Riker's Apocalypse (Book 3): The Precipice

by Chesser, Shawn

  Flicking on her headlamp, Lia said, “Lee might not have five minutes. Nothing you say is going to change my mind.” What she didn’t say was that she still owed Lee for saving her ass in Santa Fe.

  Shorty had fished some chemical light sticks from a pouch under his seat. He tore the packaging and handed them to Lia.

  Hands in the air, Steve-O said, “What if there are a whole bunch of Bolts down there?”

  “I’ll be OK,” Lia promised. “I’ve outrun plenty in my day. Besides, Randoms aren’t very bright.” She stuffed a spare mag for her rifle into the waist of her spandex leggings. “You do your part, I’ll do mine.” She took her headset off and set it aside. Cracking the pair of red chemical lights, she shook them hard to activate them.

  The landing was smooth, the Lakota’s skids settling on the blacktop with a soft scraping noise. It was nearly perpendicular to the road, the entire left side bathed yellow by the distant pickup’s headlights.

  Working together, Steve-O and Vern hauled the right-side sliding door back in its tracks.

  Without a word, rifle slung on one shoulder, light sticks clutched close, Lia hopped onto the road.

  As Steve-O and Vern worked to get the door closed, Tara watched Lia move around the front of the helicopter and wave the light sticks back and forth in front of her. Peering out her window, she saw that every zombie was now looking in the Lakota’s direction: a hundred set of eyes, white against the dark, the meat in the pickup already forgotten about.

  About the same time Vern was throwing the latch on the closed side door, and the Lakota was going light on her skids, a number of Bolts broke away from the throng of dead things. Heads down, arms and legs pumping, they came running down the centerline, the noisy helicopter seemingly their sole concern.

  As the road dropped away outside Tara’s window, in unison, the dead things altered their course, putting Lia with her glowing red batons directly in their path.

  With the trees and road rapidly growing smaller, Clark yanked the Lakota around counterclockwise and aimed the nose for the field opposite the road. As the craft gained more altitude and its nose dipped, Tara watched Lia break into a full sprint, six or seven Bolts hot on her trail. She cut a diagonal path across the road, leaped the ditch with all the grace of a gazelle, then came up against the barb wire fence rising over the ditch.

  By the time the Lakota was on the east side of the road and nosing around to the south, its ultimate destination their original starting point, Tara had lost sight of both Lia and her pursuers.

  For Lia, scaling the barb wire fence was a lot harder than she’d expected. The moment she had put her foot on the lower strand and went to push off, the wire she thought would support her weight sagged like the roof on a hundred-year-old barn. While that was happening, she had both hands wrapped around the upper strand and was in the process of bringing her other leg up and around.

  When the lower wire suddenly dropped six inches, so did her left leg. Similar to the jolt one would receive from stepping off an unexpected curb, the sudden change in footing shifted her entire body weight forward, causing the rifle to ride up her back and hit her behind the ear. As a result of the stinging blow, her fingers snapped open reflexively.

  Momentarily stunned, up became down.

  Unfortunately for Lia, she came down hard on the upper wire. Fortunately for Lia, the rifle strap absorbed the majority of the damage the rusty barbs would have wreaked on her upper body.

  Before she could get a hand out to brace her fall, she was face up and on her way to an unavoidable introduction to New Mexico hardpan.

  When the Lakota came out of the wide turn, Tara got a little lightheaded. Must be the drugs still in her system was her initial thought.

  The only person in the cabin not affected negatively by the aggressive maneuver was Steve-O. A wide grin had formed on his face and he had pumped his fist the entire way.

  Tara had seen Vern getting thrown around a bit. Maybe he wasn’t as spry as she had at first thought.

  Shorty was actively searching for an air sickness bag and failing miserably. In the end, just as the helicopter flared hard and everyone aboard was being subjected to several positive Gs, the man who was at home on the sea finally succumbed.

  The stream of vomit came fast and furious. To say Linda Blair would be proud wasn’t much of a stretch. Hot and sticky, it coated the floor as well as his fancy red cowboy boots.

  The helo kissed the road and Vern and Steve-O unbuckled and did their thing with the right-side door.

