One Crazy Pilot (Apocalypse Paused Book 7)

by Michael Todd

  “So, do you have a particular plan that pertains to the positive Peppy?” Manny asked, obviously pleased with his pathetic attempt at poetry.

  “Nope. Not exactly. I figured we could catch up. Maybe I could glean something useful from the yarns you always spin. Knit a sweater or something.”

  “Did I ever tell you about that time I had an engine burn up when I headed out from China? I had a whole plane full of silk and not one parachute. Well, needless to say, it didn’t take long for me to find the biggest sheet I could—beautiful stuff, cranes and turtles an’ all that. Now, I don’t know much about sewing, but it sounded preferable to dying, so what did I do?”

  Ava scooted closer to the fire. It was burning lower now, although the coals still radiated a good amount of heat. She closed her eyes and let the two men’s stories wash over her. She couldn’t believe everything they said, but she couldn’t simply dismiss their war stories either. Manny and Gunnar seemed to know this as well. They prodded and pushed at each other’s tales, always one-upping the other, trying to uncover slivers of deception in the other’s bizarre tales of the Zoo and the world beyond. Gunnar had a good ear for when his friend was elaborating, as he liked to call it, but Manny would simply slip into another story, crazier than the last, and the soldier would be forced to outdo him.

  They told tales that Ava had always dreamed of telling. Tales of danger and adventure so rife with the fantastic it was almost easier to dismiss the whole thing as false. She couldn’t help but think she’d have a story like that too. A story of hungry monsters and deadly plants and creatures that defied description. If she stuck with these two and they managed to save Peppy and get out of there, Ava would finally get her hands dirty living the life she’d always wanted.

  She was about to drift off into a dream of skydiving over the Pacific when a wolf’s call pierced through the drone of the insects.

  The sound quieted the two men and prompted Gunnar to kick the fire out. Ava told herself it was the chill that sent shivers down her spine, but she’d heard enough fibbing to recognize that for the lie that it was.

  Chapter Twelve

  “You know, I gave it a lot of thought last night,” Gunnar said over breakfast. He had MREs instead of protein bars, a slight improvement.

  “Wow, that must’ve hurt,” Manny said.

  The soldier snorted. “I had decided, before I was so cruelly insulted, that I would guide you two out of here. I figure it’s a humanitarian thing—better than forcing Ava to listen to another of your stories.”

  “Your generosity is legendary,” Manny said between mouthfuls of food. He ate like it was a race, but maybe that was better than savoring the precooked meal. Ava decided to eat faster. The pilot looked up between slurps of food. “What’s the expression, though? The deaf jamming with the deaf?”

  “What about Peppy?” she asked.

  “That’s who convinced me,” Gunnar said and ignored Manny. “If she found out I left a civilian stranded deep in the Zoo wearing nothing but a busted-up business skirt suit and nurse slippers, with no one to help her but the infamously long-winded Jack Mann, she’d kill me herself. Some things are beyond forgiveness.”

  “Where will you guide us, oh fearless leader?” Manny said.

  “We’ll make for Wall Two. The way I see it, we don’t have any other option.”

  “Is it far?” Ava scanned the horizon. It seemed the Zoo had grown even farther overnight, but it might’ve been a trick of the light. Here and there, pinnacles of stone poked from the thick jungle and added some texture to an otherwise completely green vista. Ava could still make out the desert in the distance, but it seemed a lifetime away, the opposite of a desert’s mirage.

  Gunnar stood and shouldered his pack. “It’s far enough that we shouldn’t waste any more daylight.” He had a pack for Ava too, smaller than Manny’s and with a pouch of water built into it, complete with a straw. Modern luxury, he had called it. To the supply of water, he had added some MREs and the first aid kit after they told him that Ava had tended Manny’s wounds. “Are you two ready?”

  They climbed down from the rock outcropping on the same side they’d climbed up. Gunnar had taken that way too, as all the other sides were simply too steep.

