Authors: Shawn Chesser
Duncan rummaged in his go bag, extracted a thick novel, and tossed it to Daymon. “You’ll meet Mitch Rapp in there, read it when you find some time.”
The helicopter shuddered. Some kind of warning chime began to sound in both men’s helmets.
Daymon glanced up at the multitude of flashing colored lights. He could have sworn they were telling him to “
kiss his ass goodbye
” in Morse code.
One helicopter crash is one too many in a man’s lifetime
, he thought. Then it dawned on him that he didn’t even know Morse code.
Duncan tapped one of the gauges and, coincidence or not, the chiming along with the blinking lights ceased.
“Tell me son, how are you feeling--still a little green? Any old football injuries bugging you?” Duncan inquired, totally ignoring the helicopter’s hiccup with a cavalier,
out of sight out of mind
, attitude. He was prying to see if Daymon would talk about his wounds.
“I’m feeling green now that I know this thing is probably held together with baling wire and boogers. What... uh... are the chances of us
surviving
another crash landing?” Daymon asked, evidently concerned because his voice was now an octave higher.
Duncan raised a fist, and one at a time, he slowly extended three fingers. Then after a slight mental pause, he stuck out a fourth digit. “The chances are good, son. That Black Hawk was the fourth helicopter to fall off of my ass, so I think it’s safe to say that you’ve got a ways to go before Mister Death on his pale white horse comes a calling.”
“Remember, I was on
Black Hawk Down
the other night,” Daymon said. “Fill me in on your first three helicopter mishaps.”
“They were all anomalies: Huey number one, enemy fire... lucky shot if you ask me. Number two got shot out from under me. It was inevitable... I took that slick into a hot LZ to extract some Op Phoenix boys. Put it this way, I got to fight Victor Charlie, on the ground, with those brave men. Thankfully the VC lost our scent and all of us made it to another extraction point alive.”
“And number three?”
“Definitely
not
my fault! Mechanical failure led to an autorotation in enemy territory and I got to eat dinner at a remote fire base in the central highlands of Vietnam.”
“Thanks, that totally puts me at ease,” Daymon retorted sarcastically.
“Don’t mention it,” Duncan drawled.
Daymon closed his eyes. It was his way of dealing with reality. “Wake me if you need anything... but if we’re in imminent danger of crash landing... don’t bother.”
“Copy that,” Duncan said.
Outbreak - Day 8
Sentinel Butte, North Dakota
It had been thirty minutes since Ari delivered Cade and Maddox to the superheated piece of rock they were now stretched out on.
Cade ignored the sun beating down on his back as he watched the red ant pick at the exposed flesh between his sleeve and gloved hand. He marveled at its persistence as it worked diligently, rending a tiny piece of his flesh to take back to its queen. Soon another hunter ambled up, sniffed around, and repeated what the first insect did. This went on for a few minutes. The pain was tolerable--Cade had suffered much, much worse. The ants did serve to break up the monotony of waiting for the target to come to him. He couldn’t help noticing the way the ants kept coming back for more meat. It reminded him of the same insatiable desire for living flesh he had seen the dead exhibit.
Sergeant Maddox shifted his body slightly.
Maybe he was feeding the ants too
, Cade thought. Maddox was spotting for Cade. They knew each other by reputation but had only been on a couple of operations together.
Two clicks sounded in their earpieces just seconds before the engine noise resonated from the lee side of the steep rise in the highway stretching away from them. Cade clicked his mic two times, letting the other shooter know he was good to go.
Both men hunkered down, flanked by two fingers of rock in between which Cade had arranged clumps of sage and grasses to fill in the center gap. He had picked the spot because of its elevation and the oblique angle to the kill zone. The hide was neither perpendicular nor parallel to the road. The suppressor affixed to the barrel of the Remington MSR pierced the foliage, pointing in the direction of the UPS eighteen wheeler blocking the road. Although Cade was sweating his ass off in the ACUs, and a drink of water sounded good, he didn’t want to risk any movement that might give away his position, so he resisted the urge to take a pull of water from his Camelback.
The engine noises grew louder and lower in pitch. It was evident the five-vehicle convoy was climbing the rise and about to crest the top of the hill.
Cade trained the crosshairs on the gash of blue sky where the vehicles were about to emerge. The blacktop at the road’s apex appeared to ripple; the shimmering heat waves made it look like a de-cloaking Romulan Warbird was about to materialize. The fact that he was a closet Trekkie was
the
only thing Cade would never admit to anyone.
After a minute of laboring uphill, the first Hummer emerged through the thermal vortex. The helmeted gunner swept his weapon slowly side to side, covering both shoulders of the road. Cade noted that the front bumper and flat sides of the black vehicle were smeared with shiny residue, most likely accumulated from many bouts with the living dead.
Cade momentarily scanned the area with his naked eye. Closer in, the zombies in the vicinity of the road block perked up and started marching towards the noises. As the big rigs in the middle of the convoy came into view and started descending the hill,
they used their engines’ compression to combat the steep decline and keep their brakes from overheating. Th
e steady drawn out
brrraapp
from the semi trucks’ belching exhaust instantly got the attention of the remaining walkers in and around the sprawling Truck Plaza.
Cade could see the Hummer driver’s face through the high powered scope. He appeared to be engaged in an animated conversation with the man in the passenger seat, who was also jabbering and talking with his hands. The crosshairs were parked on the driver’s forehead. Cade wished he could read lips a little better; however, he could make out a few of the words,
zombie
,
motherfucker
and
shit
were some of them. It wasn’t enough to draw any solid conclusions from, but he had a feeling the crew of the first truck had had enough of the walking dead for one lifetime.
