Day by Day Armageddon (12 page)

  Situation normal, all fucked up. My bleeding has stopped, but I'm still light headed from all the blood loss. It must have been right before I was writing my last entry yesterday when they broke through, as I did not notice they were "in" until 1445 by then it was too late. John and I saw them. The fence was down in about a hundred-meter section, and they were pouring into the airfield like ants.

  We gathered the necessities (what we thought were needed anyway), and started out the door to get in the bird and leave. As we reached the bottom and opened the door, there were four of them there waiting on John and I. We slammed the door shut and pushed the desk that we had brought down days earlier into place.

  We were fucking trapped like rats and those bastards could sense it. It wasn't long before the moans of hundreds could be heard below, and the constant banging only only exit door started. This tower was over two hundred feet high and only one way out. I went outside on the balcony, and my suspicions were confirmed.

  There were literally three hundred of them congregated around the exterior door, and the covered area of the tower. John muzzled Annabelle, because she was starting to go nuts. I grabbed the rope and looked below to see where it would hit when I threw it. No joy. Sadly, I pulled the rope back up on the balcony, as there was no way we were malting it down that rope without a hundred of them seeing us.

  It was then that the situation worsened. The sound of bending, aching steel could be heard below. There were so many of them, the masses were pushing their way through. At that moment, I knew we were fucked. I looked at John and told him, "I'm not ready to die yet." He said, "Me neither." and we both rushed over to the door that led down the stairs and started throwing TV's, desks, and chairs down the stairs. That would buy us a little time. We then shut the door, it opens outward, thank god.

  The upstairs door was not as sturdy as the bottom exterior door. Just as we got the door shut, and the last remaining desk in front of it, we could hear the metal clanging of shoes on the stairs. John shoved Annabelle in his backpack and zipped her up to her neck. I motioned for John to get to the top of the ladder and wait for me to start passing up supplies.

  John waited with Annabelle on in his pack at the top rung. She could sense our fear and was whimpering. First, I passed him the two most important items of my plan, the parachutes that I never put back in the aircraft! Then I passed up a six-pack of water bottles, then the NVGs, then a few packs of MREs.

  Just for some odd novelty, I passed up my case with my small laptop. Lastly, all our weapons and much of our ammunition, although shooting every last round would still leave hundreds here to deal with.

  They were at the upstairs door now. This door had a rectangular shaped vertical window, about six by ten inches. I could see one of them, with its face pressed up to the shatterproof glass, sneering, trying to see what was inside. It started pounding and moaning when it saw me. The others soon followed suit. John climbed up onto the roof and I followed. It was windy, like the day before. This was good news, maybe.

  John took his pack (and his dog) off his shoulders and turned it around so it was being worn in the front of his body. I helped him put the parachute on and, using zip-ties, I strapped as much to him as I could without hindering too much movement. I quickly showed him the basics on how to get out of the parachute when he hit the ground.

  I explained to him that it was very important that he unfasten the two inner thigh straps prior to the chest strap. He nodded that he, got it, so I bent down and grabbed my chute. The broken glass sound came, and I was sure they pushed the shatterproof glass through the doorframe below. I hoped that these things could not climb ladders. Using the carabineers from my daypack, I secured the rifle to my chest d-ring through the carrying handle. My knife was strapped to my bell for easy access when I hit the ground.

  I would be jumping first…at this moment came the familiar sound of bending steel, and the screeching sound of the wood desk being scooted across the floor. There was no way to secure the top hatch from the outside. It was simple, if they could climb, they would get up here. I gave one last lesson to John…"Make sure you pull your risers to slow your decent." I described what they looked like to him.

  I made John watch me as I crept to the edge of the roof. I could hear the sounds of them wondering below, trying to find their food. I could see the balcony door below me being pushed open, two, five, and now twelve creatures were wondering the balcony below. For some reason, they didn't look as rotted as I thought they should be. I was guessing that every bit of two hundred walking dead were inside the tower at that moment.

  John leaned over and saw them. He was white with fear. Not just the thought of being eaten to death…but the thought of jumping the tower, breaking both legs, and not being able to give yourself a chance… I knew what he was thinking. I was thinking the same thing. At that moment the hatch on the roof access jumped up and slammed back down… Clang…clang… The creature's wedding ring was chiming on the hatch, making it rise a couple inches then slam back down, as the back of its left hand hit. I could see the white hand for a split second when the weight of the hatch pushed it back down. I almost lucking lost it.

  I somehow grabbed John's attention through this and showed him how to pull the release d-ring for the drogue. The drogue is a small parachute that catches the wind and pulls the rest of the chute out. The drogue on this chute is spring powered. Pull the pin, and the drogue will shoot out, catching the wind, and deploy the rest of the chute. I checked the windsock on the far side of the field…good to go. Looked below. There were many, but most of them seemed to be in the tower. I pulled the pin and held on to the ledge, so I wouldn't fall off before it deployed.

  The wind caught the main chute and literally yanked me off my feet. I could see the roof hatch swing completely open and heard it bash as it jack-knifed and hit the roof. John was right behind me. The creatures on the balcony saw John and I jump, and started almost screaming. I looked up as their outstretched hands reached for the dome of my chute.

  There were windows every few feet that looked in/out of the stairwell. Damn… they were climbing over each other to get to the top. Many were in military uniforms. My estimate at two hundred was too low. From the way they were piled on top of each other in the stair well, there were many more than I thought. I was slowly floating to the ground, it seemed like forever. Every window that I passed by on the way down was another snapshot, or Picasso, if you will of dead faces and limbs crowded together… Then it was back to reality as I hit the ground. It wasn't a soft landing, but I didn't break anything. I immediately unlatched my chute and rolled out of it. I unsheathed my knife and waited for John to hit the ground. The creatures were closing in.

