by Luke Duffy
Inside, leaning against one another for support as they staggered deeper into the wide open space of the building, Bobby pointed to something in the far corner.
Taff was expecting to see a car, or truck, but instead, he saw an airplane.
He turned to Bobby, wanting to hit him, but he did not have the strength, and instead, he just drooled and slurred his anger filled words.
“A fucking Cessna?” He grunted. “I don’t know how to fly a fucking plane.”
Bobby grunted and turned away from him, continuing to drag himself along, his foot scraping across the concrete as he hobbled towards the little aircraft, drawing on his reserves of endurance and determination.
“Well, we’re lucky that I know how to fly one, aren’t we?”
Inside the cockpit, Taff collapsed into the co-pilots seat as Bobby began his checks before starting up the engine.
“Will this thing start? How much fuel do we have?”
Bobby ignored the questions.
As he flicked switches and checked dials and readouts, Taff watched, understanding nothing of what his friend was doing. A few minutes later, with the prop turning at full revolutions and the tiny airplane racing down the runway, bumping along and swaying from side to side, Bobby turned to him, an insane looking grin etched across his face.
“Fuel isn’t the problem, mate.”
Taff, close to unconsciousness and with his eyes beginning to roll, stared up at him from his slumped position in the co-pilot’s seat.
“So, what is the problem then?” He shouted over the din of the engine, delving deep into his own energy reserves to remain conscious and make himself heard.
Bobby shifted his position and began to pull back on the control yoke, feeling the wheels begin gently to bounce against the tarmac. The nose angled upwards and the plane was suddenly airborne, rapidly gaining altitude and soaring away from the terminal.
Bobby let out a laugh that sounded close to madness, amazed at the fact that he had actually managed to take off. Still hooting, he checked over his shoulder and looked back down at the ground, seeing it receding fast below the tiny Cessna.
“We did it,” he roared, “we made it.”
Far below them, they were able to see the gaggle of survivors that crowded the roof of the control tower. With a couple of sharp movements of the centre-stick, Bobby forced the wings of the Cessna to alternately dip, hoping that their friends noticed and recognised the signal.
He turned back to Taff who was still staring up at him.
“Landing,” he shouted as loudly as he could.
“What about landing?” Taff hollered back, forgetting their earlier conversation.
“Landing,” Bobby repeated matter-of-factly, “fuel isn’t the problem, Taff; landing is.”
“Why?”
“I’ve never done it,” Bobby confessed with a shrug. “I’ve only had four lessons.”
27
The streets of London were flowing red with blood. The infection had seized control and anyone lucky enough to remain alive, had been forced to flee, abandoning the British capital and leaving it to rot along with its new populace.
Samantha watched through the window, seeing the crowds of monsters that flowed through the streets like flood waters from a river that had burst its banks. Smoke was rising from almost every structure in the city as the fires swept through entire districts and explosions obliterated buildings, reducing them to smouldering rubble.
She was no fool, and did not try to convince herself that everyone had managed to escape. She knew that there would still be hundreds, if not thousands, of people trapped within the city, terrified and huddled together, waiting to die.
On the outskirts, a few cars were still desperately trying to pick their way through the gridlocked roads, smashing their way through the debris and infected. Some of them made it, but most became bogged down, unable to move and their occupants remaining trapped inside, waiting for the windows to finally give way as swarms of pale faces clustered around and beat their bodies and hands against the glass.
She closed her eyes and bit down on her lip, fighting with her feelings, knowing that she was being lifted to safety, while so many other people had been left to die.
An hour or so later, after cutting their way through the sky over the south of England, they passed over Portsmouth. It was the last built-up area before they were out over the Channel for the short skip across The Solent and onto the Isle of Wight.
At just a few hundred feet above the city, Samantha could clearly see the chaos on the ground below. Just as London had been, it was given up to the dead.
At the harbour, she looked on at the sea of people fighting to get a place on the ships that were hastily throwing off their lines and attempting to put some distance between them and the harbour wall. On closer inspection, she was able to see why the ships were so keen to set sail.
