She thought about her parents. They were elderly New Yorkers who had moved to Florida in their retirement. Crawford had lost contact with them during the first few weeks of the outbreak and was under no illusions as to their fate.
Waiting in the confines of her cockpit for a sign of McCaffrey on his way back, her patience was beginning to wear more than a little thin.
She heard it coming from the west, below the rise. It sounded like one slow distended death rattle at first. A multitude of swaying heads appeared over the brow of the hill. It was a herd—larger than any of the groups wandering about in the confines of the observatory complex.
Crawford sat bolt-upright in her seat, her mouth agape.
‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ she uttered under her breath.
She grabbed the radio on the dash and hit talk. ‘Don, you need to get outta there right now. I’ve got some serious company heading my way. If you’re not back in five minutes, I’m taking her up.’ She waited for a response, but only dead air came back.
The flare at the south fence dwindled, beginning to resemble a cheap firework. Many of the dead had already abandoned their interest in the dimming light and were attempting their slow turn towards the admin building where Raine and Ethan stood exposed, desperately waiting for McCaffrey to show himself at the doors of the observatory.
‘Fifteen minutes are up. Remember what he said?’ Ethan said.
‘I remember.’ Raine stared at the entrance to the other building.
‘If we wait any longer, our root to the fence will be blocked.’
Just as Raine was about to agree with him and head back to the west perimeter, the young soldier emerged. Not from the door, but from the second-floor balcony. He jumped at least eight feet to the ground. When he got up again and sprinted towards them, Raine noticed he was carrying something under his arm.
Several creatures who were no longer hypnotised by the flare spotted the fast-moving human and growled in recognition, which in turn alerted many more of their brood.
‘Sorry about that,’ McCaffrey panted. ‘Ran into some more inside.’
Raine looked down at his arm and saw that his shirt had been torn at his right flank.
‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t bitten.’
‘What’s that?’ She pointed to the metallic box he was cradling.
‘It’s the hard drive from the main computer. Anything in there?’ He gestured towards the admin building.
‘Nothing alive,’ she said.
‘Erm, don’t you think we should continue this conversation when we’re back in the air,’ Ethan said.
‘Yeah, we’re done here,’ McCaffrey said.
He led the way to the west fence as the dead closed in on them.
The herd were now less than a hundred yards from the chopper. Crawford leaned forward, biting down hard on her bottom lip. She took up the radio and tried to make contact again.
‘McCaffrey, you asshole! Come in. I warned you. I fucking warned you!’
She slammed the radio back in place and reached to the other side of the dash to start up the engines. She had no intention of returning to the facility. She would leave altogether and take her chances on her own.
She flipped several switches that began to light up the dash board. Then she paused, teasing the next switch with her finger until she’d almost pushed it all the way over.
Relenting, she unbuckled herself and reached behind her seat for the Bullpup automatic rifle. Once she was locked and loaded, she jumped down into the field and faced the oncoming horde. Crawford adjusted her stance, aimed her weapon at the wall of rotting flesh, and sprayed the bodies on the front row with bullets.
A couple of creatures fell and the others flailed around, off-balance as the rounds passed through them.
She took aim again, releasing a second volley to the same effect, and kept going until the clip ran dry. The clip fell from the rifle and she jammed in the next one. Before she could recommence firing, she took another look at how close the herd was—so close she’d started to gag on their stench.
She turned back in order to judge the distance between them and the chopper. Even performing an emergency take-off would be tight, and there was still no sign of the others.
Crawford allowed the rifle to fall to her side, hanging from its shoulder strap, and ran to her aircraft. She climbed aboard, foregoing the opportunity to buckle herself in.
With a nervous sigh, she flipped the switch for the battery, engaged the generators, fired up the online APU and performed a dual engine start.
The rotas spun into motion and the whir of the turbines intensified. Crawford gazed over to the observatory complex one last time, hoping to see McCaffrey sprinting towards her, but there was nothing but the dwindling light of the signal flares and the ambling shadows it projected onto the administration building.
The creatures were ten yards from the bird when Crawford finally opened the throttle to increase the rota speed and slowly pulled up on the collective.
By the time McCaffrey, Raine and Ethan dragged themselves through the hole in the fence, the chopper was already in the air, banking off to the southeast.
McCaffrey sprinted after it, waving one hand frantically, holding tightly to the metal hard drive with the other.
‘Wait!’ he screamed. Due to the darkness and the blacked-out glass surrounding the cockpit, it was impossible to know if Crawford was even looking in their direction.
There was no use in shouting. The helicopter was already disappearing into the distance.
McCaffrey stopped waving and bent over to catch his breath.
‘We have to go,’ Raine said, arriving by his side and pointing down to the oncoming herd that were no longer distracted by the aircraft. ‘Right now.’
As they headed north towards a section of trees, McCaffrey couldn’t help but to glance back at the ever-shrinking image of their air support.
Episode Five
Confessions
1
The large precession staggered through the darkened corpse of the gas station. The pumps outside had dried up long before the outbreak ever happened.
