The Common Cold: A Zombie Chronicle
Cabin Fever
Book 2 of “The Common Cold: A Zombie Chronicle”
A Sequel, Written By David K Roberts
Copyright © 2013 David Kingsley Roberts
All Rights Reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 - Kept In The Dark And Fed On…
Chapter 2 - Joyful Reunion And New Friends
Chapter 3 - Consolidation
Chapter 4 - Round, Round, Get Around…
Chapter 5 - Kimberley Rocks
Chapter 6 - Whatever Next?
Chapter 7 - The Threat Under The Snow
Chapter 8 - Music To Their Ears
Chapter 9 - Guardians Up Above
Notes on the Book:
Note from the Author:
Other books by the Same Author:
Chapter 1 - Kept In The Dark And Fed On…
“Goddam. Look down there,” exclaimed Captain Mike Simms as he hovered his helicopter a thousand feet over Centennial Peaks Hospital in the north-west of Denver, his job to keep the medevac Blackhawk on station ready to respond to emergency calls. That morning he had been woken from a deep sleep by an unexpected phone call from his superiors announcing an emergency alert, and ordered to get his ass into the air ASAP; it had ruined his first sleep-in since last he could remember. Now it was mid-afternoon and he and his crew were exhausted; they’d never flown so many sick people from the various pickup points to the few remaining local hospitals that still had available beds or gurneys; yet still they were unsure what the mysterious illness was or what had caused it. Of course the top brass at HQ were being unusually - not - closed-mouth about it; what a fucking surprise, he grumbled to himself. All he knew was that ‘it’ was affecting people in peculiar ways; the patients he had been transporting all morning consisted of both members of the public and the military, and all had shown symptoms ranging from febrile to catatonic to downright aggressive. None of it made any sense at all.
In addition to those suffering from unusual symptoms he had also carried a number of injured people who appeared to be suffering serious bite wounds; they weren’t any easier to explain away either, especially as they weren’t even animal bites. People, bizarre as it sounded, were biting people. Mike had heard about some weird drug that turned users into cannibals, literally ripping chunks out of a person and eating the bloody flesh. Some bastard drug pusher was in for a stiff sentence when he or she was apprehended. What appeared to be developing down there was a perfect storm, a complete cluster-fuck. He loved that expression, it said so much with so few words. Thanks, Clint.
When he’d arrived at the airfield he was surprised to find that all of his regular flight crew were off sick, an occurrence unusual in itself. His own head felt like someone was working a jack-hammer on the inside of his forehead and he had been toying with the idea of crying off until he realised that the lack of available flight crew made such a decision impossible, so he would just have to suck it up instead.
As it turned out the terrible pain had only lasted the first three long hours of his shift; now it was easing off a little. Must be one hell of a cold virus, he thought. The guys he was flying with didn’t appear to be in much better shape either, so they all took solace in the fact that they were suffering together for the common good. They’d had to drop off the medic who’d made up the fifth member of his crew; he’d passed out and was convulsing. Happily for him they had just dropped off a couple of patients at the hospital and had been able to leave him there in the staff’s capable hands, although they didn’t look best pleased at receiving yet another patient. At least it hadn’t started snowing; that would just make things a whole load more miserable.
Mike’s chopper was now on the ground, the latest trauma case having been delivered and he was awaiting permission to take to the sky again in search of more. So far today they had been able to land and pick up the injured with little concern for their own well-being. The last three cycles had seen them land in a fenced-in yard out the back of this particular hospital, the last medical centre with any available beds in the north-west of Denver; the other facilities closer in towards the town centre had been well and truly overwhelmed, each one successively closing their doors to new admissions. God alone knew what the authorities would do when this last one was full. They’d have to start using the Mile High Stadium, no doubt.
At last taking to the air again, the helicopter hovered over the hospital car park while Mike waited for the next rescue coordinates. From their vantage point he and his crew, First Lieutenant Bill Mitchum, the co-pilot, Warrant Officer (Air) Zoë Rivera and Sergeant Cliff Hinkley, watched as people ran around wildly, ducking and weaving between cars, apparently in an effort to evade capture as others chased and attacked. Where the hell were the cops, he wondered, there wasn’t a flashing blue or red light to be seen anywhere. As each person was brought down like a hapless gazelle by a pride of lions, others would make their awkward way over to join in whatever it was they were doing. From their height Mike couldn’t quite make out what that was exactly. It looked for all the world like a nature programme where the lioness would bring down the prey and the lion would move in to take the best bits, the rest of the pride gathering around waiting for their opportunity to feast on the remains. Although that couldn’t possibly be right, could it? He dismissed the notion as too absurd.
“Oh, Jesus!” a female voice came over the intercom as Zoë was the first to realise what was really happening. “Mike, some of those bastards are eating people.”
“Aw, come off it,” Bill interjected, his position in the left hand seat not giving him the same unimpeded view as the Warrant Officer who was peering down through the open starboard waist door.