  The descent was faster than the upward climb had been but still tricky. Rocks slid beneath Ava’s feet and clattered away from the steep incline and into the shade of the jungle at the bottom of the slope. They had to watch for the poison quill plants too. She didn’t see any open in the early morning sun, but she hadn’t seen the one that had almost fired at her on the way up until she’d been right on top of it. She wouldn’t let something like that happen again.

  “So why Wall Two?” she asked as she picked her way cautiously down.

  “As opposed to Wall One?” Gunnar shrugged. “I suppose it’s mostly because I don’t want to be eaten alive by a pack of monsters or some bat demon, but now that you mention it, maybe I’d be amenable to a change of plans.”

  “She’s a virgin, Gunnar.”

  “Have you been talking to my mother or something?” Ava said. “Because I think she’s the only person who still believes that.”

  “He’s kidding. He means it’s your first time to the Zoo,” Gunnar said.

  She nodded and felt extremely foolish. “You know, neither one of you are as funny as you think you are.”

  “Sorry to disappoint. I suppose it’ll make you feel better if I die trying?”

  Ava shot Gunnar a look. He grinned.

  “How’s Wall Two looking these days? They don’t have showers, I take it?” Manny sniffed in Gunnar’s general direction.

  The soldier ignored the jab. “It’s amazing, really. Every country that wants a piece of the Zoo—which, at this point, is pretty much everyone with a plane and money for gas—has set up in one section or another. Good ol’ Uncle Sam has the most impressive tech, of course, but there are all sorts of projects going on. And since it’s all connected, all you need to do is head around the outside until you find what you’re looking for.”

  “And you know how to get there?” Ava said.

  “I sure do. I’d be there already if it wasn’t for Peppy. But I’m sure she’d want me to take care of a couple of poor lost lambs first.”

  They reached the bottom of the slope and Gunnar turned left and hugged the edge of the jungle for a short distance before he stepped inside. Ava realized with growing dread that they were about to walk past where Bradley had fallen. Although she didn’t truly miss her boss, she didn’t want to see his corpse either. He’d hit his head on the way down. It would probably be a mess.

  Manny noticed her looking around. “That’s funny,” he said and nodded in the direction of the stone hill they’d come from and not the jungle. “Brad should’ve landed not too far from here.”

  “Now you must be joking,” Gunnar said. “Did you really think the Zoo would let a meal get cold?”

  “I thought there’d be some leftovers, yeah,” the pilot said.

  “Ha. Yeah, right. The Zoo had to get all that biomass for the Surge from somewhere. The way I see it, we’re about to hack through dead soldiers—composted into bushes and vines, of course.” Gunnar turned toward the Zoo, hunkered down for a moment, then stood again and started inside.

  “Nice thought,” Ava said.

  “If you think he’s bad, wait until you meet Peppy.”

  “Speaking of which, we should hurry. I want to get you two out of here so I can get back and find her. I’d be jealous if she gets to sleep an extra night in here without me. Nightmares in the Zoo are one-of-a-kind.” With that, the soldier slipped into the jungle. He threaded his way through the trees, his rifle held in front of him and his head turning constantly as he studied their surroundings.

  Ava couldn’t help but think back to when she had followed Chandler through the Zoo. He had looked as capable and self-assured but now, he was dead. She had no doubt that the Zoo would take advantage of even the smallest mistake. That a
wareness brought understanding—she began to see it the way the men talked about it, as an adversary rather than an ecosystem. Make only one error, and the Zoo would capitalize on it.

  “Can we really trust him?” Ava whispered to Manny, who now, despite carrying almost as much weight as he had the day before, stuck by her side.

  “Oh yeah, Gunnar’s a beast.”

  “Are you sure? Chandler killed a bunch of those cat-sharks, and he still…well he didn’t make it,” she said.

