Chapter 1: The Beginning of the End
Percy was on a routine flight when the end of the world came calling his name. No one had warned him that when he took off from NAS Oceana that it would be the last time he'd ever see that base again. He genuinely believed today would be just like any other day.
By now, Percy had been flying for a year or so, the roar of the jet engine behind him was nowhere near as jarring as it used to be, granted he had his ear protection to thank for that. Even so, he was certain that he had a very small case of hearing loss coming on. He didn't mind though, he knew that was going to happen before he even made it to flight school.
"Alright guys, this isn't funny." He said into his radio, "Can you guys quit fucking around and clear me in for a landing?"
Percy had no idea why the air traffic controller was being so quiet, he'd hailed him multiple times but didn't get a single response. He tried looking through the glass of his cockpit to see if maybe they were throwing a fucking party down there or something. Whatever the reason was, he was going to have his ass for keeping him up in the air for this long. He may have just been a lieutenant but at the end of the day, he still had rank.
After flying over the base yet again, he looked down to see what was wrong. He didn't see anyone, not even the flight crew who'd normally go in and out of the hangers. He did see a few trucks and Humvees driving around though.
Marines, he thought, what are they doing down there?
By now, Percy wondered if something bad had gone down. Normally, issues were resolved by the military police on base, not by marines. The last time he checked, they weren't at war with anyone either.
It was about ten minutes later when he heard someone from the tower respond.
"Trident 1, respond."
Percy nearly smacked the button for the radio, "I'm here."
"Alright, good to know. Listen, we can't have you land here, we need you to fly up north to New York, make a landing at LaGuardia."
At first, Percy didn't understand, why would he have to fly all the way up to New York? Secondly, the voice ordering him to land at LaGuardia sounded different, it wasn't the same guy who'd been keeping communication with him throughout the entire flight. In fact, the voice over the radio wasn't even a guy, it was a woman.
"Alright, who is this and how the hell do you know my callsign?" He asked.
"I'm staring at it, you dumb fuck." The woman snapped back, "And for your information, I'm major Clarisse La Rue."
Now Percy was really confused. The Navy didn't call O4's majors, and the only other branch on the base were marines, but it didn't make any sense for a marine to be in the tower.
"Ma'am, what exactly are you doing in the tower?" He asked.
"I'm trying to keep your ass from landing into a world of shit, now get out of here!" Clarisse nearly shouted into the radio.
"But—"
"Shut the fuck up and go!"
Percy sighed, there was no arguing with this major, she was clearly adamant on having him land all the way in New York, at LaGuardia nonetheless, that wasn't even a military airport. He took the flight stick and turned his nose north, he was bound to hit New York soon. It wasn't like he'd be there instantly but he knew he'd be there in about an hour or two.
He wasn't too worried about not making it to New York, his F35 had plenty of fuel and he really didn't see a reason to panic. Now if he was running low on fuel, that would be a different story.
As Percy continued flying, he couldn't help but wonder what exactly had happened on the tarmac. So many things were wrong. First, there were all the marines down there who looked like they were invading the place, then there was the silence from the control tower, and finally there was that marine major who basically told him he couldn't land there. He'd never been in a situation like this before.
"Clarisse La Rue." He repeated her name. He'd make sure to find out exactly who she was later, after he landed.
Ω
"Holy shit…" Percy said slowly as the city of New York came into view.
He'd been flying for a bit and knew he'd been getting close to New York, the idea of finally being able to land was all that was on his mind.
That was until he saw the burning city in front of him.
The entire City of New York looked like a battle had just finished. Smoke plumes rose from all over the city, some of the buildings were missing chunks out of them, and he even saw a few helicopters flying over the city. A small explosion popped off in the distance.
Percy was way too high up to see exactly what was going on down there but he knew something bad was taking place, he could see the flashing blue and red lights of cop cars followed by lines of people. They all seemed to be streaming towards something though he couldn't tell what. The New York traffic looked even worse than he'd ever seen it.
Percy wasn't stupid, he knew what New York was supposed to look like, he'd grown up there, not once had he ever seen the entire city on fire. A pang of rage shot through his chest, what the hell happened to his city?
He'd heard of riots in the city before but this was too much. This was the exact reason why he hated riots, he hated when people who were angry about something decided to take out their anger on people who had nothing to do with it. He just couldn't figure out what exactly would cause a riot of this scale. Unless they came out and said they were officially banning pizza or something, he didn't see anything that could trigger this.
