Infection: Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (10 page)

Stan, the co-pilot with the bite on his hand, appeared to be holding his own for the moment. Though wrapped in several layers of bandages, blood still seeped mercilessly from the wound. Dr. Caldwell, regardless of the other man’s attitude and dedication, knew that soon Stan would get sick, become sicker and mostly incapacitated, die, and then reanimate. There didn’t seem to be any reversing the process. For the time being though, Stan was doing what he could to help, and Dr. Caldwell decided that he could let the inevitable cook on a back burner.

The pilot pointed toward the west at an open field just south of O’Malley Road, a four-lane highway of sorts in South Anchorage. The field had what appeared to be soccer goals on it, but it also appeared to be largely flat and open. It was also far enough away from what was happening in town that their group stood a fair chance of being able to safely escape the carnage. They were just moments away but the desperate flashing of a red light on the pilot’s control panel and a sudden loss in power by the motor led the doctor to believe that they might not make it.

The helicopter’s turn was sudden and direct. The pilot apologized into his microphone headpiece, but only Dr. Caldwell and Stan could hear it. Both helicopter crewmen flicked switches and turned dials as they tried to coax enough fuel and momentum out of the bird to get them to the field.

Dr. Caldwell knew immediately that they were out of fuel and the landing ahead of them would be rough at best. Using hand signals, he instructed the other passengers to strap themselves in and brace themselves for a crash. One woman grabbed an extra helmet from an open stowage compartment and pulled it over her well-sculpted hairdo. She took off her glasses and put them in the front pocket of her silk jacket. Her eyes caught the doctor’s and they paused. They didn’t say anything, not that either of them would have been able to hear it anyway. Dr. Caldwell nodded and forced a smile, which she returned. A sudden jolt from the struggling aircraft erased both of their smiles though as quickly as they appeared.

The helicopter’s engines gave out just as they crossed over O’Malley Road. The pilot conducted a controlled but powerless landing, trying to soften the impact as much as possible. Even so, when they hit it was violent and jarring to everyone onboard. The passengers in back were jolted but, for those able to use them, their safety harnesses were mostly effective in keeping them from suffering major damage. Equipment fell against them hard, eliciting screams and cries, which the doctor could hear in the absence of any engine noise. Falling on its side as it finally came to rest, the helicopter was immediately smoldering and threatening to begin to burn.

Shaking his head clear, Dr. Caldwell hoisted himself up and peered out the open side door that was now facing up to the sky. The acrid smoke beginning to fill the cabin seeped out the door, allowing the air to clear enough to breathe without coughing. The doctor leaned forward into the stubby cockpit. Stan was quite obviously dead, his neck broken and twisted horribly. The pilot, whose name the doctor still did not know, was unconscious and slumped forward in his seat. Much of the nose of the craft had been crushed inward, concealing the crews’ legs. He heard the spark and fizzle of electrical fuses as, one by one, they burned out.

“Okay, we don’t have much time. We all know what we need to do. Let’s get out and keep moving.” He looked back at the others to register a response. He saw three faces looking back at him: the woman wearing the crew helmet, Officer Ivanoff, and another woman wearing blue nurse’s scrubs. A fourth person, another woman, was crying softly and holding her leg. There had been three others in the helicopter when they left the hospital.

He looked around and found a pair of legs protruding from beneath a pile of heavy equipment that had fallen. He touched an exposed ankle with his first and second fingers and felt no pulse. Where were the others he wondered?

Officer Ivanoff unlatched his harness and then set about helping the others with theirs. They each climbed out while Dr. Caldwell attended first to the woman with the injured leg, and then he tried to get an angle to help the pilot. The quarters were agonizingly cramped, making it almost impossible to do anything. The pilot’s pulse was strong, but he still evaded consciousness. Attempts by the police officer and the doctor to free the trapped man were to no avail.

“Well, what do you want to do, Doc?” asked the police officer as he reached back into the cabin from his straddled perch on the outside of the aircraft.

Dr. Caldwell wasn’t sure. He looked all around for anything that might be able to be used to get some leverage. He was still looking when he heard the first sound come from the cockpit. Assuming it was the pilot, he said over his shoulder, “I’ll be right there buddy. Hang in there.”

He finished rummaging through a compartment, looking for any remnants of supplies that he could forage.

“Hey, I was hoping that you might be able to help me with the radio. Maybe we could call...”

It was then, in mid-sentence, that he realized that it wasn’t the pilot that he was hearing. It was Stan who was still sitting in the co-pilot chair. He was still strapped in and aligned to be facing forward, but his neck was broken and twisted in such a way as to have his head hanging loosely on his right side and looking back at the doctor.

Spying the doctor with his hungry eyes, he began to gnash his teeth and reach forward trying to grab him. Luckily for the doctor, the direction that Stan’s eyes were looking and the direction that his hands were reaching were opposite from one another. The creature, however, was unable to make the connection. He became desperate, shaking his seat and creating a horrible sound that chilled the doctor to his very soul. He was immobilized, a virtual deer in the headlights. And his eyes...there wasn’t a shred of humanity in their depths. Behind the expanded black pupils lurked a preternatural hunger whose shadow was made all the more dark by the translucent hot rage glowing in the white corneas around it.

The absolute fear that gripped the doctor sickened him, weakened his knees, and made his head swoon. He had no will whatsoever. He could only remember feeling like this only once before, and it was when he had contracted malaria while in Madagascar. The fever damned near cooked his brain. He had lain on his cot, hearing the drips of sweat that ran down his arms and legs and fell to the floor. He could hear each individual drop as it splashed in the ant-sized swimming pools his sweat was forming on the floor under him. At night, when the sweating and fever really applied themselves, he could swear that it sounded like it was raining under him. Yet, he couldn’t hear anything anyone said to him and barely registered events as they unfolded around him. He had felt like he was floating and merely a spectator...counting the drops of water as they fell. It was the closest thing to an out of body experience he could claim to have had.

