A Pound of Flesh: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (43 page)

Durant called out time to target. “Two
mikes.”

“Scratch that,” Ari barked.

The closer they got the more dire their
situation appeared. Dozens of dead patrolled the runway and hangar
area nearest the airport. Over a hundred walkers milled about their
last landing spot between the broken fence and the two tanker
trucks. And in between the two major concentrations, near the
burned out aircraft, a host of stragglers plodded along.

Ari’s voice invaded the comms. “What do you
think Captain?”

“I think we’ve got our work cut out for us,”
Cade answered, craning his head to see out the starboard windows.
He paused for a beat and then asked, “How many rounds left in the
mini-gun?”

“Twelve hundred,” answered Hicks. “Whipper
was being a stingy prick so we flew out pretty light.”

Ari presented a plan. “How about I bring us
in from the east to give you an oblique angle so you can keep any
stray rounds away from the fuel trucks. Take out as many as you
can. I will put us down quick—same routine as last time. Hicks
refuels while the Delta boys watch his six. He gives us a light
load of JP-8 and we are out in under five mikes.”

“Sound strategy Night Stalker,” Cade said,
flashing Ari a thumbs up.

“Make them count Hicks,” Lopez
interjected.

Ari bled airspeed, leveled Jedi One-One, and
rotated the bird a one-eighty to present Hicks with an undead
shooting gallery.

***

Taryn felt a minute vibration through the
carpeted floor. At first she thought it was a small earthquake like
the 2.9 from a couple of years back, which was similar only more
intense.

Whatever had caused the tremor had also
piqued her favorite zombie’s attention. Dickless released the door
handle, turned woodenly, and then slowly ambled down the
stairs.

Taryn was forced to lay flat on the floor in
order to see the jet way and landing strip beyond the shattered
window. A troubling sight greeted her. The amount of zombies on the
tarmac had increased overnight.

Once again she experienced a sensation she
couldn’t quite place. Some kind of low intensity, low pressure
vibration.

She heard glass crunching below as her old
boss traversed the concourse to the lip of the missing window where
he stood swaying precariously above the tarmac below.

Taryn put her face under the water cooler
spigot and drained a few precious ounces into her mouth.

Suddenly a whining jackhammer-like sound
reached her ears. She crawled back to her perch and watched the
creatures being chopped to pieces. With no idea who was wielding
the noisy invisible scythe, she flattened her body and pressed her
cheek to the floor in order to see the far end of the runway. To
her amazement the noiseless black helicopter had returned and was
just touching down. She didn’t want this diversion to slip through
her hands—she collected her iPhone and solar panel then stashed the
pistol in her pocket.

***

The sustained buzzsaw sounding bursts of the
mini-gun decimated the walkers nearest the airport.

Hicks swept the fire across the Zs, cutting
some in half and rendering many more of them headless.

“Get some,” Lopez cried.

Only crawlers and a handful of walking Zs
moved on the body part-littered killing field below.

“Save some for the south end,” Ari said.

Hicks eased back on the trigger as Ari
brought the helo around, and once the Ghost Hawk had regained a
steady hover he sent the last of the 7.62 mm rounds chewing into
the Zs near the broken fence.

A few seconds later the mini-gun went silent
save for its whining electric servo.

“Winchester,” Hicks said as he released the
trigger, fully silencing the smoking weapon.

“Going in,” Ari warned.

Cade’s stomach lurched as the helo dropped
like a stone. The wheels locked into place and Jedi One-One kissed
the earth with a slight bounce.

“
Go, go, go
,” Durant hollered.

Time slowed down for Cade and his vision
sharpened as he followed Hicks out the door. He flicked off the
safety and bringing the SCAR to bear started dropping walkers. A
cordite haze formed and shell casings skittered across the tarmac.
Sensing Lopez form up next to him, he looked over to confirm Tice
and Maddox were out of the bird. Confident the team had the
perimeter around the helo covered, he turned and emptied his mag
into the nearest walkers, quickly reloaded and resumed death
dealing.

Hicks retrieved the fuel nozzle which was
lying on the tarmac where he had left it only hours ago. With
rotors whirring feet above his head and gunfire echoing all around
him, he began filling the chopper’s tank.

