ELE Series | Book 5 | Escape

by Jones, K. J.

  Matt’s fingers curled around a steel rod as his legs lifted off the floor. He tried to push up towards the back wall more, but his boot toes could gain no traction on the bloody floor.

  Peter tried his hardest not to look to his immediate right where everything loose in the cockpit had already fallen. There was nothing there except a long drop to the ground below. He prayed to the god of seatbelts for his restraints to hold and worried about everyone else in less secure positions.

  Matt feared for Chris and wished he could turn his head enough to look. He heard a male voice screaming in distress but couldn’t not hear the name or recognize the voice with all the racket from the broken machinery. He could only see Jayce precariously hanging.

  “Hold on,” Matt yelled to Jayce.

  Pez’s rifle had hooked around the mounted base of the jimmy-rigged machine gun as he had swung around at the helicopter drop. It stopped him from falling out as Darsi had. Pez had tried to grab him and he had screamed, hearing Darsi scream all the way down to his death. No way the rifle’s structure could hold his weight for too long. Legs dangled straight down towards the landscape below. With all of his upper strength, he pulled himself up. He now hugged the mount, interweaving his arms with his rifle to retain it. There was nothing to pull up and grasp inside the helicopter, so he was stuck holding onto the mount. He hoped the welding job on the mount had been a damn good one or his questions about God would be soon answered.

  Below his boots, the highway spun around and around, but grew closer and closer, as if Cogan was trying to land them despite there was no tail. At least the smoke from the tail was above Pez’s head in this position. He couldn’t handle coughing too.

  “Mother of God,” he yelled. “Help!”

  He could see Chris holding onto the other side with all he had in too precarious a hold.

  “We’re landing,” Pez yelled. “Hold!”

  He doubted Chris could hear him.

  “God, help us,” Matt pleaded.

  “Hold on,” Cogan yelled through the earphones. “A little further.”

  Matt closed his eyes. Heart racing, banging in his ears, drowning out the sounds of dysfunctional machine parts. His hands screamed in pain, but with sheer will, he kept holding on. Somebody grabbed his legs during the forceful sideways and continued to hold on. Matt and whoever held his legs lives’ depended on his hands continuing to hold tight. He feared for Chris. But there was no way to help him. The weight on his legs told him he was a smaller man, not Chris.

  Pez saw an overpass of the highway coming up fast. The world below grew bigger and bigger until it became life-size. He screamed and pulled his legs up, convinced they would be sheared off by a steel railing. Another spin and the sound of ripping metal as the skid gear platform went under the metal railing and hooked. The Black Hawk abruptly stopped moving. Pez fell on a road.

  Inside, the sensations of falling and whirling abruptly ceased. The floor leveled but unsteady with slight a rocking feel. No more engine sounds at all.

  “Get the fuck out now!” Cogan bellowed loud.

  Matt barely opened his eyes when he felt grabbed and yanked. His worn-out fingers released without his permission. A sensation of flying through the air. He landed hard on solid, flat ground, skinning his chin. Half his body landed on another man, who grunted, winded by his weight.

  Someone heavy landed on top of him, winding him, too.

  “Move it out, girls,” Chris’s voice bellowed.

  More flying people came at Matt. He scurried on hands and knees, over the other man, and to empty hard surface. Brandon crabbed walked beside him.

  “Em!” Brandon charged forward to lighten her flying-through-the-air fall.

  Billowing black smoke from the tail, their eyes teared. Matt caught sight of men at the opening of the Black Hawk hurling people out. Looking around, he realized they were on a highway overpass. Railings ran on both sides of a road. The Black Hawk’s skid gear caught in the metal of railing, it teetered on the edge in a precarious position. With each person thrown out, it tilted further towards the fall.

  “Holy shit,” Matt heard himself say.

  The men backed away from the opening. Peter’s seat empty. Cogan dove through the open copilot doorway.

  The Black Hawk fell. Its skid gear ripped the guard rail out in a screaming metal sound. A second later, a crash on the highway below. Without fuel, it did not explode. A rise of a column of smoke from burning oil in the engine and anything flammable.

