Die Trying: A Zombie Apocalypse (2 page)

The clatter of the helicopter’s percussive beat came again, louder for an instant and then fading once more, like a punch of violent sound. I turned away from the window and stared into
Harrigan’s eyes.

“Did you hear that?”
he asked me.

I nodded. “I heard it.”

“He’s trying to land. The sound isn’t fading anymore. It’s constant, and he’s not too far away – somewhere beyond those houses across the street.”

I figured as much. I visualized the helicopter, rocking and pitching a hundred feet above the ground as the pilot juggled the controls and tried to find a clear area to land. In my mind’s eye I saw a console of flashing indicator lights, buzzing emergency alarms, and a man perhaps
only moments from death.

“Thoughts?”

Harrigan rubbed hard at his face, like he was trying to rearrange his features to create something more handsome, and then he sighed heavily. “I think we should.”

I nodded. “I think so too.”

I spun on my heel, filled with sudden tense energy. Jed was standing right behind me. I brushed past him and reached for the black nylon bag that was on the sofa. It was packed with spare ammunition for the Glocks, and some of the emergency supplies I had been able to throw together before the world went to hell in a hand-basket. The bag wasn’t very heavy.

“We’re going to rescue the pilot,” I said calmly.
I slung the strap of the bag over my shoulder and checked the Glock tucked down inside the waistband of my jeans to make sure the magazine was full.

For long second
s Jed’s face remained blank and impassive – and then the realization struck him.

“Like hell,” he snapped, suddenly bristling with defiant outrage. “I’m not going anywhere.”
His eyes were wide and wild.

I shrugged. “Suit
yourself,” I said. “But that doesn’t change anything. Harrigan and I are going.”

“Jesus!” Jed growled from the center of the room. “Are you out of your mind? Even if the pilot lands that thing, he’s still dead, Mitch. Every zombie within ten miles is going to be drawn to the sound of the helicopter. They’ll be all over him. Whether he survives the crash or not – he’s still dead.”

I threw a couple of empty plastic water bottles into the bag, and snatched my leather jacket off the back of the chair. Harrigan was shrugging on a long heavy overcoat.

“You’re probably right,” I said to Jed. “But we’re still going.”

“Then you’re dead.”

I shrugged. “Maybe,
” I agreed. “But so are you.”

He bristled
, and shook his head. Jed wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Sometimes things took a little longer to register – and sometimes things needed to be explained.

“What do you mean by that? I told you I
ain’t going with you.”

I let the bag slide off my shoulder and I sighed. “Jed, we’re
just about out of food. There’s maybe enough water for another day or two, but after that… nothing. If we stay here, we’re going to die. If we make a break for it, we’re going to die – because we don’t know where any other survivors are. We’ve been isolated for over three weeks. So either way, you’re a dead man if you stay here.”

Jed frowned. I let my words sink in. “
This pilot is our only hope,” I explained patiently. “If we find him, and if he’s alive, he’ll know where other survivors are. Based on the direction the helicopter flew in, he has come from somewhere north of here – and he’s in a helicopter. That means civilization still exists – somewhere. He’s our only chance of getting through this nightmare. So we have to go out and try to save him – because we’re trying to save ourselves,
you dumb ignorant, stupid bastard
.”

Jed flinched
. I saw angry color rising in his one good cheek, and his eyes narrowed until they were dark and dangerous.

“What did you call me?” his voice rumbled.

Behind Jed’s back, Clinton Harrigan picked up his heavy crowbar and hefted it in his hand. He looked me a silent question with undisguised relish.

I shook my head – a sharp curt gesture. “I called you a dumb.
ignorant bastard,” I answered Jed. “You think this is some heroic good-Samaritan gesture? You think I want to go out into the night – and into a storm – to find a crashed helicopter, knowing there’s maybe only a ten percent chance the pilot is alive? Jesus, Jed!” I snapped. “This is our best chance to save ourselves. Do I care about the pilot? Not really. What I care about is living through this apocalypse and I know that if we stay here we’re going to die – either from starvation, or from being forced to make a crazy escape with no idea where we are going, and no way of getting there.”

For long seconds, the air in the room crackled with tension, and then Jed seemed to deflate. The bluster went out of him and he slumped his shoulders and prodded absently at his swollen cheek with his fingers. “Are we coming back here?” he asked at last. His voice was a flat, heavy monotone.

I shook my head. “I doubt it,” I said. “There’s nothing to come back for. If the pilot is alive, and if he was flying towards a specific location, then most probably it’s to the south of here because that’s the course he was flying. There’s no point rescuing him and doubling back to this place. We’ll find another safe place to spend the night, and then work out a plan in the morning.”

“If we survive until then,” Jed said gloomily.

I nodded. “If we survive until then.”

We weren’t well armed. Jed and I had
Glock’s and a few boxes of ammunition to share between us. Harrigan didn’t have a gun. He had a crowbar. He reminded me of Friar Tuck from the Robin Hood legend – a big beefy holy man who somehow believed guns to be dangerous – but had no problem with cleaving the iron forked claw of a crowbar down into the skull of an undead attacker.

We went through the house quickly. I stuffed a blanket into the bag, and
the last few cans of beans from the kitchen. There was enough water to fill half-a-dozen plastic drink bottles, so we dumped them into the nylon bag, and Jed filled his pockets with the boxes of ammunition for the guns to lighten the load.

We stood in the center of the living room floor like a trio of strangers waiting for a train, checking over each other’s preparations.
Harrigan’s jacket was one of those long black woolen pieces that reached all the way down to his knees. It was thick and warm. He turned the collar up and rolled his shoulders as he took a test-swing with the crowbar. Jed’s denim jacket had some kind of gang colors on the back. He buttoned it up to his throat and forced a tight strained smile.

