The first unfortunate zombie, a gray-haired man in a torn, pink Izod sweater and golf shoes—and no pants—with festering sores across his thighs and midsection, took simultaneous bullets to the right eye from Cam and one to the left eye from Becks. They exchanged quick glances of approval and Cam motioned that he would take care of the zombies to his right so they didn’t duplicate anymore shots and waste ammo. They managed to take down the thirty or so early bird arrivals, which included a bizarre group of women in yoga pants, but the hundreds just behind them, and the tens of thousands behind them would be another story.
The good news was that there were now dozens of boats in the river below making enough noise that Becks suggested it was okay to “shut off the damn music,” which felt like an ice pick being removed from her brain when Cam switched it off. The hope that the herd, which now looked as though it was all converging on their position, would fan out a bit was short-lived, as the movement of Becks and Cam was enough for the voracious zombies to hone in on them, and pick up the pace.
Becks hastily tied the rope around her own waist and told Cam to give it all he had. She pulled as hard as she could, and he pulled so hard he tore out half a dozen stitches, but they were still unable to get him onto the roof, and the herd was now within thirty feet.
“HQ, where’s our ride?” Becks yelled into the radio. “Things are about to get very crowded here.”
“Five minutes out. Sit tight,” the pilot himself replied.
“Tell him to step on the gas,” Cam said as he took several more shots and then reloaded.
If Becks hadn’t been so completely scared out of her mind, she would have been totally fascinated by the scene spreading out before her. She had encountered zombies before, and lots of them, but this was on a scale that was truly mind-boggling. There were people from all walks of life, short and tall, big and small, every nationality and every color imaginable, and even colors that had no business being in human skin, which signaled all manner of infections, diseases, and fungi, and god knows what else.
“Get in the truck until the helicopter arrives,” Becks urged, doubting that it would get there before they were surrounded. “And remind me again who came up with the stupid idea of turning the herd?”
Becks flattened herself on the roof of the truck so as not to attract any more attention, but the mass before her was on a beeline straight for them. She was amazed at the terrible sound of moaning, branches breaking, and the incessant pounding of feet in worn shoes, tattered boots, and bare, bloodied, and torn feet. Behind her was the ever-growing din of air horns, bells ringing, music, and shouting. What she didn’t hear were the rotors of the helicopter.
Taking a deep breath and then remaining perfectly still, Becks tried to grip the smooth, flat roof as the first wave of zombies crashed into the truck. Cam crouched in the back, hoping not to be seen. The plan was that between Cam, Becks, and the gun crew of the helicopter, they would be able to clear one side of the truck enough to let Cam get out and extract him in the harness, and then just pluck Becks from the roof. If the damn helicopter ever got there, that is.
As another wave of zombies hit the truck with enough force that it started rocking, the beautiful silhouette of the helicopter appeared in the sky to the north. Becks tapped twice on the roof to let Cam know it was near. She tried to remain calm, but the herd continued to pound the truck like waves from an approaching storm—waves filled with deadly sharks, that is. It was awful and terrifying, but as long as the zombies surrounded the truck on all sides it would remain stable. For some reason, however, the zombies quickly gave up on the driver’s side of the truck and moved off toward the boat noises, and nearer the cliff.
That left a few hundred zombies pressing against the passenger side, where the front wheel was already up off the ground where they had encountered the pile of rocks. Becks knew it didn’t take a physicist to figure out what would happen next.
“Cam, hang on!” she yelled as she slid down across the windshield, just seconds before the ice cream truck heaved over onto its side. Fortunately, the windows remained intact, so Cam should be safe inside, but she was sticking out like a sore thumb—a big, juicy, delicious thumb.
Cam scrambled to the windshield and put his hands against the glass. His expression was one of wild desperation—for her safety—and he started yelling for her to run. Thrusting her left hand forward, she put it against his on the other side of the glass, their eyes locked for a second, and then she turned and took off like a bat out of hell.
Captain Lennox and his men were stunned as they witnessed most of the massive herd suddenly turn and head east. Very few of the PDZs followed as there were still plenty of regular zombies left to kill, and their orange heads now stood out prominently amongst the others that remained on the Palisades Interstate Parkway. The numbers of zombies on the roadway was still staggering and overwhelming, but he now saw hope in the “divide and conquer” strategy of attacking the separated sections with all the PDZs and troops they could gather. First, of course, a few hundred thousand zombies needed to take a long walk off a short cliff.
Lennox asked HQ whether they should resume the attack, and whether they should stay on the Western Front or go after the northern or southern sections of the herd that had broken away. There was some serious discussion at HQ, and drone footage was reviewed, and re-reviewed, but the ultimate decision was to “wait and see.” The last thing they wanted to have was the sound of gunfire drawing the groups back together.
Phil had snuck into command headquarters and was harassing a private for information on Becks, Cam, and all of the volunteers, many of whom he knew. The private had no idea who this man in the lab coat was, or why he was in the command center, but as Phil was clearly someone important—and the private wanted to get this doctor off his back as soon as possible—he gave him a quick rundown on the situation.
