There’s no face, like none at all, it’s just muscle tissue and bloody incisions. Eyeballs staring straight ahead, lidless, they’re just staring, penetrating me with a fiery hunger. There’s no skin around them, it’s just two unblinking balls of white, stained red by an endless supply of blood trickling down her forehead. One tiny patch of hair is all that remains, just above her ear, the wispy strands clinging to her exposed scalp.
What do I do? How do I get her off me? Do I drop the duffel bag? I can’t, not with everything we have in here. This is survival, life or death. These weapons have saved our asses more times than I can count as it is. If something goes wrong, if we don’t beat Buckley to that airstrip, we die without this bag.
I don’t have a choice. I’m gonna have to jump onto the chopper with her and just hope someone can take the rest of her head off before it’s too late. Stupid plan, I know how ridiculous this is, but I’m out of options here.
Felecia reaches the helicopter first, maybe ten steps ahead. She throws herself into the cabin like she’s sliding into home, landing hard on her hip and skidding. That maneuver looked dangerously close to my patented flying karate kick, gonna need to talk to her about copyright infringement if I make it on there alive.
Marty hops up a second later, trying to turn himself in the air to land in seated position but he just kind of rolls before crashing into a wall. At least it’s got more seating than our previous helicopter, that’ll be nice… if I’m not dead by the time I make it aboard!
Dammit! This one’s got wheels, no steel frame leg thingy like the others. Yes, I’m pretty sure that’s the technical term. I was thinking I could slide underneath and snap her arm on the frame. But this thing’s too low to the ground, it’ll never work.
Okay, starting to panic here. I’ve got maybe five steps to figure something out and it better be something really good because if not, we’re going to have an uninvited cabin guest. And her friends apparently. Where did they come from? They weren’t here a second ago. Two more are right behind her, and Cadet Hops-a-lot is somehow right behind them. Does this dude not realize he’s got a major handicap? How has he not tripped by now, is his father a fucking kangaroo?
I don’t know what to do, I’m out of time. There’s nothing left to do but jump into the chopper and hope for a miracle.
CHAPTER 37
The shoulder strap! That’s it.
Son of a bitch, I’m already in the air. You couldn’t have thought of this a second sooner?
My fingers fumble with the adjustment piece mid-jump, loosening the strap on the duffel bag, letting it unravel in her hand. She’s yanking on it so hard, all it takes is a split second to come undone.
I belly flop into the open door, sliding on my stomach like a penguin, letting the bag of weapons crash into the side of the helicopter. The end of the strap’s still in my hand. I did it. I unclipped it in time. Her creepy fleshless face isn’t staring at me.
“We’re good, go!” Felecia shouts from her position on the floor, stretching to bang on the wall beside the cockpit.
“I’m trying,” Maxwell screams back, voice cracking. “They don’t exactly come with instructions! Would it be so hard to tape some notes to the damn buttons? Oh Maribel, lift off! Fly, fucking fly!”
Before I can roll over, a hand’s wrapped around my ankle. I don’t need to see it to know who it belongs to. And if Sami’s terrified yelp is any indication, I’m right, seeing a woman with no skin will do that to the best of us.
My heel slamming off her wrist isn’t enough, she’s not letting go. She’s pulling herself up, and her friends are right fucking there!
“The door! The door! Close the door!”
Felecia’s on it before I can finish my panicked outburst, but they’re here before she’s fully vertical. I don’t even know how many, it’s hard to count when there’s missing limbs and halves of heads, and a man kangaroo bouncing along like his leg’s a god damn pogo stick. I didn’t feel safe jumping into the helicopter under the propellers doing a penguin slide, and this guy’s–
Holy shit! That right there is why.
His headless body gets flung into a couple of his comrades, taking them all down as his head gets severed by the rotor, never to be seen again. And now I understand why we duck when approaching a running helicopter. I knew those blades felt uncomfortably close to my head.
Sami springs out of the cockpit, putting all of her weight into the door to help Felecia slam it shut. But it doesn’t close, not with No Face crawling aboard.
