Day by Day Armageddon: Beyond Exile (15 page)

As I dispatched the last of the undead approaching my end of the aircraft, I moved forward to help out with the increasing numbers there. I had a better killing range with my weapon; I used this advantage to destroy the walkers that were one hundred yards out and closing on our position. The engineer gave us the thumbs-up, indicating that he had successfully refueled the aircraft. I wondered how he got the fuel truck started and later found out that he had carried a portable starter to the truck. He had faced this same situation before and had been prepared.

After the engineer was safely back in the helicopter, I plugged my helmet back into the aircraft’s communications system and informed the pilot that the Gunny and I were going to scout the immediate area for any useful items or information. I asked him to keep it hot until we got back for dustoff. The pilot keyed the microphone and told me he and the flight engineer could handle security while we were gone and that they would take off and circle the airfield until bingo fuel if we were not back within one hour.

I secured the side door and waved good-bye as the Gunny and I set out for one of the larger buildings nearest to our position. There were no external markings. It was just another bland government building, lacking any detail that would give away purpose. As we neared the structure, we knew it would be suicide to explore. In nearly all of the windows the shades had been yanked down from the wall, exposing the occupants inside. Some of the windows were spiderwebbed with abuse from the punishment they had received in the past months. There were too many undead inside the building to count.

Since noise wasn’t a factor, I readied my weapon and took a potshot at one of them on the top floor. It was banging on the window with both fists until my shot cut through the window. I missed the creature, and it looked at the new hole in the window with the curiousness of a cat looking at a laser pointer. I scoffed at this and the Gunny and I began our return to the chopper. As we turned, I could see and hear the FE taking shots at an approaching group of undead with the side-mounted machine gun. Great for close encounters.

The ride back was uneventful, but any time I could spend in the air was fine by me. I even got some stick time in the copilot’s seat. It would take a lot more than this to make me semiproficient at maneuvering this aircraft, as it was the hardest thing I’d ever flown. I looked like an idiot as I tried to hover the beast. Baham had to take over every time.

25 Sep

1900

It finally happened. I won’t cheapen the experience by putting it into writing. Last night was a good night, and I feel more human already. Part of me would like to think I cared about her the moment I found her trapped in the broken-down car that day, surrounded by the creatures. Despite her less-than-glamorous living arrangement in the car, she was pretty even then.

29 Sep

2239

The time has been set. Tomorrow morning, I will set out with the Gunny, engineer and CDR (ret.) Baham in the chopper in the direction of Shreveport again. We have decided to survey the area around Barksdale AFB, since the base had an ample supply of helicopter fuel. Texarkana would not be the goal of our expedition this time. John had begged to go with me, as he really wanted to get out of the compound for a couple of days. I had assured him that I really needed him manning the control center and for the basic organization of the civilians. He was not a military man, but the men respected him and appreciated him for his knowledge of the base systems. After dinner he insisted that I memorize a series of code words so that I could transmit my location in the clear using letter and number association.

Annabelle is enjoying herself with all the new children in the compound. The Gunny and I are leaving military command to one of the most senior staff sergeants and civilian leadership to John. There are rules governing who has what authority in the compound and the military men know too well that, constitutionally, their job is still to protect civilians, not run roughshod over them just because they have firepower.

There is also a team of men working on the new perimeter. Trucks come and go daily with new concrete dividers from I-10. Casualties have been zero since the operation officially started. The men have a system for vehicle formation and a certain path that minimizes the undead attraction back to Hotel 23. Most of these men had at least one tour in Iraq or Afghanistan under their belts, but they were the first to admit that convoy operations currently are much more dangerous than they were during the war. The Gunny still insists on the H&K, and I still insist on American metal. We will be traveling light to conserve fuel and are taking a three-day food supply.

30 Sep

Time/Location: Unknown

Situation bad . . . surviving twenty-four hours
not likely
not looking up. Must keep record. The trip going as planned until aft Fading in and out of consc. Head swollen, ear bleeding. Bloody hands.

30 Sep

Making a point to document in the event that I don’t make it out. Will write more when better . . . Important.

We were overhead Shreveport and decided to take it farther north since we had the fuel and a known fuel source. I was not watching instruments, as Baham was doing the driving. A light came on on the master caution panel. It was the chip light. Baham recycled the light to see if it was simply a short in the panel. It illuminated once again, indicating that there were pieces of metal detected in the aircraft oil reservoir. The normal procedure would be to land the aircraft immediately, but none of us wished to land in the known hostile territory below.

It was not long until we lost useful power to the rotors and Baham began autorotating down to the ground. The altimeter was spinning as if we were coming in for approach. The Gunny and the petty officer were strapped in side by side in the rear of the aircraft. I was strapped in the copilot’s seat. The last thing I
remembered was an earsplitting noise and the sound of metal tearing and water and dust flying upward over the chopper and across my face.

I don’t know how long I was out. I was dreaming . . . it was a nice place. I was with Tara, but not at the compound. I was back in time, in the living world. It felt very real. Then came the light taps on my shoulder . . . then the pulling of my sleeve. Someone was waking me up from this feeling of tranquility. I started to feel my head. Intense pain shot through my temples. Every time my heart beat, I felt the blood surge through my head in spikes of pain. My vision was blurry. I was back in the helicopter, away from my fantasy.

Still blurry . . . I looked to my left in the pilot’s seat. I could see Baham looking at me, shaking my shoulder with his right hand, saying something. Why was he pulling on me? I looked back over my shoulder and saw Gunny and the engineer reaching out, as if trying to help me. I seemed to be looking at them through a pool of water. The pain spiked again and my eyes slowly came into focus.

