by Henson, Lynn
She took a step forward to see what he was seeing. “You sure he’s alive alive?”
“Well... no,” he admitted. He rapped his knuckles on the window trying to get a human reaction out of the pilot. The pilot turned his helmeted head to look at him and flailed around in his seat, harness immobilizing him.
“I think he might be a zombie?” he guessed. “Hard to tell. He might be injured.”
“Well, I guess we can ask,” Kim suggested. “Can you get the door open?”
He walked back to the door and after taking a moment to figure out how it worked, unlocked the door and pulled. The door refused to budge. He tried again, but it still refused to move. Aware of Kim watching him from behind and not want to appear less than manly, he grabbed the door with both hands and twisted his body to the left, putting all of his weight into it. It opened suddenly sending him straight into the dirt. There was some stifled laughter behind him.
“Oh yeah, laugh it up,” he said as he pushed himself up from the ground.
“Look out!” she yelled, all trace of humor gone from her voice.
Something grabbed his ankle and pulled him backward along the side of the helicopter. He looked back and a very well dressed woman, wearing expensive looking jewelry, and hair that was immaculately styled had fallen from the helicopter and grabbed hold of his leg. A huge diamond gleamed on her hand as she squeezed his calf and tried to bring it up to her blood-caked mouth. A shot rang out and Blake thought he saw the bullet enter the side of her head with a small, dark splash and exit out the other side with another small explosion of hair, bits of skull, and brain. She fell over immediately, lifeless. He scooted out from under her corpse and got to his feet, checking his leg to make sure she hadn’t actually bitten it.
“Get back behind me!” she ordered as she held her ground and aimed into the helicopter. Deciding that he was uninjured, he ran over to her side and brought his own rifle up. In the back of the helicopter was only one other occupant, and it looked like he was wearing his seatbelt and unable to stand. “I think it’s ok... let’s go in,” he said, trying to sound collected.
Kim edged towards the wreck and nodded at him. He went forward and took a moment to look around the helicopter before climbing inside. It was opulent, the seats were leather. You could probably only seat about four people very comfortably and those four people would have an entertainment system and a fully stocked mini bar to occupy them as they were flown from point A to point B. Of course, now the left side of the plush cabin had been smashed in from the impact with the tree, shattering the atmosphere of luxury. That and the zombie who was still strapped into his seat, wearing a suit that had probably cost more than Blake had made in his entire life. It would have been worth more had its owner not had his neck ripped out and bled all over the front of it. The older man reached out weakly to him, and Blake was thankful that the undead were incapable of unbuckling themselves from their seats. Maybe if they had a zombie flight attendant to explain how to do it, I’d be in big fucking trouble. He stayed clear of the wealthy zombie and turned his attention to the cockpit. It opened easily enough and after confirming that there was only the pilot inside, he risked going halfway in.
A large tree branch had smashed through the left side of the cockpit and had skewered the pilot. If that wasn’t enough visual confirmation that the pilot was now beyond help, then the mindless gargling certainly was. Blake closed the door and looked at Kim who was poking through the minibar. “Pilot’s a lost cause. No survivors. We’d better head back, our time is almost up,” he reasoned.
“Not so fast,” Kim objected. She pulled a bottle of something expensive looking from the fridge and what looked like individually wrapped candies. “Don’t you think something’s off here?” she continued.
“Off? I don’t understand.”
“Look at these two,” she said pointing at the wealthy zombie and then at the woman outside. “Look at this thing?” she said pointing around them. “I don’t think the house I grew up in was worth even a quarter of what this thing must’ve cost.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“And what does that tell you?” she prompted.
“That two rich people crashed in the middle of nowhere?”
“Exactly!” she said approvingly.
“Wait... what?”
“This!” she gestured around her, “This being here doesn’t make any sense! Where were they going? There’s nothing out here, so why would a multimillionaire and his mistress have crashed near a farm?”
“Well, they were on their way to someplace awesome?” he rationalized.