  “Holy shit,” Matt muttered again. “Holy shit.”

  “That all you can say, kid?”

  He looked up to see Chris’s face hovering over his. Without a thought, Matt surged forward and hugged him around the neck, terrified his long-term friend had flown out.

  Chris laughed. “There, there, dear.” Patted Matt’s back. “You’ll all be alright, sweetheart.”

  “Fuck you.” Matt retracted, letting him go and allowing himself to fall back onto the asphalt.

  Chris smiled. “I expect flowers this coming Valentine’s, sweetie. You got a little blood on your chin like you a skateboarder.”

  Matt’s heart still raced.

  “Did ya piss yourself, kid?”

  Matt saw people rising in the smoke. The wind did them no favors, spreading the burning oil smell around them, causing everyone to cough in a cloud of toxic smog.

  “Pheeb?” Matt asked.

  “The Girl okay?” Chris looked around.

  Peter said, “Bumped and bruised and looks seriously annoyed, but she’s here and alive.”

  “Who we missing?” Chris asked.

  “Darsi!” Pez’s voice did not sound okay. “Darsi fucking flew out.” He was so upset, he spit as he spoke.

  Matt let himself drop flat on the ground. His breathing still fast. He stared up at the sky, what he could see of it through the burning smog around them. Coughing as the smoke infiltrated his lungs.

  Peter’s angry voice, “Why the fuck did you live and he died!”

  “Fuck you,” Kevin yelled. “You wanna kill me? We do it right now. Or shut the fuck up.”

  Matt heard female voices cough and a young voice cough. The women and Tyler must be nearby.

  “Both y’all shut up,” Chris’s voice. “What caused us to crash? Cogan?”

  “RPG.”

  “What the fuck? Out here?”

  “It hit the tail rudder.”

  “Oh, fantastic,” exclaimed Peter. “We’re in the American Mog.”

  “The Mog wasn’t too great for the pilots or the Rangers,” said Kevin.

  “Which is why we have to fucking get our asses outta this vulnerable position.”

  Matt sat up. His legs felt like jelly. Stomach gave twinges of nausea. Get up, he told his body.

  The wind shifted, forcing the smoke pillar to go in the other direction and clearing the space around them.

  Chris stood at the railing where a tall chain-link fence ran the length, apparently for people to not jump off or drop things down onto the highway below.

  “I see the motherfuckers. They on four-wheelers. ATVs. Coming this way down this here highway. Got rows of derelict cars all over the place.”

  “Scout,” Peter called on Pez. “You go that way. Someone the other way. We need to know where’s the best way to go.”

  “I’m on it.” Pez collected himself from his grief and ran in one direction.

  “Good legs, get the other. Move it, people!”

  “I’ll go,” Tyler said.

  “No. How about a soldier. Alden, you go.”

  “Trying to get me killed?”

  “Only as a bonus. Carry your weight and go.”

  Chris barked, “Obey the staff sergeant, Sergeant Alden.”

  His sergeant's voice worked. Kevin went in the direction indicated.

  Tyler said, “There’s a McDonald’s that way.”

  The golden arches sign rose high in the air from somewhere in the distance. The other direction had trees a
nd houses.

  Matt got to his feet and looked through the chain-link fence. Normal dual-direction, multi-laned highway separated by a medium. Cars stretched into the distance as far as he could see. They were of every color, make, and model, plus RVs and trailers. Possessions strapped to rooftops. Trunks bungeed as they overflowed. The usual sight when people tried to evacuate from an outbreak. All of the vehicles faced the north direction. The opposite side across the medium had been opened up to evac as well, crowded with abandoned vehicles facing north. All except for the outside lane, which was normal procedure to keep at least one lane reserved for emergency and military vehicles.

  Among the abandoned cars, all-terrain vehicles moved along snow-laded shoulders.

  “Oh, shit,” Matt muttered.

  Each ATV appeared to carry two people, one steering, one behind. Small pickup trucks and SUVs came down the emergency lane.

  “I’m estimating about thirty assholes,” said Peter.

  Phebe moved to the fence, standing between them.