The snowplows had made their way back onto the PIP and led the troops to relative safety behind the herd, but tens of thousands of zombies were still headed their way.
Captain Lennox, the Army, and the militia were well-entrenched on the Western Front, with a sizable wall of zombie corpses piled up along an almost half-mile line. The PDZs were helping by continuing to attack the zombies along the other side of that line of the section of the herd which now appeared as if it was getting boxed in.
The northbound section of the herd was technically still moving forward, but almost imperceptibly. The two divisions had inflicted enough casualties along the leading edge that it was a tangled mass of limbs and guts, with thousands of zombies swarming over the remains to feed. The entire mass was being pushed forward due to the sheer weight behind it, but the resistance was causing more and more zombies to look for a path of easier movement, which would hopefully lead even more to the east, and eventually, the cliff.
Which brought the private to that great, eastern exodus. He was almost bubbly with joy explaining how this enormous herd of zombies was heading “to their doom,” a phrase he used with glee several times. The drone footage made it appear as if the entire landscape itself was sliding inexorably toward the rocky cliff. It was an awe-inspiring sight, but Phil was not exactly bubbly when the private told him that it looked like Cam was trapped in an overturned ice cream truck and Becks was on the run.
“Well, what the hell are you doing about it?” Phil shouted, wanting so much to smack the grin off the private’s face, and apparently looking as if he was about to do it.
The private actually put up a hand in a defensive motion, and then slowly lowered it after a few seconds.
“They sent a helicopter,” he offered, now looking quite serious as his bubbles were burst. “They’re doing what they can, but there’s no way to get that guy out of the truck with the herd swarming all over it, and the lady took off and we don’t currently know her exact position.”
Much to the private’s dismay, Phil pulled up a chair right next to him and announced that he would not move until his friends we
re safe.
Becks ran for her life, but she didn’t know where she was going; she was just going as fast as she could through the woods to put as much distance as possible between herself and the herd. She didn’t get very far, however, before she tripped on the rope still tied around her waist and did a head-first dive into a thorn bush. As much as it hurt falling into the profusely barbed branches, it hurt twice as much pulling herself out of it. Once free, she just gathered up the loose section of rope, rather than trying to untie it, as she thought she might need it if she had to climb a tree to escape the herd. Of course, she was planning on it not coming to that.
The helicopter was now over the area, but the dense tree cover was too thick to signal her location. Her best bet was to go toward the cliff where she would be able to tell the pilot to look for her. Behind her, the herd seemed to stretch out as far as she could see in both directions and it was moving in fast, especially from the south. That section must have broken away first and was moving north and east at an alarming pace.
Becks burst out of the tree line and skidded to a stop just a few feet from the edge of the cliff. Not usually one to be afraid of heights, her current high anxiety level made her head spin as she glanced at the treacherous drop before her. Forcing herself to look up, all of the dozens of boats in the river were a welcome sight, and she wished more than anything to be on one of them right now.
“This is Commander Truesdale, I am at the edge of the cliff awaiting extraction,” she said into her radio. “Any word on Cam back in the ice cream truck?”
“Coming your way ASAP,” the pilot responded. “I’ll pick you up and then we’ll see what we can do about Cam, but it looks like Times Square on New Year’s Eve down there, and the party is headed your way.”
Becks felt very guilty about leaving Cam all alone in the midst of a few hundred thousand zombies, but if he stayed still and quiet, they should just pass by him. Even if she had her Humvee and .50 cal there wouldn’t be anything she could do on the ground anyway. There may not even be anything they could do from the air, but it was worth a try. Becks didn’t want to attempt to radio Cam and make any kind of noise, so she would just have to be patient and hope that he would contact headquarters.
Phil grabbed the shoulder of the private when he heard that Becks was just moments away from being rescued and shook the poor soldier two or three times. Phil was going to have to have a little chat with Becks when she returned to West Point and let her know that his nerves couldn’t stand her dangerous situations any longer.
“You are a sight for sore eyes,” Becks said, waving to the pilot who had swung around over the river and was now facing the cliff.
“We have a visual. Moving in,” the pilot announced, and then added, “Step back as far as possible, it’s about to get windy down there.”
Becks got as close as she could to the tree line, but couldn’t go too far or the harness would get tangled in the branches. The cliff cut in several feet deeper on either side of her, and about a dozen zombies—led by a dark-haired woman in her underwear, which after a year or more of death and no hygiene was not a pretty sight—were no more than forty feet from her position. A harness was being lowered out of the side door of the helicopter as it made its approach, and Becks shifted her weight toward the tree line and her back foot as she raised her right arm in preparation to grab her lifeline to safety.
“A little more, a little more …” Becks said as the downdraft from the rotors was making the harness swing, and making it more difficult for her to maintain her precarious balance.
The harness swung overhead just beyond her fingertips, but on the backswing it looked like it had been lowered, so she stepped forward to grab it. Just as her hand made contact with the straps, the dirt at the edge of the cliff gave way, due to all the recent rain. The next few seconds were like one of those recurring nightmares where she felt herself falling and struggled to grab something, but could only find thin air.