“
Maddox, watch your six
,” Durant
bellowed over the comms.

Whipping his head around, time slowed further
as Cade witnessed the attack. Maddox, with a dozen dead littering
the ground around him, was changing mags when the creatures bowled
him over. And without uttering a sound the operator rose to his
knees and plunged his combat knife into the bloated Z’s temple.
Dead arms still gripping his legs, he pulled his pistol and
struggled to stand.

Tice pivoted and dropped the two Zs
approaching from Maddox’s left but his reaction proved to be too
little too late as the man disappeared under the carrion pile.

“Fuckers!” Lopez shouted as he emptied his
magazine into the writhing creatures.

***

Holding herself to her own word, Taryn left
solitary confinement and taking the steps two at a time made it to
the concourse. She looked past her coffee stand towards the far
revolving doors. A handful of walkers including Porkpie stood in
her way. Choosing the path of least resistance she turned and ran
towards Dickless and brought the black revolver up. The trigger
proved much harder to pull than she thought it would be. Likewise,
the discharge was exponentially louder than the ones on television.
Unscathed, Dickless turned towards her, a hissing sound escaping
his dried lips.

This time, anticipating the report, she
closed her eyes before pulling the trigger. The .38 boomed. The
hollow point struck Dickless center mass on the breastbone sending
him sprawling into the bank of plastic and fabric built-in
seats.

At a full sprint Taryn went to the ground and
slid through the broken glass. She grabbed the edge of the window a
second before shooting out into space. Then she looked down to the
jet way. A twelve foot drop awaited and at the moment the place she
would land was free of walking dead things. She bravely dangled her
bare legs into the void and lowered herself over the edge, and as
she hung by her tiring fingertips all she could think about were
the monsters eyeing her lower extremities.

Let go
.

Her fingers wouldn’t cooperate.

She heard gunfire ringing out behind her and
then a hissing sound started above her. It took her boss’s frigid
hand groping her arm to make her finally release her grip.

From the tips of her toes to the tarmac the
drop was roughly seven feet—more than enough to send her knees into
her solar plexus when she hit. As she lay helpless and struggling
to breathe on the oil spattered tarmac, Dickless stuck his head
through the opening.

Back flat to the ground, Taryn extended both
arms holding the pistol steady. She aligned the front sight on the
monster’s forehead and slowly squeezed the trigger.

Bang
.

Dickless slumped as the bullet tore into his
eye socket, shredding his brain.

Taryn struggled to her feet, took a couple of
deep breaths, and picked her way through the killing fields heading
towards the helicopter.

***

“Get in,” Durant’s voice said over the
comms.

Finished refueling, Hicks put the nozzle down
and jumped into the black helo.

Tice emptied his magazine into the Zs, dumped
it to the ground, and then replaced it on the run.

Cade sensed the rotor speed picking up. Shell
casings pushed by the down blast rolled away from the
helicopter.

Going to a knee just outside of the open
door, Lopez covered Tice’s retreat. He fired into the approaching
ranks screaming at the top of his lungs, “
Die demonios
.”

Ari’s voice came over the comms. “Wheels
up.”

“We can’t leave without his body,” Cade
bellowed as he waved Lopez inside.

“We have no choice,” Ari said as he began to
pull pitch.

Reluctantly Cade took an offered hand and
boarded the Ghost Hawk seconds before the wheels separated from the
asphalt.

Ari took the helo to twenty feet, spun around
ninety degrees, and said incredulously over the comms, “Looks like
we have one survivor, center of the runway, twelve o’clock.”

Cade was fixated on the scene playing out
below the helicopter as the remaining zombies attacked Maddox’s
corpse, their clawlike hands tearing into his flesh and plunging
under his body armor. Inexplicably the dead Delta operator’s
tactical helmet popped off, landing upside down and coming to rest
on the still attached night vision goggles. The rotor wash blasted
in the cabin and Cade looked away as the helo bolted forward.

***

Waving her arms and jumping up and down Taryn
began to cry. Standing in the middle of a sea of pulped corpses she
had never felt more alive.

