Chapter 3
"How long do we have before this thing runs out of fuel?" Scooter asked. He was speaking through the little headset attached to his helmet. Julie turned to look at him.
"A few hours," she said. Then added, "At most."
Scooter thought about it. He didn't know how far they'd get in a few hours. He'd never been in an airplane before. He didn't know how fast they were moving. But a few hours sounded good. It ought to get them pretty far away from the city.
"Did you have anywhere you wanted to go?" Julie asked.
"No." As with flying, he also didn't know much about outside of the city. He had heard a few town names, but had never actually been to any of them. His world consisted of the few blocks around his house and the road leading to the airport. Not much more.
He looked out the window. The ground was far below them. Th
e
thin
g
was nowhere in sight. They had left it behind, screaming on the runway.
Scooter was glad that it hadn't come out while they were on the ground. Yeah, he had his axe. And, yeah, he probably could have killed it. But it wasn't something that he looked forward to. It also wasn't something that he wanted to risk.
"I was thinking that maybe we should fly over the city." The idea came to him out of nowhere.
Julie turned to look at him. Eyes wide. Jaw dropped. "You want t
o
wha
t
?"
"Fly over the city. Check it out. See what's happening there?"
She shook her head slowly. "I don't know if that's a good idea. It might be dangerous."
"Everything's dangerous! But if we do, we might find out what happened. Or maybe we'll find some people like us - people who haven't changed."
"I don't know," Julie repeated; except this time she appeared to be thinking it over.
"You said we have a few hours, right?"
"Yeah."
"Then let's just go for an hour or so. We're so high up. What could it hurt?"
Scooter didn't know why he was suggesting it. At the beginning, he had just wanted out of the city
.
Now he wanted to go back
?
He supposed it could be good to go back if they could find help, find answers, find other survivors.
"Okay," Julie agreed. She looked at her gauges. "We've got enough fuel for a while. We could fly over part of it. Not the whole thing. Then we can turn off and head out. I don't think it'll be a problem."
Scooter wanted to laugh at that
.
She didn't think that it would be a problem
.
The whole world was a problem now. But he kept his mouth shut and simply nodded his head.
Julie did a few more things with the controls. Then she steered the plane toward the city. It didn't turn all too quickly, but Scooter could still feel the force of it pushing him against his seat.
He turned to look around at Emily.
"How ya doin'?" he asked. He had to scream it because she didn't have one of the microphoned helmets on.
She didn't answer. She didn't even know that he was talking to her. She was too busy looking out the window. Amazed. "Emily, is everything okay?" he tried again.
The little girl finally turned him.
"You all right?"
She nodded her head once. Nothing more.
"We'll land soon enough," he continued. "And we'll be away from the city. We'll be safe."
Emily continued to look at him, but he knew that she wasn't interested in what he was saying. At the moment, she wasn't worried about being safe. All she wanted to do was look outside.
Scooter turned back around. He knew that Emily would start looking out of the window as soon as he did.
He looked out the window as well. They were crossing over a few fields. There wasn't much out here. He could see some roads. He could see some traffic jams. Well, no
t
traffic jam
s
. They were really pile ups. Car crashes. The result of drivers losing their minds and slamming into one another. They covered the roads. They blocked them. It was impossible to get very far past them. But not for Scooter. Not now. He was flying. And thos
e
traffic jam
s
were a thing of the past.
He smiled.
*
They came upon the city quicker than Scooter had expected. It had felt much further away on foot. But, in the air, that was a different story.
They came upon a few houses. Then a few more. He could see the bodies lying out on the streets underneath. He could make out the pools of blood that had dried underneath them. He didn't know how to describe it. There was no poetic way to look at it. They were dead bodies. That was all.
"That doesn't look good," he said.
Julie shook her head. "Nope. And I think it's only going to get worse."
So did Scooter. Right now, they were only passing over the suburbs. Sure, there were lots of people out here. But in the city? There'd be millions.
*
Before they reached the city, Scooter saw a few o
f
the
m
. Not the millions of dead bodies, but the creatures. And, this time, they weren't attacking one another.
"Can you see that?" he asked Julie. He pointed toward them.
"Yeah."
"They're not killing each other."
"Yeah."
Yeah
?
Scooter thought
.
That's all
?
It bothered him that she didn't say any more about it. This was a big deal. The creatures had learned to work together. And all that she could say wa
s
that one word.
He turned away from her and looked back down at the creatures. They were looking up at the airplane, screaming, trying to chase it. Not that they could keep up with it. Though that didn't stop them from trying.
