Last Man Standing (Book 2): Cordyceps (2 page)

May 12th(?) 2019

It takes me a moment for my brain to get into gear when I hear the voice. "Hey, Tom?" I turn to Bishop's cot, surprised to hear him speak. He hasn't made a sound since burping after breakfast this morning.

"Yeah, what's up?" My own voice cracks a little. My throat is dry and scratchy, and I realize I also haven't spoken for hours. It feels good to hear something other than the wind buffeting the sides of the cabin.

"I've been thinking," Bishop continues, his words plodding out slowly in a tone I've come to recognize as meaning he's about to say something stupid, "ain't it weird that, y'know, lots of famous people have probably turned into those things?"

Huh
. Compared to his usual nonsense that's not all that bad. "Yeah, I guess. I haven't really thought about it, but yeah, I supposed some of them must have."

Bishop raises himself up on his elbow to face me. "It's weird, right? I mean, just imagine you're walking down the street somewhere in Manhattan, just minding your own business, heading out to buy a pack of smokes, and, like... I don't know, John Lennon or some shit comes running around the corner all batshit crazy, and you're like '
holy crap
, I'm gonna have to kill John Lennon!' It'd be weird, y'know? Like, imagine if he was your favorite singer and you didn't know if you could kill him, and you're wondering if you should just let him get you. Y'know, outta respect or something."

I peer over at Bishop and try to read his expression. Even after all this time locked up together I can't quite figure out if he's really this dumb or some kind of expert troll, just playing with me for kicks.

"You know John Lennon died, right?"

Bishop's eyes grow wide with surprise. "No shit! In the attack?"

"In the— no, like thirty years ago! You never heard that? He got shot outside his apartment. It was global news!"

Bishop sighs and drops back to his cot. "Well God damn, ain't that a kick in the sack? I really liked that guy." He stares at the ceiling for a long moment as I watch him, looking for a telltale smile that might give it away that he's kidding, then he starts to sing under his breath. "
All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go... I'm standin' here outside your door... I hate to—
"

"Are you fucking with me, Bishop?" I demand, halfway between amused and mad.

"What? No! What do you mean?"

I swing my legs off the bed and stare at him, determined to figure this out once and for all. "I mean you're singing a fucking John Denver song. He died years ago, too. Now, are you messing with me?"

Bishop frowns so hard his eyebrows almost meet in the middle. "So who was the guy in Full House?"

"John Stamos. Not a singer. He's... fuck it, he's dead too. All your favorite Johns are dead. All the Johns are dead. There are no more Johns. Now go to sleep, you jackass."

I push myself off the cot, fumble in the jacket pocket of my fatigues for my cigarettes and sigh as I open the half crushed pack. I only have three left. Lewis stopped delivering smokes when he was taken off guard rotation after the Edgar incident, and the new guys refuse to bring us anything other than food and water. I had half a carton stashed under my bed back then, but unless the guards suddenly decide to get real friendly Bishop and I will both be climbing the walls by tomorrow.

I light up the battered, wrinkled Marlboro, take a deep pull and blow the smoke towards the spinning extractor fan in the wall beside the door, wishing I could follow the smoke outside as the fan grabs it and whisks it away. Wishing I could feel the breeze. That I could get the fuck out of here, away from that patch of blood and the still, sweaty, stifling air. That I could find out what the hell's going on outside these walls, and why we're still locked up in here.

I can't deny that the last month has taken its toll on both of us. Neither of us talk much any more. Neither of us can sleep through the night. Bishop seems to be handling it a little better than me - he seems blessed with a blissful lack of imagination that insulates him from the horror - but even he isn't his usual chatty self. When he bothers to speak his thoughts are usually about death these days.

As for me, I can't help but play a constant game of 'if only.'
If only
I hadn't trusted Sergeant Laurence, Kate might still be alive.
If only
we hadn't met Arnold we might have driven straight to the bridge instead of the park, and Kate might still be alive.
If only
I hadn't given up my obsession with the warning of the attacks I would have taken us out of the city that week, and Kate might still be alive. Hell,
if only
I'd just followed through on my plan to learn how to be a real man I might have bought some shack out in the woods, far from danger, living off the fat of the land. I'd have never met Kate, and I wouldn't give a damn if she were alive or dead.

But those thoughts all lead me back here to the grim, inevitable conclusion. I can obsess about a million what ifs, but the only thing that matters is the reality. I didn't do any of those things. I was dumb, lazy, feckless and irresponsible, and now I'm trapped in a steel box and Kate is just another corpse buried in the ruins of New York.

I blow another plume of smoke into the fan and feel a cold sweat beading my brow as I notice the layer of dust built up around the blades. I'd swear it grows thicker by the day, and I can't help but imagine that it's ash from the city, blowing our way whenever the wind shifts, carrying tiny particles of a million burned, rotting corpses towards us. We're surrounded by it, breathing more of it in with each breath, shifting the balance in our bodies just a little more each day from alive to dead as the dust builds up in our lungs, choking us. It makes me—

Hang on.

