Mortal: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (3 page)

“Multiple bird strikes,” answered Cross.

Hicks was stirring now. He shook his head side to side and
instinctively ran his hands over his extremities, checking his bones and joints
for fractures.

Hicks looked over at Cade. “How long have I been out?” he
asked.

“Just a few minutes, I think,” replied Cade.

“Did Ari and Durant make it?” Hicks pressed.

“Durant bought it,” answered Cade. “Ari’s lapsing in and out
of consciousness.”

“Fire?”

“Not yet,” said Cade. “Ari took measures.”

Hicks inched up his visor. “Radios?”

“I’m sure the shipboard comms are down,” Cade said. “I
already tried the general’s sat-phone ... it won’t power on. And mine’s in my
ruck ... if we can locate it in all this mess.”

Trying to take this all in, Hicks closed his eyes for a
beat. When he reopened them he popped his harness, bent down and shimmied past
the debris and into the cockpit.

Cade called out, reminding the crew chief to steer clear of
Durant. Then he checked Gaines’s pulse again. It was very weak and fading.
Gently he eased up on the compress. He dug around in the medical bag and
brought out a syringe filled with morphine, and set it aside. “I need another
bandage,” he grunted as he reapplied pressure to the grievous wound.

A few seconds after Hicks disappeared into the cockpit he
slithered back out, clutching Ari’s emergency radio. He powered it on and
started sending a silent distress signal which would be picked up by either an
overhead satellite, nearby aircraft—or hopefully a combination of both. Then he
tried to hail Jedi One-Two on the emergency dust-off band.
Nothing.
“Looks like there’ll be no dust-off bird for the general,” he said, slumping
against the bulkhead.

 “No dust-off,” Lopez added morosely.

Cross ripped open another clean compress and pressed it next
to the one Cade was holding. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “If I know
President Clay like I think I do ... we’re secondary. She’ll push for the scientists’
safe return before diverting any assets to look for us.”

“As will Nash and Shrill. They have to. The anti-serum is
more important than any one man. That means we’re on our own for now, boys,”
Cade replied. Then he went on and filled the operators in on all that they had
missed while unconscious.

“Mierda,” said Lopez. “Tice is dead?”

Cade looked down and bobbed his head. He unsheathed his
Gerber and, with short precise strokes, sliced through the first half dozen
laces on his left boot which was still inextricably wedged under the general’s
extremely mangled seat frame. He gazed up at Jasper, who, from where he sat,
had a clean view into the cockpit and the cabin. “How’s Durant now?” he asked
through clenched teeth as he twisted and pulled on his leg until finally it
corkscrewed free.

Jasper disappeared for a second and then returned and said, “He’s
in-between
.”

“Do you mean he’s dead but hasn’t reanimated yet?”

“That’s my opinion,” answered Jasper.

Adjusting his grip on the blood-soaked plug of gauze, Cross
said, “Gaines is slipping away now too.”

“Shit ... shit, shit,” chanted Ari from the right seat. “If
Durant turns I
need
to be the one who puts him down. I
promised
him as much.”

“Ari, pull it together,” barked Cade. “Save the worrying for
later. That is an
order
.”

Ari muttered, “All my fault ... it was all my fault. Durant
and now the general.” He uttered a flurry of expletives, unplugged his flight
helmet, and fast-balled it through the cockpit glass. It bounced a few times
and then, without warning, the sky went dark. All eyes looked skyward as the
beating of feathered wings announced the return of the raptors responsible for
downing the Ghost Hawk. After squawking ardent displeasure at having their
mealtime disrupted, some of the birds lit on the downed chopper while the
majority sank their talons into the town folks from Draper and resumed picking away
at their festering corpses.

“Didn’t take them long,” said Lopez. “Pinche mirlos.”

Returning his attention to Gaines, Cade checked his friend’s
neck for a pulse.
Nothing
. Then he grasped the general’s forearm,
ruffled up his ACU sleeve, and searched his broad wrist for a radial pulse.
Still
nothing
. He looked around the cabin, met everyone’s gaze for a tick, and
then said quietly, “Gaines is gone.”

