And Greg, firing—
Bang-bang!
Finally, finally, the boy lost his footing and slammed into the floor on his back, the hammer skidding away from his outstretched fingers. He lay still, blood pumping out of multiple parts of his body.
Greg finally glanced over at her as she scrambled down to meet him. “Are you okay?” he asked.
Emily jumped the last step and helped Savannah up from the floor. The girl’s clothes were dripping with blood, and her mouth was open in a silent scream, even though nothing came out.
“You okay?” Emily asked her.
“Yes,” Savannah said.
“Good.” Then, her face hardening, “Didn’t I tell you two to stay inside?”
The teenager’s face turned slightly red. “I heard shooting and thought you might be in trouble.”
Greg sighed. “And I heard her shouting your name and shooting.”
Emily shook her head. “Goddammit. You two need to learn to follow orders—”
“You hear that?” Greg said, cutting her off.
Emily didn’t bother to ask Hear what? because she knew what he was referring to. She looked toward the front door instead.
The wide-open front door.
“That’s a helicopter, right?” Greg asked. He sounded hopeful, maybe even excited.
She nodded. “Yes. I saw it when I was upstairs.”
“Military?”
“No. Civilian.”
Figures flashed by on the sidewalk and the streets. Psychos. They weren’t running into her house—at least not yet—but they seemed to have come alive, like bees that were suddenly on the warpath now that something had disturbed their nest.
Something like a helicopter. It was bringing all the psychos out.
…and if that same chopper was indeed headed toward her house, then it would bring them right to her doorstep, too…
Chapter 29
“Emily? What do we do?” That was Greg.
“We should run outside, right?” Savannah, this time. “I mean, it’s a helicopter! It could be the rescue we’ve been waiting for!”
“It’s too dangerous to just run outside.”
“But we can’t just stay in here.”
“It’s too dangerous out there, Savannah. Right, Emily?”
“If we just stay in here, they might not see us! What if they keep flying by?”
“Emily? Emily, what should we do?”
Emily didn’t hear him or the question. She was too busy thinking.
Step one: Know your objective.
The answer to this one was the same it’d been since all of this madness began: Stay alive.
Step two: Gather intel.
They were outside the backroom, and a chopper was fast approaching. If she was right—and she thought she was—the aircraft was headed right for her house. It was moving in the right trajectory. Soon, it would go over her roof. That is, unless it was coming specifically to her house. If that were the case, it would mean Cole was onboard. Why else would it choose her home, of all homes, if it wasn’t Cole? There would be no reason. Only Cole would do that.
And then there was the matter of the psychos. Both she, Greg, and Savannah had fired enough rounds and made enough noise that pretty much every infected dog and human being still hanging around Arrow Bay would have heard. And even if they didn’t, that approaching chopper would lead them right to her doors.
Step three: Formulate a plan.
Get to safety. She could achieve that one easily, by retreating into the backroom again.
…But if she did that, the helicopter, there would be no choice to flag down the chopper. Would they even stop? Would they just keep going?
Unless Cole was inside.
It had to be Cole.
It just had to be.
…But what if she was wrong? What if—
“Emily?” Greg. Or Savannah. She’d lost track of who was talking to her. “What should we do? Stay in here or go out?”
And finally, step four: Execute that plan.
There was the obvious plan, and the stupid one.
She chose the latter.
Emily turned back to face Greg and Savannah. “Stay here.”
Savannah’s eyes bulged. “What?”
“What?” Greg joined in.
“Watch my back.”
“Emily—” Greg started, but she’d already run to the front door. “Emily!”
“Watch my back!” she shouted but didn’t look back. “I’m counting on you, Greg! Don’t let me down!”
She imagined him sighing, maybe even cursing under his breath. But he didn’t run after her. Or, at least, she couldn’t hear footsteps behind her; but then again, she was so focused on the whup-whup-whup of the approaching chopper she had trouble hearing her own heartbeats.
She was almost at the door when she picked up sudden motion in the corner of her right eye.
A psycho burst through the opening that connected the living room with the dining room, something that looked like a heavily dented machete rising in the air. Blood flitted from his eyes as he ran in a line at her.
Boom! and the psycho jerked into the air and landed back on the carpet, blood spraying the floor around him. The man—fifties, balding, his face shredded by claws—struggled to get back up.
Bang-bang-bang! as Greg walked across the living room and finished him off. It took him three bullets but only one hit the man in the chest.
Greg looked over at her. “I’m shit with my left hand.”
I can see that, she thought but said, “Watch my back.”
