by Amber Wyatt
“Excellent work, Rob.” Thomas eased his long legs out of the doorway and pushed himself out of the plane. “Textbook landing. Absolutely perfect. I did not even feel the wheels touch down.” The only sign of stress from the huge man was a noticeable thickening of his German accent.
Rob opened the pilot’s door and climbed out to stand next to Thomas. “We were just lucky, man. The birds hit us half a mile back, just as we were lined up with this stretch of highway, and we have a decent headwind from directly in front.”
“Our flight path was straight down this road, yes?” Thomas shielded his eyes from the sun with one hand and peered back past the tail of the plane down the highway. “Good that will make it easier. We need to retrieve our equipment packs and leave this area before local law enforcement arrives.”
Gina and Tristan emerged from the plane and joined the others. Tristan whooped and swept up Rob in a bear hug.
“Get off me you dick!” Rob pushed him away, but he was laughing.
“Bro, I got the whole fucking thing on camera. You are fucking awesome!”
On impulse Gina went up and hugged him too, surprising him with a kiss on the cheek.
“Thank you,” she said earnestly. “That was amazing.” She meant it.
Rob blushed and they all laughed, even Thomas. They all carefully did not look at Wilkins as he clumsily stepped down from the plane on to the road, pawing ineffectually at the huge, wet patch of bile on his stomach and groin.
Gina sucked in a deep breath and blew her cheeks out, suddenly nervous. No point in dragging it out.
“So, ah guys?” she cleared her throat, and they all turned to look at her. “None of you really asked why I wanted to come along, but I have something really important that I have to do in the zone.” She was met by a row of puzzled and blank faces. “Yup, I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. So, no time like the present, right? I think we should part ways here, and uh,” yeah, please don’t leave me here. I need your help to get back out of the zone! “Then when I’m finished with my business, I’ll give you a call and see if you guys are done too, so we can meet up.” Aaaand then we get out of here together, right? Gina flashed them her best, winning smile. She was touched to see that Thomas looked dismayed. The others just stared back at her as if she had grown an extra head.
“Where are you going?” Thomas asked eventually. “And how much time will it take you?”
“It’s a farm not far from here, actually, just the other side of Sawgrass Mills. It’s not a real farm, or maybe it was in the past or something,” Gina realized that she was babbling, “but it’s a big house called Fairweather Ranch.”
“We will all come with you,” Behnke said, surprising everyone as he walked around from the other side of the plane. He frowned as he realized that people had completely forgotten about him for a moment. He was supposed to be the star of this show! Speaking of which. Behnke made a mental note to hire an identical aircraft and refilm the landing sequence later, after they left the zone, with himself playing a more heroic role, landing the aircraft in a cool, calm and collected manner.
“Don’t worry, I’ll call a cab or something. I don’t want to put you guys out at all.” Besides, Gina thought, it’s kind of personal. Correction; very personal. Top Secret personal. This is something I need to do by myself. Why do you think I left my damn staff behind?
“No way,” Tristan barked, laughing. There was an additional chorus of negatives from the others, apart from Wilkins who was still trying to clean himself up. “This part of town is totally deserted. That’s why we chose it for our insertion point into the zone. No cab is going to come out here because everyone is terrified of zombies.”
At this reminder everyone looked around quickly, and then relaxed since it was clear that they were on a completely deserted stretch of road.
“I’ve just sent our location to our contact here in the zone. We are not that far from our original planned rendezvous, so they will be here to pick us up in a few minutes,” Behnke continued insistently.
After his recent display of cowardice in the plane, he was keen to get back on track with his original plan of impressing Gina. In his mind she played a useful role as a love interest in the documentary. Inspired by her to perform impressive feats of bravery in front of the cameras, he would also use her presence to play the role of protector and defender of the damsel in distress. The audience, who would be watching the documentary in the future, could not fail to be as impressed as Gina herself. It was a win-win situation. Behnke’s jaw tensed with anger as he was reminded of the lingerie model who had cancelled on him. He made a mental note to check her career had been trashed as he had ordered. I guarantee that useless bitch will never work again.
