The curly-haired questioner looked baffled as well. "Where's that?"
"Nebraska. The closest fort still in operation is in Omaha."
"What?" the youngest-looking passenger exclaimed. "I thought we were going to San Antonio!"
"At last report, Fort Sam was also under siege."
"What about Colorado Springs?" Cheryl asked, desperately hoping that there was some chance of getting back near her hometown west of Denver. There was—"
"Peterson AFB is down, and the staff inside the Cheyenne Mountain is down to a skeletal crew because of infection. They're not taking anyone in."
Mark spoke while continuing to stare down at his lap. "Zone A in the west was considered to be the safest of the four zones."
That dark news caused a round of silence.
Then, the eager young one spoke up again. "Was? Crap. But, it should be okay in Nebraska, right? It's less populated there. Bunch of farmland and all…"
"Well…" the older man said, "…it's true that Omaha isn't exactly New York City…"
Cheryl had never even considered what a place like The Big Apple was like now. So many people…more Eaters? God…she couldn't imagine.
"There were only about four hundred thousand in Omaha, and there were less than a million and a half in the rest of the state. There's only about ten percent of that now—at least as far as we can guess."
That fact caused another lull in the conversation as they all seemed to mull it over.
Cheryl glanced down at the streaks of blood on her clothes and her neck. Some of the others looked like hell too. Many of them also had crusty red or flecks of ash marring their skin and clothing.
Whatever their condition, they were all going to be starting over. Again. She imagined the others had gone through just as harrowing experiences before they made it to Fort San Manuel and were just as nervous about the impromptu move as she was.
Would it be the same routine once they got to the new fort? The drill at Fort San Manuel for new arrivals was to be quarantined in a cell for days, assigned to cramped quarters, issued a ration card, and then to cross your fingers and hope to get any sort of job that would allow some extra credits for additional privileges not granted to the others. She wasn't sure she wanted to do patrol duty again, but if she didn't, she wouldn't have a gun to defend herself. The M-16 at her feet would likely be confiscated before she got in the door. Mark had pulled some strings to get the AK-47 back for her after her arrival at San Manuel, but that probably wasn't going to be an option at their new home.
Mark…
She was sorry that the barbershop woman had been bitten, and somewhat sorry for the rash decision to kick her out of the helicopter. There hadn't been a chance for Mark to explain how they'd managed to escape together. As if reading her mind again, he lifted his head and met her gaze. His intense blue eyes were red and watery. She had seen the same look in them —that look of fear and sadness—on that fateful night last summer when he'd shoved her into the cruel world in an attempt to save her life. Whatever his thoughts were now, they were hidden behind those seas of blue.
She reached for his hand, knowing that she had a lot of questions for him, but now wasn't the time.
His gaze fell to the backpack by her feet, studying the name tag that said, Scott Kelly. "Where'd you get that?"
"He was on the terrace. He'd been shot."
"Shot?" His eyebrows rounded into perfect arches. "Are you sure?"
She nodded. "I found his body at his post when I was climbing down the outside of the building. There was a bullet hole in his chest. Even with all the chaos tonight, I just don't see how it could have been from friendly fire."
"It wasn't," Mark said.
The other passengers seemed to lean forward in their seats, suddenly tuning in to their conversation.
Inside her mind, Cheryl replayed the sight of the ramps outside the fort, knowing that he was about to espouse one of his conspiracy theories in front of this audience of strangers who may or may not think he was crazy. "You're saying—"
A flash of light zinged past the window.
Before he could finish, everyone craned their necks towards the windows. The pilot turned to the co-pilot. "We got a bogey?"
"Ground fire!"
"Where's it coming from?"
"I don't see anything."
"Me either. We don't have a Gunner. Let's just get the hell out of here!"
The craft banked left and increased speed, but a second later, there was a series of jolts. Black smoke seeped from the engine, and they began to lose altitude. The pilot yelled, "We've been hit!"
