Dead Again (7 page)

But then it came again. He was sure of it this time.

His eyes opened wide, alert.

He looked all around again, but everything seemed fine.

As Peterson looked back again, this time towards the cockpit, he noticed that Spooky was leaning over, towards Tag, as if to whisper something in his ear. He wondered what they could be talking about. Was Spooky trying to suggest a change of flight plan? Had they spotted a gas station below?

Before Peterson could get his answer, he was shocked to see Spooky lean over further, even closer to Tag, as if he were about to kiss him. What the hell was going on?

It was at that moment, in that split second, that Peterson realized. He suddenly caught a glimpse of Spooky’s profile, saw his face up close, how pale it was, how inhumanly pale. He also suddenly smelled it: the smell of rotting flesh. He looked closer and saw the craziness, the inhuman wildness in Spooky’s eyes. They were the eyes of a roving shark: emotionless, lifeless, and with just one thing on its mind: to feed.

Before Peterson could react, in that split second, Spooky leaned down, all the way, and sunk his teeth deep into Tag’s arm.

Tag shrieked in surprise and agony, and Spooky leaned back with a mammoth chunk of his flesh in his mouth.

Peterson jumped into action, but before he could get very far, the chopper suddenly jerked and swerved wildly. Tag, even being the veteran pilot that he was, wasn’t prepared for this. He was clearly in shock, and in agony, and as he went to push Spooky off of him, he lost control of the bird. It spun hard to the left, throwing Peterson across it. He banged his head hard against the metal casing, and found himself on the far side of chopper.

Peterson rebounded, determined to make it to the cockpit, to stop Spooky from attacking again, to help stabilize the bird. But he couldn’t risk firing in this situation; he reached down and extracted his knife, knowing that would be the safest way to kill the thing that Spooky had become.

The chopper stabilized just for a second, just long enough for Peterson to launch into action. But as he was preparing to attack, suddenly, Ishmael appeared, his pistol already drawn, and aiming right for Spooky’s face.

“NO!” Peterson yelled.

But it was too late. Ishmael fired.

The bullet went right through Spooky’s temple, and chips of skull and blood splattered on the windshield. Ishmael, in his nervousness, didn’t just fire once—but kept on firing.

Exactly what Peterson was afraid of. The bullets went right through Spooky and pierced the dash-board in several places. Within moments, the chopper reacted, jerking even more wildly than before. The controls had been hit. Alarms sounded, lights flashed, and the chopper began to spin wildly in circles and plummeted.

Peterson turned around and grabbed Ishmael’s pistol, long and hard enough to get him to snap out of it and stop firing. As his vision spun with the choppers whirling descent, he managed to squeeze into the co-pilot seat himself, sit on top of Spooky’s dead body, and grab the controls, fighting to stabilize the bird.

It helped. The spinning slowed. But still, there was not much he could do. They were going down. And fast.

At least it could be a somewhat controlled crash. Peterson was able to stabilize it just enough to slow the descent speed, to make sure they didn’t land upside down.

As he looked down, he saw the ground approaching fast. He saw a field, and leaned into the controls, aiming for it. Too fast. This wouldn’t be good. He hoped that maybe, just maybe, he could slow the bird just enough so that it wouldn’t kill all of them on impact. Death flashed before his eyes.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Peterson braced himself, protecting his head, instinctually putting himself into crash-landing position as the ground came forward.

It did little good. They hit with a tremendous crash, and he felt himself flip, and his back slam into the windshield. The chopper spun again and again, and his world turned upside down.

It was complete mayhem—and the spinning never seemed to end. As Peterson’s world finally slowed just enough for him to get a glimpse, a flash, of what was happening, he saw they were on the ground, that the chopper was breaking apart, and that what was left of it was skidding on the ground.

The chopper kept sliding, at a speed faster than any car he’d ever been in, and it didn’t seem to want to slow down. The rotors were still spinning like crazy, cutting into the ground. Peterson managed to look up, through the broken windshield, and saw what they were sliding towards. They were about to smash head-on into a
 
large marble statue of what looked like a Civil War general. It was absurd. At the last second, he crouched down and braced himself again.

There was a stomach-turning crack as they slammed into it, and Peterson found himself again flying forward, and felt his head cut into a metal casing, as the wind was completely knocked out of him. He heard the screams of his fellow passengers, as bodies went flying everywhere, some on top of each other, and someone seemed to disappear out of the chopper. He heard the rotors snap, the nauseating noise of metal on metal, and the sound of the blades breaking apart and flying in every direction.

