Slow Burn: A Zombie Novel (37 page)

We pulled up to the safe zone and while we were waiting for the gate to be opened, Mattie looked over and asked, “So what are we going to do?”

“
Not much we can do, Mattie,” I replied. “Adam knew the risks. It’s not our fault he looked at it all like it was a game, and now he’s paid the price for doing so.”

She didn’t reply, just nodded her head that she understood, which was just as well because I was mad and itching for an argument.

Pulling up to our parking spot I saw a group fast walking our way and figured I was going get my argument after all. Councilman Lewis, Sgt. Henderson, and a few of his cronies were headed right for us. No sooner had I killed the engine and began climbing out of the truck did the scrawny fuck start in on me.

“
You have violated safe zone protocol!” Lewis yelled. “You were not given authorization to leave this compound, and you chose to do so and even strong-armed my command post driver into going with you!” Lewis paused to look at each of us that had gathered around and then asked, “Speaking of my driver, where is he?”

“
Adam was bitten during the raid. He is dead, or soon will be at any rate,” I replied.

Lewis’ eyes bugged out with rage. “Dead? And what do you mean by dead ‘soon’?”

I was grinding my teeth, resisting the urge to punch this little prick. “Adam ran off after he was bitten, and I imagine since he was infected, he’s turned into one of the zombies by now.”

Lewis laughed contemptuously. “So you’re telling me that first you ignored my orders and left the safe zone when told not to, you forced my command post driver to go with you on an unsanctioned looting expedition, then you let him get bitten and left him behind to die a horrible death alone. Did I get that right, officer?”

Now my blood pressure was up and the cracking of my knuckles as they were clenched into fists must have alerted Mattie, for she stepped in between me and the skinny bastard. With her placing a hand on my chest to stop my soon to be violent action, she looked at Lewis.

“
Mr. Lewis, we went on this raid because the food and water supply you have here is beginning to get dangerously low,” Mattie said calmly. “We didn’t do it out of malevolence for your orders. We did it for the people that are fighting for survival here. If you think we have offended you, we apologize.”

Mattie’s heartfelt apology seemed to take the fire out of Lewis, and he visibly calmed down. Plus he didn’t really know what “malevolence” meant.

“
Well then,” he said smugly, “I accept your apology, Mattie. I just wish the crew you associated with could be as civilized as you. Please do not allow this to happen again. Now get that food to the cafeteria.”

With that said, Lewis turned and stalked away with his entourage dogging his footsteps.

Stephen broke the silence. “Okay gang, let’s get this shit unloaded and relax a bit before we have guard duty again.”

We began unloading the much needed supplies, and discussed what we would do when this began to run low as well.

“
Things better improve around here, and quick,” I told Stephen as we worked. “Cause as it stands I would rather take my chances alone than be bossed around by some fucking idiot playing politics with people’s lives.”

“
I hear ya, brother,” Stephen replied with a laugh. “And you think that asshole is mad now, wait till he finds out I have a dog.”

Almost on cue I watched that fat beagle of Stephen’s hop into the back of the truck and start sniffing around for his next meal.

Everyone had a much needed chuckle.

The next several days passed without much backlash from Councilman Lewis or Sgt. Henderson. In fact, we rarely ever saw them; they seemed content to stay hidden away in their offices. We were able to fall into a somewhat normal routine and finally get a chance at some down time. However,
what was shaping up to be my first lazy afternoon in quite some time came to an end with the sound of a low flying aircraft, a helicopter from the sound of it. I had intended to read for a bit but soon found myself nodding off. I opened my eyes and sat up from the fancy lounge chair that sat near the back of our ambulance.

“
Haven’t seen many aircraft the last couple of days,” Stephen remarked. He got up from his chair and placed the pistol he was cleaning on the table. “Especially one this low, I wonder what’s up.”

The aircraft soon came into sight from the northeast, low and fast on the horizon, as if they were landing in a hot combat zone. Stephen and I stared at the huge black helicopter as it passed directly overhead, made a quick circle, and then descended onto an empty portion of the school’s football field at the southwestern edge of the safe zone. The makeshift LZ was awash in a flurry of wind and noise when the helicopter touched down hard and bounced roughly before coming to a rest. A few moments later we heard the turbine engine slow as the power was turned off.

“
That is a fucking Blackhawk,” Stephen remarked as we watched. “Those bad boys are forty-four million dollars of awesomeness.”

“
No doubt, bro,” I replied as we headed their direction. “But I wonder why they came in so hard.”

Unfortunately, the welcome squad of Lewis and his cronies had a head start on us, since we were clear on the other side of the safe zone. While we ran across the parking lot towards the football field, I heard Stephen mumbling something about a mini-gun and 2,000 plus rounds per minute rate of fire. That guy talks about guns like I do about NFL cheerleaders.

By the time we made it over to the football field, there was already a considerable crowd. Lewis had corralled the ranking officer and pilot of the four man crew and looked like he was trying to impress the man with his own self-worth.

Stephen only had eyes for the black painted machine still cooling on the grass and made his way towards it like a man who found a $100 bill lying on the ground.

“
Look, Mike,” Stephen said loudly. “It has the M134 mini-gun I was telling you about!”

“
That’s nice,” I replied, not even paying attention as I walked up to one of the crew chiefs who had just climbed out of the helicopter.

“
Hey there, the name’s Mike,” I said offering my hand in greeting. “What brings you guys to our own little piece of Hell?”

The crew chief took his flight helmet off, wiped the sweat off his face and then shook my hand.

“
Pleased to meet you,” he responded. “Griffin. We had no choice but to put down here. We’ve been running on fumes, and I didn’t know if we would even make it in.”