Unlike the previous time they lost altitude, this time the descent was more rapid. There was no shout of 'Mayday!' because there were no controllers on duty to alert.
Thick, black plumes of smoke drifted outside the window now, accompanied by the sound of a sputtering motor. After frantically fumbling with the controls to try to regain control of the craft, the pilot shouted, "Prepare for crash landing!"
Several of the men immediately bent at the waist, tucking their head between their knees. Cheryl was about to do the same when she realized that the older military man wasn't following their lead. He stared straight ahead with his jaw dropped open. Blood dribbled out of his mouth.
How he'd been injured baffled her until she recalled a conversation she'd overheard between pilots in the cafeteria. In these helicopters, only the crew had armor-plated seats.
That meant most of them were vulnerable to getting shot, even when they were so high up in the sky.
Someone shouted, "Colonel?"
The man only responded with a gurgle, spewing more blood down the front of his shirt.
Behind Cheryl, a woman screamed. Her cries were startling, because of their sheer volume and because Cheryl hadn't realized there were a couple more seats behind her. She'd thought she was the only female on the craft.
"Shut up!" A gruff voice, also to her rear shouted.
The woman's screeches turned to whimpers, but escalated again into screams again as they began to whirl in a tailspin towards the ground.
Cheryl tucked in and said a prayer that amounted to little more than a desperate, "Oh God please save us…"
Mark squeezed her hand. "Hold on. Jake will land us as smooth as he can."
The helicopter rolled hard to the right as the motor began to sputter.
A second later, it stalled…and they fell.
Chapter 8
Landing on top of the forest below, the tail rotor dipped into the tree tops first then the entire craft tilted to one side with blades churning and chopping, sending a spray of green pine needles into the air. It mowed down the tops of slender trunks, snapping them in two, before bouncing to a stop in a large evergreen twenty-five feet off the ground. There was stunned silence as the machine rocked before settling with a groan into the network of branches.
Strapped in their seats, they hung sideways.
Jake, the pilot was the first to say something. "Everyone all right?"
There were groans all around. Then, someone said, "All but the Colonel. He's been shot."
The co-pilot yelled, "Fuck!"
Stunned, Cheryl remained motionless in her uncomfortable position. She could smell burning jet fuel, something she knew was a bad sign.
"All right, folks." Jake said, "We need to evacuate quickly. We're going to have to rope down."
Though it caused a prickle of pain, Cheryl craned her neck to look out the window that was now below her head. The ground loomed a nauseating distance below.
The pilot continued to bark orders. "It's a low rappel. We can all do it, if we go in the right order and don't rock the boat."
A coordinated effort began. The pilots, Mark, and a couple of the young men who seemed to have military training, managed to work together to get the rope and begin the process. As they scrambled to put their plan in place and opened the door, there were a few tense moments as the helicopter lurched, groaning as it settled de
eper into the tree.
Ben, the co-pilot, inspected the hookup and checked the anchor. After handing out leather gloves and explaining to everyone how to work the rope using the top hand as a guide and the other for a brake, he instructed a guy named Jordan to go first. From her awkward position, Cheryl watched him crouch near the door and pivot around to face them. Then, he jumped. Cheryl held her breath as he lowered himself down, rappelling off the trunk of the tree, making it look easy.
A second man jumped, then a third. Mark went fourth after promising to help her land safely.
After the hairy experience of unbuckling and trying to safely gain a foot hold on the inside wall of the helicopter, she crouched at the door of the craft and held her breath.
"Go!" Jake yelled.
When she hesitated, the pilot reached out a hand, as if he was ready to shove her. She glared up at him, wishing to remind him that she wasn't some cherry in his brigade that he could order around.
Mark called up from the ground. "Come on. You can do it. Just take it slow."
After another second, she said, "All right. I'm ready." She took a deep breath and blew it out then she took the plunge.
