From beat up old cars to bicycles, Hannah had used all manner of vehicles during her long journey. The lack of fuel or massive vehicle pileups on narrow roads had often forced her to abandon the vehicles. Bicycles were great for covering a lot of distance quickly, but they were impossible to fight from, so she’d given up seeking those out. Her mantra for the past year was that once she made it to the American border, then all of this would be worth it. She would be safe from the crazies that the facility in Brazil had unleashed upon the world.
Hannah walked cautiously to the fence surrounding the Chihuahua International Airport. This was the first large airport that she’d come across where the fences were still intact. She was hopeful that one of the nine hangar buildings that she could see would hold a useable aircraft, something that had been kept out of the weather and that wasn’t in fifty million pieces.
She took her pack off and set it on the ground beside the chain link to begin the arduous task of cutting the wire with the beat up old pliers she’d stolen months ago from that same workshop in Panama where she found her hammer. She’d learned long ago to avoid the main entrance to any facility as it was where the crazies tended to congregate for easy movement to and from the shade.
Her grip strength was terrible, so she had to use both hands to squeeze the handles together, twisting the pliers with each successive squeeze. She’d watched guys in training slice through a fence in five minutes, but it took her more than forty to cut through the thick wire. Once she was through, she pushed her way inside and sat heavily on the ground, pulling her pack inside with her.
Hannah cursed the mysterious illness she’d contracted once again. She pulled off her glove and looked at the gnarled scar where the crazy had bitten her on the fleshy part of her left palm. She’d fallen ill within hours of the bite. Whatever shit that guy’s mouth carried had caused her sickness. Hanna guessed it was probably bacterial in nature, but that was as far as her self-diagnosis went. She should have already been back in the States by now, but the journey was dramatically slowed by the lingering effects of being sick. The lack of strength and stamina limited her ability to travel to only four or five hours a day before she collapsed in exhaustion. That’s why she had to find a serviceable aircraft this time.
She squeezed her eyes shut, focusing on the end state. There had to be aircraft inside those hangars. She knew from experience that the ones sitting outside, rotting on the tarmac, would be next to useless. They’d endured too much from the yearlong weather cycle. But this airport was plenty big enough to have light planes or helicopters inside of the hangars.
After a healthy swig of water, she pushed herself to her feet. She’d gotten lucky a few days ago, finding an empty roadside store that still had packaged food and bottled water. It was heavy in her pack, but crossing the arid Mexican desert—even in the spring—was dangerous without plenty of water, so she endured the added weight. She consoled herself with the belief that she’d be flying soon.
No more walking.
Hannah let the hammer hang comfortably in her hand as she moved slowly across the open space between the fence and airport’s buildings. She angled toward the farthest hangar away from the passenger terminal. If there were any of the crazies in the airport, the terminal was likely where they’d be. Hopefully, if there were any of them in there, they were trapped and not able to get outside to her.
It was a slow and arduous trek across the runways until she reached the large, open concrete pad outside the first hangar. Two small turboprop airplanes sat in the sun. The wheels on both aircraft were deflated and one had the double access doors open. She glanced inside for anything useful. Whatever useful items that may have been in there were long gone now, so she continued to the hangar.
The big hangar doors were closed. That could be a blessing for her if there was an aircraft inside that hadn’t been exposed to the weather. However, the loud noises of the opening the doors could also be a curse. It would be like ringing the bell for Pavlov’s dog.
She made her way to the side door and tried the handle. It was unlocked and opened silently outward. The smell of rotted flesh and the putrid odor of hot piss and shit immediately assaulted Hannah’s nose. She fought back the urge to gag as she closed the door quickly to take a gulp of fresh outside air. She’d seen a lot of death in the past year, had even been on its doorstep herself, but the smells still got to her. It was a visceral reaction that she couldn’t overcome, no matter how prepared she thought she was for it.
Hannah wished she had a jar of Vick’s VapoRub to rub onto her upper lip to mask the smell. That’s what she’d seen soldiers in Iraq do during mass casualty events. Unfortunately, she didn’t have anything like that. The best she could do was to pull the spare shirt she’d wrapped around her neck to block the desert sun up over her nose. She cinched it tight, then readjusted it once again, ensuring there was no way that the stench would have unimpeded access to her nose. She took a few more deep breaths of outside air, then opened the door once more.
Inside, less than five feet from the door, a corpse lay against the wall. Flies lifted away in a massive swarm at the disturbance of their meal, revealing