  As the door hit the stops, kerosene-tinged air rushed in and mixed with the acidic stench of Shorty’s handiwork.

  Rhoads was first out of the bird. MP-5 in hand, she closed her door and took up station near the tail assembly—her job: watch their six and ensure nothing, living or undead, walked into the whirring tail rotors. For if anything came into contact with the Nomex and carbon fiber item, everyone, her included, would be facing a long walk to Trinity House—or worse—having to fight off a hundred hungry zombies.

  Everyone else had a pre-assigned role. Tara’s was to get to the pickup and see if the form they all saw on the helicopter’s display was indeed her brother.

  Spittle and chunks of half-digested food dripping down his jacket front, Shorty followed the other two men out the open door. Glock in hand, he motioned for Steve-O to go to the right. With Vern keeping pace, Shorty put his head down and sprinted the thirty yards to the high-centered pickup.

  Last through the door and on the verge of emptying her own stomach, Tara followed after the others. When she arrived at the pickup’s driver-side door, Steve-O and Shorty were already out in front of the rig and putting down straggler zombies. In the distance, momentarily blotting out the light from her headlamp, Lia’s rifle barked and spit fire.

  The number of corpses crushed underneath the pickup was staggering. A dozen, maybe two, had been compressed waist-high to her. Lit up by the landing lights, ghostly faces peered out of the thicket of twitching arms and legs. Eyes staring out from the gloom tracked Tara’s every move as she planted a hiker on a zombie’s twisted back, took ahold of the wide side mirror, and pulled herself over the deadly tangle.

  Slender fingers on a gnarled hand drummed a beat on the toe of Tara’s Salomon when she planted a foot on the running board.

  The zombies had smeared the driver-side window with their bodily fluids, so Tara craned around the A-pillar and looked through the windshield.

  “Lee,” she hollered and banged on the glass. “Wake up.” He was ashen-faced and looked small slumped behind the steering wheel.

  On the verge of tears, she tried the door handle.

  Locked.

  “Damn it all to hell.” She tugged the Legion from the holster and smashed it into the window. The glass held, but she could have sworn her brother had reacted to the noise.

  The second blow with the big pistol did the trick. As glass showered Lee’s slack face, he flinched, and his eyes snapped open.

  “Tara,” he said. “Am I in Heaven?” His voice was weak and hoarse.

  “Shhhh,” she called. “Don’t talk. We’re going to get you home.”

  “Are Mom and Dad here?”

  “No, they aren’t.” She reached in and unlocked the door. “Because you’re alive, dumbass.”

  Barely.

  When Tara opened the door, she was immediately overwhelmed by the odor of freshly spilt blood. It left a coppery taste in her mouth and started her gag reflex going again. Seeing the tourniquet tied loosely around her brother’s left thigh, she reached down and rectified the situation, tightening it a couple of turns, then tucking the length of wood under the cord. Why Lee hadn’t done this himself was beyond her.

  A quick glance out the passenger window told her there was a whole lot going on along the desolate stretch of highway. On the fenced-in field, a quarter mile or so north of the pickup, Lia was being pursued by the last of the Bolts. Two of the fast movers were down outside the fence, their bodies
sprawled out on the shoulder. Another was slumped face down over the sagging run of fence. Two more Bolts were prostrate and unmoving on the ground just inside the fence.

  In the middle distance, Shorty had just shot a Slog point-blank in the face. As the creature collapsed to the ground, Tara’s attention was drawn to the opposite side of the road, where Steve-O stood, arm extended, a small black pistol in his hand. Before Tara could process what she was seeing, orange flame licked from the barrel.

  The report was nothing compared to the staccato cracks produced by Shorty’s Glock. In fact, the little Sig Mosquito was quieter than Lia’s rifle. Which seemed strange because the report from Lee’s high-dollar long gun was loud enough to loosen a person’s fillings.

  Vern was now a few yards in front of the pickup, near the ditch on the right, down on one knee. With Clark’s suppressed MP-5 tucked tight to his shoulder, body rocking subtly with each round delivered toward the returning zombie horde, the slight man seemed as if he had been born with a rifle in hand.