“We will all come with you to your farm,” he continued. “We can clear through it tactically and use it as practice for when we get to the crash site of Columbus 754. What do you think, Thomas?” In anticipation of filming the documentary Behnke had been rehearsing dozens of weapon-handling drills with his personal trainer, a former stunt man and military veteran. He grinned as he thought how cool he was going to look on camera. This singer, Gina, was going to be blown away when she saw him in action.
“An excellent idea, Herr Behnke,” Thomas replied. “This is the first time any of us are working together and it would be useful to do some rehearsals. We should establish some common procedures, and practice working together as a team.”
“There, you see?” Behnke smiled at Gina. “It’s settled. We will all come with you and help you do…” he trailed off thoughtfully, looking at her as if for the first time realizing she might be an actual human being with thoughts and desires of her own. “In fact, what is it exactly that you need to do there?”
“It’s personal,” Gina managed to get out pleasantly, through gritted teeth. Still, if the area was crawling with zombies it would be useful to have the extra manpower along for security. She would just have to find a way to dump them once they got there. “But it shouldn’t take long. Just ten minutes or so while you guys are practicing your stuff.”
Mercifully she was spared from any more interrogation by the arrival of two large pickup trucks. When the two heavily armed drivers got out Gina was surprised to see that one of them was an attractive, Asian woman.
“At last,” Behnke walked forward to shake their hands. “Everyone, I would like to introduce you to my good friend Hana, our guide in the quarantine zone, and her colleague, Hugh.”
The others nodded and made their introductions. Gina eyed Hana with interest, noting for herself, as a woman, the weapons and other equipment that she was wearing, and wondering whether it would be suitable for her as well. I wonder what her story is? The Japanese woman noticed the scrutiny and looked her up and down in turn. Gina bristled slightly under her cool inspection, hoping that Hana did not just assume she was some brainless bimbo that Behnke had brought along as a fashion accessory.
Meanwhile Thomas was studying the two newcomers very carefully as well. The man, Hugh, seemed friendly enough. But something about the way the Japanese woman’s face had changed, when Behnke had called her his ‘good friend’, had sent every one of Thomas’s professional instincts to full alert. If he had his way, there was no way that woman would be carrying a weapon anywhere close to his employer. He could practically see the cold hatred radiating off Hana every time she looked at Behnke. Knowing his boss as he did, Thomas was also unhappily quite certain that Behnke had done something to justify that hatred.
Behnke explained the change in plan to the two guides, that they wanted to make a detour to Fairweather Ranch and do some rehearsals there. Hana and Hugh both agreed that some form of group training was a good idea and quickly fleshed out a plan of action with Behnke and Thomas. Less than twenty minutes later they were all on board the two vehicles heading towards Fairweather Ranch. The equipment packs had been quick and easy to find, lying just by the side of the highway. Their bright orange parachutes had opened at such l
ow altitude that they had had no time to drift.
Thomas, Tristan and Rob had checked that everything had survived the landing, and then helped Hana and Hugh to quickly and efficiently load the packs into their two trucks alongside all the supplies that the two of them had already brought along from Takumi Taktical.
Hugh took Wilkins, Rob and Thomas in the rear truck. As far as Behnke was concerned, they were the ‘B’ Team; staff required for the execution of the mission, but certainly not worthy of having any valuable screen time wasted on them.
The primary purpose of the documentary was as a media platform to show off Behnke as its star, and to that end he had divided up the teams based upon who would maximize his visual appeal. Behnke was driving the lead truck, as befitted the alpha male of the group, with Tristan next to him, to give Behnke the credibility of having an A-list celebrity adventurer as his best buddy. The two women, Gina and Hana rode along in the back for decoration and to act as an admiring audience for Behnke.