Every window of the abandoned convenience store and serving kiosk had been broken. Its walls were caked in grime and its outer door swung on its hinges in the midnight wind.
One creature halted its monotonous march and broke away from the herd. It turned until its shoeless feet pointed in the direction of the station’s kiosk. As it approached the shattered glass from the service window, it tilted its head as if it had sensed something. The triangular-shaped hole in its face where its nose used to be twitched and the creature dismissed the idea that it could have picked up a smell. It was more of a cerebral acknowledgement—a suggestion of another presence.
It stopped again, its shrivelled skin contorting in a confused grimace. A snorting noise emanated from its nasal cavity and it lolloped away to re-join the rest of its brood.
On the opposite side of the serving kiosk, just below the window, Raine, Ethan and McCaffrey crouched in the corner, huddled together and holding their collective breath, ensuring they didn’t disturb the shards of glass beneath their feet.
Ethan rested his forehead against the wall, wishing to be anywhere else but where they were.
Raine readied her weapons in case the gaggle of phantoms decided to change direction again.
McCaffrey seemed more concerned about the hard drive he’d swiped from the observatory building, still cradling it under his arm.
Once the sound of the last few dragging footsteps became distant enough, Raine carefully got into a position where she could peer through the serving window without crushing too much glass on the floor. With no exterior lights, it was difficult to tell, but it appeared that every last creature had dispersed.
‘They gone?’ McCaffrey whispered.
‘For now,’ Raine replied.
McCaffrey unclipped his radio and tried to get
hold of Crawford again. ‘Jane, what the fuck? Are you reading, over?’
‘Knock that shit off until we know what’s around us,’ Raine said.
‘I know what’s around us. I studied the map. There’s nothing else for a five-mile radius—nothing but corpses. If we don’t get hold of her, we’re fucked. We’ve got no food or water. We don’t even know if we can get near to the closest town, let alone find supplies there. We have to get hold of her before it’s too late.’
‘Calm down. She’s probably out of range.’
‘Calm down? We’re exposed out here. Even if we last the night, there’s no guarantee she will locate us if she searches tomorrow morning. I-I don’t think she saw us leave the complex, and if that’s true, she probably won’t risk coming back at all.’
‘We make our way back to the mountains,’ Raine said.
‘Over a hundred miles? The boat’s on the other side, remember? The road entrance is blocked by the dead. If by some miracle we made it back, there’s no way in—no way of even getting close.’
‘Then we’ll just have to deal with it. The priority is finding somewhere to hold out until daylight.’
McCaffrey bit down on the inside of his mouth to restrain himself. He stood up, placing the hard drive down on the kiosk’s counter. ‘Look, Miller. I ain’t always the sharpest tool in the box, but I know you feel like a caged animal back at the facility. If you wanna be a leaf on the breeze, that’s your business, but I’m part of the project, and we need to finish what we’ve started. It’s the only thing I have left now.’
Ethan let out a weary sigh and got to his feet. ‘Hand me the flare gun,’ he said.
‘We’re not wasting the only cartridge we have when we can’t be sure if—’
‘I don’t intend to use it—at least not in the way you think,’ Ethan said.
Raine stared at him, a burning question in her eyes.
‘You may not want to go back, but I do,’ Ethan said. ‘It does belong to Crawford, doesn’t it?’
‘Not exactly. It was the property of the US government,’ McCaffrey said.
Ethan grumbled under his breath. ‘Was it in the chopper for any amount of time?’
‘Yeah. Sure.’ McCaffrey just stood there, completely bemused and gazing at Ethan’s open hand.
‘Give it to him,’ Raine said.
‘What’s going on?’ McCaffrey said.
‘Just give him the gun.’
Still uneasy, McCaffrey pulled the flare gun from his pants and handed it over.
Ethan leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, caressing the device with both hands. He moved his fingers over the curved barrel. His touch moved to its handle and trigger-guard.
‘What the hell is he doing?’ McCaffrey whispered.
‘Searching,’ Raine said.
Ethan’s body suddenly went rigid, shocked by the jolt of the images, sounds and smells that manifested in his mind’s eye.
‘She did see us after she was airborne, but she decided to leave,’ he said. ‘She wasn’t just leaving us. She was leaving everything. She wasn’t going back to the facility at all.’
‘What the fuck’s he talking about?’ McCaffrey said.
‘Shut up and listen,’ Raine said.
‘She was going to take her chances on her own, but she changed her mind. She turned around and she’s on her way back. The helicopter is passing over fields. To her right is electrical pylons—big ones. I can see a tall structure in the distance ahead of her. I think it’s a water tower. Yes, it is.’ As quickly as the images had taken him over, they were gone and his body relaxed. ‘There’s nothing else. I’m sorry.’
‘You studied the map. Do these landmarks mean anything to you? The pylons, the water tower?’ Raine said.
‘Yeah, yeah. I know the place he described. It’s about halfway between Bexby and us—about five miles,’ McCaffrey said.
‘Then let’s get going.’ Raine stepped through the glass to get to Ethan, where he was trying to gather himself. ‘Are you OK? Can you walk?’
