It was over. Sunlight poured down, overwhelmingly bright after the darkness. There was an unnatural silence that chilled even his soul. No sounds of traffic, no babbling of school children, running in packs, only the wind.
He walked through the bodies, strewn where they had been overcome. Their deaths had been horrible ordeals of screaming and convulsions. Japan, and Okinawa had been the targets of a North Korean persistent nerve agent. North Korea was probably a smoldering rubble, as was most of the rest of the world. The strikes had gone on for days. Who started it? He didn't even care.
It was over, but the curse that had kept him alive for centuries allowed him no peace, even now. Mankind had run its course. The predictions of Nostradamus had come to pass. Yet he still lived. Perhaps if he had been in a nuclear firestorm he would have fused with the rest. This was the final irony. Only his kind, the hunters of man, could survive, though their prey had been taken from them.
He stopped in his tracks. His kind? His mind went back through the centuries. A beautiful face came into focus, dark eyes filled with wonder, nights of frenzied couplings, and shared hunts. He knew what he must do.
The streets were filled with cars, smashed together or just frozen in place where their occupants died, trying to get somewhere else, some safe place. He found a three wheeled delivery vehicle. The young woman who had been riding it had left it standing at the curb when she crawled off. It started smoothly, breaking the silence.
He made his way slowly through the silent cars. The guard at the gate of the Air Base did not wave him through. He rode to the control tower overlooking the runway. A squadron of fighters waited ready to carry the battle to the enemy. He ignored them and went to where the light planes of the Aero Club were parked. Breaking into the office, he found the keys for a Cessna 172, grabbed some maps, stuffed them in his rucksack, and walked back out onto the runway apron. He found the preflight list and went through the steps he vaguely remembered from a few lessons 25 years earlier. The magnetos caught, the engine ran up smoothly and he taxied out onto the runway. The tower ignored him as he ran down the strip, launched himself into the sky and turned to a North Northwest heading.
Traffic over Nagasaki was light. The VORTAC had done its job, guiding him over the several hundred miles. He circled and made several attempts lining himself up on the strip and gauging the proper distance and altitude. A bumpy but satisfactory landing would have made his instructor proud. His first solo had little interest to him now.
