District: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (18 page)

The missile lock-on warning continued to bleat as Cade
braced against the evasive actions taken by the aircrew. In his earpiece he
heard Ari breathing hard. “Heat seeker identified,” the SOAR aviator said, a
millisecond before the craft vibrated from another volley of flares being
dispensed. He also recognized Haynes’ voice as the left seater calmly informed
the TOC controller of their situation and current position.

After hearing Captain Jensen reassure the aircrew that
search and rescue birds were on the flight line, fully fueled and spooling up,
Cade tightened his flight harness to one notch past tourniquet and ran through
his mind what he’d do if they did indeed meet terra firma in a sudden and
jarring manner.
No
, he thought as the mottled blue-gray horizon slipped
from view and the flat ochre ground filled up every starboard window fore to
aft,
sudden and jarring
was too benign a term. Instantaneous and
explosive was more like it, and if that should come to pass, he decided the
straps biting into his shoulders and hips were most likely going to relieve him
of an appendage or two upon impact, not save his life as intended.

As the characteristic
whoosh
of the last round of
flares ejecting from the wildly jinking helo faded, abruptly the burnished
pewter sky was filling up the port-side windows.

In the middle of the high-G serpentine roll Cade noticed a look
of worry park itself on Cross’s face. And during that same snapshot in time it
also registered to him that Lopez’s arms and legs were floating weightless and
the Hispanic operator’s normally tanned face had gone ashen.

“We have a medical emergency back here,” Cade barked into
the boom mic, only to find that his audio had apparently been muted. To his
left, Skipper was readying the minigun and talking into his boom mic, lips
moving a mile a minute, whatever he was saying also going unheard by Cade. A
tick after the speeding craft regained level flight, the door concealing the
minigun parted vertically down the center, the two jagged edged halves sucking
inward and folding neatly inside the fuselage, one to Skipper’s right, the
other seating flat against the forward crew-door pillar off of Cade’s left
shoulder.

Cold wind invaded the cabin. It seemed to have an effect on
Lopez. His lips, previously pursed and purple, had regained some color and were
moving.

Bellowing to be heard over the escalating turbine whine, Cade
said, “Lopez, hang in—,” only to have his words suddenly drowned out by the deafening
buzz-saw-like ripping sound of the minigun belching hot lead. Hundreds of
rounds—if not a thousand—poured down onto whatever or whomever Doctor Silence
was targeting. In his ear Cade suddenly heard Haynes calling out the range and
direction of travel of some kind of vehicle he was tracking visually.

Back in the loop
, thought Cade as the minigun roared
again. A shorter burst. One second versus three.

Skipper said flatly, “Two tangos down. Still panning. Give
me some distance.”

In response to the request the helo climbed swiftly and
began a tight orbit over the high desert landscape it had nearly become one with.

Now aware of Lopez’s plight, Cross unbuckled and took a knee
in front of the Delta captain. He ripped off his gloves and checked the
stricken man’s neck for a carotid pulse. Simultaneously, he flashed Cade a
reassuring thumbs-up with one hand and patted Lopez’s cheek with the other,
getting an immediate result.

“What’s going on?” Cade asked at the top of his voice.

Suddenly lucid, Lopez jabbed a finger at his right lower
abdomen.

Pressing his thumb firmly on the location Lopez had pointed
to earned Cross a face full of hot, runny bile. Lopez continued to spew
yellowish liquid even as Cross recoiled and dragged his forearm across his
face.

“Earned my Puker Patch,” Lopez wheezed. “And my gut’s on
fire for it.”

“Do you still have an appendix?” asked Cross.

Offering Cross a camo bandana with a sheepish, embarrassed look
on his face, Lopez said, “As far as I know.”

“You’d know if you already lost it,” Cross said. “My little
sis had hers burst on her when we were kids. Same deal. She was in serious
pain. Had the tender abdomen. Then the puking”—he took the bandana and dabbed
at his face and neck—“the non-stop puking. Only she never painted me with it.”

“My bad,” Lopez said.

Cade had been watching Cross tend to Lopez. In his left side
vision he saw Skipper rotate the minigun’s barrel vertical to the sky and haul
it back a few inches and lock it in place inside the cabin. The smell of gun
smoke hit his nose. Then he sensed the weapons bay door begin to move and
craned and watched the two parts come together and snug flat. All told, the
weapon’s initial deployment took six seconds or so. Retracting it back into
place burned about eight. Not too bad a turnaround to keep a low radar
signature. But it didn’t amount to shit—as they had all just learned the hard
way—if you flew anywhere near a determined foe brandishing a MANPAD
antiaircraft weapon outfitted with heat seekers. Murphy was back and Cade
didn’t like it one bit.

“Taking her down,” Ari said flatly. “We’re almost smack dab
between two decent-sized towns. Stay frosty, boys … there’s bound to be dead
roaming the area.”

“Copy that,” Cade said.

Cross retook his seat and fastened his lap belt. He met
Cade’s eyes and motioned at Lopez. “He needs a doctor, ASAP.”

“Appendix?” Cade said.

