Crawlerz: Book 5: Off the Rails

by R. S. Merritt

  Jeff slowly stood up gently shifting Yue onto the bench. He went and put on his headsets and for the first time heard the men in the other helicopters asking for orders. Moving up to the front of the helicopter he saw a crawler trying to kick in the windshield. The pilot was staring fearfully at the scarred pale leg dangling down kicking the glass. The crawler was having issues getting the right angle to try and kick hard enough to do any real damage. More of the infected were jumping up on the big green machine every minute that passed.

  The pilot in the helicopter next to them decided to get the hell out of Dodge. Jeff got on the headsets and tried to coax the man into staying on the ground, but he was beyond coaxing. His cockpit glass was covered in crawlerz. The only reason their own chopper wasn’t covered and smothered with the infected killers was because of Yue’s witchery. With Yue out for the count their advantage wasn’t going to last for long. Realizing that Jeff realized the other pilot had the right idea and ordered all three helicopters into the sky.

  The pilot on their left had already started. The other pilot on their right was busy telling them why it wasn’t going to work. The helicopter on their left got about thirty feet off the ground before making a weird whoofing noise. The big beast of a helicopter suddenly veered sideways right into the front of the warehouse. The rotors didn’t stop as they beat their way through the walls of the gigantic distribution center. The helicopter didn’t explode but it made a huge mess of the front of the warehouse.

  Attracted by the noise and the flashes of humanity in their minds eyes the infected surged towards the battered wall of the warehouse. Jeff yelled at their pilot to get them in the air. Over to their right the other pilot had his rotors moving but hadn’t tried lifting off yet. Miraculously their helicopter lifted off the ground with no real challenges. Once off the ground they hovered about a hundred feet up to assess the situation. They had multiple infected clinging to the outside of the helicopter including the one trying to kick in the windshield.

  “What the hell happened to the wall?” Captain Marshall had joined them in the cockpit. His eyes betraying his shock at seeing the warehouse below smashed in by the wreckage of the first chinook to try and take off. The rain was coming down so hard it was getting difficult to even see the warehouse. The pilot flicked on the powerful searchlights to try and make out what was going on.

  “Shake the hitchhikers and get us into position to protect the warehouse.” Jeff ordered. He couldn’t be much more specific in his commands. The pilot would have a way better idea of how to carry out the complex maneuvers he was going to have to go through.

  Shaking the hitchhikers involved some aerial acrobatics that made everyone without a seatbelt on wish they were wearing inflatable sumo suits. The pilot had come across the intercom with the order to strap in and brace for evasive maneuvers. Drew, LeBron and Harley had rushed over to make sure Yue was secure. They had time to snap a few belts on her before they were thrown against the bulkheads by the evasive maneuvers they were supposed to have been braced for. The pilot had launched into some kind of lightning fast circle while climbing then falling maneuver. It was like they were in a city bus filled with all kinds of sharp hard pointy objects and Godzilla decided to pick up the bus and shake it.

  Overall it was still much less painful than opening up the gun bays while there was still infected clinging to the chinook. Hoping he’d gotten rid of the oversized parasites the pilot ordered the gun bays opened. It was time to get the machine guns ready for action. The pilot spun them around in the air again. Then he brought them down so that they were hovering above the hordes of infected running towards the warehouse. The infected were forcing their way into the warehouse through the gaps around the helicopter that was still embedded in the wall. That meant the people inside should be able to kill them pretty easily. Assuming the people inside knew how to handle their weapons.

  Once they were in position the pilot didn’t waste any time getting the guns hot. A few minutes later the other helicopter was asking where they should focus their fire. Jeff glanced over at Captain Marshall to see if he had any input. The doctor turned weekend warrior turned leader in the middle of an apocalypse didn’t have anything to offer. The doctor gazed in horror at the demonic horde below running through the rain below to try and get into the warehouse.

  “What will they be doing inside?” Jeff asked as the pilot began chewing through the bodies on the ground. At least one of the guns was firing armor piercing rounds. That would basically vaporize whatever it hit. Jeff’s question served to snap Marshall out of his stupor. He started checking all his pockets and yelling into the back of the helicopter for someone else from his group to come up. His face lit up when he found a small black object in his pocket. He whipped out the Motorola walkie talkie and clicked it on.

  “Real American warehouse this is Real American actual. Do you read me over?” Marshall basically yelled into the mic.

  The response that came back was garbled. Marshall asked them to repeat, and the second transmission was much clearer. When asked what their status was inside the warehouse, they said they were falling back into the secondary safe space. A few more queries and it was established that there was one group who couldn’t fall back. The men who were on their machine guns blasting away at the infected trying to worm their way in. The second that line of men stood up to leave the crawlerz would get in and they’d be ripped apart.

  “Tell them to tell us when they’re ready to run. We’ll light up the whole area around the helicopter to give them a chance to make it. The safe room isn’t anywhere near where the helicopter crashed right?” Jeff asked.