It slides into her ribs with a spine tingling snap. The squeal she emits is so animalistic, it makes me wonder if there’s even a human in there anymore, or if it’s all monster.
Her ribcage shatters, bones protruding from her shredded tank top, mangled by the barbed wire that already cut her to bits. Broken bones are sticking out of her stomach, opening her insides for the world to see. It’s all just spilling out while she clings to my ankle, snapping at me, ramming her face into the sole of my boot repeatedly like she might burst through at any second. And it’s not just me, Marty’s kicking away at her, both feet, like he’s pedaling a bike.
What’s even creepier than her skinless head, and the fact that she has no more lips so her teeth are constantly exposed like an agitated pit bull, is the fact that her eyes don’t close. She can’t shut them when our feet make contact, they just stare with a relentless aggression. Her eyeballs quiver and shake with every direct hit, getting knocked senseless, but they’re trained on me again before I can appreciate them looking elsewhere.
They ram the door against her ribs again, her breathless squeals drowned out by the slurping noises her stomach is emitting. Something bulges out of her side, like a giant slug trying to crawl its way out of her abdomen. I can see it pulsing beneath her blood soaked tank top, fluids bubbling and gurgling out of her.
We’re too late! Billie Eyeless is sprinting towards us, stumbling over every body part she can’t see, guided by nothing but scent. I can tell the propeller’s throwing her off, she stops every few steps and spins, trying to grab at us, knowing we’re close, but unable to get a read on our exact location.
Before she can follow her nose to the open door, one of the soldiers that got tackled by Kangaroo Man’s decapitated body is launching himself into the diminishing entryway. They’ve almost got it closed, but No Face is still blocking it, despite her organs being squeezed out like she’s a tube of toothpaste.
Why the hell are we not in the air? I’m tempted to scream at Maxwell to get us the fuck out of here but she’s already screaming at herself so loudly, I doubt she’d hear me. And if she did, she’d probably shove her boot up my ass and not even miss it when I went flying out the door with it still inserted in my rectum.
A sudden jolt knocks everyone to the side as more of them ram into us. I can see their hands poking through the door, and her eyeless face snapping at me, streams of blood laced spittle pouring from her mouth, dribbling onto everyone below her. If enough of them swarm us, we’re not going to be able to take off.
Another sudden jolt knocks us all further off balance. Son of a bitch, they’re gonna tip us over!
A pair of hands disappear from the opening, scratching at the steel frame to no avail. Did he get sucked into the propellers? Can propellers do that? I feel like Maxwell should have warned us if they can.
Unless, no, wait! We’re moving! We’re off the ground. She’s flying. We have liftoff!
The girls pull the door open before throwing all their weight into it once more, ramming it into the awkward pig pile of dangling zompires. It crashes into them with a gruesome splat, an explosion of blood and guts filling the cabin.
A sickening crunch is followed by a spray of brain matter squirting out of the eyeless one’s open sockets. It’s like stepping on yogurt pouches. The contents of her skull squeeze through the empty orifices with so much force, they splatter against the wall of the chopper in a stream of chunky liquid.
The gut-wre
nching sound is only amplified by No Face’s body being broken in half. Exposed ribs scrape the floor when her stomach splits in two, intestines unraveling as her legs fall into the night… With someone clinging to them. He’s hanging on like he’s going to climb them, rope style, back up to us.
Despite the collapsed cranium, the eye squirter continues reaching for us, her movements slow and sloppy, slumped against the frame. She doesn’t even react when they slide the door shut once again, running over the string of intestines, crunching the skinless woman’s exposed tailbone.
With one more burst of brain matter spraying out of her collapsed face, the last of them get bumped from the doorway, disappearing into the night. Except for No Face’s torso, which is still clutching my ankle. Her snarling mouth won’t stop, jaw snapping shut with the ferocity of a rabid wolf. She chomps down on the air, her teeth banging off one another, her wretched fingers clawing at my shin, trying to drag herself closer to me.
