Garver let out a long war whoop as he tore zombie after zombie apart.
Had they had any type of soul, Jones might have felt sorry for them, but he knew there weren't any vestiges of humanity left in them.
Like the first run, the picture on the ground was devastating as he cut the undead to ribbons. The grass covering the meadow ran red with the blood of the zombies. As far as they could tell, they hadn’t hit any of the smart zombies, but in truth, there was no immediate way to tell.
Just like with the first, Garver pulled up and brought the bird back around for a view of the meadow where Bradbury was poised to make his first run.
“Don’t be afraid,” Garver said. “They can’t shoot back.”
Jones jumped on the comms and said, “Do you see any masses that could hide one of the smart ones?”
Bradbury answered quickly and said, “No, not really. They seem grouped up around a farmhouse at the end of the field I’m over. Maybe there’s something there?”
“Take your run,” Jones said. “We need to convince these smart zombies that coming after us is a very bad idea.”
“Okay,” Bradbury said, but there was a hesitancy to his voice.
“Give’em hell, son,” Garver said.
Bradbury started his run, but instead of accelerating like Garver did, his approach was more like a gentle glide. As he drifted along, his guns blazed, churning up the undead in the field below.
“Pick up the speed, Bradbury,” Garver said.
“Yes, sir,” Bradbury said, but he continued gliding along. A moment later, Bradbury said with some surprise in his voice, “Hey, there looks like a group of zombies pulling a cart off to the right of the barn.”
Just as Bradbury finished his sentence, something erupted from a spot at the end of the field and shot toward Bradbury’s helicopter.
Clayton gasped from the back seat.
Garver shouted, “RPG! RPG! RPG! Get out of the way, son.”
Garver wasn’t positive it was an RPG. It could have been a rocket, a missile, or even a fucking torpedo for all he cared. He just wanted Bradbury to get the hell out of the way.
Jones grasped the armrest on his chair as he watched the missile streaked toward Bradbury’s helicopter. The young pilot was reacting too slowly. Much too slowly.
“MOVE!” Garver yelled so loudly that his voice distorted across the comm units.
He had been in real combat when the Taliban had fired RPG at his chopper. He knew the best evasive maneuvers to take. But, other than running a strafing run on a group of zombies, he knew Bradbury had never flown a combat mission with live fire.
At the last possible moment, Bradbury did the absolute wrong move. He turned the helicopter instead of lifting it above the trajectory of the rocket and left a big fat target in the sky. The missile struck the craft broadside in a fiery explosion. The chopper shook violently and flames spit out of its side and it began to wobble in the sky as if a giant hand were shaking it.
“Hold it together,” Garver said almost in a whisper as he pushed their craft toward the one going down.
But it was clear that the chopper was losing altitude quickly. The zombies below put up their arms expectantly as the helicopter flew just over their heads as Bradbury tried to keep them aloft.
Berry’s voice could be heard off mic shouting, “Pull up! Pull up!”
The young pilot’s efforts weren’t working as the helicopter began to spin out of control, whipping around, and falling quickly toward the waiting zombies.
A scream came over the comms, but no one could tell who it was. Jones closed his eyes, trying to will the helicopter not to go down. The next thing he heard was the wrenching sound of metal striking the ground.
Garver said, “No.”
When Jones opened his eyes, he saw the helicopter plowing through a mob of zombies, spilling their bodies across the farm field like a child tossing his army men across the floor. The chopper continued on its path, cutting a path through the zombies until something happened and it rolled onto its side and ended its slide. The blades broke up and shot through the crowd of zombies, wrecking unholy destruction on their bodies.
Flames flicked out of the side of the fuselage of the grounded craft and Garver flew toward it at a breakneck speed.
Jones stuck out an arm and grabbed the older pilot by the arm.
“Pull out,” Jones said.
“What?!” Garver said. “They’re going to get torn apart.”
“Sarge!” Clayton yelled from his back seat.
“We have no idea where that missile came from and who shot it,” Jones said. “We can’t lose this chopper, too.”
“They’re sitting ducks down there,” Clayton said.
“They’re dead already,” Jones said, his voice taut. “We have to find that cart Bradbury talked about.”
In the distance, they could see the zombies around the downed helicopter start to recover and advance on it.
“We have to do something,” Garver said.
“Like what?!” Jones nearly shouted. “We can’t land there and pull them out. All those zombies would take us down. That is if whoever shot them down, doesn’t take us out, too.”
The side door on the side of the down chopped flopped open and fell against its side.
“Look!” Clayton said.
Berry climbed into the opening, holding his AR. He looked shaky as he pushed himself out the door. The zombies around the helicopter took notice of the motion and immediately started toward him.
Berry wasn’t having it and let loose with his rifle, spraying bullets across the approaching zombies. Bodies fell and rolled across the dirt field, kicking up dust clouds, but as soon as one fell, two more took its place.
“Find that cart!” Jones shouted.
“But--” Garver said.
“There is nothing we can do for them,” Jones said. “Get us up in the air and let’s find that cart.” After a moment’s hesitation on Garver’s part, Jones shouted, “Do it now.”