My leather jacket was an old black thing I’d owned for years. It was like me – worn around the edges. But it was thick. It would give me protection against random bites, but just to be certain
, I wrapped some shredded lengths of torn linen bedsheet up to the elbow of my left arm to give me added protection. Jed saw what I was doing and thought it was a good idea. He did the same. Then there was nothing more to do – except step out into the night and put our lives on the line.

* * *

The front door was bolted, and I had hammered four-inch nails into the frame during the first terrifying days of the zombie apocalypse. So we assembled in the small kitchen at the rear of the house. The back door had been chained, and we had heaved the refrigerator across the entry as a barricade.

I stood with my back against the door and unfastened the
latch. Jed stole a glance through the kitchen window and gave me the ‘thumbs-up’ sign.

We had survived for three weeks through good luck and stealth. Every window in the house had been kept curtained. The doors had been bolted and blockaded. We burned one candle in the evening – and we stayed quiet. It had kept us alive. In the first few days of terror, the streets had been a screaming nightmare of endless terror and unspeakable horrors. The gutters ran with blood as the infection spread across the town. We had avoided death by avoiding being noticed.

Now we were about to step out into a world we didn’t know any more. I was scared.

I cracked the door open and stood for a long moment, scanning the darkness for an immediate sign of danger. A gust of sweet, cold fresh air slapped me in the face and my eyes watered. The air in the house was smoky and stale with the odor of sweat and fear. Suddenly I was keen to be clear of the place.

I pulled the back door open and stepped quietly out into the night. A flagstone path ran from the back door, around the side of the house to the driveway. I went along the path for a dozen paces and then stopped. I looked behind me and could see Jed standing in the doorway, watching me. I went down on one knee and waved to him. He came out through the door and crept to where I waited. I could hear him breathing, the sound of it rasping and loud. He had his Glock in his hand, swinging it in an arc of about ninety degrees towards the back fence.

It was a small yard with a child’s
swing set and a couple of stunted trees near the back fence. The grass had grown long and become choked with weeds. Jed swept his gun from side to side, as though he expected the dark gnarled trees to come alive.

I waved to
Harrigan. He came out through the door, and left it swinging open. He scuffled to where I was kneeling. There was an urgent look in his eyes. I pressed my mouth close to his ear and whispered.

“What’s wrong?”

“The sound of the helicopter has changed again. Can you hear it?”

I frowned. We were protected from the wind by the bulk of the house
so that the sound was just background noise, overlaid by the distant, steady beat of the helicopter’s rotors. I shook my head. “Sounds the same to me,” I said. “Sounds like he’s still hovering, maybe.”

“But it’s moved,”
Harrigan said in an impatient whisper. “It’s coming from further east, like he’s still looking for a place to set down.”

I frowned again and listened har
der, trying to isolate the noise of the chopper. The thumping beat of the helicopter surged and receded as the wind came in gusts and then fell away, like the crash of surf on the shoreline. Maybe Harrigan was right… or maybe it was the wind that was changing direction as the impending storm swept closer to the town.

A rent of lightning ripped
across the sky, and I looked up. Beyond the silhouette of distant dark trees, I saw the lingering flash backlight banks of dark ugly storm clouds. I got to my feet and tightened my grip on the Glock.

I reached the corner of the house and glanced behind me.
Harrigan was at my shoulder, and Jed was close behind him. We stood in a tight knot just long enough for me to take a single deep breath and crush down on my fear and panic.

I stepped around the side of the house and into the teeth of the rising wind.

I wasn’t prepared. The wind was demonic: a howling gusting blast of cold damp air that punched at my body and forced me to slit my eyes tight. The air was full of leaves and debris and dirt. I hunched my shoulders and threw my free hand up in front of my face.

The driveway ran the length of
the house and ended at a mailbox. I covered the distance as quickly as I could. The night was utterly dark. Storm clouds had overwhelmed the moon.

When I got to the mail
box I glanced both ways along the street. The night was like a cloak, hiding the debris of crashed cars, smashed windows, overgrown lawns and burned, blackened buildings. But the darkness also hid the deadly danger of marauding zombies that I knew must be lurking in the night.

I turned my back
to the teeth of the driving wind and hunched deeper into the warmth of my leather jacket.

“Across the street,” I said over the moaning wail of the wind.
Harrigan nodded. Jed did the same. I turned back around and – before I had time to change my mind – I broke into a sprint.

The wind punched at me as I broke
from the last illusions of protective cover. It was swirling between the buildings, driving a skirt of biting dust and dirt before it. I felt the strength of it push me sideways and tug at my body. I squinted my eyes and looked up into the night, scanning the sky above the dark shape of the roofline ahead. I caught a quick glimpse of the helicopter’s spotlight, wavering like a strobe in the distance. It was ahead, and further to my left. I made a mental note of its approximate location in the sky – and then it was gone completely – either obscured by the height of the houses I was running towards, or because the pilot had dipped so low to the ground that the spotlight was blocked from view.

Or because the chopper had fallen from the sky and crashed.

No. It hadn’t done that. Not yet at least. I could still hear the rhythmic
thump-thump-thump
of the rotors, beating against the wind. The sound of it became louder, and then just as quickly faded again.

I ran on, feeling hopelessly exposed and vulnerable. It was just twenty feet to the opposite side of the road and the shelter of the houses there – but it was the longest few seconds of my life. My arms pumped, and my chest heaved like a billows.
The nylon bag was slung from my shoulders. It thumped against my back as I moved.