Deadlocked 7 (2 page)

Above the cacophony of creatures on the street, Annie heard the steady cadence of an approaching chopper’s blades. The sound had become far too familiar
over the past couple days, and she was determined not to make the same mistake this time that she did in Vineyard. This time she wouldn’t miss.

“Annie.” Laura cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted up at her
daughter. “Get down!”

Annie was angry at her mother for the command, and refused to obey. If the military employed the same tactic here that they had a day earlier, then the Rollers and the survivors of Vineyard that crowded below would be decimated. Annie felt that she was all that could stop that from happening.

“What’s going on?” asked David.

Annie was startled by him, and in her moment of fury had forgotten that he was there with her.

“David, you have to get down. Now.”

“I can’t.”

“What do you mean?” She didn’t dare look away from the sky to see why David couldn’t get down. She didn’t want to chance missing an emerging chopper for even a second.

Annie could hear David struggling on the floor.

“I can’t get a grip, Auntie. I need help.”

“Annie,” shouted Laura from below. “Get down!”

“Someone come get David!” Annie didn’t look away from the sky and she screamed out as loud as her cracking voice would allow. “David’s up here. Someone come help him get down!” She was worried that the commotion around her had muted her warning, and that no one would come to get the boy.

She wouldn’t let the bastards hurt anyone else. Annie was determined to stand sentry for the Rollers. When the helicopters emerged, she wouldn’t miss.

“Annie, get down!” Laura waved her arms at the steeple in an attempt to get Annie’s attention.

The smoke to the east began to swirl, and then a black shape emerged from the thick haze. Annie raised her rifle and took less than a second to aim. The chain guns beside the nose of the helicopter began to whirl, but Annie took her shot first. The windshield exploded with flowering white cracks. Even though the glass was reinforced, it couldn’t withstand a direct shot like the one Annie delivered.

The pilot’s head jerked back and the helicopter began to spin. It descended from above the thoroughfare where the zombies had gathered and crashed down onto the street. One of the blades snapped off as it collided with the concrete and then flew into a nearby building. The next blade caught the pavement and buffeted the downed copter onto its other side as it continued to bounce toward the line of trucks that protected the church. There was no stopping the rolling wreckage as it pounded through the horde of zombies, splattering them as it went. A spout of orange flame emerged from the side of the vehicle, but it didn’t explode like Annie had expected. Instead, the helicopter continued its destructive path down the street until it became apparent that it would slam into the Roller’s camp.

Laura and Zack
were on the truck in the path of the wrecked chopper, and Annie’s heart sank as she realized that they would surely die upon impact. There was nothing she could do as she watched Zack grab her mother and turn his back to the approaching wreckage. Everything happened so fast, there was no time to seek safety, and Zack did the only thing he could to protect Laura.

“Take cover!” Dante cried out from the crow’s nest above the lead truck. He was above Zack and Laura, also in the path of the rolling vehicle as it pounded down the thoroughfare.

The helicopter smashed into the side of the truck and the sound was deafening. Steel wrenched, glass shattered, and the partition wall was broken. The truck’s tires squealed on the asphalt as it was pushed back and the people inside of the church cried out in fear.

After the impact,
Annie struggled to see what had happened to Zack and her mother. They seemed to have disappeared as she peered down from the steeple.

“Help!” David pleaded from below Annie. She saw that the boy was struggling to keep his grip on the ladder as he descended. His right arm, which was missing its hand from a zombie attack
a couple years earlier, was wrapped around the top wrung as his body hung limply beneath.

“Hold on!” Clyde yelled up from below as he ascended the ladder in an attempt to help David.

Annie knelt to grab her nephew when she heard the familiar sound of a chain gun revving. In the tumult of the helicopter’s wreck, the sound of other approaching choppers had been masked. All at once the steeple exploded in gunfire, ripped to shreds as the helicopters focused on the sniper that had downed one of their own.

Wood splintered around Annie as the bell rang a hundred notes, each one accented by the trajectory of the bullet tha
t struck it. The noise was almost deafening and Annie couldn’t distinguish the difference between the pain in her ears and the agony of wounds as the steeple was torn apart. She clenched her eyes as she covered them in the crook of her left arm.

She was on her stomach as the steeple was demolished, but in her right hand she kept a tight grip on her nephew’s shirt. She refused to let go until she knew he was safe.

The gunfire abated and the steeple was left shattered, the wood creaking as it threatened to collapse. The bell still hummed even as its supports broke. It lurched down and then swiftly fell before it settled on the edge of the trap door where David had escaped. Annie thought she was safe, but then another beam gave way under the weight of the lopsided bell, causing it to slide across the floor. It threatened to crush Annie’s arm, but she refused to let go of David. She cringed in anticipation of pain as the bell settled. It flattened before hitting her, stopping as its musical note ceased.

“Annie,” said Clyde from below. “Let him go. I’ve got him.”

Annie released David just as a helicopter’s chain gun started to whirl again. The enormous bell had all but covered the hatch that led down. She was trapped in the steeple, and knew this was where she would die. Annie closed her eyes and waited for the pain.

Gunfire roared, drowning out any other remnant of sound, but the helicopter wasn’t aiming at Annie anymore. The realization was at first a relief, and then horrific. If they weren’t focused on Annie, then they were firing on the Rollers below.

Annie took up her rifle, which she’d placed under her when she laid down, and stood up above the destroyed remains of the steeple.

“You’ll have to do better than that to kill
me.”