The sound of Berry’s gun echoed in the air as Garver pulled back on the stick and lifted their chopper up into the sky. Clayton couldn’t pull his eyes away from the scene below. Berry fired unrelentingly into the zombies, tearing them to ribbons, but his magazine ran dry. That’s when the zombies climbed onto the chopper, reaching for Berry and trying to pull him down into their midst. Clayton looked away when he saw Berry smacking at them with the butt of his rifle. This was not going to end well.
“Does anyone see that cart or anything?” Jones asked.
The horror of losing the other helicopter and the men aboard gave way to an increasing anxiety, all of them wondering if they would be the next victim. Garver flew erratically, taking evasive actions to avoid that next shot as they swept over the farm field.
“I don’t see anything,” Garver said.
“Me, neither,” Clayton followed up.
“Make another sweep,” Jones said
“I don’t like this, Sarge,” Clayton said.
“Just one more,” Jones said. “We have to know what we’re up against.”
Garver continued maneuvering as if he were back in Afghanistan and the Taliban were below. His motions were jerky and unpredictable. During one motion, they flew over Bradbury’s helicopter and there was no sign of Berry. The helicopter was barely visible as the zombies crawled all over it.
After another minute Garver said, “I can’t see a thing and I’m wondering what the hell Bradbury saw.”
“It doesn't matter,” Jones said. “We’ve got a whole new ballgame. Get us out of here. We need to re-group.”
Garver reluctantly swept the craft up and headed them back toward the Sanctum. All the while, he scanned the ground for any signs someone might be aiming a missile at him, but only saw zombies and then open ground.
No one said a word on the return trip.
Chapter 31
The Other Side
“FUCK YOU!” Lance shouted as he pumped the RPG launcher o
ver his head in a gesture of victory. The second helicopter receded in the distance in what he could only interpret as a retreat. “That’s right. Run! I kicked your ass!”
He whirled around and danced a little jig as he cackled away. His laughter carried over the field but was lost in the grunts, groans, and moans of the undead ambling around him. The undead were such buzzkills, he thought.
Those thoughts were interrupted as a series of rumbling shots resounded from the site of the downed helicopter. A moment later, a set of zombies that had been climbing over the chopper flew off into the air, blood spraying off their mangled bodies, covering the mob in the surrounding area. The bullet-ridden bodies of the undead tumbled onto the zombies beside the crash site.
“Somebody’s still alive in there, I see,” Lance said. “And I thought my little toy took them all out.” He fidgeted with the RPG launcher for a moment.
Bullets blistered out of the thin hull of the helicopter, ripping into the zombies around the craft and shredding their bodies. The impacts of the shots caused some of the zombies to jerk spasmodically. To Lance, it almost looked as if they were dancing.
Lance had pilfered a number of weapons from the military base on the other side of the state. While he really couldn’t name them all, he knew whoever was still inside the chopper was using some sort of heavy weapon. Maybe a .50 caliber gun like he has seen on top of the Humvees back at the base.
The big gun churned out bullets, pounding away at the zombies surrounding the helicopter. While Lance knew he had plenty more zombies, thousands, really, something about the way they were being killed so wantonly bothered him.
The sound of the shooting stopped, and Lance guessed whoever was inside was reloading. The zombies out of range of the bullets pressed in toward the helicopter. They didn’t care about their fallen comrades in death. The “big noises” coming from inside the helicopter meant someone living inside, and that meant there was food in there.
A voice shouted from inside the helicopter. “Come on, you mother fuckers. I’ll kill every last one of you.”
Another round of shots came from inside the chopper, battering the approaching zombies. Arms came off, guts blasted out onto the grounds, and heads exploded. It was a bloodbath, but the zombies just kept coming because they didn’t fear bullets or dying, and that’s what made them so horrifying.
The shooting went on for about forty-seconds, then stopped again, leaving a ferocious kind of carnage around the helicopter.
“I don’t know who you think you are?” Lance said. “But I can’t let you kill my zombies like this.” He let out a laugh, then said, “Only I get to do that.”
The counter-attack from inside the helicopter on the zombies cleared out a mass of the zombies, giving him an unencumbered view onto the helicopter. Not taking his eyes off his target. He reached around onto the cart and retrieved an RPG. He loaded it into the launcher and brought it up to his shoulder. He slowly locked his aim as the zombies outside of the circle of carnage started toward the downed craft.
“Tsk, tsk,” Lance said. “We just can’t have this.” He chuckled for a moment, then pressed the trigger.
The rocket moved across the field, faster than his eyes could follow and struck the helicopter, creating a fiery explosion. The collection of zombies within range were blasted away. The closest ones were either ripped apart or set ablaze. Or both.
No more shots came from the helicopter as it burned out of control. Zombies engulfed in flames stumbled away from the burning craft, looking like human candles in the pre-dawn light.
Lance watched them and laughed.
Chapter 32
A New Ally
Emmett sat next to his contraption and puzzled it out as Doc Wilson and the two scientists looked on. Emmett shifted his head to the right and then to the left, studying the access port on the back of the sprayer.