  “Did he tell you how he got his name? His momma named him Theodore or something like that, but his daddy wouldn’t allow it. He said his boy was a born soldier, a natural gunner, so he changes his name but misspelled it, though. That was when he was six months old. By the time he was six years old, he could shoot the eye of a dragonfly with a bb gun and only needed eight pumps, too. He could compensate for the drift.” Manny nodded as if compensating for drift was the greatest of all skills.

  “And you think we’ll be attacked by dragonflies?”

  He grinned at her joke. “You’ll see. We have a ways to hike. Gunnar’ll prove himself worth his name. I hate to guarantee anything in the Zoo, but that’s a safe bet.”

  Ava didn’t like what the bet implied, but she nodded all the same. The pilot seemed capable enough in a fight. If he thought Gunnar was a strong ally, Ava would have to accept—

  Something moved off to their right.

  “Did you see that?” Gunnar asked, already frozen with his rifle aimed in the direction of the movement.

  Manny grunted an affirmative and drew a knife large enough to carve a turkey.

  “Don’t be stubborn,” the soldier said. He drew a gun from inside his jacket without looking and offered it to Manny.

  “I’ll stick with Sheila, thank you very much.”

  “What about you?” Gunnar said and moved the gun toward Ava without looking at her. She took it reluctantly but found she really appreciated the weight of the weapon in her hands.

  Without another word, their escort raised his weapon and scanned the woods.

  “Seven—no, eight,” he said and gestured with his hands.

  “You know I don’t speak American!” Manny hissed.

  “The damn things know enough about guns to try to take me out first. Watch my back. Don’t let them touch the girl.”

  As little as Ava appreciated being referred to as “the girl,” she stuck beside Manny as he took up position behind Gunnar.

  They’d already waited too long.

  The undergrowth around them exploded with activity.

  Two cat-sharks sprinted toward Ava and Manny. The creatures were far enough apart that they couldn’t run from them both. The jungle was more open there than when Ava had last faced the monsters. She’d have thought that would make the creatures less frightening but that was not the case.

  Their eyes remained fixed on her as they charged in a sinuous back and forth motion like a shark. The fins on their back betrayed their target like an arrow. They intended to kill her.

  Two quick blasts of gunfire erupted and were immediately followed by two sprays of blood and the creatures dropped instantly.

  “Six more,” Gunnar said from behind them. Ava’s heart pounded, and her hands sweated, which made the gun slick in her hands. Manny cursed under his breath, much more colorfully than she had heard previously, but Gunnar stood as still as a statue.

  At a sudden blur of movement, he opened fire once more. The surprise of the gunshots nearly made Ava throw her hands up over her head, but Manny put an arm around her as three more cat-sharks emerged from the underbrush.

  These remained low—so low that all she saw barreling toward them were the fins on their backs. They moved easily through waist-high tangles of branches and vines, as easily as if they were in the open ocean.

  Gunnar anticipated two of their paths, and after a couple more bursts, the bushes ceased to move and two of the fins were no longer visible.

  “Missed one!” Manny said gleefully as the third leapt from its cover in the brush like a great white shark hunting a seal. The pilot had already crouched in readiness. As soon as the cat-shark was close enough, he surged upward, his knife held in one hand. “Brained it!” he yelled, obviously proud of himself. The knife had gone through the creature’s shark-like jaw, forced its mouth closed, and pushed through its head and out the top of its skull. The whole thing looked like something from a videogame.

  He heaved its dead body off his blade and the thing’s skin—rough and gray like a shark’s—rasped as he did so.

  “Two up high,” Gunnar reported and released a quick volley above them. His bullets found one of the cats and it dropped from the canopy, but the remainder of the slugs dispersed through the leaves. He stopped firing. For a moment, the jungle was completely still except for the leaves that fell around them.

  “There!” Manny said and pointed at a patch of bushes. How he had noticed it moving with all the falling leaves, Ava would never know, but now that he’d pointed it out, she could see it approach as well. Gunnar, however, didn’t fire.

  Instead, the cat-shark moved closer and closer as it shifted from bush to bush. It hid completely and only the odd twitch of a branch or rustle of a leaf gave it away.