She recoiled against the blowing wind as the
helicopter hummed overhead, its black outline blotting the blue
morning sky. A man wearing a bulky helmet, his eyes concealed
behind a dark visor, reached down and easily hauled her into the
craft. Before the door closed she found herself thoroughly
scrutinized for bites and under interrogation.

***

A half hour into the solemn flight from Grand
Junction to Schriever, Lopez piped up. Speaking to nobody in
particular he said, “Besides me... Maddox was the last member of
Mike’s team. This is a hard one to wrap my brain around. Never, and
I mean
never
did I think we would lose this many of our own
in so short a time.” He took a deep breath and continued to gaze
down at the parched desert earth rushing by. “One whole team lost
in the White House. More men at the CDC. Desantos... and now
Maddox. He was a good man.”

A booming chorus of “
Hooahs
” filled
the cabin.

Lopez went on, “I want to die just like
him.”

All eyes, including Taryn’s, swept to the
operator.

Looking stonily at anyone who would maintain
eye contact, Lopez said slowly, “Maddox went out silent—like a true
warrior
. He didn’t whimper. There was no wailing for
madre
. He took it to them like a man and he died like a man.
When we get back I’m going to build a memorial to him near Mike’s
grave.”

No witty comeback from Tice. Instead he put
an arm around Lopez’s shoulder. The gesture was received
unconditionally.

Lopez hunched over shielding his face. His
shoulders shook as deep mournful sobs filled the air.

Robert Christian wriggled up into a sitting
position, eyes darting to his hands which had turned a deep shade
of purple.

“Down,” Cade yelled. He held nothing back as
he kicked the waste of skin in the teeth.

“Five mikes,” Durant said. Then, craning his
head and looking down on the crisscrossing streets added, “Looks
like General Gaines’s 10th Special Forces boys are mopping up
downtown.”

Ari slowed the Ghost Hawk and put her into an
orbit a thousand feet above downtown Springs.

Looking out the window and noticing that
there were far fewer creatures roaming the streets, Cade agreed
with Durant, saying, “I wouldn’t wish that job on anyone. Kicking
doors even when you know there’s a Z behind every one... takes a
goliath set of balls.” He removed his flight helmet and donned his
tactical helmet, letting the chin strap dangle.

“You look like shit,” Lopez yelled.

“I feel worse than I look,” Cade
conceded.

As Ari brought the ship in low and slow over
the western fence a number of faces turned their way; mechanics
looked up, shielding their eyes from the sun, and more than a few
salutes were thrown heavenward.

On final approach, fifty feet above the
landing pad, Cade looked out over the base. Standing out in stark
contrast against the dark muddy ground, a mound of pale white
corpses caught his gaze. He said a silent prayer to his God hoping
Brook and Raven were not amongst them.

Jedi One-One settled onto the tarmac and not
a second later Cade had yanked Robert Christian to his feet. As he
ushered the withered man out the door ahead of him he looked over
his shoulder and motioned for Lopez to tag along. Instinctively
ducking his head under the slowing rotor blades, he prodded
Christian along in front of him with the butt of his rifle.

Stopping in front of the dented yellow door
outside of Whipper’s office, Cade forced his prisoner to sit on the
hard ground and said to Lopez, “I want you to personally escort
that girl to quarantine and make sure they keep her a few hours
extra. The last thing we need is another outbreak
inside
the
wire.”

“Yes sir, anything else sir.”

“Yes Sergeant, as a matter of fact there is.
Good job out there. I’m going to talk to General Gaines and get you
a promotion.”

“Thank you sir,” Lopez said quietly.

“And I’m really sorry about Maddox. Didn’t
need to happen,” Cade said, putting a hand on the man’s shoulder.
“I know you two went way back—ran a lot of ops together. Spilled
more blood together. He will be missed.”

Lopez removed his helmet and raked his
fingers through his close cut black hair. He pinched the bridge of
his nose keeping his eyes cast down.

Cade couldn’t tell if the man was going to
cry or not. Didn’t matter. He waited a moment then said, “After you
get the girl squared away, why don’t you go get a bottle of
something strong—pour yourself some—and then spill a little for
Desantos and Maddox.”