"Bishop," I whisper, turning my head so I can better hear the distorted sounds filtering through the whirring fan blades. "Did you just hear an explosion?"

Welcome to Newark International Airport
. The green sign still marks the entrance but it's now obscured by another, more forbidding notice that stands in front, its black letters printed against a red background.

You are now entering Camp One. Entry permitted to authorized personnel only. Deadly force will be used beyond this point.

The sniper takes a slow breath to calm his nerves, exhaling through pursed lips, waiting for his thumping heart to slow.

"Just take your time, Warren. We've got all night. We can wait as long as it takes. Do you need anything?"

He looks up from the scope with an impatient scowl. "I need you to shut up and let me focus, Vee, OK? I've never committed treason before, so I'd like a minute to get used to the idea."

Victoria Reyes nods silently, biting her tongue as Warren shifts uncomfortably on the asphalt, returns to the scope and delicately adjusts the reticle.

The ghostly image of the guard glows green in the scope, illuminated by the light inside the guard post. It should be an easy shot with his trusty M40A5. Just 200 yards or so to a well lit, unobstructed target on a level plane, with nothing more to worry about than a gentle, steady tailwind. A novice could make this shot on his first attempt with a well-calibrated rifle - and Warren tends to his like a father to his son - but still his hands tremble. Once he squeezes the trigger there's no going back. He'll be a traitor to his country, and a traitor to the Corps. Seven years of service to - and a lifetime of love
for
- the United States will be wiped out in an instant. He'd never be able to explain this to his father, rest his soul.

He takes another breath and clears his mind. There's no point worrying about it any more. He knows what he has to do, and he knows this is the right thing, even if it feels wrong. The decision was made days ago, and the facts remain the same now as they were then.

A final breath. His pulse slows, and he finally finds his way to that cool, focused part of his mind he keeps locked away from the rest. The simple, analytical place that doesn't care about anything but wind speed, distance to target, air temperature and humidity. He exhales, pauses, gently squeezes the trigger...

The guard drops out of sight a moment later. A clean head shot through the open window. Warren smoothly pulls back the rifle, snaps the cap back on the scope and surveys the scene. In the distance off to the right he watches a couple of guards patrolling the outer perimeter, heading away from the entrance. They keep up their slow pace along the outer fence. They didn't hear the shot. He knows from watching them over the past few nights they've become complacent and lazy, and they won't be back for at least twenty minutes. Maybe longer, if they decide to stop for a smoke along the way.

"OK, let's move," he whispers, slipping the rifle over his shoulder and hopping the low wall that was hiding them from view. Vee takes the lead, sticking close to the cover of the wall with her M16 at the ready, her finger hovering close to the trigger. Security has been light in the area thanks to the fact that almost everyone who lived within fifty miles of New York is either dead or hunkered down in camps hundreds of miles to the west, but there are still occasional random patrols on the service roads that surround the airport. This is no time to get overconfident.

Vee reaches the guard post first and ducks her head through the door to make sure the guard is down for good, and Warren follows her in to take the pistol and radio from the guy's body. There's no remorse now. No guilt. What's done is done.

Warren twists the volume dial on the radio to its lowest setting and clips it to his jacket collar, keeping one ear listening for chatter as they move deeper into the airport complex. Neither Vee nor Warren bother to speak. There's no need for it. They've both seen the satellite photos, and they both know exactly where they're headed: the runway.

He breathes a sigh of relief as they reach a maintenance building on the road to the main terminal building and find just what the photos suggested would be waiting for them. A bank of electric courtesy vehicles are parked up in an open garage bay, all hooked up to recharging stations that have long since run out of power, and from a row of hooks on the wall hang bunches of keys attached to chunky bright yellow fobs. Vee grabs one at random and tries each vehicle until the third starts up with a quiet electric hum.

"Thank Christ for that," Warren sighs happily. "I wasn't looking forward to setting the charges close up." He hops into the passenger seat and sets down his rifle while Vee slides into the driver's seat and pulls the cart from the bay.

The hum of her motor and the sound of rubber on asphalt are the only things that break the silence as the cart rolls through the darkness along the service road that runs around the east end of the main terminal building. It's far from the quickest route to the runway, but it's the only one that isn't bathed in bright floodlights and regularly patrolled, an oversight Warren knows will cost the assholes running the base dearly. This is what happens when you pull out dedicated, well trained soldiers and replace them with private thugs who are paid by the hour: you get fucked.

A mesh gate bursts open as they power through it and out onto the apron, the black asphalt crowded with hastily abandoned service vehicles that litter the area in the shadow of the silent terminal. Thousands of prepackaged airline meals rot in delivery trucks that have long since lost their refrigeration. Luggage trains snake between the planes, their contents strewn across the ground where they were abandoned in the rush for the ground staff to escape.

