Domain of the Dead (5 page)

Big Cannon trotted up, carrying the sniper’s kit with Angel only a few paces behind. Cahz knew her injury must be serious because she never let anyone near her rifle.

Unconcerned by the new arrivals, Sarah continued, “That still leaves us four seats short.”

“What’s the hold-up boss?” Cannon asked.

“The kids’ll fit in fine, but we’re pushing the weight limit,” Idris chipped in, confirming Cahz’s assumption. “We’ve got enough fuel for the five of us and a few of the pus-bags, but they weigh next to nothing. Even if we do stuff this bird full, we’ll be short on fuel. Okay, there’s no drag if we don’t use the net, but we’ll still splash down who knows how short of the ship. And what if the weather turns and we meet a strong headwind? We’ll just ditch a whole lot sooner.”

Nathan spoke up. “Could some of us get carried in the cargo net?”

“No, we can’t take the weight or the drag, son.” Idris tried not to sound too annoyed at repeating himself.

“Anyways, you’d die of exposure before we got back to the ship,” Bates said. “It’s bad enough just getting winched up, but being under that thing for two hundred miles? No way you’d make it.”

“No need for a seat for me dear,” came Elspeth’s soft voice.

Everyone looked round at the unassuming old woman.

“What do you mean?” Sarah asked.

Elspeth pulled her collar loose to reveal a set of teeth marks over her shoulder. The wound wasn’t deep, but it had broken the skin and drawn blood.

“No,” Sarah wept.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t protect her.” A tear trickled down Elspeth’s cheek as she gazed down at the bundle she cradled in her arms.

Ryan reached over and pulled away a corner of the swaddling. There was a smudge of blood on the yellowed cloth. The child, only a few months old, was crying. Its face was red and its bottom lip quivered as it gasped out wails. Across the baby’s face was the drag marks of a zombie’s scratch. The welts were puffy and red with infection.

“Oh God no, Elspeth,” Sarah gasped.

“Must have happened when I fell,” Elspeth sobbed. “I’m so sorry, Ryan.”

Ryan stood silent, his fingertips on the baby’s cheek. A solo tear trickled from his left eye and Ryan tried to swallow it back down.

“Boss,” Bates broke in, “I’m out of ammo and they’re close.”

“We don’t have time for this, Cahz.” Big Cannon’s deep voice carried more weight than usual.

Cahz looked round at the approaching cadavers and back at the rag-tag group around him.

“Okay, listen up. This isn’t an order but we’ve more of a chance down here than they do.” His eyes looked to Bates and Cannon. “I’m giving up my seat.”

“Jesus, Cahz, we haven’t survived this long to get fucked by a handful of civvies,” Cannon protested, loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Like I say, I can’t order you to stay,” Cahz said.

“You don’t give much of an option, Boss. We’ve stuck together since this shit came down and neither of us would have made it without the other. If you’re stayin’ I’m stayin’.”

Cahz smiled and looked over at Bates.

“I’m taking my seat,” Bates said firmly.

“I stay,” Angel volunteered.

Ryan stepped up. “No, lady. Your arms busted. I’ll stay back.”

Sarah started to protest but Ryan cut her off.

“These boys might have the firepower but they don’t know the ground,” Ryan reasoned. “They’ve got a better chance with one of us to guide them.”

“That’s that settled.” Cahz grabbed Sarah and lifted her up into the chopper before she could react.

Sarah tried to protest but her voice was drowned out by the noise of the baby crying and the drone of the rotor blades.

Shocked by the sudden pace of events, Sarah peered passed the soldiers at Ryan’s steely expression.

Ryan stared down at the swaddled child, gently stroking its cheek. He was so engrossed with the child he was oblivious to the roar of the chopper’s engine, the bustling soldiers, and the zombies shambling towards him.

Sarah’s view was blocked as Cahz grabbed Jennifer and tossed her on board.

