Die Trying: A Zombie Apocalypse (6 page)

I heard movement in the dark beside me and I glanced sideways. It was Jed, his big muscled frame hanging against the fence and peering into the night – seeing the horror that I was seeing, and, by the sound of his voice, feeling the same fear.

“We can’t fight them all off.”

“I know,” I agreed. “Not with a couple of pistols and a crow-bar.”

I tore my eyes back to the bucking, swaying shape of the helicopter. “If he doesn’t try to land now, they’ll be on him before we can rescue him.”

My attention
snapped back to the approaching shapes of the undead. They were like flickering mirages, moving quickly through the dark. I tried to calculate the angles and get a sense of how close the undead were – and how much time the pilot had before they would be upon him – and us.

It wasn’t long. Maybe
sixty seconds. If the pilot didn’t set the helicopter down right now, it would be too late – for all of us.

At that moment a building on the crest of the distant hill seemed to explode in a huge colum
n of flame, and in the flare of brighter light, the line of zombies suddenly took on sharp outline and solid form. Behind them, other dull drifting shapes were beginning to loom out of the night.

“There’s more of them,”
I said ominously. They were filling the dark streets, spilling from the nearest houses. A road ran parallel to the far side of the park, and I could see burned out vehicles and dark shapes laying on the blacktop like small broken toys as the undead gathered into a milling, swaying tide that began to uncoil and surge down into the long grass of the field behind the first line of hunters.

“What are we going to do?” Jed asked.

I didn’t answer for a long moment. The line of zombies on the edge of the field seemed to stop moving closer, but I knew it was just a trick of the poor light. They would still be moving – still stalking their way forward. I glanced up at the helicopter again, and as I did it seemed to swing directly overhead, and then tilt at an obscene angle. It veered back over the long grass of the field, but it was lower now. The shaft of the spotlight suddenly blinked on, and the patch of ground beneath the hull was turned bright as daylight. It lasted for only a few seconds – long enough to give the pilot a chance to sight the ground, and long enough to completely destroy my night vision.

I turned my head away – but the flare of the light was burned onto my eyes. When I opened them again and looked back across the field, the wavering line of unde
ad was blurred and indistinct.

“We’ve got no choice,” I said with a sense of rising fear and anxiety. “We have to rescue that pilot – if he survives the la
nding. There’s no other option. We’re dead men if we don’t.”

The helicopter
tilted up on its tail rotor like a rearing horse, and hung in mid air for a moment, its nose pointing towards the clouds.

Then it just stopped flying.

Stopped – and fell out of the sky.

The big whining engine died – and for an instant the night was perfectly silent.

But just for an instant.

Then the helicopter dropped
like a stone. The heavy weight of the nose fell towards the ground, but the helicopter was not high enough in the sky for the front-end to gather momentum, and so the craft dropped in a flat fall – the skids collapsed and the dead-weight of the machine crumpled the hull in a shattering collision that shook the ground beneath my feet. Grass and mud were hurled into the sky. The rotor blades flailed, and then tore off. Grinding, tearing metal shredded through the air as the machine ripped itself to pieces, and the sky was filled with a thousand flying shards of splintered death.

“Oh my God,” I heard Clinton
Harrigan breathe, and for long seconds we could do nothing more than stare, numb and dazed and appalled, until the dust cleared and the sound of the collision faded.

At last,
the night was silent.

At last, t
he helicopter was down.

But
the danger was only just beginning.

Chapter Two.

“Come on!” Harrigan cried, and we went at the fence in a rain-soaked awkward tangle of knees and elbows.

I went over
in the long soft grass, feeling the weight of the nylon bag’s contents pushing me down like extra gravity, and I sank in the soft muddy earth to my ankles.

The fiery glow of the distant burning buildings gave good light and we ran towards the crumpled wreck of the helicopter with no thought of stealth. It was a race against time.

Jed pulled ahead of me – he was big and fit and strong, and I kept my eyes on the broad of his back as he ran with his legs high through the grass, like a man running into beachside surf. He reached the nose of the helicopter and I saw him crouch there, peering past broken twisted metal, while Harrigan and I struggled to catch up.

I ran with my eyes moving everywhere, trying to take in everything in an instant. The undead were much closer now – they were solid shambling shapes that were sweeping towards us like a dark ragged tide. The helicopter was badly damaged. The whole underbelly of the craft seemed to have split wide open.
The tail section had broken off: it lay in the grass like a dismembered limb, and as I got closer, the ground became a series of deep troughs and furrows where the rotors had cleaved gouts out of the soft earth before splintering and breaking. I could see the cockpit door. It was hanging open – as if the lock had been sprung by the shattering impact as the helicopter crashed to the ground.

I ran faster.
Harrigan was at my shoulder. I was breathing hard from the effort, my nerves screwed up tight.

I saw Jed turn his head towards the approaching zombies, and then quickly back to us. He had the
Glock in his hand, resting it on a piece of the broken helicopter.

“Check the pilot,” he said urgently as we got nearer. “I’ll keep an eye on the bastards. When I start shooting, you’ll know it’s time to get the hell out of here.”

