Knowing by the lights visible atop the half demolished wall that the compound still had electricity, Steve leaned out of the side door and scanned the few remaining buildings in the slowly shrinking circle of the living. As he spotted a low block structure with dozens of cables stretching out of it, he leaned between the seats of the pilot and copilot and yelled, “I need you to set us down there.”
After quickly checking the situation, the pilot started giving orders to his crew to prep the area so they could land.
***
Firing off the last of the bullets in his magazine at the wall of advancing dead, Tick-Tock dropped his M4 as he searched for another weapon. Spotting a table leg that someone had been using as a club, he snatched it up and jumped into the steadily diminishing line next to Denise. His energy renewed at the sight of the reinforcements, he dispatched two of the advancing corpses before glancing back at the helicopter.
Seeing it still hovering over the center of their perimeter, he regretted not saving two rounds for Denise and himself as he screamed at it, “Did you just come to fucking watch, or are you going to do something?”
In answer, the mini-guns in the side doors of the helicopter opened up, spraying a wall of 7.62 bullets into the dead at almost five-thousand rounds per minute. The two door gunner’s aim was true, cutting into the heads and shoulders of the living dead not three feet in front of the defenders, mowing down the attacking cadavers and sending up a shower of black ochre along with chunks of brains, skulls and flesh. The whine of the Gatling guns quickly overpowered the whine of the dead as they swept back and forth across the horde like a fire hose.
At the first sound of firing, Tick-Tock grabbed Denise and pulled her back as he continued to swing his club at the dead coming toward them. Although stunned as he watched the sudden onslaught of death from above, he only staggered a few feet backward before stopping and moving forward and destroy the few dead still standing. As he cut into the remaining thin line of reanimated corpses, he heard the guns stop and the pitch of the rotors change as the helicopter landed.
After spearing the last of the dead that had been too close to be destroyed by the mini-guns, Tick-Tock looked at the mobs of dead further out, climbing across the shattered bodies of their brethren in their quest to eat. While thousands had been cut down, the thousands that remained in the herd were still advancing on them. Judging the distance, he guessed they had a few minutes before the wall of corpulent flesh reached them.
Turning to the helicopter, Tick-Tock could see it was already being mobbed as the survivors of Fort Redoubt tried to climb aboard. Through the chaos, he saw three figures trying to fight their way through them. Spotting two familiar faces, Tick-Tock felt a grin cross his face as he yelled at Denise, “Come on, they need our help.”
***
Jim cowered behind Steve and Brain as they pushed people aside, screaming at the mob to get out of the way. In a frenzy, the people trying to get on the Blackhawk screamed back at the two men to save them. A million thoughts flashed through Steve’s mind, including using his M16 to clear the way. Instead, he raised it into the air and fired off a burst. When this barely fazed the frenzied crowd, he lifted the butt of his rifle to knock them aside. As he was about to come down on the head of a younger man clawing at his shirt, he saw him grabbed from behind and jerked out of the way.
Thinking by the way he had been snatched backward that one of the dead had gotten him, Steve spun his rifle around and lowered its barrel into the first face that came into view. As his finger started to squeeze the last half ounce of pressure on the trigger, he stopped in shock at who he was aiming at.
“Tick-Tock,” he yelled in joy at the sight of his friend.
“Where are the evacuation choppers?” Tick-Tock asked without preamble.
“Glad to see you too,” Steve said with a laugh. “It was a battle, but Washington released ten choppers out of Fort Polk to pull everyone out. They’re about a twenty minutes behind us.”
Pointing to the dead advancing across a field of bodies, Tick-Tock said, “We don’t have an hour. Unless you’ve got a couple more gunships hidden up your ass, we’ve got about five minutes.”
Lifting up the Malectron, Steve said, “I don’t have any gunships, I’ve got something better.”
