Steadying his breath, he grasped the door handle and gave it a twist.
Sean was sitting in a chair by a fireplace. A bottle of scotch was on the table to his left, a bottle of pills to his right. There was a note on a table in front of him and a gun on the floor by his feet. He had probably taken the pills with the alcohol to numb him to whatever he was feeling; then put a gun in his mouth. Well, at least they didn’t walk into a reanimated version of his friend; he had spared them that much at least. But what if someone else had found him like this? What if it had been one of his kids sent to check on him?
The anger he felt at the man began to grow as he thought of his daughter Skye coming across this horrific scene. It was a selfish thing for the man to do; a coward’s answer to the world falling apart around them. He had done what the booze couldn’t; he had escaped.
Disgusted, he turned and slammed the door behind him.
“We can’t leave him like that,” he said firmly; thinking again of who would find him next and how to prevent that from happening. Luckily the kids tended to stay at the other compound, but that didn’t change the fact that this would need to be cleaned up without their notice. Telling them that he had taken off would be easier than telling them he had “opted out”.
“Fucking coward,” he muttered.
“He’s not going anywhere, we’ll figure it out later,” his wife sobbed and he went back over to her. Sean had been so confident before all of this, what had happened to drive him to take his own life? What was the purpose of any of this if in the end, he was just going to kill himself anyways?
Things refused to reconcile in his mind. No, something had pushed the man, something hidden that he had been trying to hide the night before. Had he done this so he wouldn’t have to give any answers? Had he avoided him all morning just so that he could rush over here and off himself?
What the fuck was going on?
His phone vibrated and Monica yelped with surprise. Ben knew where they were and what they were doing, what couldn’t wait until they got back? Did he somehow already know what they would find? They had camera feeds set up around the compound, how could he not know that Sean had come here? Was he in on it?
There were a lot of questions he needed answered and if this coward had offed himself to avoid them, then he would make Ben answer them instead.
He picked it up and saw that it was indeed Ben calling. “Sean’s dead, guess you knew that already,” he said angrily. He paused as he listened and then screamed “She did what?”
Chapter 22
Hijacking
Michelle
Compound 1
She ran through the checklist in her head and began powering up the Huey. Rodger had gone over the startup with her so many times that she was positive that she had done everything right. The hardest part was the waiting for the rotors to get enough speed to provide her the lift she needed to take off. Easing back on the collective, she felt it shudder, and the Huey slowly began to rise off the ground.
She sighed with relief, letting out the breath she didn’t know she was holding. Once she had gained enough altitude, she used the rudders at her feet to turn herself north and eased the stick forward. Learning how to fly was something they were all encouraged to do and her father had relented, seeing the logic behind her doing so as well. But she could tell that he had no intention of actually letting her fly it; much less alone.
That was the problem with her parents. As much as they thought of themselves as being progressive; they were a bit overprotective. Sure, she had gotten her license as soon as she was old enough to drive, but they rarely let her take the car out, and very seldom by herself. They always seemed to think she’d get run off the road going down to the supermarket for groceries. If they had known she had driven across town to spend time with some of her online friends; they’d freak out.
This time though, she knew how important this was and didn’t want to get into an argument over what she should do. They would try to talk her out of it and Paul didn’t have time for that.
The helicopter flew swiftly over the forest and she prayed that it was fast enough; that she’d get there in time. If she was going to be grounded the rest of her life, she prayed it was for something worth getting punished for.
The radio was going off but she wasn’t wearing the headphones. It would be Ben begging for her to come back. She knew that he had a crush on her, had known for quite some time. She didn’t know how she felt in return and had avoided the issue whenever it came up. She never thought they’d be thrown together like this, and now it was going to have to be something she’d have to face; she could no longer hide from it. It was his infatuation that was making him try so hard to stop her; it wasn’t because he thought she couldn’t do it.
She was suddenly glad that she had left her cellphone back in her room with her younger sister. Her father would have Ben connect it to their network and it’d be going off even more than Ben’s attempts to reach her on the radio.
She wasn’t ready for that conversation yet.
The horizon began to change and she knew that civilization was just ahead. The forests were beginning to thin out as the elevation began to lower. She was coming out of the mountains and flying over open ground. Ahead she could see the sprawling town of Springerville and her blood began to quicken. She had a pretty good idea where she was going and began to look for the part of town Rosilynn was at.
She hadn’t looked at her gauges for a while and the stick began to feel heavy in her grip.
She was flying low over the town and hoped that she was heading in the right direction. The street that she was looking for was approaching and she felt hope when she saw that there was an empty plot across the road from where she needed to be.
That was good. She didn’t want to think what would happen if she had to land on a small roadway with power lines restricting her landing area.
She aimed for that patch of yellow grass and the stick suddenly jumped out of her hand.
