One Crazy Pilot (Apocalypse Paused Book 7)

by Michael Todd

  Ava wanted to protest further because she didn’t see the point of going on tonight. She’d already tripped and would likely trip again. They would move slower and slower and become louder and louder. The poison was bad, but there had to be something in the first aid kit that would help. Rubbing alcohol or something. She’d never actually tried that, but it was probably too late now.

  Something chirped behind them like the sound of a bird—but no, that wasn’t right. It was more familiar than that.

  “Ava, come on. We really gotta put a little pepper in our step and boogie. I want you to pretend there’s a whole pack of dingoes on our tail—and not my family but our neighbors. Those assholes would lick their own assholes right before saying hello. That’s why we called them assholes.”

  A howl sounded behind them from the same direction as the chirp. Long and high, it pierced through the darkness and Ava’s chest and her heart pounded painfully.

  “Is that—”

  “Why do you think we need to keep moving? I’d throw you over my damn shoulder but there ain’t no way I can outrun that fucking bitch if I’m carrying you. Now, come on!”

  Ava didn’t see any other choice. They ran.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Somehow, despite it being pitch black, they moved even faster. Ava could almost laugh at herself for thinking earlier that it was easier to run through the jungle. Sure, there was less brush, but that simply meant there was no warning before a root snagged one of their feet and tripped them. Manny had been her lifesaver. She would have fallen a half dozen times already, but he caught her time and again so that she stumbled rather than tumbled.

  “This isn’t fucking working,” he said and finally slowed as he released her arm.

  “Now you’re gonna listen to me?”

  He stepped away from her and practically vanished. She heard rustling followed by the snap of a branch and some cursing until finally, he shoved a makeshift crutch beneath her left arm.

  “Now, go!” he said, grabbed her free hand, and raced off through the woods after a quick look over his shoulder. His expression was easy to read. He thought they were going to die.

  The crutch made it easier to move quickly, as did the terror. Ava had no doubt as to why Manny pushed such a rapid pace. Those sounds came from the bat-faced demon and they grew steadily closer.

  She wanted to look behind her but knew she wouldn’t see anything, not in the dark. Still, the noises became unbearable. Instead, she tried to focus on her feet and her crutch. She couldn’t trip again, not if she wanted to live.

  The cheeps and chirps behind them kept her motivated. They would build and gain volume and become more and more high-pitched until they made her head hurt. Then, they’d stop and start over again. The damn thing didn’t seem to use any sort of echolocation, merely good, old-fashioned scare tactics.

  Between all that, she’d hear the sounds of branches snapping, or worse, the sounds of tree limbs crashing to the ground. That meant the monster was large enough to break branches like twigs yet somehow nimble enough to climb into the canopy. It had the instincts of both a wolf and a bat and both parts agreed that Ava and Manny should be dead.

  Thank God it took the time to climb the trees, though. If it didn’t, Ava was quite certain they’d be dead already.

  “We’re…almost there…I promise!” Manny said and sucked in breaths of air between his words. It made Ava proud in a vague way that he was winded. She was on the verge of exhaustion, but at least she was still able to go as fast as he did.

  “It’s sweet…of you…to constantly lie to me,” she said. Her sides ached and her lungs felt as though they would burst. Her leg was on fire. They were dead. She would die because Trevor fucking Bradley asked her to come on a trip with him—probably because he’d wanted to have sex with her—and she’d said yes, thinking the Zoo would be exciting. At least she hadn’t been wrong about that part.

  “I keep…my promises,” Manny said and wheezed as hard as she did. He had no sooner spoken when, to her shock and disbelief, they were out of the Zoo.

  Ava had been focused on the ground in an effort to avoid roots in the gloom, so the first thing she noticed was the sand. No more roots, no more fallen branches, only sand—soft underfoot and glowing slightly silver in the light of the moon. She looked up. After the dark of the jungle, the moonlight was bright enough to see by.

  They ran on for a good twenty paces before she slipped and tumbled to the ground. She dragged Manny down with her. He laughed and whooped as he dug in this backpack.

  “This baby should work out here. No trees to cause interference.”