Regardless, Percy still needed to land. The F35 was an amazing jet, he fell in love with it the second he sat in the cockpit, but he also knew this jet didn't have unlimited fuel. In fact, they hadn't even filled the tanks up to full, there really was no reason to.
"LaGuardia air traffic control, this is Trident 1 requesting permission to land." He said into the mic.
No response.
Percy raised an eyebrow before checking to make sure he was on the correct frequency. Sure enough, he was. He requested permission again only to be met with no response again. He sighed out of frustration, what was it with every air traffic controller giving him the cold shoulder today?
"LaGuardia, please respond." He urged.
Percy looked at the airport, the runways looked empty, he could definitely try to land. The F35 was meant to land on a carrier, at least the C variant was, so he knew he could definitely make this landing. If he was flying a B variant, he could land vertically but that was reserved for marine corps pilots only, he was going to have to do this conventionally.
Strange, there's no planes, he thought to himself as he looked closer at the airport.
He saw maybe one or two passenger planes as he flew a circle around the airport but he didn't see anymore. There weren't even any planes coming in for landing or moving to the runway to take off.
Low fuel, low fuel, low fuel.
"Fuck." Percy cursed. He turned on his radio, "LaGuardia, this is Trident 1, I'm coming in for a landing."
Of course, there was no response to him. He didn't care, he was not about to bail out over the city and risk his jet crashing into a building full of civilians.
He steered the jet around and came in on a slow approach, his eyes stayed fixed on his flight instruments. The altitude slowly dropped until he felt the wheels make contact with the runway. He sighed as he slowed down, slowly coming to a complete stop. He looked around but didn't see anyone rushing out to him, though if the tower just saw him land, he was definitely in trouble since he didn't have permission.
It took Percy a few minutes before he was able to leave his plane. He opened the cockpit and hopped out. He looked around the abandoned airport, wondering where in the hell everyone was at. The whole airport was quiet, which was not normal at all, airports were rarely ever this quiet in the middle of the day.
Percy looked off in the distance when he heard a distant chattering sound. He recognized that sound, mainly thanks to being around marines when they were doing exercises, that was machine gun fire, either that or some rifleman was in a bad enough situation to switch his M4 into full auto. Either way, neither one of those indicated a good thing.
Percy looked down at the pistol on his hip, all F35 pilots had a pistol on them just in case they had to eject into enemy territory, which also meant he had to have one too. He knew how to use it, in fact, his scores were the second best in his class. he just never thought he'd actually have to use it.
The dull boom of an explosion in the distance told him that whatever was going on in New York was still going strong. He was going to need that pistol.
While Percy started jogging towards the terminal, he was able to make out the yellow and orange reflective vests of runway workers. He let out a sigh of relief, finally there were people he could talk to who could possibly tell him what was going on. Maybe they'd explain why the tower refused to acknowledge him.
As he got closer, he nearly stopped. Something wasn't right about these guys. They were just standing there, arms limp and swinging by their sides. A few had their heads tilted to the side, as if their necks no longer had the strength to hold their head upright. Some of them were shuffling about with a limp but he didn't see what was causing their limping, their legs didn't look broken.
Just in case, he drew his pistol and started walking over.
"Hey!" He called.
The workers' heads snapped to look at him. Instantly, he knew there was something wrong with them. They all had a sickly color to their skin with lesions up and down their bodies. Some of them had their flesh hanging off of them, like something had bitten or ripped it off. All of them were covered in blood, a few had blood running out of their mouths and onto their clothes.
What got Percy though were their eyes, they were all jet black.
As soon as they saw him, they all let out a bunch of inhuman screeches and squeals before running at him.
Percy wasted no time, he raised his pistol and aimed at the closest one, pulling the trigger as soon as the sight was lined up with its head. A loud bang filled the air. The taste and smell of gunpower was fresh. The worker he shot at grunted before falling down and going limp. He turned and fired at the other workers, firing round after round before all of them were on the ground.
"Man, what is wrong with this city?" He said, hands shaking a little from what he'd just done and witnessed.
He walked up to one of the workers and looked closer, they didn't even look human anymore. They genuinely looked like they'd been dead for days.
For a second, the idea of zombies filled his mind. He shook his head, zombies were a myth, they weren't real. Yet he couldn't explain what he was looking at. These workers looked exactly like zombies, he'd played enough video games and watched enough movies to know what zombies looked like and these workers fit the bill.