She caught it quickly but the helicopter began to lose altitude and her mind began to race on how to fix it before she ended up a smear on the road. Her engine speed was slowing and she adjusted the collective to compensate; it didn’t help much. She began to ease it down as she approached her landing area and made adjustments with her feet in an attempt to control the rate of her descent. Her feet were tense and she could feel the pedals pushing back against her.
She was coming down too fast. She furiously tried to compensate and slow her rate of descent.
This was different than what she had practiced with Rodger. They hadn’t flown outside of the area where the compounds were built at; just circling and landing in the same spot. Was there something she missed? Maybe it was the altitude affecting her flying? Was she doing something wrong?
Fear gripped her as the ground rose to greet her.
Chapter 23
Pick up
Rosilynn
Springerville, AZ
The sound of the approaching copter lifted her spirits; Michelle had done it! Paul was stabilized and they had him strapped to a makeshift stretcher using belts, but he hadn’t yet regained consciousness. He had suffered too much blood loss and even if she gave him an infusion of new blood now, she couldn’t guarantee that he’d make it.
The men had him in hand and they were on the front porch awaiting the approaching Huey, ready to move as soon as it touched down. As it began its approach, she watched as the copter suddenly jerked and began to lose altitude.
“Oh shit,” John said beside her and she stepped forward in anticipation.
“Come on, get it under control,” Matt growled.
She broke from the porch and began sprinting across the lawn.
The Huey was coming down fast and at the last moment it bobbed, then landed hard in the field across the street. It sat there for a moment, the rotors beating furiously, buffeting her with gusts of wind. She saw a hand wave at her from the cockpit window and a smile broke
across her face.
Hopping out of the cockpit door was a spry seventeen-year-old girl, who came running straight for her. They embraced and Rosilynn began to laugh. “Holy shit! You scared the fuck out of me,” she told the girl.
“Out of us,” her husband corrected as they passed by and headed for the side door to the helicopter.
“You were scared?” Michelle challenged her husband, her hands on her hips. “I have no idea what happened there at the end,” she conceded in a softer voice, shaking her head. “Everything was going great the whole flight until I got here and then it just acted like it had a mind of its own.”
“Don’t worry, you won’t have to fly back,” she comforted the young girl, watching as the two men loaded Paul into the back of the helicopter. John jumped inside and began securing their injured passenger. The door of the Huey remained open for Michelle, as Matt opened the cockpit door and hopped in.
“We need to go,” she said, embracing the girl one last time and leading her towards the waiting chopper. The girl left her to hop in, closing the door behind her. She went around to the co-pilot door and climbed in beside her husband.
Grabbing a pair of headphones from overhead, she slid them on and looked to Matt.
“We’re good to go here,” he said, making some adjustments along the dash. “She okay?” he asked as he worked to get the rotors back up to speed.
“Just a little shaken,” she responded, taking a moment to glance at the young girl sitting in the back. She was shaking hands with John, introducing herself. Well, any reservations she had about bringing the man back to the compound were no longer relevant.
They were just about to take off when Matt muttered, “oh fuck me.”
She glanced at him, then followed his gaze. There was a man running in their direction waving his arms wildly at them. Following right on his heels was a horde of zombies.
“Shit,” she groaned. The man was coming at them fast and the rotors were just gaining enough speed to provide lift. Matt was moving his legs, wincing at the pain in his injured ankle. “Can you get us up?”
Her husband didn’t respond, his hands were moving as he did everything he could to get them moving.
“Get us out of here!” she yelled. The other two were now standing right behind them, watching the horde coming straight for them. John had his weapon in hand and was heading towards the door. “No wait!” she yelled, not wanting him to slide it open, but it was too late.
He yanked the door sideways and put one foot on the landing rail below. He was firing his gun, his wrist jerking wildly as the Huey shuddered and began to rise.
“Wait a second!” John hollered at them, but her husband seemed oblivious to the man behind him.
There was only fifteen feet left between them and the man running their way. Michelle had retrieved her own rifle and was using it to fire at the horde of zombies that swung into view as the Huey rotated and prepared to take off.
John quickly tossed his shotgun inside, stuck out a hand and braced his other on a support handle so he could lean out. “Jump!” she could hear him yell.
The chopper began to rise and she watched with relief as the horde began to fall away. Looking to her left, she watched John pull himself back into the helicopter. He then moved to assist Michelle in getting the other man they had just saved inside as well.
Something punched through the glass by her foot and she felt fingers dig into her right thigh. The pressure was intense and she jerked her leg forward before it could do any real damage to her. Screaming she kicked at it and looked through the window at the monster grabbing at her.
A tall black man with blue overalls was clinging to the landing strut and had one hand through the lower window of her cockpit door.
