When They Come (12 page)

“You must have room for a few more”, Margie said to him.

“GET OUT, NOW! WE’LL SEND SOMEONE BACK FOR YOU!”, the man yelled, as he strapped himself in. He got on his radio. “Alpha, this is Saving Grace, prepare evac for possible carriers. Over.”

No one responded.

“THEY’LL COME FOR YOU!” His voice was barely audible over the engines at this point. The aircraft began to lift off the ground.

Dave fell to his knees. “No.”

“Oh, no, no”, Margie said.

“Jason looked back and saw that they had stumbled on to a minefield of bodies. There was a huge battle here. Bodies of men, women, and children littered the entire base. The corpses of army men still in their combat fatigues were all among them. Dave quickly got up when he noticed the corpse that lay next to him.

“Let us on!”, Margie yelled.

At this point, the helicopter was already over their heads. The group shielded their face from the dust and debris that lifted from the blades.

“No one’s coming for us”, Jason said, all hope gone from his voice.

“Jay…these bodies. Only a few of them were infected. They are covered in bullet holes.” Dave said with much fear in his voice.

Margie kept her eyes on the helicopter. She saw a commotion going on inside. Picking up a soldier’s gun and peering through the scope, she was able to get a better look.

There were infected aboard the aircraft. They were turning and attacking the survivors inside.

“Oh, God”, Margie was able to mutter. “They’re dead, they’re all... oh, God.”

“What’s happening?!”, Jason yelled. He looked at the helicopter flying erratically. It began to veer in different directions and then drop. It lifted a little bit.

Margie was able to see the soldier who they were just talking to get his neck bitten into by a young blonde girl wearing pajamas. She almost seemed to look directly at Margie as she bit into the soldier, his blood covering her little mouth.

“It’s going down. Oh shit, it’s coming down!”, Dave yelled.

The aircraft tried to make a clumsy landing and Margie was able to see a few people fall out of the helicopter. It came in towards their direction before pulling up one more time.

“Margie, what do you see?”, Dave asked.

She stood silent, fixated on watching the battle through her scope. She considered trying to shoot at the machine, but thought it would make no difference.

“The pilot is dead”, She coldly replied to him.

A zombie covered one of the pilots’ face with it’s hands before biting into him, she just saw the blood pouring out of him.

The machine began to spin. More people spilled out and landed nearby with horrible thuds.

“Oh shit”, Dave whispered.

The helicopter crashed into the ground with a loud, earth-shattering explosion. It was less than 100 feet away from the group. Dust and rocks hit the friends.

“This is it, isn’t it?”, Jason said.

The group watched, they froze as they saw several, dozens, then hundreds of the slaughtered corpses rise. The explosion gave them that final push to get up and seek out new food. The undead rose all around the group and began to make their way over to their meal.

Margie held Dave’s hand.

Jason pulled out one of the guns he had taken from the shop in the mall.

“I always knew it’d end this way”, he said.

“Ass”, Dave said quietly, but with a smile.

Dave pulled out his shotgun and cocked it.

Margie let go of Dave’s hand. He noticed tears pouring down her cheek as she shakily pulled out her father’s gun.

The three looked all around them. They were utterly surrounded and the gap between them and the dead was getting smaller and smaller.

“Well, this is great and all, but is anyone going to shoot?” Dave said.

Jason took aim and fired at the closest zombie. It was a man with a Bluetooth headset strapped to his ear still.

“I fucking hated those things”, he said as he fired another shot to put him down for good.

“Remember, like it matters, but shots to the head bring them down, for good!”, Dave yelled.

Dave fired his shotgun at the crowd, bringing down several at once.

“There are guns on the floor! They could still have ammo in them!”, Margie yelled.

Dave nodded and fired off another shell into a group of zombies.

Jason fired into a crowd of the monsters and after a little while, he began to think if he should save one bullet for himself at the end.

“Fuck it”, he fired off the last round in the Desert Eagle and smiled at the sound the bullet made ripping through a hungry zombie’s head.

He pulled out another handgun from his jacket’s pocket, and began to fire.

Click

Click

“I’m out!”, Dave yelled.