“Soon as you can, get back here and pick us up,” Cahz instructed Idris as he ushered Nathan into the middle seat.

Idris nodded. “Keep yourselves safe and give me enough space to land.”

Bates was stooped down, gathering up the last of his kit from the cargo net when Cahz stepped up to him. Bates swallowed down a gulp of saliva to lubricate his throat. He straightened up, but before he could speak Cahz stopped him.

“Bates, leave that behind,” Cahz instructed.

For a moment Bates was puzzled. He’d expected to be chewed out by his commanding officer for not volunteering his place. He followed Cahz’s gaze down to the ghetto blaster.

“How much juice is in those batteries?” Cahz asked.

“Not much, boss. They’re rechargeable and they’re pre-Zee. If you turn the sound down a bit you might eke out another fifteen, twenty minutes, but I guess about an hour is it.”

Cahz nodded. “Okay.”

“Boss!” Cannon bellowed.

Cahz and Bates looked round.

“Gettin’ a bit close.” Cannon, standing with his machine gun at his hip, pointed the barrel at a zombie just a few metres away. Clamping the butt of the gun to his side, he fired a thunderous volley of rounds that shredded the approaching zombie and a few behind it unlucky enough to be in the path of the stray bullets.

“You looking for a decoy?” Bates asked.

“Yep,” Cahz said.

Bates smiled and produced a slightly curved, thin green rectangular box from a large pouch on his thigh. Embossed on the inside curve read the words ‘Face towards enemy’.

“Set a timer on it for—what—five minutes?” Bates asked.

“Make it twenty,” Cahz replied.

When Bates looked puzzled, Cahz explained, “It’ll act as a distraction. Maybe pull a few away from us.”

Bates quickly set the timer on the claymore mine before grabbing his kit and jumping into the chopper.

“You packin’ any more useful toys?” Cahz asked him through the open door of the helicopter.

“Yeah, sure.” Bates unclipped his two thigh pouches and tossed out his inventory. “Two more claymores, two flares, a smoke grenade and one MRE.”

“Ain’t planning on staying long enough to have to eat army rations,” Cahz said, holding the pouches like they were a pair of freshly caught rabbits. “Maybe we can tempt those motherfuckers to eat these instead.”

Bates gave out a chuckle. “Smear it all over you, then no fucker will want to bite you.”

“It’s gettin’ tight, boss!” Cannon called out.

Cahz shut the door and called over to Idris in the pilot seat, “Get these people out of here!”

Idris gave a solemn nod that was as good as a promise for Cahz.

“Cahz, it’s at least an eight hour turnaround!” Angel shouted out from her position in the chopper’s front seat.

“Quicker you go the quicker you get back!” Cahz hollered.

“Good luck, Cahz,” Angel said as she passed him her sidearm and her last remaining clip of ammo through the small window in her door.

“Are you sure?” Cahz asked, holding the magazine clip with the Cyrillic writing across it.

“I want empties back,” Angel warned in a firm tone. “Since Izhmash closed, are bitch to get hold of.”

Cahz nodded. He turned and tapped Ryan on the shoulder.

“Okay, we need somewhere high and defendable,” he said as he passed Ryan the pistol. “Which way?”

* * *

In getting comfortable, the soldier beside Nathan pushed him back into the middle rear seat and blocked his view. He couldn’t see which way Ryan had taken the party, only the occasional glimpse of a rotting faces as the zombies pressed closer to the helicopter.

Bates took a wistful look at the battered stereo sitting behind the mine. He grumbled, “Shit, I’ve got to make up a new mix tape.” He sat back in his seat and pushed out a long rush of air, relieved to be in the chopper.

Drawing a breath of his own, Nathan caught the mixture of decay and body odour from the passengers next to him. Nothing unusual, but now it didn’t bother him. Now he was escaping it, leaving it behind, not trying to ignore it. Escaping. He pushed his shoulders deep into the back of his seat and let his eyelids fall closed.

