Last Fight of the Valkyries (4 page)

Mel turned off the engine and looked to him with a grim smile and
a raised eyebrow. “We pray.”

He took that as his cue to backtrack to Grandma and get her out
the rear door along with everyone else. He hunched over as he made
his way to her. The men and Scouts needed no invitation; they charged
out the back. The four of them formed a loose firing line just behind
the truck so they could shoot the incoming zombies. They looked tiny
in the face of the ever growing crowd of infected coming through the
broken rear gate of the ballpark.

We did this. Phil warned us. We brought down this sanctuary.

There's always someone around who ruins it for everyone else or
for themselves. Liam assigned the name
that guy
to the
bumbling character from all the zombie books he'd read over the
years.

That guy
who bungles holding a key to get him into his
sanctuary.

That guy
who shoots so many zombies he creates a stack of
them, allowing them to walk onto his otherwise safe railway car.

That guy
who needlessly brags to CDC employees that his
Grandma is 104 so they spend the next week hunting her down.

The examples were legion, yet the three he'd just imagined were
from his own experience in the Zombie Apocalypse to date.

Yep, that's all me. My streak continues.

Liam watched the handful of Scouts and men outside and recognized
he had to move fast. He grabbed Grandma's arm, thankful that for once
she didn't argue with him. She had a penchant for asking him to leave
her behind and save himself, but she likely had heard Liam demur so
many times she knew not to ask again.

The gunfire outside was incessant. When he and Victoria had
Grandma on the dirt, he could see the fighting was more serious than
he'd imagined. The crowd of civilians converged on the thin line
of—at best, a dozen—Marines, and weren't stopping, even
in the face of gunfire. In fact, they were firing back. Several of
the Marines fell as he guided Grandma to the Osprey. There was no one
standing on the ramp so they just kept going. Several of the people
they rescued from the TV station had jumped off the roof and ran in.
They moved with grim determination as far into the plane as they
could, as if
nothing
was going to stop them from reaching
safety. He doubted even the Marines could dislodge them.

He put Grandma on one of the jump seats near the middle of the
plane and motioned for Victoria to strap her in. Someone in charge
had to be on the plane. He walked by the eight or ten men and women
who had taken refuge in the leading seats and stepped from the cargo
area into the cockpit. Two Marine aviators sat in front of a dizzying
array of buttons, switches, and display panels. The man on the right
had a pistol pointed at his chest.

“I'm unarmed!” he shouted.

“What do you want? How'd you get on board?”

Liam thought it was obvious. “Your door was wide open,”
is what he could have said. Now wasn't the time for jokes. Instead,
he played his only card in this rigged poker game called the
Apocalypse.

“I'm here to see Colonel Brandyweis. He's the commander of
2
^nd
Marines...or something.” He'd met the colonel,
but he couldn't recall the man's unit. He was only half-sure of his
rank. He continued, talking fast. “I'm here with some Boy
Scouts and my elderly grandmother. The colonel was looking for her.”
That was mostly true.

The co-pilot looked at him for a long moment, then lowered his
weapon.

“The
lieutenant
colonel isn't here. Go back and take
a seat and I'll contact him. If you're lying, I'll throw you off
myself. Clear?”

Liam had seen enough war movies to know the proper response:
“Crystal, sir.” He thought about throwing him a salute,
but opted for restraint. He trotted back to the large cargo hold.
Grandma and Victoria were secure and belted, but the other men and
boys were still at the bottom of the ramp, firing and reloading as
fast as they could.

He proceeded to the top of the ramp, and squatted down so he could
see through the side gap in the bay door. Hundreds of infected
plodded on the green turf, walking and speed-walking toward the
planes. On the other side, Marines were falling back to the planes,
downing civilians who were doing their best to get themselves shot.
Liam recognized the desperation in their eyes.

The Marines were doomed if they didn't fight back. Opportunities
for cooperation, and survival, had passed. The civilians would
overrun the plane and make it so overburdened it wouldn't be able to
take off. That's how the story ends...