  Marshall shook his head and relayed the plan. Five minutes later they were told to count to ten and light it up. The pilot did an audible countdown then released a couple of rockets. The rockets had barely hit when he ran through the rest of his machine gun ammunition. Marshall tried but he couldn’t raise anyone else in the warehouse.

  “What’s the plan for us then sir?” The pilot asked.

  “What do you mean?” Jeff asked. He’d assumed they’d fly back to Weathertop for the night and come back in the morning. The pilot gave Jeff a little time to put it together. Seeing that Jeff was struggling the pilot went ahead and filled Jeff in on the new problem they had.

  “We don’t have enough fuel to hover all night. My recommendation is we set a course for Weathertop and set down somewhere that looks deserted. If we see any crawlerz we take off and look for somewhere else. Once dawn breaks, we can fly to Weathertop and resupply then come back here.” The pilot finished explaining. It was obviously a scenario he’d run into before. Anytime they couldn’t return to base before night fell it became a complicated dance to stay alive.

  “Make it so.” An exhausted Jeff said before turning around and tiredly marching back into the passenger section of the large aircraft.

  Chapter 14: Grenades are Such a Blast

  Drew wiped the tired out of his eyes. It’d been a long night. They’d set back down near the field by the Appomattox courthouse thinking that’d be pretty safe. They hadn’t counted on the crawlerz showing up as soon as darkness fell. The monsters had been attracted by all of the noise from the earlier gun battle. Less than a minute after they landed, they were climbing back into the dark night sky with crawlerz clinging to the aircraft once again. The pilot from the other helicopter watched them do aerial pirouettes until their stowaways became castaways.

  They’d sat down in another random field after that. That time they’d made it almost an entire hour before having to fly away. The chinooks were pretty freakin loud. They’d been flying low looking for good places to land. Even with the sound of the rotors somewhat muted by the thunderstorms they were passing through they were still loud. The pilots admitted they were making this up as they went along. Both pilots had been with the suicide squad for over a year now. Pretty much every mission they’d flown had consisted of dropping off a team then hovering until the team came back. Occasionally they
’d have identified a place they could set down to wait as part of the mission prep. They never had to worry about what time they returned to base since their base had been a ship.

  They’d eventually settled on flying up high and being buffeted around by the storm until they came straight down into a field. That approach had worked much better. At least it had for the few hours they needed it to work to ensure they didn’t end up running out of fuel. When they finally landed at Weathertop the next morning both pilots were wiped. If they intended to fly directly back after the helicopters were refueled, they needed to find fresh pilots.

  Lisa came out to greet them. She looked like holy hell. Drew and Yue were both happy to see that she was walking on her own power at least. Even if she was limping a little bit. The bandages covering her broken nose reminded Yue that her own nose was also in need of a trip to the fake face doctor. Not that Yue was necessarily worried about something as silly as a funny shaped septum when she had bite sized chunks of flesh missing from both her forearms. She’d also treated one of her fingers like a chicken wing in her efforts to save them all from the infected the night before.

  Yue was rolled into Weathertop in a wheelchair. Jeff had called ahead to request fresh pilots and a general change of the guard. He’d done his best to lay out the medical requirements for the wounded via a mid-flight triage call. Captain Marshall had helped out substantially with that piece. They were able to get the injured moving the second the helicopters touched down thanks to the prep work done on the flight over. As the de facto leader of the Real Americans Captain Marshall found himself being escorted into a conference room to meet with the President.

  Marshall was enjoying a large cup of coffee and toast with jelly when Shaun walked into the room. The woman who’d brought in the toast and jelly asked if they needed anything else. When they both politely refused, she left the room pulling the door shut behind her.

  “I didn’t expect the President of the United States to walk in with a nine millimeter strapped to his side.” Marshall said to break the silence. He was well aware that being the first to talk showed weakness in negotiations, but he was too damned tired to care.

  “You know people who walk around without weapons?” Shaun asked smiling.

  “You don’t seem like a politician.” Marshall said staring at him.

  “I’m not. I’m a guy who was abandoned by the same government that abandoned you. I happened to be able to jump in my Mormon neighbor’s house for a nice long stretch of the apocalypse. That was more luck than anything else though. The President’s daughter was with me. Well she was the Vice President’s daughter at the time but I’m sure your spies have filled you in on all that right?” Shaun asked. He was still smiling which took the bite out of his words.

  “Yeah. We’ve been tossing around words like ‘illegitimate’ and ‘monarchy’ a lot lately.” Marshall answered. Still smiling Shaun nodded along with him.

  “I’m right there with you. Nothing about any of this seems super legit to me either. Most of the time we’re just making it up as we go along. What gets me though is that we have the supplies here to live out the rest of our lives in comfort. The man you guys all consider the antichrist is in the infirmary right now with the love of his life because he went on a mission to try and unite us. That man knows where all the hidden supply caches are. He knows where all the bodies are buried. He could take his girl and disappear anytime he wanted to. Do you think he needs this bullshit?” Shaun asked. It was early and he wasn’t in the mood for some yahoo to try and tell him he wasn’t really an American.