Even after a month this shit still amazes Warren. It seems crazy that if the mood struck he could pull over and spend a couple of hours picking through the belongings of a thousand passengers, helping himself to laptops, tablets, cellphones, cash and jewelry that have been sitting here unattended for a month, like the world's best yard sale. Back in the first week he actually did grab a few tempting shiny objects while sweeping abandoned homes and stores with the cleanup crews on Staten Island. It was fun for a while, but it didn't take long before he realized there was just no point in owning luxury shit any more.

It was a commercial that brought it home to him, back at the end of the first week when the networks were still running regular programming as if they were trying to convince themselves that the world could never
really
go to shit as long as reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond ran as scheduled in the TV guide.

Warren was back at base, shoveling a rank jambalaya MRE down his throat, trying to ignore the stink of death that clung like tar to his clothes and worked its way up his nose, when a commercial for Omega wristwatches caught his eye. Black and white, real classy shit. Some buff guy with thick hair and just the right amount of stubble rocked up to a jetty to find a hot chick waiting for him on the deck of his yacht. She seemed to be enjoying spontaneous multiple orgasms at the very thought of this smug asshole climbing onto the boat, then the camera moved in to show his wrist. Omega Seamaster. Regular aspirational bullshit. Buy this watch and your life can be just as awesome as this.

Warren looked down at his own wrist and saw the exact same fucking watch. Brushed stainless steel, automatic movement, beautifully smooth chronograph. $4,500 of luxury, and he'd taken it from the wrist of a guy who was lying dead beside a classic Bugatti parked in the driveway of his palatial home, beaten to death by a woman who was probably his wife. Warren had put her on the ground with two shots from 100 yards, then he'd put a bullet in the guy's head just to be safe.

The watch hadn't done much for that guy. It hadn't allowed him entry beyond the velvet rope into the exclusive, perfect, endless hedonistic life he'd been promised by the commercial. It probably hadn't made women go wild with desire at the very thought of him. It had just made his chubby, torn up corpse a more attractive target for looters. All that aspirational shit's done. Over. You want to aspire to something? Get a decent gun, and aspire to still be alive in the morning.

The cart rolls silently out towards the runway, weaving between abandoned jets that had been waiting for a takeoff slot when the airspace was closed. The doors are all wide open, each of them spilling out bright yellow deflated emergency slides. Each of them carrying the names of airlines that haven't landed in the States for a month, and probably never will again: Emirates, Qantas and British Airways, all more than happy to abandon millions of dollars of aircraft and equipment if it means they can help keep this shit from spreading any further.

Of course, that's exactly what the pricks running this camp
want
to happen. That's the only reason this fucking place exists. That's why Vee and Warren are taking such a risk.

"OK, you ready for this?" asks Vee, holding the steering wheel steady with her knees as she tugs a large block of C-4 from her pack and pushes a blasting cap into the mass.

"Ready as I'll ever be," Warren replies, taking the C-4 from her hand and securing it firmly to the dash. He prepares himself to roll as Vee guides the cart towards the target. She sets the perfect approach angle, and Warren swings his rifle against his chest as they draw closer to the cover of an abandoned fire truck.

They both roll as one away from the vehicle, quickly pulling themselves to their feet and ducking behind the truck as the electric cart continues on towards the target, the accelerator wedged to the floor. Vee grasps the remote firing detonator in one hand and steadies her M16 with the other, waiting for the right moment.

Under the harsh floodlights lining the runway the courtesy vehicle rides silent, straight and true towards the first of three banks of dark green prefab cabins that extend at least a half mile down the runway. There are hundreds of them, maybe even a thousand, all of them powered by a tightly packed cluster of hybrid solar-diesel generators humming away at one end. The cart approaches them. Fifty yards. Forty. Thirty. Warren whispers a prayer as the cart begins to pull a little to the left. Twenty. Ten. It's slightly off target, but it looks like it'll still strike close enough to count.

Vee flips the cap on the detonator and squeezes the trigger.

All hell breaks loose. The rain-soaked black surface of the runway glows for a brief moment with the reflected flash of the explosion, and a fraction of a second later the truck rocks to the side as the shock wave passes and the noise washes over them. Vee and Warren wait for the roar to pass, peer around the side of the truck and smile when they see they've achieved their goal.

The bank of generators lies in ruins. The burned out wreckage of the cart smolders, while around it lie piles of twisted steel and shattered solar cells.

The floodlights flicker and fail for a moment as they switch to their own emergency solar charged backups, returning at half power and casting the runway in an eerie half light. It's dim, but in the ghostly glow Warren sees the result of the destruction.

The electronically locked doors at the front of each cabin swing slowly open under their own weight.