“Do you have any food?” Emily asked.
“Of course,” Zoë replied. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.” Rummaging in a heavy duty plastic bag she had thrown on board that morning, she pulled out some cold sausage sandwiches wrapped in clear plastic bags. She also brought out cans of Coke; it would quickly add to their energy levels. Those guys that travelled up from Castle Rock had brought everything but the kitchen sink. Clearly a woman had thought that out, Zoë thought and smiled.
Emily ate voraciously; it was probable she hadn’t eaten much for quite a while, perhaps not since the night before with her family. All she’d had in Kim and BB’s house was a cup of coffee before the creatures had started sniffing around and making their presence felt. All that pent up fear had quelled any hunger she might have had, but with the immediate threat gone the girl fell into the food with relish. So far they had all survived an experience that taught them that the reanimated weren’t the only threat to their existence. Survivors might just pose a bigger threat off the back of the breakdown of law and order.
“Come, on. Let’s get going,” BB instructed. “Zoë, we’ll refuel at the same place we did on the way down. At least we know where it is and that it has fuel.”
“We also know it probably won’t have any of them around, at least not for a while yet. It wasn’t exactly in the most visitor-friendly of places. It wouldn’t surprise me if they hadn’t used a Chinook to drop it in there in the first place.”
“You may be right.” BB took a deep breath and thought hard. “I can smell a change coming from the east. That might be another reason for refuelling there; we may not get much further until the front moves past us.”
Climbing on board, they pulled the doors closed and took their seats. Zoë offered the left hand seat to Kimberley but BB objected.
“Sorry, love. I might need Zoë’s skills. It’s safer to be ready for anything right now. This journey is going to be close to eight hours, I reckon as we’ll have a bit of a headwind. Zoë has shown me she can handle the bird in straight and level flight. She also knows a few of the systems including the radio.”
“No problem, I’ll strap in next to Emily.” Kim hugged her husband. “Just get us there in safety; I don’t care how you do it.”
“Count on it, babe.” Giving her a lingering kiss he pulled himself away from her side and returned to the cockpit. Donning his bone dome he indicated that Zoë do the same. Calling back to his wife he instructed her in how to put on the headsets so they could talk in-flight.
“Right, Zoë. Let’s get this thing underway.” He began the pre-flight checks and soon the engines began their whine as they started up. Looking over at the chain-link fence that surrounded and protected the VOR transmitter he noticed that some Infected had made their way towards the helicopter but didn’t know how to overcome the fencing. “Maybe we should build some of that at the cabin,” he said pointing at the zombies.
“God, yeah,” Zoë replied with feeling. “Anything to keep those bastards away from me. They give me the heebie-jeebies. I thought we were goners in your house. They were everywhere, Kimberley and Emily wouldn’t have lasted another half an hour. A real eleventh hour rescue and that’s no lie.”
He looked at her, no sign of amusement on his face. “Thank you Zoë. You didn’t have to do that, you know.”
“Now you tell me,” she replied joking to hide her embarrassment at the compliment. Compliments meant someone had noticed her and that she really didn’t like overly.
“Really,” he replied; he was not going to be deflected in his gratitude. “I really owe you.”
“Sure. Not a problem, maybe I’ll collect one day. I’m sure you would have done the same for me.”
BB felt a twinge of guilt. The problem was he still wasn’t convinced he would do that for a stranger; his gung-ho military attitude had faded with time away from the services and now he was unsure. He’d do it for Zoë, without a doubt, but now he knew her so it was different. He focused back on the job at hand and hauled the big bird into the sky and headed east over the San Pablo Bay. Across the bay they could see that fires had broken out throughout most of the city and suburbs, the pall of smoke punctuated by florid explosions. Huge residential areas appeared to be engulfed in flames, and tiny ant-like people ran around in panic, cars swerving trying to dodge the pandemonium, not always successfully from what BB could see. A number of boats, some quite large, were on fire all across the bay. Around them large numbers of bodies floated, clumping together like logs being floated downriver to a sawmill, and beneath the surface it appeared schools of sharks were already making free with the newly available food source. I hope we don’t end up with zombie sharks, BB thought idly. Listening out on the radio, he still picked up nothing but silence and static on the airwaves. The emergency services appeared to have completely lost control; it was as if they never existed. In his ignorance of the facts, he thanked God he had been able to convince his wife not to go across the bridge to work; he would never have been able to find her in that devil’s cauldron across the water.
Mike Simms had agreed to listen out on the hour on the HF radio in his helicopter for any messages BB might broadcast. Checking his watch BB saw it was about fifteen minutes until the top of the dial. He gained height to improve the chances of reception and was grateful for that fact as the scenes of horror became more indistinct, the haze preventing them from watching the worst of it.
“You guys okay back there?” he called over the intercom.
“Now we are,” Kim replied, and after a moment commented on what she had seen. “We saw across the bay. All my friends…”
“I know. Try and put it from your mind, babe.”
“I should be down there, helping,” Kim replied.