  “Are you okay?” Matt asked her.

  She nodded.

  “Any cramping?”

  Her hands moved to her abdomen. “No.”

  “Can you run?” Peter asked her.

  “I believe so.”

  “Em, you good to run?”

  Matt looked back. Brandon, of course, had her in his arms.

  “Yeah,” Emily answered.

  “Good,” responded Peter. “Cos I’m thinking we may have to do that soon.”

  Excited Yahoos and Yays mixed with Get ‘em from below, growing closer.

  Black Hawk Down ran through everyone’s minds, the movie since only Peter had read the book. RPG fired by locals hitting a Black Hawk was how that mess started.

  “I’ve seen that fucking movie,” Emily barked. “They didn’t have any women.”

  “Yeah,” said Matt. “Rangers are not female.”

  “Totally not good.”

  “Got ya.”

  A whole other personal bodily threat: Rape. Violent and brutal, probably multiples, a threat for women, the ones usually targeted though possibly not exclusively targeted. The Simoleans had brutally murdered but did not rape the American men. Paraded their dead bodies around, yes, but not violated them while alive.

  “Not gonna happen.” Brandon grew bodily puffed, his woman in extra danger.

  Kevin ran from the McDonald’s side. “Stores and restaurants.”

  Pez from the other. “Houses.”

  “Which is closest?” Peter asked.

  Pez and Kevin looked at each other.

  “Mines like half a klick,” said Kevin.

  The Army used the metric system. A klick meant a kilometer.

  Marine Corps Scout Snipers used the imperial system. “Closest structure about only ten yards, with a short fence in the path. About four feet tall.”

  “That’s closer,” said Peter. “Mog mile at a sprint, go, go, go!”

  Down below, a stopped ATV. The person on the back aimed a large, round cylinder.

  “Move it,” Chris bellowed. “RPG.”

  They ran towards the houses-side as fast as they could, then dove at the sound of the grenade launching. An explosion behind them. Concrete blew up, followed by fragments raining down.

  Yahoos and woo-hoos, yeahs and yays cheered from the highway.

  “Gotta get up and moving,” Peter yelled, though he had the hardest time standing. Chris yanked him the rest of the way onto his feet.

  Pure animal survival instinct drove the closing-in-on-forty former Rangers to run their asses off. They charged through anything in the way and knocked into dormant bushes. Pumping adrenaline kept Peter from feeling pain, but it did not make his leg function better with all the wear and tear it endured. He limped as he ran. Their fast heartbeats prevented anyone from feeling the cold. Snowbanks everywhere and breath coming out visible told it was a lot colder than they were sensing.

  “Take down that fence,” Peter barked.

  The Marines went at it, kicking the four-foot fence down.

  “Hurry,” Brandon said.

  He made sure Emily got through before turning to take their six. Brandon had no bullets, only an empty M4, retained by having been strapped to him during the helicopter flight. He had hugged Matt’s legs during the sideways spin.

  Pez and Kevin took point.

  Kevin picked up fallen branches and tested their strength. Finding one to his liking, he held it up like a club.

  “How many bullets you got, sniper?” he asked.

  “My rifle would act better as a club right now,” Pez answered. “None.”

  “Shit.”

  Their boots crunched frozen grass. Houses. They found themselves in a strange combination of suburbia, from the houses so close together, and rural, there were barns. Proper farmland barns. Red and all.

  “This place is weird,” said Kevin. “Ever seen a combo like this?”

  “Are we in western PA?” Pez asked.

  “Yeah. How’d you guess?” asked Cogan. His neck bandaged seeped with blood, needing to be replaced.

  “It has shit like this,” said Pez. “Weird ass area of the country.”

  “Gotta run,” Chris ordered.

  They stayed as a group, helping each other when stumbling occurred, and keeping the most vulnerable in the interior of the sprinting adult male perimeter. Peter had to suck it up that he was in the interior, too. No time for ego. Phebe had a grip on him to ensure the leg didn’t trip him up. She could be amazingly strong when she was terrified. Jayce had him by the other side, but he hadn’t learned to channel terror to her level.

