by Jones, K. J.
“Small world, ain’t this?” said Chris.
“You know each other?” Phebe asked.
“Cogan, this is my wife,” said Peter.
“Higgins told me you were married. I thought he was lying.” Cogan walked towards Phebe. “Let me meet the woman who’d marry Sully.”
“Be careful,” said Peter. “She’s known as the Beheader.”
“Of course. Who else would marry you?”
4.
“How far can we get on that amount of fuel?” Peter asked Cogan.
They had tested the engine. Still worked. As a result of the sound, the Humvee’s .50 cal ran dry during the new round of shooting. They had to leave as soon as possible. But to where?
At least the radioactive rain had stopped for now.
With a fresh bandage on his neck, Cogan studied a pilot map.
“On this amount …” he said.
Cogan used a protractor to make the calculations, then manipulated a metal compass in accordance with the math. The pointed end down on the map at their location, the pencil side drew a circle around it.
“Anywhere in there.”
Peter examined the map. “I don’t want to go further south.”
“No sense in it,” said Cogan. “Unless you want to head for an oil rig in the Gulf.”
“What’s this area? Pennsylvania?”
“We could just make it,” said Cogan. “But why would you want to go north in the Zone? That’s an evac area.”
“According to your circle, it’s all in the Zone.”
“But going west gets you over the mountains. Wait. I didn’t include ascension over the mountains. Not thinking right.” Cogan began the new calculations for elevation. “What are we gonna do with my crew’s bodies?”
There were more bodies than the six crewmen the Black Hawk would have had. All in flight crew coveralls.
“You got a shovel?” Peter asked.
“No.”
“Accelerant for a fire?”
“Not that either.”
“Then I don’t know what we’re gonna do. Sorry, brother.”
“Shit. They can’t be left out for scavengers. That’s wrong. They deserve better.”
“I know.” Peter scanned around. “I know.”
Peter could think of nothing except putting the bodies in the ambulance as a big mass coffin. Looking upward, the heavy ash sky remained. No carrion birds circling as they should be by now with all the dead bodies all over the place. He sighed, wondering what the invisible radiation would do to them. And to the unborn children. He didn’t recall the unborn covered in any class he had attended. The Army didn’t think any pregnant soldiers would be in such a situation.
He looked over at Phebe and Emily. They had the silver fire blankets wrapped around their torsos like bath towels in an attempt to protect the babies. Another silver blanket wrapped around Tyler’s neck like a superhero cape. The kid didn’t get the point to keep it closed around his front section, especially his groin. There goes breeding for me, Peter thought. He scanned for Jayce and couldn’t spot him.
“Hey, kids, where’s Jayce?”
Matt and Chris pointed. Peter followed their direction. The teenager sat alone in the overgrown grass, rocking himself, visibly upset.
“Crap. Why don’t one of youse go to him?”
“He is vocal on wanting to be alone,” said Matt.
Peter figured they didn’t push it too hard. People working to repress their own emotions didn’t want to deal with someone in mourning. He knew he didn’t want to deal with it and felt bad for those feelings. The kid needed someone, theoretically.
Peter had needed someone after his brother’s death, and for a little while, he had his grandfather, until he died of a heart attack. Alone was not the best feeling during loss, even when verbalizing a desire to be alone.
Note to self, comfort the kid later.
Cogan readjusted the circle to the west. “We can get this far, providing no headwinds requiring more fuel consumption.”
“What exactly are we gonna do in Tennessee?”
“I don’t know. Your problem. Not mine.” Cogan gestured to the bandage. “Won’t be my problem for long. Would like to find some booze though. Whiskey. That area’s known for their bourbon. And moonshine.”
“Yeah, great. Um, what about this P-A area?”
“What’s in PA?”
“I don’t know. Halfway to Boston. We got family there.”
“Oh. Well, okay. You want your last days with family, I can see doing that.”
“Last days?”
“You know how this shit works? Boston is being surrounded.”
“Is it being evac’d?”