He was in the process of turning around to go back to Grandma when
something caught his attention on the top of the MRAP. A child was
still alive up there, but wasn't coming down.

“Ugh, that just figures,” he thought. Once he saw the
person, he couldn't look away. He judged his chances, ignored them,
and ran toward danger. It reminded him of “rescuing” that
travel Bible for Victoria, but that was different. That was something
he did to impress a girl. Now he was only thinking of saving a life.

Victoria screamed his name behind him, overpowering the engine
noise, but he couldn't listen to her. He plowed through the small
cordon of rifle-wielding Boy Scouts, unaware until it was much too
late he didn't inform them he was coming through. He waited to be
shot in the back, but was pleasantly surprised when he wasn't.

He judged his distance, speed, and destination and timed his jump
perfectly. Getting on top of his MRAP wasn't that difficult because
the thing had numerous appendages, grills, and guards on the side
which facilitated his climb. He mounted the rig just in front of the
driver's side door, pulled himself onto the top part of the hood—away
from all the blood—then hopped over the windshield to the
somewhat flat surface on top. He got around the automated chaingun,
disheartened by all the blood—that was from survivors hurting
each other to get their ride on his truck. He took two seconds to see
the crowds on both sides of him eating away the Marines by sheer
force of numbers. He didn't have long.

It wasn't child, but she was a very small older teenaged black
girl. She was prone on the metal surface. Her white blouse carried
the typical apocalyptic grime of someone who had worn it for too
long. Her long black slacks were shredded below the knees and
similarly filthy. Her exposed lower legs were lacerated with what
looked like a thousand scratches. Her arms were also smeared with
blood from numerous injuries. When he bent down to let her know he
was there, she turned her face toward him and it too was
blood-strewn. But she
was
alive.

He said nothing, but grabbed her hand and pulled her from the
deck. She let him lead her, though she was in a daze. The smell of
gunfire was powerful. Clouds of it were everywhere below him, adding
to his own wooziness within the chaos.

Still saying nothing, he pulled her forward, and motioned where he
wanted her to go. She gave a weak smile and drug herself toward him
as he stood on the hood and beckoned her.

“That's right. Just follow me down. We're going to get on
the plane.”

She looked terrified. A perfectly natural emotion given what she'd
just been through. He corrected himself. She was
still
going
through it. He took another look around, felt the crush of time, but
knew he couldn't show it to her.

He tried to convey hope instead. “The Marines are here to
save us.”

A thousand thoughts swirled through his head. His mind landed on a
sour one. He expected her to respond with, “And who will save
the Marines?” but she remained quiet.

He held her hand as she shimmied down the windshield, and he
turned to put his foot on the fender so he could step there. He let
himself get distracted by the action below and he slipped on the
blood covering the lower half of the hood.

His vision accelerated as he spun.

He became aware of himself sometime later. He opened his eyes
while lying in the dirt. Victoria was in his field of vision, running
to him. Another woman ran the other way. He recognized her from
somewhere.

“Victoria, sweet Victoria,” he thought. “Are we
going for a plane ride?”

A zombie jumped into his field of view. It ran up the ramp, but
was shot by a soldier at the top.

“Not a soldier. That's a U.S. Marine,” he heard from
deep in his memories.

Screams everywhere. Some Boy Scouts turned and ran into the plane.
One looked back at him with terror in his eyes.

“How nice to have them here,” he thought.

“I wonder what game they're playing?” His mind was
adrift.

He next became aware of himself sitting in one of the Osprey's
seats. More gunfire. A deep hum of an engine. He was surrounded by
many desperate-looking people. “Wow, they look like they're
late for work,” he joked with himself.

The already whining engines pitched faster. The plane lurched.

From his left, he heard a swell of gunfire and watched with placid
calmness as the Marines shot everyone they could from the ramp of
their plane. Most were blood-covered zombies. Some weren't. The noise
was deafening, but Liam wasn't bothered.

“EVERYONE GET DOWN!” shouted one of the Marines over
the roar of the accelerating engines. Most complied. He physically
encouraged the few holdouts.

