"I
t’
s not your friends
I’
m talking about
,”
he said, then paused
.“
You don't kno
w…
?" The old man sneered, laughing from his belly now.
"Ok, I'll bite. Know what? Who won't respond? Wh
o’
s abandoned us?" Kyle asked with a growing scowl across his face.
"They built a wall. Nobody comes in, nobody goes out."
"Comes in where? Drop the riddles, old man, or I'll give you a matching crack across the other side of your head." Kyle was losing his patience.
I could still hear Jarvis in the background "Kin
g’
s Landin
g…
" No response.
"They left us here to rot, severed from the rest of the country like a festering wound. There is no help coming. We're alone now. You're alone now."
"Who?" I demanded. Now
my
patience was starting to dwindle.
"New America, of course."
Letting it hang there in the air while Kyle and I looked at each other, the old man finally said, "Ahhh, I can see it in your faces. You know what I'm talking about. That's right. New America - those bastards stopped broadcasting. You know it as well as me."
Coughing again and wiping his cheek across his shoulder, which added a fresh streak of blood along his orange stripe, he smiled.
"They boxed us out, built a wall using the natural barriers of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Whole Eastern seaboard is the infected area. We're lost to them. They shoot anything that comes near their borders. People, aircraft, boats. They're containing the disease
.
”
"Bullshit!" Kyle belted out.
Radio static crackled in the background.
Looking Kyle directly in the eyes, the old timer replied in a low voice, "You bastards didn't think the whole world had been overrun, did you
?
”
Kyle looked out the window with a stunned look on his face.
Continuing, the old man smiled again, "I don't care. Don't believe me. You're alone until my friends come back. They'll make good company for you. Don't worry."
I heard Jarvis set down the radio with a hard, frustrated clank. Looking down at the ground, he stood there with his shoulders drooped as we all listened to the crinkling static ringing from the small round speaker on the table in front of him.
Snapping his gaze from the window, Kyle asked, "How the hell do you know? Seems to me a resourceful bunch of guys with that knowledge would have figured out a way past a wall. It ca
n’
t possibly cover the whole country."
The old man shifted, moving his arm down toward his belt, causing Kyle to shift forward and place the nasty end of his wrought iron spear under the man's neck, applying just enough pressure to lift his head up.
"Easy big guy. If I was armed, I would have killed you sons of bitches the second you walked up those stairs." The old man chuckled with his eyes wide, looking up the spear at Kyle.
Kyle let the weapon down enough so the man could lower his head. The old man slowly continued reaching his arm down and rolled his shirt up, with a grunt, exposing a bloody bandage that covered nearly the full side of his body. "I've seen it with my own eyes. Took this shrapnel when we tried to make our run past it."
"That could have come from anywhere," Kyle retorted.
"Like I said, I don't care if you believe me. I had to stay behind to nurse this wound, but my friends will be back soon enough. The
y’
ll know just what to do with a big bastard like you." Making eye contact with Kyle, he licked his lips.
"I really like some gristle in my steak."
With his brow furrowed, and without hesitation, Kyle reached forward and cracked the old man on the other side of his skull, dropping him out cold against the floor of the fort. He was still breathing, but I could see blood pooling up and dripping down between the cracks.
The air in the room remained silent as we all stood there, listening to the creatures below. Their horrible cries seeped through the floorboards of the fort. We needed to get the hell out of there. The creatures thirsting for our flesh were bad enough. Now we had Old Man Creepy Fuck licking his lips at the same thought.
Snapping us all to attention, Jarvis slammed his hands down on the wooden table in front of him and picked the microphone back up. "Kin
g’
s Landin
g…
Kin
g’
s Landin
g…
This is Iron Eagl
e…
Over."
Chhhhsshsh. Chhhsshsh.
Chapter 25
Pacing around the room, I kept glancing toward the window as the sound of Jarvis's efforts echoed through the thin walls of the place. Through the static, my mind was spinning at the bomb the old man had just dropped on us. Was he full of shit, just screwing with our fatigued minds, or was there really a New Americ
a…
and a giant wall keeping us from getting there. It seemed too crazy, too elaborate to possibly be true. Still, some pieces fit.
"Do you hear that?" Aidan whispered from the far side of the room. Transfixed by the look on his face, we collectively fell silent, listening attentively for any inkling of audible sound that lay beyond the hypnotizing hum of the radio static.
"Shit!" Kyle ground out.
My heart dropped as the roar of a distant truck engine emerged. None of us said a word, nearly petrified by the sound. Moving only my eyes to Kyle, he shrugged his shoulders ever so slightly before all of us quickly sprang forward, darting around, grabbing what little we could. All of us except for Jarvis, that is. He continued to stand over the radio, talking to dead air in vain.