The perimeters around the harbour had collapsed.
Thousands of the dead were pouring in, spreading like locusts through the quayside and attacking the fleeing people, who all instinctively headed for the docks.
“My God,” Samantha whispered, watching the scene as it unfolded, unable to comprehend the speed at which the infected could overwhelm an entire city.
Within minutes, the dockside was nothing but a seething mass of bodies, impossible to distinguish between the living and the dead.
The last ship, a large Channel ferry, cast off and rapidly made its way from the dock wall and out into the middle of the harbour, attempting to reach deeper water and head for sea. Suddenly, she made a sharp turn to starboard, quickly accompanied by a bright flash that shot up from the area of the stern. Debris and parts of the vessel’s superstructure flew into the air and within seconds, flames and black clouds of billowing smoke began to engulf the ship.
Even from the altitude, it was easy to make out the hundreds of figures that ran in all directions along the decks, hurling themselves into the water as another explosion ripped through the hull, and tore a hole in the bow.
The ship quickly began to list to port and as their aircraft continued onwards, Samantha’s final view of the ferry was one of it capsizing and beginning to sink, dragging thousands of refugees into the depths along with it.
“All those poor souls,” she shuddered, turning away and wiping a tear from her eye, “we left them to die.”
She felt helpless and ashamed, knowing that so many people had been left behind and abandoned. She buried her face in her hands and began to cry soundlessly within the howling interior of the Chinook.
Outside, in the cold morning air, other aircraft had taken flight. All of them were headed away from the British Isles.
A short while later, they were over the Isle of Wight.
Hundreds of ships and boats lay at anchor around her coast and the sky over the island, buzzed with helicopters and fighter jets. Amongst the vessels, sat a number of destroyers and an aircraft carrier, the remains of the Royal Navy’s fleet in the area around the British Isles.
As the CH-47 began its approach, Samantha caught site of something coming towards them from the north. She looked closer and saw the small white object, a hundred feet below them to their rear, clearly struggling to maintain its altitude. Its wings were swaying, and the tail continued to yaw to the right, being buffeted by the side winds that threatened to push the small single propped airplane off course and spiralling into the earth.
Curiously, she eyed the aircraft, realising that it was headed for the island but wondering where it was intending to land. As far as she knew, the engineers and construction workers had not yet finished the runway and the only planes and helicopters allowed to approach within a kilometre of the HMS Illustrious, were military aircraft. If the tiny Cessna even appeared to head for the aircraft carrier, it would be blown out of the sky.
By now, the flimsy airplane had passed beneath their fuselage and Samantha, feeling drawn to continue her vigilance on its progress, jumped from her
seat in the rear and raced up towards the cock-pit.
“Do you have comms with that plane?” She called into Melanie’s ear and pointed out through the window.
Melanie shook her head.
“We’ve already tried. They’re not answering up.”
They were now over Northwood, heading deeper into the island and soaring over the patchwork landscape of the rural areas.
Something was tugging at Samantha, and she could not understand what, or why. She felt drawn to the little Cessna, keen to see what it did and where it went.
She had to know what would become of it and if they made it down safely.
“Stay with them,” she shouted and patted Lieutenant Frakes on her shoulder, “don’t let them out of your sight.”
Curious, but unwilling to question why, Melanie complied and kept a safe distance behind the unbalanced and seemingly random flight plan of the Cessna.
Samantha stayed beside her, watching its progress intently and willing them to make a successful landing. She noticed that she had begun to sweat, and her nails had been digging into her palms so deeply that they had broken the skin.
It was clear that the pilot was intending to land, but the ground below was a freshly ploughed field and uneven, at best. Worse still, they were descending far too rapidly and Samantha quickly realised that it could only be an amateur behind the controls as it began to reduce its airspeed and dip towards the fields.
“What the fuck is this lunatic doing?” Mike gasped from the co-pilot’s seat beside Melanie in the cockpit.
