Jurassic Dead (17 page)

34.

Veronica burst out onto the roof, wincing against the intense sunlight bearing down from a crystal blue, cloudless sky. It took her eyes a few moments to adjust and get her bearings, and then Alex was all but smashing into her.

“They’re coming! Right behind me!”

She turned, pulled the door shut and looked around, cursing. Grabbed Alex’s rifle and slid the barrel through the handle slot, flush against the external wall, then backed away. Something slammed into the door from the other side, and a barrage of thumps and howls of frustration followed as the creatures threw themselves against the door and tried pulling it and pushing to no avail. The gun held.

“Okay, let’s pray that keeps them out. Now…” She turned and Xander was already heading toward the landing pad—a giant painted X on a flat concrete section in the center of the roof. The helicopter itself was painted white with red stripes, and looked shiny but a little beat up, with scratches and dents along the outside edge and nicks in the windshield.

“All ready for you, kid,” Xander called when he got to the door and peered inside. “Keys in, locked and loaded, or in this case…” he opened the door, “…unlocked. Get in and get it going, we’ll stand guard.” He motioned Veronica to the north edge of the roof as he slung the RPG’s strap over his right shoulder, took out the M5 and reloaded it, heading toward the south edge.

Veronica watched Xander as she gripped the AK in her hands, raising it, then pointing it in his direction, wavering. Did she still need him? He had just turned his back on her. Was he that confident? Alex was getting in the cockpit. Looking like a lost, scared puppy, but if he could fly that thing…

She tensed, about to aim. It was the perfect chance—shoot Xander down now, end all the pain and anguish. He more than deserved it, whether or not this was personal. Clearly justified, she just had to…

Something caught her attention and caused her to flinch, shifting her aim. The southern edge of the rooftop… beyond the edge she could only see a beautiful view of the Pacific stretching out into the lighter blue horizon, and off to the right, rising from the jagged hills and brush carpet, a smoking volcano.

Again, the sound of scrambling, hissing and scraping.

She approached, tensing, her feet nearing the edge. Behind her the chopper’s engine turned, sparked, died. She heard Alex cursing, muffled behind the glass as he tried again.

Her feet neared the edge, where the sounds were getting stronger, more intense and
closer.

Finally there, she looked back first, to see Xander patrolling the opposite edge, gun tip down. She watched him turn to the chopper and yell something disparaging at Alex—something lost in the ferocious hissing of the thing beneath her.

Snapping her head around, she leapt back out of sight, but not before a glimpse of the impossible: one of the Cryos, its ferocious snout and flaring crown only a few yards away.

Its dead dragon-like eyes locked on her, and she felt sixty million years of hunger and absolute ferocity wash over her senses, along with the revolting scent of blood and death that issued from the depths of its throat.

#

It hadn’t climbed the building’s four levels, but instead—if she could believe her eyes—it had ascended a mound made up of writhing, reaching, climbing zombies. Several dozens of them, all piled onto each other like ants working collectively, creating a ramp the Cryo just ran right up and ascended.

Still can’t get up,
she thought. Didn’t build it high enough… yet.

That’s when another influx of zombies tore around the corner. Heads up, they seemed to unerringly locate her on the roof’s edge, and they ran. Two of them accelerated as if getting a burst of nitrous. They bounded up the ramp and leapt ten feet into the air—onto the tail and back of the Cryo...

Where they climbed up the spine of the creature, tensed, crouching at its neck and shoulders, eyes on her—

And they sprung…

Veronica fired as she fell backwards, strafing the first zombie in mid air, the slugs knocking him back, but still he landed on the edge in front of her. All the rounds had missed its head, and it rose in a flash, growling.

Her finger still on the trigger, she raised her aim, and this time blew its skull open, just in time to roll out of the way of the other leaper.

Again the engine cut, caught and then revved up, competing with the sound of her gun—and Xander’s now, joining the action. She wasn’t sure if it was her shot or his, or both, but the leaper’s cheek blew apart and a hole punched through its temple simultaneously, taking him down.

She scrambled to her feet just as another zombie leapt into the air, arms spread wide.

This time Xander shot him twice in the face, and the mindless attacker fell in a heap at Veronica’s feet.

“How the hell are they climbing?” he shouted, joining her side.

“You don’t want to look.” Veronica pointed over the side, where now the Cryo was doing a little hopping dance, allowing more and more zombies to jump onto the pile so it could step on their bodies and raise itself up.

“Holy shit,” Xander said, returning the M5 to its strap around his shoulder—and taking out the RPG. He checked the rocked magazine, clicked the release, and lined up a shot. “Stay still you son of a—”

“Wait!” Veronica yelled and tried to deflect the shot. “You’ll blow open the—”

The rocket streaked out in a blast that went wide by a few feet, missing the Cryo’s head but tunneling between its forearms, where another zombie had been climbing under its neck. The explosion knocked Veronica back into Xander, who dropped the RPG and scrambled to catch it before it rolled off the side.

“What the hell, bitch? I had it!”

Veronica got up fast, gun ready, pointing at his face. “You idiot! The explosion could have… Oh shit…” She looked down, and tore her eyes away from the sight of the Cryo writhing on the ground below, its chest cavity torn open, its rib cage blasted apart, internal organs sliding to the dirt, its lower jaw demolished and smoking, blackened tongue wriggling—but still trying to get up. She looked at the hole in the side of the building, a hole that enlarged as she watched, collapsing a full quarter of the roof.

She backed away, as did Xander, backed almost to the western edge, until they were sure they were safe from further collapse. Still she couldn’t look away, couldn’t move or respond enough to raise the gun until it was almost too late.

The floor below them was now exposed. A floor full of hungry, crazed reptilian zombies who had—until now—been denied their prey.