‘I’m good,’ he said, rubbing his eyes.
Raine lifted him away from the wall so he was standing straight and took the flare gun from him.
‘Anyone mind telling me what that shit was all about?’ McCaffrey said.
‘Let’s focus on finding that chopper for now. Here.’ Raine thrust the flare gun into his hands. ‘We might need to use that for more conventional purposes. Ethan can tell you all about his brush with stardom and his lunches with Doctor Phil on the way.’
Twenty minutes later, McCaffrey stood in a field, scarcely able to believe his eyes as he watched the searchlight of the low-flying helicopter heading in their general direction. He fumbled for the flare gun and its remaining cartridge.
Before he could load it, Ethan placed his hand on top of the gun.
‘Look, I never welcomed the publicity I received, even at the best of times. I’d really appreciate it if you could keep what we talked about to yourself,’ he said.
McCaffrey nodded. ‘Sure.’
Ethan backed away to allow the young soldier to arm the device and send the signal shot fizzing into the night sky.
2
Ethan sat in the dark confines of his new room in the living quarters of the facility, his hands cupping his nose and mouth. His mind swam with the imagery of their latest brush with death, what was left of the young PA, clawing at the air to get to him.
The fragmented memories of the creature he’d encountered on the beach flashed in the forefront, and he tried desperately to block them out. They haunted his every moment, as if its soul had passed into him, transferred by a single touch of its decayed skin.
A knock at the door finished the job of ousting his dreadful thoughts for the time being.
‘Who is it?’ he said.
‘Father Christmas. Can I come in?’ The southern drawl coming from the other side was unmistakeable.
‘If you must,’ Ethan replied.
Salty came in and had a quick scan of the room’s interior. For once, he’d removed his cap and his red hair kicked up in every direction like the uncontrolled flames of a fire.
‘I heard things got a little close to the bone out there,’ Salty said.
‘You have some colourful ways of describing almost being eaten alive, Jake.’
‘You know me. I like to change things up with the phrases. Helps relieve the boredom.’
‘Well, there was nothing boring about tonight,’ Ethan said. ‘It’s a shame you couldn’t make it. You would have enjoyed yourself, but you weren’t her chosen one this time.’
‘At least you didn’t leave completely empty-handed.’
‘Ah, yes. The hard drive. It’s comforting to know I nearly died for some middle-aged politician’s Internet porn history. Was there anything you wanted in particular or did you just want to congratulate me on not being dead yet?’
Although Ethan’s hostility towards him was palpable, Salty took the opportunity to sit down opposite him and placed a pen on the coffee table.
‘Really, Jake. You shouldn’t have. If you’re going to ask me to shorthand your memoirs, I’m afraid my handwriting looks like shit.’
‘There’s something weird goin’ on in this place, Twilight. Doctor Buzzsaw and his buddy were talkin’ about testin’ fresh samples. I followed Grant to a restricted area connected to the lab wing and I ain’t seen him come back.’
Ethan shrugged. ‘That doesn’t exactly fill me with suspicion. I don’t think it’s unusual for a government lab to have a restricted area. They are dealing with some pretty sensitive materials.’
‘That’s why I snagged the pen,’ Salty said.
‘Still don’t follow.’
‘It belongs to him—Grant. From his office. I thought you could see if you could get any impressions from it.’
‘Impressions?’
‘Yeah.’
Ethan sat up straight and rub
bed his face. ‘Y’know, the one positive about the outbreak was it released me from being used as a circus monkey, but it appears I just swapped law enforcement for a redneck and a self-appointed dictator.’
‘I sensed some bad blood between you two love birds when you got back. Trouble in paradise?’ Salty said.
‘It may have escaped your attention, but she’s a fucking sociopath.’
‘I know she has her moments, but I wouldn’t go as far as saying she’s crazy. She has a few issues, like we all do.’
‘That’s a very diplomatic way of putting it. Unusual for you,’ Ethan said.
‘Yeah, well.’ Salty covered his mouth with his fist and cleared his throat. ‘If you could see your way to, y’know.’ He directed his gaze to the pen on the table. ‘See if you can get anything from it.’
‘When or if I feel like it, I’ll let you know, but for the record, I feel fine about this place. If I can actually get to sleep, it won’t be with one eye open.’
‘OK. Let me know when you’re feelin’ up to it.’
Ethan frowned and flashed an intentionally false-looking smile. ‘Thanks so much for your visit, Jake. It’s been absolutely delightful.’
Salty curled his mouth in a snarl and jumped up from the chair. ‘My pleasure, asshole.’
Ethan didn’t watch him leave. He just heard the door slam behind him. He sank back down into the cushion of the sofa chair, trying not to look at the pen Salty had left behind.
3
Crawford was stirred from her snooze by a knock at the door of her cabin. She removed her feet from the table and stumbled through her cosy interior so she could answer it.
McCaffrey stood outside, leaning against the doorframe, holding a bottle of whisky down by his side.
Everything Dies [Season Two] Page 12