Melanie, her mouth agape, shook her head as she looked on in disbelief.
When the small plane was just twenty-five metres from the ground, the pilot clearly pulled back too far on the control yoke. With its speed reduced, the nose flared upwards and the tail dipped sharply towards the ground.
The people in the Chinook watched in horror as the Cessna’s engine stalled and the undercarriage plummeted towards the churned mud below.
It crashed into the earth with a ‘belly-flop’, sending thick clumps of soil and parts of the aircraft flying through the air in all directions as the remains of the Cessna slid and rolled through the squelching mire, finally coming to a dead stop in a hedge with smoke pluming from its tattered fuselage and engine.
Melanie slowed the Chinook to a hover and eyed the wreckage.
Nothing moved from within the cockpit of the downed aircraft, and Samantha felt her stomach churn.
“Get me down there,” she ordered Lieutenant Frakes with urgency. “I need to know.”
END
Read on for a free sample of The Hanging Tree: A Zombie Novel
Chapter 1: Tree Trimming
It must be late afternoon. It’s hard to tell anymore since you can’t actually see the sun. Most every day has the same yellow-green sky you’d see in the Midwest before a twister hit. Everything feels electric and wrong. The air has weight to it now, like you could roll it around in your hand. It’s cool and damp enough that I can see my breath, but I’m sweating under my poncho and the tip of my nose runs cold. Thunder rolls overhead and the wind picks up.
One foot and then the other. Pickin’em up and settin’em down. Looks like the cornfield I’m walking in was harvested just before the shit hit the fan. The dried, broken stalks keep me from sinking into the mud as I head west. Everyone else headed south when the weather started changing. People running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Ain’t hard to figure out how the virus spread so far and so fast.
I chart my course by keeping parallel with a two lane blacktop highway to the north. The roads aren’t safe but sometimes the terrain off the road is impassable. Sometimes, the only way through is around. Easier to keep sight of the beaten path and use it sparingly. Although, it wouldn’t break my heart to find a working car with gas. And keys. I’ve already tried to hotwire about 10 cars. Managed to set one on fire, but never got it to start.
A clump of multiflora rose bushes and broken fencing sits around a farm pond at the top of the hill in front of me. In the distance, an engine guns and tires spin on mud and rock. I glass the bushes with my riflescope and head for cover at a trot.
Lying on my stomach, I wriggle up through an opening at the base of one of the bushes and bring my rifle scope up to my eye again. Below me an odd scene unfolds. An old black and yellow Ford pick-up sits cockeyed in a ditch, the rear passenger side tire up in the air. A rope runs off the back of the truck and up over a tree branch. At the end of the rope, a twitching body squirms and flails, its black silhouette dancing in the dwindling daylight.
Two men jump on the rear bumper of the truck and start bouncing up and down as the driver guns the engine again. The truck lurches forward and then back, finally grabbing something solid and lurching onto the dirt road. Steam rises from the exhaust and tires as the two bouncers climb into the cab of the truck. The Ford fishtails slightly as it heads northwards towards the two lane blacktop.
The rope that looked like it went to the back of the truck is actually attached to a large wooden stake driven into the ground at an angle. Beside that stake are several others. I run my eye over the tree through the scope and see several bodies twisting around and howling as only a Zed can. “Okay,” I tell myself and look behind me for a moment. “I guess ya hafta expect this kinda shit when people don’t have television anymore.”
I watch the truck disappear on the highway before moving out of my spot and towards the tree. Watch the road. Watch the trees and bushes. Try to remember to look behind me every so often as well. I turn the little .22 caliber Ruger rifle on its side and thumb the bolt back halfway to make sure there’s a round in the chamber. A small brass cylinder appears and I let the slide fall back down. The safety comes off with a click. Look to the side, look ahead, look behind.
