The Last Town Read online

  He needed to get to Burbank, and he didn’t know if he’d be able to make it. Norton reached for the phone on his desk.

  ###

  Forty minutes later, Norton stood in his backyard with two L.L. Bean wheeled duffel bags. One was crammed full of clothes, toiletries, and various personal items. The other was stuffed with three pistols, two rifles, and a shotgun, plus survival supplies and copious amounts of ammunition, cash, and other valuables. The second bag was three times as heavy as the first. He wore a comfortable pair of jeans, hiking boots, and a long-sleeved, dip-dyed denim shirt over a T-shirt. Hidden beneath his shirttails was a Smith & Wesson Shield, a nine-millimeter subcompact weapon safely tucked away inside the Kydex shell of a StealthGear Onyx inner waistband holster. Norton was leaving nothing to chance. He had locked up his house, wondering if he’d ever return, but he found that under the current circumstances, it was pretty easy to give up.

  Rotor beats slapped in the air, and a moment later, a Bell JetRanger helicopter lumbered past, flying along the coastline. Norton waved at it frantically, and the helicopter turned out toward the sea to circle back. As it dropped toward the back of the property, it slowed until it was almost hovering, crabbing sideways against the offshore breeze. Norton realized the pilot was going to have to make an upwind landing, a risky proposition at best and one that might leave Norton a couple of feet shorter at worst if he drifted too far forward. He stepped back a few paces to try to take that second possibility off the table.

  The JetRanger came in and gently alighted on the back lawn. The rotor wash kicked up water from the swimming pool, but Norton was far enough away that he didn’t get wet. Once the helicopter was down, he ran toward it, dragging his bags behind him. He heaved each of them into the back, slammed the door shut, then pulled open the left front door and eased in behind the cyclic control stick. He closed the door and fastened his safety harness. A Bose aviation headset hung from the overhead by the seat’s headrest, and Norton slipped it on.

  Jed Simpkiss sat in the right-hand pilot’s seat, sunglasses obscuring his eyes. He held onto the cyclic pitch stick with his right hand while the fingers of his left stayed wrapped around the throttle input on the collective pitch stick between the seats. He was a Vietnam veteran and had to be at least seventy years old, but he still had a surprisingly youthful look about him. Norton wouldn’t have been surprised to discover the pilot had regular Botox treatments, nor would he blame him. Along with being one of the best helicopter stunt pilots in the business, Simpkiss also had his own reality TV show on A&E, and everyone wanted their leads to look good.

  “Sorry I missed your house, man,” Simpkiss said over the intercom. “But you’re one lucky bastard, Gary. Right after you called me, the phone started going crazy.”

  “How so?”

  “A lot of people have the same idea you do: get the hell out of Los Angeles before it goes to hell. After I drop you off, I refuel and head down to Beverly Hills and pick up the president of production from Fox and take him and his wife and dogs to Santa Barbara. Then I’m back for another run, this time for your best buddy, Hugh Clary.”

  Norton snorted. Hugh Clary was an actor on Hollywood’s A list. He was also an A list asshole. “You’re taking Clary five miles off the coast and kicking him out, right?”

  “Van Nuys,” Simpkiss said, “but I’ll give him your very best. You ready?”

  “Hell, yes,” Norton said. “Let’s go.”

  “All right. Help me check the area, okay?”

  They scanned the area for any other traffic that might pose a risk to their liftoff. When Norton advised Simpkiss all was clear to the left, the pilot eased the JetRanger into the air, its turboshaft engine wailing. Once they had climbed a hundred feet, he turned the helicopter north and accelerated up the coastline for a few miles before crossing back over dry land.

  “You might want to get your phone out,” he told Norton. “You’re going to see some freaky stuff you’ll want to remember for your next disaster movie.”

  Norton pulled his Samsung smartphone from his front pocket, looking through the Plexiglas canopy as the Malibu countryside rolled past beneath the helicopter’s landing skids. “You charge my Amex?” he asked.

