Zompoc Survivor: Exodus (20 page)

Chapter
15

Miles to go…

I will never falter, And I will not fail.

~ US Air Force Airman’s Creed ~

The mood in the chopper was somber as we gained altitude. The Marines around Amy practically lifted her into the crew seat behind the co-pilot and strapped her in while the three closest to me helped me get to the tiny open spot beside her. When I knelt beside her, she pulled me to her and sobbed into my shoulder hard enough to break my heart.

“I’m sorry, Amy,” I told her again and again as the Blackhawk banked to join the other helos. I didn’t know if I was apologizing to her more for losing her dad or for surviving. What I did know was that there were no words that were ever going to take the pain out of this moment. Not for her, and not for me. All I could do was let her hold onto me and cry until she was done.

“Fuck!” one of the Marines yelled. “Did you see that shit!” My head came up at the fury in his voice. From where I was, I could see what he must have been talking about all too clearly through the front canopy. Ahead of us, one of engines on one of the C-130s was on fire and the other transport was falling out of the sky. The right wing of the stricken plane was already sheared off, and as it began to flip over, the left one folded up and broke away. As it spiraled down toward the ground, our chopper’s pilot banked hard to the left, and a white streak zipped past our right side.

“What the fuck!” someone yelled from behind us. Amy clutched at me as the chopper came level again, and I grabbed the headset from the hook on her seat. As soon as I settled it on my head, multiple voices sounded in my ear.

“Missile’s tracking!”

“Fast mover on our one o’clock!”

“I got ‘im,” the pilot’s calmer voice came in. I looked ahead and to our right and saw the jet as it streaked toward us. At first it looked like it was heading directly at us, but when tracers drew a line ahead of it, I could see that it was aiming to our right, at one of the other Blackhawks. Sparks and holes peppered the other chopper’s hull for a few seconds. It caught fire as the jet roared by, and I thought I recognized the black aircraft as an F-4 Phantom. As the other chopper went down, our pilot looked around for a moment.

“Door gunners, which way is he going?” he asked, his voice cool, almost mechanical over the headset.

“Coming around on our left side, on our left!”

“Roger that. Bobcat, Talon 3. Coming around inside the bandit’s turn. Look out for him, he might try to take the shot on you.” We banked right, our nose coming around deep inside the F-4’s turn radius. The fighter jet hit the afterburners and almost leaped out of the way, then a missile shot out from under the broad wing and streaked toward the remaining C-130. Barely a heartbeat later, flares erupted from the C-130’s fuselage, and the missile veered away from the transport’s tail.

“Bandit in the kill circle,” I heard the pilot say when one of the lights on the control panel went red. “Fox one, fox one.” A white trail of smoke followed a silver dart from our left side and arrowed toward the black plane. In seconds it was too far away to tell if it hit or not, then the hostile jet’s back end exploded and it started spinning toward the ground.

“Splash one bandit,” our pilot said amid the whoops and cheers of the Marines. After a moment, the pilot spoke again. “Roger that Bobcat,” he drawled. The chopper banked left.

“Alright everyone, Bobcat’s picked up three more bogeys headed our way. We’re gonna head for KC and try to use the smoke for cover.” We gained altitude and speed, but the crippled C-130 still pulled away from us slowly. Thirty nerve-wracking minutes later, we were almost into the black curtain of smoke surrounding Kansas City. Below, I could see neighborhoods and fields on fire, with moving specks that could only be burning zombies. Then the black cloud was around us, and the smoke’s acrid bite was too thick for even the Blackhawk’s rotors to dispel.

With an uncharacteristic expletive, the pilot banked right, and I heard the metallic hammer of a gun behind us, even over the chopper’s engine. A black chopper loomed into view in front of us, and I felt my stomach try to climb up through my throat as we shed altitude. Tracers lanced overhead, then we shot under the enemy bird and banked left, barely avoiding a line of tracer rounds that rained down on our right side. The second bandit slid into view as it banked to follow us, then it fell victim to a fatal loss of situational awareness. Tracer rounds slammed into the dark painted Blackhawk from above and to its left as our companion Blackhawk raked it with one of its miniguns.

