Trudge: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (24 page)

They didn’t even bother to finish their vote. Duncan followed the Sequoia towards the smoke and flames. The road was clear for the first ten miles and then there were wrecks and clogs of stalled cars scattered here and there. No sign of living humans was evident. Deer, raccoon and other wildlife were on the move away from the direction the two vehicle convoy headed. The nearer they got to the city, the more of the undead they encountered, some were blackened and sooty, flesh sloughing off of them, but still they walked. The crispy ghouls were reaching and swiping at the trucks as they passed, leaving slimy black traces anywhere they made contact.

Cade slowed up ahead and drove over two of the brittle walkers before stopping completely, engine still idling.

Duncan followed his lead. From the cab of the truck, Harry had to shoot two advancing walkers with his pump shotgun, before he could safely call Cade on the Motorola. The men watched as Cade gophered his head up through the moon roof of the Sequoia. Four undead changed course and ambled towards the idling truck. Cade put them down with his M4; more were on the way from their front and sides. The undead started moaning as they drew nearer. Cade dropped his rifle, letting it hang on its sling and brought the binoculars to his eyes glassing the road ahead.

The radio chirped in Cades pocket. “What do you see boss?”

Keying the mike, Cade replied, “About a mile ahead. There’s a helicopter blocking the road…and lots of undead between us and it.”

Duncan motioned for the radio. Harry handed it over.

“This is Duncan. If it still has electrical and fuel, I think I can fly that bird.”

Since there would be plenty of paper laying around if they all survived the day, Cade jokingly made Duncan an offer he couldn’t refuse.

“Roger that. I’ll pay you ten million dollars if you can fly us out of this predicament.”

“You got it big spender” Duncan replied, knowing full well his chain was being yanked. He disappeared back into his truck, tromped the gas pedal and left black stripes on the sun-bleached grey asphalt as he hauled ass towards the helicopter.

They plowed over as many of the walking dead as they could on the way to the grounded helo.

*****

Duncan had been mentally going through preflight checklists from decades ago. The helicopter that sat in front of them was a Utah Air National guard UH-60 Black Hawk. It appeared air worthy but the pilot was still strapped in, dead and slumped over the controls.

To Cades trained eye, judging by the different types of spent shell casings, it was apparent this ambush was orchestrated by the same group that killed Rawley, Leo and Sheila. The ambush victim’s bodies were placed in a row behind the burned out hulk of a Humvee. The naked corpses had high and tight haircuts, and all of the bodies still had dog tags around their necks as well. Two of the troops had been hit in the head by a large caliber weapon and had most likely died instantly. The other two men weren’t as lucky, they had been tortured; their bodies were covered with purple welts and crisscrossed with deep cuts. Both soldiers had their necks cut ear to ear and one of the men had a large swastika gouged into his chest.

Peeling his eyes from the dead servicemen, he could feel the anger and hatred towards the despicable men that had committed these acts welling up in him.
No sense living in the past. Those bastards already paid for this
. Cade turned his attention to their escape.

“Well can you fly this model?” he asked with a concerned look on his face.

“If it spools up, I can fly the bitch. They all have the same controls, a throttle, cyclic, stick and rudder. No problem”, Duncan said sounding more confident than he really was.

Duncan left his pickup on the shoulder of the road and grabbed the shotgun and the backpack containing his few personal belongings. On the lookout for undead, he cautiously covered the distance to the helicopter. The road weary veteran heaved his pack into the crew compartment of the Black Hawk. With a heavy heart he looked at the man still strapped in the gurney, he had been dead for some time and was most likely the patient the medevac chopper had been summoned for in the first place. Duncan hauled his old frame up into the cramped confines of the Black Hawk. With Harry’s help they removed the gurney to free up room.

Duncan placed the corpse on the ground near the others. The fire in the distance loomed larger on the horizon, loud moans of the dead carried forth, riding the hot desert wind. Duncan returned to the grim task of removing the pilot’s body. After making sure that the he was indeed dead, Duncan unbuckled his safety harness and gently, out of respect for the man in uniform, carried him to the roadside and lowered him to the ground next to the other dead soldiers. Duncan unclasped the chin strap and removed the flight helmet from the fallen aviator. He stood back a step and gave the slain men a final crisp salute.
The dead that remain dead really are the fortunate ones. When will the madness end?
He thought to himself shedding a rare tear. It was a very poignant moment for Harry and Cade who looked on from a distance.