I could feel my pulse rising as the engine continued to roar louder over the cries of the dead. We needed to get the hell out of there before the truck got back, or w
e’
d have a hell of a fight on our hands.
In that instant, the static from the radio came to life. "Iron Eagle, Iron Eagl
e…
We read yo
u…
Over."
Jarvis popped up, standing straight as a wooden ruler, with the microphone in his hand. The rest of us stopped in our tracks, huddling around him with some distant sense of relief.
"Yes, we're here, Kin
g’
s Landing. Glad to hear you, boys," Jarvis whispered into the microphone.
My momentary relief was put to a halt as I heard the engine go mute. Dashing over toward the window, I wildly looked through the forest, trying to pinpoint where the truck had parked.
"Where the hell are you?" A woman's voice screamed out through the speaker. It sounded a lot like Mia.
"We're near a park, Fire Mountain Park. W
e’
re in some trouble out here. However, there is
no
time to come get us. You need to go on without our help. W
e’
ve got a truck and will be back to you as soon as possibl
e…
Over."
"Bullshit. We're hovering around the park no
w…
Over
.
”
I may have been the only one, but I let out a sigh of relief as I yanked hard on the straps to the backpack lying over my shoulders.
Kyl
e’
s hands landed on the table with a thud
.“
What the hell are you doing here
?
”
“
I pulled a search party together when we lost contact. Whole place is burnt to shit. We could see the smoke for miles. Looks like you guys have been busy. I repeat, where are you? Over."
A number of car doors opened and shut, drawing my attention to the bottom of a tree just fifty or so yards away.
"They're getting close. We gotta wrap this up," Aidan said with a prepubescent crack in his voice.
Ignoring him, Jarvis continued to speak into the microphone. "You shouldn't have come after us." Pausing for a moment to think, and lowering his head, he finally said, "There is a downed airplane on a peak just outside the burnt area of the forest. There should be enough room to land your chopper. If we're not there in thirty minutes, you need to leave without us."
"We're not going anywhere without you!" the woman's voice shot back.
Kyle snatched the microphone and jerked it to his face
.“
Mia, this shit storm is too dangerous. Yo
u’
re more important than - than me. I need you to promise that you'll leave and get back to Avalon
.
”
"Don't puss out on me now, Kyle! W
e’
re here, so now you just need to get to us."
She always had a subtle way of speaking with the guy.
A rifle shot rang out loudly making my heart thud painfully hard in my chest. I poked my head through the window just in time to see a Z hit the ground as ten men started to climb the first tree.
"Promise me, Mia. Promise yo
u’
ll head back if we ca
n’
t make it to you!"
A cracked, but determined, "No wa
y…
Over," came through the radio just before it went silent. Jarvis started to flip the switches back to where the
y’
d been before we got there. Kyle was mumbling something about her being uncompromising and bullheaded, as Jarvis motioned for us to move toward the secondary zip-line leading out the other side of the fortress.
We were cutting it too tight, and we all knew it.
Moving down the curved staircase, each step seemed to cry out in pain as our boots hit the planks. Reaching the bottom, my eyes were drawn to the crucified Jesus. A fleeting thought passed through my mind. This place was anything but holy. Continuing around the pews, I noticed Aidan darting to one of the makeshift windows on the far side of the room. His eyes were fixed on the forest floor, and he was grinding his hand around the handle of his weapon.
The rest of us ran past him and out the wooden door that stood directly across from the one by which we had initially entered. It led to the deck that circled the fort. We found ourselves crouched down, breathing heavily as we peered at a second rope bridge leading in the opposite direction from the other zip line that w
e’
d entered the fortress upon.
If you were in a chopper flying above, I imagined that it would look as if the fortress was a poorly shaped circle that had two lines running out both east and west of its center.
“
This is it. The trucks are down there
,”
Jarvis said in between a few heavy pants while lifting a hand in the direction of the zip-line we were facing.
“
Yo
u’
re right. W
e’
ll have to slip quietly over the bridge without them putting eyes on us, but it does
n’
t look like the
y’
ll have a solid line of sight from their position
,”
Kyle chimed in.
Glancing to the edge of this second set of zip lines that served as the Stripes alternate route, and our current path of escape, I realized Kyle was right. At the very least, the fortress itself mostly stood between the two zips, meaning they could
n’
t see us from their position as long as we managed to keep our heads down, and we would
n’
t be able to see the Stripes from ours without lifting them up.