“Okay,” I gasped. It was all I had breath for. I felt the strain of fatigue in my shoulders and legs, and my lungs were burning from the effort. I went straight for the cockpit door. Jed turned back towards the zombie tide.

The door was crumpled
, and hanging at an angle off one broken hinge – but for all that, it was stuck. I hooked my hand inside the door and heaved. The door moved an inch or two – just far enough for me to see inside the dark cockpit. I could see the shape of the pilot. He was hunched against the straps of his safety harness, his head slumped forward, his arms limp at his side. He wasn’t moving.

“Clinton!” I shouted. The big man was close beside me. There was a sliding door behind the cockpit. It was buckled and folded into the wrecked fuselage. He turned to me, and his eyes were wide and panicked.
“Give me the crow-bar.”

I braced the bar against the door and heaved. The sound of rending, tearing metal was suddenly loud in the night. The door moved a couple of inches.
Harrigan elbowed me out of the way impatiently and hefted the bar. “Let me.”

I stood back, hands on my knees, and sucked in deep breaths. My lungs felt like they were on fire.

I heard Harrigan grunt and saw the strain contort his face as he put all of his weight against the door. It held for another long moment – and then groaned open, buckling in the center, as the thin metal peeled apart like opening a can.

He threw down the
crow-bar and wrapped his big hands around the door. It came all the way open in a final tear of metal and smashed back against the broken side of the machine.

I dived into the cockpit. The air was filled with the smell of gasoline and smoke. The control panel had been driven against the pilot’s legs and lower body by the impact of the collision. I glanced through the crazed, shattered Plexiglas
of the cockpit bubble. There were splashes of blood against the screen – and through it, I saw the nearest undead ghouls, approaching fast. I tore my eyes away and turned my attention back to the pilot.

He was wearing headphones. I snatched them off, and when I did
, the man’s head rolled heavily to the side. I felt under his jaw for a pulse, but my hands were shaking and my breath sawing so loudly, I couldn’t feel or hear anything. I slapped my hand hard against his chest and it came away wet and sticky.

Blood.
Oozing from a small hole in the man’s chest. I couldn’t see a lot in the gloomy darkness, but I used up a few precious seconds to explore the wound with my fingers before quickly moving on.

It took me a moment
to find the release locks on the pilot’s safety harness. The broken console of lights and gauges had been driven into his lap. I thumped the releases and the straps went loose. The man’s body slumped sideways against the far door of the cockpit. He didn’t move.

I turned back to
Harrigan. The big man’s face was framed in the wrecked opening. “He’s dead,” I said. “Dammit.”

Harrigan
seemed to deflate, like the last flickering light of hope had just been extinguished. He sagged against the side of the helicopter. I began to back quickly out of the cockpit. It was a cramped, tangled tomb and I was terrified by the smell of fuel. The helicopter was like a ticking time bomb.

I got
half-way out, my eyes fixed on the approaching undead, when I noticed a sudden movement in the corner of my eye. My head snapped round. Trapped behind the pilot’s seat within the fuselage of the crumpled machine were two other people.

A man and a girl.

The man was moving – moving his hand. It flopped on his lap in small desperate movements like a landed fish.

“Jesus!” I swore. And then I started to shout. “Are you okay? Can you hear me?”

I didn’t wait for any long-winded answers. The man’s hand flicked again, and I saw the girl beside him roll her head so that it slumped heavily to rest against the man’s shoulder. I backed out of the cockpit and shoved my face close to Harrigan’s.

“There’s two people in there – alive,” I said tensely.

Harrigan’s eyes widened in relief and shock. “Are you for real?”

I nodded my head. “They’re in the cabin. We’ve got to get the back door open.”

He grabbed my arm to stop me as I lunged for the sliding door. “Let me do it.”

Harrigan
attacked the door with the crow-bar, but when the helicopter had crashed, the closest side of the machine had taken the brunt of initial impact. The metal of the door had folded and creased within the frame of the dead machine, so that it was impossible to force it open. Harrigan looked at me heavily, and shook his head. “It won’t budge. I’m going to have to try the other side.”

I felt an instant surge of alarm. I looked up, past the sheltering shape of the helicopter and
the zombies were now much nearer. Maybe fifty paces. I could see them as clear figures; undead men and women moving hungrily closer through the grass, haloed by the red glow of the distant burning buildings on the hillside.

I loo
ked back at Harrigan and nodded. “I’ll come with you. Be quick about it.”

We skirted the broken tail sectio
n of the helicopter and ran around to the far side of the fuselage. I felt completely exposed – like hapless prey. Harrigan attacked the door with every last ounce of his remaining energy – and I went down on one knee and carefully aimed the Glock at the closest undead.

It was a man. He seemed taller than the others in the line. He was wearing some kind of a jacket. It seemed to hang off his lanky frame. His movements were jerky – as though his undead body was overcome by repeated convulsions. His head swayed from side to side and his arm and leg movements were awkward ungainly jerks, so that he looked like some kind of mechanical robot with bad wiring.