“Yes! I bet these rich fuckers have some kind of compound or something that can function independently for a long time,” Kim said confidently. “If we could figure out where that is, we’ll have found someplace we can stay.”
“Wow, I guess you’re right,” he said as the idea dawned on him. He hopped out of the helicopter and kneeled down next to the rich woman’s corpse and started going through the pockets. Or, he would have if the pockets on her designer clothing weren’t purely decorative. He also noticed she wasn’t wearing any underwear. Unless it’s a thong. But I’m not going to check. Because that’s gross. He stood up and shook his head at Kim. “She doesn’t have anything on her that would tell us anything about her. She doesn’t even have a driver’s license.”
“Better check the dude then,” she said. She raised her rifle up and after taking careful aim, pasted the zombie tycoon’s brains all over the back paneling. His head jerked back violently, and then he sagged down in his seat and was still. Blake sighed and started searching the corpse. He pulled a wallet from inside his suit breast pocket. The wallet looked like it had never been used. Damn, I wonder if after using a wallet once he just throws it away when he comes back and the next day uses a new one? Or is this thing so expensive no matter what you do to it, it always looks like this? He opened it and there were three credit cards the like of which he’d never seen before. Are these those black credit cards with no limits that I’ve heard about? And he has three? At least his driver’s license looks normal. His license was issued in Illinois and identified him as having lived in Chicago. Well, he had at least ONE residence in Chicago. His name was Phillip Quincy Rieber. There were twenty new one hundred dollar bills in the wallet with sequential serial numbers. Should I take these? He won’t need them, but maybe I won’t be able to use them. Meh, I’ll hang onto the wallet, just in case civilization gets back on its feet. He pocketed the wallet and finished going through Phil’s pockets where the only other thing he found was a strange white plastic egg with a blue crystal embedded on its face. He turned and showed it to Kim. “What the heck is this?”
She shrugged, “No clue. Find anything else?”
“Just his wallet. He’s Phil, from Chicago. And by all indications, he was filthy rich.”
“Shit. I was hoping to find more information than that,” she dismayed. “Guess we have to check out the cockpit.”
“Maybe we can come back and do it? I think our thirty minutes is about up. They’re going to worry about us,” he reminded her.
“But this could be important!” Kim protested, “Look, there must be something in the cockpit... A flight plan or a map?”
“Ok, ok... guess we’re going to have to kill the pilot too then. The cockpit is too cramped to be in there with a live zombie.” Blake moved over to the door and slowly opened it, ready to jump back out of the way if the pilot had somehow gotten free. The pilot was still stuck though, fastened into his seat by both the belt and the tree branch. He backed out of the cockpit and reported to Kim, “He’s still stuck. Go for it.”
He got out of her way and she went in and aimed. Blake heard a gunshot, then another, and after another long pause, one more. She re-emerged from the cockpit and said, “He’s wearing a god damned helmet! I can’t shoot him!”
“Wha? Why not?”
“I don’t want to shoot the helmet! What if it ricochets off it and into me?! Fuck that
... figure something else out,” she said vehemently.
“Ugh... ok...” He sidled past her and into the cockpit. Kim had definitely gotten the zombie’s attention as it was looking directly at him when he came in. New to the pilot’s face though were three bullet holes to either side of his face that had caused his mouth to become permanently open and a third had collapsed his nose, leaving a disgusting puckered wound in the center of his head. He turned around and walked right out. She looked at him expectantly and he dry heaved a couple of times, unable to speak. Finally, after some deep breathing, he looked up at her, “What’d you do to him?! That’s got to be the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen!”
“But did you kill it?” she asked looking perplexed.
“No! Look, you do it. Just put the barrel under his chin and shoot up,” he complained.
She offered him her assault rifle. He responded by dry heaving again and she rolled her eyes and shoved past him. Kim muttered something profane and there was a muffled gunshot. She came out of the cockpit a moment later, dark chunks of brain covered the front of her jacket. She gave him a withering look as what looked like an eyeball dropped from her collar to the floor. “I’ll go check out the cockpit. You can get cleaned up,” he said and hastily went inside.