  She nodded as she caught her breath. Ahead of them stretched the desert. Ava had never seen anything so beautiful. Elegant dunes lay one in front of the other, like giants sleeping under a shroud of sand. There were blessedly few plants. The moon had barely left the horizon and hovered above the dunes. It looked as if she could pluck it out of the sky and use it as a flashlight. The sand seemed to glow beneath its light. Ava had always thought it was foolish to compare the desert to the beach. Both had sand, yes, but that was like comparing sharks to sugar gliders simply because they both had teeth. But in the cool desert air, with the warm sand beneath her, she felt like she was in paradise. All she needed was a shirtless waiter to bring her a drink with an umbrella in it.

  Manny pulled the radio out of his pack.

  She fervently hoped he could reach someone, preferably with a helicopter. It felt good—no, it felt amazing—to be out of the Zoo, but she couldn’t see any trace of Wall Two ahead of them, which meant they still had a long way to go. Maybe it was merely hidden by a sand dune, maybe not.

  Her companion fiddled with some dials on the radio. “I need to find someone who speaks Australian.”

  A shadow swooped over Ava and knocked him to the ground.

  In the moonlight, their attacker was unmistakable. The bat had come to kill them. The only reason they weren’t dead already was because the damn thing had taken the trouble to climb a tree so it could fly in and attack them from above like the demon it was.

  Manny scrambled to push himself to his feet as the monster approached him on wolf’s feet.

  “Did you come back to give me a kiss?” he asked before it knocked him in the chest with on its forelimbs. The pilot screamed and fell. The creature had landed a blow on the stitches. Ava wondered if it had meant to do so. She had no doubt that it remembered them. It towered over Manny, the clawed forelimbs on either side of his head, and its folds of skin obscured the comparatively tiny human beneath it. It opened its jaws and needle-like teeth sparkled like ice in the moonlight. It seemed determined to enjoy killing Manny.

  Ava whacked its leg with her crutch.

  The bat spun at her and released a stream of clicks and whistles. Her head pounded under the onslaught of sound and she immediately regretted her actions. She had wanted to try to save her friend…with a stick? She immediately thought of Gunnar’s pistol tucked safely in her jacket. The idea was comforting, but the soldier himself had said he’d want a really, really big gun if he had to face the creature. Unless she was a crack shot, which she wasn’t, she didn’t think the small pistol would help.

  The monster took a step toward her, its posture menacing. It was a predator, she knew, with sharp teeth and seemed to be a huge asshole. It took another step. The muscles bunched in its chest as if it prepared itself to leap at her. Instead, though, it took another step and flexed again.

  It was trying to scare her, she thought, perhaps to get her to turn her back so it could attack from behind. She definitely wouldn’t make its job any easier. She whacked it in the face with her stick and ignored the searing pain from her leg when she put weight on it.

  What was pain at this point but a reminder that she was still alive?

  The bat demon shrieked and shook its head back and forth. She’d hit it in the eye and judging by its reaction, it was a sensitive spot. If she could manage to jab the other one, maybe it w
ould leave them alone. It was an animal, after all—a bizarre, terrifying animal, but an animal all the same. It would run from a threat, right? Maybe it would think she was an owl.

  Ava rammed her makeshift crutch forward and directly at the bat’s face.

  With a flick of its head, it caught the weapon in its mouth. It growled as its teeth crushed the stick and snapped it in half. It spat out the half it had taken in its mouth, fully aware that it had disarmed her—or made her half as dangerous, anyway.

  She took a step back. There had to be some way to gain the advantage. The bat took a step forward. She took another step back and the pain in her leg seared with new intensity. Without a doubt, she couldn’t run. Her choices seemed to be a quick death or a slightly longer, much more painful one.

  Without warning, Manny vaulted onto the monster’s back. The creature immediately tried to pitch him off but he held tight. “Whoo-boy. You’re never gonna believe this but I’ve never actually ridden a bull!”

  Ava scrambled backward and used her arms and one good leg to scuttle through the moonlit sand. “Then what exactly do you hope to accomplish?”