The brief nightmare seemed to end, however, as her foot slid down about eight or ten inches, but then caught something solid. Becks froze, afraid to move even an inch further until she was sure the ground was stable. The helicopter backed away so as not to blow her off the cliff.
“You okay down there?” the concerned pilot asked.
“Yeah, I think so,” Becks whispered, as if the sound of her own voice might cause too much vibration. “Well, that certainly scared the shit out of—ahhhh!”
Just as she started to back away from the edge, a foot-wide section crumbled away in a cascade of pebbles and mud. Becks screamed as she threw herself face down and clawed at the ground trying to find anything to grasp onto. Nothing but smooth bedrock met her fingernails as she slid slowly, but inevitably, toward the edge. As her body dangled from the waist down, her legs flailed back and forth, looking for a toehold. Time almost stood still, except for the measured grinding of her nails across the rock in little pulses that seemed to match her wildly beating heart.
“To your left! To your left!” the pilot was shouting as he watched helplessly from a distance. If he dared move any closer the downdraft could be fatal.
Becks held her breath and shot a quick glance down to her left and saw that a column of rock was only a couple of feet away. If she reached for it with her hand and missed, that would be the end, so she lifted her left foot and mercifully was able to get her leg on the top of the column, which was roughly the size and shape of a foot rest on a recliner, with the long side jutting out from the cliff. The entire column had broken away hundreds of years ago from the repeated action of freezing and thawing, but it had only fallen a short distance where it had wedged itself into a split in an outcropping the size of an upright bathtub. None of this meant a damn thing to Becks at the moment, as all she cared about was that she had stopped her fall, for now.
It was like a torturous and deadly game of Twister, and a false move would likely be her last move. Pulling as hard as she could with her outstretched left leg, she managed to inch herself over enough to hook her ankle over the far edge of the column. With the extra leverage, she shifted over just enough that the moment she completely lost her grip on the edge, she plopped down hard, straddling the top of the column. Not that she was complaining about the rough landing, as the alternative landing would have been infinitely rougher.
There wasn’t much chance that she would be able to stand on the top of the column and pull herself back onto the slick and slippery cliff, but she didn’t have to. Wrapping the end of the rope through a crack in the rock, and around a few more times for good measure, she was in a secure enough position for the helicopter to move back in.
“Can we try this again?” Becks asked the pilot, waving one of her hands, bloodied from the desperate clawing on the bedrock.
“I will if you stop trying to give me a heart attack,” the pilot replied, greatly relieved that he didn’t have to witness a gruesome tragedy. “But we have to move fast as your company is almost to the edge.”
The helicopter moved forward and that beautiful harness was now just a few feet above her when something slammed into Becks upturned face and almost made her black out. Dazed and completely confused, she shook her head and tried to focus her eyes and saw a filthy, bare foot right in front of her.
“What the fuck!” she shouted, still not comprehending what had happened.
Just as the harness was being lowered, the underwear-clad female zombie had slipped over the cliff right above her head, and her leg had gone straight into the harness and she had kicked Becks squarely in the jaw. The foul-smelling zombie was now tangled in the harness and spinning rapidly, her arms and legs threatening to slam into Becks with every revolution, causing her to lean face down as far as possible. Even still, Becks received a few more punches and kicks which almost pushed her over.
“Back off, back off!” Becks yelled, as the pilot pulled over the river to get the rotating zombie away from her.
No sooner was Underwear Girl clear, however, wh
en a much larger man in what actually appeared to be some sort of a sequined, circus performer costume fell over the edge, landing chest-first onto Becks’ column of rock and grabbing onto her leg. Fortunately, she was able to ram her boot into his mouth before getting bitten, but the strength of his bite felt as though he was crushing her toes.
The more immediate concern, however, was that his large girth and thrashing motion would push her off the column. Becks drew her revolver and aimed it at the man’s head, but he was like a crazed predator shaking its prey—her foot—and she was afraid she would shoot herself in the process. Instead, she pressed the barrel down onto the vertebra that was right above the man’s heart and squeezed the trigger.
Circus Man immediately ceased to struggle as his heart was ripped to pieces by the large caliber bullet. Blood poured out of him and Becks found herself sitting in a stinking, ZIPs-infested pool of it, but she had no time to dwell on how disgusting it was or how uncomfortable it felt. She had to push his body off the column, which was quite a struggle and almost caused her to fall a few times.
As Circus Man was finally bouncing along the cliff face on his way to the bottom, however, the pilot yelled, “Incoming! You need to move. Now!”
“Move where!?” Becks yelled back, throwing up her hands.
“Base of the column on the right. There’s a crevice I think you can squeeze into.”
It didn’t sound like the greatest vote of confidence, but it wasn’t like she had any other options. Another two zombies plummeted over the edge, just to her right and left, but according to the pilot this trickle was about to become an avalanche as the main herd was rapidly closing in on her position.
Becks looked down and saw what the pilot was talking about, but she would have to use the rope to lower herself down, and if she didn’t fit into this crevice, there would be no coming back. However, when a young girl in pigtails literally fell into her lap and tried to bite her, she knew it was now or never.
HVZA (Book 3): Hudson Valley Zombie Apocalypse [Project Decimation] Page 16