“Look closer, dickhead!” she replied, irritably. Sometimes it was easy for Bill to wind her up; not working with him very often, she had never really had the chance to develop any sort of useful working relationship with him. In fact she suspected he was a bit of a misogynist at heart; it was clear he didn’t like the idea of women in the military, except maybe as a cook or administrator.
Mike lowered the helicopter to about one hundred feet to get a better look. A gasp came over the intercom at which Zoë smiled wryly. Bill had finally seen the carnage unfolding below.
“Jesus!” he exclaimed. “Let’s get the fuck outa here, boss.”
Mike ignored him and peered more closely. “Warrant Officer. We can’t just leave these people to be ripped apart by these crazies. Can you use the winch to help anyone below?”
“I can try,” Zoë replied without hesitation. “Just be ready to ascend quickly when I signal.”
“Consider it done. Get harnessed up.”
Putting on her harness she secured the secondary passenger loop to the line. She gave the thumbs up to the sergeant who reported back to the cockpit. “We’re ready when you are, Captain.”
“Roger. I have identified a woman
cornered over towards the edge of the car park. You see her?”
“Affirmative, blue sweater and light grey pants.” The winch was on the right hand side of the helicopter so she and the command pilot shared pretty much the same view.
“Correct.”
With small adjustments he descended to fifty feet and aligned the helicopter over the desperate woman whose face blazed with a look of sheer joy when she realised their intention. Zoë felt for her sidearm, touching it like a talisman, before letting herself out into the downwash of the blades.
Slowly she descended. Looking around it appeared that there was enough distance between her goal and the rabid crowd at the other side of the car park for this to actually work; the retrieval should be easy. As her feet touched the ground the desperate woman rushed over and without being bidden, grabbed hold of the additional harness and put it over her head and wrapped her arms around the straps – clearly she had watched too many rescue docudramas. Just as well, as four of the faster crazies bound over to intercept them, not wanting their prey to escape before they’d had a bite.
As one of the fast ones leapt upwards, its claw-like hands reaching out to grab the woman’s foot, Zoë signalled furiously to be pulled up and out of harm’s way. All three were raised off the ground like the links in a daisy chain. The creature crawled up the terrified woman’s leg and bit viciously into her calf muscle, causing her to scream in pain and terror.
Putting her legs around the panicking woman’s body to keep her still, Zoë reached for her pistol and took careful aim at the demented creature.
Two rounds later she saw blood and flesh puff out and downwards as the bullets bit back and the beast tumbled towards the earth, by this time a couple of hundred feet below.
Strong hands grabbed Zoë as Cliff hauled her and her hapless survivor to safety.
“She’s been bitten. Tend to her, don’t worry about me, I’m alright.”
Cliff unclipped the harness and laid the woman down on a spare stretcher, tearing the thin material of her pants to reveal the extent of the damage.
“It’s not good,” he shouted to Zoë, looking closely at the wound. Grabbing some antiseptic wipes, he began to clean around the bite mark. “At least there’s no arterial damage. I’ll give her a morphine shot to help with the pain.”
Bill Mitchum’s dulcet tones came over the intercom. “Guys, we’ve got another one for lifting out. Can you do it?”
“Of course, give us a moment,” Cliff responded, strapping the woman to the stretcher for her own safety.
He muttered something soothing to her and she ceased resisting, finally laying back on the meagre pillow as the drug took hold and let her drift off to rest.
Cliff set about winching Zoë down once more. This time her target was a teenage lad, his face a mask of terror. Seeing the approaching hostiles Zoë drew her pistol and fired at them, winging a couple and hitting one dead centre of his chest, but it merely slowed their progress. At least one of them should have been dead; they must be wearing some sort of body armour, she suspected. The boy meanwhile crouched down out of sight behind a car anxiously waiting for Zoë to touch down. This time, though, the fast cheetah-like creatures were onto the game plan and were racing over to intercept them at the landing point. As Zoë prepared to fire the boy leapt onto her before she hit the ground, causing her to drop her sidearm.
“Damn it!” she exclaimed. “Hold on tight!” she shouted the instruction over the roar of the helicopter’s engines as they leapt back into the air, pulled aloft like a Marionette; thank God this pilot was certainly on the ball, she thought gratefully, his time at Camp Leatherneck had clearly paid off.
One of the faster creatures grabbed hold of the boy’s boot, but only managed to pull it free of his foot before falling back to the ground. After a couple of minutes the winch brought the pair alongside the helicopter, at which moment the boy grabbed for the door, desperate to get in and to safety.
A blinding white light filled Zoë’s vision and for a moment she lost sight of the helicopter. In panic the boy struggled wildly, his eyes closed tightly against the flash. With her own eyes closed she could feel him thrashing around in a desperate attempt to save himself, and for a moment all she could do was to hold onto him tightly and prevent him from falling to his death. As the light struck the helicopter lurched sideways as the pilot flinched in shock; the sudden movement intensified the boy’s efforts to escape his precarious situation.