“Sonofabitch!” someone yelled. “That was an Apache!” I felt my blood run cold at the news. I only knew of two things as tough as or tougher than an Apache gunship. One was an A-10 Thunderbolt, a tank buster of a plane known as the Warthog that sported half a ton of armor, and the 60 plus ton M1 Abrams, a main battle tank so indestructible it could withstand close range hits from its own cannons. I’d only heard of a handful of Apaches ever being shot down, and none of them had been brought down by anything short of a missile or concentrated anti-aircraft fire. The only advantage we had was that the Apache, like the Warthog and the Abrams, was designed mostly to fight targets on the ground. Of course, if it was carrying Stingers like we were, all bets were off. I looked at the lone Stinger tube on our right side and hoped it was enough.

We climbed as quickly as we could, our pilot trying to get altitude on the Apache and the still unseen third bandit. We cleared a column of thick smoke and veered right as we found the third chopper, another Blackhawk. Its pilot fired a missile the moment we saw him, but it never came close, and I didn’t see the pilot’s board light up to indicate the bandit had locked on to us. His door gunners were more on the ball, and opened fire on both sides as we passed. I got a brief impression of rounds hitting the left side of the chopper, then one of the Marines tackled me and shoved me back against Amy’s seat. I felt impacts against the Marine on top of me, then we were through the hail of enemy fire. When he didn’t move, I turned to look over my shoulder and saw a dangling eyeball and dripping gore. With a push against the seat, I shoved his body off of mine before Amy could get a good look at the ruin of his face, then turned to take stock of the situation. Blood was running across the deck, and both gunners were slumped at their guns. Looking forward I could see the pilot was dead, and the co-pilot was trying to fight the controls.

“Somebody get on one of the door guns!” the copilot was yelling over the headset. I looked back into the compartment, and only saw three Marines moving. One was pressing his hand down against his leg, the one in the middle seat against the rear wall was cradling a bloody arm, and the other was struggling to unbuckle the left door gunner’s body from his seat. I turned to Amy.

“Are you hurt?” I asked her. My hands were running along her arms and legs, searching for wounds.

“No!” she yelled. “I’m okay!” I nodded to her and moved to the right door gunner’s body. Trying to move a dead Marine and work the four point harness that held him in place was going to take too long. Instead, I pulled his combat knife from his belt and cut the straps, then pulled him to the side.

“Do one of you know how to use this thing?” I asked. They both nodded, then the Marine with the wounded leg pointed to the gunner’s seat.

“Siddown!” he yelled. I must have looked like a fish for a moment because he yelled it at me again, this time like a drill sergeant. “It’s simple! Pull the left trigger first, then the right trigger a second later. Follow your tracers and walk your fire where you want it!”

“I’m not a gunner!” I yelled at him. “I’m not even a Marine!”

“You are today!” he yelled back. I straddled the seat and grabbed the miniguns grips, looking for a target. I also tried to ignore the warm, damp feeling on my butt. As I searched, I saw black smoke coming from the engine cowling. Then the other chopper was above us and to our right. Tracer rounds sliced through the air ahead of us, and the copilot banked hard left as the deadly line of fire cut through the spot we’d just been in. When the other chopper dropped into my field of fire, I pressed the left trigger, then the right and heard the ripping sound of the minigun unleashing three thousand rounds a minute. I watched my own tracer rounds make a bright line in the air behind the other Blackhawk. I swept the spinning barrels left, then right as the bullets chewed the other helicopter’s fuselage, then swept it back and forth in broad swaths to be sure I killed it.

“You’re shooting at my kid!” I yelled at the black chopper as it burst into flames. I let go of the triggers and found myself breathing hard.

“Bandit left!” I heard the man on the other side yell, then the copilot brought our nose up and braked us hard in midair. Again, the metallic hammer of the Apache’s thirty millimeter cannon sounded, then the other bird was passing in front of us.

The nose dropped back down, and I heard a half second of tone before the copilot called out, “Fox one, motherfucker.” The Stinger pod spat its lethal payload into the air, then the rocket motor ignited and sent it straight for the Apache. The enemy pilot tried to maneuver out of the way, but we were too close for him to do more than tilt his aircraft. The missile slammed into the gunship just behind the pilot’s seat, and sent the black helicopter down in a ball of fire.

