He turns to head back when he hears it.
A moan and a scraping of nails on metal.
Dan’s heart speeds up as he slips past the nearest trees to get a view of the helicopter.
An old, heavyset lady is groping the side of the helicopter, waddling back and forth. Next to her is a taller and younger man wearing a torn-open hazmat suit, also fondling the metal. Judging from the trail running around the helicopter, they’ve been at it for quite some time.
“Someone’s alive in there,” Dan whispers to himself.
Then he catches a movement out the corner of his eye and jumps. William steps into view, a finger placed across his lips, Ozzy right by his side.
Dan points. “There’s a woman and a—”
“I’ve seen them. Ozzy smelled them right away. I tried to get a peek in through the windshield, to see what’s inside, but I’m afraid to get too close and draw their attention.”
“Someone’s gotta be alive in there.”
“I know. They’re probably trapped.”
“You think it’s the pilot?”
“Could be. Or maybe sick people on the way to the hospital. We’ll find out once we get the dude and the fat lady out of the way.”
“How do you want to do it?”
William looks towards the helicopter thoughtfully. “I think we might need to kill them.”
Dan swallows. “Why? And how?”
William looks at him, lifting one eyebrow. “Why? Because how else are you going to get inside the helicopter? Ask them to move aside?”
“No, but we could lure them away.”
“They would just come back; we’re probably the only living people within a few miles. And we need at least ten minutes to get everyone inside and start the thing up.”
Dan bites his lip. “Okay, so how? We don’t have any weapons.”
William shakes his head slowly. “No, and that’s starting to look like a serious mistake to me. Come on, let’s get back to the group. We’ll have a general discussion and decide what to do.”
William says it with a hint of sarcasm, but Dan can’t help notice the way he referred to them all as “the group”; that’s the first time any of them has done that. It kind of makes it official. They are now The Group: the people who ended up together and are now trying to survive the end of the world.
THIRTY-ONE
“This is perfect,” Silas says, looking around the tiny bathroom. “We’ll clear out the shelves and drag one of the bunks in here, and you’ll have everything you need.” He sends Mom one of his awful grins. “You don’t even need to leave to use the toilet!”
Mom doesn’t answer, she just looks right past him.
To Dennis, the room looks far from perfect—more like crammed and claustrophobic.
“We’ll bring you meals, of course,” Jonas says, standing behind them. “And if you need anything, you can bang on the door.”
Mom simply nods.
The thought of Mom living in an underground bathroom for several days makes Dennis want to cry. But he recalls the stern look Mom sent him just before they went down here, and he gets a hold of himself. He can’t believe Mom is okay with this, but apparently, she is. At least she wants the brothers to think so.
Maybe she has got an idea. Maybe she figured out a way to get out already.
The thought gives him a tiny hope, but the bathroom has no windows, only a tiny ventilation duct, which is only big enough for an arm to pass through. Also, the door is made of metal and looks impossible to break down. He can’t see how on earth Mom will get out of here.
“Do I at least get to bring my bag?”
“What bag?” Silas asks.
“The one right over there,” Mom says, pointing towards the table where her brown leather bag is lying. “I have my knitting in there.”
Jonas goes over and takes the bag.
“Better check it,” Silas tells him as he returns with it.
Jonas looks from his brother to Mom. “Is there anything in it I need to check for?”
Mom just looks back at him, expressionless. “You won’t find anything more dangerous than a knitting needle.”
“That can be dangerous enough,” Silas says. “I say we keep the bag.”
Jonas opens the bag and gives it a quick look-through. Then, he hands it to Mom.
Silas squints at this brother. “Okay, so you just overrule my objection, or what?”
“She’s not going to kill anyone with a knitting needle. We can’t keep her locked up without anything to do, that’s cruel.”
“Fine,” Silas says, throwing out his arms. “You bring her dinner then. I’m not getting my eye poked out.”
