Upstairs Myriah blew out two quick breaths to let them know she’d seen something. Randy had also noticed the brief flash of light in the neighbor’s yard. He adjusted his grip on the rifle and made sure his axe was in easy reach for when he ran out of ammunition. They’d have one chance to waste these guys. If they didn’t take them out in the first round of the fight, then they were screwed. Randy was determined to wait until the last possible second to pull the trigger and start the firefight. He wanted them so close they couldn’t miss.
In the kitchen Kelly set her rifle on the counter and ripped off her jacket. She kept her pants and shirt on but kicked off her shoes and socks. She grabbed every can with a pop top and dumped the contents of each of them on her head. Once she’d done that with six cans of food, she rubbed the mess all over her body making sure to get plenty on her face. She was looking for something else to rub on her when there was a loud tapping on the sliding glass door.
She rubbed the food a little harder into her face and poured her water bottle on her crotch before opening her mouth and screaming as loud as she could. Praying the kids wouldn’t take that as a sign to start shooting she kept up the screaming as she sprinted across the floor and leapt over the family room couch. Stumbling a little as she hit the ground on the other side, she threw herself as hard as she could at the sliding glass door the surprised soldier was backing away from.
In a glance she took in the NVGs and weapons and knew they were screwed if this didn’t work. She smashed face first into the sliding glass door. She bit her tongue hard enough to feel a piece of it come loose. Her mouth instantly filling up with blood. She let none of the pain show on her face. She instantly stood up and attacked the glass door as hard as she could praying it wouldn’t come off its track. She rammed herself into it a few more times then backed off and did her best impersonation of a Zombie sniffing at the air. She sensed the men leaving and thought that her gamble may have actually worked. She continued to stand there and sniff at the air until Doreen came running across the floor trying to find her mommy.
Kelly felt Doreen latch onto her leg then looked down to see Zoey yanking Doreen off her. Zoey dragged Doreen back into the shadows behind the couch. Caught flat footed Kelly fell out of character. She looked to see if the soldiers had left or not. She half expected to be shot right then and there. By the early predawn light, she saw one of the soldiers over by the fence still wearing his NVGs. He appeared to be looking right at her. Kelly went back into her sniffing motion again half-heartedly hoping that maybe somehow, she could still pull it off. When she looked back again the soldier was gone.
She stood there pretending to sniff for a few more minutes. She didn’t know what else to do. She was shaking with terror. She expected to feel bullets ripping her apart any second. She wanted to look and see if Zoey and Doreen were ok, but she couldn’t make herself break the routine she was doing. She just kept going until Randy walked over and wrapped his arms around her pulling her back into the shadows. She noticed he was shaking too.
“I love you babe. That was awesome. Never do it again.” He whispered to his wife who’d been carrying a hoe around earlier so she wouldn’t mess up her new clothes. He sniffed her hair when he kissed her getting a whiff of kidney beans mixed with beefaroni. Whatever concoction she’d poured all over herself had worked. Her quick-thinking gamble had saved their lives.
“They’re leaving.” Caitlyn confirmed. She’d come downstairs to let them know she saw the men join up with a few others to head out of the neighborhood. Myriah had shifted over to that side of the house to look out the window and make sure they didn’t come back. With the sun coming up they’d be able to keep watch much easier.
“Now what?” Kelly asked. She was scraping food off herself with a roll of paper towels she’d found in the pantry.
“We survive. We survive until we find someplace that we can actually start to live again.” Randy answered.
Chapter 20: Take the High Road
Kyler frantically worked on trying to strap himself into the helicopter. He was sitting on the side by the open cargo door watching the world stream by below them. As much as they worried about Zombies being everywhere, he’d forgotten how much open, empty space there was in the US. There was a lot more to this country than cities and turnpikes. The best thing about the woods and open space was that it appeared to be Zombie free. At least from a thousand feet up in the air.
They flew over the woods until they ran into a major interstate Kyler assumed was I-75. The helicopter turned and they flew above the road traveling north. Below them Kyler caught site of a few convoys of large green trucks. He wanted to ask Rodriguez about what he was seeing but couldn’t figure out an easy way to do so. it was difficult to ask questions when everything he said would be transmitted to everyone else on board through the party line communication system they were rigged up to. He almost did it anyway. He was desperate for some sort of interaction to keep him from nodding off and falling to his death.
It wasn’t a long flight anyway. Before he knew it, they were settling down in a field in the middle of an island popping up out of a river by a small city. The city was surrounded by mountains. The open area on the island looked like it’d been made recently. Making the open area appeared to have had involved lots of gasoline and explosives. It was a crude but workable place for helicopters to land. A small dock below was lined with men carrying supplies being offloaded from large fancy pontoon boats that’d been pressed into service.
Kyler and Rodriguez were immediately assigned to the work gang bringing up barrels of fuel and heavy crates filled with more machine gun rounds for the helicopter. Kyler was sweating in the cool breeze from all the manual labor when him and Rodriguez finally got a break. Krantz and the other men from the helicopter crew had disappeared on one of the luxury boats to go report in.
“Now what?” Kyler asked Rodriguez.