  As soon as John hit, he was attempting to get out of the chute. Neither of us wanted the wind dragging us into n group of those things. I had to help him along by slicing through the nylon harness. I told John to grab one end of the chute. We then we ran through a group of those things toward the aircraft.

  John knew what my plan was. We wrapped at least ten of those things up in the damaged chute by running around them and tangling up the cut harness with the drogue. Luckily, we drifted fifty meters in the direction of the aircraft when we jumped. We ran as fast as we could. In all the excitement, the dog slipped out of John's pack onto the ground. John was ahead of me, and I scooped her up on my way. She was so scared that she was trying to climb on top of my head. I don't fucking blame her. I felt the warmth of urine seeping through my clothing. She pissed herself. Come to think of it,
it might have been me.

  We made it to the aircraft and I slung open the cockpit glass and threw my shit in the back seat. John and Annabelle jumped in the back and I told John to strap in. I immediately jumped in the bird and slid the cockpit closed and latched the lock. I remembered the start-up sequence from the checklist, and out of habit started saying it aloud as I performed it…

  
1. Clock started,

  
2. Starter switch on,

  
3. Battery above ten volts,

  
4. Ignition light on,

  
5. Fuel pressure light out,

  
6. Oil pressure rising,

  
7.
Nl
above 12 percent,

  
8. Condition lever to feather,

  
9. Thumbs up to the lineman.

  I laughed at myself on this step. There was no lineman. Although I was sure the bastard was out there somewhere looking for us. I increased the condition lever to full bite, and could hear the prop catch air.

  I couldn't have avoided what happened next. There were fifty of them closing in on us. All I could do was to attempt to get into take off position. One of them near the nose walked toward the prop. I always wondered what it would sound like, now I knew; like a big vegetable processor. That corpse lost its whole left shoulder in the deal. I checked my prop RPM, it dipped a little but cycled back up to 2200 RPM. I didn't want to hit any more. Using the pedals, I weaved the nose in and out of corpses as I rolled into position, buzzing a few of them, but nothing big like the first one.

  I checked my fuel pressure, good to go, everything was in the green. Power to max, and I started my take off roll…50 knots, the airspeed indicator kicked in…65 knots, 70 knots… I clipped one of them with my left wing, breaking its hip (at least) right before 80 knots. At 85 knots I pulled the stick back and we were airborne. John already had his helmet fastened, I grabbed mine from my lap and pulled it over my head. I checked the internal communications system with John. He was reading me but I could tell that he was in some sort of shock by the way he was talking and by the fact that his lips looked blue in the rear view mirror.

  The worst part of this was that we had no real place to go. As we I took off, I looked over at the tower. The roof was now full of them and they were walking off of the top of it like lemmings. I was trying to fly the plane and look at the chart at the same lime. I was wobbling back and forth, and could hear John getting airsick on the speakers in my helmet. It was sort of funny, but I didn't want to laugh at him. I noticed a small abandoned airstrip called "Matagorda Island airfield" about 65 miles northeast of our position. I quickly marked it on my chart with a red ink pen. It looked like there were numerous islands there, and it wasn't too far from Corpus, so the power was probably still on.

  We cruised northeast for about twenty-minutes at 180 knots when I started having propeller trouble. The engine was fine, but the prop kept losing pitch angle thus not allowing it to "grab" as much air. In short, it kept feathering on me. I knew this was something to do with the corpse I chopped up earlier. I had no choice. I had to glide the plane in, because the prop pitch control was probably losing oil pressure. I feathered the prop with the condition lever and pulled the engine back to three hundred foot pounds of torque.

  According to my chart, the strip was in site, but I couldn't see it. I descended to three thousand feet to get a good glide solution. Below me it looked like a tourist area, with numerous hotels lining the beach. Thank god it was February and not tourist season. At this point, I had to make a choice. I could either find another place to land, or say fuck it, and land in the street. Below, I could see a few of the creatures, but nothing like what we were running from.

  I was on borrowed time without a good propeller. I had to take her down. I pulled the stick back and left and pushed a little left rudder and glided into a 180-degree rendezvous with the road below. Nose down. Gear down, and as soon as I was near the road, flared my nose up and touched down.

  I hit the brakes, and tried to steer my wings between the telephone poles. I still had a lot of fuel left, and didn't want to be wearing flaming fuel because my wing decided to wrap itself around a poll. Along the way, I clipped one of those creatures with my right wing, doubling it over. It had hit its head so hard when it slammed its upper body into the wing that it died instantly. I checked my speed, fifty knots… As I slowed to a halt, the immediate area was clear.

  I signalled John to get out. I left the engine running so that the sound of the aircraft would muffle our escape. John and I jumped out, grabbed our shit and headed for a sign called "Matagorda Island Marina."

  I gashed my leg open on a wrecked car five minutes into the journey. It was a long hump, (a mile's worth of side streets, beach fronts, and backyards) but we are here. It is a decent sized marina with a large ferry, and a gift shop. Electricity is still on. Marina abandoned. Looks like the harbour master took his own life. His bloated corpse is slumped over a desk in the front office, with what was left of his brain caked on a calendar marked January. The TV was still on, playing snow.

  I am very weak today. If it were not for John, I would be dead. Annabelle is next to me sleeping. It is dark outside and I have been blacking out on and off most of the clay. My leg is infected, and I need some antibiotics. In the harbour master's desk, we found some whiskey. This has served me most of the day as a disinfectant, as well as painkiller. Tomorrow, John will go out alone to find some medicine for my infection. We are in no trouble currently.