Rise (27 page)

A corporal named Meier was the first one in, and the silence that followed after he opened the door and stepped inside was heavy. Within a minute he was back, and opened the cargo doors from inside. Several troops had to manually lift the doors, the power being long off. Inside was a maze of baggage carts, old luggage, and boxes. Three corpses were easily visible, lying frozen in puddles of old blood and gore. Each had been an airport worker, and each was partially devoured. The closest was about my age, and looked like he died in terror, with large bites out of his arms, chest, and throat. His stomach had been torn open, and there was a terrible smell here even with the freezing cold. Why he hadn’t reanimated I couldn’t say, since his head looked intact. The Corporal apparently had the same thought, since he put a round into the corpses’ head just to be sure. The other two bodies were even worse. Both had the skulls opened up, and grey matter missing. It was nauseating to look at, but we couldn’t help it.

Soldiers went in teams of three through the dark baggage areas, and within about ten minutes had destroyed four zombies. The first three came at them from the farther depths of the room. The last was found inside a janitor’s closet, locked inside with all the supplies piled against the doorway. The man had probably been bitten and crawled in there to hide, blocking the way in as best he could. Poor bastard, he’s better off now.

My team went through and spot-checked the baggage and cargo loads for anything useful. This amounted to opening the crates and bags and seeing if anything good showed up. Sanctioned looting, basically.

From there we advanced into the building a room at a time. At the far end of the baggage area there was a series of offices, washrooms, and stairs and elevators leading up to the main terminal. We made sure the stairwells were clear first, then sealed the doors shut. We really didn’t want anything coming up behind us as we moved on. The offices were empty as we passed through them. Soldiers made a quick but very thorough search, turning up personal effects left behind, a few signs of panicked departure, and the usual half filled coffee cups and half eaten snacks and lunches.

At the other side of the offices there was a series of mechanical and electrical rooms, and by the time we got there they had been cleared out. Three zombies and two half-devoured bodies had been in there, but they had been destroyed quickly. We were all using flashlights now, since the darkness was absolute. Paths of light flickered back and forth as we advanced, and once the generator room was cleared the engineers went in to see about getting the temporary gas-powered units running. My team and I kept going.

After a few hours we had cleared out the south third of the ground floor. It was all baggage areas, service bays, and offices. In total there were only thirty undead, and we suffered no casualties. The extreme care taken in opening every single door, and the precise shooting of the soldiers made it as safe as possible. I was happy to let them take the lead, too.

All at once we heard shooting from ahead of us. Not the silenced 9mm we were all carrying, but a shotgun blast, followed by another. It was very loud, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Everyone was under strict orders to use the silenced guns unless they were in danger of being overrun. Suddenly there was a lot of radio traffic as unit commanders asked for information, and the shotgun continued firing. Then, I thought on the other side of a wall I was next to, on my left, someone started screaming. High pitched, going on and on over the shotgun blasts, it sounded like a woman’s voice. I turned to Eric and told him to get everyone ready, and drew the shotgun over my shoulder. My team and I backtracked to a corridor that led left. The shotgun was silent by this time, and the screaming too, replaced by a strangled gurgling. Eric and I led the way, and just as we got to the corner of the corridor a blood-soaked woman staggered around it. She was one of ours, and was grasping a large bite on her left arm, trying to staunch the blood flow. She was pale and probably in shock, and we didn’t see her weapon. She told us that
they
were right behind her, and then fell on her face. I looked, and sure enough there were five of the rotted things walking down the corridor towards me. I raised the shotgun and fired at the first one, hitting in the center of his chest. He sprawled backwards into the others, knocking three of them down with him, and I reached down and grabbed the woman. Eric helped me, and we retreated back through the rest of the group. Kim and Todd covered us, and then fell back as Jim and Laura covered them. We got to the rooms we had cleared, and the undead came around the corner and started our way. I told Laura and Jim to use pistols, and they switched and started firing. It was over in a few seconds, and Eric and I were able to tend to the woman. She was unconscious, and a quick check showed her pale and shocky. The bite was deep enough it had severed the artery, which explained the massive amounts of blood she’d lost. While Eric tried to pinch the artery shut she gasped and gurgled, and then died. Eric sat back and sighed, then said a few choice words, which sentiment I shared. By this time other soldiers had shown up, and it was quickly determined that the woman (her nametag said T. Landis) had opened a door into another service bay and been rushed by seven undead. We found the one that bit her with its head blown open, and another a few feet behind that one, similarly slain. Shotguns are messy, but quite effective. There was a pool of ice on the floor about five feet across. I walked about ten feet into the room, and looked up at the ceiling over my head. The ice came from a broken pipe, and there was a huge icicle hanging down. It gleamed in the flashlight beams.

We were scanning the area around the door when some more of them staggered and shuffled towards us. These were wearing civilian clothing, there were probably a dozen of them, and they were moving damned quickly for dead folks. The smell wafted over us as they advanced, and I heard someone retching. Man, there were some ripe ones in this group. I gagged, but fired at the leader as I backed up. One shot in the face, and he went down. The few behind him stepped over or around the body, and reached for us hungrily as they approached. I could see bullets smacking into them now, as the others fired. Several dropped from headshots, and I fired again at one that was missing half its right arm already, a bloody gruesome wound. It was blown backwards by the thunderous impact of the slug, and its skull popped like a balloon.