“Oorah!” the Marine on the other gun called out, and the other two echoed him. I climbed over the bodies sprawled on the deck and stuck my head into the front compartment.

“How bad is it?” I asked. The copilot’s face told me what I suspected, and I grabbed the pilot’s headset to replace mine.

“We’re gonna lose power in a couple of minutes. I can bring us in, but it ain’t gonna be pretty. If we survive the landing, it might be easier than staying alive afterward.”

“Am I patched into the radio on this?” I asked.

“Yes, just press that button there to transmit. Our callsign is Talon 3,” he told me as he put both hands on the stick.

“Bobcat, this is Dave Stewart on Talon 3,” I said, making hash of radio etiquette. Static answered me for a few seconds, then a familiar voice filled my ears.

“For Christ’s sake, Stewart, you are harder to kill than a goddamn cockroach,” the Marine major said with something resembling humor in his voice.

“Kind of you to say so, sir. Look, I need to ask you a favor. Is there a woman named Maya Weiss on your plane? If she is, I’d really like to talk to her.”

“Is it important enough that it can’t wait ‘til we land, son?” he asked. Moments later, the C-130 came into sight through the smoke. “Aw, hell,” I heard him say.

“I don’t think we’re going to be landing in the same place, so yeah, I need to know if she’s still alive and if she is, I need to talk to her.” Moments later, Maya’s voice was in my ears, and I felt my breath catch in my throat.

“Dave? Baby, are you okay? What about Amy and Karl?” she asked. Her voice was thick with emotion, and a little rough around the edges.

“I’m fine, baby. So is Amy. Karl…he…he didn’t make it. He saved our lives.” I looked out the front canopy and saw the ground getting a little closer to us. I took a deep breath and steeled myself for the next part. “Look, we’re going down, Maya. You’re going to have to get Cassie and Bryce to Nate’s. I’m sorry to put that on you, but I’m going to catch up to you as soon as I can.”

“I told you not to do that to me again,” she said, her tone forced.

“And I told you I couldn’t promise that. But I will promise you this, Maya Weiss. Amy and I will make it back to you.”

“Swear it?” her voice cracked.

“I swear it. Like I told you before, even the zombie apocalypse can’t keep me away from you.”

“I’ve got good news,” she said with the barest hint of a waver in her tone. “Leo and Sherman are on the plane with us. They even got our Land Masters loaded. Did you get my care package?”

“Yeah,” I said, my throat tight.

“Then you better get your ass in gear. You know how your cat gets when you’re gone too long.” A red light started flashing on the instrument panel, then another, and alarms started buzzing.

“I gotta go, baby. I love you,” I said as the plane banked in front of us and circled to our left.

“I love you, Dave.” Her voice was strong by then, and steady. I pulled the headphones off and went to the right side of the compartment. The chopper began to shudder as we got closer to the layer of smoke that blanketed the middle of Kansas City, forcing me to grab one of the straps next to the door. Then, the sound of the C-130’s turboprop engines was clear and loud in my ears as it passed by on our right side. The black haze rose around us as I watched the plane head west, and we fell into darkness, the chopper’s engine silent, the only thing slowing our descent the rotors themselves.

“I will never falter,” I recited from the Airman’s Creed as I started to strap myself into the seat beside Amy’s. “And I will not fail.” I reached out, grabbed her hand…and prayed.

A Letter to the Reader

Dear Reader,

Thank you for buying Zompoc: Exodus. I hope you enjoyed Dave’s adventures as much as I enjoyed writing about them. Rest assured, Dave’s exploits continue in Zompoc Survivor: Inferno. I’ll keep you updated on the progress of the story through my website,
www.chancefortunato.com
, and give you glimpses into Dave’s world.

Like all authors, my success depends on you, so again, I want to express my gratitude. Like most writers, I’m always trying to get better at what I do, and I’d appreciate your help with that. Please take just a few minutes to leave a
review
of the book and let me know what you think. Your feedback is important, and I’m glad to get it.

In the meantime, you can pick up
Zompoc Survivor: Inferno
to find out how Dave and Amy get out of Kansas City and learn more about the men in black and their part in the zombie apocalypse. Until then, remember the rules. Always have a Plan B.

Sincerely,

Ben Reeder