I looked over at Baham. Fear shot through my body as I looked at his chest. A piece of the helicopter’s rotor blade was sticking through his breastplate. He wasn’t dying . . . he was dead. His taps, nudges and what I thought was him talking were not attempts to wake me, but attempts to kill. He was still stuck in his harness and unable reach me. I sat there stunned for a moment before looking back over my shoulders at the Gunny and flight engineer. I was the only living person on this helicopter. Reaching up to my forehead, I felt a sting. A piece of rotor shrapnel had pierced my flight helmet and was stuck in my head. I didn’t know how deep. I just knew that I was still alive and had cognitive function.

I reached down for my carbine so that I could take out the rest of the crew and safely exfiltrate this tomb. When I tried to yank the carbine up to my shoulder, I saw that the barrel had been bent at almost a ninety-degree angle and was caught inside the flight controls at my feet. Cursing, I threw the weapon on the deck and looked around the chopper for anything I could use. The Gunny’s MP5 was on the floor behind my seat.

I took out my knife and used it to snag the sling to bring the weapon close enough so that I could grab it. Charging the weapon,
I first aimed at Baham. His snarling teeth and sagging old skin were enhanced by his current health status. He didn’t know me anymore; neither did the men in the back. I was going to save the Gunny for last.

I pulled the weapon up and Baham began slapping the suppressor around, as if somehow he knew what was coming. I wasted him. One second later I shot the engineer in the head. His arms went from Frankenstein to limp as if he had never been reanimated. I said some words for all of them and then paid final respects to the Gunny by shooting him in the forehead. I hoped he would have done the same for me. Looking out the window, I could tell that we had been here for at least a couple of hours, as the sun was already nearly at its apex in the day sky. We were in the middle of some sort of waist-deep small pond. A tinge of guilt stabbed me in the heart when I realized Baham had probably thought our best chance of survival was to put it down here. I had paid him back by quick-acting lead poisoning.

It was a good place to crash-land as the portside door was off its rail, exposing the aircraft to the outside world. There were numerous undead curiously circling the pond, somehow repelled by the water. I carefully surveyed the 360-degree area and noticed a gap in them. I grabbed my gear and whatever else I could carry. As I walked to the door to escape the wreck, I ripped the Velcro flag off my left shoulder and slapped it in the Gunny’s dead hand.

I made for the door. As I stepped off the chopper, I sank waist deep into the water. This made it difficult to quickly move to the open area for my escape. I was nearly swimming to the shore of the small pond. I made it to dry land and began running. I blacked out shortly after and woke up about four hours ago. I am sitting in a high school football stadium announcer’s box at the top of the
home
side . . . I think. It is nightfall and I am hungry and dehydrated. I had to perform minor surgery on myself an hour ago by removing the metal shard from my head with the needlenose on my multitool. Using the mirror from my camouflage paint kit, I stitched myself up with the sewing kit in my bag. The shard went more than an eighth of an inch into my head, above my left temple. I do not know at this time if this injury is life threatening. I have limited food and water but I am conserving as much as possible
to prolong survival. This could be the end. I hear footsteps on the metal bleachers below.

01 Oct

Time: Unknown

It’s coming back to me in flashes. I vaguely remember fighting three of them. They must have seen me make for the top of the bleachers and followed. When I woke up, I was flat on my back lying in a pool of blood and broken glass in the center of the floor of the press box. As I tried to lift my head up and check the door, I noticed the shatterproof glass. From the looks of it I shot through the glass to kill the things but missed, as the bullet holes are accompanied by larger holes. The edges of the larger holes in the broken glass hold pieces of skin and clothing, indicating they tried to reach inside. There is also a diagonal line of bullet holes starting from the doorknob and trailing down to the bottom left part of the door. After checking my weapon, I figured that I had shot between fifteen and twenty rounds.

Forcing myself to my feet, I stumbled over to the door. Looking through the broken glass, I saw four dead bodies strewn on the bleachers. In the distance I could see another two beyond the goalpost, milling about in search of prey. My memory is still spotty but I remember shooting at least one of them at point-blank range right through the glass, killing it instantly.

02 Oct

Approx. 1600

Woke up this morning to the sound of a dog howling. It could have been a wolf, but with the lack of living humans in North America, I’m certain all the domestic dogs are becoming feral. I’m curious if they would remember me as a living man or attack me on sight as they do the undead. I have seen a canine’s resentment of them. Reminds me of how some dogs despise uniforms. Annabelle dislikes the creatures, and the hackles on her back stand up the instant she smells one of them drawing near. I have dried blood all over my
face and I continue to inhabit this crow’s nest above an overgrown football field. The only evidence that remains that it was ever a playing field is the goalposts and the bleachers on either side.

I am beat up and sore. The crash may have injured me seriously. My kidney area is extremely tender and I find it difficult to stand for very long. In the packs I grabbed from the helicopter, I salvaged three hundred 9mm rounds, five MREs and a collapsed roll of rigging tape. I’m somewhat encouraged by the fact that I had the forethought to grab my pack with my multitool, two gallons of water and NVGs along with other survival odds and ends.

I will try to keep myself to one quart of water per day. If I don’t overexert myself, I feel I may have enough water to get healthy enough to move. I also have the equipment that was strapped to my vest under the harness when we crashed (pistol, survival knife, flares, compass). The stitches in my head are very uncomfortable and I wish that I had had something better than sewing thread. A bottle of vodka or any hard alcohol would really help. I have a handheld PRC-90 survival radio that I have been using to try to communicate with Hotel 23 on frequencies 2828 and 243. No joy. Either I am out of range or the radio isn’t operating properly. John knew our intended flight path but even if every Marine were dispatched with all vehicles and weapons they wouldn’t make it as far north as my location. There are simply too many undead between us. I don’t think I’ll be making it back at this point.