Six Feet From Hell: Crisis (5 page)

CHAPTER 4

The snow was starting to come down steadily, not hard, but steady.
The gray overhead looked as if it was going to be a bad one as well. There hadn’t been any more broadcasts from the weatherman; Curtis was still scanning for him as Joe and his team left. Ogre had the bird churning and ready to go as they got in and secured themselves and their gear. The chopper’s heating was a nice welcome, but still couldn’t cut through the chill in Joe’s bones when he thought of what would happen when he and Wyatt met face-to-face again. Joe knew that the crazy fucker had something up his sleeve. Maybe he had finally gone completely off the reservation after being away from any tether of command or authority for so long. He had gone off grid after the first few days of the apocalypse, God only knew what could happen when he was given free reign for a couple years.

“So what are we gonna do for these people,
Dad?” Despite Rick’s calm demeanor, Joe could tell he wasn’t the same confident man that had been ready to go at a moment’s notice just a few hours before.

Joe shuffled in his seat and keyed up his commo.
“We are gonna provide fire support as much as we can, but no boots on the ground if we can help it.”

Rick frowned.
“Then why do we have to go? Can’t we just let Ogre take care of it?”

“Well
, if the shit hits the fan or anything else goes down, we gotta be there,” Joe replied. “Don’t worry, dude. Most of the time these paramilitary douchebags run like hell when they see us coming. They know who the boss is around here. That being said, there are some dangerous fuckers out there and we don’t take ‘em lightly, so don’t you either.”

Rick
sat back, absorbing his father’s advice. He’d had his fair share of dangerous fuckers. He had spent plenty of time on the
Southern Hospitality
under the care of people of ill repute. The local sheriff (such as he was – a retired cop) had his hands full trying to keep the peace in general, let alone trying to arrest, prosecute, and punish. There were some good people that knew right from wrong, but under the circumstances they were outnumbered and silenced. Even if there were any repercussions for the accused, they were unable to be properly punished. Good people became bitter people, and bitter people became bad people. It was a vicious cycle.

* * *

The flight from Camp Dawson was largely uneventful. The weather kept up a steady clip of snow showers and squalls, a few times taking the visibility from Ogre and causing him to slow their progress into Lexington.

As they got within the last twenty miles or so of the metropolitan area of Lexington, the numbers of undead began increasing exponentially.
They first began as a trickle. The trickle turned into a stream, the stream turned into a river, and the river turned into a deluge of undead.

“Two minutes,” Ogre said as he keyed up the mic.
Snow spattered the windshield. It was times like these that Ogre missed the Coast Guard choppers he’d piloted before. The Yankee was a fine piece of equipment, but no comparison to the Seahawk that had been his previous ride. After fifteen years in the service of the Coast Guard, Ogre was prepared for damn near anything. The equipment made the mission and the man, however. The Yankee was considerably smaller than what he'd used before. It was more agile and less bulky. He never regretted his decision to join up with Joe and the ZBRA team; he just wished that he'd had more to choose from as far as birds go.

Joe rapped on his own helmet and got the attention of the rest of his troupe.
He held up two fingers and tapped his own M4. Each man gave thumbs up and checked their own weapon. A series of clacks sounded as bolts went forward. The noise went largely unnoticed as the steady whir of the chopper’s blades drowned out nearly all sound.

Ogre took the UH-1Y lower and began to size up the
ir opponents. The armament that they had on board would take care of most of the zombies below, but there were more and more of the infected flowing into the city. Ogre banked and looked down off to his left and shook his head.

“We got a hell of a lot of dead fuckers down there.
I’m gonna get us slowed down until we get a good sight on the outpost. My guess is that we follow all these assholes until we see what they are goin’ towards.” Ogre pulled back on the Yankee and slowed the chopper to a near hover.