***
Watching Tick-Tock disappear into the generator building with Steve, Brain and another man, Denise turned her attention to the oncoming wave of dead. Hefting her club, she heard a familiar voice call her name. As she turned, she found Rick Styles coming toward her.
“What’s going on?” He asked. “I saw Steve and Brain running like hell for the generators, but when I tried to ask Steve, he told me he didn’t have time to explain.” Pointing to the Blackhawk, he added, “And where’s the evacuation helicopters? That thing won’t hold more than ten or twelve people.”
Glancing around to gauge the distance to the oncoming dead, Denise saw she had enough time to tell Rick what she knew. “The choppers are about twenty minutes out,” she told him. Seeing Rick’s face fall as he looked at the solid wall of dead-asses coming toward them, she added, “But Steve has some kind of plan to hold off the dead until they get here.”
Confused, Rick asked, “What kind of plan? If he wants to help us hold off the dead, he needs to get his ass out here.”
Shaking her head, Denise replied, “I don’t know what he’s doing. I don’t know anything more than what I just told you.” The conversation over, she turned to face the dead.
Her head spinning as she crushed the skull of a straggler that had survived the helicopter’s staffing raid, Denise didn’t think she would last long. While she had faith in Tick-Tock, she wasn’t sure how much more she could take due to her concussion. Her head felt like it had swelled up to twice its normal size and she felt herself swaying back and forth as she tried not to throw up.
Looking at the wall of dead coming toward her, she took a deep breath and prepared to meet them. As she tried to pick out her first target, she saw it was useless. Packed shoulder to shoulder, the dead were so thick, and coming so fast, that she would be lucky to take out any of them before being taken down. Glancing back at the generator room, she wanted to call out for Tick-Tock, but knew he wouldn’t hear her. Shifting her body as she turned to meet the onrushing wave of resurrected corpses, she lifted her club as she watched their advance.
When they were twenty feet away, she saw them stagger and lurch over the bodies piled in heaps on the ground. At fifteen feet, she saw them gain momentum as they reached the relatively flat section of bodies mowed down by the mini-guns. As they sped up, she could hear sporadic rifle fire as some of the defenders tried to stop the assault, while others used their weapons to take their own lives. From the beginning, she knew she couldn’t kill herself, so she glanced one more time in the direction of the generator building, praying that Tick-Tock would show up and end her life for her.
Not seeing anything except the wall of advancing dead coming at her from that direction, she turned to face her fate with the hope she would be torn apart so badly that she couldn’t come back. Raising her club at the onrushing dead only feet away, she suddenly felt as if her body was being electrified. All of the hair on her arms, legs and head stood on end, reminding her of when she had taken speed in college. Wondering if this was how everyone felt when they died, she swung her club in a wide arc at the closest zombie.
And missed.
Stunned that she didn’t connect with the head of the Z, Denise twisted her body and tried to connect on the backswing.
And missed again.
Not understanding, she stopped and took aim at the first head she could distinguish in writhing mob of dead only feet away. Swinging down with deadly force, she felt anger rush through her when the dead thing lurched backward, making her miss for the third time.
Frustrated, she took a step forward, but was restrained by Rick.
“Something’s stopping them,” The Commander yelled.
Pausing, Denise could see that what he was saying was true. The whining of the dead had turned into a moaning as they looked around wildly, frozen in place only feet away. Their arms still reached out at the fresh meat in front of them, but their bodies seemed to be held back by some invisible force. Then she noticed a shift. In tiny increments, they were backing away. She observed that they weren’t moving to the rear as fast as they had come at them, but as she watched, the entire mob of dead started inching backward.
Her shoulders slumping in exhaustion, Denise let her arms drop to her sides and the club slip from her fingers. The intensity of the moment, combined with nausea from her concussion, hit her at once and she bent over to throw up. When she recovered, she looked around in wonder at the expanding circle of dead. Now almost climbing over each other in their haste to get away, they moved past the destroyed walls of Fort Redoubt and into the field beyond before they stopped. Swaying slightly as she felt herself start to slip away into unconsciousness, she felt two arms steady her. Turning, she saw it was Tick-Tock.