“No. It’s receiving evacs from New York, which probably is evacs from New Jersey too.”
A vision of overcrowded streets of Boston flashed through Peter’s mind.
“Fantastic.”
“But there are evac bases in PA. Maybe you can get a lift out. But it’ll be outta the Zone, not further north.”
Peter looked again at the silver blanket-clad women. Providing the unborn survived this, which posed a big if from the radiation, they should be outside the Zone. It seemed the responsible thing to do.
“Evac bases, where in PA?”
“Carlisle.” Cogan pointed. “Willow Grove, but last I heard, they were taking IDs. Probably don’t want to do that coming from all this shit. Carlisle is smaller. Helos going out. Willow Grove has planes.”
“Willow Grove is awfully close to Philly.”
“Yeah, it may not be functioning anymore.”
“Is Carlisle?”
“It’s kind of in the middle of nowhere.”
Cogan’s finger pointed to western Pennsylvania, known for its Amish, but that was pretty much it for claims to fame. A big forest nearby. Fewer people, though more crazed infected animals, Peter figured.
“Let’s go there.”
“To Carlisle?”
“Why not? Gotta make a decision, right?”
“Okay. The first thing you do when we touch down, get some warmer clothes. It’s winter there. Real winter. Not like anything South Carolina does.”
Peter sighed. The women still had detainee scrubs on. Weirdly, they wore military boots. Peter figured there was a story. It would have to wait.
He called over to the rest. “Strip the ambulance of anything useful for us. Then put the crew bodies in there and seal it up. Best we can do for ‘em.”
The men nodded and went to work.
Peter turned to the Black Hawk. Drying fresh blood all over the floor. No seats except the door gunners behind the pilot and the jump seats behind the machine guns. Broken bungees on the harnesses. He hadn’t yet looked at the normal gunner seats to see what damage they contained.
Cogan finished stowing his old school mapping equipment in a case and followed Peter’s gaze.
“Wait.” Cogan moved to the helicopter’s side. “Something happened with this door.” He yanked at it. “Shit.”
“Guys, need some help here.”
The cargo door slid on tracks that were on the outside. They all grabbed part of the sliding door and pulled, straining. It did not budge. The track was damaged.
“Okay then,” said Peter. “We’ll fly with the door wide open. Good times. Anything warm in the ambulance?”
“Warm?” asked Chris. “Like what?”
“Like blankets that aren’t silver?”
“Nuh. None of that.”
“Good times.”
“There’s the copilot seat,” said Cogan. “Bloody and no door.”
“Fantastic.”
“You should take it, Sully.”
“Why? I have a family I should be with.”
“You’re the one who wants to go to PA.”
“Fine.”
A captain outranked Peter, despite he technically had no rank anymore, so he obeyed out of habit.
“Youse guys sit in the back and listen to the complaints about freezing.
”
Peter knew he was going to freeze in the front, too, without doors. The only one who stood a chance was Cogan in his flight suit.
“Oh, move the precious cargo to the most secure area, away from the open door.”
“Are we not the precious cargo?”
“Always in my heart, Christopher.”
Chris chuckled.
Pez and Darsi went to Jayce. Talked with him for a moment. The kid stood, straightened himself out, and wiped his face. He picked up his silver blanket from the ground and walked towards the Black Hawk, a stoic expression on.
The women and Tyler climbed in.
“Oh, the floor’s slippery,” said Phebe. “Be careful, Ty.”
“Got it.” The kid laughed. “You be more careful.”
“I’m trying.” Phebe used him to steady herself through the cargo area. “Is this secure, this door?”
Heading towards the pilot seat, Cogan double-checked the closed cargo door. “Yeah, it’s secure. We’re good.”
Emily mumbled, “Good being a relative term.”
The seats of the normal gunners were mangled. They had been attacked sitting there. Only Cogan’s pilot seat and the copilot’s seat had restraints left intact.
“How come the zoms worse than usual and wearing flight suits?” Chris asked as he investigated the gunner seats.
