“Where should we go?” Jamie asks.
The economy parking garage to our right is blackened with soot from a fire on the second level that went out long ago. Concrete has cracked and fallen in chunks to the overgrown bushes below. Beyond it, at the far end of the terminals, is a tall control tower. I point at it.
“Maybe head that way? We can see if a higher vantage point can tell us where to go?”
He nods and we cut around the parking garage. The chain link fence that should be blocking our way is cut open. Maybe we’re going the right way after all.
As we walk around the terminals, each fence we come to has been cut open or broken for people to pass through. Jamie gives me a look that seems to say this must be correct.
But I don’t like it. It’s so quiet here.
Shouldn’t there be someone on the road to greet people? Some kind of lookout on top of the parking garage? Maybe they’re all in the ATC tower.
We round the corner to the main runways. They’re cracked, weed-ridden, and scorched with burnt rubber from before the bug.
“Holy shit,” Jamie whispers.
My heart leaps. There are a few dozen small planes—some only big enough to hold a couple of people, while others look like private jets. They’re scattered around the runways like it’s a parking lot. Their doors are open, but the planes are filthy, covered in caked-on dirt and pollen. They’ve been here a while.
But there’s no one else around.
I scan the runway for movement. It’s quiet and still.
“Shit,” I say. “Didthey mean October sixth?”
Jamie must not find the joke funny because he doesn’t say a word.
“Hello?” I call out. Only my own voice echoes back to me and it gives me chills. Jamie grabs my arm. He’s pointing at a white American Airlines stair car parked by the terminal. And the body slumped up against it.
He pulls the rifle off his shoulder and I reach into the holster for the handgun. Its cool metal feels like fire against my skin. Like it’s just itching to go off.
The body is old, its skin leathery and sun-dried. The white dressshirt is tattered and yellowing and hangs loose like a second skin falling off the bone. Dried blood cakes the side of the stair car like an arrow, pointing down to the hole at the back of the body’s head.
“Andrew.”
I turn and follow Jamie’s gaze. He’s staring at the largest private jet on the tarmac.
“There’s someone in there,” he says. “I saw movement in one of the windows.”
I watch the small circles of darkness in the side of the plane. It could have just been a shadow. Or maybe it’s a tiger den. That’d certainly be our luck.
But then I see movement, too. And a brief flash of a face. There’s definitely a person in there. I turn to Jamie, asking with a look what we should do.
“Hello?” Jamie calls out. “Is anyone there?”
There’s no further answer or movement from the plane.
Behind us, I hear the rattling of the chain link fence we climbed through moments ago. I spin, raising the gun. Jamie comes around me, rifle at the ready.
There’s someone ducking under the cut fence, his backpack caught. He readjusts himself—still unaware we’re here—and unhooks his pack from the chain link. Jamie has already lowered the rifle by the time the guy stands upright and sees us.
He’s a Black kid, our age. His eyes go wide and then flash quickly to the jet we had been focused on. He puts his hands in the air and calls out.
“You here for the Europeans?”
Jamie and I share a glance and nod.
The kid frowns and opens his mouth to say something, but before he can...