Jonas shakes his head once, then looks at Mom. “She knows not to do anything stupid like that. Right?” Then, Jonas does something strange: he looks at Dennis briefly, then back at Mom, as though adding something to the question which he doesn’t want to put into words. His expression is calm, but Dennis senses something very serious in his eyes.
Whatever it is, Mom seems to get it. At least, she nods in agreement. “I’m not going to do anything else than what you tell me.”
“Good,” Silas says. “We’ll give you time to prove it. Now, get inside.”
Mom steps into the bathroom, and Silas goes to close the door.
“Do we get to hug one last time?” Mom asks. She looks at Dennis, as though the question is for him. He’s surprised at the question, frankly; Mom almost never hugs him.
Silas is about to say something, when Jonas says: “Sure, get it over with.”
Mom reaches out her arms, and Dennis steps inside the bathroom and lets her embrace him. The warmth from her and the feeling of being held is almost enough to make him cry.
“It’s going to be okay,” Mom tells him. “Don’t be scared, okay?”
“Okay, Mom,” Dennis says, his voice thick with emotion. “I’ll be good, I promise. I’ll do what they tell me.”
Behind him, he can hear Jonas and Silas exchange a few words in low voices. It sounds like they’re planning what they need to do in the house.
Dennis is about to break the embrace, but just before he can do that, Mom grabs hold of him and squeezes hard. Then, she places her lips right up against his ear and whispers hoarsely: “Bring me a strand of Silas’s hair.”
Dennis is dumbstruck at the change of tone in Mom’s voice, as the real reason for her wanting a hug all of a sudden is made clear to him.
To cover the fact that she just whispered in his ear, she places a kiss on his cheek, then lets him go. When he looks at her, her expression is completely clean, like nothing had happened.
“Right, you guys done?” Silas says. “Come back out here, Dennis. Time to go to work.”
THIRTY-TWO
“So you see, it’s a good thing we checked,” William concludes, looking around at the others grouped around him at the side of the road. “Would’ve been a nasty surprise if we had just strolled over there.”
“This also means someone’s still in the helicopter,” Dan adds, scratching his arm. “Someone alive. Or else the zombies wouldn’t still be there.”
“Right,” Dan’s father nods. “That was my first thought, too. We need to help whoever is trapped in there.”
“And we do that by getting rid of the guy and the fat lady,” William says. “Which brings us back to the main question at hand: How do we do that? Any bright ideas?”
Everyone looks at one another.
William goes on: “I’ll start, then. The safest way to take them out would probably be with one of the cars. We could draw them out into the road and just ram them.”
“Do we need to kill them?” Dorte interjects, repeating Dan’s question from a few minutes ago. It’s the first time in hours she actually seems engaged in the conversation, Dan notices; her eyes have even regained some of their clarity. “Couldn’t we just secure them in some way?”
“Using what?” William asks, throwing out his arms. “We don’t h
ave anything to tie them up with. And I also think it’d be too big of a risk to run. I don’t want any of us getting closer to them than necessary.”
“I get that,” Dorte says. “It just seems a little … brutal.”
“Let’s not forget they’re already dead,” Dan says.
Dorte looks at him, then lowers her gaze. “You’re right. Guess I need to stop thinking like a doctor.”
“Please don’t,” William says, sending her a smile. “Having a doctor around will no doubt prove useful. Just not when we’re dealing with dead suckers.”
Dorte returns his smile vaguely before looking down again.
William puts his palms together and looks around at everyone. “So, no one’s got a better idea than Operation Roadkill? Because if not, I call dibs on driving. I don’t want to brag, but me and Ms. Honda over there have already taken out half a dozen dead ones. Hence the bruised fender.”
“I think it’s a decent plan,” Sebastian chimes in. He’s sitting on the hood of his own car with Lærke on his knee. “How do we lure them out here, then? Do we just call to them?”