  He reached around the bat’s torso and grasped a handful of its wing flaps in one hand. With the other, he drew his giant knife, the one that reminded Ava of a tiny sword.

  “My plan’s to kill this prick and wear his flying foreskin like a cape, but I’m open to suggestions.”

  The bat bucked in earnest.

  Ava screamed. She couldn’t help herself. The monster was so unbelievably fast.

  It jostled its body back and forth in an effort to shake its rider. When that didn’t work, it jumped in the air repeatedly.

  “AAaaa… Aaaa… AAaaa!” Manny screamed and sounded like a kid going around on a carnival ride.

  Something caught the moonlight as it spun away from the struggle. The knife—Manny had dropped his knife.

  Where before, he’d hung on with one hand, he now grabbed folds of skin in both hands and hugged his body to the bat’s back.

  “Now would be a great time for one of those suggestions,” he yelled.

  Ava watched, dumbfounded. “Don’t let go.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Manny whooped and hollered and the veins in his neck bulged. His hands clutched tightly to the flaps that the bat used for flight.

  The creature looked annoyed, not frightened or tired. It didn’t look particularly happy, but then Ava didn’t think they could exactly kill it with discomfort.

  “If you think this is wild, you should’ve seen me ride your mama!” the pilot yelled at the monster. Ava could hear the strain in his voice. He didn’t have much longer.

  She grabbed the broken stick. One end of it was sharp. Maybe if she could get closer to the damn thing she could—she had no idea—stab it in the foot before it killed them both?

  “Hold on!” she yelled.

  “What exactly do you think I’m trying to do?”

  Ava pushed herself into a crouch and launched forward, hoping to slip under the creature, but it immediately lashed out and kicked her in the chest with one of its hind legs.

  The pain was instantaneous. The breath was knocked from her lungs as she catapulted away, struck the sand, and tumbled. Her entire body seemed to scream in pain. Even though they’d made it out of the Zoo, the damn place still tried to kill them. Manny with the bat and Ava with the poison in her veins.

  She forced herself up but struggled to draw a breath.

  Manny screamed as he careened off the creature’s back and arced toward the desert sand. “Aaaaaaarrrrgh—” His shriek cut off as he landed hard and rolled a few paces before he skidded to a halt. As soon as he stopped, he tried to push himself up with his arms.

  The bat looked at Ava. She scowled at it and limped forward, still trying to get her breath. It recognized her for what she was—wounded prey—and turned back to Manny.

  “No!” she tried to say but barely any sound came out.

  The beast attacked him. It coasted forward with its skin wings, landed in front of him, and knocked him down with one of its massive shoulders. It shrieked and reared up on its hind legs, hoping to finish him the same way it had begun by crushing his chest like an aluminum can.

  The man recognized the move, though. He waited until the last moment and rolled to the side to dodge the creature’s clawed feet by a hair.

  The bat howled in frustration and reared up again.

  Manny was screwed.

  Ava finally managed a breath of air, took a step forward, and banged the shit out of her shin. She looked down with a grimace. It was Manny’s radio—their only hope.

  She dropped to her knees and grabbed the microphone. She’d seen him mess with the radio enough times. It shouldn’t be that difficult. She could do this and save their lives. There was the dial to change the channel. There was the button to press to call for help. Ava fiddled with them both and realized quickly that she didn’t know how to work the damn thing. But she had to try. Wall Two couldn’t be far. This was their last chance—their only chance. If she failed, this was it.

  Fighting the desperation that made her hands shake, she fiddled with the dial and pressed the button. Feedback blared but no voices issued from the radio—no calls for help from people still trapped in the Zoo, no rescuers with voices distorted by the stuttering chop, chop, chop of a helicopter in flight.

  Perfect.

  “Hey, you fucking ugly wombat. I got a mushroom pie for you! That’s right! I’m a bad boy and I stole your fucking mushrooms, you sonofabitch!”

  The bat turned to her. Manny lay beneath it, still alive and—miraculously—completely silent.

  She pushed the button on the radio and feedback blared. The bat, whose ears had been focused directly on Ava’s string of profanity, screeched a protest and stumbled. It shook its head and put its ears back in an effort to escape the onslaught of piercing sound.

