Then came the crunch, followed by the sound of twisting metal as the car rolled down the embankment sideways.
Shane felt pain all at once, as if every part of his body had been simultaneously stabbed, and then there was only darkness, and the slow, ominous hissing of deflating tyres.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was another miserable day in the clouds. The Wave Hawk hovered, ominously, as the increasing wind attacked the left-hand side.
Its pilot, James “Dredd” Foster, wanted the day to be over already so he could get back to his wife and daughter. She'd promised to make him something special for dinner – something that hadn't come out of a tin, which was what they usually ate – and it was all he could think about. His stomach growled now as visions of multicoloured vegetables and sauces taunted him.
'Ain't nobody out here,' he said to himself before repeating it into the microphone perched upon his helmet.
'Roger that, Dredd. Duly noted, but we need to make certain there are no survivors, I repeat, NO survivors.'
The voice that came through belonged to General Frank Pimlico, a man with a military-record longer than Dredd's arm, all of it clean.
'Just thought I'd let you know.'
The general was eager to make sure that all movement below belonged solely to the creatures. It was simply a case of search and rescue, without the rescue; Dredd had not seen a survivor in three days, and today didn't look to be any different.
The guy he'd picked up on Tuesday – he only knew it was a Tuesday because his wife still kept a diary, though why was beyond him – was in a catatonic state, sitting in the middle of Lefleur's Bluff State Park sobbing to himself.
Dredd had taken the Wave Hawk down, even then not eliciting acknowledgement from the hysterical survivor. At first, Dredd thought he was one of them, one of the creatures, but when he reached him, pistol trained on the head just in case, they guy had looked up with human eyes and none of the oily gunk dribbling from his lips that was associated with the creatures.
Carrying the guy back to the chopper had been problematic, since he was slightly larger than Dredd, and seemed to be a dead-weight. But he had managed it, and taken him to safety, which is where he was now, probably enjoying that wonderful dinner Emma was talking about which was meant for him.
Three days.
And that guy had been in no fit state. Dredd didn't think he would have lasted another night out there, battered by winds and cold in the park. He had been fortunate to survive so long, anyway. Lefleur's was sans-zombies – which certainly made a difference.
Dredd glanced out of his window; nothing but trees, a road, more trees, and then a house, which looked as if it had been caught up in a tornado such was the extent of its damage.
No point checking there, he surmised.
Rain flecked the windshield. It sounded like miniature gunfire, bullets from a half-inch gun.
What was happening with the weather? Nobody at the base could explain it, and they had some of the best meteorologists alive – though how many weather experts had there been before the apocalypse? – and not one of them could construct a viable reason for the sudden shift in weather systems.
It was about as predictable as the creatures. The weather, at one time, had been reliable. Granted, there were anomalies whereby it would snow in August, or there would be a heatwave in November. There had always been such occurrences, but this was something completely different.
One of the meteorologists at the base was convinced the creatures and the mysterious weather transitions were somehow affiliated, yet couldn't say how or why. Nobody really paid that guy much heed, and it was for the best.
But the weather was a worry, especially when it affected transport so fundamentally. Today wasn't too bad; Dredd could fly the Wave Hawk for twelve hours in this shit. But last week, and the one before, when it had snowed non-stop – torrential shit that had covered buildings, concealed cars completely, and killed off any survivors caught out in it – it had been almost impossible to go out looking for people.
And Dredd was the only helicopter pilot at the base. You had the guys who flew jets, which he didn't envy them for, and then you had him . . .
Lone pilot . . .
One man, one chopper . . . God it sounded like some shitty YouTube video . . .
Dredd wished he had some music to listen to up here. Something soulful, like Aretha or Wilson Pickett. Yeah, that would be nice. He missed the day when you could slip a tape in, or a vinyl on – he didn't hold much truck with CDs or MP3s – and sing along to something of beauty. Now all he had to look forward to was the constant beeping of the control panel as it flashed green and the thunder from above of the rotors.