The steady influx of undead became more agitated as the Yankee came into view of the outpost in Lexington.
Scrawny, sinewy arms reached up to the chopper as it came to a hover. The Lexington outpost looked as if it could hold back an entire army of undead. The walls that made up the outskirts of the fortress were comprised of a mismatch of semi-trailers and train cars. Heavy and nearly immobile, the train cars looked as if they could easily sustain the push of undead.

The zombies that were making an assault on the structure were relentless.
The stench of the undead was relentless as well. Joe got up, slid the door open on the Yankee, and got his first look at the teeming masses below. He pulled his balaclava over his mouth and tried to breathe through it.

“Good
Lord! I never get used to that stank-ass smell!” Joe said, shaking his head.

Rick did the same with his balaclava, attempting to block out the violently offensive odor.
“I’ve never seen that many together at once! How often do you guys have to take out this many of them?”

“More often than you’d think.
Think of ‘em like a rolling snowball. Once one or two of ‘em start moving about, they run into others. After that they run into more and more until you end up with this,” Chris said as he pointed out the mass of disgusting, ravenous ghouls below them. “One turns into two, two turns into four, four turns into sixteen. You get the idea.” Chris grabbed the GAU-17/A Minigun on the starboard side of the helicopter and checked the weapon, spinning up the barrels to make sure it was ready.

Joe did the same on the other
Minigun, the electric whir of barrels signifying that it was ready to fire. He swung the massive gun and eyed their targets.

Ogre brought the chopper down closer to the horde of zombies while he keyed the radio.
He scanned all frequencies for the survivors at the outpost. As he fiddled with the radio and repeated his long-used hailing of “
ZBRA Unit to any survivor at the outpost, we are currently engaging, please reply.”
He scanned back and forth in front of him as well. He was briefly taken aback. There was normally some signs of life at an outpost; some had fires going, some would signal with smoke, and some even had enough electricity to use floodlights. What he noticed here was the absence of all those indicators. There were no suggestions that anyone was outside.

From what little information they had, there should have been at least three hundred people at the outpost.
Even now as humanity had tried to rebuild, there still would not be many people inhabiting an outpost. Three hundred was considered large. In a small town of a thousand individuals, there would be less than twenty left. In a former city of two hundred thousand, you would be lucky to find two hundred.

“Something’s wrong here, boys.
I'm not getting anything on the radio and there’s no home fires burnin’ down there. I say that we bug outta here before…” Ogre was cut off mid-sentence as he saw the first flash of light below.

“RPG!”
Ogre screamed as he abruptly rotated the chopper one-hundred-eighty degrees, barely missing the rocket-propelled projectile.

The chopper rocked back and forth for a brief few seconds.
Jamie, Rick, and Balboa were tossed forward, their weapons clattering against the metal floor. Joe and Chris kept their firm grips on the GAU-17/A Miniguns and managed to stay in the chopper, barely.

“What the hell was that?”
Balboa hollered as he tried to right himself and grab his wayward M4 off the floor.

Small arms fire began to pelt the sides and underbody of the Yankee as it swayed back and forth.
The telltale whistle of another RPG rocket got closer as it whizzed by the helicopter and flew less than fifty feet away from the Yankee.

Joe swung the
Minigun back and forth quickly. “Where the hell are those coming from? Anybody got eyes on it?”

“Looks like top right, about one o’clock!
Put some hurt on that area!” Ogre said as he stabilized the chopper and gave Chris’ side a clear field of fire.

“Ain’t gotta tell me twice!”
Chris spun up the barrels on the Minigun and let rounds rip out. The intermittent
brrrrrrp
sound was deafening from the gun as it pelted a small three-story structure. Bits of brick and glass flew from the building as Chris continued to pulverize it with rounds.

“We need to get some space from here!
Get us out of here, Ogre!” Joe screamed over the din of the engine and the rapid-fire Minigun.

Joe began firing the other
Minigun as Ogre swung the chopper to the right. Joe’s side was now facing the target building. Chris ceased his fire on the structure and Joe picked up where he’d left off, obliterating the brick building and spraying the area around it with hot lead.

