by Mark Tufo
“Stairs, take the stairs, Tommy!” Gary barked.
There was a horrifying slowness as Reed was lifted up and out of the hallway and then the crates. I was half a second from saying, fuck them. I dropped an entire magazine into the face of the monster. If I hit anything vital, it never slowed or cried out to let me know. BT had just made it through the doorway. It was too close; I backed up into the recess of a door. That shovel-plow ripped the steel door right off its hinges and sent it spinning away. I stood on my toes and sucked in the entirety of me, pressing as firmly as I could against the door as it thundered by. The skin looked as rough as ten grit sandpaper covered with sparse but coarse hair that could have been quills, though I wasn’t going to touch it and prove it by tactile means. It was possible those barbs were filled with the same toxin as reaver claws or, worse, the zombie virus itself.
And just because the thing didn’t have enough weapons in its arsenal, it had a long tail that ended in a heavy round ball, nearly the size of a soccer ball, though it more likely weighed as much as a bowling ball, basically the thing had a Medieval mace flail attached to its ass. I knew what was going to happen just by the way it was swishing its tail back and forth. It knew it had missed by the direct approach, but that didn’t mean it was out of the fight. It swung first into the stairwell, denting the heavy wall before the pendulum strike whipped toward me. Luckily I was already in the process of ducking. The door I had been trying to become one with blew backward from the strike; I can’t even imagine the force it possessed to do something like that. The only thing I had going for me at the moment was the thing couldn’t slow down fast enough to keep using its last-ditch weapon. I mistakenly figured that I would have plenty of time to get across the hallway and to freedom, as there was no way it could turn around and come back.
I was standing up as the tail ball was scoring the wall, and I was one step across the hallway when it stopped suddenly, like, against all laws of physics or physiology-suddenly, and then it stood on its back legs and did a spin any professional ice dancer would have been proud of. For the briefest of visions, I flashbacked to a particular movie my daughter loved as a toddler, Fantasia. Anyway, there were dancing hippos in tutus, if I’m remembering correctly, and they had moved much like this thing had. Its front paws slammed down onto the decking but by then, I was half a flight up. I wasn’t waiting to see how the encore played out. Bags and Reed were working their way to the top of the staircase two flights away. BT and Tommy were a flight ahead, wrestling with the heavy crates. I helped as much as a one-armed man can, just enough to get the logjam rolling. We all wanted to take a second and ask about what we’d just witnessed, but handing time back to the enemy was not an option. If there was one of those things, there was no reason to think there wasn’t two or, just for fun, maybe something even worse. Tough to say how long we had been down in the bowels of the ship, but I saw light when Bags opened the door to the flight deck.
“Reavers!” Gary’s play by play needed some work.
“They’re trying to get past whatever that thing was in the hallway. It has the doorway jammed up,” Stenzel filled in the gaps in Gary’s announcing. “Front end of the ship—zombies—dozens spilling out. Speeders, by the looks of them, all headed your way. Rose, I’m going to help.” Wasn’t more than fifteen seconds after that, shots began to ring out from the con tower. She was joined by Gary, Walde and Kirby. The help was greatly appreciated, but it would be short-lived. They didn’t have the ammunition to sustain any sort of extended battle. If we weren’t running for our very lives, I would have told them all to give their bullets to Stenzel, as most of hers would count. I’m sure Walde could hold her own; Gary was decent, but Kirby might still be suffering after-effects of the reaver toxin.
The loudspeakers were designed to be heard over the roaring of air-splitting jets, so a little small arms fire did little to suppress Rose’s warning.
“Coming from the other side! Going to be close.” She must have had faith we were going to beat the ones we could see; I wasn’t feeling quite as confident. Baggelli had Reed in a fireman’s carry. Reed was jostling around but still had a pistol out and ready to defend. BT and Tommy were rolling their cart so quickly I wondered when the wheels were literally going to fly off—none of that figurative shit here. I bit the bullet, so to speak, had my rifle up and was cutting through as many speeders as I could to give us the necessary cushion. My watcher from on high let me know how bad of an idea that was.
“Run, sir!” Rose’s voice was many octaves higher than someone who intimately works with explosives should be. “Beavers!” I figured it was the distortion in the speakers or the ringing in my ears from shooting, found out I’d heard it right all along. Beasts of reavers, so, beavers, were coming up the other side. “Not sure if this is going to work!” she yelled as she left the microphone. Not like we needed to hear what was going on anyway—we were living it. The only update that was worth a shit was to hear that a localized wormhole had opened up and swallowed all the zombies.
“Fuck this!” BT yelled. He turned with the fifty cal in his arms and I veered to the side. “Get some!” he yelled, holding the rifle against his right hip and the ammunition in his left hand. His biceps could have been carved from steel with as little movement as the recoil produced. Zombies, three deep, were being ravaged, ruined, shattered and smashed. Zombie parts were being flung so violently they were doing damage to those unfortunate enough to be in the path. He was obliterating them by the score, the round so loud, the percussion so heavy, I felt each one thump against my chest. I didn’t think anything would be able to top that and then, well, we have a Rose.