Stephen, who was drooling over the large door gun, looked up in confusion.

“
These things have like a thousand mile range, how’d you run dry?”

Griffin gave a little laugh. “Yeah, we’ve been running missions all day. Our formation has been pulling air cover for a large military convoy headed east from Chicago and we got back to our base in just enough time to watch it get overrun. Luckily for us we were the last bird to put down. The rest of our formation was already on the ground and when the base was swarmed by the infected, the civilian refugees stormed the helicopters on the ground and they were unable to take off. It was a total clusterfuck man.”

We could see from the look in the crew chief’s eyes that he had just gone through hell, and neither of us knew how to respond for a few seconds.

“
Damn… that sucks,” Stephen finally said. “What base did you say it was?”

“
We’d been operating out of the Great Lakes Naval Base,” the crew chief responded, snapping out of his daze. “It was supposed to be a stronghold for the Midwest, a place to run operations out of, but it never really got off the ground. There were just too many civilians who showed up out of Chicago and Milwaukee, and not enough manpower or weapons to protect them. We lost a lot of men trying to enforce a city-wide quarantine around Chicago. The refugee camp around the base rivaled one from Zimbabwe or something. It was a classic case of poor planning on all sides.”

“
So what brings you our way?” I asked, offering the crew chief a dip from the can of Copenhagen I had secured in my back pocket.

“
It wasn’t our first choice,” he replied, helping himself to a large dip. “We attempted to refuel at O’Hare Airport, but that was already a dead zone. What wasn’t completely destroyed by fire was overwhelmed by panicked people fighting to get airborne. We had a list of Homeland Security sanctioned safe zones and this was the farthest one from the city we could get to within our fuel range.”

“
What is the sit-rep on the status of the rest of the country?”

Griffin looked at me questioningly. “You sound like you are ex-military.” I nodded my head. “This thing caught us with our pants down. We went all in trying to contain the spread of this virus or whatever it is to the big cities. Before we knew what happened our units were being chewed up all over the place. The surviving units were ordered back to base and the last word we got seemed to indicate a major withdraw and consolidation. I’m not sure yet to what extent or where.”

As I was about to curse, Stephen butted into the conversation by calling out from the helicopter door, “So… how does mini-gun work? It fires a .308 round right?”

“
Forget about him,” I said with a chuckle. “He’s like a kid in a candy store right now. Any advice on what our next move should be?”

Griffin chuckled. “Yeah… you could all pack up and head for the hills. If you can’t do that then you really need to go to ground. Stay low and out of sight. The military is not going to be of much help for a while and these infected bastards are a tough foe. Which brings me to a question of my own; do you have any idea where we could refuel our bird? We are trying to get to the Capital Airport Air Station outside of Springfield. We know they still have an operating airfield and had been reinforced by some ground units. They have the logistics and whatnot to get this bird back into the fight.”

I was about to answer when a loud volume of yelling behind me cut me off. Turning, I saw that it was the pilot who was now yelling at Lewis.

“
Listen here you idiot,” he barked. “I barely made it here as it was and I need to refuel now! I’m not going to take you on a tour of your city in my Blackhawk so you can get a birds-eye view from above. Take a look around, jerkoff! It all looks the same at ground level!”

Lewis’ face went red with embarrassment and rage, “You can’t say that to m—”

“
I just did!” the captain cut in. “I saw a lot of good men die today, and I need to get back into the fight!”

He turned left and right, looking around at those that had gathered. “Now once again, I need to get some fuel… who here can help me get some? I need men of action, not some politician who is acting like he is running for office!”

“
I like this guy,” I whispered to Stephen, who nodded his head in approval.

Seizing the moment, I stepped forward. “I can take you folks to the airport a few miles from here. There should be aviation fuel you could use there.”

“
That’s absolutely out of the question!” Lewis yelled. “There’s to be no further looting until I receive direction from the office of Homeland Security!”

The pilot, whose nametag read Pickens, ignored Lewis and looked back at me. “How long will this take?”

“
I’m not too sure,” I replied. “We haven’t been able to scout that far as of late, but it is only a few miles.”

“
Sounds good,” Pickens replied. “I’ll send Griffin with you to secure the fuel while the rest of my crew and I go over the rest of our aircraft. I want to be airborne again ASAP.”

“
Yes sir!” Griffin responded with a salute.

The pilot seemed to understand that he had to keep Lewis occupied and somewhat happy, so he asked for a quick tour of the facility, and as they walked off he began asking Sgt. Henderson about the level of security at the safe zone.

Griffin grabbed his gear for the raid, and I called over to him, “Follow me to our ambulance. That’s where my crew has been staying.”

“
Your crew? How much manpower you got?” Griffin asked.

“
A few of us have banded together,” I replied. “Wait till you meet Mattie. We were all cops and Stephen here was a bit of a survivalist, which has come in quite handy.”

That is when I realized Stephen wasn’t with me. Looking back, I saw that he was again finger fucking the massive gun fastened to the side of the helicopter.

“
Stephen… let go of the machine gun and get your ass ready for a raid!”

Stephen’s hands jerked away from the mini-gun like he had been burned. He quickly caught up to me and at least had the decency to look embarrassed. During our walk, I learned that Griffin and I had a few things in common, our both being stationed at Ft. Riley in the service for one.

It didn’t take us long to prepare since we were always ready to evacuate on a moment’s notice. I introduced him to Dan, Chris and Mattie, who were going to be assisting on the raid as well. Sure enough, Mattie had him eating out of her hand after a few short words and a seductive laugh.