He started to sing; Wonderful World by Sam Cooke. It seemed appropriate because the world was nothing akin to wonderful, not anymore.
As the lyrics fell out of his mouth, he instantly felt better. A release, like orgasming through song. He took the Wave Hawk down a little, hovering less than fifty feet above the trees, and started to enjoy the bleakness of everything.
The scenery, the barren fields, the empty houses . . . What a wonderful world this would be. . .
Dredd was one of the lucky ones; most people had lost their entire families, either to the creatures or to the subsequent fallout. If Emma had been taken from him – or Gabriella, their daughter – he wouldn't have wanted to continue to exist in such a world.
. . . such a wonderful world. . .
He steered the Wave Hawk to the right, pulling across a field. There were creatures down there, shambling aimlessly like the fucktards they were. In the beginning Dredd had been accompanied by a gunner, a trigger-happy prick called Alan – though he refused to answer to anything other than Al – and they had taken out as many of those things as they could.
It didn't take long to realise they were wasting ammo; the never-ending torrent of zombies were too much for them to deal with, and pretty soon they stopped shooting at them, conserved the bullets they had, and hoped the things just fucking died of their own accord before long.
As Dredd flew the Wave Hawk across the field, singing the finale of Wonderful World with a little oomph, he wished Al had been in the back. Watching a couple of creatures' heads explode might have livened up an otherwise tedious day.
He passed the things on the ground and arrived at yet more trees.
'I'm coming back to base,' he told the microphone on his helmet. 'There's fuck all out here; I'm wasting time.'
Frank Pimlico's voice came through loud and clear, and so did his disappointment. 'Roger that, Dredd. I guess I'm just a silly optimist.'
Dredd nodded, swinging the chopper over the trees. 'Not at all, Sir,' he lied. 'You're just making sure we don't nuke any survivors. That's something to be proud of.'
'Guess we'll just be nuking folks that are already dead,' the general said. 'Come on back to base, Dredd. I can smell your wife's cooking from here.'
The pilot smiled.
A wonderful world it wasn't, but it was all they had left.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The sound of a helicopter wasn't right in Shane's head. It was fuzzy – disconnected – and yet he knew what he was hearing could only be one thing. His neck cracked as he pulled his head back from where it had been resting on the steering-wheel. He was so disoriented that he called out Megan's name, then Holly's, before recalling that they were dead – one by his own hand – and the world was teeming with the undead. It all came back slowly, and before he had chance to reach for the handle on the door the sound of the helicopter was waning.
'Shit!'
He climbed out of the car. Terry was already doing the same through the passenger door. Shane glanced into the back seat to find Marla and River glancing around, as unsure of their surroundings as he was.
'What happened?' Terry asked.
Shane remembered another car; coming towards them in the middle of the road. It had been so unexpected that he'd been unable to swerve in time, and they'
d dropped down the embankment where the car now rested against a tree, totalled.
'Car,' Shane replied. He had a lump on his head, though it didn't appear to be bleeding. 'We hit another car.'
Terry pointed up to the road. His cheek was scratched, and a little bloody, but once again Shane realised just how lucky they had been. 'Let's go find out.'
Behind them, Marla and River were abandoning the mangled wreck. River muttered something beneath her breath – possible an expletive that she didn't want either he or Terry to pick up on – and staggered, woozily, away from the vehicle.
'Is everyone okay?' Shane asked. He could see they were fine, at least visually.
Marla, trembling, said, 'I think so. River?'
The girl checked herself over. Quite what she was expecting to discover – a limb hanging off or viscera on the outside – Shane didn't know. 'I guess,' she said. 'My shoulder's a bit sore.'
'Is it your machete hand?' Terry asked, the expression on his face pleaded for it to be the other one.
'No, stupid, that's my other arm.'
River was fine. Her insolence was intact, anyway.
Suddenly, the sound of voices came from up on the roadside. A male and a female were arguing, bickering like disgruntled children over what had happened and whose fault it was.
