The Last Town (Book 4): Fighting the Dead (3 page)

Corbett waved the issue aside. “All right. To continue, anyone who wants to learn will need instruction on how to handle and use firearms, as well as specific defensive tactics. It’s going to take a long time to get all the fortifications made, so folks will have to train up on what we have now, then be retrained with what we’ll have in the future.”

“About some of those plans,” Booker said, speaking for the first time since the session had begun, “are you set on partitioning the town?”

“I am. It’s the safest bet. If there’s a break-in, we’ll need to be able to shrink our perimeter and still keep everyone safe.”

Hector snorted. “So not only do you want to put up walls around the town, you want to put them up inside. That’s simply ridiculous.”

“I have to say, I’m not much of a fan of it either, Barry,” Booker added.

Corbett smiled thinly. “No? You’ll think differently when a bunch of slobbering, flesh-hungry ghouls are chasing your ass down Main Street, Max.”

That pissed Booker off. “Hey, I don’t deserve that attitude.”

Corbett held his smile, then ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair as the two men in his security detail stirred, uneasy at the suddenly contentious tones. Corbett looked away from the table and took a few steps to his right, then turned back to the council. “Listen, by tomorrow all the trenching will be complete. We’ll reinforce the sewer and gas lines and the water mains, then we’ll begin erecting walls all around the town. It’ll take two or three weeks to complete. By then, we’ll probably start seeing the effects of what’s been happening in the larger cities. Everyone’s going to be fighting for resources. Things are going to get very, very hairy. Not just competitive, mind you—but outright dangerous. And that’s
before
the zombies get here. If you’ve been watching the news, New York is totally down for the count. The entire Tenth Mountain Division is trying to take northern Manhattan, and they’re getting shut down. Boston is starting to destabilize, and so is DC. Los Angeles is about to go the same way, and there’s activity in Vegas, and it’s not the usual high stakes game. All this means there’s going to be a mass migration of frightened, panic-stricken people. They won’t have any way to take care of themselves, not over the long term. Too many people have gotten used to all the modern conveniences. Right now, supermarkets are running out of food. There are no more food or fuel or water deliveries, outside of what the utility companies can keep pumping out. When a man’s family is starving, cold, sick, he’ll do anything to take care of them.
Anything
.

“So we can’t leave the town open. Every day we do, we run the risk of something happening to us. To you. To your families. We’ve got to think about cutting ourselves off now, while we can still pick the time and manage things without having to fight off a panicking mob.”

Booker didn’t like the sound of that. “So what’s your solution to this, Barry?”

“Like I said in the plan, Max. We need to break the highway on either end of town. Make it so no one can get in.”

Booker shook his head. “No. No way. We’re not doing that yet.”

“The longer we wait, the more difficult it’s going to become,” Corbett said. “When we finally seal the town, we can’t have outsiders here. We don’t have the—”

“Barry, no way,” Booker said, raising his voice. “We can’t close the town. Not yet. It’s not time.”

Hector turned toward him. “What do you mean, ‘not yet’? You don’t plan on actually going through with his plans, do you?”

“I thought that was decided,” Gemma said.

“It was,” Booker said reluctantly. “It is.”

Corbett raised his hands. “Then I don’t see a problem. Let’s get to it.”

“No, Barry. It’s happening too fast,” Booker said. “We have obligations, to the town, to those who need to pass through, even to the state. We can’t start chopping up a highway and deny access. There’s no other road here people can use. What are we expecting them to do, hike over the mountains to get to where they need to go?” Booker pointed toward the room’s western wall, in the general direction of Mount Whitney.

Corbett nodded. “If they don’t turn around and head back to wherever they came from, yeah. That’s exactly what I’m saying we do. Listen, we’ve had this discussion already. The people caught out in that traffic? Not our problem, Max. It’s regrettable, and it’s unfortunate, and it’s even sad. There are families out there, people who are just trying to get somewhere safe. But we can’t help them. We can maybe save the town and the people who live in it, but we can’t save everybody else while doing it.”

“You mean, save yourself,” Hector said.

Corbett fixed him with a withering glare. “If saving myself was all that I was after, then the only wall being built would be around my property. And I’d probably put up a nice tower, too—just to watch you try and figure out how you could survive on your own, Mister Aguilar.”

“Barry.” Gemma’s voice was reasonable and well-modulated. “Barry, what do we do if the zombies come here and there are still people outside? Do we take them in? Do we turn our backs on them?”

The question interested Booker intensely. He looked at Corbett, but for once, the rangy billionaire didn’t seem to want to give a direct answer.

“It’s my hope those people will have moved on,” Corbett said.

“But what if they don’t?” Gemma pressed. “What if they can’t?”

Corbett clenched his teeth. “Then we let the chips fall where they may.”

Hector made a satisfied noise and crossed his arms, a sardonic smile forcing the ends of his mustache upward.

Gemma didn’t seem satisfied with the answer. “I don’t know you very well, Barry, but that answer doesn’t seem to sit well with you.”

“Should it?” Corbett asked. “
Nothing
about this sits well with me. But this is the hand we’ve been dealt. We’re going to have to turn a cold shoulder on a lot of people. It’s going to be dirty business, but we have to get on with it.” He looked at Booker. “Now. Weapons training. We need to start bringing the rest of the town in on this. We’ll need an open meeting—people need to know what’s going on, and why we’re doing what we’re doing.”