  “Hell, yes. Two thousand bucks. The most expensive cab ride to Burbank in history. Sorry I had to do it, but aviation fuel’s going through the roof. You can take it off my pay the next time we work together.”

  “Count on it, you greedy fuck.”

  Simpkiss laughed. “I’m kidding you, Gary. No charge, but thanks for the number. I’ll be sure to use it when I go to buy my next Ferrari. You call the FBO? Your plane ready?”

  “Fueled up and ready to go. I just need to load up, preflight, file, and then I’m wheels up.”

  “Where you off to?” Simpkiss asked.

  “The desert from whence I came. My parents are still there, never wanted to leave a one-truck-stop town, so I’m going to go to them. I have some property there that’s remote enough that no one would want to try to mess with me if things hit the fan. What about you? You going to stay?”

  In the distance, north of Santa Monica, black smoke rose into the sky. Norton couldn’t tell what it was, but he got the impression that an apartment tower was on fire.

  “A couple of years ago, I joined a group of investors, and we built a place in Idaho. We’re all conservative guys. Most of us are ex-military, and we’ve all got families we want to protect. I’ll be flying the King Air up there tonight. By the way, I hear that Big Army is moving in.”

  “What do you mean?” Norton asked.

  “The Army is taking over Ontario Airport. Seems like people are expecting a fight to happen, and a lot of guys and gals in green suits are going to start showing up over the next couple of days. A friend of mine with the 40th Aviation Regiment clued me in on that. The California National Guard is on state active duty now, too. That kind of freaks me out a bit. If I don’t leave soon, the bastards might find me and put me back to work.”

  Norton didn’t know what to think of that. “Well, I guess it means things are more serious than what’s playing out on TV.”

  Simpkiss snorted. “I hear it’s worse in New York. East Coast is getting hammered by this, man.”

  “Yeah. Hey, listen. Are they bringing in fighter jets and stuff to Ontario?”

  “Don’t know. Why?”

  “If I were you, I’d be worried about an aviation quarantine,” Norton said. “If they sanitize the national airspace like they did during 9/11, that’s going to put a crimp in your plans to fly out tonight.”

  “Yeah, I’ve thought about that. It’s on my mind, believe me.”

  Helicopters were flitting everywhere. Some belonged to the LAPD and Sheriff’s Department. Many more were news choppers covering the fall of the greatest city on the West Coast, documenting everything from fifteen hundred feet. Some were even civilian. But most were military. A line of Black Hawks thundered toward Griffith Observatory. He wondered what that was all about. Is the military going to send soldiers down the hillsides overlooking Sunset?

  “Amazing how it’s happening so fast,” Norton said. “It was in Europe only a couple of weeks ago. Russia goes dark, and everyone’s like, ‘Oh good, no more Vladimir Putin.’ Then it’s in New York and DC, and here in LA, everyone just kind of shrugs. ‘Hey, not my problem, man.’ Now, everyone’s surprised that it’s happening here. A billion warning signs that things were headed for the shitter, and everyone’s been caught flat footed.”

  “Denial,” Simpkiss said. “It’s not just a river in Egypt anymore.”

  Below, a cluster of police cruisers surrounded a house. News helicopters orbited above it.

  Simpkiss toed one of the foot pedals, and the JetRanger banked to the left. “Let’s not overfly that,” he said. “Looks like something hot’s going down.”

  The helicopter flew on, approaching Interstate 101, the famed Hollywood Freeway. It was choked with traffic, at a complete standstill. Emergency serv
ices vehicles were caught up in the mess as well, their lights flashing uselessly, fused into a river of metal and plastic that had stopped flowing.

