Air travel changed a lot after the Rising. According to the history books, it used to be a pretty simple process. Older movies show airports packed with people comg and going as they pleased, and the real old ones show really crazy shit, like guys who aren’t even passengers pursuing their runaway girlfriends through security and people buying tickets from flight attendants, in cash. Every flight attendant I’ve ever seen has been carrying more ordnance than your average Irwin, and if somebody ran onto a flight without the proper medical clearances and a green light from the check-in desk, they’d be dead long before they hit the floor. Working for the airlines teaches a person to shoot first and ask questions later, if ever.

People who can’t hack it as Irwins because they’re too violent go into the air travel industry. There’s a thought to make a person want to stay at home.

Travel between the major airports requires a clean bill of health from an accredited doctor, followed by inspection by airport medical personnel before even moving into the ticketing concourse. Nonpassengers aren’t allowed past the first air lock. Once you’re inside, you’re herded from blood test to blood test, usually supervised by people with lots and lots of guns. That’s another thing that seems unbelievable about pre-Rising air travel: Nobody in those old movies is ever carrying a weapon unless they work for the police or the air marshals. Something about the fear of hijacking. Well, these days, the fear of zombies ensures that even people who have no business carrying a gun will have one when they want to get on a plane. You get on, you sit down, and you stay sitting unless one of the flight attendants is escorting you to the restroom—after a blood test, of course. It takes their clearance to even unbuckle your seat belt once the plane is in motion. So yeah, air travel? Not simple, not fun, and definitely not something people undertake lightly.

Weed’s airport was tiny, three buildings and a runway, with only the minimum in federally mandated air lock and quarantine space between the airport and the curb. Several airport security cars were parked nearby. Overkill most of the time, especially for an airport this small, but I was willing to bet they wouldn’t be nearly enough if a plane actually flew in with an unexpected cargo of live infected. That’s the trouble with being scared all the time. Eventually, people just go numb.

I stopped the car in the space marked for passenger pick-up and drop-off, hitting the horn twice. Kelly winced, but didn’t question the action. Only an idiot gets out of their car unprompted at even the smallest of airports.