“Sarah.” Jennifer sounded worried.

Sarah wiped the tears from her eyes and tried to muster a calm tone as she answered, “What is it honey?”

Jennifer looked out the window. “They’re getting closer.”

Sarah too looked out the window at the approaching zombies.

Nathan opened his eyes, and bobbing his head, looked between Jennifer and Sarah. The zombies were indeed getting close.

“I imagine the pilot has to do things before he can take off,” Sarah said, trying to reassure Jennifer without sounding too anxious.

“Shouldn’t we be taking off?” Nathan called out nervously.

Idris craned round from his pilot’s chair to see his passengers.

“We’re going to sit here a bit,” he said casually.

“Why?” Nathan asked.

“To give the W.D.’s something to interest them,” Idris answered.

Nathan looked at Sarah and then back at the pilot. “What?”

There was a thump at the window and Jennifer screamed.

Sarah looked round to see a decayed face pressed against the pane, a dark grey mass of loose skin and pitted chasms. The dry dead skin raggedly hung around the numerous, deep, ickier filled gashes. As it tried to bite through the glass, streaks of dark saliva were smudged across the window.

“For fuck’s sake, take off man!” Nathan bellowed.

“I say when we take off,” Idris said, unflustered by the swarm of zombies outside.

Nathan was half out of his seat. “Why the hell are we still sitting here?!”

“Sit down. I’ll take off before it gets too dangerous.”

Nathan was almost completely out of his seat when an arm reached over and firmly pushed him back down.

Bates pinned Nathan to his seat.

“It looks dangerous enough already!” Nathan complained as he watched a second zombie press up against the glass on the other side of the aircraft.

“Just calm down,” Bates said. “This is the closest you’ll get to in-flight entertainment.”

“So why are we waiting?” Sarah asked.

“I’m playing decoy,” Idris said. “The more W.D.’s we entertain, the less Cahz will need to worry about.”

“This is fucked up,” Nathan said, but he stayed back in his seat nonetheless.

The daylight seemed to fade, sucked in by all the grey-faced cadavers shuffling towards the chopper. The undead now surrounded the aircraft and one by one they were pressing against the windows.

The pounding of dead hands against the skin of the helicopter grew louder as more and more crowded against it. As they reached their goal they squashed their stiff faces against the glass. The chopper began to rock from the force of their pounding hands, and as they pounded the noise grew so loud that it almost enough to drown out the rotor blades.

Sarah held Jennifer in a tight cuddle, repeating calming phrases to her. Nathan sat, his face drained of colour, slumped in his seat as if he were trying to sink out of sight of the insatiable zombies.

Sarah noticed that the pilot and the two soldiers onboard were sitting quite placid and silent.

“All right,” the pilot said as he flicked a switch on the dashboard. “This is your Captain speaking. We’re getting the hell out of here.”

With that, he pushed forward on his stick and the faces around the windows started to drop away.

The chopper rose into the morning sky with ease, unhindered by the mob that had surrounded it. Its pilot watched from his vantage point as the three men and one woman ploughed through the throng of corpses at the far end of the square. Beneath the chopper there still stood a multitude of zombies futilely clawing at the empty air.

He turned the stick in the direction of home and within moments his view of those left behind was lost, obscured by the broken skyline.

With the chopper gone, the zombies stopped groping for the sky and ambled their aphasic way around the town square, some lured by the music from the ghetto blaster, more still drawn towards the people fleeing on foot.

For the longest time there was silence in the chopper. Everyone had donned headsets with attached mic’s which muffled the sound of the engine and allowed them to talk, but as they passed over the devastated land there seemed to be little to talk about. Beneath them was the husk of a world long gone. The motorways were clogged with the rusting carcases of automobiles. Where the road wasn’t clogged it was often washed out or carpeted in a blanket of green where nature had started to reclaim what was hers. Spindly saplings forced a home in parking lots and moss coated those roofs that hadn’t collapsed or been gutted by fire.