Her unblinking eyes burn with hunger, like they’re bugging out of her head in anticipation. The shocked expression doesn’t change, forever locked in a state of tormented desire. Without skin to cover her muscle tissue, or even lips, her eternal sneer glares at me, bloody saliva slithering down her gums. Is it just me or do her teeth look even bigger like this, more ferocious? I would give just about anything for her to have big, plump, juicy, Felecia-like lips right now. Anything to cover her grotesque incisors glistening in a steady stream of drool.
The sole of Felecia’s boot comes down across the back of No Face’s head, smashing it into the floor in a crunching explosion of teeth. Ha, take that you skinless, inside out looking freak. Without teeth, you’re going to have a hell of a time taking a bite of–
God dammit, that only made matters worse. I was envisioning teeth getting knocked from her exposed gums, not fragments of her teeth, giving her razor sharp cracked tusks that’ll make it even easier to rip through flesh. Now she just looks like a vampire wearing a meat suit from the last human she devoured.
Felecia rams her sword across the back of Fangoria’s neck but it’s not enough to slice through, meeting too much resistance on her spinal column. If we don’t find a way to sharpen these, and soon, they’re going to be rendered obsolete. What the fuck do we do then?
“Open the door,” I shout over the deafening thump of the propellers.
Sami doesn’t waste a second as Felecia jabs her blade through the faceless woman’s back like she’s spear fishing. But there’s too many broken bones, or missing bones that have already been torn from her severed stomach. Her shattered ribs give way, allowing the sword to pass right through, slicing her flesh, doing nothing to hold the relentless torso in place. She’s pulling away from the blade meant to restrain her as if it’s not even there.
My foot colliding with her chin doesn’t do it, Marty’s frantic kicks aren’t helping, she’s ruthless in her attack. And apparently our swords have no effect on her. I don’t know what kinds of useful weapons Maxwell’s got in the duffel bag of death, but they’re not doing me any good dangling out of the helicopter. On a brighter note, at least they’re still dangling there, I can tell by the weight on the strap I refuse to let go of. Maybe if I can pull it up…
Before I have a chance to even start tugging, Felecia lets out an agitated exhale. With a roll of her beautiful eyes, she drops her sword and grabs what’s left of Fangoria’s intestinal rope with both hands. The slurping noises are enough to give me the heebie jeebies, and I’m currently kicking a face with no flesh attached.
The door opens, letting in a gust of cool air, whipping the sweat from my forehead as it creeps closer to my eyes. I can barely even see what I’m kicking at, but I know I’m connecting with her wrist. Bones crunch under my heel, grinding against one another as I continue the onslaught.
Felecia yanks on the string of intestines with a disgusted roar, finally pulling the skinless torso away from me. No Face’s death grip is torn from my ankle, mangled fingers reaching for me as Felecia drags her across the tight quarters by the trail of insides presiding outside of her dissected body. Judging by the length, I’d have to say it’s the smaller of the two, I think the long one was already used by one of her falling comrades in an attempt to climb back up.
With one last growl, Felecia flings what’s left of the disembodied infect from the chopper by her unraveling intestines. Her entire body heaving in the doorframe, wiping her bloody hands on those sexy camo pants that make her ass pop even more than it already does, she watches the torso flutter through the night sky.
“That,” Marty chuckles, wiping bits of brain matter from his face, presumably from the exploding head, “was hands down, the most badass thing I have ever seen a chick do. Ever. Absolutely disgusting, but Jesus fucking Christ, woman, you just swung that bitch out of the chopper like she was a damn lasso.”
“What can I say,” Felecia says with a winded shrug, “nobody messes with my man. And she would just not quit. Talk about a thirsty ass bitch.”
“I’m gonna give you a high five,” Sami laughs with a grimace, clutching her stomach. “But first, I’m gonna go puke. Then, high five and one of those girly little hand shaking, feet stomping celebrations I see the cool girls do in the bathroom when they find out a cute boy likes them. Because I always wanted to be part of one of those. But, yeah, gonna need to blow chunks first. Excuse me.”
“She lasted longer than I did,” Marty scoffs under his breath, helping me pull the duffel bag back to safety.