  Tara waited for a break in the gunfire, then bellowed, “Vern … I need you to get the stretcher from the helicopter.”

  Squeezing off a few more rounds, Vern rose and set off for the Lakota.

  With one hand working to loosen her brother’s seatbelt, Tara called for Shorty and Steve-O to come and help her get Lee out of the cab.

  Steve-O arrived first. He was pale in the face, the pistol out of sight, presumably in a coat pocket. With that major concern out of the way, Tara said, “I’m going to join you on the ground. Reach up and help brace Lee’s body. And watch your step. These things under the truck are grabby mofos.”

  Without warning, Steve-O drew his pistol, stooped over, and shot dead the two zombies posing the problem. As he dumped the pistol in a pocket, barrel still smoking, he launched into a rather good rendition of Marty Robbins’s Big Iron.

  “Damn it, Steve-O,” said Tara. “Warn me next time you take that big iron off your hip.”

  Steve-O stopped singing long enough to say, “It’s a small iron, Tara. And it’s in my pocket.”

  “Help me here.” She had Riker on his back and had ahold of his left arm, bracing his two hundred and twenty pounds with all her might. “Grab his arm and pull when I say to.”

  Arriving at the same time Vern was back from the helicopter and arranging the litter and first aid box on the road, Shorty said, “Move aside, Steve-O. We need you to be ready to grab his legs so we can get him on the stretcher without dumping him onto the deadheads.” He took Riker’s muscled right arm and slowly backed away from the open door. “He’s one big dude.”

  One look at Riker’s face in the light from the chopper gave Shorty a bad feeling. Of the small handful of people he had watched die in front of him, all of them looked like his new friend.

  Vern snaked an arm in as the others were placing Riker on the stretcher. Pressing his fingers to Riker’s neck, he said, “Pulse is faint.” He paused and looked at the others. “I’ve seen plenty of men reach this stage. He’s lost a lot of blood.” He paused and pressed his thumbs to his temples. “I’m afraid he’s dying.”

  Staring hard at the older man, Tara hissed, “How do we avoid this fucked-up situation?”

  On the verge of tears, Steve-O said, “He’s my first best friend.” Wiping the tears, he shot Vern a worried look. “You have to save him.”

  Vern stared at Steve-O, thinking. In a flurry of motion, he popped open the first aid kit and tore into the medical supplies.

  A pair of gunshots rang from the other side of the pickup. Then, at their back, came a series of soft pops that could only be attributed to Rhoad’s suppressed submachine gun.

  Seeing that the dismounted pilot had handled sufficiently the small group of zombies that had drawn close to the Lakota’s rear rotor assembly, Vern shifted his attention back to Tara. “What’s his blood type? Do you know?”

  Tara looked skyward, thinking. “I don’t know. O something. I remember one time Mom saying me and Lee were compatible.”

  “He can have my blood,” offered Steve-O.

  Shorty said, “I’m A positive. Don’t know how it all works, though.”

  The moment Tara had said “O something,” Vern had started rigging a length of tube with a wicked-looking needle. On the other end of the tube, he hooked up an empty liter blood bag.

  About the time Shorty was finished offering up his own blood type, Vern had already rubbed an alcohol swab on Tara’s arm and was piercing the sterilized skin with the needle. He waited for the yard-long catheter to go completely red with blood, then gave the bag to Tara. “Hold this. Tell me when it’s half full.”

  Vern grabbed hold of one end of the litter. Looking at Shorty, he said, “On three we lift,” and counted up from one.

  It was an uncoordinated slog getting the litter to the Lakota without dropping Riker off the thing.

  Once the litter was in back of the Lakota and Tara had crawled into the cabin and grabbed the forward-facing seat closest to her brother, Rhoads closed and latched the rear clamshell doors.

  Vern hopped in and took the rear-facing seat by the left side window.

  Shorty helped Steve-O take the center seat next to Tara, assisted him with the complicated safety harness, then passed headsets all around.

  To make it easier to recover Lia from the sloped field, Shorty buckled in next to Steve-O, leaving the seat by the right-side sliding door open for the young speed demon.