Her descent was scary fast at first then she squeezed harder with her brake hand and slowed down. Once she was on the blessed ground, Mark gave her a nod and she moved out of the way, so the next man could come down.
The last two passengers were the ones from the rear seats that Cheryl hadn't seen before. They were an odd pair. The first was a girl in her early twenties with short black, red-streaked hair. She had a little extra padding on her petite frame, but wasn't anywhere near the definition of plump. This punky, nervous girl was the screamer. Her eyes were wild with fear when she looked down at Cheryl and the distance between them. After a bit of coaxing from everyone on the ground, including Ben, who was obviously her man, and some less than positive encouragement from Jake, she finally jumped.
She was followed by a tough-as-nails looking man with a flat top haircut. He wore olive camouflage pants and a black tank top, and had no hesitation as his dark, heavily tattooed arms worked the rope like a pro.
After he was down, the remaining two men on board started throwing things down. They tossed down Cheryl's adopted backpack, and an assortment of medical and survival supplies. Then, they carefully lowered the passengers' guns down, wrapped in a piece of netting.
Patrick, the baby-faced army private, threw the last of the stuff down, and yelled down, "What about the Colonel?"
"This thing could still blow," Jake yelled. "Come down, 'cause we need to get out of here."
That warning seemed to light a fire under Patrick and Jordan. They hit the rope and shimmied down it like it was a fireman's pole.
Jake told everyone to grab the first aid kits, tents, MRE's, and whatever other supplies they could carry and move further away from the crash site. Following his orders, they loaded up and began to fan out into the dense forest. When they were several yards away, Cheryl paused and looked back at the helicopter, taking in the miserable sight of its mangled tail boom and rotor, and the crushed area of the cockpit. Viewing the extent of the damage and seeing how the craft was so perilously perched in the tree, she was thankful that most of them, including her, were still alive.
Jake kept them moving until they were a good five hundred feet or more away from the crash site. Then, they paused in a small clearing surrounded by a ring of boulders and scrub.
Ben moved closer to Cheryl and Mark. He propped his foot on a rock and took off his helmet, revealing a crop of reddish-brown hair. Then, he spat on the ground after staring up at the damage. "Ain't nothin' could shoot a Blackhawk down, except an RPG or a 50-caliber anti-armor sniper rifle. Somebody forget to tell me we had a domestic war going on?"
"Most people don't know," Mark said.
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Why this all started. Everything that's been going on since."
Ben eyes turned hard, and his lean body stiffened. "I'd say you were shittin' me, but my chopper just got blasted out of the sky. So, you'd better tell me what you know." With a shaky hand, he took a cigarette out of a pocket of his flight suit and lit it.
"Let me bum one of those and we'll chat."
The two men stepped deeper into the woods, away from the rest of the group, talking in hushed voices. So much for him quitting, Cheryl thought. Then, she chided herself for worrying about something so trivial when she should be kissing the ground, thanking God or the universe that they had survived the crash.
Exhaling a wind full of frustration, Jake removed his helmet. Now that the Colonel was dead, the pilot was the oldest member of their group. He had bushy eyebrows like two black caterpillars, and there were silvery streaks throughout his dark hair that gleamed like tinsel. It was the first time she'd had a good look at him, and she realized now that he was the guy that Mark had met up with for lunch. Whatever theories Mark was about to share with Ben, they were not going to be a shock to Jake, because he and Mark had been chewing the fat all afternoon. Cheryl thought he was going to spew out a list of orders, but he seemed lost in thought as he gazed into the darkness around them.
She hugged her arms around herself as a shudder ran through her. The air felt thinner here, and it was cooler than it had been near the fort. She took note of this new terrain with some alarm. It was rugged and mountainous with steep, rocky slopes and a maze of juniper, pinyon, and oak. Unlike the sprawling desert area around the fort, this place was full of shadows, a menagerie of nooks and crannies where things could hide and easily ambush them. If there were Eaters in this area, they'd have to quickly take to the trees. Though, after seeing how the Eaters managed to go down the ladder to come after her, she wouldn't be surprised if they still had enough instinct in their gooey brain matter to climb a tree.