Hopping up and down across the rope bridge, I nearly lost my balance before reaching the far side where the zip-line lay. Glancing down, I could see the creatures reaching up toward us, craving for one tiny slip up.
As I pulled the harness through my legs, I cautiously leaned up to get a view around the fortress and through the dense forest leaves in the direction of the other line. I was just barely able to make out that the men, our mirror image on the other side, were doing the exact same thing at the other zip-line.
We waited in silence, ducking down to see if they had noticed us. There were no noticeable movements to indicate they knew we were here. Minutes ticked by like seconds as one-by-one, each of the ten men ascended the rope ladder to the top of the platform preparing to slide across.
Staying low, I once again shifted to where I could see them better and squinted as I watched one of the men dump over the wooden box that the harnesses were sitting in. They seemed to realize a few were missing.
As Jarvis pinched his finger between his harness and the zip-line to muffle the metal on metal click, I found myself once again glancing back through the trees toward the men. A few distant words were just barely audible before one of the Stripes looked up toward the fort. Raising his gun, he lifted the sight to his face to get a better look, and began meticulously pivoting from one foot to the other as his weapon peeked into each window of the structure.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Kyle shaking his head back and forth.
"Where the hell is Aidan?" he whispered.
Looking around, I realized he was nowhere in sight.
"I lost track of him at the window." My voice was no louder than his was as I pulled my own harness tight.
"Damn it! That was nearly ten minutes ago.
I’
ll go back after him," Kyle said.
Just as he started to pull his harness off and step toward the rope bridge, Aidan pushed the door open a mere crack, exposing no more than a shadow of his face. Nodding, he stepped out onto the bridge and ran to our platform.
"What were you doing?" Kyle barked.
"Keeping an eye out
.
”
Kyle shot him a scowl and tossed him a harness. I could tell he didn't trust the answer.
"The zip-line's too loud. The
y’
re gonna hear us," Aidan said with a look of panic swelling across his face.
They wouldn't have a clear shot at us, having to get around the fortress before they could see our zip-line. However, we knew it would just take one Stripe to get acros
s…
and if they didn't know where we were yet, they sure as shit were about to.
Before sliding into his harness, Aidan glanced to his wrist at a digital watch, and then looked up to the sky. Meanwhile, Jarvis was simply standing, hooked up to the zip, waiting.
“
What are you waiting for
?”
Kyle questioned.
“
If we zip at the same time that the Stripes do, ther
e’
s a good chance they wo
n’
t hear us
.
”
Nodding our heads, we stood by, keenly focused on the starting note of that singing meta
l…
until finally it rang out into the forest.
Taking a noticeable gulp, Jarvis lifted his legs as Kyle gave him a nudge, shooting him down and causing that same orchestra of metal-on-metal. Peering up, I could see that the Stripes did
n’
t seem to hear him. Both zips were nearly the same length, so they both ended at roughly the same time. I watched from afar as Jarvis quickly unhooked and grabbed the tree, trying to move around to conceal himself behind the bark.
Just before stepping up to the line, I noticed Aidan glancing at his watch again. Kyle did too.
“
What are you timing
?”
Kyle spoke through his teeth.
Taking a deep breath, Aidan looked at us with pain-filled eyes.
“
You need to know wha
t’
s about to happen
.”
He paused and let the breath out of his lungs
.“
I just used the radio to signal to Gordon that
I’
m here. Using the downed plane crash site as a marker, and a quick triangulation of the signal from the radio, they are going to find us, and there is a heavily armed chopper en route to this location right now. It should be here in less than five minutes
.
”
Kyl
e’
s face looked like it was going to burst
.“
I knew it, you little shit
!
”
Holding his ground, Aiden lifted both hands up and replied
,“
Before you go ape on me, you need to know two things. One, Gordon does
n’
t realize yo
u’
re here. For all he knows, you died back in the fire. They think I was taken captive by the Stripes and escaped. Two,
I’
m not going to tell him yo
u’
re here
.
”
Taking a step back, Kyl
e’
s face turned to a lighter shade of red. Neither of us said a word. The only thing audible over the moans from the monsters below was the distant sound of the zip-line as another Stripe started down toward the base.
Looking back toward the Stripes for only a moment, Aidan met our gaze and spoke with what I can only describe as unremitting pain
.“
I do
n’
t know wh
o’
s right and wh
o’
s wrong in this world, but
I’
ve been with Gordon and the people there for seven months. I have friends, and there are many great survivors there. W
e’
ll see how this battle shakes out. Until then, I wish you luck as you try to get back to your chopper. Yo
u’
re gonna need it
.
”