Cross nodded.

Cade shook his head and cursed under his breath. Just as he
began wondering who was going to fill Lopez’s spot, he felt the usual underfoot
clunk and vibration of the belly doors opening. A tick later came the
reassuring whirr of the landing gear motoring into the down position.

“Ohhh my,” Ari deadpanned. “Looks like Skipper made us a
street pizza.”

Having a good idea what Ari was alluding to, Cade focused on
the rising finger of oily smoke outside the port windows and waited for the
reassuring bump of the bird’s wheels kissing earth.

Even from the front of the foyer, peering across the color-dappled
sanctuary to the altar beyond, Daymon knew he was looking at a horror he hoped
to never see again. All at once a host of emotionally charged memories were
dredged up from deep recesses in his brain and came flooding back, jumping synapses
at nearly light speed. Jaw hinging open in a silent scream, he crashed to his
knees, eyes locked dead ahead, as if praying to the very sight that had
seemingly stricken him down. Excited voices filled the low-ceilinged entry at
his back and hands were grabbing his arms in an attempt to steady him.

Daymon noticed all of these things on the periphery of consciousness,
but ignored the stimuli, for the sight at the end of the aisle had
instantaneously transported him back to Jackson, Wyoming and, though he was
physically still in Woodruff, Utah, in his head he was again walking the
blacktop on the Highway to Hell—Ian Bishop’s mile-long spectacle meant to
remind town folk what would happen to them if they tried to defect from the
so-called capital of Robert Christian’s New America. “Examples” is what Bishop
had called the dozens of people he had caught trying to escape Jackson. And
examples
is what they had become, all of them suffering a slow death to a combination of
injury, shock, and exposure before finally becoming fodder for the opportunist
raptors.

“Heidi is OK,” someone said into his ear. “You called out
for her as you collapsed. She’s not in danger. She’s right here.”

A gloved hand brushed back Daymon’s dreads and the long
range CB radio was pressed to his ear. Though his soon-to-be wife’s
high-pitched voice emanated from the speaker, he still seemed oblivious to his
surroundings.

Seeing Daymon’s obvious hesitation, Lev pushed forward and
kneeled in front of him, making a point of blocking the sight that had presumably
triggered his friend’s
episode
. He stared into the man’s eyes and saw a
sort of primal fear in them.

Taryn leaned forward. “Is
he
going to be OK?” she
asked, concern evident in her tone.

Lev shook his head side-to-side and shrugged, semaphore for
I
haven’t a clue
. Then, momentarily breaking eye contact with Daymon, he motioned
Oliver and Jamie forward. After watching them squeeze through the crowded foyer,
he met Oliver’s eyes and tapped a knuckle on the man’s slung carbine. “Run to
the trucks and get a first aid kit. And make it quick.”

Without complaint nor hesitation, Oliver unslung his rifle
and disappeared into the gloom.

Lev turned his attention to Jamie. Meeting her eyes, he hooked
a thumb over his shoulder. “
Finish
that thing.”

She nodded and started a slow pirouette to her right.

Lev reached out and gripped her forearm gently. “Stay
frosty,” he said in a low voice. “There may be more traps.”

Jamie nodded and started down the center aisle, trying her
best to ignore the little voice inside her head urging her to take a second look
at the crucified skeletal remains. Two steps down the aisle, the voice won out.
So she paused between the second to last pews and looked it head to toe. It
proved to be a thing from her childhood nightmares, only she wasn’t at
Disneyland and these bones weren’t bleached white and lying on a make-believe
pirate-infested Caribbean Island. Nope. This zombie skeleton was twitching now,
the few remaining muscles snaking up its neck moving the grinning skull up and
down as if it was agreeing with something or, partially doubled-up the way it
was, perhaps laughing at the punchline of a joke only it was privy to. Betting
on the former, Jamie flicked her eyes to its chest cavity where, save for
knobby vertebrae and a nest of what she thought were corded core muscles,
nothing resembling an internal organ remained. Continuing the visual inspection,
she dropped her gaze to the flaccid white penis dangling from a ribbon of skin
someone had gone to the trouble of tying to what she guessed had been his pubic
bone. Moving on to his lower extremities, she saw shiny scraps of dried flesh
and sinew still clinging to blood-reddened femur, fibula, and tibia bones. Calling
forth every last ounce of willpower she possessed, the hardened survivor tore
her eyes from its perfectly preserved feet and the metal rod pinning them to
the post and began sweeping the floor for tripwires or anything else that
looked out of place. Fully aware of the jaundiced, lifeless eyes still tracking
her, she completed her slow procession to the raised dais where the crudely
fashioned cross had been erected—proud of herself for not having stolen a third
look along the way.

The floor below the dais was shiny where more than one
person’s spilt blood had dried to black. The stench up close proved to be
nearly unbearable.

Breathing through her nose, her usually husky voice nasal
and high-pitched, Jamie said, “The aisle is clear of traps.”

At the sound of Jamie’s voice, the abomination shuddered
excitedly, its bony knees and exposed ribs creating a grating sound as they rubbed
together.