“Yeah she did, you still got a little clinging to the ‘stache,” I say, rubbing over my mouth with my free hand, voice a little shakier than I’d anticipated. “Now, that, that was a close one.”
“I’m sorry, but you’re kidding right?” Maxwell shouts from her fancy little cockpit. “Everything with you lovebird psychopaths is a close one! Can’t you just, for once, not be teetering on the edge of death?”
“What would be the fun in that?” Felecia giggles, exhausted, leaning against the doorframe, flicking bits of skull and brains off the helicopter like they’re wet boogers that just refuse to let go. She stops to pull the bag aboard before collapsing into my arms in an oddly graceful plop. “Have you ever touched a snake that just swallowed a mouse whole? That’s kinda what it felt like, but slimy.”
“Yeah, no,” I say with a grossed out shake of my head. “I don’t make a thing out of petting snakes. Or human intestines.”
“Oh my god,” Sami squeals from the other side of our rancid helicopter cabin, “if you don’t stop it, the next chunks I spew will be all over both of you. So it turns out there’s no bathroom on here. But if I were you I’d stay away from this general area, smells kinda like vomit over here.”
“Alright,” Marty nods, “so, since it’s been established that that’s the puking corner, I’m gonna go put some chunks in the cookies. Damn pilot’s making me air sick.”
“Hey, screw you buddy, I’m doing the best I can,” Max shouts from the cockpit. “And for the record, I am never flying one of these things again. No helicopters, no Strykers, definitely no speedboats. I can not believe people actually do this shit for fun. Not fun! Shit in your pants terrifying. Panic attacky. But not fun!”
Felecia smiles, sliding the door closed before resting against it. “So, now’s probably not the best time to ask if you want to be my partner in the next annual regatta.”
“You know what you can do with your regatta…” Maxwell trails off. “Guys, guys, the GPS is working! In two hundred miles, we’ll be touching down at the military airstrip outside of Yuma. That’s a little over two hours.”
“Does that mean we might still make it?” Sami asks with a beaming smile, curtseying at Marty as he enters the makeshift restroom.
“Oh we’re making it!” Max gives us a quick thumbs up before getting back to her confusing control panel.
The hope that fills our gruesome cabin puts smiles on everyone’s faces. I hate being optimistic in this world, but I can’t help it. I know it ca
n get ripped away at the drop of a dime, but right now, this feels real. This feels like the end.
CHAPTER 38
Nervous butterflies, with the gracefulness of bats, are fluttering throughout my stomach. I can see the mountain range, the one the military airstrip is situated in front of. The eternal flatness of the desert isn’t eternal, it comes to an end.
The treeless range of thousand foot peaks rise majestically out of the ground. It’s strange seeing mountains without trees and snow, just jumbled piles of rock and dirt in the middle of nowhere. Mining country.
Nothing but open road and desert between us and them. It seems like a weird place to stick a military outpost, which I suppose is exactly why they put it there.
The sun’s starting to rise, its rays of bluish light peeking over the rocky ridge as the mountains draw closer with every passing second. I don’t know what we’ll find when we get there, but anything will be better than this anxiety that comes from not knowing. One way or the other, I’m ready for this to be over.
I’m not sure if my heart is racing from the speed we’re traveling, and the fact that Maxwell’s constantly swearing at the control board, or if it’s in anticipation. Whatever the cause, I’m worried everyone else can hear it. They’ll think I’m having a heart attack. Am I having a heart attack? My arm feels fine. One of your arms is supposed to hurt, right?
Looking around at them, yep, they can definitely hear it. This marks the start of the sixth day, but it feels like a lifetime. How have I known these people for less than a week? I could swear months have gone by since I walked into school Tuesday morning. My body agrees.
That’s why my heart’s racing, because this can really only go one of two ways. We either leave this country as heroes, or stay here, condemned to walk the wasteland until we can’t walk anymore. There’s nothing we can do at this point. It’s out of our hands. All we can do is wait, and the waiting is what’s killing me. Everything up in the air, dependent on nothing but circumstance. We did everything we could. It’s no longer up to us.
Blood Type Infected (Book 5): The Departed Page 23