And then, after about 30 seconds of hell on earth, all seemed to, finally, die down.

All that was left was quiet. Deathly, unreal quiet. Peterson felt his world go black.

*

Peterson saw his hands bleeding as he picked berries under his father’s cruel eyes. The images flashing through his mind were dream-like, surreal. There was a scream. Just thirteen years old now, Peterson was kneeling besides a water well, reaching down. Twenty feet down was his little brother, Charlie, splashing and trying to stay afloat.

Peterson was crying, pleading, “keep fighting Charlie, keep fighting!”

“Save me, Jacob. Save me,” Charlie was using his last breath.

He never felt to helpless in his life, before or again. He would have given his life for his little brother. He best friend. Peterson always tried to look over him. And, most of all, to protect him from their father. “I love you Charlie,” said Peterson, as if sensing it was the end.

“Please save me,” Charlie begged again.

“I can’t reach you,” Peterson’s could barely catch his breath between his tears.

“It was dad,” Charlie said and then disappeared under the water. . .

*

White light filled Peterson’s vision. He yanked himself up, in more pain in his head that he’d just about ever been. His world was blurry and his eyes stung. Blood was running into them. It took a few long moments to orient himself.

He got a hold of his bearings just enough to survey the situation. Spooky, of course, was dead, his brains blown out. It was his corpse that probably acted like an air-bag for Peterson. Tag had smashed his head into the windshield too, pretty bad, but Peterson saw him moaning, and knew he wasn’t dead—at least not yet. He looked with concern at the chunk of flesh bitten out of his arm and knew that, even if he survived this, he couldn’t live for long. Peterson’s first thought was stone cold--
So much for our pilot.
But then he immediately felt badly. Though Peterson didn’t like Tag, he was still one of his men, and he felt responsible for his well-being.

Peterson spun around and looked for the others. Armstrong was on the floor, curled up into a fetal position, holding his leg. Peterson looked down, and saw a piece of smoking steel sticking out of it.

Johnny-Boy and Angelo were sandwiched together, in the back, wedge between two seats. Dr. Washington was not moving, eyes shut. And as Peterson looked out the cabin, he saw Ishmael. He was on the ground. He had fallen out, or had been thrown out, and what was left of him lay on the grass. A rotary blade had severed him. He was cut clean in two. Dead. At least it had been quick for him, and painless. Maybe his prayers had worked.

Peterson spun in the other direction, looking everywhere for Sharon. He was shaken to see that she wasn’t anywhere inside the chopper.

He stepped forward and looked out, and there she was, on the grass, on the other side. He couldn’t believe it. She looked completely fine. In fact, she had already taken up a position, knelt there with her loaded gun, fixed on the horizon. Incredible. She had already established a perimeter around the crash site. He shook his head. Somehow, he wasn’t surprised. She was the toughest of all them. The most disciplined. There was Armstrong, a 260 pound black man, lying curled up on the floor like a baby—while there were Sharon, a five foot six girl, without a scratch, already armed and ready to fight.

Peterson broke into action. He knew there wasn’t much time. He heard the hissing and leaking noises coming from the bird, and saw smoke rising from its engine. It could be in flames in moments.

“SHARON!” he yelled.

She turned.

“Let go of the perimeter! I need you here!”

She looked over at him reluctantly, and he wondered why she was hesitating.

Then he looked out, and saw it: approaching them, already, were countless zombies. Maybe 50 yards away, they were well spread out, however, and closing in slowly. She was holding the line.

Reluctantly, she turned and ran to the chopper, bounding in, ready to help.

“Can you walk?” Peterson asked Armstrong, looking down at him.

Armstrong held out a hand and Peterson pulled him up. He got to his feet, wobbly, limping badly from the shrapnel. Armstrong looked down, grabbed the piece of steel in his thigh and, with both hands, tore it out with a
 
shriek. He then dropped the hot piece of metal and it landed with a clink on the floor of the chopper.

“Now I can,” he said, as he wrapped a bandanna tightly around his wound.

With that, he stumbled his way out the chopper, grabbing his assault rifle and flame thrower as he did.

“Guard our flank,” Peterson ordered. “Those creatures are closing in.”