“Here, make it count!”, Jason replied as he ran to Dave, handing him another gun. “One left” He thought to himself.

Margie fired her gun carefully, making sure to save as many bullets as she could. The gap between them and the dead still grew smaller and smaller. The sickening moans of the monsters caused the entire group to shake periodically.

“Livin’ the dream, eh Dave?”, Jason yelled.

“Sure, why not!?”, Dave yelled back as he fired another shot.

Click

“Shit!”, Jason said to himself and threw the gun at the nearest zombie. His foot hit something hard. It was one of the soldiers’ assault rifles.

“Always wanted to use one of these”, he said to himself again.

Squeezing the trigger, the gun fired in 3-round bursts. “Nice!”, he said to himself as he shot a few more of them before the magazine emptied.

As Jason was about to throw it, the gun had the grenade attachment on it, he felt a weight in that end.

“Always wanted to try this”, he thought. He looked for the trigger, found it, and fired midway into the crowd of undead.

A huge explosion sounded as the shell exploded, bringing down many zombies with it.

“JESUS H. CHRIST! WHAT WAS THAT!”, Dave yelled.

“It was pure awesome, that’s what it was!”, Jason yelled.

Click

“Shit!”, Dave exclaimed.

Jason heard it and handed him the last gun.

“Do it for the both of us”, Jason said as he picked up another gun off the floor.

Margie’s gun was empty at this point. Standing there and staring at the horde, she attempted to grab at a dead soldier’s pistol that was still in the holster. The corpse got up and grabbed her and opened its mouth at her arm.

“MARGIE!”, Dave yelled. He shot the solider in the nick of time.

“Thanks”, she said as she quickly drew the gun and fired at a zombie right behind Dave in one fluid motion.

“My kind of woman”, he said.

The group was all but overwhelmed at this point. They were backed into a wall of sandbags. Firing the last of the assault rifle into the crowd in front of them, Jason felt cold, bony hands grabbing him and trying to pull him over the sandbag wall.

He looked down at the hands and laughed at the colorful nail polish.

“No!”, Dave yelled and tried to shoot at the zombie grabbing his best friend.

Click

Click

Click

Jason pulled the hand off and smacked her with the butt of his gun.

“Relax, even when they were alive, they couldn’t keep their hands off of me”, Jason said with a sad smile. His arm began to bleed a little bit.

“Margie, it was nice meeting you”, Jason said

“Dave, thanks for being my best friend. You were always there when I needed you. Now it’s my turn”, Jason said with tears in his eyes. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

Yelling, he jumped over the sandbag wall and began hitting zombies closing in on his friends with the butt of the gun. He quickly picked up a sheathed combat knife and pistol off of the floor. He fired the remaining rounds into random undead and then began stabbing at the zombies closing in on him with the knife with intense ferocity.

He began to laugh loudly as he stabbed the zombies.

“Jay…Shit”, Dave said. He fired two rounds into the zombie that was only two feet in front of him.

Click

Click

“Dave.” Margie said.

“Margie, I wish we had met under better circumstances”, Dave said to her with a smile on his face.

He picked up an MP’s baton, shoved it in the nearest zombie’s face, and jumped over the wall to join his friend.

“Jay! I can’t let you have all the fun!”, Dave said. He looked at his friend, covered in bites and scratches.

Jason looked back at him for a second, “Well, I’m winning! Come on!”

Both friends attacked the horde as best they could, stabbing and clubbing them as fast as they could. Both of them shouting as loud as they could at throng of undead.

Their primal battle cries and sounds of slaughter began to slowly fade from Margie’s ears. The battlefield grew quiet. She didn’t know who had fallen first, but Margie knew it.

She was all alone now.

She began to weep as all the sound faded from her ears. She just heard a little ringing in her ears as she fired the last few rounds of the assault rifle propped against the sandbag wall behind her.

Click

Click

She felt their cold hands grab hold of her, digging deep into her skin. She closed her eyes and felt nothing at all.

The last thought she had was of the white dove flying with the olive branch held in its beak.

All the faces of those she had met before flashed through her mind. She saw them all smiling at her.

She felt herself smile one last time.

Then, just then…

The world seemed like a better place again.

End

End