Shane pushed a finger to his lips, a signal to the others to remain silent. He slowly took out his pistol and turned to the embankment.
Marla wanted to tell him to be careful, but they were to remain silent. She took out her own gun, as a precaution, and watched as Shane slowly pulled himself up towards the road, to where the voices continued to rant at each other.
River moved across to where Terry stood. He patted her on the top of the head, a gesture that could have been misconstrued as patronizing if he wasn't careful.
She smiled, and then all three of them followed Shane up to to the road.
*
'Don't move!' Shane called out. The moment it passed his lips he felt ridiculous, like some bad TV cop. The guy holding the shotgun flinched, as if he might disobey Shane's words and go for the shot. He caught himself, though, and held out a placatory hand. The girl was staring, open-mouthed, towards Shane. Neither of them looked seriously injured, at least not yet.
'Shit, dude,' the man said, lowering his shotgun a little. 'Take it easy with that thing; we're not infected.'
Shane didn't care. These two idiots had run them off the road, and for a moment it didn't click that they'd actually stumbled across more survivors, the very thing they had been hoping for.
'You fucked up our car,' Shane said, prodding the gun towards the man, who didn't seem to be in any real rush to put his gun down on the ground. 'We had plans. What the fuck were you doing in the middle of the road?'
'Yeah, douchebag!' River snarled just as the guy was about to answer. She meant it, too, and Shane didn't reprimand her for the outburst. . . he didn't need to.
'We've been driving for days,' the man said. Finally, he lowered his weapon and stepped away from it, keeping the placatory hand in the air for all to see. 'You know what it's like, man. I just drifted. Shit, we haven't seen anyone else – well, other than those fucks – in so long; we certainly didn't expect there to be another car on this stretch of road.' He waited, sharing conspiratorial glances with the tartan-skirted girl, as if something unspoken was passing between them. Shane saw it and moved over to where the shotgun sat on the road. The man – whose leather jacket made tiny putputput noises as the rain bounced off it – stepped back, both hands raised.
'Where you people coming from?' the girl said. She was whiny, nasal, as if she had a cold, but it was the kind of voice that needed no affliction to create. It was annoying.
'We were trying to get out of Jackson,' Marla said, moving across to the nasally girl. She proceeded to search her, though there was nothing to search; no pockets, no hidden crevices. This was clearly a girl who placed all of her trust in her man. It wasn't a safe way to live, not anymore. Marla couldn't remember the last time she had been without a weapon. . .
'Us too,' the man said. He looked to Shane, silently asking if he was okay to lower his arms. In truth, Shane wasn't sure. These people didn't look infected, but you never could tell until it was too late. One minute, they could be walking around right as rain, the next, “Oooooh, my stomach hurts,” and then the change. Before you know what's hit you, you've got lurkers snapping at your ankles and you can't believe how stupid you were not to check the fuckers in the first place.
'You haven't been scratched, or bitten?' Terry asked, as if he were able to read Shane's mind.
The leather-clad man shook his head. 'We haven't come into contact with any of those things for days, and whenever we do we keep our distance. I've seen too many men fall from overconfidence, and those things only need half a chance and they're on you.'
Shane walked around the man, who was glued to the spot, though continued to talk as Shane appraised him.
'I swear, man, we'd already be showing symptoms, wouldn't we? All three of us are clean.'
Shane, at first, missed what the man had said, and then suddenly snapped into action, pacing across to where the rest of his group were standing.
'You said three,' Shane said, not a question. 'Where's the third?'
The man slowly twisted his trunk and prodded a finger towards the mangled Oldsmobile a little further up the road. 'He's fine. We left him at the side of the road, just in case you were marauders, or something.' He raised an eyebrow, as if it ask if his assumption was ill-judged.
'We're just people trying to survive,' Shane assured him. 'But we need to see your third all the same.'