He had blackmailed Hana into being part of his expedition simply because she was already involved through her husband, Takumi. But upon meeting her Behnke had been delighted to discover that she was beautiful as well. Now there were two hot chicks for him to charm into bed. It was clear from the way he ogled her like a lovesick schoolboy that the guy with her, Hugh, had the serious hots for the woman, but Behnke dismissed him immediately. He was no competition. The guy was a fucking mechanic or something. Behnke was an MMA fighter, skydiver, pilot and billionaire adventurer.
Behind him Gina and Hana were talking about zombies and what tactics and weapons to use on them. As if two women had a fucking clue. Hana had tried to start lecturing him about what to do and what not to do, but Behnke had put her in her place and reminded her who was running the expedition. Who does she think is in charge? Lucky she’s so pretty. I wouldn’t take that crap from anyone else, Behnke griped to himself. Dumb bitch. She’d better be good in bed.
“Hey, Bro,” he decided to cheer himself up, elbowing Tristan. “Get the camera rolling, and get some cool shots of me driving the truck. Make sure you get up close on my biceps.”
In the rear vehicle Hugh found a much more receptive audience in Thomas and Rob, who were more than happy to listen to his advice and to discuss each issue in detail. Both men were no strangers to danger, and fully understood the concept of managing risk in a professional manner. Wilkins did his best to keep up with the conversation, but found that he was too terror-stricken to focus on what was being said. If say, Hugh started talking about the disadvantages of using petrol bombs on the undead, Wilkins’ mind would drift off into a terrifying montage of graphic, detailed images of himself being clawed to pieces by burning zombies. By the time his concentration returned to the conversation, they had already moved on to another topic and he had missed the important details of what to do and what not to do.
Back in the front vehicle Behnke had eventually shushed Hana into silence so that he could give a monologue to camera about how successful the expedition had been so far, and how his stellar leadership seemed to have really pulled the team together. Hana had rolled her eyes at Gina and gone back to checking their location on her GPS screen.
Gina’s brow furrowed in thought as she went back to puzzling about how to slip away from everyone at the farm for long enough to do what she needed to do. A sudden idea occurred to her and her face cleared as she looked across at Hana thoughtfully. Yes. Maybe playing the female sisterhood card will work here. Behind her calm demeanor her thoughts whirled furiously, but with more and more certainty as she studied the woman sitting next to her. Yes. It will definitely work. She’s perfect.
Chapter Eighteen
Darwin’s Farm
Upon arriving in the United States ten years earlier, a much younger and more naïve Gina had fallen in love with her manager. She discovered that this feeling was not mutual when she fell pregnant with his baby, and upon being informed of the happy news he immediately dumped her, dropped her as a client and paid an industry blogger for a hatchet-job article making Gina look like a talentless, crazy bimbo.
Her new manager, who was also her mother, reluctantly respected Gina’s decision to keep the baby but insisted, despite Gina’s objections that times had changed, that she could not be a role model for young women if she were an unmarried, single mother. And so the young baby girl, Bella, was placed with a foster family not far away in Fort Lauderdale. There she grew up, loved by her new family, in a beautiful big farmhouse, and Gina visited as often as she could. It was a decision that the singer had regretted for six long years, but Gina had endured, earning her fame and fortune, knowing that one day soon she would retire from the music industry, publicly acknowledge her daughter, and damn the consequences to her professional reputation.
But then one morning Bella and the other inhabitants of Fort Lauderdale had woken up inside the Lyssavirus quarantine zone. Gina and her mother immediately cancelled all her engagements and dived into a frenzy of manic activity, using every resource possible to try and get Bella out of the zone. They were harassing the PA at the Governor’s office three days later when Bella’s step-father, Allan, called Gina with devastating news. The rest of the family at Fairweather Ranch had become infected with Lyssavirus.
Allan had locked himself in the bathroom and called for help from his neighbor, a gun enthusiast. Forty minutes later Bella’s idyllic farmhouse was ‘cleared’ by one of the early groups of zombie-hunting vigilantes that had proliferated during the first few weeks inside the zone. Allan, still hiding in his upstairs bathroom and on the phone to the leader of the group, was the sole survivor of the ‘rescue’ at Fairweather Ranch. Anything else that moved had been shot to pieces by the hunters, including his wife Sue, step-daughter Bella and the family’s dachshund, Max.