"They're fast," he said.
"Yeah."
That dam
n
yea
h
again.
Scooter continued to look. Then he noticed a small group o
f
the
m
huddled together. These ones looked as though they were fighting. He could see them swinging their arms. He could see them kicking. He couldn't hear them screaming, but he knew that they were.
"I thought that they weren't fighting each other anymore." He pointed over to where they were.
Julie had already seen them. "I don't think that they're fighting each other," she said.
"Of course they are! Look at them. Can't you see them?"
"No, I don't think that they are."
Scooter didn't get it. It was obvious that they were fighting each other. He could see it. She could too.
"What are you talking about?" he asked. "Look!"
"They're not," Julie replied. "They're attacking someone like us. Another survivor."
The idea had never occurred to Scooter, but now that she had said it he knew that she was right. Thos
e
thing
s
down there were attacking someone who hadn't changed
-
someone like themselve
s
.
"Oh," he said. Now he couldn't manage much more than one word.
*
The city was worse than the suburbs. Much worse. Creatures ran around wild as soon as they saw the airplane. And those that hadn't seen it were busy doing their own damage. They were picking at corpses. They were chasing things that Scooter couldn't really make out. They were down there, destroying it all.
Scooter could see where fires had done their damage. There were buildings that were nothing more than burnt out frames. There were cars that had exploded. And the blood. There was so much blood. The streets were a dark brown.
"I think we should get out of here," he said. He was thinking about the airplane. If anything happened, they'd have to land. They'd never survive. There were too many of the creatures. Definitely a lot more than he had expected.
"Yeah," Julie said. "I was thinking the same thing. There's not much more for us to see anyway. The city is destroyed. I doubt there are many of us left."
"No, I don't think there are." Scooter didn't want to say it. Sadness crept into his voice as he did. But that was the truth of the matter. There weren't many survivors. And those that had survived and hadn't gotten out of the city had to deal with thos
e
thing
s
. Not to mention disease. Scooter didn't even want to think abou
t
tha
t
.
"Let me turn around," Julie said. "It won't take us long to get out of the city. Then we'll just keep going until we find somewhere safe to land. Maybe we'll find other survivors there. At least,
I
hop
e
."
Scooter hoped so too.
Julie readjusted the plane. It tilted up to one side. And, as it did, Scooter had a better view of the ground underneath him. The creatures. The dead bodies. The destroyed buildings. The burnt cars. And the blood.
Oh, the blood.
This wasn't good.
The plane levelled out and Julie had set it on a straight course. Scooter looked at her. By the expression on her face he could tell that she didn't want to talk at the moment. She needed some time to digest it all
.
Hell, he did to
o
. There was no way that he was just going to be able to accept all that he had just seen.
The plane kept going straight, heading out of the city.
As it did, Scooter started to feel better. He was glad that they were getting away from it.
Then, before they got too far, he took another look back over his shoulder. Just to take a quick peek.
Instead of seeing the city, though, he saw something else. He saw Emily. He didn't know how, but he had forgotten about her. He could see the look of terror on her face. She was no longer happy to be flying. She was scared. She was sick.
Shit, she had seen it all!
Scooter wanted to kick himself. He should have taken better care of the little girl. He should have told her to close her eyes. But he hadn't. He hadn't even thought about her. He had been too busy looking at it himself
.
Fuc
k
, he wanted to say. He bit his lip instead. That hadn't been fair to the little girl.
He turned around and noticed Julie was looking at him. She had forgotten about Emily as well. There had simply been too much on their minds.
Scooter turned away from her and looked out the window, straight ahead. There were still a few buildings in front of him. But they were beginning to taper off. Soon there would be a bunch of houses. After that, there would be fields. They'd be out of the city.
Fuc
k
, Scooter still wanted to say. But he didn't. He didn't say anything at all.
Chapter 4
Julie continued to fly. They passed over a few more houses. Then over a few farms. All of them looked the same: abandoned. They hadn't seen anyone. No survivors.
The
y
ha
d
come across a few more of the creatures. It was the plane. The sound from it attracted them. They would come out and shout at it. They would try to chase it, even though there was no way that they could keep up.
"What should we do?" Julie asked.
"I don't know. I guess we should just keep looking."
Julie shook her head. She didn't look very hopeful about it. But Scooter could tell that there was something else.
"What?" he asked.
"We don't have a lot of fuel left. I don't think we can fly for much further."
"What? Really?"
"
Yeah, I think we need to find a place to land."
Scooter didn't like the sound of that. "What abou
t
the
m
? They'll hear us. They'll come out and attack."