Duncan worked to figure out the helicopters intricate avionics, the Hueys that he used to fly in Viet Nam were like Model T’s compared to this UH-60.

Cade hastily assembled the sniper rifle and scanned the oncoming highway and surrounding woods. He searched for the source of the moans; they had been growing louder by the minute. A lone, partially clothed figure shuffled through the shimmering thermal distortion cast up from the hot blacktop. The female walker had a half limping, part shuffling gait, her bare breasts keeping cadence with her flopping head, she looked like a marshmallow left in the fire too long. Cade rested the cross hairs on the crispy critters brow; milky white eyes stared through what remained of the charred face. Slowly he pulled the trigger. The ghoul’s head split down the middle and like a cracked egg, her cooked brain slid out. At once another walker took her place.

Harry and Cade kept up their steady firing, thinning out the advancing undead.

Duncan swore as he scanned the multitude of switches which glowed muted reds and greens. Thankfully the helicopter did have electrical power and the main fuel gauge registered one quarter of a full load, Duncan guessed they would have a hundred mile range, maybe two.

Harry fired the SKS at the army of undead. The familiar sound was reassuring to Cade’s ears, even if it was Harry wielding the weapon. Switching from the sniper rifle to his M4 allowed Cade a greater rate of fire. The undead were now piling up in a semi-circle flanking the helicopter. After an agonizingly long wait the turbine finally whined to life. Looking over his shoulder Cade saw the rotor blades spooling up and a grinning Duncan triumphantly flashing him a thumbs up.

Cade sprinted to the vehicles to begin transferring the guns and supplies. The distinctive sonic cracks from bullets whipping by his head got his undivided attention, someone was shooting at them. Using his truck for cover, he looked through the windows in the direction he thought the fire had come from. There were several motorcycles and a bright yellow civilian Hummer2 closing on them from the west. The shooter was hanging out of the moving Hummers passenger window.

Cade slapped a fresh magazine in the carbine and aimed at the windshield of the Hummer, two controlled bursts from the M4 spider webbed the glass on the driver’s side. This caused the big SUV to swerve and careen over three of the motorcycles, pulping the riders on the pavement, before rolling in a bright yellow blur of exploding glass and scraping metal.

The rest of the motorcycles stopped in the middle of the road, the riders dismounted and crouched behind their Harleys. The silhouette of a man shouldering a very long rifle presented itself in front of the setting sun. A hand grabbed Cade’s shoulder and pulled him towards the noisy Black Hawk. Cade spun and followed, with only his M4 to show from his aborted trip to the vehicles. Harry turned about and hobbled to the big helicopter. Both men climbed aboard and strapped themselves into jump seats.in the open passenger compartment.

The smell of the Black Hawks exhaust and the odor of the dead assailed their nostrils. Bullets were beginning to impact the fuselage, metallic pings sounding as Duncan twisted the throttle and applied full power. The Black Hawk bolted into the darkening cobalt sky at ten feet a second. Harry wasn’t used to the sensation of lift off. Feeling green and awash in nausea, he fired the last of his ammo at the ghouls, the ground rushed away, unfortunately the dead didn’t. One of the undead had gotten both hands wrapped around one of the skids. Harry fired at the top of its head, causing the creature to lose purchase. He looked on with grim satisfaction as it freefell one hundred and twenty feet to earth, leaving a grimy crater in the desert soil.

Even though he knew that they were at max range for the carbine, Cade continued firing at the bikers until his magazine was empty and the bolt locked open.