With everyone off their feet, Liam had a clear view of the other
Osprey. It still had its ramp open too, but no one was shooting, and
a massive crowd tried to get in from the infield side of the baseball
diamond. Another group was on the outfield side of the ramp and they
pressed in too.

Isn't this nice. I love coming to the ballpark with Dad.

In slow motion, the other Osprey lifted off, ramp open and all,
and tilted dangerously to the left. People clung to the ramp even as
it lifted several feet above the crowd. It was too much.

The Osprey continued to tilt and move forward at the same time. It
snapped the wires behind third base and tried to correct itself, but
it was too unwieldy. It drifted into the lowest seats, and seemed to
settle itself onto the incline filled with terrorized and fleeing
people. Liam waited for an explosion that never came.

“Nothing is ever like the movies,” he complained.

The Marines continued to shoot both the living and the dead at the
end of his bird's ramp. It began to close. Before it got too high,
Liam had the misfortune to see a man throw his tiny daughter in the
air toward the Marines, only to have her pulled down by an incredibly
lucky zombie who had his arm above his head as he too reached for the
ramp.

“He whiffed it,” was his in-game analysis. “I
feel ya' buddy.”

The whole plane rattled maniacally, then seemed to settle as it
rose. In sixty seconds, Liam appreciated they were alive, and
hovering. His head cleared, though his confused ramblings were
gradually replaced by a similarly disconcerting din of screaming,
shouting, and wailing from inside the now-cramped cargo hold.

A grim-faced Marine covered in red blotches on his gray camo
walked by. He looked at everyone in the seats as he picked his way
through those sitting on the floor. Liam couldn't read his face, but
thought he saw anger in his eyes.

He turned to Victoria in the seat to his right and was surprised
to see the shock on her face as she looked at him.

“Liam! You fell and hit your head!”

“I fell and hit my head?” he mouthed back.

She nodded vigorously.

“Just rest!” she screamed.

“I lost my shirt,” he said with less enthusiasm. But
she was no longer looking at him.

He reclined his head on the seat. The Marines shouted at the
civilians. The civilians shouted at the Marines and each other.
Children—many parentless—wailed relentlessly, as was
their right. No one showed the least inclination to heed to sanity.

He leaned forward and over to Grandma. “Hey Grandma, you
forgot your cane. You want me to turn the plane around to go get it?”
He smiled as he said it, unsure if she even heard him. Ignoring the
shaking hand, he used two fingers to wipe at the blood dripping into
his eye, then he crushed himself into the back of his seat to steady
his body. He'd said it as a joke. He forgot her cane back when they
first left her house. He turned around to retrieve it for her; it was
among the first of their many trials together. At the time, he had no
idea how many adventures they'd have together. Now he was safe inside
a military plane, above a city filled with zombies, while thousands
of abandoned survivors below cursed him for being so damned lucky.

Grandma smiled, though her eyes were closed—like she had a
fear of flying. He let it go.

The ballpark, home to so many friendly competitions over the
years, was now witness to the ultimate struggle between the
diminishing number of healthy humans and the increasing number of
infected. He saw it as a microcosm of what was happening in the whole
city, the whole country, and the whole world.

“Ms. Bunting would be so happy to know I remembered what a
microcosm is.” He giggled to himself as his head swooned. His
science teacher was probably de—

“No! She made it. They
all
made it,” he
thought. “Everyone I ever knew made it to safety, until I'm
proven wrong.” He didn't want to go crazy thinking of all the
people who potentially didn't make it.
Someone
had to make it.

Somehow, he won the lottery again and was one of the survivors.

He agreed with those below: at that moment, he really was the
luckiest boy in the world.

While riding in the back of the MRAP, Marty felt light-headed as
energy surged in her head and throughout her body. The incidents
increased over the past few months, but they usually happened when
she was waking up from a bad dream. It had become more pronounced as
she dreamed of Al these past weeks, but this “jolt” felt
stronger than ever before. And she hadn't dreamed yet.