Eric Walters - The Rule of Three

“I’ve gone to the edge of the city and then south from there and down to the lake.”

“Perhaps since we’re racing along in this direction we should go right into the city.”

“Really?”

“We have our body armor, weapons, and more than enough fuel. It’s well within your range, isn’t it?”

“We could do five round-trips to the city.”

The dot on the horizon wasn’t getting any bigger, but it didn’t seem to be getting any smaller. I knew that the Cessna had a low stall speed. If he wanted to save fuel or was scouting the ground he could have been deliberately cruising just above that speed—which was a lot slower than my top speed.

I followed the path of the plane with one eye and kept a second on our route. We were less than a hundred feet in elevation, with Burnham just below us. There were still abandoned cars on the pavement and people moving between them, walking, carrying water, pushing carts, or pulling wagons. One of the wagons was being pulled by a horse. All of the people below looked up; some stopped walking and waved. I could see that many of them were carrying weapons. There was an occasional vehicle moving along beneath us.

We passed over a stretch of parkland that formed the rough dividing line between the suburbs and the city. Here was a big expanse of open land that could have been used to grow food, but nothing was being grown. I guess unless you could defend it there was no point in growing it.

In the far, far distance were the office towers of the downtown core, so tall that they were visible even from this distance. Closer now were the houses, apartments, and smaller office buildings that seemed to occupy every inch of the ground. Numerous blackened buildings—houses and apartments—dotted the landscape. I was close enough to the ground to see the shattered windows of stores, the vandalized cars, all sorts of destruction.

Here, too, was no sign of any cultivation. I didn’t know how many people were still down there, but none of them seemed to be trying to grow food. If communities were coming together, they weren’t visible from the air.

The airplane ahead was descending, getting lower and lower. That was why it wasn’t moving that fast—it was coming in for a landing. I knew the city well enough to know that there was no airport downtown, so I had to assume that the Cessna was doing what I’d been doing, using a stretch of road as a runway.

As it continued to descend I started to gain elevation to keep it in sight. That wouldn’t last much longer. It was definitely landing. If I could mark the spot where it set down and continued in that direction, I could pass right over. Even if I couldn’t immediately see the plane, I couldn’t miss a runway from this height, whether it was a dirt strip or, more likely, a road. Who knows? I thought. Maybe I could even set down and we could— No, I didn’t need Herb to tell me we weren’t going to do that. It would be far too dangerous to land not knowing who the people were.

But once I knew where it was we could always go back, drop a message, establish communication the way we had with Olde Burnham. That had worked out well, so we could hope that this could work out, too. It would be great to have another pilot on our side, not to be alone and vulnerable in the air.

“I’ve lost it,” I said as the plane dropped below the horizon. “I’m going to aim for the last spot I saw it go down.”

I adjusted course, dead-reckoning to a location I thought was about five miles east and a mile south of our present location.

“I’m disappointed in what I see,” Herb said. “I thought there would be more, and instead there’s much less. I’m not sure how people are able to survive down there.”

“How many people do you think are still living in the city?”

“It would have been almost a quarter of a million people before this happened. Now it might only be thirty or forty thousand.”

“That few?”

“Possibly even less. But unless there’s more than that here, I just don’t see enough development to support ongoing survival.”

“I’ve noticed that, too. Nobody seems to be growing anything. Where did all the people go?” I asked.

“You’ve seen them stream by our walls, migrating out of the city,” Herb said. “You’ve also seen the bodies. The death rate has undoubtedly continued to soar.”

I couldn’t help but think how we’d managed to escape that in the neighborhood. There had been three deaths: one on the wall—that first shooting—and two from natural causes, a man who’d had a heart attack, and an elderly woman.

“Up ahead, do you see it?” Herb asked.

I did. There was a long, wide stretch of pavement and on it was an airplane. It was a shiny white Cessna. It looked like the one I’d seen overhead before.

“We found it… and more.”

All along both sides of the pavement were vehicles—trucks and cars—and people, lots and lots of people. The place looked like an industrial compound surrounded by a high metal fence, and it seemed like a whole army of—

I saw the flash of a muzzle and then felt a bullet rip into the wing above my head.

“Turn!” Herb yelled.

Before the word had escaped his lips I’d already started to bank sharply to the right. I heard another bullet whiz by my head and I pushed down on the stick, dropping behind the row of stores that lined the street. I was so low I was practically skimming along the asphalt.

“They shot at us! Why would they shoot at us?” I screamed.

“Just stay focused, stay calm. We have to get away.”

“We’re safe now—they can’t even see us,” I said.

“What if they send the plane back up to get us?” Herb asked.

“It’s a Cessna, not a fighter jet.”

“Do you think we’re the only ones who carry a rifle?” Herb asked.

I hadn’t even thought of that. I pulled up enough to be above the level of the rooftops but not high enough to be visible. If that plane was coming after us I couldn’t outrun it, but I could try to hide among the buildings.

Quickly I had to figure this out. The Cessna had landed coming from the north. If it was going to take off they’d have to taxi it around and aim back into the wind, taking off to the north. I banked to the south, putting more space between us and where it was going to have to make its turn. How long would it take to get it back into the air? Probably the pilot had already left, so they’d have to scramble him back into the cockpit. If the plane had been out for a while they’d have to refuel, and even if they didn’t have to refuel I’d still have a good five minutes before it could get to where I was now. I pressed against the throttle, trying to eke a little more speed out of the engine.

I caught sight of Herb looking backward.

“Do you see anything?”

“Nothing. Not yet anyway. How much faster is the Cessna than we are?”

“At least twice as fast.”

“What’s its range? How far can it fly?”

“With a full tank it can go three times as far as my ultralight.”

“What can you do better?” Herb asked.

“Not much. It can carry more people and more cargo, can handle more g-force, has a much higher ceiling, and can go up in weather that would keep me on the ground.”

“There must be some advantage.”

“Because I’m so much slower, I can make tighter turns.”

“So you’re more maneuverable.”

“I guess so, and my stall speed is much slower.”

“Explain that to me. Quick,” Herb said.

“I can go slower without stalling out, without crashing.”

“Interesting. So the Cessna is much faster, but it can’t go as slow. That could be an advantage.”

I didn’t see how going slower was much of an advantage.