There were two helicopters circling the camp, and they focused their fire on the ground floor of the church, oblivious that the red haired sniper was still very much alive. Annie didn’t need much time to aim, and the sound of her first shot was silenced amid the noise of the helicopters’ gunfire. Her victim was dead before he saw her, and his helicopter spun backward and collided with a building along the street outside of the church.

Annie didn’t spare a second to watch the chopper fall as she aimed at the other one. The pilot saw his friend crash and realized that the sniper was still alive. He pulled back just as Annie took a shot and her bullet struck the nose of the helicopter as it retreated. She ejected the casing and took another shot, hoping to pierce the armor on the bottom of the helicopter as it pulled away. She ejected another, and then recognized the hollow sound the rifle made as she prepared for a third shot; her magazine was empty.

Annie had set up a line of filled mag
azines along the railing of the steeple when she’d first climbed up there, but the assault from the helicopters had scattered them. She looked down to try and find one, but the floor was cracked and shattered, littered with splintered debris.

The Rollers below refused to let Annie be a target. They fired relentlessly, but the helicopter pilot, a member of Jerald’s dreaded Wolf Pack, was intent on murdering the sniper that had taken out two of his comrades. Annie watched as the helicopter rose and then leveled before adjusting its aim directly at her.

The Rollers cried in fury below as they fired, a symphony of gunfire and voices as Annie stood conductor over them. She refused to cower, and rose up, her arms held out to the side as if daring the pilot to try and kill her. Annie stepped onto the edge of the steeple, only her balance preventing her from tumbling down.

“Take your best shot!”

The chain gun began to spin.

Then one of the Roller’s
gunshots found its mark. An explosion rocked the side of the helicopter as a fuel tank was ruptured. Seconds later the helicopter smashed down as the Rollers cheered.

Annie looked at one of the cameras attached to a nearby roof. She knew that Jerald was watching. She smiled as she pointed at the camera and then set her thumb against her neck before slicing it across, letting the general know how much she wanted him dead.

The High Rollers cheered below and pumped their guns in the air, then they started to chant Annie’s name. She looked down at them and saw her mother.

Zack
had been able to protect Laura when the helicopter collided with the truck, but the two of them were clearly dazed. Annie looked into her mother’s eyes, concerned at first, but then bewildered by the sadness she saw.

It was as if Laura recognized that Annie
would hurt her more than any zombie, soldier, helicopter, or bullet ever could. As the Rollers cheered for the red haired sniper that had saved them by drawing the helicopter’s fire with her brazen display, her mother stared, aghast.

Laura had already lost too much. She couldn’t stand to lose Annie as well.

Ten years after the apocalypse

Annie and Kim are being trained to be Rollers

“Annie, pay attention,” said Kim as she marshaled the crew.

A group of teens were huddled together in a dark, dilapidated house in a once wealthy subdivision. The
three-story, antebellum home looked capable of housing a militia, but had probably only been lived in by a small family or retired couple back in the Red Days. The place was relatively untouched except by the slow decay of time. The furniture was still in place, now decorated by dust and cobwebs, and there were magazines on the coffee table baring the gleaming smiles of celebrities and politicians. There was a television mounted on the wall above the mantle, and the fireplace was fake, used only to display candles that had never been burned. The living room was the largest room in the house and rose nearly thirty feet to a cathedral ceiling. The granite fireplace rose to a decorative nook near the ceiling where a cross was placed along with a plastic wreath.

Kim and Annie were the only girls in the group of six teens that were training today. Kim was the leader of the group, though she’d never been assigned as such, her natural authoritarianism wasn’t worth disputing. The four boys were crouched beside her in a circle as Annie stood away from them.

“I am paying attention,” said Annie as she eyed the room.

“No you’re not,” said Kim. “You’re spacing out over there. If you plan on ever being a Roller, then you need to take these trainings seriously.
You don’t want to be unprepared when they send us out to train with The Department. Jules will kick your ass every which way if you are.”

Annie sighed as she knelt beside the others. Her paintball gun’s strap slipped off her shoulder as she got down and the weapon fell to the floor. The plastic cap on the container of pellets popped open and the green marbles spilled out onto the wood floor.

The group groaned and shushed her. One of the boys said, “That’s what we get for bringing a baby along.”

Annie stopped the flow of pellets and started to gather the loose ones. The others were all older than Annie, but only by a couple of years. There still existed a stark division between herself and the rest of the teens though. Unfortunately, the families that had joined the ranks of the High Rollers had included children of various ages except for Annie’s. There were teens on the verge of adulthood, and children younger than ten, but Annie was the only child in the Rollers that was
between eleven and fourteen. Because of this, she had started to become socially distant and rarely spent time with any children except during classes and training outings like the one they were on currently.

“Give her a break, guys,” said Arthur, a handsome boy that was more patient with Annie than any of the others. He helped gather the pellets and Annie smiled in thanks.

“All right, everyone,” said Kim. “Let’s focus. We know Hero’s crew is going to try a full on assault.”

“How do we know that?” asked Vic, a scrawny boy
with bad acne and greasy hair. Annie always thought he stank of potatoes.

“Yeah,” said Arthur. “He said they wanted to take it easy today. I got the impression they were going to try and sneak in on us.”

Kim shook her head with a smirk. “That’s what he wants you to think. I’ve known Hero for a long time, and he’s a shitty liar. An old friend of ours taught me how to spot when Hero was lying. That’s how I always beat him at cards.”

“How?” asked Arthur.

“I’m not giving away my secrets,” said Kim, teasing Arthur. The two of them always flirted, and everyone knew they were skirting romance, although they still hadn’t done anything about it.