He looked at the pilot because he couldn’t help himself. It’s like a train wreck. No matter how disgusting, you just have to look. The pilot was sitting in his seat, immobile. Where his eyes were there were only two jagged sockets. When she put the bullet into his brain the helmet must’ve forced the explosion to go out the eye sockets, thus splattering Kim. Seeing enough of the gory pilot, he focused his attention on the less interesting aspects of the ruined cockpit. There wasn’t much to look at though, the cockpit was spartan compared to the luxurious cabin that made up the rest of the aircraft and aside from two seats, was almost completely made up of the controls and gauges that were required to fly the helicopter. It only took a couple of minutes for him to search through the compartment, even with the added hassle of maneuvering around the tree branch that had smashed into the cramped space, and turned up nothing.
That left the pilot. Blake stepped over the branch and awkwardly positioned himself with a foot in front of each seat and leaned over to go through the pilot’s flight suit. He found a blood-soaked packet of papers in one of the pilot’s pants pockets and decided that was as good as it gets. He carefully climbed out of the cockpit and rejoined Kim. “Find anything?” she asked.
“Maybe,” he said holding up the packet of papers. “Let’s look at it when we rejoin the others.”
They climbed out of the aircraft and jogged back to the magical glade. The sun had left in the time it took to search the helicopter and Blake had the feeling that this was the first time they’d gone this way. It’s probably just because we’re backtracking and it’s dark that it looks different. Besides, Kim hasn’t said anything, so I’m pretty sure this is the way back. As they approached a group of trees that Blake was pretty sure was their destination a trio of figures emerged from the darkness and were coming towards them. “Hello?” he called out to them.
They didn’t reply and continued to move towards them. “Shit. I don’t think they’re human anymore.”
“Let’s outrun them,” she suggested. “You ok for running a bit?”
“I’ll try to keep up,” he promised and they took off, angling for the trees and away from the new threats. They entered the foliage bordering the glade and almost ran into someone’s back. That someone turned around and lunged at Blake who dove forward past the zombie and rolled into a tree. Kim got to his side and pulled him to his feet as the zombie attempted to close the distance between them. Blake tripped over something and pivoted around wildly all while Kim somehow managed to keep a hold of his wrist and pulled him forward into the clearing.
“Well, there they are,” Blake heard from ahead of them. Cammy and Herbie were standing on the concrete foundation next to Bree who had splayed her injured leg out and was gently massaging it. Angel sat sullen and sour to one side but was behaving so far. “Should we look for John and Kyle?” Cammy asked.
Kim and Blake reached the concrete platform and hopped up to join them. “We have to leave, we ran into four of the infected and they’ll be coming through those trees any second now,” Kim reported.
“Did you find anything?” Bree asked Blake and Kim.
“Not so much,” Kim replied. “I’ll tell you later.”
“Herbie and Cammy found a farmhouse about two miles from here,” Bree said, standing up. “They thought it looked pretty big and might be a good place to rest for a few days.”
“Sounds good,” Kim agreed immediately. “We’d better get moving, it’s already dark.”
“What about John and Kyle?” Blake asked.
“We’ll wait for them as long as we can,” Bree answered. “Could you go tell the people at the door that we’re leaving?”
Blake looked around worriedly at the trees, hoping that the next thing to come out of them was John and Kyle. A figure crashed through the brush and headed for the concrete as Kim brought her rifle up and aimed. Blake trusted her to handle it and speed walked over to the dense brush where the mysterious door awaited.
There was a gunshot behind him as he rustled hastily through the bushes to reach the other side. He emerged and put his hands up when he saw Curtis aiming his weapon at him as the other people there looked at him to determine if he was still himself. “Hi,” he offered. Curtis lowered the weapon. “There was a gunshot,” Curtis let hang.
“It was Kim, some zombies followed us back,” Blake reported. “Cammy and Herbie found a farmhouse that we can spend the night in. I don’t suppose you’ve figured the door out?”