The sound of more screeching came from Percy's right. He looked over and found a huge horde of nasties running towards his direction.
"Fuck this shit, I'm out. Clarisse, I'm going to kick your fucking ass!" He said, running off in the other direction.
Ω
Somehow, Percy had managed to survive leaving the airport. Granted, he had a few close calls and had nearly fallen right into a horde of zombies but eventually he was able to make it onto the streets of New York.
The street he was on was a mess. Bodies littered the ground, all of them with bullet wounds to the head. Cars were strewn about, some crashed into buildings. An entire taco truck was flipped over on its side, Percy guessed the zombies must've not liked tacos or something. Stuff like purses and phones were all scattered on the sidewalk, probably dropped by frightened pedestrians.
He could hear the distant inhuman screeches of the undead in the distance, he had no doubt the entire city was probably crawling with the things, New York was home to a ton of people after all.
By now, he was starting to wonder if this was what was going down at base, maybe that's why those marines were running all over. As angry as he was at Clarisse for sending him to this horror show, he hoped she was alright. The idea that this could be a nationwide outbreak filled him with despair, his chest felt like it was caving in.
Get a hold of yourself, he thought.
Percy wasn't helpless, far from it actually, he could survive this. He'd been taught how to survive at SERE school and at this point, survival was the name of the game. He wasn't sure where to go and frankly he didn't care as long as it didn't have zombies or people who wanted to kill him.
He snuck through the streets and alleyways, dodging the roaming infected wherever he found them. He noticed their vision wasn't great, they could still see but it was like they struggled to make him out because of his dark green pilot suit. Their senses of smell must've either been clogged by the city or they just didn't have one tailored towards sniffing humans out because none of the zombies he came across ever noticed him.
Percy looked down the street when he heard the sound of a woman screaming. Instantly, the infected ran out of the nearby stores and alleyways towards the scream. His heart dropped, that poor woman was as good as dead and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it, there were just too many zombies around, if he tried to help, he'd just get eaten.
As he crept around, he unloaded the magazine from his pistol and glanced at it, he'd fired at least three shots to kill the workers earlier and the magazines only held 17 rounds. That meant he had 14 bullets against an entire horde of zombies, his chances of coming out of that alive were about as high as a steaming hot blonde riding in and picking him up in a sports car. Yes, he had a spare magazine but there was no way he'd be able to reload in time.
Percy sighed as he slid the magazine back into his pistol and kept moving. He knew he needed to leave the city but with the way things were looking, he wasn't sure if he could even do that. He at least needed to find a place to stay, somewhere remotely safe, if a place like that even existed.
The distant chatter of machine guns told him that someone out there was still going strong. He was dreading the moment those guns went quiet. He looked off in that direction, he was almost certain that gunfire was coming from Staten Island though he wasn't sure. He wouldn't be surprised if it was, he'd heard that something like 10% of New York City's police force lived on that island, they probably were holding the bridge there.
Percy crouched behind a car as he heard a zombie start screaming. He watched as a zombie sprinted out of a store, being chased by two German Shepards. He raised an eyebrow as he watched the dogs bark and chase off the zombie.
Scared of dogs, huh, he thought.
Percy never really gave any thought to the idea that zombies could actually be afraid of something and he never expected their fear to lie in dogs. He shrugged, at least the dogs would survive this whole thing.
It took Percy about thirty minutes of sneaking through the streets before he finally came upon some good luck.
He was walking along the sidewalk, pointing his gun at anything that moved when he found an abandoned cop car. The car was crashed into what looked like a flower boutique shop, roses and other flowers were scattered all over the hood and windshield. The driver's side door was left open, which meant he could open the trunk.
Looking around for any nasties, he made sure he wasn't going to get snuck up on. Then he ran towards the car and looked around inside for the switch to pop the trunk. He smiled with joy as he pulled a switch and heard the clunk of the trunk opening. He ran around and looked into the trunk, nearly whooping with joy as he pulled out an officer's stab proof vest and an M4 with some spare magazines. He'd have to be careful though, the rifle would definitely bring some unwanted attention if he started shooting everything he came across.
Percy was tempted to try to drive the car but he decided against it, he'd just end up getting blocked in and the engine would probably draw the entire block to his location. He slid the vest over his body and kept walking, sliding his pistol into his holster and making sure the rifle was loaded.