*****

On the ground below, Richard Ganz, leader of the Nomad Jesters; was on bent knee steadying the Barrett sniper rifle across the handlebars of his Harley. His target was the man piloting the helicopter. He smoothly increased tension on the trigger, the bullet left the muzzle at 2800 feet a second and passed harmlessly between the fuselage and landing skid. Ganz chambered another round, steadied and took another shot. The result was the same; the helicopter was now too far away, even for the sniper rifle. Enraged, Ganz pulled his Desert Eagle Magnum from the leather holster on his hip and shot his newest prospect point blank in the head. The big bikers temper was legendary. He led the Jesters with an iron fist and was indiscriminate in who he killed before the breakdown of society. Now he had no one to answer to and his tantrums went unchecked.

The young prospect lay in the middle of the highway bleeding from the head and slowly turning pale. Ganz mounted his Harley; kick started it and headed away from the advancing ghouls. Left with little choice the remnants of his gang followed.

*****

Duncan threw the co-pilots helmet to Cade and pointed out the others hanging next to the medical litters. Cade plugged the flexible coiled wire in to the comms jack on the bulkhead above him. Harry followed suit and plugged in after donning a helmet. Duncan’s voice came through loud and clear in both men’s helmets, “We were between the proverbial rock and a hard place back there. Thank God for Igor Sikorsky.”

“Did any of their gunfire damage the helo?” Cade asked.

“Doesn’t feel like it. Why? Are we leaking something I can’t see?”

“No, just checking. I felt bullets impacting as we lifted off.”

“I’ll watch the gauges closely. D-boy, what do you know about these newfangled radios?” Duncan asked with a hint of exasperation showing in his voice.

Working the seatbelt buckles loose, Cade said “I’m going to unstrap and move into the copilot’s seat. Hold her level and steady.”

“I think it’s all coming back to me now. Kinda like riding a bicycle, you know.”

“What now guys?” Harry asked through the inflight communications.

Ignoring Harry, Duncan shouted “Hallelujah my fellow flying friends. I just realized what an ERFS is.”

“I’m sitting on pins and needles…enlighten us” Cade said.

“While I thought we had about two hundred miles of range, I was mistaken. When I flip this switch…” Duncan paused for effect.

“Just spit it out man” Harry said sounding a little pissed off.

Duncan spoke “Those stubby wings on the side of her usually hold guns and missiles, but this is a dust-off bird equipped with extra external fuel tanks.”

“Voilà” Duncan said as he flipped the switch labeled ERFS and added “We now have an extremely extended range.”

The last two days were taking a toll on Harry. Being retired, he was used to not having to answer to anybody. Solitude is what he now craved. Where Harry came from, a sixty five year old man was asked to share his wisdom. He hated being ignored and made to feel like he was six.
Oh well if they don’t value my wisdom, then screw the know-it-alls
. His feelings were hurt so he clammed up for the rest of the flight.

Cade found his way into the co-pilots seat and was manipulating the knobs and buttons on the military radio. He looked like he knew what he was doing as he tried to pick up anyone that might be listening in on any of the usual emergency bands.

For five minutes they listened in as the ex-Delta Operator attempted to contact any available US forces. He left the radio on the Military band reserved for aviation assets and then focused on programming waypoints into the navigation computer. Remembering how to use the nav gear came back a little slower than the comms gear.

“Where to boss?” the Viet Nam era aviator asked.

“Follow the way points I just plotted on your HUD (heads up display) and we’ll be flying over…” he was about to say Boise until Duncan banked the Black Hawk and he actually saw what was left of the city. Boise resembled the old pictures he had seen depicting Japan after the firebombing campaigns of World War II.

The sky was filled up to their altitude with black feathery ashes, fires raged everywhere. The helicopter moved along at an altitude of five hundred feet. The multitudes of undead surging west were clearly visible to the naked eye. The three men were speechless as they flew over what was left of the Idaho Air National Guard base. Three helicopters were burned to the tarmac, fixed in place by melted tires; the skeletal remains of the titanium airframes resembled the tangled wreckage of the zeppelin Hindenburg. Quonset huts burned, the vehicles parked nearby further fueling the inferno. Airmen and women lay where they had fallen, some having been consumed by the shambling packs of ghouls. The few vehicles moving below were fleeing the conflagration, in front of the walkers. The scope of the damage was unimaginable. The city now belonged to the dead.