Ogre banked hard, put the nose of the chopper down, and started to pull away from the area.
Joe pulled back on firing the GAU-17/A and was about to step back into the relative safety of the bird when he saw another flash of light, this one from a different angle.

And it looked like this one wasn’t going to miss.

“RPG! RPG! Ogre watch…”

The RPG round came flying from b
ehind them, making a beeline towards the Yankee.

“OH SHIT!”
Joe screamed as the rocket round clipped the tail rotor. The impact slammed the tail up and flung everyone forward, except Ogre. He tried to keep the chopper airborne as the rotor clanged around, damaged beyond repair. Smoke billowed from the rear of the chopper as during Ogre’s futile attempts to keep the back from spinning around. The tail section spewed forth hydraulic fluid.

“Shit!
Shit! Shit!” Ogre cursed as he fought the stick back and forth, while at the same time manipulating the pedals of the bird. “It’s no good, boys! We’re goin’ down! Brace for impact!”

Jamie and Balboa had managed to pull themselves up and get back in their seats before the RPG round hit, while Rick had been watching over his father’s shoulder during the firefight.
Rick had been thrown back, landing roughly on his shoulder, knocking the wind out of him and nearly knocking him out. Joe had managed to fall a little more gracefully, planting his ass firmly down on the hard metal flooring of the bird.

Chris was thrown off his perch on the
Minigun as well. His feet came off the ground as the chopper pitched forward and he instinctively grabbed the Minigun to catch himself. The gun fought back, still hot from the tremendous amount of firing. That fact was not lost on Chris as the searing heat burned him on his hands and arms. The skin sizzled and ripped from his arms as he spun around and grabbed the barrel, desperate to hang on, his feet dangling over the abyss.

“AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH FUUUUUUCK!”
Chris screamed as the barrel seared his hands.

“Hang on, buddy!”
Joe hollered. He swiftly moved forward to aid his friend. Chris continued screaming as the world below him rocked back and forth, swinging and spinning out of control. Chris’ stomach lurched as the searing pain and the dizzying spectacle below made him nauseated. He looked up to see Joe coming towards him with an outstretched arm.

“Grab my hand!”

Chris tried moving his left hand away from the barrel, and in the process tore the skin from his hand. A sick handprint was left on the Minigun’s barrel as he tore it away. He screamed in pain as he desperately reached for Joe’s hand. He gripped the hot barrel with his right hand even tighter as he tried to reach out.

Joe got down on his stomach and grabbed Chris’ outstretched hand. The burnt skin had sloughed off and Joe found himself grabbing a slick, bloody appendage. Joe grabbed Chris’ arm with his other hand, letting go of what little grip he had on the chopper. He needed to save his friend, and he needed to do it quickly. He yanked Chris’ arm – hard. Chris hollered in pain from the burns on his hands and arms and now from the fact that his left shoulder was dislocated. Joe jerked him into the body of the chopper and instructed him to grab on to whatever he could.

Then Joe turned his attention to Rick. He grabbed him under the armpits and snatched him up, amazed at how light he felt. The adrenaline coursed through Joe’s veins, giving the impression of near-superhuman strength. Joe thought absently about how bad he was going to feel in the morning.

If we make it until morning.
Another absent thought passed by.

Balboa and Jamie both sat on the same side of the bird and grabbed Rick as Joe helped him up.
Rick was dazed, but managed to get his feet under him to get in the seat. Jamie and Balboa secured him as best they could as the chopper tilted back and forth. Ogre was not going to be able to save it, much to the dismay of the team.

The chopper’s tail rotor finally gave way and the Yankee
continued its uncontrolled spin. Several rounds still pelted the chopper as it gyrated out of control, adding insult to injury. The UH-1Y flailed through the sky as the rest of the hydraulic fluid sprayed from the rear. Ogre had all but given up on the bird, and was desperately trying to brace himself for impact.