Lev threw a visible shudder. He squeezed Daymon’s shoulder
and whispered, “Hang in there.” Then, looking around, he hissed, “Where the eff
is Oliver?”

Once Jedi One-One was wheels down on the snow-dotted plat of
high desert, Cade hastily shed his safety harness and stood, M4 carbine in hand.

“I’ll cover your egress,” Skipper said, grabbing a carbine
of his own. He slapped the operator on the shoulder and hauled the port-side
cabin door open.

Still kneeling before Lopez, Cross looked up and met Cade’s
gaze. “You go,” he said forcefully. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

Cade nodded in agreement and unplugged the flight helmet
from the comms jack. Then, for the sake of expediency, he deployed the smoked
visor to keep his eyes safe from flying debris and exited the helo without
swapping helmets. M4 at a low ready, he ran towards the smoking wreckage, head
ducked under the imaginary reach of the near invisible rotor blades.

The wreckage was both organic and mechanical in nature and
was scattered over a bullet-tilled patch of desert roughly two dozen yards in
diameter. The smoke Cade had spotted from inside the Ghost Hawk was coming from
a nearby copse of trees where a number of small fires in the damp underbrush
struggled to stay lit.

Ari was right.
Skipper had indeed turned something
into “street pizza.” The previously human organic matter was mostly pulped
flesh and bone splashed in two long frothy red trails bisecting the epicenter
of the churned-up topsoil. The two largest pieces, both limbless torsos, still
wore Kevlar vests, the ceramic bullet-resistant plates fractured in dozens of
small pieces after having taken direct hits from the speeding 7.62x51mm
projectiles.

A severed head, eyes open and staring, lay near one of the torsos.
It still wore a knockoff tactical-style helmet, nylon chin straps still snugged
tightly underneath the intact jawbone. A several-days-old growth of dark facial
hair meant at least one of the dead had been a man. Though he scanned the area,
the second head was nowhere to be seen.

Of the mechanical wreckage, the biggest pieces were nearly
identical: two large billets of polished metal sprouting milled fins, colorful wires,
and black rubber hosing. The items in question were still bolted to frames made
of snaking black metal tubes all bent at crazy angles.
Motorcycle
, Cade
thought at once. Then he counted four spoked rims that had been scattered to
all points of the compass. One was still attached to a pair of long-travel
forks, the plastic dustcovers and exposed metal rattle canned in a dark camouflage
scheme. Another front wheel—also hastily painted—was a good distance to his
left and partially obscured by a clutch of inert tumbleweeds. The two rear rims
were a ways uphill from Cade and had come to rest a few feet apart beside
shin-high piles of dirty, days-old snow. All four rims were still wrapped in
knobby off-road tires. Like the two bodies and the motorcycle chassis, all four
tires had been shredded by Skipper’s superior marksmanship.

Motorcycles
, he thought.
Plural
.

Ignoring the metallic stink of freshly spilt blood and the bloated
ropes of greasy-looking intestine spilling from the rent-open abdomen, he took a
knee next to the nearest torso and manhandled it around until what he guessed
to be the chest was facing skyward. After loosening the vest’s Velcro straps, a
quick inspection underneath the jagged plates produced a thin diary, an
envelope full of some official-looking documents, and a host of laminated topographical
maps of the Western United States. Tucked away inside an intact chest pouch was
a slim Chinese-manufactured satellite phone. In another was a handful of
flash-cards featuring rudimentary pictograms and their corresponding warnings all
written in Chinese and pertaining to situations relevant only in a modern day Z-infested
theater of war.

On the first card was a nicely rendered drawing of a man,
arms up and rifle at his feet. Though the hieroglyphic-like Chinese characters
meant nothing to Cade, the image instantly brought to mind one word:
surrender
.

The next flashcard featured a distressed-looking woman with
exaggerated red bite marks running up one outstretched arm. Again, the delicate
vertical writing meant nothing to him. The image, however, all but screamed:
infected.

And none too surprising to Cade: The documents, diaries, and
weapons he had hurriedly policed up were very similar to the items he and
Duncan had taken from the undead Chinese Special Forces scouts outside of Huntsville
only a couple of days ago. However, somewhat startling was the stark
realization that these MANPAD-armed PLA SF soldiers were less than a hundred
miles west of Colorado Springs.

Sensing eyes on him, Cade sidestepped the rising smoke and
peered west down the length of the unnamed two-lane. Roughly a mile distant,
judging by their stilted gait and that they were loping along on the centerline
in a loose knot, he realized a handful of dead were onto them and shambling his
way.

Damn
, he thought as he turned back to face Jedi
One-One.
The persistent rotten bastards are everywhere now. Even on a lonely
stretch of road in the metaphorical shadows of the majestic Rocky Mountains.

As the weary operator covered the distance from the scene of
carnage to the awaiting helo, arms filled with items stripped from the enemy
and his own slung M4 banging against his back, he noticed the matte-black bird
suddenly go light and bouncy on her gear—a dead giveaway that Ari was eager to
spool power, pull pitch, and get them all the hell out of Dodge.