I was the last one through the door as the six ‘survivors’ grasped at it. I fired once more, and grabbed the handle to pull the door shut when several of them grabbed the door frame and started pulling. They stumbled over each other trying to get at me, so I let the door go and turned and ran. I felt a grasping dead hand snag on my belt at the last second, but I tore free and kept going. At the first intersection I passed Laura and Eric, who fired behind me as soon as I dodged through them. I turned, and we all fell back to the next bend, firing as opportunity presented itself. We killed six more this way, but I noticed there were more of them now. Damn, there must be an open stairwell to the upper levels in there. My team, and the several soldiers who were now with us all retreated to some fire doors. We spread out into the offices, and waited for the undead to approach down the hallway. Once they appeared it was a furious battle. We shot until we ran out of bullets, and the dead piled up high in the hallways. Still they came. I ordered everyone back behind the fire doors and then closed them myself. We braced them with an axe between the handles, and waited a few seconds to see if they’d hold. The undead on the other side pushed hard, and fingers grasped through the gap, but that was all there was. I think we killed over thirty of them, and there were at least that many out there right now. They were hideous. Rotted and hideous, they looked like the caricatures of the people they had been. One soldier had been bitten, a small wound on his hand. We cleaned and wrapped it, but it was sad. He knew he was going to die within the day now. As his friends led him away I watched and wondered if we’d all go that way, if there really was any point to hope now. Sure we had a foothold, but the dead were still there. Every single one of us was on borrowed time.

About this time an officer showed up and told us to head out and grab some food. We were done for a few hours while they brought in fresh troops. I really didn’t feel like eating.

After days of blood, six hundred undead have been destroyed inside the terminal. I haven’t felt like writing. The carnage has been too much. I find myself thinking of Jess, wanting to call her and go home, but I can’t.

We got that helicopter running, and flew a mission down there to see what was going on with the survivors downtown. The chopper landed on the roof, and we found out what the people inside were fighting off the undead with baseball bats, crowbars, and torches now. They’d run out of bullets ages ago, and had blocked as many of the stairs and halls as they could. A few thousand undead surrounded the building, there were hundreds on the lower three floors, and the twenty survivors were running out of food and water. The major said to hell with it, bring them out a few at a time in the chopper. Getting there with a bus or trucks large enough to get everyone was not possible. So for the last few days we’ve been receiving the survivors a few at a time. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be the last ones there, hoping the avgas lasts in the chopper, that it doesn’t have a mechanical failure or crash before you get out. Because if it does, that’s all there is. You might as well open the doors and let in the undead at that point.

The stench! God the smell is so bad we have to wear masks when we go in to clear out bodies. We are moving everyone into the terminal in a few days, but right now it’s only a few dozen for security. We’ve been clearing the bodies out and burning them in the open landing strips. Great piles of burning bodies. I have nightmares every night now. I have to get back to Jess.

For the last few days the chopper has brought in survivors from downtown three at a time. The last trips today, three of them, will leave at dawn. There will be over one hundred and twenty of us here now. We are in need of water and food, and other basic supplies. Heat isn’t a problem in some areas of the terminal, since the engineers managed to get the gas powered backup generators in the basement running yesterday. We still don’t run lights at night though. It draws too many of them here.

For two days now there have been teams going through the hotel, clearing it floor by floor, room by room. It was surprisingly unpopulated, and so far there has been only one casualty. My team has not been in on that operation, thank God. Every one of us, myself included, are showing signs of stress and the unit medic told us to take it easy for a few days. I was only too happy to follow those orders.

Tomorrow we head out along Barlow Trail south into the city. We are going on foot before dawn, hopefully under cover of darkness, and we will be looking for supplies. We shouldn’t have to go far. There is a group of stores in this area that we can raid, including a big warehouse-style wholesale grocery place, and several strip malls. There are restaurants too, and I even think there was a police station nearby, but I’ll have to check that on a map before we leave. If it’s close enough, we’ll check it out.

14:32 hours. Memory failed on the laptop. It took until today to find more. I looted it out of another laptop I found in the baggage area. It actually doubled my RAM, so I now have 512 Megs inside this beast.

We are about to take off for Cold Lake in a 12-seater passenger jet that came in from Comox. I don’t know the pilot or co-pilot, Terry and Keith, but they seem nice. They are taking us (us being my team and four of the engineers) back to Cold Lake. It’s our time to go back home and relax. The last weeks have been hell, and I missed Jess so much that I thought I was going to go insane. Darren and I have been talking too. We are hoping that the area around Cold Lake is clear enough that we can get out for a boat trip and go fishing.

Our gear is in the cargo bay except for side arms. We carry those everywhere, even the pilots. Firearms are an essential tool these days. Kim found a relatively decent sword on the last trip out. It looks like a broadsword. Not a real medieval one, but a decent knock-off. She wears it over her shoulder, and has honed it to a nice razor sharpness. It’s anachronistic, but it seems to please her. I have to shut this off now. We are about to take off, and I want to be secured for travel.

19:46 hours. Fifteen minutes after take-off we lost power in the right engine. We had turned from the southern heading we were on and had leveled out at around 15,000 feet, heading north or northeast, I’m not sure, when the pilot came on the intercom and said there was a problem. Then a sound like a basketball being sucked through a turbine came from our right and the plane lurched. Things went flying everywhere, mostly pens and coffee cups, but the laptop went sliding down my legs and I pinned it to the seat ahead of me with my left foot. Within two minutes the plane was only a few hundred feet up. I looked out and we could see houses, farmland, more houses, passing very fast. Terry came on the intercom and said to hang on to something. I looked down and saw pavement. He was trying to land us on a stretch of highway. We passed many cars, parked or crashed or abandoned, and then lurched downwards. The lights flickered, and then we crashed.

We hit something hard after sliding along for a good while. It felt like forever, but was probably about six seconds. The landing gear worked, I know that, since I heard the skid as they touched down. Then came the bang of the front gear exploding as it smashed into some obstruction, and we slewed sideways. Whatever we hit, a car or a pile of cars, we hit hard. Everything went black right about then.