Fifty yards away before I stop and look up in the tree. A patchy rain has begun to fall; big drops begin to pop against the hood of my plastic camo poncho. I count ten Zed swinging in the breeze. I pluck a dead foxtail weed and chew on the end while I watch the bodies kick, gurgle and strangle. “Jump’n Jesus on a pogo stick.”
They ain’t alive. And they ain’t dead. And those nylon baling twine nooses around their necks just seem to be pissing them off more than anything.
I swing the rifle up to my eye to get a better look at the one on top. This Zed must have been about eight or nine when she went zombie. Her dress is all fucked up and in shreds. She wears only one shoe and a cut down the side of her head. She must be on the top because she’s lighter. I put a bead on her little matted-curl, baby-doll, Zed head and softly whisper to myself, “Every tree has an angel on top.” The trigger is crisp and the recoil is nonexistent. A quick crack ripples across the field followed by the smack of a small chunk of lead going through a small piece of bone.
The two below her must have been brothers, not much older than the girl. The one right below her is twitching as the shit from her brain pan leaks into his twisted and open mouth. He’s howling like a car-hit coon dog and I let him have it, if only to shut off the noise. Brother follows a half second later.
There’s a nicely dressed older woman hanging just below the kids. She’s still clutching her purse. Her white gloves are no longer white and the left hand is missing three fingers. The little rim-fire bolt cycles again, her toes point straight down in spasm and her head rocks slightly back. I look again through the scope and see a tiny black hole in her left cheek. Her arm uncoils slowly like an unleveled door opening under its own weight and the purse falls to the ground without a sound.
I pick my way down through the tree. I like to aim at the bridge of the nose. At this range, for where the gun is sighted, it puts the tiny slug in right above the gum-line, straight back into the medulla. No muss, no fuss.
This tree is mostly old women. God knows where the shit kickers in the black and yellow Ford found them all. I’m guessing by the dress, the swinging Zed must have been in a church and decided to hole up there. Maybe some kind
of prayer group hoping for a miracle. I aim at the one that still has her hat pinned to a roll of thinning grey hair and send her out. In the bottom corner of the scope, I see a crumpled Kleenex fall out of her sweater sleeve.
The whole tree looks like it’s shaking. I pan the scope down. The fat bastard in overalls on the lowest limb is kicking up a storm. “You smell dinner, big’n?” I ask. Instead of nylon twine, they used a tow strap to haul his fat ass up. This is the line I could see from the pond. I zip one into him, but he keeps wiggling. This hog must have a little thicker skull. I put three more in him before he goes limp.
I start to swing the scope back up, but something moves in the peripheral of my vision. A dark figure darts from the edge of the field onto the dirt road about 200 yards away. The road and the person disappear into the trees. I blink my eyes in the fading light. I turn back to the zombies left swinging in the tree. “Didja see that?” I drop down flat on my stomach and watch over the top of the rifle for movement.
In the tree, one of the old women is staring down at me with those pupil-less, undead eyes. I nod my head and talk to her quietly. “You seen that, right?” I nod my head yes at her. She doesn’t move.
I turn my attention back to where the shadow disappeared. Could have been a Zed, I suppose. But it seemed awfully agile. Zed has that weird gait of a two year old that hasn’t learned to swing his arms properly for counterbalance. That’s why they fall down all the damn time. Kinda funny really. Like a buncha spastic kids jacked to the gills on Ritalin trying to play tag.
The rain continues to splatter down on my poncho. I watch to see what is out there. Sumbitch could be trying to flank me. Wouldn’t be hard to do with me lying out in the open like this. The hair on the back of my neck stands up a little as a flash of lightning blinks across the sky.
I reach for the shoulder holster under my poncho and pull out my great beast of a single shot pistol and break the action open. Thompson Center Encore, .223 caliber single shot with a 4 power scope. I slide a round in and close the action quietly. No problem finding this caliber ammo with all of the wrecked National Guard trucks everywhere. A hundred yards is approaching the limits of my rifle. I may need the long range single shot pistol if there’s living trouble at the end of the road.