Letting herself lean against him as her vision shrank to a pinpoint, Denise could only ask, “What?”
“It’s something Steve brought along,” he explained. “It pushes the dead back.”
As the darkness closed in, joy swept through her at the knowledge that she and her love had lived through hell.
***
With so few left to rescue, the airlift went quickly. As Steve, Tick-Tock, Denise, Rick Styles and Ginny climbed onto the last helicopter, they paused to look back across the destruction of Fort Redoubt. Lost in thought at how many had been killed, their eyes scanned the area until settling, with some satisfaction, on one particular sight.
When the pilot called for them that it was time to go, Steve pulled a two-way radio from his pocket and pushed the transmit button before saying, “Unplug it, Brain and then get your ass on the chopper.” Donning a flight helmet, he adjusted it as he made sure he was connected to the pilot and co-pilot.
From across the compound, Brain came out of the generator room at a full sprint with Tick-Tock laughing at him and yelling, “Run, Pork chop. Run. They’re right behind you.”
From the thousands of dead circling their position, the moans of the reanimated corpses returned to whines as the repellant power of the Malectron stopped. Now, with nothing to hold them back, they rushed forward as one.
The helicopter left the ground as soon as Brain was aboard, and as it powered into the air, Steve said into the intercom, “Captain, please do me a favor and hover at a hundred feet. There’s something we want to make sure of.”
“We only have enough fuel to stay on station for about five minutes,” he replied.
Judging the distance between the onrushing dead, and where Hawkins and Jim were running in one direction and then another atop the chow hall as they sought an escape route from the quickly tightening circle of ravenous zombies, he replied, “Don’t worry, Captain. It won’t take more than a few seconds.”
The dead hit the building, collapsing what was left of it and falling on both men at the same time. With so many carnivores, and so little meat, they were quickly covered by clawing hands and teeth that ripped them apart.
Regardless of what Hawkins and Jim had done, Ginny had been against leaving them on the ground. Steve looked to where she had her arm wrapped around Rick Styles’ shoulder and thought back to when Heather had explained to him in Clearwater how she gravitated to whoever was in charge. Ginny glared at him and then said something into Rick’s ear.
Seeing Rick look at him, wink and smile, Steve knew that this man wasn’t about to fall for any of Ginny’s shit-talking. She might try to stir something up, but Rick would keep her in line. He knew the secret to surviving in this world.
Leaning back in his seat, Steve closed his eyes as he thought; never take yourself too seriously.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Fort Polk, Louisiana
Hundreds of people watched from nearby helicopters, and through video feed, as the bi-plane dropped out of the sky. After wagging its wings once, the crop duster started spraying a yellowish mist from its vents, coating the hundreds of dead staggering down Highway 171. For some time, nothing happened, causing many to think that the test was a failure. As General Eastridge was about to call for the pilot to make another pass, the first walking corpse dropped to the ground. One of the observation aircraft zoomed in with its camera, showing a black, puss-like substance leaking from its nose, mouth and eyes.
Holding their breath, the observers watched in amazement as more of the living dead dropped to lay on the ground, their life’s blood seeping from every orifice in their body.
From his hospital bed in Washington DC, General Eastridge turned to Admiral Sedlak and commented, “As my son likes to say, ‘That’s a wrap.’ “
Owens Grove, Louisiana:
Jimmy McPherson carefully made his way over and around the rotting bodies of the dead, wrinkling his nose in disgust at their smell. Glancing down, he saw what was left of their shirts and chests soaked in the black goo they used for blood, seemingly having come from their nose, mouth and ears in a torrent. He didn’t know what was wiping these creatures out, but whatever it was, he was grateful. He still occasionally came across an active biter, but for the last few days, these were few and far in between.