Matt had heard her screams and the chopper veered left, but the zombie had a firm grip on the door and wouldn’t shake loose. Unsheathing her sword, she made a short swift swing and separated the hand at the wrist. Matt made the chopper turn once more and the amputated arm swept out of view.
Looking down with satisfaction, she saw that the thing was no longer clinging to their ride and when she moved her foot backwards she heard a squishy crunch. Disgusted, she bent over and picked the hand up long enough to toss it out the broken window.
“Ugh.” She wanted to vomit.
“It get you?” her husband asked with concern, but she shook her head.
“I’m fine. It’s gone,” she replied and he nodded back. Then she turned to look at the four people in the rear of the chopper. Paul was on the left, having been secured as best they could and it looked like he was still breathing. Michelle was sitting on the left side of him leaning on her rifle as she chatted with the other two on the right.
The man that John had saved was average height and weight, white, with black long hair, beard, and green eyes. He was also wearing a dark red flannel shirt with a white undershirt and bloodied black jeans. A pack laid to his left and she doubted he brought anything of real use to them.
John was on his right and when they landed she was going to have a long talk with him about exposing their lives to danger like that. She had told him to wait and he acted anyway. Up to that point, they were all working well together, almost like a unit, but she needed to know that he could follow orders when they needed him too and not just run off half-cocked.
Shaking her head and with a weak smile on her face, she turned back to look at her husband. He looked at home in that seat. The forest was flying past and she felt like she was finally coming home.
After that hell in Vegas, a nuke in Arizona, and an outbreak in Havasu—they were actually going to make it.
“What?” Matt asked her.
She was about to answer when blood spattered her face. Her husband’s shoulder blew outward and the cockpit was sprayed with blood. His face went slack and his right hand flew to the wound. He held his bloody hand up so they could both see it, his face not comprehending what was going on.
She heard another strike and alarms started to sound from the dashboard. She noticed that Matt was no longer holding the stick and they were pitching out of control. She reached down and grasped hers, trying to level their descent, but it was too late.
Her husband hadn’t been flying too far off the ground and it took everything she had to pull up on the stick and barely miss plunging into the trees. A grass clearing suddenly appeared beneath her and she yelled for everyone to brace themselves as the helicopter pitched forward and rammed into the earth below.
Then her world went black.
Chapter 24
Patriot
Todd
Compound 1
He burst from the doors and scanned the sky for the missing Huey. He knew it was futile to come here once Ben had told him that she was gone, but how could he not? He couldn’t not take the chance that she’d still be there, trying to get the damn thing in the air. He had hoped that she wasn’t as able as she suddenly appeared to be and his heart ached at the thought of his little girl out there alone—the inability to do anything about it leaving him to stand there, helpless.
They had gotten down to the tunnel in record time. She couldn’t have had much in the way of a lead on them; depending on how long it took Ben to get the guts to call them and tell them what was going on.
That was going to be something he’d leave to his wife to deal with.
Him? He’d kill the boy.
Ben was bigger than Michelle was, and could have tackled her to keep her from leaving. He could have activated the security system in the compound and sealed the doors. He could have alerted someone else in the compound to head her off. There were a lot of things the boy could have done and didn’t.
No, it was best that Monica handle the situation, because after Sean, he was in no shape to be interrogating Ben at the moment.
“What are we going to do?” his wife asked from his side and he could only shake his head.
He had no clue.
“Crap, we missed her,�
�� Sam said, but he couldn’t muster any kind of response, only able to just stand there and feel defeated.
His phone went off and he considered not answering it. He was beyond pissed at this point and talking to Ben was only going to make it worse. He stared at the sky, moving out onto the runway for a better view of the northern horizon, trying to see any sign of a departing helicopter.
Monica’s phone started to ring and her own emotions bubbled to the surface as she put the phone to her ear. “Where the fuck is she?” she asked as soon as the phone connected. “Fine, but you realize that this conversation isn’t over, right?” She hit the end button on her phone and turned towards him. “She made it. Matt called him over the radio to say that everything was fine and they were on their way back.”
“Oh, thank God,” Samantha muttered, her hand reaching out and landing on his shoulder.
“She did it,” he said under his breath.
He hadn’t believed that she could and it was a hit to the beliefs that he nurtured; that his kids would always need him, that they were helpless without him. Then his teenage daughter gets in a helicopter and flies it by herself into a war zone and manages to save their friends on her own?
The pride he felt was only mitigated by the dawning realization that maybe she didn’t need him anymore; that maybe it was time to let go of his notions of a little girl in pig tails and acknowledge that she was a woman now. A woman able to make her own decisions and carry them out without his rejection or approval.
“Where are they?” he managed after a few moments.
“Couple of minutes out,” she replied, joining him in his search of the sky.
He might have been imagining it, but he was sure that he could hear the soft sound of the rotors off in the distance.
Charon's Blight: Day Two (the Rotting Souls series Book 2) Page 14