“I don’t know if this is going to work!” she shouted from somewhere in the con. The next thing she said was, “Fire in the hole!”
The bad thing about this was, we were heading toward whatever rigged thing she had going on.
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” I managed as I watched the green, brick-shaped object being tossed from the railing. “Down! Everyone down!” It was an unanchored, spinning, claymore mine. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? It bounced once off the deck. I have decent eyesight and, if given a Bible, I would have been able to swear truthfully that I was looking at the words: “front toward enemy.” Then some divine intervention happened in the form of a greaver, so, I was going with “giant reaver” as opposed to “beast reaver,” hard to get all riled up with fear when you think about a tree-gnawing, buck-toothed rodent. The heavy footfalls of the greaver caused the mine to fall over, face up. When it was close enough, Rose detonated the mine. It ripped open the entirety of the greaver's right-hand side like an orca had taken a bite. Thus, in addition to the dozens of zombies that had been completely obliterated, in a sense, it looked like my black hole had touched down.
Baggelli was having difficulty getting up. Reed began to return the favor and was dragging him toward the con. Tommy was right behind them, pushing the cart. If they, for any reason, slowed or stopped, the kid was likely to roll right over them. They still had a chance, especially once Tommy one-handedly pulled the pair up and onto the crates. BT had a slight lead on me; we were safe-ish from the zombies trailing, but zombies were pouring around the con from the other side. The cover fire from above us had stopped; they had to be out of ammunition. As much as Rose’s surprises terrify me, I was hoping she had a few more tricks up her sleeve. Funny how the thought of dying by hundreds of ball bearings was preferable to the alternatives I was staring at. Maybe funny isn’t the best adjective I could go with…how about another word that starts with f and u. Gary and Rose were outside the con now, on the flight deck with us. I guess that meant no more party favors.
Tommy didn’t slow down upon approach and they were forced to move to the side as he slammed that thing all the way home. BT and I weren’t going to make it. I motioned with my arm for Rose and Gary to go back in, which they did. The way Bags and Reed were tossed around upon Tommy’s sleigh ride, they most likely needed some more assistance.
Pretty sure I said, fucking stupid, a half dozen times. BT was making good use of the time afforded us while I was busy cursing out every deity known to man. I hope Poena was getting a kick out of it. BT grabbed me and got me into the pilot’s seat. He left his large machinegun on the wing, it did not appear to have many rounds left, then he got into the back. I’d not known it then, as ground pounders rarely have reason to be in a jet, but this was a rare two-seater, possibly a trainer plane. Didn’t know and definitely didn’t care. Well, that’s a lie. I did care because just by myself in that seat, claustrophobia was beginning to override the pain receptors; cramming BT in there with me would have been an impossibility. I was catching my breath as BT pulled the canopy down.
“You all right?” Stenzel called out.
I gave her the thumbs up, the right-handed thumbs up.
“Oh man, please tell me that doesn’t mean he’s getting ready to take off.” I could hear Gary in the background.
I gave another finger, this one as universal as the thumb but not as beloved by the recipient. Although he was right to be concerned. I couldn’t fly a toy drone for more than a minute and half without crashing; can’t imagine what I’d do with a jet. Once I was able to catch my breath, I took a good look around. The flight deck was packed with zombies. We weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
“Hang tight, sir. We’ve got the crates; we’ll be able to blast them away soon enough!” Stenzel said optimistically. The plane was buffeted around as a few zombies slammed into it at speed. That changed soon enough, then it got scary, well, scarier. The zombies were climbing up the wings. Stenzel began picking them off. At first, she was doing an admirable job of keeping the wings de-zombied. Then one of the little fucking brain children got a thought and was pushing over the set of stairs that pilots use to enter their plane.
“You have got to be kidding me.” BT tapped my shoulder and pointed to show me the new development. It was Tommy that was using full auto to keep them from getting toward us. The zombies were worse than a dog with a bone once they’d got this idea in their heads. No matter how many were killed, there were others to take up the mantle, and once they got close enough, shooting wasn’t going to be an option as the canopy BT and I were under would be in the direct line of fire. The tower firing line had killed dozens; the flight deck was covered in dead and crippled zombies. They’d pulled back but hadn’t left entirely. The sneaky bastards had encircled the entirety of the superstructure, effectively cutting us off from rejoining the group while also protecting themselves from the shooters. Between BT and myself, we had some rounds but not enough.
“Before you ask, I don’t have any ideas,” I told my co-pilot.
“Mike, I have a problem.”
My heart sank; I was worried he may have been bitten. “What’s going on, man?” I asked, looking back as best I could. “Are you all right?”
“I’m not, man…I’m in some real trouble here.”