  Just beyond the freeway, great columns of black smoke rose into the air. Norton tried to lean forward, but his harness kept him pressed against the seatback. He couldn’t believe what he saw. Universal City was awash with flame. The studio’s famed Black Tower could have served as a real-life set piece for a remake of The Towering Inferno. Only one fire truck was in attendance, parked at the curb on Lankershim Boulevard.

  A crowd surrounded the tanker, rocking it back and forth on its suspension. Shambling mobs of people—No, not people, Norton told himself—closed in on the vehicle from every direction. However, they weren’t interested in the rig but the firefighters inside. An explosion of glass flew through the air like a scattering of bright diamonds, twinkling in the Southern California sun. A fireman was hauled out of the rig’s cab, kicking and flailing. The rest of the firemen got a clue, and the big tanker truck roared off, parting the mass of former humanity like a yacht with a gigantic chrome prow charging through a swelling head sea, leaving dozens of bodies in its wake. Those bodies squirmed on the street, shattered and broken but still trying to climb back to their feet and give chase. The Black Tower burned, an effigy of the business that had made Gary Norton a millionaire four hundred times over.

  “Now, that’s something you just don’t see very often,” Simpkiss said as he piloted the helicopter past Universal.

  “Holy shit.” Norton shook his head. “I was just there last week.”

  “I guess you can forget about any call sheets you might have. Universal’s out of business, if you ask me.”

  Norton checked the airspeed indicator on the instrument panel then glanced at the torque indicator. Simpkiss wasn’t messing around. He had the JetRanger’s torque pegged at the leading edge of the red line, which translated to almost a hundred twenty knots in airspeed. Norton wasn’t a helicopter pilot, but he could read the instruments. Despite Simpkiss’s devil-may-care attitude, the man took aviation very seriously, but he was flying the chopper at more than ninety-eight percent power.

  “You’re going to thrash your engine if you keep this up, Jed.”

  Simpkiss snorted. “Gary, the last thing I’m worrying about right now is having the engine torn down to check for heat damage. It’ll hold together, and the way things look, this might be the last day I’ll be flying it. And no offense, but the sooner I drop you off, the quicker I can get to the rest of my pickups, get them to where they need to go, and get the hell out of Dodge myself.”

  Norton heard a quaver of fear in the older man’s voice. He’d known Jed Simpkiss for a lot of years, and he’d never known the man to be anything but unflappable.

  “Okay, man,” he said then continued watching the City of Angels burn below.

  ###

  The muster room at Hollywood Station was packed. Reese leaned against the wall next to the door, staring at the backs of several heads. He wasn’t a particularly tall man, so he wasn’t able to see Captain III Rafael Marshall as he addressed the assemblage from the desk at the front of the room. Marshall was the officer in charge of Hollywood Station. As the ranking member of the station’s detective bureau, Reese represented the cadre of plainclothes detectives assigned to the LAPD’s Hollywood division.

  “All city emergency services are strained well past the breaking point,” Marshall said. “The county’s Department of Public Health is essentially treating this as a pandemic. They said that officers need to avoid contact with infected bodily fluids or being bitten or scraped by the infected. The infected appear to die and then, uh, reanimate shortly thereafter. Once reanimated, they become murderously psychotic, and their MO is to bite uninfected individuals so the contaminant can spread further. There are reports of infected actually attempting to eat their victims—”

  “Reports, hell!” someone in the room snapped. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes!”

  “Yeah, okay, whatever you say, Senkowsky. Shut the hell up and let me finish. We can expect the infected to attack and maim uninfected civilians and first responders. The infected are unresponsive to voice commands and most forms of nonlethal force. As we’ve seen in New York and elsewhere, it seems the only way to definitively stop the infected is by shooting them, specifically in the head. Body shots do nothing, so be aware of that. If you shoot like you’ve been trained, you’ll just burn through your ammo. You need to remember how to use your front sights and put rounds on target with precision.