“Now we wait. It’s the number one skill of any soldier. The ability to loaf on demand while looking busy. Master it and you have mastered life.” Rodriguez lapsed into a weird Spanish mimicking Confucius Asian accent. Kyler stared at him for a second before throwing out a courtesy laugh.
“Yeah. Anyway, I meant what do you think we’ll be doing here? We going to be parachuting behind enemy lines or any of that movie stuff.”
“Nope. My guess is a show of force and then Tennessee concedes to some deal the big wigs hook up where they remain an independent region but pay taxes and provide resources as needed back to the Senator. Something like that so the local main guy doesn’t lose face.” Rodriguez responded quickly. Kyler was impressed.
“How are you guessing all of that?” He asked.
“I’ve been to enough third world shit holes to recognize a buildup of force for show when I see it. No way those guys have the same resources the Senator does, or they’d have already come over the ridge and blown us to hell before we could establish a beachhead here. The US is basically a bunch of little feudal states now, so the government is going to be whoever has the biggest guns and the most men who know how to use them. It also helps we’re first on the draw. I’m guessing everywhere else is still trying to get their Zombie problems under control.” Rodriguez explained. He’d taken on the air of a lecturer at an academy explaining how the world worked to a classroom full of glassy eyed plebes.
“Anything that keeps me from getting shot at works for me.” Kyler said.
“Oh. There’ll still be some killing. You can’t have peace talks until some people have been killed. Just hope it’s not us. Hope the other side isn’t stupid too. They’re going to be the problem here. They may gamble the Senator doesn’t have the resources to really roll in and take them over. We’ll see what happens.” Rodriguez stood up and walked back towards their helicopter.
They hadn’t been given any orders as to what to do once the helicopter had been refueled and its weapon systems loaded back up. With a lack of any orders Kyler wanted to go wander around and see what was
going on. Rodriguez told him that was a bad idea. They’d be sitting right by the helicopter until Krantz decided to come back. If they were caught out wandering around somewhere, they may end up shipping over the mountains with the other grunts to be part of the first wave or something. Even worse they may be seen wandering around by an officer and ordered to do more manual labor.
“Our best bet is to guard the helicopter until they get back.” Rodriguez concluded.
“Guard it from what? We’re on an island covered in soldiers that’s surrounded by mountains and Zombies.” Kyler argued.
“Shut up and guard.” Rodriguez said sitting down on the edge of the helicopter with finality. Sighing, Kyler sat down beside him and played with the blackjack game he’d found in one of the houses back in Ball Ground to pass the time. The game reminded him of the ‘probably not a Zombie’ they’d seen in that last house they checked. They’d all assumed it was a real Zombie because it definitely had done all the things a real Zombie normally did. In the alien world of NVGs the look had been real enough.
Kyler’s mind kept snapping back to that little girl running out and grabbing the Zombies leg then being pulled back by the other little girl. The look he’d seen in the ‘probably not a Zombie’s’ face when he’d glanced back. He’d had them. All he had to do was raise the alarm and they’d have surrounded the house and taken out the traitors in a few minutes. He could have been on his way to a vacation spot for a month with a field promotion and some glory. Instead he was humping barrels of airplane fuel around a burned-up island waiting to be shipped off to die in a land grab for an army he was supposed to be spying on.
He’d do it again in a heartbeat. No way he was going to be a part of dragging little kids out into the street to murder in front of their parents. Thinking back to Rodriguez saying they now lived in third world dictatorships he related this to the videos of ISIS chopping off people’s heads. Even then he couldn’t remember ever hearing of a video where they executed kids in the street in front of their parents while rolling the camera. That was a whole new level of messed up. That was an excellent reason for him to desert and return to the north the first chance he got.
A few hours later the sun was going down and Kyler was wondering if maybe the blackjack tables were still working in Las Vegas. He’s taken his digital fifty tokens up to over a thousand. Rodriguez poked him and he looked up to see Roberts, Krantz and the rest of the crew walking back towards the helicopter. Krantz threw a bag to each of them that held a greasy mess of meat shoved into freshly baked bread and a bag of chips.
“Fresh venison and freshly baked bread. It’s like what god eats for lunch.” Krantz said smiling at them. “I see you two are making sure the helicopter doesn’t float away.”
“Yes sir. Thank you, sir.” Kyler said with his mouth full. He didn’t know how they’d managed fresh baked bread, but it was wonderful. He was used to eating things like a cold can of creamed corn, so something freshly made like this was ridiculous.
“Thanks sir.” Rodriguez echoed around a mouthful of the delicious sandwich. “This mean we’re going over the ridge tomorrow?”
“Can’t get anything past you can I. It does indeed. Eat and get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow should be interesting. Remind me tomorrow night I have something to give you if we’re still alive.” Krantz said cryptically on his way out to find where the officers on the island were bedding down at.
“What the hell does he have for me?” Rodriguez asked quietly spreading his sleeping bag out underneath the helicopter. It turned out only officers actually had anything resembling beds yet on this little bit of paradise. It dawned on Kyler what Krantz may be talking about.