Eventually things stabilised and the two of them managed to get their feet onto the floor of the cabin. With relief she turned to Cliff and called out to him. “What the fuck was that?”
Before anyone had a chance to reply the blast wave hit the aircraft hurling the pair back outside. The boy slipped from Zoë’s grasp and for a moment he appeared suspended in mid-air as the helicopter began to fall with him. The aircraft tilted dramatically and for the fleetest moment it looked like he might crash back into the cabin and to safety but instead he appeared to rise towards the blades. Zoë cried out and tried to grab him. Panic briefly registered on his face before it abruptly disappeared in a spray of blood, bone and brain as he connected with the blades. Zoë shrieked in horror as she was coated in sticky red blood and felt small pieces of bone pepper her face and flying suit. As the bloody body fell earthwards the tenacious sergeant finally managed to pull her to safety inside the helicopter.
They held on for dear life as the pilots fought to bring the machine back under control. With barely fifty feet to spare the aircraft finally settled into a hover. Another second’s descent and they would have crashed into the tarmac.
Over the next few milliseconds Zoë’s mind replayed the struggle to save the boy and the inevitability of his pendulum swing into the arc of the blades. The violence of his sudden demise made everything seem unreal, like watching a movie.
Their sudden halt, so close to oblivion, at the hands of the desperate pilots threw Zoë towards the woman she had saved, and she could only watch, fascinated, as the bared teeth got bigger and bigger until she thought she would dive down the eager, waiting throat. Suddenly her progress was halted. The winch harness, still securing her flailing body, brought her up short of final extinction. Sergeant Hinkley caught her before she disappeared out the waist door again, possibly succumbing to the same fate as the boy.
Sitting with her head in her hands, she was oblivious to everything as Hinkley plugged her intercom back in and spoke softly to her while trying to wipe some of the gore from her face.
“Zoë, you okay?” His hand was on her knee, squeezing gently. Slowly her wits gathered and she sat up, looking around, seeing blood on the tissues with which he had wiped her face.
“What the fuck just happened?” she asked, her brain still a mess of jumbled images.
“I think something just got nuked. If I hadn’t been using my sun visor, I think I’d have been blinded. As it is I think Bill will probably have retinal burns. He was looking straight at it when it went off.”
“What got hit? Who did it?”
“There’s a ’shroom cloud over the international airport. To answer your second question, I think we did it. I can see high altitude contrails from the south east. They can only be ours.”
“Jesus,” she whispered.
“You may well call on Him, Zoë. Only He can save the poor bastards under that. I can also see fires where what looks like a few airliners have gone in, probably lost control because of the EMP. I think this has gone well beyond a little civil unrest and a bit of illness. Let me see what the boss wants to do.” He flicked the general comms switch and spoke. “Cap’n, what are we gonna do? All shit’s broken out down there and now some sonovabitch has nuked the airport. What is our mission supposed to be now? I think we’re just pissing into the ocean here.”
“Good question; and your observation is right on the money. I’ve been trying to raise Ground but the radio seems to be out. Probably the result of the nuke. Wait one.” There was silence for a moment bef
ore he came back on the line. “We have a mayday on the Guard frequency. We’ll check that out. The bird is still fully functional but the co-pilot has a bit of eye damage. As we’re closest we’ll just do this last mission and call it a day.”
“Really? Don’t you want to get Bill back to the medics?” Cliff asked, speaking his mind and wondering at the cavalier approach of this captain to one of their own, injured and needing attention.
“The Lieutenant insists we respond to the distress call, Sergeant. So we’ll do just that before heading back to base.” Simms voice sounded a little irritated at being questioned by the sergeant. Noticing the tone, Hinkley adopted a more appropriate manner.
“Roger, Captain. We’ll secure our one passenger; I don’t think there’s much we can do for her anyway,” Hinkley replied as he watched the injured woman writhe against her constraints, trying desperately to get free. Every time she looked their way her teeth worked uncontrollably as if she was anticipating a meal. Hinkley felt a cold shiver down his spine at the sight. Was this the End of Days, he wondered?
*
The mayday call had originated only about fourteen miles from their current position near the hospital and so they arrived on-scene six and a half minutes later. Hovering over the lakes they saw a cluster of rustic-looking huts, probably fishing cabins or holiday homes. A couple of cars could be seen parked up outside one of the dwellings. There was no-one in sight so the Captain came down lower, looking for any signs of current occupancy or emergency. The lakes were nearly five thousand feet higher than Denver and so with the additional height above sea level came an unwelcome reduction in temperature of approximately twelve degrees Centigrade; they could see that the edges of the lakes were light green and frozen solid, leaving a slightly deeper green hole in the middle of each one where the water had not yet crystallised into ice. With the doors open for enhanced vision as they searched for whoever had sent out the distress signal, the change in temperature became very noticeable and Zoë’s teeth chattered even though she wore thick thermal clothing. Her gloves were also beginning to let the cold in, causing her fingers to go stiff, so she clapped them together to keep the blood flowing properly; she’d be useless if they got any colder.
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