I sat up and twisted. Beads of sweat were pouring from his forehead. We’d long ago stopped running, he should have cooled down by now. I hoped maybe he was having a panic attack. Sure, that was bad, but leagues better than most of the alternatives. I had no idea just how bad what was going on was to become. How could I? I heard a sound like what a running mouse may make as it slides to a stop on waxed floor. A slightly squeaky, squelching noise. My eyes watered, my throat began to close, my nostrils felt as if they were on fire. I thought with my movements I had struck some sort of fail-safe switch that had released a nerve gas inside the cockpit. Why someone would prepare for that contingency I could not know the answer. I did the only sane thing I could; I popped open the canopy. Once I could breathe again, I noted that the zombies had taken a great interest in my actions.
“Fuck, BT, was that what I think it was?”
“I have to go so bad, my stomach is cramping up.” He was hunched over, his arms wrapped around his belly. Not a person, ever, that hasn’t been struck by that sudden urge. The vise grip on the intestines that is pushing everything through like a rolled-up tube of toothpaste. And the sphincter, as powerful a muscle as it may be, is no match for those types of forces being exerted. Oh, like any good wall, it will hold out for as long as possible but make no mistake, it will fail. As many that have tested have found out.
“No,” I told him. Selfish of me for sure, but the thought of a BT-sized deuce stuck in the cockpit with us? There wasn’t enough room.
“No choice.” He was trying to stand but the seizing of his muscles was preventing it.
“What are you two doing?” Walde asked.
“He’s gotta take a shit!” I yelled to be heard.
“Fucking thanks, Mike,” BT squirted out through gritted teeth. Might have been an unfortunate phrase, given the circumstances. Or the perfect one. I’ll let historians decide. “Tell them to look away.” This hardly above a whisper, as he was using all of his available strength to prevent a cataclysmic accident.
“You might want to find something else to watch if you don’t want to be scarred for life!” I yelled.
“Dick.” BT didn’t wait to see if my words had been heeded. I could hear him fumbling with his belt. I caught a glimpse of him hanging his posterior over the edge of the cockpit, this was when I wisely decided to keep my gaze fixed on the horizon, any horizon. The trumpeting of an ass heralded the arrival of something less than heavenly. There was grunting, groaning, some gagging—that last was me. A string of blasphemous, Oh Gods then the thick, wet, plopping sound of the unused portions of several MREs. “Gimme your shirt,” BT growled.
“What?! No.” I didn’t want to look at him.
He smacked the back of my seat hard. “Gimme it.”
“No.”
Gary, for some reason, had not listened to me. His gagging clearly heard over the sound system. There was a ripping of material. “Great, now I have to go commando, like a savage.”
“I always go commando,” I said defensively.
“My point exactly.”
When I heard BT sit back down in his seat, I tossed a travel-sized bottle of hand sanitizer back his way. “Apparently, the pilot didn’t leave home without it,” I told him. “And don’t give it back, I have another.”
He didn’t say anything but I could hear him squish out most of the thing into his hands. He was screwing with me as he vigorously rubbed the squishy liquid around in his hands, close to my head.
“Who’s the dick now? Is it safe to close the hatch?”
He gave a heavy, satisfied sigh. “There are things better than that, but not many.”
“Can we move on to another topic?”
“Don’t take this away from me.”
“I feel violated. Gonna join the me-poo movement.”
“Shut the hatch, Mike. I’m going to take a nap.”
“Seriously?” I’d no sooner got it closed when I heard his soft snoring. I didn’t know what our next move was going to be, but I couldn’t stay in what was not much bigger than a kid’s car seat for very much longer, not without vibrating out of my skin. I started to look at the vast array of controls in front of me. The kid in me wanted to touch every one of them; the adult in me gave permission. Not much happened at first, which, with all things considered and who was at the controls, was a very good thing. Then it got interesting. Had no idea the sequence of knobs, d
ials or buttons pushed that caused it, but there was a loud cough and then a plume of thick, black smoke from the left side.
“Don’t you fucking dare!” BT had no idea what was going on, just that it shouldn’t be happening.
I had my hands up like the cops had shown, guns drawn, and I was alone in the bank, after hours.
“Not me, man!” was my safety mechanism of words.
Following along the same vein, BT replied, “Says the man with the cookie in his hand. What did you touch?” He was leaning over the seat, looking around for the smoking gun.
“I was asleep…I must have twitched and my knee hit something.”
“You’re more full of shit than I was. I feel so much better…still in that honeymoon phase, post crapal, I guess you could call it. Telling you right now, though, don’t go fumbling with those buttons, you hear me?”
I mumbled an affirmative. That seemed to appease him, though I could still hear the siren song of the controls begging me to press just one more time and in the right spot.
“We’re working on some ideas to get you out of there!” Rose informed us.
“Maybe you should tell her not to blow us up,” BT offered. I didn’t tell him he was being foolish for saying that—showed how much I agreed with him.
“Do you think Trip would know how to fly this thing?” I asked.