“A lot of folks are curious,” Grady said. “My officers are being asked a million questions.”

“Then let’s give them some answers,” Corbett said. “I’d advise we let Gary Norton handle the public side. He’s better at that kind of stuff than I am, and he’d be a good backup for you, Max.”

Booker leaned back in his chair. Letting Norton take some of the heat was appealing, just in case things abated. But there was no way he’d be able to avoid most of the blowback; he was Single Tree’s mayor, after all. No one was holding a gun to his head and forcing him to enact Corbett’s plan, though he did figure things might come to that if he outright declined to join in the fun.

“I’ll consider that. But you’re right, we need to advise the townspeople about what’s going on. We should call a meeting for tomorrow night.”

“Tonight would be better,” Corbett said.

Booker frowned, and looked at the clock on the wall above the door. “Barry, it’s almost five o’clock now.”

Corbett nodded. “Better get on it.”

“Preposterous!” Hector said.

“Cluing in the town is preposterous?” Corbett responded.

“You know what I mean! Calling a meeting at the end of the business day is preposterous!”

Corbett shrugged. “Special circumstances, Hector. Special circumstances.” He looked at Booker. “Up to you guys to figure that out. Circling back to weapons training: I’ll ask Danielle Kennedy to assist, since she has all the training we need and pretty much everyone knows her. For advanced training”—Corbett pointed to the men sitting in the auditorium behind him—“we have some skilled personnel to turn to, as well. But it would be better if we were to notify the townspeople and let them know the reasons for doing all of this, and like I’ve already said, the sooner the better.”

Hector started to bloviate again but was interrupted by the radio Grady wore on his belt. “Fourteen, copy.”

“Sorry,” Grady said as he reached for the microphone clipped to his left shoulder. “Fourteen, go ahead.”

“Fourteen, reported 10-50 at the two mile marker on 395. Corrections bus from upstate. Can’t get through to the Highway Patrol. J four.”

Grady raised his brows. “10-4. Clear and direct.” He got to his feet and looked over at Booker. “Sorry, gotta go. Some sort of traffic incident involving a bus.”

“A corrections bus?” Corbett asked. “Prisoner transport?”

Grady shrugged as he walked around the table. “Don’t know. I guess the other guys are busy, so I won’t know anything until I get out there.”

Corbett turned and looked at his bodyguards. One of them nodded and stood up, moving to form up on Grady. “You want some company, Chief?”

“No,” Grady said. “I don’t. But before I go, when were you considering this ‘weapons training’, and where did you want to hold it?”

“On my land. I’ve got fourteen acres, and a big berm laid out to keep any stray rounds from going anywhere but into the desert,” Corbett said.

Grady nodded and looked back at Booker. “I’d let him do it, Max. It’s not going to hurt anything.”

“I’ll take that under advisement,” Booker said. “You sure you don’t need some help?”

Grady shot him a thumbs up and continued walking toward the door. “I’m good to go.”

###

Sinclair watched as Los Angeles slowly died and became resurrected. That was the wonderful thing about twenty-four hour news channels, the truth was always exposed—or, he well knew, at least what part of the truth fit the agenda. He had no idea whose agenda might include broadcasting the rise of the shambling dead, but it was on the telly, and Sinclair never passed up the opportunity to stay abreast of current affairs.

And current affairs told him that Los Angeles was beginning to die, just like New York had, and Washington, and Philadelphia, and countless other US cities. He had tuned in mostly to find out about what was happening in New York, and had been momentarily pleased to see his condominium building, the revered 15 Central Park West, silhouetted against a smoke-filled sky but still standing tall and proud over Central Park. A Central Park that was full of military helicopters that were being overrun by legions of dead. Sinclair had watched in horrified fascination as the video feed continued to broadcast over a satellite link, even though the camera—doubtless mounted to a new station remote unit—had long been abandoned. Creeping figures tottered across the park’s Great Lawn, overwhelming guards by sheer numbers alone. And interspersed here and there were faster ones, those who hadn’t been damaged too badly in their transition from life to death. They could still move, and fast. They didn’t seem to tire and slowed only when they were hit by a hail of bullets, or fell upon a living person. When that happened, the dead mounded over their unfortunate quarry, ripping it to pieces. Sinclair watched as the dead surged aboard running helicopters, ignoring the gunfire, savaging their crews. Two helicopters lifted off, but several of the dead managed to get aboard one of them. The aircraft heeled over and crashed back to the ground, its slashing rotors obliterating several zombies before it came to a halt. In what seemed to be seconds, the aircraft was overrun by a tidal wave of necrotic bodies, and the zombies flailed about as they each tried to gain their pound of flesh.

Sinclair knew then that he would never return to 15 Central Park West.

But now, the news was mostly about Los Angeles. The City of Angels was more spread out than the Big Apple, so the disease grew more slowly. But it did spread, until the local authorities couldn’t contain it anymore. A great herd of the dead shuffled along Interstate 405, attacking stranded motorists caught in the nearly motionless traffic, a great conga line eating its way to the north while another moved to the south. Several California Highway Patrol vehicles were overwhelmed, the patrolmen there killed as they tried to flee, their bodies illuminated by the sporadic flashes of emergency lights. News helicopters captured everything, zooming in so Sinclair could watch as the patrolmen met the most grisly of fates in full 720p, which was the highest resolution the blasted hotel’s television could manage. It was enough. By the end of it, Sinclair felt himself sickened by what he had seen.