  “More on the infected. They do not seem to communicate in any meaningful way, including with each other. How they can tell infected from uninfected is unknown at this time. Most are slow and shambling, but some are fast and alert. A smaller percentage has been known to retain some cognitive function. In other words, don’t expect every infected out there to walk straight up to you and give you time to shoot. Anticipate the potential for ambushes, including attacks where tools are used in an offensive manner. We heard about this in Europe and on the East Coast, and even though no final confirmation has been sent, we need to remain aware of the possibility of planned attacks against our formation.

  “Highest areas of infection are to our south, around LAX, El Segundo, and Torrance. We’re seeing a spike in infection rates in our division, so we can expect that to continue. Ah, getting back to services. Caltrans is essentially off the grid. All major and most secondary roads are already or are in the process of becoming impassable, even to emergency services traffic. Everyone is trying to get out of the city, and we’re in a total gridlock situation. Basically, we’re down to boots and bicycles. We still have aviation support, but that’s a finite resource. We have Caltrans and department units out there trying to clear roadways for first responders, but let’s presume that’s not going to happen.”

  “So what do we do, then?” a lieutenant with the patrol division asked. “Form a ring around the stationhouse to keep the fucking stenches away from us?”

  “We’re going out into the community we’re charged to protect,” Marshall said. “We’re going out any way we can. We’re not going to let this city go down without a best effort from us. We’re the LAPD, and this is what we’re here for. Now, the National Guard has been activated. They have not been federalized. They are still on state active duty status, so they can legally assist us with operations. They’re bringing in Black Hawks and Chinooks so we and other departments can move more easily across our area. There are also Guard troops being assigned to us, and they’re going to be dropped off by helicopter at the parking garage on Ivar. John Reese, you in here?”

  Reese raised his hand. “Here, Captain.”

  “You’re on the welcoming committee,” Marshall told him. “You’re responsible for getting the Guard from the garage to the stationhouse. Can you deal with that?”

  “By myself?”

  “Captain Pallata will assist you with manpower requirements. You have thirty minutes to get that figured out because they’re already staging at Griffith and will be here within the hour. You good on that, Detective?”

  “Yes, sir. Good to go,” Reese said even though the last thing he wanted to do was step outside the stationhouse.

  “We’ll put the Guard to good use,” Marshall said. “We’ll use them to protect us while we go out and protect the people of our community. Things haven’t reached critical mass just yet, but I can tell you that things are starting to pop in the Valley division. Basically, we’re right between two hot spots, so we can expect things to go from bad to worse within the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. If you encounter uninfected civilians outside, encourage them to return home and stay there. They should be prepared to shelter in place for four to seven days until we can get a handle on things. Starting this evening, the Guard will be distributing emergency supplies, and the garage on Ivar is going to be the distribution point for our area. The Emergency Management Department is also in full swing, doing pretty much the same thing
, trying to fill in the blanks wherever we can.

  “Telecommunications is screwed. Both 9-1-1 and 2-1-1 are overloaded, and mobile telecom is starting to show stress as well. Best way to communicate is over radio. Tactical frequency cheat sheets are available, so everyone make sure you get one when you check out a Rover. Otherwise, you might be left in the cold, trying to talk to a resource that can’t hear you.”

  The assemblage murmured assent.

  “Okay, we’re almost done. One last item. You need to listen to this.” Marshall paused dramatically. “We have a job to do, but I know that all of you have family, friends, and loved ones you’re concerned about. I get that, and your supervisors get that. Just the same, we need you here. Anyone who goes off duty without permission will face charges. Sorry to bring that up, but it needs to be said. The entire city is facing a long-lasting state of emergency, and we need every cop we can get.”

  Reese felt resentment burn through him, even though he had no one he was especially concerned about. His only marriage had ended badly years before, and he had no idea where his ex was or what she was doing. There weren’t any children in the picture, so other than a motley collection of fishing buddies, Reese was alone in the world. But most of the cops there were family men and women, and if Marshall’s words stung him, he knew the feeling was a hundred times worse for them.