“They’ll be back soon and need a solution,” Doc Wilson said.
Emmett’s eyes narrowed, but they never left the sprayer/nerve agent pairing that he and Doc Wilson had worked out.
“This sprayer can reach fifteen, maybe twenty feet,” Emmett said. “If we’re putting this thing on the bottom of the chopper, we’re going to need to double or triple that distance. That is unless that pilot is ready to get up close and personal with a few thousand zombies,”
Professor Darke rubbed his chin as he tried to find some solution for the dilemma, but he was more of a theoretical scientist. This left him almost useless in more practical matters,
Holloway, on the other hand, was a lot more useful than his counterpart. He actually knew how to use a hammer and screwdriver.
“We need to find a way to get more pressure behind that,” Holloway said.
Emmett looked in Holloway’s direction and said, “You have a pure talent for stating the obvious, doctor.”
Holloway crossed his arms and made a dissatisfied harrumphing sound.
“Ordinarily, I could hook something like this up to the engine of my tractor,” Emmett said. “Back when I was crop dusting, I had it all hooked up to the power train of my bi-plane, but that ain’t going to be an option.”
A loud knock at the door caused everyone in the room to jump a little, and they all looked at the sturdy metal door into the room. Three more knocks came in quick succession, and each one of them sounded more insistent than the last.
Doc Wilson went in motion while the others stood stock still. He made it to the door and stood there for a moment wondering who it could be. He had lost track of time and hadn’t really considered if things had gone terribly wrong outside.
He leaned close to the door and shouted, “Who is it?”
The response took a moment, but then a voice shouted back, “It’s me, Del. Let me the hell in.”
Doc Wilson undid the heavy locks and swung the door open. No sooner did it slam against the wall, than did Del rush in, his face in a state of near panic.
“You guys have this figured out?” He asked. “Because we sure as hell need it, and we need it now.”
Doc Wilson asked, “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
“You mean other than thousands of zombies headed our way?” Emmett asked.
“They shot down one of our helicopters,” Del spat out.
“What?!” Emmett said as he shot to his feet. “Are you crazy? Zombies don’t use guns.”
Del pointed across the lab to where Grayson was semi-conscious on a gurney. “That kind does.”
That silenced Emmett. Almost. He had seen the smart zombie speak but not do anything else. So, it was hard to believe that these things, no matter if they could talk or not, could take down a helicopter. But he decided to keep that to himself for now.
“How did it happen?” Doc Wilson asked.
“I don’t know the details,” Del said as he ran a hand through his hair. “Sergeant Jones called it in. He said we really need that nerve gas. It might be the only thing that can stop these damned things.”
“Well, what the hell do you think we’re doing here?” Emmett asked. “Playing with our puds?”
“I don’t give two shits what you’ve been doing,” Del said. “We just need it done and ready to go. Where are you with it?”
Darke said, “Not ready is probably the best description.”
“Back up a minute,” Doc Wilson said. “I just want to know how did they take down the helicopter?”
“Jones said it was a rocket-propelled grenade, he thinks,” Del said.
“Where the hell would they get one of those?” Emmett asked.
“How the hell should I know?” Del exclaimed.
“It came from the Wright-Patterson Airbase,” a shaky voice said from the other side of the room.
Everyone in the room slowly turned in the direction of the voice and saw the smart zombie, Grayson, staring at them intently.
“What?” Del asked, but the question didn’t have a lot of conviction in it.
“When we raided the airbase, Lance a
nd I took some weapons with us,” Grayson said. “We knew we could encounter people that might have some heavy weapons. We needed something to counterbalance that.”
Del took two steps toward him and stuck out a rigid finger, then said, “You know, the less you say, the better.”
“Wait,” Doc Wilson said, “we might learn something from him.”
“Not from that piece of shit,” Del said in a low growling tone. “We should have killed you out there.”
“Yes, you should have,” Grayson said, “but you need me now.”
Del marched over toward Grayson and said, “We do not need you. Just shut your fucking mouth.” He drew back his fist, but before he could unload the punch, Doc Wilson sprinted across the room.
“Please, don’t,” he cried out, and Del held his punch back.
“Why the hell not? Del asked.
“He might be able to help us,” Doc Wilson said.
“Yes, I might be able to do that,” Grayson said, but his voice came out like a grunt. It was clear that he was in a great deal of pain.
“How?” Del asked.
“I know things,” Grayson said, his face scrunched up, and his lips pulled tight across his mouth. “I can share what Lance and the others are bringing,”
“You know what?” Del said. “I think you’re playing us because you want to stay alive.”
Grayson said, “You have that right. More than you could ever know. You don’t know what it was like to be...to be one of those things.”
“You seemed to be having a pretty good time of it when you attacked us outside the walls,” Del said with some heat in his tone.
Grayson closed his eyes, and his head fell a little. “I know I did.” He opened his eyes, and they glistened with tears. “It was what I was. You have no idea what it was like to be...half dead.”
His head fell back onto the pillow, and he looked drained from the effort of talking.
The Deadland Chronicles | Book 4 | Siege of the Dead: Page 15