"Help me!" Someone screamed in the distance.
Percy gritted his teeth, he hated this, he hated having to stand by while other people got torn apart by zombies. He swore an oath to defend these people but there just wasn't anything he could do without getting himself killed. He wished he had a tank or something, then he'd be golden.
As he walked down the street, he paused. The street he was on was familiar, his mom used to live on this street. His heart started to drop into the pit of his stomach, he desperately hoped she was still alive but at the same time, he couldn't be sure. Maybe she left with his stepdad and stepsister.
Regardless, he pressed on, if he could reach his mom's apartment, he'd be okay. Well, not really but he liked to give himself hope.
Percy covered his nose as he walked past alleyways covered in blood, he didn't even dare to look closer into them, the last thing he needed was to see someone's intestines scattered all over the ground. That was part of why he wanted to be a fighter pilot, they didn't have to see that kind of stuff.
When Percy reached his mom's apartment complex, he took a moment to compose himself, he needed to come to terms with the fact that his mother could very well be dead, she could be up there right now as a shambling corpse. He needed to make sure he wouldn't freeze up in the event that he saw her, he couldn't afford to hesitate to shoot.
Nudging the complex's door open with the rifle's barrel, he slowly walked in, making sure to check his corners. The lobby was filled with baggage and other belongings, he reckoned most of the tenants fled with they saw the zombies, he couldn't speak for how many made it out alive.
He made his way to the stairs, making sure his steps were as quiet as possible, he wanted to hear in case some zombie was shuffling around nearby. Luckily, the apartment complex had doors to each floor so when he got to his mother's floor, he could just lock the door and secure the whole floor. He wasn't about to clear the whole building.
He paused outside the door to his mom's floor, he pressed his ear to the door and listened. He didn't hear anything but there was no guarantee that no zombies were behind the door. He braced himself and shoved it open, only to find the hallway completely empty. The window at the end was still intact, no way a zombie could get through there. He sighed and walked in, closing the door behind him and locking it.
He walked past all the other doors and stopped at his mom's door. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening it and rushing inside, rifle at the ready. His breathing was frantic as he looked around, going from room to room.
When Percy finished checking every room, his dread morphed into straight up confusion. The entire apartment was empty and he didn't see any blood anywhere. For a moment, a glimmer of hope started to grow inside him, maybe his mom made it out of New York after all. He spotted a phone on the kitchen counter, maybe he could call his mom.
He walked over and shut the door, locking it to make sure that if there were any zombies in the other apartments, they'd have to knock first. Then he walked over to the phone and started dialing his mom's number.
Percy's hand shook slightly as he held the phone to his ear, if his mom didn't pick up…well, he didn't want to think about it.
The phone rang for a few seconds. Then it rang some more. He closed his eyes as they started to become misty.
"Hello?" His mom's voice answered from the other side.
Percy's eyes shot open and he clutched the phone desperately, "Mom?"
"Percy?" She said, her voice full of disbelief, "How-what are you doing in my apartment?"
"It's a long story but where are you?" He asked.
"Me, Paul, and Estelle left for Florida on vacation a few days ago, they won't let us leave. I saw New York on the news, is it true that there's zombies there?"
Percy could've cared less if a nuke went off next to him, he was just relieved to know his mom was alive, his family was alive.
"Yeah, it is." He said grimly.
"Then what are you doing there?!" She panicked.
"I didn't have a choice, I needed to land somewhere." He said, "Listen, I'll try to find a way out."
"You better." She said, "Come to Florida or Georgia if you can, they've built border walls around both states. I think they'd let you in."
"It's safe down there?"
"Absolutely, it's like everyone in this state has a gun." She said.
"Alright, I'll try to get down there." He promised.
"Stay safe, honey."
Percy put the phone on the receiver and let out a sigh of relief, he almost started laughing, his mom was okay, he couldn't believe it. He'd completely forgotten that she was planning a vacation to Florida a few weeks ago.
However, Percy's relief didn't last long, he was still in a zombie infested city. He needed an escape plan. He couldn't head back to LaGuardia and hop back in his jet, he wouldn't have enough fuel to make it to Florida. Not to mention, a horde had chased him out of there, it would be too risky.
Percy walked down the hall and to his room, figuring out his escape was a problem for tomorrow, he needed some rest.