“No,” Lisa confirmed, “We’ve basically sat here, wishing we had this tool or that explosive. Other than confirming that this door doesn’t want to open, we haven’t made much progress.”
“That farm you mentioned,” Clayton said, “How far is it?”
“A couple of miles,” Blake answered.
“Well, it is time to go then,” Gao suggested crankily. “Sooner we get there, sooner we sleep.”
There were more gunshots from behind them as people anxiously gathered up their stuff. Blake moved over towards Doris who was still carrying about twice as much stuff than the other people and was about to offer to take one of them when a red light suddenly shined out of the door. It bathed everyone in front of it in its crimson light and everyone froze to look at it. It was a thin horizontal strip of red light, about as long as Blake’s forearm, that was placed at in the center of the door about a sixth of the way from the top. Not knowing what else to do, they waited. The light went out. They waited some more.
“What the fuck?” Gao finally said, unable to handle the silence any longer.
The door slid down into the floor. Flashlights came up and Curtis moved forward cautiously, his rifle ready. Everyone crowded at the threshold of the door, wanting to know what was inside. “Stairs,” Clayton observed.
“Shhh,” Curtis hushed as he crossed the threshold and stepped inside. Lights came on automatically and illuminated the stairwell in a soft light.
“Fuck,” Gao whispered. “Should we go down?”
“We should,” Blake said. “Go in, I’m going to get the others.”
“Anything could be in there,” Doris protested, “Shouldn’t we send the soldier in to make sure it’s safe first?”
“No time,” Blake said reasonably, “I vote we go in and take our chances. Just be careful.”
“Seconded,” Clayton agreed as he followed Curtis inside. Blake moved quickly through the brush and emerged in the clearing. He moved excitedly in the direction of the people on the concrete when Kim whirled to face him, pointing her rifle at him.
“It’s me!” he said excitedly, and she pulled the trigger anyway. Blake’s face went white and he stopped in his tracks wondering if he was dead. There was a soft thud behind him and he looked do
wn to see the withered corpse of a bearded man in his thirties. She fired again and Blake looked behind him to see a woman wearing a nurse’s non-sexy type of uniform stagger as a bullet hit her in the face. Her dark eyes seemed to follow him as she turned towards him. Another bullet literally went through one ear and out the other, and she collapsed sideways. He got a hold of himself and continued towards the concrete. Once there he looked around and they were coming out of the trees in every direction. Kim, Bree, and Herbie were each watching a third of the circle and were dropping zombies as they showed themselves. They were falling behind though as more and more figures appeared out of the foliage. “Are they coming?” Kim asked.
“What?” Blake replied, confused.
“The group! Are they coming?” Kim asked again, louder.
“Oh. Oh yeah. I mean, no. I mean, you guys have to come with me, the door opened,” he said excitedly. “Any sign of Kyle and John?”
“No,” Bree answered, “And if this keeps up I’m not sure we’re going to see them.”
“Let’s move! We’ll look for them later!” Kim yelled. They started a careful retreat off the foundation. Kim and Bree focused their fire on keeping the area leading towards the door open while Herbie backed in that direction and tried to keep the zombies in check. Cammy, Bob, Angel, and Blake occupied the center of the formation and moved at the sisters pace.
“I’m out of ammo!” Bree reported.
“Get back!” Kim ordered as she moved more in the center to be able to cover Bree’s half of the arc.
“Out!” Herbie growled holding up his weapon uselessly.
“Run for it!” Kim yelled as she took down a hillbilly looking zombie and charged back to occupy Herbie’s position in the formation. Everyone ran into the dense foliage surrounding the door and pushed through. Blake and Kim hung back midway through the brush. “Kim! Come on!” Bree yelled.
The area was now full of figures, all shambling purposefully towards them. One, in particular, wearing running shorts and a tank top loped quickly towards Kim’s back right where she couldn’t see him. “Behind you!” Bree screamed.