“It happens when we go in for an exfil,” Cogan answered. He went through his preflight check, which he had done a thousand times in his career and knew by heart. “We saw an Apache of Fourth Aviation attacked on the ground.”
“Fuck.”
“I don’t think they intended to be on the ground. They were reinforcement and some crazy Rs got into their shit, somehow. All kinds of shit goes on out there. When you’re dealing with totally fucking insane beings, all kinds of shit. Birds aren’t built to have a physical attack on the crew. Seen even Coastie crews go down. Bit. They did themselves by going right into the drink, nose first.”
“Yeah, why didn’t these guys do themselves?”
“Shit happens. No bullets left after the fight, it happens a lot. Real damn hard to kill yourself with something else. Just psychologically, ya know. Some don’t believe in suicide, even in this shit. We aren’t briefed on the whole deal with the Rs. Apparently, gotta go to Mount Weather for a seminar for it. Some bullshit. We learn on the hoof. Once we got how it is, we will do crews who are bit. They radio a confirm, they’re bit, stand out in the open and we shoot ‘em from the air. Easier for someone else to do you than do it yourself.”
“Imagine so,” said Chris. “It ain’t allowed in religion, suicide.”
“You guys saved me from having to do myself. I had the gun in my mouth. Last bullet in the chamber.”
“I’ll do you if it comes to that.”
“Thank you, Higgins. Appreciate it.”
Bizarre conversation, Chris reflected. He never thought he’d have such talk.
“Let’s get outta here before more of those things show up,” said Darsi. “We’re almost entirely outta bullets.”
It began to rain again.
“Let’s go,” said Matt. “We got what we could. No need to stick around.”
Peter got in the front copilot seat. The sensation of no door was different for him. However, in his career, he had sat in open doors of Black Hawks without worry. He pulled on headphones with an attached mouthpiece. “Somebody back there, put on the headphones so we can communicate.”
“I got ‘em,” said Kevin.
“Oh, God, not you. Somebody else.”
Emily asked, “Why does he hate you?”
Kevin didn’t look at her.
She whispered to Phebe, “Why does Sully hate him?”
Phebe’s eyes narrowed as she looked at Kevin. “I wonder.”
The engine turned over. Rotors began to spin. Gunner windows closed to help a little with the cold that would inevitably happen. Phebe and Emily were sat in their seats. Broken restraints tied around them. They had the most secure seats with an exterior wall to one side and flimsy walls surrounding them to two sides.
Tyler protested being tied to Phebe’s chair. “What am I, a dog?”
“Hush boy,” Chris reprimanded.
Jayce received the makeshift door gunner jump seat by the closed door. The restraints weren’t as badly mangled and thus salvageable.
The five guys left were used to helicopter rides, including with doors open. With the precious cargo secured, they gave little thought to any buckling in of themselves. The other makeshift jump seat had no practical purpose without restraints. Huge potential to fall out the open doors – which had to be open for them to shoot machine guns mounted outside of them. It now posed as an unnervingly small seat for the butt with no restraints and a door open right there. They opted for the floor.
The helicopter ascended and the sight of the black, flattened base soon came into their view.
5.
The cold forced hands to find warmer places. Arms tightly crossed and hands tucked under. The men at the door, their legs hanging over the edge, could see the ground had patches of snow. For snow to be visible at their elevation meant a lot of snow.
“Must have snowed recently,” Pez yelled to be heard.
Darsi nodded. “Isn’t this late in the season for so much snow?”
Pez shrugged. “Nature does what she wants.”
Darsi nodded again. “Same with Kansas.”
“Fuck it’s cold,” complained Chris.
The two snipers and Chris sat in the doorway. Inside, among the second row of men, Matt and Brandon moved closer together. Matt would prefer to freeze to death than get any closer to Kevin. He enjoyed a fantasy of kicking him out the open door, and perhaps he would have done it if the three guys weren’t in the way. Probably the women and Jayce would beat him to it if he told them who Kevin was.