  “Come here, you overgrown kangaroo!” Ava shouted in her best Australian accent. “I have your fucking mushrooms.” She pressed the button on the radio again and it blared more feedback.

  The bat flinched, flattened its ears fully, and charged.

  Ava dropped the radio, stumbled backward, tripped over her broken crutch, and fell heavily. She snatched the wood in her left hand and pushed herself backward in the sand.

  The monster lurched upward and coasted toward her. The vast bulk eclipsed the moon like a black portent of death.

  “Ava, run!” Manny yelled. Not at all what she wanted to hear.

  She tried to stand but her leg wouldn’t support her. Frantic, she scrabbled in the sand for purchase and the fingers of her right hand brushed against something cold and hard. The knife. It had to be. With her gaze locked on the monster, she felt down the blade until she was able to grasp the hilt. She couldn’t hope to kill it outright, but she could disable it. Her hands clenched around the two weapons as her mind fast-forwarded through what she recalled of anatomy. Fair enough, a bat wasn’t exactly human, but wings aside, some of the principles had to apply, right?

  Her attacker landed in front of her and roared in her face with a horrible screeching sound, alien and too loud. Angry now, it swung and knocked her back as it raised its clawed forelimbs in challenge and howled at the moon. She narrowed her eyes and held her breath. If she moved too soon, she’d not be able to use the monster’s own weight to her advantage.

  It clicked and whistled its intent and lunged forward, the winged appendages wide as the massive chest descended toward her. Ava gritted her teeth and shoved the sharp point of her crutch into the softer, more vulnerable armpit area. As she’d hoped, its forward momentum drove the wood through and into the shoulder and the beast shrieked and recoiled and the injured wing seemed to lose some of its coordination. The bat screamed with rage and pain and the other hand dug into its own flesh to try to take hold of the stake that now protruded above the shoulder. Thankfully, it seemed too deeply embedded to allow easy access.

  Ava dragged i
n a breath and flung herself toward the large, ugly feet. She knew the distraction wouldn’t last long and this would be her only chance. Manny’s blade sliced cleanly through the backs of both legs and the demon-beast howled as the enormous bulk wavered for a moment before it toppled. She clawed at the sand to pull herself clear a split second before it fell and she tried to shut out the agonized cries as her attacker flailed its single whole appendage in an effort to reach her.

  She slashed at the clawed hand and the force of the impact threw her back a few feet. Pain and nausea flared, and she gasped for breath as she willed herself to push through. She had to finish this. The claws sliced at her again but the attack seemed a little slow and clumsy. Perhaps the blood loss was finally taking a toll, she thought as she crawled closer. The creature seemed to be missing a couple of its claws, so her blow hadn’t been a complete failure. Still, one working arm and wing wasn’t—

  The monster swiped the full weight of its wing at her and tumbled her back once more. She cursed and pushed to her feet. Ava swayed and coughed as she tried to clear her head. The bat tried to crawl toward her, and she circled warily to the side where the damaged wing spasmed occasionally but seemed otherwise disabled. The one remaining eye fixed on her malevolently and followed her movement as the creature waited for her to move within range. She still wasn’t convinced that the milky, dead appearance meant it couldn’t actually see her.

  The eye. She shifted the knife to her left hand and adjusted her grip on the hilt and took a moment to adjust to the feel and weight of it. You can do this, Ava. It won’t expect you. She edged to the left and fumbled surreptitiously in her jacket for the pistol. It felt cool and comforting as she drew it slowly and clicked the safety. The bat, possibly confused by her inaction, used the opportunity to once again try to remove the stick from its shoulder.

  Now. Ava launched herself forward, the knife raised and ready, and onto the bat’s back. She plunged the blade into the undamaged shoulder and felt it strike the bone. Thankfully, it slid into the joint and the monster thrashed beneath her. She gripped the hilt to hold herself steady and her weight and her adversary’s struggles ripped and sliced into the tendons and muscles. It shrieked, a blood curdling sound of rage and despair. Ava raised the pistol and shoved the barrel against its good eye.