Allan buried his wife and Bella in the backyard, called Gina to tell her what had happened and then, at sunset, he drank half a bottle of whiskey and hanged himself from Bella’s favorite tree. When the family attorney had called the next day to report what had happened to Allan, a heartbroken and inconsolable Gina could not have cared less.
“Gina?” Gina jumped as Hana laid a gentle hand on her arm, bringing her back to the present. The Japanese woman’s face was smiling, yet also a little concerned. The petite Korean lady, whom she assumed was Behnke’s girlfriend, had been lost in a reverie with a desperately sad expression on her face. “We are nearly there. Just five minutes away. Are you okay?”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine, thank you.” Gina was horrified to find that her eyes were a little wet. Over the last three years, she had cried enough to fill an ocean. Surely I can’t have any more tears left? She looked at the Japanese woman closely again. Gina had no idea what Hana was doing, working with a sleazebag like Behnke but she supposed everybody had to make a living somehow. And she seemed like a decent woman. “Listen, Hana, I know we only met two minutes ago, but I have a favor to ask,” she dropped her voice to whisper, “woman to woman. Can I trust you?”
Hana hesitated a second, but seeing the raw emotion in the other woman’s eyes, she nodded and leaned in closer to listen. And then her eyes grew wider and wider as Gina told her exactly why she had come to the zone and what she wanted to do when they got to the farm.
In the rear truck Hugh pointed out a clearing ahead. “There. We can park up there. It’s just short of the farm and we can approach it on foot through the trees.” He picked up the handset on his radio and called the other vehicle. “Hana, Hugh here. Pull off at the clearing up ahead on your right. We can park up there in the field, and approach Darwin’s Farm through the trees.”
Behnke looked in puzzlement at the radio on the dashboard. He had not noticed it before. Nevertheless, he picked up the handset and deepened his voice, conscious of Tristan’s camera tracking his every move. “Behnke here. Solid copy. Pulling over on the right. Out.” Behnke had asked his personal trainer to teach him some military radio procedure, and liked to use it whenever he had the chance. I
t never failed to impress, and he was frequently complimented on it by his staff, so he was a little put out that this time nobody seemed to notice him using it.
“Darwin’s Farm? Weren’t we supposed to be going to Fairweather Ranch?” Behnke asked.
“Darwin’s Farm is what we call it in the zone,” Hana answered. “Groups used to come out here to hunt zombies. But it seems like their level of intelligence translated directly in their ability to fight. They were mostly dumb young guys and most times, even if they managed to kill a few zombies, the zombies usually got a few of them too. So they turned into new zombies themselves,” Hana was looking out of the window, scanning for infected now as they pulled off the road and bumped over some dips in the ground. “and because of the constant turnover, we ended up with this fairly stable number of zombies at the ranch. People got to calling it Darwin’s Farm because it was like a Darwinian thinning out of all the stupid rednecks in the zone.” And here we are, the next crop of idiots heading in, just like all the others before us, she thought to herself.
Behnke was no longer listening. He had already tuned Hana’s voice out, as soon as she had confirmed that it was the same location, but just with some stupid local nickname. Time to start dropping bodies and impressing bitches! He mentally reviewed a few of his favorite tactical moves, and considered the buffet of customized weapons in the gun cases loaded in the truck bed behind him. Behnke had brought a wide selection of firearms and intended to film far more footage than was necessary then, after editing, only include the clips which he thought looked the most badass. I think I’ll start with the Devastator. He had also named and trademarked each of his personalized weapons, in the expectation that after the documentary was viewed, he could sell a line of exclusive firearms to aspiring survival and home defense enthusiasts. The Devastator was a brutally cut down, ugly, semi-automatic HK-Benelli shotgun designed for maximum damage at short range.