The sky had turned blue the further away from the nuking sight they traveled. Heavy ash cloud ceiling dissipated, allowing the helicopter to ascend higher, which also meant colder. Chattering teeth. Bluish lips. Praying they’d land soon before hypothermia set in.
The helicopter descended as a new low ceiling emerged. This time, it was snow clouds.
“Shit,” Pez yelled. “It’s gonna snow.”
“Fuck this,” Darsi said. “I get any colder, I’m jumping.”
“Fuck you, man. Don’t you threaten that.”
“I’m kidding.”
“Better be. I ain’t doing this with a bunch of Army.”
“We’ve lowered to a whole new low.”
Pez laughed in between his teeth chattering.
“Move closer, man,” Darsi said. “We need body heat here.”
Matt could hear Cogan and Sully through the headset.
Cogan said, “She’s about to start running on fumes.”
“How far are we from Carlisle?” Peter asked.
“About twenty-five, thirty miles. Circumventing the blast sight made us come up short. The ceiling is a lot lower. Snow, it looks like. I’m going over the highway. This should lead right into the base on a north heading.”
“We’re gonna walk thirty miles in the snow with the clothes we got?” Peter asked.
“No, you gotta make clothes your priority. There should be towns by the highway.”
“There better be something other than Amish country by the highway.”
“I don’t think this is Amish right here. But even so, they probably wouldn’t evac. You think?”
“As if I know any Amish that I have anything to base that on,” said Peter. “Real slim in the military.”
Cogan’s voice laughed. “Yeah, that’s for sure. Them and the Quakers.”
Matt looked around at the others, who could not hear the conversation in the cockpit. They would be none too happy to hear the news that they were not landing at or near Carlisle.
He caught sight of Phebe’s footwear peeking out from the edge of her silver blanket. Men’s boots she had taken off a dea
d man. Emily too. He wondered if they’d suffice for walking so far. A glance over to Tyler. Sneakers. Further to his left, sneakers on Jayce too. If it did snow, they could lose their toes from frostbite.
“Sully, Matt, make boots for the boys a priority too. They’re wearing sneakers.”
“Copy that,” Peter’s voice. “Really hope we can find a nicely stocked winter clothes store near the highway.”
Cogan’s voice, “Yeah, one with plenty of protein bars and bottled water, too. Maybe those little scooters. Segways? What the fuck are those things? My wife wants one.”
Matt dreaded what they would find on the ground. He was pretty sure it was not going to be scooters.
“Gotta start descending,” said Cogan.
Matt yelled with hand signals to the others, “We are descending.”
They nodded. Lips blues. Shoulders hunched up with necks buried.
“We’re right over the highway,” Peter said. “Copy, Matt?”
“I copy.”
A horrendous sound towards the tail startled them all. The entire Black Hawk jerked hard, then shuttered. The men at the doorway backed up fast.
“Shit!” Cogan’s voice in Matt’s ears.
All the men reached out to hold onto things. The helicopter began spinning sideways. Black smoke passed the open door.
“Fuck!” Cogan’s voice.
“We’ve been hit,” Peter’s voice.
Electronic beeping sounds came through the headphones.
The guys at the open door strengthened their grips on the sides. The helicopter tilted downward, making it hard for them to push back and not slide towards the open door.
Another mechanical bang. The helicopter whipped onto its side. All the men grabbed for things as they slid towards the open door. Pez looped his legs around the mounted machine gun and reached out to hold onto Darsi. Jayce’s body leaned down towards the opening. He frantically searched for something to hold onto. The restraint gave way, and he hung by his hands.
Kevin charged backward, half in a crabwalk, and through the flimsy door separation between the cargo bay and the gunner position. He went backward into Tyler, who had slammed down into the wall, and Phebe’s legs. He turned at the waist and grasped anything stationary he could. Phebe pulled Tyler to her and held on tight. Emily swiveled her gunner chair so the back faced downward and her front faced the closed window.