Cross removed his hands from the wound below the general’s
body armor and immediately a loop of pinkish intestine wormed out, followed by
a torrent of crimson blood which only lasted until the dead man’s blood
pressure fully ebbed—a couple of seconds at most.

Wasting no time, Cade unlaced Gaines’s left boot which had
to be two or maybe even three sizes too big for him. He worked it off and slid his
foot inside, where he could feel his size-nine swimming inside. He cinched the
desert-tan boot tightly, looped the laces around twice above his swollen ankle,
and then tucked the extra deep down inside. He wiggled his toes and realized
that he would—literally and figuratively—never fill the general’s boots.
Good
to go
.

Jasper banged his palm on the fuselage, getting everyone’s
attention. “The dead are here,” he said in a funereal voice. “And we’re nearly
surrounded.”

Looking up at the undertaker, Cade said, “I need you inside
here and
everyone
needs to remain quiet and out of sight.”

Feeling a bit like a Jack in the Box, Jasper lowered himself
back into the crowded crew compartment where, standing upright looked to be a
difficult endeavor under normal circumstances, let alone with the floor nearly
vertical, while rubbing elbows with four fully outfitted soldiers.

Cade adjusted the tiny voice-activated throat mike, powered
it on, and said “Mike check.”

“Good copy,” replied Cross.

The other two men made eye contact, nodded silent affirmatives
of their own.

After tightening his MOLLE gear, Cade cycled a round into
the M4. He felt blindly for the reassuring outline of his Gerber combat dagger,
then patted the holstered Glock 17 riding low on his left thigh—both automatic rituals
he’d performed a million times before going
down range
. He looked at the
men who were leaning and sitting on any flat surface available. Lopez, who was
now fully conscious, was wedged tight into a nook worn smooth from seeing its
fair share of combat boots.

Brandishing the compact MP7, Agent Cross stood next to Hicks,
both of their helmets close to brushing the starboard mini-gun. The President’s
man appeared confident, albeit a little jittery—no doubt itching to get out
into the open and
get some
. Hicks was his usual stoic self—red-rimmed eyes
staring out from under the flight helmet’s retracted visor.

Cade set his gaze on Ronnie’s body. Inexplicably, the general’s
eyes were now open, and his skin had gone ashen—a dingy gray pallor—like a
chalkboard in need of a thorough cleaning. His face was waxen and had started
to slacken, the flagging skin forming jowls beside his dangling chin straps. Cade
looked away and muttered a few choice expletives under his breath.
This unfortunate
event is going to do a number on Ari
, he thought to himself. First a murder
of birds had ruined their day, and now he could hear the Zs’ raspy hissing
rising above the steady thrum of beating wings cutting the air. A couple of
beats later, he opened his eyes as the hungry throng began raking their nails
along the craft’s outer skin, sending spine-tingling scratching noises echoing
through the cabin.

Schriever AFB

Colorado Springs, Colorado

All conversation in the mess hall ceased as a group of
outsiders
,
undoubtedly just released from quarantine, filed in ahead of their handlers—a
pair of stern-faced soldiers who had been given the unenviable task of
chaperoning the haggard civilians about the base. They passed out aluminum
trays to the men and women who were standing in a ragged line, fidgeting and casting
furtive glances about the dining area. Bathed in the blue-tinged light thrown
from humming overhead tubes, the avocado-green institutional-style chairs and faux
wood grain on the table tops lent the Schriever mess hall all of the charm of
an inner-city hospital cafeteria.

With the late night chow line attack fresh on her mind,
Sasha cast a worried look at the forming queue and sank into the molded plastic
seat. She tore her gaze away momentarily and hissed under her breath at Wilson,
who was busily shoveling gravy-soaked bread into his maw. She repeated his name
three times, and when he finally acknowledged her she added a rapidly recurring
nod that looked more like some kind of spasmodic episode than a gesture
imploring her brother to take in the unsettling sight.

Pretending for a moment that he hadn’t seen her unwitting
Arnold Horshack impersonation, he finished chewing the mouthful of food and
then nonchalantly looked over his shoulder at the newcomers. “So what Sash,” he
replied, shooting her a quizzical look. “Not long ago that was us.”

“You think they’re
infected?
” she whispered without
taking her wide-eyed gaze from them.