“Don’t be daft. You wouldn’t last five minutes. I haven’t heard a single emergency broadcast since I’ve been in this bird. And that includes the journey down. We passed by Salt Lake City and I know we should have heard something.”
“Okay, point taken, hon.”
They travelled on in silence for a while, each deep in their own thoughts.
The time to call had arrived and so BB tried to make contact with the other helicopter. They had agreed on using code names with a code word for safe and another for danger or coercion. There was no point on letting anyone find their cabin in the hills without a fight. It was amazing just how paranoid everyone had become since this world changing event began.
“Searcher calling Mother, come in please. Archer.” Archer was the word to signify that all was well and they were returning in safety. If they had been overcome and under duress the word was ‘rejoice’. It would be easy for an enemy to assume this was a good news word and not the warning it in fact was.
BB kept on repeating the code phrase for several minutes before deciding he would give up and call at the top of the next hour. Perhaps atmospherics wasn’t letting the signal get through; that was what he preferred to think.
“Mother calling Searcher. Arrow.” Relief flooded Brad as he heard the familiar voice. Mike had heard them after all and had used the counter word signalling that all was well. BB relaxed. Thank God for that, he thought.
“ETA approx eight hours including fuelling.”
“Roger. Eight hours. Cold front over us from the east, snow about a foot deep now. Take care.” The voice crackled and the clarity ebbed and flowed as the atmospherics played with the signal.
“Wilco. Understood. May stop at point Charlie until clear.” They had also named the various fuelling points Mike had been aware of and given them new names so no-one could interpret where they meant. Being in the military Mike was thorough in his flight prep for operations like this; his pedantic attitude had saved his life more than once.
“Point Charlie, Roger. Hourly updates as agreed. Out.
“Roger and out.” BB turned to Zoë and smiled. “Don’t you just love staying in touch with your folks?”
“You bet. Sounds like you were right about t
he weather. God, I wish it had waited another day.”
“So you want everything to be easy?”
Zoë just snorted derision.
BB relayed the information to Kimberley and Emily. They had brought plenty of blankets and a couple of spare coats, so if they had to stop at the fuelling point it would be a pretty crappy experience but at least they would all survive for about twenty four hours if that was how long they would have to stay put. They could always start a fire using the local kindling and aviation fuel.
*
Mike switched off the radio and made his way back into the cabin.
“They’re on their way back and they’ve been successful,” he announced.
This announcement was met by cheers and the mood in the room lifted. The attack on the cabin and the fact that it looked orchestrated by at least one thinking mind among the Infected had weighed them all down. Intelligence in the walking dead, in whatever form it took, would mean that they would be harder to defend against. The fact that they still seemed to be at least partially functional when semi-frozen made them a worse enemy than any of them could ever have imagined. By retreating into the mountains the survivors had hoped that the weather and their remoteness would see them through the winter in relative safety. By springtime they would be more organised and able to cope; right now they were living hand to mouth in many ways, two steps forward and one step back, and of course that made them vulnerable to any new threats. It had been a miracle that none of the group had been lost so far.
“How did he sound? Did he say if he had any problems?” Tom asked; his friend and protégé was important to him and so he was clucking around like a worried father.
“He sounded positively normal; couldn’t detect anything in his voice but he used all the right words.”
“That’s something I guess,” Tom agreed.
“About eight hours he said. It’s getting lighter outside indicating the cloud is thinning some, so perhaps the front is moving away. By the time he’s refuelled it should have gone past so perhaps he can get straight in here. Of course it’s heading towards him so he’ll have to fly through it.”
“He is a good IFR pilot so that should be doable for him.”
IFR, or Instrument Flight Rules, was a complex business of flying using only cockpit instrumentation without reference to the world outside. In a plane with which the pilot was fully familiar it required concentration and was tiring, especially if there was no autopilot function; this was why it was flown mostly with two pilots, at least commercially or in the military; but in an aircraft in which he’d only had a few hours total time it was a serious gamble and so Tom hoped BB would put down rather than try and soldier on into the oncoming blizzard. If he crashed there would be no hope of rescue and all of them would certainly perish.
Looking out of the window Tom watched as the snow kept on coming down. He was always amazed at how big and perfect the flakes were up here. He enjoyed watching the snow settle, especially as now it had the added benefit of hiding the bodies of the infected. In another twenty four hours the corpses they had spent time piling off to one side would become like granite in their frozen hardness and would remain an immovable mass until the spring; right now though the snow gave the land a pure and untainted appeal and for a moment it was almost possible to forget their predicament.
“Okay everyone, can we settle down please?” Mike began, a sense of urgency rising in him - it would soon be dark making what they had yet to do impossible. “We need to allocate accommodation early enough today that we can get the other two cabins we’ve agreed upon heated up. The only way we can survive with any level of security is to remain in a smaller area so we can watch over each other. It appears to me that Cliff and Angela seem to have gone their own way and have set up in one of the small cabins by the other lake, but I think they are wrong. As the days go by it is likely we are going to be visited by more and more of these poor walking dead and we’ll have to deal with them. We need to work out a plan for doing just that.”