They jumped for the roof.

#

Alex saw the explosion, saw the roof almost collapse completely, concrete tumbling away and supports failing, and he had a moment’s terror where all he could think was:
get this bird off the ground or you’re going to be buried in it…

He grabbed the collective pitch, the stick-lever on his left, turned a few dials, flicked the release switches—, and prayed. Pulled back and felt the helicopter ease up, getting the landing skids off the roof, then it lurched backwards—and stalled like it got too much clutch.

It slammed back down onto the roof, then the engine caught and it again roared into life. He looked up and out the cockpit window and saw thankfully that the damage to the structure at least was over, and limited to the farther section of the collapsed roof. That was the good news. The bad news was that a countless rush of zombies were climbing, leaping and running across the remainder of the roof, chasing after Veronica and Xander who were now sprinting desperately for the chopper. They’d given up on all but a few backwards bursts of fire that did nothing to slow down the horde.

Shit, shit, get this working!

It was all up to him now.

He leaned over, unlatched the door, and kicked it open for them as Xander shouted, “Get it off the ground, kid!”

Alex pulled back on the stick, gentler this time. It was going to be tight. If he could raise it and keep the bird there about six feet up, they could leap and grab on to the landing skids like in the movies and—

They were almost there, leading the zombies by a shrinking distance.

Xander was faster and while the craft was still rising, he leapt into the passenger hold, then turned and let loose, emptying the M5’s clip, spraying cover fire behind Veronica and over her head, knocking back the first row of ravenous creatures. Veronica skidded to a halt, ducking her head again as the chopper dipped, angled, and almost sheared off her head.

“Sorry!” Alex yelled. “Get in already!”

“Wait,” she yelled. “Something...” She turned, aimed and fired in another strafing angle, blasting apart three more heads and ripping into legs and kneecaps, tripping up another row of attackers—attackers that suddenly slid to a halt as if listening to some distant orders. They turned their heads and looked backwards toward the gaping rooftop hole, and they started to move to the sides.

“What the hell are they doing?” Veronica shouted.

“Who cares?” Xander yelled back. “Come on, super agent, or I’m ordering the kid to leave you up here.”

She backed up, right to the edge of the chopper, the wind from the rotors and the engine roaring in her ear, so she couldn’t—and didn’t—hear the other roar. The undamaged Cryo that had leapt over its wounded and writhing sister climbed the ramp, and in a huge bound, jumped to the bombed-out third level, then extended and locked its jaws around a jagged section of the rooftop and hauled itself up.

It shook itself, raised its head and, seeing the chopper, sniffed the air. As its crest changed color to a burning crimson, it bellowed out a challenge.

With the battalion of slavering zombies in its wake, following it like it was a medieval battle ram, it charged toward the chopper.

#

  Veronica dove in as Alex fumbled with the controls. He shifted and pressed the wrong foot pedal at first, turning the nose toward the rampaging dinosaur. Then he tried to compensate by pulling back on the cycle pitch lever between his knees, but the nose was already tilting up. The tail rotor sparked against the rooftop surface and Alex cursed and grabbed the collective on his left side. He pulled that back to urge the craft upward.

It wobbled, tilted, and Xander and Veronica went tumbling to the side.

“
Kid!
”

“Trying,” he shouted back.

“Try harder!” Veronica shouted, sitting upright through the next turn. She aimed at the Cryo—only twenty feet away now and gaining. She fired one burst, but then the helicopter rotated in a 180-degree spin and Alex cranked the lever in front of him, the chopper soaring ahead and over the roof.

He looked back—and wished he hadn’t.

The Cryo, with three zombies riding maniacally on its back, never slowed down. Caught in bloodlust, it took two huge strides and then threw itself off the roof after its prey.

No, no, no!
Alex was lost in the act of trying to control this unwieldy bird with a combination of both hands and feet, forgetting which limb did what. He gripped the collective lever, twisted and sped up just as he felt the jarring impact along the tail. A series of screams and gunshots and scraping sounds like giant nails on a metal chalkboard, and then the chopper was spinning and spinning.

Falling.

#

As they plummeted, the Cryo hung on with an unyielding grip like a mad pit bull at first, but then crunched through the metal, dropped from the tail, then caught on the landing skid.

“Son of a bitch!” Alex shouted, heaving back on the lever, trying to keep them from falling, even as the forward trajectory kept them moving ahead, still spinning. Victoria fired a volley of bullets out the open doors at the flailing beast, but then had to brace herself before slamming hard into a seat and flying into Xander against the inside wall.

Trying to work the pedals and counter the Cryo’s weight, Alex screamed. “Not working! Can’t shake it and we’re going down!”

Not entirely true,
he thought suddenly, seeing the landscape spinning around, and the research facility closing in. They had spun around, and now the acceleration took them back toward the building.

Gritting his teeth, Alex leaned back and to the side, tugging hard on the cyclic pitch. The chopper turned sharply just in time, its nose missing the wall, but the tail banked fast—and slammed the dinosaur right into the brick.

Take that!
He thought in short-lived exuberance. The weight dropped as the screeching Cryo finally let go, stunned, and fell to the ground. Alex was about to yell back that they were free, but then he saw the gauges spinning, the warning lights flashing, and felt a pit in his stomach.

“We’re going down.”

#

“I thought you could fly!” Xander yelled, shoving Veronica aside and grabbing onto the nearest chair to brace himself. She scrambled to do the same.

“Single engine props!” Alex shouted back, kicking at the pedals and madly wrestling with the levers as the craft banked left, then right. It spun again in a wild 360 as it dropped, rose, and then dropped again. “Big freakin’ difference!”

“Great, but a landing is a landing,” Xander yelled. “Just get us down, preferably away from the—”