The two Ghost Hawks hovered in a standoff formation to the west where the sun would mask their approach, giving them one more unfair advantage if they needed to join the fight. Desantos and Lopez were in Jedi One-One. Captain Ronnie Gaines and another shooter from the 10th SF Group were onboard the other Ghost. Desantos’ orders for Cade and the other shooter, a 10th Special Forces soldier named Dillard, were to hold their fire until he gave the go signal with three mic clicks.
The convoy slowed and came to a complete stop.
Cade and Maddox waited patiently on the ridge, ready to unleash hell.
Outbreak - Day 8
20 Miles South of Denver
“
Mom!
”
“Caroline honey, remember we
have
to be quiet. The bogeyman is still out there,” Karla said in a near stage whisper.
The kindergartener had grown tired of her mom constantly telling her to be quiet and forcing her and her brother to
always
be still. An adult would have had a hard time, let alone a precocious five year old. She parted the curtains in her upstairs room in order to take another look and yelled, “
Mom... bring the noculars!
”
“Shhh. I don’t want to have to tell you again. The next time you raise your voice you will be getting a spanking,” Karla lied. The truth was, the young mom had never laid a hand on any of her three kids and she hoped that it would never be necessary... especially now, considering the state of the world they were surviving in.
The two-story house vibrated slightly.
“No jumping on the bed Caroline.”
“I’m not, Momma.”
“Then tell Donnie to knock it off or I’m coming up there when Sadie is done feeding.”
“
Mom... bring up the noculars!
”
God, grant me the serenity
... Karla put her breast away and started up the stairs with her three-month-old Sadie held snugly in her arms.
Seven-year-old Donnie suddenly appeared and followed his mom upstairs with the binoculars in hand.
Caroline pressed her face against the aquarium glass as ripples began to form, moving outward in concentric circles on the surface of the blue green water. “Don’t worry Fin, I won’t let them eat you,” she said to her pet goldfish as she hugged his five-gallon home.
After summiting the top of the stairs, Karla asked with a whisper, “What were you
yelling
about young missy?” Since the outbreak her one hard and fast rule was to keep quiet--at all times. Noise always attracted walkers, and thankfully it had been a full day since any of them had shown interest in their house. The last one had stood for hours with its marbled face pressed against the kitchen window, peering inside with unblinking lifeless eyes until something else--an enticing sound or other survivors on the move--finally caught its attention and it shambled away.
Using her best inside voice Caroline said, “There’s something outside... and I need the noculars to see it.”
“
Ohhh
, you mean
binoculars.”
“That’s what I said,” Caroline answered with a smile, obviously very pleased with herself.
“Here you go Mom.”
Karla nearly jumped out of her skin. She had assumed that Donnie was already upstairs with Caroline. “Don’t ever do that again... Don,” she hissed as Sadie began to whimper. Then she felt something heavy tapping her on the thigh. She looked down. Donnie had the ‘noculars’ and was playing woodpecker on her leg with them.
“Sorry Mom,” he whispered apologetically.
“What are you all excited about Caroline?” Karla said as she opened the curtains a little wider so that she could look out as well.
Caroline pointed for her mom’s benefit. “There...”
The gasp that escaped Karla’s mouth came from deep within her lungs, sounding like a drowning person’s final breath. She didn’t need anything save for her own two eyes to tell her it was time to leave the Garner homestead. Less than a mile away, hundreds of the shambling living dead stretched shoulder to shoulder from one side of the tollway all the way across eight lanes and the median and then up the far embankment. The majority of the horde seemed to be marching straight down the middle of I-25, rearranging the stalled cars and trucks along the way like they were small pieces of driftwood caught in an encroaching surf. Karla could barely believe her eyes as the mass pushed a multi-ton fire engine to the wayside. The gray cloud of dust and grass seed being kicked up by the phalanx of walking dead roiled into the air, and because of the haze Karla couldn’t discern how far back the main column ended... if it did at all.
“Donnie, I need you to fetch your Spiderman backpack and wait by the front door,” Karla said, trying to remain calm. “Caroline... follow your brother... and
do not
go outside yet.” She stole another worried look at the terrifying slow-moving procession. As far north as she could see, the creatures on the periphery appeared to be moving much faster than the main army. The small groups of twos and threes were getting closer; a few of them were nearing her property line.
Karla’s husband John initially lobbied for the family to flee to Colorado Springs two days after the outbreak. Karla argued that traveling with three kids, one of them an infant, would be suicide. She even agreed with the people on television insisting they stay put and wait for help to arrive. Furthermore, she didn’t want to leave the home that she had grown up in--there were too many good memories between the four walls and many more yet to be added. Karla wanted her kids to grow up in the shadows of the Rockies--in the same house that had been in the family for generations. Karla’s great-grandfather erected the two-story clapboard house on the hillock next to I-25, a hundred years before there was an I-25.
Now Karla regretted that self-centered decision to her very core. With a sudden burst of frantic energy she ran down the stairs two at a time. Sadie wailed. Donnie and Caroline cowered by the door, watery eyes watching their mom’s every move.
The keys to the Tahoe were on the peg where John had left them. God, how she hated to drive the thing... let alone schlep the kids in and out of the gas-guzzling SUV. When her husband left to forage for food last Thursday he drove her minivan.
I can load more into the side door by myself and I won’t be fumbling around with the rear hatch or having to open and close the back doors
, he told Karla then. She froze for a second, thinking of her gentle giant while a salty tear traced her cheek.
The out-of-place sound of the good china rattling in the hutch snapped Karla back to reality. Although she couldn’t feel the floor vibrating through the carpet, she could sense that the walkers were nearly on top of them.