I aimed the pistol at the man’s head, remembering our earlier near-death encounter on the footpath. The gun felt heavy in my hands, and I could feel strain and tension in my shoulders, and all the way down to my wrist. I held the weapon steady, took a long deep breath – and waited.

Behind me Clinton
Harrigan was using words that Christians would never find in the Bible, of that I am sure. He cursed vehemently and I heard the clang of the crow-bar as he attacked the cabin door with the desperation of a man about to die. I heard a high-pitched squeal of metal against metal that set my teeth on edge.

“How are you going?” I shouted over my shoulder at
Harrigan without taking my eyes off the figure of the tall zombie approaching. I tried to keep my voice calm, but I had to shout over the sound of the drumming rain, and the God-awful thump that was my pounding, racing heart. My voice came out, sounding unnaturally loud in my ears, like a desperate squeak.

Har
rigan said nothing. I heard him grunt, and then he cursed again. I heard the crow-bar clang off metal.

I felt like I was kneeling under a spotlight. There was no shelter on this side of the helicopter – no shadow to hide in.
Harrigan and I were totally exposed by the glow of the distant fires. I stole a glance sideways to where Jed had taken position at the nose of the helicopter, but I couldn’t see him.

A sudden sense of isolation swept over me. I should have been able to see Jed. He had propped his gun arm on a piece of wreckage near the crumpled front-end of the helicopter. I felt a sudden sense of unease.

“Jed…?”

Nothing. No answer.

I called again, this time more urgently. “Jed.”

There was a
nother long moment of silence. I flicked my eyes back anxiously to the line of undead. They were just thirty yards away.

“Jed!”

I heard a scuffle of movement, and then my brother’s voice, tense and harsh from somewhere behind me. “Shut up, jerk weed, and get ready to drop the fuckers!”

I hear
d Harrigan groan and strain, like the sound a man makes when he lifts a great weight. The sound went on for long seconds – and then I heard a mighty slam of metal. Harrigan gave a ragged shout of triumph, and I couldn’t help myself – I turned back to stare at the helicopter.

Harrigan
was slumped against the broken fuselage of the craft, his chest heaving like a bellows, his face turned up into the rain and the storm, his eyes screwed tightly shut as though racked with some great pain.

Beside him
, the cabin door was open – a dark space that held our last hope of survival.

I stuffed the
Glock down the waistband of my jeans and turned back to the open cabin door. It was gloomy inside. The man was slumped against the mangled internal frame of the hull, leaning heavily against the safety strap of his safety belt. Beside him, was a teenage girl. She had dark hair. Her eyes were closed and her face was white as marble.

I
glanced at the man’s face. He was about my age – maybe a few years closer to forty. He was a big, broad-shouldered man wearing a dark suit. His face was wide, his features unremarkable. He had a buzz-cut hairstyle, shaved very short so that my first impression was that he could easily be military. He had that look about him. I reached for his face and cupped my hand under his jaw to feel for a pulse. As I did, the man’s eyes flicked open, bright and clear and sharp. He blinked at me – and then made a slow, low groaning sound. His hand came from his lap to feel for a bump I saw on his forehead that was the size of a golf ball. I gently trapped his hand and eased it back to his side.

“You’re okay,” I said with conviction I did not feel
. I wasn’t a doctor. I had no medical training at all – but it seemed like the right thing to say, and I doubted there was any point in telling the man otherwise. It wasn’t going to make any difference…

He stared at me for long seconds, his expression blank, but I sensed there was plenty going on behind his dark eyes. The lump on his head was swelling and turning dark red. I thumped the release catch on his safety belt.

“Do you think you can move?”

The man nodded – and then winced painfully. He turned his head very slowly, as though it were some fragile precious thing made of delicate glass. “Check Millie,” the man said. His voice was croaky. He licked his lips, and then said in an unnaturally loud voice, “she’s my daughter.”

I nodded. The man leaned himself aside and I reached across him. As the man adjusted his position, the girl’s head rolled from his shoulder, and I caught her cheek in the palm of my hand. Her skin was smooth, her face warm. I eased her head back against the padding of the seat and felt for a pulse: faint and racing, fluttering under the soft flesh of her jawline.

“She’s alive,” I declared. “But I need you out of here so I can help her. Understand?”

The man nodded again – this time very carefully. I heaved myself back out of the mangled wreckage and the man reached for my shoulder to support his weight. He groaned painfully, and I felt his big fingers dig into the muscles of my forearm. I reached out with my free hand to help him and he came out of the helicopter into the pouring rain on shaky, unsteady legs.

I left him.

I leaned back into the helicopter and perched myself awkwardly on the narrow bench seat beside the girl. I was soaking wet. Rain dripped from my hair and my face, and my fingers were stiff and trembling from the cold. She was dressed in jeans and a dark sweater. I reached for the girl’s arms and moved them slowly and carefully. Then I ran my hands all the way down to her wrists, feeling for anything that might be broken. She was wearing some kind of a chunky, decorative bracelet. I saw her eyelids flutter. I reached for her legs and felt from her ankle to her knee, squeezing each one gently and watching the girl’s face for a reaction.