Mercy unslung her M4 carbine and looked at the others, “OK, you know the drill, eyes and ears, situational awareness on max, safeties off. Let’s go—”
They crossed the runway and moved in on the terminal building. A row of abandoned Humvees lay to one side of the rear entrance. The entranceway itself was protected by a shoulder high wall of sandbags, topped with razor wire.
Barnes pointed at an insignia on one of the Humvees, “Virginia National Guard, looks like they used the airport as a base.”
“Check out the grime on the windshields, these vehicles have been here a long time,” Flynn said.
Mercy held up a hand, “Barnes, Dimitri you guys are trope magnets, you don’t have the biotech. Why don’t you hang back here and watch our six?”
Barnes looked unhappy, “I don’t know about that. It’s never a good idea to split the party—”
“Well there’s me, Flynn, Rose, Tawny and Annalise going in so we should be OK. We’ve got the biotech and Annalise and Brody said they’ve not seen any alphas in these parts… so we should be good—” Mercy replied.
Rose nodded, “And we’ve got comms, if we run into any problems we can radio you.”
Barnes ran his hand through his hair and sighed, “You strike a hard bargain Dawes. Well, OK. This place does look deserted and you’re right, you do have the biotech so—”
Dimitri pointed at a row of hangars two hundred yards away, “Hey, why don’t we go and check in there for planes? Who knows what we could find?”
This time Mercy looked unhappy, “OK… that seems like a good idea but you should take one of us with you to make sure the hangars are clear of tropes.”
Flynn stepped forwards, “I’m on it, come on guys, let’s go, airport terminals are boring, the real interesting stuff is in the hangars—”
Barnes grunted his agreement, “OK then, meet you back here in an hour… that sound reasonable?”
Mercy checked her watch, “That’ll do. Stay safe.”
Barnes, Dimitri and Flynn walked off towards the hangars.
“Probably a good move, seven of us inside the terminal would make way too much noise, four is better—” Tawny said.
“OK, let’s go in. We’ll give ourselves a few minutes for our eyes to adjust, actually Rose… your eyesight is the best in the dark, you go first—” Mercy said.
Rose nodded, “On it.”
They entered the glass fronted terminal building, their guns at the ready. The high ceilinged departure lounge was deserted. Rows of chairs extended into the gloom. A large open space had been cleared and was full of bunk beds and tables.
“Looks like living quarters, bit of a field kitchen thing going on over there in the back—” Rose observed.
“Wonder why there’s no control tower?” Tawny whispered.
“It’s a regional airport, less air traffic, smaller planes… so I guess no need for an actual tower. OK, we’re gonna have to go over this building with a fine toothcomb to find the control room,” Mercy replied.
“We’ve only got an hour so why don’t we split up? We’ll cover ground quicker,” Annalise said.
Mercy chewed her lip, “That’s true. Tawny what’s your take on this place? Old dead or anything new?”
Tawny looked out into the departure area and took a deep breath. “All I can say is right here, this departure area feels old dead to me, nothing recent.”
Mercy racked the slide on her Glock 17 pistol, chambering a round, “OK then, me and Annalise will take the left, Rose and Tawny you take the right. Find me that radio, and keep an eye out for a power source too… any radio is going to need power and airports are supposed to have back-up generators so that’d be a win too—”
They split up, Mercy and Annalise headed left. They moved fast, searching their side of the departure lounge in a few minutes. They found more bunks and empty rifle racks.
“Wonder what happened here?” Annalise said.
“Same shit as everywhere else, bloody chaos. Army trying to get the upper hand on the outbreak… roadblocks, containment, public disorder, looting, panic, shootings, FEMA camps, conflicting orders, desertion, death—” Mercy replied.
“And then the tropes—” Annalise added.
“Yeah, and then the tropes,” Mercy echoed.
They moved into the rear of the building after covering the check-in area.
“Main entrance is over there, let’s have a look,” Mercy said.
They exited through the front doors. The airport entrance was sandbagged and fortified in the same way as the rear of the building. A large carpark stretched out beyond the drop off point.
“This is just the passenger terminal. The next building along looks promising, we should check it out,” Annalise said, moving towards the neighbouring building.
Mercy checked her watch, “Yeah, OK, we’ve got time. Wait, look over there… there’s a few stiffs in the carpark—”
They watched a slowly moving group of tropes that were wandering aimlessly around the carpark.
“Why are they sticking that close together? What’s with them?” Annalise squinted at the shuffling group of undead.
Mercy pulled out her binoculars and focused on the tropes, “They’re tied together at the waist, they’re wearing prison clothes. We’ll keep away from that lot. None of them seem to be taking an interest in us anyway… so yeah, let’s check out your building.”
They walked along the sidewalk to the next building.
“Yeah, this looks more like it, let’s go in,” Mercy said, leading the way.
They stepped through the sandbagged entranceway into a foyer. Mercy blinked, allowing her eyes to adjust to the dim light. She listened but heard only her own breathing. Annalise tapped Mercy on the shoulder and pointed to two signs on the far wall: AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL was listed beneath AIRPORT COMMAND CENTER.
“That’s it,” Mercy whispered. “Let’s go explore—”
Mercy went down the corridor and stopped at the first room marked AIRPORT COMMAND CENTER. She listened at the door then twisted the handle and entered the room, her pistol at the ready.
Damn, it’s dark, where are the windows?
Mercy pulled out her right-angle
