The convoy continued and found the gate still locked and the airport, just as they had found it yesterday.

“Let’s look for any old vehicles in the long-term parking garages,” suggested Preston. “We could grab a lot of food from the terminal and take some supplies back to the cops to feed their people.” Everybody agreed, and after they broke the lock, the ferrets drove into the parking building and began to cruise around.

Martie got out and inspected the aircraft on the ground. They looked in flyable condition but were all locked. It was time to get into the private terminal. As they walked over to the separate private air terminal, they heard a car’s engine start up from the parking area and then a second one.

Preston threw a rock through the window of the door leading from the apron into the terminal, and carefully walked in with Manuela and Mannie as protection. He found the flight office where several keys were hanging, and kicked the door in. The two Cessna 172s belonged to a small flying school, and both sets of keys hung on the wall with several others.

The two followed Preston as he went through the whole terminal, Mannie found a kitchen and walk-in warm refrigerator full of food, and a small storage pantry to one side. Then they walked outside with the keys.

Joe already was over by the Delta hub hitching up the trailer, and his sons were getting a second trailer attached. David, one of the soldiers, and Dani drove through the gate with an old rusty Suburban, a Mazda truck, and a small Ford half-ton. They stopped in front of Preston.

“These are the biggest we could find,” reported David. “I think there are one or two more old ones up there among the hundreds of new ones. It’s like a car dealership up there.”

“Get everybody together,” ordered Preston. “Let’s clean the private terminal out first and put the stuff in the Ford. It should all fit. Then we can get into the Southwest terminal and see what’s in there. We can always come back tomorrow and empty out the newer terminal. We’ll need Joe and a large trailer for that one.”

With everybody working, it took an hour to fill all three vehicles.

Preston found several still-sealed cases of good single-malt whiskey in the bar cupboards under the liquor display and packed these into the Cessna 172 that Martie was going to fly home. He asked Manuela to go with Martie, and they immediately took off in one of the 172s, with little Beth sitting on Manuela’s lap in the right seat, and she waved to the group as they raced down the runway. It was necessary for Martie to get back and monitor the radio.

Preston got into the other 172 with Mannie, told the rest of the guys to deliver the three full trucks to the roadblock, and then get the fuel back to base. He started up the plane and taxied around to the newer RDU terminal he had never been to. It had only been built a couple of years earlier and he didn’t often fly commercial.

As usual there were over a dozen aircraft at the gates and it wasn’t difficult to get inside. The inside was like the other one, semi-cleaned and empty. Security had closed the doors as they had left, and here there were dozens of closed restaurants, shops, and several bars. Now he only had the small Cessna and could take maybe 300 pounds in the rear seat. There were bread and bagels, still semi-fresh, and they packed a couple of boxes into the plane. They weren’t heavy, but it could be the last fresh bread for a long, long while. There wasn’t much more room, but Preston couldn’t resist spending a few minutes to break the lock into the Duty Free shop. Here, he was amazed. In the back were well over a hundred cases of top quality bottles of everything he loved.

“Let’s take a dozen cases, Mannie. I’m sure we can squeeze them in, and this stuff could all be gone by tomorrow.” Mannie agreed and they found a trolley and took the cases back to the doorway where they had come in. He couldn’t help but add a bottle of Martie’s favorite perfume and a couple of odds and ends to the trolley.

It was difficult, but they removed the big boxes and put the bread and bagels, still in plastic bags, back in. The little Cessna was now full to the roof, and so were its tanks, Preston realized. The poor aircraft was probably at maximum weight. He was right. She took a lot of runway to get airborne for a little 172 and slowly gained height, giving them a low view of the blackened vehicles now pulled onto the road and guarding the airport. David had even draped a few bodies over the vehicles, Preston assumed, to deter any other visitors.

The grisly site would stop him going any further, but he would be flying in with a C-130 on the next trip to clear the complete terminal out. It would require a whole C-130’s cargo bay to empty that terminal.

He climbed and headed south at first and then west over Apex, finally making 5,000 feet. Mannie turned the heater to full power and looked for the convoy beneath them, which was just leaving the roadblock. He decided to do a quick inspection of the I-95 corridor and flew east for 15 minutes. He flew up the main north-south artery for a ways through North Carolina, and the road looked like all the others. There were battered vehicles everywhere on the high way, fewer than in Raleigh, but still in both directions. Some looked undamaged and others had been in big accidents. Dead tractor trailers comprised at least half of the vehicles on the highway.

He then flew back along US 64 going west and caught up with the convoy as it was about to turn into his road and off the highway. He radioed in and brought spotter aircraft Number 2 down to its new home, full of bread, bagels, and booze.

Chapter 4

‘Z’ Day 3 – The First Official Meetings of the New World

The highways to the south of the northern U.S. states were beginning to get busy. Since there was nobody to read the local weather reports, very few knew that a new and large storm was currently brewing over Idaho and Wyoming. It was dark in the United States and Canada, and it was 3:30 am when the storm blew into the northern United States from Canada and became what many would call an “arctic blast.”

In Yellowstone, the animals sensed and knew what was coming, found shelter, and hunkered down ready for the harsh icy winds that began to lash at them. The humans that were still alive were not as good at predicting future weather conditions, because they were used to the well-dressed guy on a flat screen who told them what they needed to know. In rural areas, farmers and outdoor people gathered and made sure there was going to be enough firewood—the rest of humanity was either in a place of safety, or not!

By 7:00 am in Boise, Idaho, the temperature started a rapid descent as the warmer air was pushed south. The temperature plummeted down 15 more degrees by 9:00 am. The sky was clear and blue.

The wind started blowing the dirty air out of the Salt Lake City basin around 10:00 am. The temperature in Park City Utah, as well as the other side of the main highway to the east where Carlos and Lee had left two hours earlier, dropped from -13 to -27 within two hours. It got colder and colder as the icy winds shot out from the north, bringing all the freezing arctic air southwards at 30+ miles an hour. The wind chill dropped to -30 and -40 in some mountainous areas, and people who had no heat perished quickly.

The blast spread out quickly, moving into Washington State and the Dakotas by midday and as far south as the Arizona border. For the folk who loved the heat in Las Vegas, the wind chill dropped quickly from 15 degrees to zero, and then a bitter -5, and these poor folk who had very little to wear for warmth, froze in their lightly covered beds in their houses. The blast carried on, mainly in a southern and eastern direction, moving quickly and catching up with the people beginning to head south.