the direction of Corpus. Earlier, before we left for the Hummer, John and I checked the TV/Radio and checked it twice to make sure that there wasn't a nuke on its way there with our names on it. The same cities were scrolling across the bottom of the screen. I guess Corpus just wasn't big enough. Damn, I know they have enough nukes… but somehow I bet they were running low on pilots to drop them.

  En route, we could make out the faint signs of headlights on the interstate. I wondered if it were other survivors evacuating. I could do no good, and would probably get both John and I killed if we attempted to land on or near the interstate.

  I was flying at 7,000 feet in accordance with Visual Flight Rules (VFR) out of habit. Somehow, I don't think an airborne collision is likely since I'm probably the only prop plane in the air in all of North America. Half way to Corpus, I saw something I didn't expect. Lights, actual electric lights. Yes, fires were commonplace since we took off, but not electricity.

  According to my charts we were approaching "Beeville, TX." There was a small municipal airstrip there. I checked my fuel, and knew it would be close, so John and I decided to buzz the airport, since it had lights, and see if we could land safely. I was Heading southeast above 1-37 when I broke off for Beeville municipal airport.

  Miraculously, the GPS satellites were still working and I keyed the coordinates into the GPS (28-21.42N / 097-47.27W). The green LCD was pointing in the same direction that I was headed so I knew I was on course.

  We arrived at the airstrip about eight minutes later, just like the GPS indicated, and I lowered my altitude to 800 feet, to check the runways. The runways ran NW to SE. I decided to flyby runway 12, since the wind would favour my landing there. The directional beacons were still on, so I knew I could make the landing as long as there wasn't something parked on the tarmac. After one flyby, I brought her around for a landing. On my first pass, I saw a fuel truck sitting next to the taxiway.

  I landed the plane, and taxied over to the fuel truck. I left the plane running and walked around the back toward the truck. My rifle was at the ready in case anything was to go wrong. I turned my LED light on and its bright beam illuminated the area around the truck. I forgot to turn off the anti-collision strobes when I got out of the plane, so they were flashing brightly, giving me snapshots of the area every two seconds.

  I walked over to the hose, pulled it off the rung and checked the pressure on the fuel pump. Looks like it was never shut off. No matter, it wouldn't drain the battery unless it was constantly pumping. There was enough fuel in this truck to fly cross-country two or three limes. Too bad I couldn't take it all. I walked over and unlatched the fuel cap on the wing with a wood block that was inside the door. I didn't want to take any chances with spark. I normally wouldn't leave the engine running to refuel, but hey, I wasn't taking any chances of this bird not wanting to start. I filled the tanks up, until some of it started splashing out on the wing. I returned the hose to its cradle on the fuel truck and started to walk back. I couldn't hear anything over the engines. As I walked back to the plane, John was frantically trying to signal me. He jumped out and started running toward me. I turned around and instinctively raised my weapon. Good timing.

  I squeezed off a round and decapitated the creature from pretty much point blank… Glad I had John with me, because this seven-foot puss sack was the right height to bend down and just take a hunk out of my neck before I knew what hit me. The thing was just a convulsing maggot pie on the ground now. John shot me a worried glance and got back in the bird with Annabelle. She didn't like flying, and puked twice since we took off.

  Got back into the air and continued for Corpus. Checking the chart, Corpus was 144 miles from San Antonio. We needed 150 miles safe distance. It was 0315 when we were back airborne. That meant 6 hrs and 45 minutes until they dropped their payload. An hour after taking off from Beeville, we were over Corpus airspace. Our destination would be the Naval Air Station east of the city. It would give us our minimum safe distance. Naval Air Station Corpus Christi is a training base. The aircraft there would be of no tactical importance, just single engine reliable training turboprops.

  The lights were still on at the naval base. They must be using an onsite generator. Most bases have alternate sources of power in the event of enemy attack of the power grid. As I flew over the base, destruction was apparent. The base perimeter was destroyed and there were hundreds of them on the base. Same routine… checked the airfield. The tower beacon was still operational and flashing its white/blue signal.

  The lights inside the tower were on and I could see no movement inside the airfield perimeter as I made my pass (there was a separate fence for the airfield and admin/tower buildings). I could see 50 or 60 single engine prop aircraft on the taxiways parked. T-34c Turbo mentors, and T-6 Texans made up the bulk of them. That was more like it. I was familiar with the T-34c, and I knew they all had parachutes (unlike the Cessna). John and I decided to land near the lower and use it as shelter for the night. We landed the plane and quickly shut the engine down near the tower as to avoid attracting too many of them. The door to the tower was unlocked but it was shut. Just as I suspected, the tower was abandoned. No sign of life or death inside. John and I took our food/water and weapon and ammo inside for the night, locking the door behind us. It was a heavy steel door and I knew it would hold.

  John and I finally got to sleep around 0540 this morning. The tower was clean and quiet and safe, and that felt good. I set the alarm on my watch for 0930, to give me thirty minutes of prep time for the show. We turned on the radio; the same message was being looped from the other day. Around 1005 I knew it happened. The blast wave must have been travelling at immense speed. The wind picked up and I could see the trees blowing toward the east, not swaying. My eyes were trained northwest toward the direction of San Antonio. I saw it. It was small from this distance, but it was there.

  We witnessed a bright orange mushroom cloud on the horizon. Damn, they must have really dropped the big one for me to see and feel the wind from over 150 miles. It was a clear, calm day. I knew the wind would not be radioactive from this distance, but the force that pushed the wind was. I just hope that the gas cloud didn't drift this way.

  I noticed something else that was odd. Houston was northeast of me. John was checking that direction. There was no blast. Granted it was 217 miles away. Just odd. I wondered if they were running late.

  The tower has electricity, water pressure and radios. I think I am going to stay here and ponder what just happened.

  Woke up this morning and grabbed the binoculars to survey the area. The first thing I checked was the windsock. It was blowing west. That was good news. I wouldn't be glowing in the dark today. The airfield was secure. All Naval air stations have eight-foot high chain link fences to keep unauthorized personnel off of the flight line. There were numerous dead around the perimeter in the distance. They were paying no attention to the fence, they were just there.

  Annabelle was whining. John was monitoring the radios, so I decided to take her out (it was the "I have to pee" whine). Walked her down the stairs and took her out to a patch of grass on the side of the lower opposite the runways. She did her business and sniffed the air. She is a small dog, but she has a good sniffer. The hair on the back of her neck was standing up again. I took her back upstairs and shut the door to the tower behind me. 'The tower had a 360-degree view, so I walked around the centre over to the grassy side to see maybe if I could catch a glimpse of what was pissing her off.

  There was nothing. It is probably the wind carrying a bad smell to her. She was happy again, and I poured her some water and gave her some dog food. John was wearing headphones, listening. In the control towers, everyone used headsets, because it would be chaos if every radio played out loud. John was clearly listening to something besides static. I walked over to his panel, checked his frequency and went to another terminal to listen.

  There were two pilots talking to each other. One of them asked the other if they had both made the best decision. They must have been near our tower, or we wouldn't pick them up. They probably thought they had all the privacy in the world right now. As far as they knew, no one was alive to listen to them in this area. I wondered what they meant. Were these the same pilots that dropped the nukes? My question was soon answered. As their conversation went on, I discovered that these pilots refused to drop their ordinance. They didn't see it as a good decision, so instead of following their orders, apparently they chose exile.

  I really can't blame them. They were human, just like me. I am not sure I could have dropped it either. I wonder which cities were spared. My guess was that one of them was Houston, or maybe even Austin, although the San Antonio blast might have taken care of them.