Sharon helped Peterson pull out Angelo and Johnny-Boy, both wedged in the seats, both moaning in pain. They were lodged in with the force of God. But Peterson and Sharon pulled with all they had, and managed to pry them loose. The left side Angelo’s head looked unnaturally large, horribly swollen. It looked painful as hell. But he bore it well, grabbed his gun, and hobbled out of the chopper with Johnny-Boy, dazed, by his side.

“Go guard our flank at twelve o’clock. MOVE!” Peterson yelled.

There was no better way, he knew, to take a soldier’s mind off of a wound than to give them an order.

“I got Tag,” Peterson said to Sharon. “You get Dr. Washington.”

Peterson grabbed Tag, dragged him out of the cock-pit, and threw him over his shoulder. Sharon grabbed the unconscious Washington and lifted him over hers. The two of them, burdened down with weight, ran towards the others.

“Cash?” Peterson suddenly realize. “Where the hell is Cash?”

“Right here, Commander,” Cash said.

Peterson spun, and saw Cash standing there, his right armed was blackened, charred. It didn’t seem to bother him a bit, however. He had a big smile on his face.

“My kind of landing,” he said with a grin.

Of course. It would be.

Peterson quickly surveyed the situation, and calculated scenarios. It appeared as though they landed in a neighborhood park. A playground was off to their right. The chopper was about to blow, and the zombies were closing in now from several directions.

“THIS WAY!” Peterson yelled. “MOVE!”

Peterson bared the burden of Tag on his shoulders, and moved as quickly as he could, heading south, the one direction in which they weren’t being approached by zombies. The others followed, limping, carrying each other.
 
The ragtag group moved as quickly as they could thirty yards away from the chopper, then fifty…

And then it blew.

The concussion from the blast threw them off their feet, and face first into the ground. A tremendous explosion ripped out, sending heat and flames and shrapnel in every possible direction. Peterson felt piece of metal whiz over his head, and thanked God that he’d pushed his face all the way down, deep into the dirt. An instinct he developed from years of combat.

The waves of heat seemed to go on forever, wave after wave, and the noise was deafening. Seconds later, when it finally stopped, shrapnel rained down from the sky, like manna from heaven.

Finally, it all quieted down.

They all sat up, looked at each other, and took stock. Luckily, they were just far enough away. No one was hurt from the explosion—except the incoming zombie. Many had been blown to shreds. Others struggled on their backs, like turtles turned upside down. While some were still walking, engulf by fire, ablaze, burning like human torches as they wobbled directionless.

“WOOHOOO!” Cash yelled, jumping to his feet with laughter. “LET’S DO THAT AGAIN!!!”

Tag sat up weakly. “Holy shit,” was all he could say.

Peterson’s relief quickly turned to worry. There was a new battle line of zombies closing in. There were just too many of them. Kill ten infected, and suddenly twenty appear to take their place.
 
Peterson noticed something, but had to blink twice. A horrified look crossed his face. He was looking at Ishmael. Now he was just a torso, and using his hands to crawl his way towards them. He was back from the dead already.

“Ishmael?” Johnny-Boy asked, in disbelief, as they all stared in horror.

“It’s not him anymore,” Armstrong said. “He’s something else now.”

“Yeah,” Cash said, stepping forward and raising his pistol. “Target practice.”

Cash fired, a single shot, right to Ishmael’s head, killing him on impact.

“You son of a bitch!” Johnny-Boy yelled. “He’s one of us!”

“Like hell it was,” Cash said.

“SHUT UP!” Peterson snapped and looked at Johnny-Boy. “He was dead, and we will be too if don’t deal with our situation.”

Peterson quickly took stock. He saw that they’d landed in some suburban town, right in the center of it, in some town park. It was a bad situation. He saw that they were surrounded by countless zombies. He’d already lost two men, with a third on the way. The others were wounded. They were without a pilot, without a chopper, and without any additional weaponry or food or medicine, with whatever they’d had left in the chopper blown to bits. Whatever they were hauling on their backs and in their hands, was all they had.

He scanned the horizon, looking for something, anything, some destination, some place they could go. They needed to take cover.

“OVER HERE!” suddenly came a voice. The voice had been carried on a megaphone, from some far-off location.

Peterson wheeled and saw it. There, in the distance. It was a municipal town parking lot which was completely barricaded by a strong eight-foot metal fence, and inside of it stood a large group of people, survivors. Humans. Alive, like them. Peterson could see that among them were some local policemen, and one of them stood on a crate, facing them, holding a megaphone.

“OVER HERE!” he yelled again. “MAKE IT TO THE GATE!”