The girl suddenly held her hand up, expressing her desire to talk. Shane turned and nodded, feeling rather stupid to be granting another human-being permission to speak when there were so few rules remaining – if any.
'He can't talk,' the girl said.
Shane shrugged. 'We're all a little shocked, here. Some people deal with this kind of—'
'No, he doesn't talk at all,' the girl interrupted. 'He can't speak. . .you see, he's our son and he has never been able to speak.' She sniggered nervously, though Shane could tell she was uncomfortable talking. 'We thought he might grow out of it, didn't we Lukas, but he never did. . . '
The man – Lukas – nodded. 'Yeah, it's been real tough, what with everything going to shit, and all, but we love the little fucker, even if he is a mutey.'
Shane felt terrible. The trio were a family, just a set of parents and a son trying to make it through the day in once piece.
They almost hadn't.
'Can he hear?' Shane asked, though there was something different now; his voice had changed, softened, and he was no longer aiming the pistol towards the man's face. It was teetering a little lower, and if a bullet were to accidentally escape it would simply brush the man's flesh before continuing along its trajectory.
'He can,' Lukas said. 'But he listens more to his mom than me. Ain't that right, Abi?' He nodded to the woman, signalling her to shout after their boy.
She sighed, rolled her eyes – as if annoyed at such an order – and then screeched at the top of her lungs, 'SAUL!' She waited, breathing heavily; recuperating, almost. 'Saul, you come on out, now. These nice people want to say hi.'
Shane didn't know what to expect – none of them did – but the little boy that emerged from the wreckage of the Olds was not much older than River, though he was skinny, gaunt to the point of unpleasantness. It never occurred to Shane that this kid had been relatively well-fed before the creatures came. All he could see were two godawful parents and a neglected tramp of a child. It was unfair to cast aspersions, but Shane had a bad feeling about these people – all three of them – as soon as they stood together as a unit.
The boy was uninjured – which was surprising given the state of the car lying on its roof – and only moved with a tentative gait due to the presence of strangers.
'Say hello to these people, Saul
,' Abi urged. There was something about the way she emphasised people that irritated Marla, though it might just have been the adrenaline still coursing through her. . . through all of them.
The boy lifted a hand, and then his head, and when he saw River he appeared to brighten a little. The poor kid had probably resigned himself to the fact he was the youngest survivor, and therefore more alone than any of the grown-ups – including his parents.
'Hey Saul,' River said, waving gingerly. She wasn't a shy girl, normally, but Shane was sure he saw her cheeks redden.
'Are we cool?' Lukas asked. He was still holding his arms aloft as best as he could, but it must have been uncomfortable; the grimace painted across his face said so.
Shane thought for a second, looking towards the girl – Abi – and then Saul, whose gaze had reverted to the ground.
Just a family, a voice inside his head informed him, and it was Megan's voice.
'Yeah, we're cool,' Shane said, slowly lowering his pistol before tucking it into the band of his pants. He pointed towards the wreck which was half-on half-off the road; the portion overlapping the forest was nestled in shrubbery. 'Thank God you all made it out of that okay.'
Lukas turned. 'Yeah, that was a bad one. I fucking loved that car. Bet we don't come across another one anytime soon.'
And then Shane realised just how much their plans had been altered. They had been so close to getting out; so near to leaving the past behind in Jackson and heading for a place of promise, to potential safety, and now. . .
'Hey, look, I'm sorry,' the tall, muscular guy known as Lukas said. He reached down and plucked his shotgun up from the road. 'Coulda happened to anyone, I guess.'
And as Lukas walked away, heading to where his wife/girlfriend and son were standing, Shane was certain he caught a whiff of alcohol on the guy's breath. It was a baleful smell; one that reminded Shane to keep his wits about him at all times, for you never knew what was actually going through a person's mind any longer. He cast the overturned Olds a final glance before joining the rest of the group, though he immediately wished it was just the four of them again.
The Dead Series (Book 3): Dead Line Page 9