  “I see you’ve managed to piss the President off already.” Jeff said walking into the room. He’d only caught the tail end of the conversation but the tone in Shaun’s voice was unmistakable.

  “Oh no. I’m more frustrated than anything. I apologize for speaking so frankly. We’re working hard to try and develop a strategy to clear out the infected. Rebel militias like yours ambushing our guys is ridiculous. There’s no reason for us to be killing one another. Although honestly, I’d have just as soon bombed your asses yesterday as ordered the flyby. If it weren’t for Jeff and Yue talking me out of it, you’d be dead instead of enjoying some fresh blueberry jam.” Shaun stopped to sip at his coffee and reel himself in.

  “You ask him for South Carolina yet?” Jeff asked conversationally.

  “What?” Shaun said spitting some of his coffee back into his cup.

  “He let me know that they’d help clear out a territory as long as they could hold that territory as a new sovereign country. The territory they wanted was the state of South Carolina. They’d grant us safe passage through that territory in perpetuity.” Jeff explained. He rolled his eyes to look up at the ceiling as he tried to remember everything. He thought it came out pretty good considering how tired he was. At this point he was using most of his willpower just to remain vertical. Sitting down in one of the plush leather chairs around the mahogany conference table was a serious consideration. The problem with that was that it’d just make him even more tired. He didn’t have time to sleep.

  Shaun looked thoughtful instead of furious. That was a good sign. There was no way Shaun could grant Marshall’s request. Not if he wanted to be able to maintain his own position as President. It didn’t take the political astuteness of Yue to know that giving away sections of the country to small militia groups wasn’t the best path forward to a country reunited. Especially immediately following that militia group sneak attacking them and killing a large number of soldiers who’d been engaged in trying to clear crawlerz.

  “I understand you’ve built a political movement around the fact that my uncle and the former President followed Jeff’s plan and abandoned the country. The reason they did it was to try and preserve the government. It was a hard decision that ripped at the moral fabric of the whole institution. I don’t know that I can give away any parts of this country to renegade militia bands such as yours.” Shaun said. He’d risen to the occasion as far as a Presidential response went.

  “Well then where do we go from here sir? There’re a lot of people who aren’t going to want to swear allegiance to your flag anymore. The President came on the TV and told us all we were on our own.” Marshall asked. The question was presented respectfully. Neither Jeff nor Shaun had missed the fact that Marshall had finally called him ‘sir’. There wasn’t a really good answer though.

  “We don’t have to decide all that this morning. First things first let’s get you back to make sure your people are ok. I have two eighteen wheelers loaded down with supplies on the way there now. I’m hoping you beat them back since otherwise your men may shoot them. You strike me as a good man. If we all just concentrate on doing the right thing, I’m hopeful everything else will work itself out.” Shaun said.

  The men exchanged a few more pleasantries and then Shaun left. Jeff yawned loudly and asked Marshall to follow him so they could get to the helicopter taking them back. Marshall cocked his head and looked at Jeff oddly.

  “You’re coming with me? I’d have thought you’d want to stay here and watch over Yue. You sure you don’t want to just find a dark corner and get some sleep?” Marshall asked.

  “I need to make sure you guys are all taken care of. I want to get an understanding of what your capabilities are as well. I asked LeBron to come with us but everyone else could use the rest. Yue will have Harvey sleeping in her room. Drew will be circulating between her room and Lisa’s in the infirmary. She’ll be well watched over while I’m gone.” Jeff answered. Neither of them thought it was strange that Drew had been shot in the back the previous day but was already up and about. You didn’t get much more anti-coddling than the military units fighting in the apocalypse.

  Jeff felt horrible about leaving Yue given the state she was in. The fact that she’d basically ordered him to go didn’t help. It was one of those confusing times when a woman says one thing but may mean another. Jeff was pretty sure Yue was being straight with him, but he still had a
nagging feeling this could come back to haunt him. If he died on this little jaunt who was going to help her deal with the missing chunks of flesh from her body. He took comfort in the knowledge that she believed in their mission just as much as he did. Or maybe she just believed in him. Either way he was lucky to have found her. Eager to get this trip out of the way and get back to her he walked with Captain Marshall out to the helicopter area.

  They met LeBron at the helicopter. They were taking one of the chinooks again. They had a full combat load on board as well as medical supplies and corpsmen to help out. They were ready in case the refugee militia group decided it still wanted to fight. This was most likely a humanitarian mission though. Once they were all strapped in the pilot lifted them off and headed towards the warehouse.

  They’d all expected to see a buzz of activity outside when they arrived. Instead the parking lot was deserted except for the bodies of those who’d fallen in the fighting the previous day. Those bodies were slowly stiffening out on the sun warmed pavement. After the chain sawing the infected had received from the chinooks big guns it was better not to look too closely at the carnage below. LeBron did anyway.