“I think Cliff has had some sort of psychotic break,” Sandy offered, missing Mike’s point and going off at a tangent. “Poor bastard, I can’t blame him, no-one should have to see their family die like that. I guess if we try to be as understanding as we can of his situation, he’ll come around again in time. I am worried about his remaining child though.”
“Beverley,” Laurie said.
“Sorry, what?” Sandy asked, confused.
“I think the little girl’s name is Beverley. That was the name Cliff kept repeating when he got back from the rescue mission - before he walked out with Angela. Unless it was his wife he was talking about.”
“I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Danny offered.
“Sorry guys,” Mike interjected; frustration was evident in his voice as he tried to control the conversation as it jumped the rails and powered off in a non-productive direction. “Can we focus on what we need to do? The Cliff situation can wait a while.”
“Why don’t we start by listing what we know about these creatures so everyone can be armed with all the facts?” Tom suggested. “You’ve all had some differing experiences so we need to put together something we all understand and can work with.”
“Good idea, Tom,” Rob replied. “I’ll go first. I think they are dead. We’ve seen more than one person come back after what looks like dying. Some were bitten; some just seemed to have turned.”
“Does that make them zombies?” Janet suggested.
“Zombies don’t exist,” Mike retorted, unwilling to believe the obvious.
“Well, they’re something. Why don’t we call them zombies? Just for want of a name.”
“Not a bad idea, Jan,” Danny said smiling at her suggestion. “They sure aren’t alive. Not like us at any rate.”
“There also appears to be two types,” Rob added. “The main type is lethargic but aggressive. Don’t get trapped by large numbers of them. We’ve all seen what they can do.”
“Then there’s the cheetah,” Danny added. “They scare the bejesus out of me. Kill them as far away from you as you can, their speed is frightening and they don’t seem to get out of breath, not that I think they breathe.”
“And now it appears the cheetah type can think and reason to an extent. Unless it’s just a low animal type of cunning.”
“Well, they do seem to be able to set up an ambush.”
“No denying that,” Mike agreed. “And the last thing is that they can survive being frozen.”
“No, there is something else and it’s really important,” Rob added. “They can’t smell us if we use aftershave or perfume to cover our own odour.”
“Of course,” Mike nodded.
“I think that if we spray it around our windows and doors it may mask our presence to them. Maybe keep us a little safer at night.”
“We need to set up some sort of alarm system,” Joshua spoke for the first time. Up to now he seemed to think rather than talk.
“What are you suggesting?” Mike asked.
“We need to sort something, tins on strings, anything that will make noise until I can set up something using electronic sensors. Your genny should support that. We can always get another one purely for security if we need to.”
“Okay. That sounds like a good idea.”
“Just a thought,” Danny interrupted, “but shouldn’t we allocate responsibilities based upon skills?”
“Really?” Mike asked. “Responsibilities?”
“Yeah. Think about it. Just like that helicopter is your responsibility because of your skills; we are all dependent upon you for that. If we all had specific responsibilities it would make sure nothing is left undone because we assume someone else is dealing with it. I think it will make us more of a team and lead us toward some sort of common end objective. And just in case any of you are thinking I’m vying for the role of leader, I’m really not. It’s the last thing I want.”
Ethel spoke up, clearly liking what Da
nny was suggesting. “I think the young man makes a good point. Otherwise we won’t get anything done; we’ll just end up talking about it. We have to be responsible for each other and make sure we each do our personal best to keep each other safe. All I know is that the world has changed for the foreseeable future and it frightens me to death. Responsibility will help hold us together.”
The room was silent as they contemplated her entreaty. Joshua squeezed her hand.
“I agree,” Laurie added, her background as a governmental organiser jumping at the prospect of something she was good at. “I reckon we have some great skills here and if we each focus on specific areas we can make ourselves much safer from those damaged souls and ensure we have enough food, medicine and other consumables to survive.”
“Of course,” Tom smiled. “We have among us a woman of just the right skills for our particular predicament. Laurie works, sorry, worked for the Office of Emergency Management in Denver. She was responsible for logistics and tracking of supplies. I vote her into the role of locating suitable supplies for the group.”
“Damn,” Bill Mitchum exclaimed, almost looking directly at her; he had placed the bandages back over his eyes, and although he was getting his vision back, he chose to leave the bandages on until BB returned with his wife, the trauma doctor. “I think you’ve probably just become the most valuable person in the group, Laurie.”
“Blimey, Laurie. I had no idea,” Janet said in awe. “I’ll be happy to work with you on that.”
“Hey, Rob,” Danny spoke. “Do you think they need a data centre to manage all this?” Danny’s biggest fear was that he, and people like him, were not in a strong position to survive when computers went to the bottom of the class as the most useless things on earth. IT workers were likely to follow them to the back of the room.
“Looks like you and I have just become security guards,” Rob agreed. “Maybe we can become problem solvers. After all, that’s what the job was actually about.”
“Maybe. Have H&K, will travel. I like the sound of that.”
The Common Cold (Book 2): A Zombie Chronicle-Cabin Fever Page 12