  Clark stole a quick peek into the cabin. Seeing that everybody was accounted for and had properly secured their weapons, he spooled up the twin turbines and coaxed the Lakota into the night sky. Turning toward the rising moon, he dipped the nose and followed the road, keeping only thirty feet between the skids and fast-moving ribbon of gray.

  Tara was watching her own blood seep into the bag when the helicopter banked hard to the right, quickly shedding the meager altitude it had gained, and came to an abrupt halt in the air a handful of yards east of the road. As the spotlight flicked on and the field was bathed in its bright white spill, Tara saw Lia. Strangely, the woman was sitting down on a patch of ochre-colored ground, one hand in front of her face to ward off flying dirt and debris, the other clamped around her right ankle.

  A pair of twice-dead zombies were on the ground nearby. The rifle and a small pistol lay in the dirt next to Lia. Even as the Lakota settled softly back to earth, she made no effort to stand. She was doing the opposite of what someone needing a ride would do: She let go of her ankle and waved them off.

  Seeing the blood on Lia’s palm and knowing exactly what it meant, Tara shook her head, saying to herself: “Poor girl is as good as dead.”

  Shorty had already unbuckled and was helping Vern open the right-side door.

  View momentarily blocked, Tara said, “I wouldn’t do it. She’s gone and gotten herself bit.”

  Shorty looked over his shoulder. “How do you know?”

  “Look at her hand.” Tara stabbed a finger at her own palm. “I saw the blood. She’d been holding her ankle with the same hand.”

  Clark had been hanging on every word. Regarding Shorty and Tara, he said, “We don’t leave the living behind.” He looked at Rhoads, then made a chopping motion with one hand.

  Without a word, Rhoads unplugged her helmet, slipped out of her harness, and elbowed her door open.

  Tara watched the female pilot step to the ground, then, inexplicably, turn back around and take a long, slender item from the space beside her seat. When she turned back to face Lia, her face was a mask of grim determination and Tara saw the item for what it was: a big ass machete sporting a neon-green handle.

  Horrified by what she feared she was about to witness, Tara pleaded with Clark to stop Rhoads. Have her come back and get a gun to do the job. At least give the young woman a chance to go out on her own terms.

  Clark said nothing. No response. No eye contact. He was watching intently as Rhoads closed the distance to the seated woman.

  Tara heard not
hing coming out of the headset. No white noise. No soft clicks followed by rotor sounds. Nothing. All put together, she came to believe she’d been locked out of the previously open channel.

  Hands trembling, she worked at releasing her safety harness.

  “It can’t be helped,” Shorty said, placing a hand atop Tara’s. “She knew the risk involved.”

  Hollering to be heard, Vern said, “Clark, we need to get going.”

  Steve-O was back to biting his knuckles. He stopped long enough to say, “What’s going on?”

  Tara was about to answer when she saw Rhoads kneel beside Lia. She stayed on one knee like that and seemed to be having a conversation with Lia. Finally, the younger woman nodded, laid back on the ground, and put something between her teeth.

  The only person in the helicopter ready for what happened next was Clark. He bellowed, “Don’t look,” but continued to watch the event unfolding fifty feet away.

  Tara drew in a deep breath, then watched in horror as Rhoads raised the machete high overhead. Knowing what was to come, Tara tried to exhale, but her lungs wouldn’t cooperate.

  Light glinted off the machete as it hovered at the apex. As the pilot commenced what could only be described as a vicious, downward chop, Tara averted her eyes. When she finally lifted her gaze, a couple of seconds had elapsed and, inexplicably, Lia was back to sitting, still alive.

  Tara had a million questions, but the words wouldn’t come. The dam finally broke when she saw Rhoads turn back and flash a thumbs-up.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Tara asked.

  No answer. Instead, in her headset, Tara heard Clark say, “Rhoads needs help. One person. The ground here slopes uphill, so duck until you clear the rotor.”

  Steve-O was first to unbuckle and was out of his seat while the others were still staring questions at the pilot. Before any objection could be raised, he was out the door and on the run, head down, boot heels kicking up dust, the headset wire whipping his back with each determined step.