“We will,” Savannah said, stepping up next to Greg.
Emily nodded at the both of them, before turning and running to the door. She had to jump over the dead psycho that’d been there since last night. If she thought the bodies smelled before, being even closer to it made her want to vomit.
Sunlight blinded her for a second or two as she ran out into the driveway. She blinked through the pain and peered forward, then up at the chopper.
It was a civilian aircraft, all right. A Bell, from the looks of it. White up front, and possibly blue in the back. There was a large, round object hanging off its front that reflected back the sunlight.
It was a camera because she was looking at a news chopper.
Screams pierced the air, and Emily looked back down and whispered, “Oh, shit.”
Her fears had been correct. She, Greg, and Savannah weren’t the only ones to hear or notice the helicopter. Every single thing and people in Arrow Bay had as well, and they were out in force.
They were fighting up and down the streets and on front yards and inside homes. She could see figures locked in combat behind windows and unmoving ones sprawled on the sidewalks, patches of bright red underneath them. It wasn’t just psychos trying to kill each other, but Labradors were attacking prey in packs. Figures raced up the streets, trying to escape the dogs. Some made it behind cover, others didn’t.
All Emily cared about was that they weren’t running to her.
“Emily!” someone shouted from behind her.
Her mind registered Savannah’s voice even as Emily turned in time to catch a woman in a silk pink camisole top appear from around her house and make a straight line for her. The woman—Emily didn’t recognize the face—was holding a knife in one hand, and blood caked almost the entire front of her body.
Before Emily could fire, there were two bangs!
Savannah, shooting at the running woman. Or trying to, anyway. Her first shot missed badly, but her second struck the woman in the thigh, and she twisted, slowing down just enough—
Boom! as Emily finished her off.
The very loud whup-whup-whup of the chopper blades as the aircraft flashed over her, whipping her hair around her face. Savannah retreated slightly back into the house to get away from the sudden whirlwind, but Emily glanced up as the helicopter’s white belly swooped past her, flying so low that the pilot was either suicidal or—
&nbs
p; —he was planning to land soon.
Emily followed the chopper’s path as it went over her house and kept going—until it didn’t. It began making a U-turn.
It was coming back.
It was coming back to land in her backyard.
Cole, she thought.
Because who else could it be? Who else would fly to a suburban subdivision in a news chopper and land in the backyard of a house next to a lake?
Cole would.
Cole would do exactly that in order to reach her.
The chopper had disappeared behind her house when Emily ran back toward Savannah, hiding just behind the open front door. Greg was in the background, watching the dining room and kitchen.
“Cole!” she shouted.
The teenager peeked out at her. “What?”
“Cole!”
Greg turned around. “Your husband?”
“Yes!” Emily grabbed the teenager and pulled her through the living room and toward the kitchen. “Come on!”
Greg ran after them. “Where we going?”
“Anywhere but here!”
“Um, okay.”
Savannah struggled to keep up with her. “What if it’s not Cole?”
“It’s Cole!” Emily said. “Trust me!”
“Do we have any choice?” Greg asked.
“No!”
“Okay, just askin’.”
She wasn’t sure if Savannah and Greg trusted her or not, but the kid didn’t resist as Emily pulled them through the living room. And she could hear Greg’s heavy footfalls following quickly on their heels.
They ran past the balding man she’d shot earlier, then the Blob. Barton’s body was next. Flies scattered as they approached, then quickly resumed their infestation over the bodies once they’d passed.
The whup-whup-whup of the helicopter grew louder as they neared the kitchen door. It was now concentrated in the backyard, and Emily could glimpse objects flying across the windows as it descended. There was no doubt about it now: It really was landing in her backyard, and that could only mean one thing:
Cole.
Cole!
The bang-bang! of a pistol firing.
Emily slowed down just enough to glance over her shoulder. Greg was shooting at a figure in the New York Yankees ballcap as it raced through the living room after them. Greg was trying to shoot the man anyway.
Emily let go of Savannah’s arm and turned around.
Boom! as the psycho—he was just a kid, maybe not even fifteen—was knocked off his feet by the shotgun blast.
Greg looked back at her, his face flushed red. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Emily said. “Let’s get out of here.”
She led them through the door and into the backyard.
Emily thought she was prepared for it but was still caught by surprise by the powerful whirlwind generated by the helicopter’s rotors. The Bell itself sat almost perfectly in the middle of her backyard, a man with a full beard looking out of the cockpit window at her as she and Savannah, with Greg in the back, braved the currents to reach them.