"We might not have any choice."
"Are you sure?"
"We really don't have enough fuel. We should try to find somewhere soon. A field or a long road. A place to land."
"Uh…okay." There wasn't much more that he could say.
*
They came upon a small town not too far away. They could see some bodies lying out on the ground. But, so far, there were none of thos
e
thing
s
.
"What about here?" Julie asked.
Scooter didn't really want to land. He wanted to find other people, other survivors. Though if there was no fuel, there was no fuel.
"Where could we land?" he asked.
Julie searched for a place. Scooter did too. There wasn't going to be a runway. Not here.
"There's a field," Julie said.
"Where?"
"Over there."
She pointed. He turned. There it was. Behind a row of houses was a big open field.
"Do you think you can do it?"
Julie looked at him and shrugged her shoulders. "I've never landed on grass before," she admitted. "But I don't think that we have much of a choice."
Scooter tried to look at the fuel gauge. Not that he knew which one it was. He was sure that it was close to empty anyway. Julie wouldn't lie about something like that.
"All right," he said. "Try it."
Julie nodded her head. Scooter turned around to look at Emily. Both he and Julie had tried talking to her since they had left the city, but she hadn't said much in return.
"We're gonna land now," he said. She looked at him, but didn't speak. "It might be a bit bumpy, so hold on to something. And don't be scared." He tried to give her a reassuring smile, but even he, himself, wasn't all that sure that everything was going to go well. Maybe if Julie had said that she could land there no problem he would've felt more confident. Except she hadn't. She had just said that they didn't have much of a choice.
Scooter turned back around. He grabbed on to the sides of his seat. Then he waited for Julie to land.
Fuck.
He didn't know what Julie was doing. She was back to pressing more buttons and flicking more switches.
She turned to look at him, but didn't say anything. She nodded her head. He assumed that to mean that they were going down.
Scooter felt the plane drop beneath him. It felt like they were going down too fast
.
But what did he know
?
He had never flown before. Maybe this was how it always was.
The plane sped downward. Scooter grabbed the sides of his seat tighter. He could barely breathe.
Then the plane touched down. Hard.
Scooter felt a big thud. Then another one. He looked over to Julie. She was concentrating on the landing. She wouldn't take her eyes off of the field. She wouldn't take her hands off of the steering.
The plane started to rock back and forth. It shook violently.
Scooter closed his eyes. Only for a second. He knew that Julie was busy with landing the plane, but if she happened to look over at him he didn't want her to think that he was scared.
He opened his eyes a little bit more. His hands were still gripped to the seat. She wouldn't be able to see that.
When the plane eventually came to a stop, Scooter cheered. He felt a bit stupid for doing it, but he couldn't help himself.
"Excellent landing," he said. He gave Julie
a
thumbs u
p
. He felt stupid about doing that too. But, again, it was something he just had to do.
Julie smiled, enjoying the praise. That made Scooter want to cheer all that much more.
"That was great," he said. "Really."
Julie continued to smile.
*
Scooter helped Emily out of the plane. The little girl looked a bit more shaken up, but he was sure that she'd be okay. He placed her down on the ground. Then he reached back into the plane and pulled out his axe
.
He would never forget that again.
Julie came up beside him. "What now?" she asked.
Scooter didn't know. They were in a field. There were several houses in front of them. Well, the backs of them. "Maybe we should..."
Scooter didn't get a chance to finish his sentence. It was cut off by screaming. The creatures. And they were close.
Scooter looked around, but couldn't see any of them. "We've gotta get out of here!"
"It was the plane. They heard the plane!"
"We can't worry about it. We've gotta get going."
Scooter took hold of the little girl's hand, certain that he'd have to pick her up sometime soon. She wasn't a very fast runner.
They moved away from the plane.
"Where to?" Julie asked. "We don't know where they're coming from."
"No," Scooter agreed. "But they're probably coming from the houses."
"Should we run further into the field?"
Scooter shook his head. There weren't any places to hide. There wouldn't be any protection.
"Should we get back in the plane?"
That didn't sound like a very good idea, either. They'd be trapped in there.
"I don't know," he admitted.
"Then what should we do?
"I don't know," Scooter said again. He could feel himself starting to panic. "Maybe we could…" His words were cut off again.
This time it wasn't one of the creatures. It was a voice. And it was calling to them.
Scooter looked at the houses. He could see someone standing in a doorway. An old man. His white hair shone out to them like a beacon. He was waving.
"Over there!" Scooter said, pointing. "Come on!"
He pulled Emily up into his arms and started to run.