“That probably wouldn’t do it,” Dan says. “I don’t think they navigate by hearing—or any other of the usual senses, really. The only thing that’ll get them away from there is another prey coming closer than the one they can feel inside the helicopter.”
“Which means,” William jumps in, “we need someone to act as bait.”
Everyone is silent.
“I’d do it myself,” William goes on, “but if I’ll be driving the car, I can’t.”
Dan takes a deep breath. “I’ll do it.”
“No, I’ll do it,” his father cuts in immediately. “You’ve been in enough danger.”
“So have you,” Dan argues. “And it needs to be someone fast.”
His father is about to retort when Dorte interjects firmly: “I’m fast. I’ll do it.”
William looks at her. “You sure?”
“Positive.”
“Okay, because I mean—”
“I’m the only one here who doesn’t have anyone to lose,” Dorte says, staring at William. “End of discussion.”
Dan looks around and realizes she’s almost right—if you count Ozzy and William as a pair—the only exception being Eli, who’s keeping conveniently out of sight by standing a little away and looking at the ground.
William nods. “All right. We have our volunteer. Now, the rest of you should probably go a few hundred yards down road, just to be sure you’re not getting in harm’s way.”
“Hold on a minute,” Sebastian says, putting down his daughter and getting to his feet. “Someone’s coming.”
Dan follows his gaze and sees a big, green, dust-covered SUV coming this way. It slows down and stops by the roadside.
“Looks like they want to talk,” William mutters and steps a little closer as the SUV’s driver side door opens.
A tall, skinny, bald guy in his thirties gets out. He’s dressed in faded jeans and a worn-out shirt, and his hands, which look too big for his boney arms, are black from oil.
“Hi there,” William says. “Need help?”
The guy doesn’t answer right away. His eyes—blue and very deep-set—dart around the faces of the group. Then they go towards the helicopter. The guy obviously spots it among the trees, because his expression changes.
“Hello,” Dan’s father calls out, waving at the guy. “What can we do for you?”
The guy looks back at them, and his eyes grow narrow again. Then he finally speaks, revealing a thick local dialect. “We’ve been driving ’round looking for that helicopter ever since we saw it go down.”
“Okay, well, you found it,” William says. “Take a look and then move on.”
Dan winces at the slight confrontational tone in William’s voice. For some reason, he doesn’t think it wise.
The guy obviously picks up on it, too, because his demeanor grows even more hostile. “I’ve got my wife and daughter here with me,” he says in a strange, baited voice. “We’re gonna take that helicopter and leave the country.”
“Oh, really?” William says. “You know how to fly it?”
The guy lifts one boney shoulder. “I figure it can’t be too hard.”
“Well, you figured wrong,” William says. “Unless you’re a pilot and know what you’re doing, you’ll never get it off the ground. So I’m afraid you need to find some other way to leave the country.”
“There’s no other way,” the guy says, shaking his bald head slowly, not taking his eyes off of William. “They’ve closed all the borders and harbors, in case you haven’t heard. Soon as I saw this helicopter go down, I knew it was our last hope.”
“Sorry to burst your bubble,” William says. “But we came first, and we actually got a guy who can fly it.”
“William,” Sebastian whispers from behind. “Shut up.”
“You do?” the guy says, raising his eyebrows. “Who might that be?”
William hesitates.
“He’ll be here any minute,” Dan hears himself say, drawing the guy’s attention. “I’m really sorry. We’d love to take you and your wife and daughter with us, but as you can see, we’re already too many people.”
The guy eyes Dan for a few seconds. Everyone waits for him to say something. When he finally does, he addresses William again. “So, you’ve got a pilot. You got any weapons, too?”
“We do,” William says quickly—a little too quickly, Dan feels.
“Really?” the guy says. “I can’t see none.”
No one seems to know what to say.
Then, the guy reaches into the car. To Dan, it looks like he’s about to turn off the engine. Instead, he produces a large hunting rifle which he places nonchalantly on his arm, pointed in their direction.