Emily clutched Savannah’s arm to keep the teenager from being tossed back by the spinning rotors, while still keeping the Remington in her right hand. She had to squint through the swirling vortex as they made their way toward the aircraft. She didn’t know how she knew that it was waiting for them—that it’d come here for them—but she did. She just knew.
A figure hopped out of the chopper’s open side hatch and ran toward them. It was a man and he was alone, though there were others inside the Bell in the background. Civilians, from what she could tell, all strapped into their seats.
Emily focused on the man jogging toward her.
She smiled.
Cole.
Of course it was Cole.
He grabbed her in a bear hug, his lips finding hers in a quick—painfully quick—kiss.
Then he pulled back slightly and smiled.
And she smiled back.
“Go,” he said. Quietly. Ridiculously quietly.
She did, taking Savannah and Greg with her.
Bang-bang! from behind her.
She glanced back to find Cole standing with a Glock in his hand. A man that had come out of the kitchen door behind them was on the ground. She recognized the suit and tie. George Benson.
Emily pushed Savannah toward the chopper. “Go!” Then it was Greg’s turn: “Go go go!”
They went.
Emily hurried back to Cole as he was backpedaling toward her, already firing again.
A woman in boots and a one-piece sunflower dress crumpled to the grass. She’d followed George Benson out of the kitchen door.
Cole looked back as she approached. “What are you doing?”
“Keeping you alive,” she said.
Boom! as she shot a big man in white overalls covered in paint and blood as he rounded the corner of their house.
Emily reloaded and smiled at her husband. “You’re late,” she shouted over the roar of the chopper.
He grinned. “Sorry about that. I had my hands full the last few days.”
“Excuses, excuses. So where are we going, by the way?”
“Anywhere but here.”
She nodded. It was the best answer she’d heard in the last three days.
They backed up as more psychos came out of the house and from around its corners. It didn’t matter. She fired and reloaded, and Cole took over. Then, when it was her turn, she fired while he reloaded.
And they retreated toward the chopper the entire time.
The psychos kept coming, no doubt drawn by the presence of the helicopter. Not that it mattered. She had enough shells for all of them, and when Cole ran out of bullets, he grabbed the Glock from her holster and resumed shooting.
“You guys coming or what?” a voice called from behind them.
Emily glanced back at a thin black kid fastened to his seat inside the chopper. Savannah and Greg, she saw, were already strapped in next to him.
“Well?” the black kid said.
Emily grinned back at him. “Coming!”
She turned and hurried to the helicopter, feeding more shells into the shotgun as she went. Cole was right beside her. They didn’t really run, but they didn’t walk, either. Not that she was afraid either way, because Cole was next to her. And as long as that was a reality, she didn’t give a damn what the world threw at them today, tomorrow, or the days after that.
They climbed into the chopper, and Cole shouted at the pilot, “Go go go!”
The bearded man held up an acknowledging hand, just before the Bell began to lift off the ground.
A woman in red joggers came out of the house and stood in the backyard looking up after them. She shouldn’t have, because another psycho came out from behind her and shoved some kind of long metal rod through her back.
Emily looked away from the scene below her and at the people gathered in the chopper with her. The black kid that she’d already seen, but there was also a girl in her twenties and what looked like a mother and her child.
“I’m Zoe,” the woman said, leaning across the small space to shake her hand. “This is my daughter, Ashley.”
The girl, for some reason, saluted her.
Emily smiled. “Emily.”
“We know,” Zoe said, smiling back.
“We heard all about you,” the other, younger woman said.
“All good things, I hope,” Emily said.
The young woman nodded at Cole, sitting beside her. “He said you were the key to keeping us alive.”
“Did he?” Emily looked over at Cole. “Why me?”
“Lars,” Cole said.
Emily’s eyes widened. “Lars?”
Cole nodded.
Lars, Emily thought. It was a name she hadn’t thought about in a long time, but it made perfect sense, given what was happening.
“Lars,” she said, nodding.
The chopper ascended higher into the sky, her dream house
and the subdivision of Arrow Bay fading in the background below her. Emily watched as it got smaller, the dots that were people—and maybe dogs—racing around down there, assaulting one another, becoming unrecognizable after a while.
So much for my boring retirement.
Cole, sitting next to her, was smiling. She returned it, before reaching over and taking his hand, then placing it over her stomach.
His smile broadened, and so did hers.
The Fall Continues…
The first 3 days was only the beginning.
Now the real fight for survival begins.
Firebase, Book 3 in the Fall of Man series is now available for pre-order.
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