It took the sound of Officer Ivanoff reaching back inside to investigate the doctor’s delay to jar Dr. Caldwell from his trance. The police officer shook the doctor and then began to pull him from the craft. As he finally emerged, Dr. Caldwell started to struggle to go back inside.

“The pilot. The pilot is still alive. I’ve got to get back in there.”

It was at about that time that Stan, or that thing that
used
to be Stan, was finally able shake himself enough to readjust his head and neck. With still no bones to hold his head erect, he swung it around to enable himself to get at the warm flesh that the heightened olfactory nerves in his nose detected. His head dipped and bobbed until he found the right angle to be able to sink his teeth into his former partner’s shoulder. He bit through the pilot’s jumpsuit, undershirt, and the skin beneath. Thankfully, the pilot never regained consciousness as the geysers of blood from his torn arteries sprayed themselves across the inside of the large helicopter windshield.

From atop the side of the crashed helicopter, Dr. Caldwell could see two other lifeless bodies lying close to one another on the soccer field. He looked more closely, hoping to catch signs of life. When he looked at Officer Ivanoff though, the policeman shook his head. The doctor knew that could mean only one thing: two more bodies and two fewer survivors.

Falling onto his hands and knees beside the aircraft, the doctor was at a loss as to what to do. His head swirled with a confusing mix of anger, doubt, fear, and a host of other emotions, along with the most recent image of horror he had just witnessed in the helicopter. What was happening? Where could they go now? Would there be any end to this? He dug his fingers into the still dew-damp grass and soft, moist soil. The cool morning air kissed his neck and chilled the beads of sweat still standing there and brought the hair on his arms and back to full attention.

And then he heard it again. For what seemed to be the millionth time yet that day, someone said to him, “Doctor, I think we have another problem here.”

He let the defeated, weary laugh creep out of him softly as he remained in the same position. A few tears, those few he still had left in him, escaped to the corners of his eyes and fell harmlessly and silently to the ground in front of him.

He composed himself, putting on his Doctor’s Smile and leaned over the woman lying near. “What’s your name?”

Through clenched teeth, the dark complexioned islander answered, “Sulamai, but you can call me Vanessa.” She was still rubbing her leg and breathing in quick, controlled, labored breaths.

“Okay Vanessa. Where on your leg does it hurt the most?”

She touched her ample right thigh and said, “Right here. Ooooooooh. It hurt real bad.”

The doctor could tell that her leg just wasn’t right. Between the angle at which it sat and an alarming knot on the middle of her thigh, he was fairly certain that her femur was broken. He also knew that significant damage to that bone especially could lead to a number of other more serious concerns down the road. Of course, under different circumstances, he’d just order a leg X-ray and help steer her toward a speedy recovery. Unfortunately, these were anything but normal circumstances. In considering their options and needs, he also realized that if they didn’t get moving quickly, that damage to her femur would be the least of her concerns.

Dr. Caldwell stood up and, with the ruckus inside the helicopter still serving as his backdrop, he said, “Okay folks, we’ve made it this far together. We gotta keep pushing.” He pointed up toward the park entrance, which was clearly visible and a little less than a mile of gradual incline up and out. “There are houses and people who can help us up that road. We’ve got to keep moving. Officer, if you and I help Vanessa, I think we can make it. Vanessa, you up for this?”

Vanessa looked up at the doctor and her tears went from those of pain to those of resignation. She shook her head slowly and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know, Doctor. I don’t know if I can keep going.”

Dr. Caldwell, feeling his already diminished reserves of patience fading further, leaned over her and said, “If we leave you here you will die. Do you understand that? And if we wait and debate this any longer, then we’re going to die too. I need you to help us so that we can all get out of here alive. Alright?”

She continued to cry and looked back down at the ground. “How are you going to move me?”

“We’ll figure it out. We’ve gotten this far haven’t we? You ready?”

She took a deep breath and held it but made no move whatsoever.

“Vanessa?”

She thought about her younger sister who was still in school and about her mother who was at home with her younger cousins, wondering if they were all still safe. Her family lived in the Mountain View area on the northeastern side of Anchorage. Maybe the police would get all of this in hand before it got to her family. She found the small gold crucifix around her neck and went searching for the strength of her Pastor. He always seemed to be so well composed regardless of the situation. Nothing seemed to ever faze him.

“No, Doctor. I think I’m just gonna stay right here for a bit. If you get a car and want to come back and check on me, that’d be fine with me but I think I’ll stay.”

“Vanessa?”

“Doctor, we both know full well that I weigh more than both you and Mr. Police Officer Man there put together. There’s no point in denying that. You guys’d never be able to move me...not without help anyway. No, I think I’ll just stay here for a bit and wait.”

“Vanessa, we may not be able to get back down here.”

“That’s okay, Doctor. If you can, you know where I’ll be.”

“Vanessa, I can’t...”

She silenced him with her calm expression. If she harbored any fear at all, he couldn’t detect it. He was completely disarmed by her resolve. He leaned down and hugged her tightly and kissed her on the cheek.

She giggled playfully and said, “Doctor, please. People will talk. I got my reputation to think about.”

He smiled at her, touching her shoulder gently.

She asked, “If you got anything there in that bag to help with the pain, I would appreciate that.”

“Sure.”

Dr. Caldwell opened the large medical kit from the helicopter and found a syringe with painkiller in it. “Would you like me to do it?”

Never losing her smile she answered, “Yeah, if you could. How many of those things are in there?”

He handed her two and then one more syringe, suspecting what her intentions were but not wanting to confirm. Hippocrates just did a somersault in his grave.