The group pulls back. Nasira steps in front of Ali and Sebastian pulls his daughter behind the car.
“Hey, hey, hey,” William says, holding up his hands. “Don’t get excited now.”
Ozzy growls menacingly by his side.
“Could you please put the mutt in the car?” the guy asks, nodding towards Ozzy.
Dan’s father steps forward. “Look. We all know the situation is desperate, but there’s no reason we can’t make this work for everyone.”
“And how you figure we do that?” the guy asks, not lowering the rifle.
“I don’t know, we could maybe—”
“I’ll tell you how,” the guy interrupts. “I’ll take your pilot and the helicopter and we’ll fly the hell away from here. That’s how we’ll make it work. And I told you to get that dog in the car. Or you want me to put him down?”
William glances down at Ozzy and mutters: “Trunk, Ozzy.”
Ozzy leaves his side only hesitantly to slink back to the car and jump up into the open trunk.
“You!” the guy calls out, pointing at Dan. “Close that trunk!”
Dan does as he’s told.
“Hey, we told you, man,” William says. “The pilot isn’t here yet. And once he comes and sees you brandishing that rifle, he’ll turn back around.”
The guy eyes William intently. “So the pilot isn’t here yet?”
William shakes his head.
“When’s he comin’?”
“I couldn’t tell you. We haven’t heard from him lately. Could be hours.”
“You’re lying.”
The guy says it not like an accusation but like a fact. Dan can’t help but jump a little. William, however, is better at keeping up the bluff.
“No, I’m not. Why do you think we were just standing around when you came? This thing wasn’t easy to find, like you said. The pilot’s probably still driving around looking for it.”
The guy looks towards the helicopter, then back at William for a few seconds. Then, his eyes glide across the rest of the group. “Are any of you the pilot?”
Dan can’t see everyone from where he’s standing, and he doesn’t want to look around, but he assumes the res
t of the group also shake their heads.
The guy clicks his jaw. “Figured that much. Okay, listen here, folks. Whichever one of you tells me who the pilot is gets to come with me and my family to safety. It’s a limited time offer, so don’t take too long thinking it o’er.”
“I told you,” William begins. “The pilot isn’t—”
“You shut up, now,” the guy says, discretely turning the rifle towards William. “There’s only one thing I want to hear: Who’s the pilot?”
Dan can’t help but turn his head slightly to look at the group. Everyone is staring back at the guy, their expressions ranging from scared to stone-faced. They exchange quick looks between them, but no one says anything.
“I’m a man of my word,” the guy says. “If one of ya’s tell me who the pilot it, I’ll bring that person along, cross my heart. Offer expires in five seconds.”
Still, no one speaks up.
Dan feels a surge of pride in the group. None of them wants to rat out Sebastian to save their own skin. Of course, like Dorte just pointed out minutes ago, all of them have someone whom they love and don’t want to leave, and that may play into it also. Everyone, except for Dorte and …
Dan’s gaze falls on Eli, who slipped behind William’s car as soon as the guy pulled out the rifle. Now, he steps out tentatively.
No, Dan thinks. No, you don’t!
“Time’s up,” the guy announces.
“It’s him,” Eli says, pointing at Sebastian. “He’s the pilot.”
THIRTY-THREE
It’s eight o’clock in the evening, yet the sun is still scorching hot, the light stinging Dennis’s eyes as he climbs up the hatch to the vegetable garden.
Silas follows right behind him, carrying the toolbox he brought from the bunker. “Take this,” he says, handing it to Dennis.
Dennis takes it, and Silas ducks back down to get the rifle. He climbs up and closes the hatch.
“Bring the box,” he says, walking to the place where he cut open the fence. He crouches down to look at the opening, the rifle resting across his thighs. “I’m not sure we can stretch it together again—it was very tight to begin with. I think we need to sew it up. Put down the box and open it.”
Dead Meat Box Set, Vol. 2 | Days 4-6 Page 36