  Phebe’s center of gravity felt anchored wrong from her abdomen. Too low. She gritted her teeth, commanding her long limbs to work as they used to do. Nausea did not stop. It increased from the intense exertion. She turned her head to the opposite side of Peter and vomited without slowing the run. Some remnants hit her shirt. A trail of it behind her.

  Emily and Tyler ran close together to aid each other. The kid slipped on sneakers running on ice-covered snow, nearly causing him to fall in a split. Emily yanked him up one-handed while still in motion. Another good channeler of terror. Her safta’s genes were strong with her.

  Perimeter men slipped and slid as they ran, but sheer force of will kept them moving forward. Chris did an arm windmill motion as he slipped while propelling himself forward. Anger and targeted for victimization made gravity frightened of him.

  The group banked left, and Matt slid as if going into home plate. Despite his right sideways motion, he commanded his body to go keep going left, and recovered from the slide. His face was red with fury and adrenaline.

  Despite breath clouds with each fast exhale and snot flowing from noses, their bodies burned with heat from racing heartbeats and pumping muscles. Wetness formed in the scrub armpits of the women.

  The Yahoos moved their direction.

  “They’re taking a road into here,” said Cogan.

  Nothing good could come of people behaving this way. No one hunted other human beings to say hello. How bad it would be was limited only by one's imagination.

  The group slowed, looking for somewhere to go. Around the neighborhood, boards were nailed to houses.

  “What the fuck?” Peter muttered through fast breaths. “Why are they so boarded up?”

  A lot of houses looked farmhouse-style, which reminded him of Night of Living Dead, which took place in a farmhouse. In the George Romero movie, they boarded up the farmhouse windows from the inside, using doors and such. But these farmhouses were boarded from the outside mostly. Not the smartest move, since violent zoms could tear those boards off. Unless they were empty, and thus boarded up to leave them.

  Peter spotted one which was boarded from the inside, identifiable by lines of light shining through boards. Looking upwards, smoke came out of the chimney.

  “There’s people in there,” he said.

  “What does that mean to us?” Kevin said.


  “Maybe they could help. Providing they aren’t people of color.”

  Phebe’s head shot around to Kevin.

  “Oops,” Peter said.

  “You!” she roared.

  “Hush up, girl,” Chris hissed. “You a dumbass, Sully.”

  Kevin eyed her cautiously. “You stay over there, Beheader.”

  “Somebody ratted you out, babe.”

  “Hmm,” her only comment, through pursed lips. Eyes flaming anger.

  Emily seemed too dazed to clue in. Jayce was too far gone to listen to innuendos at this point. He had himself a big stick and watched everything around them.

  Sounds of the Yahoos behind them.

  Difficult to hide a whole group of people sneaking between structures. Their footwear crunching frozen grass with every step, leaving footprints in the snow.

  “They’re following our footprints,” said Brandon. “We gotta get cover.”

  “I’m not dying from rednecks,” said Cogan.

  “Watch it, buddy,” said Chris. “These ain’t my people. This here good-for-nothing trash.”

  “Ain’t got any banjos among your people?”

  “No banjos,” Kevin said. “We God-fearing people. Believe in taking care of our neighbors.”

  “There’s a shed,” Pez said.

  “Bro,” said Brandon. “They’ll follow our footprints right to it.”

  “Split up. I’ll lead ‘em away. You,” he said to Kevin. “You come with me.”

  “Why me?”

  “Cos I outrank your ass, Sergeant.”

  “Affirm, Gunny.”

  “Walk in each other’s footsteps,” Pez ordered everyone else.

  Chris went to the padlock on the door of the aluminum shed. “What have we got?”

  “A bullet,” Matt replied. “I got five in the officer sidearms on me.”

  “Go to it. Make it count.”

  Matt stepped in Chris’s large boot prints to reach the shed. He pulled out the pistol and aimed, using his blood-stained cast as the steadying base. The shot hit its mark, busting the metal ring.

  “Good job, kid.” Chris unhooked it and rolled open the door. “Sul, get your cripple limping ass in here.”

  Peter stayed in their boot prints, as all those behind him did.