"Where are we?" she asked a man shivering beside her
"Galiuro Mountains in the Coronado Forest," he said. "East of San Manuel."
She didn't know anything about this area, but she did know they hadn't made it out of Arizona, so they were a very long way from any safe haven. Looking up through the inky fingers of the trees, the fat moon reminded her of an eye looking down through the wisps of clouds. She though it seemed to mock them, taunting that they were living on borrowed time.
"You've got a cut on your arm. I'll bandage that for you when I can get to the first aid kit."
"Thanks," Cheryl said. "What's your name?"
"Kai," he said with a smile. "I'm a nursing student."
"Cheryl," she replied, giving him a quick awkward handshake. "I used to be an insurance agent, but I've been on patrol duty at the fort for the last six months."
His smile dissipated, and there was a stunned look in his almond-colored eyes. "What happened? I can't believe somebody shot at us."
She just shook her head, knowing that Mark's theories about the infection being deliberately spread now seemed even more possible and an even more ominous twist had been added. Was it possible that whoever began the apocalypse was deliberately trying to kill them?
"Let's keep going," Jake said, nudging them forward.
"Going where?" Patrick asked. "It's a long walk to Omaha."
His friend, Chip, elbowed him in the ribs. "No shit, Doofenshmirz! We'll have to make camp here for the night."
"Then what?"
"We'll see if we can raise any of the other chopper crews on the radio. They could come back for us after they drop off their passengers."
"He's right," Jake chimed in. "But if we can't get a ride, we'll have to look for somewhere secure to start over."
"Start over?" The two young men griped together.
Cheryl felt their angst. If Fort San Manuel wasn't safe…what place would be? It was depressing to think about tomorrow…and the days after that.
Catching up with Ben and Mark in a clearing, surrounded by a ring of boulders, Jake stopped and dropped the load from his arms. "This'll do for the night." He motioned for Jordan to h
and out the guns. "We need to secure the area. You and Patrick can run some reconnaissance. Make sure there aren't any N.E.U.s lurking around."
"I'll go," Zach said. "Let me have a gun."
Jake held his hand up, signaling to Jordan to hold off. "You know how to use one?"
"It's been awhile," Zach shrugged. "But when I was a kid, I was a cholo. I hung out on the streets, and I always packed heat back then."
With his hardcore physique and sly eyes that slanted into a devilish grin, there was a bandito vibe about him. Cheryl thought he had gang banger all over him.
"You haven't shot a gun in a couple of decades?" Jake questioned him. "How'd you learn the ropes if you aren't military?"
"I'm a trainer at a gym. Don't worry. Si Dios quiere…I'm still a crack shot."
"All right." Jake gave a reluctant nod to Jordan. "Keep it safe."
Jordan chose a rifle from the stash and gave it to Zach. He looked it over and switched off the safety then he winked at Cheryl as if he had just acquired a special gift.
Jake motioned to one of the other men. "Chip…go with them. One man in each direction. Check it out for a quarter mile then come back and report."
After the men left to search the area, he continued to give orders, telling everyone to set up camp for the night in a tight circle, avoiding the lower hanging scrub at the edges of the clearing. Mark assisted Cheryl, setting up a sleeping area for the two of them. Despite his predilection for taking charge in a group setting (as she'd witnessed during the beginning of the outbreak), he didn't challenge Jake's leadership. The two of them were friends, and he seemed happy to defer to the older man.
Of course, it was soon apparent that he wasn't reluctant to step up when it was needed. He dropped his corner of the tarp, after noticing that Edmond, a lanky fellow wearing a button-up shirt, pressed jeans, and loafers, was using his feet to clear the debris from the center of the circle. "What are you doing?" Mark barked.
Eaters (Book 2): The Resistance Page 9