  Gunfire erupted and this time, in a long blast instead of the short bursts Ava had already grown accustomed to.

  The soldier unloaded bullets into the trees above them before he hooted and punched his fist into the air.

  The gesture seemed a little premature to Ava until a cat-shark fell from the canopy and landed—perfectly—where the other one was hiding.

  A yowl and a hiss ensued before the creature bounded out of the brush and easily cleared ten feet in one spectacular leap.

  Gunnar fired at the height of its jump but the beast twisted in midair and managed to dodge his bullets. It landed, and—obscured once more—retreated into the jungle.

  “Not bad, not bad at all!” Manny said and raised a hand for a high-five.

  “You thought you were gonna get that last one, huh?” Gunnar said as he slapped his friend’s hand.

  “When I saw you shoot up at the tree, the idea crossed my mind, yeah.”

  “They freeze when they hear gunshots and know we’re good with movement. Too bad the last one got away, though. I don’t like to think about them coming back.”

  “It was still bloody brilliant shooting, mate. Bloody brilliant!” Manny said and made to slap the soldier’s back.

  The cat-shark rocketed from the undergrowth. It hadn’t run away at all but circled back for a final strike. Gunnar’s rifle faced the wrong way, and Manny would have to stab through the other man to strike the attacker. Only Ava had a clear line of fire.

  She aimed the pistol and squeezed the trigger over and over until the weapon clicked. The animal’s corpse landed at the feet of the two men and its blood splattered.

  “Brilliant,” Manny said and wiped the blood from his face.

  “You’ve shot before?” Gunnar sounded impressed.

  “A few times in college.”

  “You’ll need more ammo, but I’ll trade my life for a magazine any day.” He took a step toward her but she saw something twitch in the corner of her eye.

  “No!” she yelled and shoved him with all her might.

  He stumbled, surprised and obviously not prepared for her strength.

  “What was that for?” Manny demanded.

  Ava sighed a breath of relief and removed her backpack. She held it up for the two men to see. It leaked water, the bladder inside punctured by a handful of poison quills.

  “You almost got nailed by one of those purple flowers. I saved your life so you owe me.” She grinned. “Damn it. Why couldn’t it have been Manny? You’ve saved my life, what—ten times now? I’d like to start to pay you back.”

  She turned to the Australian, ready for some ridiculous one-liner, but Manny was as white as a sheet and shockingly silent despite the fact that she’d set him up for a perfect
shit-talking opportunity.

  His eyes were focused on her, but not her face. He looked down, unblinking, and stared at her crotch.

  “Uh…my eyes are up here,” Ava said. She was used to men ogling her, especially Bradley, but most men tended to focus on her breasts. Irritated, she looked down. A single quill protruded from her thigh. It must’ve skewered her through the fabric as she stepped forward to protect Gunnar. “Holy shit.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Manny dropped to his knees, his eyes wide, and for a ridiculous moment, Ava really thought she would die and that he was praying for her.

  That idea vanished when he spoke. “Take your skirt off.” He reached for her thigh.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Ava said, determined to keep it on.

  Manny brandished his giant knife. It was more like a small sword. “I’m gonna suck out the venom.” He moved awkwardly toward her and rocked back and forth on his knees while he wielded the knife like a baton.

  She smacked him. “I told you, that shit only works in movies.”

  “Ouch!” He rubbed his jaw. “You hit like a dude.” The pilot sheathed his knife and pushed to his feet. “And that’s not what you said. You said it never works in real life.”

  “Is this really the time to fucking quibble over what I said?” Ava said and gestured at the poisonous quill still stuck in her thigh.

  “Does it hurt?” Gunnar sounded entirely too optimistic for her liking.

  Ava reached gingerly for the quill. “Yeah. It feels like a bite from a horsefly.”

  “Pull it out,” the soldier said. “It’s already dumped its whole payload. There’s a bead of poison on the end of each of those quills. It’s potent stuff and you’re lucky you were only struck by one. Five will kill you.”