“Every single one of them are. I’m
sure
of it,” said
Taryn, causing Sasha to visibly shudder. The tanned and toned brunette had been
standing and watching the procession from a blind spot directly behind the
redheaded siblings. She winked across the table at Raven while avoiding eye
contact with Brook, who didn’t seem to be onboard with the juvenile behavior.
Then she leaned in between Sasha and Wilson, her long black hair brushing
across both of their backs and added, “I’m sorry Sasha. I was just pulling your
chain since your brother here won’t reciprocate. What’s that phrase that I’m
searching for?”

“I’m sure it will come to you,” said Sasha, straightening up
in her seat.

“What goes around comes around,” Taryn said, adding a wan
smile.

“So there’s
no
chance of one of them turning?” asked
Sasha, ignoring the earlier comment and casting a skeptical look over her
shoulder.

“
None
,” answered Taryn. “If those people received
half of the
welcome aboard
treatment I did, there’s a good chance they
might be
brainwashed
... but surely they are not
infected
.” She
skirted the table and placed her tray next to Raven’s, and as a smitten Wilson
stared across the table at her, trapped her hair at the nape of her neck with
both hands and deftly secured it into a snakelike ponytail with half a dozen
black hair ties.

“What
exactly
do you mean by brainwashed?” Wilson
asked, as feelings of insecurity and inadequacy bubbled to the surface.
Maybe
she had been brainwashed
, his magical magnifying mind needled as the
molehill grew exponentially into a monument to worry and despair.

Meeting Wilson’s gaze, Taryn reached across the table and
took his hand in hers. Instantly his face flushed hot, the visible cues to her
effect on him concealed beneath his already sunburned dermis. Then his heart
started hammering, wanting to leap from his chest. He was certain she could
hear its telltale thumping in the nearly empty mess hall. “I’m OK,” she said
with a quick smile. “And I think it’s so sweet that you’re concerned about me.”

“What did they do to welcome you aboard?” asked Raven,
shattering the Harlequin moment.

Conscious of the fact that Brook was staring in her direction,
Taryn released Wilson’s hand, sat back and crafted her answer carefully. “A thorough
strip search followed by a thousand and one questions,” she said slowly. “And
then they asked me a hundred more questions about someone I didn’t know. At
first I thought they were believing the stories in the tabloids and were
searching for the
real
Elvis.” She winked at Wilson, throwing more fuel
on the twenty-year-old’s smoldering desire. “I almost told them he was
cashiering at the K-Mart in Denver but thought better of it—because my captors had
guns.”

Taking this literally, Raven said, “Twelve hours straight of
nothing but listening to someone like my dad talking about
old
music. No
thanks.” Then she realized which
Elvis
her new friend was referring to,
went silent, and returned her attention to the
food
on the plate in
front of her.

The flock of newcomers, trays filled with something brown
concocted with unknown ingredients into something barely edible, filtered past
and commandeered a number of tables nearby.

Brook regarded the people with a look filled more with pity
than fear. Still, she nudged her tray toward the center of the table and
retrieved the battle-scarred M4 carbine from the shiny linoleum floor.

Earlier in the day she and Raven had passed by another
contingent of refugees from Pueblo. The group, numbering somewhere north of
twenty, had been standing in the beating sun near the parade grounds, their
thousand-yard stares fixed on the red-faced airman who was busily pointing to
the areas where they were welcome while issuing stern warnings and singling out
the places that were
verboten
—completely off limits to civilians.

To Brook, the whole affair smacked more of a prison
induction than the assimilation of American citizens—survivors of what might be
mankind’s extinction level event—onto an air base just outside the new capitol
of the United States of America.
Thanks Elvis
, she’d thought at the
time. Just like Bin Laden had been to America before the raid in Pakistan—Elvis
was to Schriever now. He was the
new
boogeyman. Gone, but not really
gone
.
Kids whispered his name without a clue as to who the man was, what he looked
like, or who his namesake had been. The perception of safety afforded by the
high fences and armed men and women of Schriever had been shattered by the
attacks that had taken place on the base during the past week, and short of the
public execution of the man who some people feared still lurked in the shadows,
this palpable sense of vulnerability would continue to be the
new normal
.