“Blue label whiskey?” Kyler said. “I think that’s what he snagged for you on the plane when you took off to lead the Zombies away.”
“What! Why the hell is he holding out on us. That’s the good shit!” Rodriguez said sitting up and looking like he was going to go look for Krantz.
“He’s probably worried you’d drink the whole bottle tonight and have a hangover tomorrow making you useless.” Kyler answered.
“I can control myself.” Rodriguez slurred.
“You’re drunk right now aren’t you?” Kyler asked.
Rodriguez grunted then held up a small bottle of whiskey to toast Kyler before taking a big slug of it and flipping him off. With that expression of his affection he turned over in his sleeping bag and promptly passed out. Kyler lay awake a little longer with his mind working on how he was going to get out of the mess he’d gotten himself into. Exhaustion eventually kicked in and he fell asleep too.
The morning came too soon. Especially for Rodriguez who looked like he might have woken up during the night and dove back into the bottle again. Krantz walked up to the helicopter whistling. The bastard looked like he might have even taken a shower. He was definitely wearing a clean uniform. Kyler and Rodriguez pulled their gear together and headed for the latrine. Officers evidently had bunks and showers while they’d slept on the ground and been given directions to a hole and a bucket of water.
“You ready to fight today?” Rodriguez asked him.
“Why? You know something?” Kyler asked.
“I know we got the equivalent of a steak dinner last night. The military believes in breaking out the good food before they send you into battle. It’s kind of a screwed-up tradition since after a while you start to dread the sight of good food.”
Rodriguez finished up his business and headed back for the helicopter. Kyler hurried up and followed him. When they got back Roberts and the rest of the crew were standing around watching the bank across the river. Kyler heard some faint booms coming from a boat that was cruising along the bank over there. He realized the low humming noise he heard was probably the screeching of the thousand infected who’d come to the river to see what the noise was.
With no fanfare the bank slowly turned an orangish red color and a thick black smoke drifted into the sky. The Zombies were being lured down to the river then set on fire. Brotherhood troops had laid down a bunch of napalm the night before then waited in the morning until there were enough Zombies to make it worthwhile before setting off the trap. The Zombies would ignore the pain from the fire as long as they could see a normal human standing out in a boat waving at them. That’d keep them from wandering back into town while they were on fire and burning the whole place down.
“Figure a hundred thousand Zombies in Chattanooga. They napalm a few hundred every morning. City will be cleared out pretty good in less than a year as long as they don’t run out of the stuff to make napalm or the Zombies don’t get any smarter.” Rodriguez said startling Kyler out of the trance he’d fallen into staring at the flames.
“Or all the noise doesn’t attract more of them to come down here.” Kyler said to Rodrigues approval. Krantz yelled for them to stop watching the Zombie roast and get in the damned helicopter. Noticing all the other men had their weapons out and strapped on Kyler and Rodriguez took a minute to do the same. At around nine in the morning helicopters started lifting off and flying along I-24 toward the Appalachians. The first to get into the mountains started taking small arms fire. They noted the positions the fire was coming from and kept right on going.
Kyler was watching out the side of the helicopter when they lifted off and joined the aerial conga line snaking along the interstate. The helicopters behind the lead choppers started slowing down to take out the areas where the small arms fire was originating from. The bursts of high caliber machine gun fire echoing in the air like thunder. The smoke from the guns mixing with the smoke from the burning Zombies on the beach. A rocket shot out at one point from a location on a mountain and two helicopters raced to destroy the position the missile had come from. They answered that single handheld missile with multiple rockets launched at the area the missile had originated from.
Kyler’s helicopter took a single burst of fire on one side that none of the passengers even noticed. It blended in with all the
other noise they were hearing. The pilot noted the muzzle flashes from the nearby mountain and sent a stream of lead into the area. They either killed the ones who’d shot at them or motivated them to spend the rest of the day running as fast as they could away from the battle. The long line of helicopters continued to snake its way through the mountains and into Tennessee proper.
They flew another thirty minutes before the helicopters broke off and landed in different groups miles apart. They sat on the ground while Roberts sat in the front coordinating the attack on his radio. The Tennessee brigade as they called themselves were currently holed up near the town of Winchester. They’d been working on clearing out the area and building out the new government for Tennessee based around the waterways and islands. Government was a fairly loose term as they were more like loose collections of looters held together by the ex-military leaders with the most men and guns.
The biggest and baddest warlord was the leader of the brigade. That was who they were looking for on this assault. They sat in the helicopters for a few hours waiting for word that either the brigade had surrendered, or they needed to move in with guns blazing. Roberts had been shipping men over the mountains and into Tennessee for months now to make this happen. They had an equal number of troops on the ground to the brigade. Ground pounders were good to have but the helicopters gave them total air superiority. Roberts was monitoring to see if the enemy tried to put any fighters or anything in the air since then he’d need to call on their planes which had been driven to local air strips and were ready to scramble if needed. He was hoping he didn’t have to use them since fighter pilots were a very finite resource as was the number of usable planes on hand. Not to mention they were fuel hogs.
Zombies! (Book 5): Greater Love Hath No Man Page 17