The Deadland Chronicles | Book 4 | Siege of the Dead:

by Spears, R. J.

  Jones leaned forward in his seat, and his eyes narrowed as he surveyed the zombies below. They staggered about like drunkards, sometimes slamming into their undead comrades and causing them to stumble. Some even fell violently onto the ground, spasming violently.

  Inside the chopper, a sense of hope began to swell. Maybe this nerve agent was it?

  But as quickly as this hope blossomed, it burst as the zombies started to the right themselves and move more steadily. It was as if they were drunks that had sobered up quickly. The ones that had fallen pushed themselves back to their feet.

  “What’s happening?” Del asked.

  “The zombies looked affected for a few seconds, but that just changed,” Jones said as he slumped back into his chair. “Just like before, it doesn’t look like it worked on them.”

  “Well, the mad scientists didn’t think it would,” Del said, but he sounded as disappointed as Jones. Then he grasped for a straw. “But it was supposed to affect the smart ones.” He let that hang in the air for a moment. “Do you see any of them?”

  “No,” Jones said.

  And they went back into a waiting game, but they all knew that the clock was ticking down. The scientists said that the gas would lose effectiveness over time, and that proved to be true.

  They continued to hover in the air, looking like a giant insect, its blades buzzing away. The dust kicked up by the revolving blades combined with the greenish-gray residue of the gas.

  “How long do we just sit here?” Garver asked. “I’m not comfortable with this. Not at all.”

  Jones said, “Give it some time.”

  “Are we waiting from one of those smart sons of bitches to shoot us out of the sky?” Clayton asked.

  Jones narrowed his eyes and glowered at Clayton for a few seconds, and Clayton drew back.

  “We need to see if this works,” Jones said. “It has to.”

  The gas began to dissipate, getting thinner by the second. The zombies had ultimately returned to normal, roaming the ground below in search of food. A few looked up at the helicopter, hoping against hope that food might drop from it.

  “We can’t stay up here all day,” Garver said.

  Jones put up a hand, gesturing at Garver to keep his trap shut, but he knew that they didn’t have unlimited time. Sooner or later, they’d have to abandon this experiment because that’s what it was -- an experiment. The scientists were either wrong, or their outcome was one of a kind.

  Jones kept his hand up as if when he dropped it, the spell of possibility would be broken. The hope he had would be lost. Then they’d have to return to the walls of the Sanctum and fight it out with the zombie horde. It wasn’t a fight he thought they’d win. That’s when he started contemplating what Garver had suggested. That they should just cut and run. It was just a fleeting thought, but it was there.

  As if it was an answer to an unspoken prayer, a figure burst from under the bridge, running in a broken gait, ramming into zombies and causing them to tumble over. The figure clutched at its throat as if its skin were burning.

  A zombie reached out for it, but it swung an elbow, and it crashed into the zombie’s nose, dropping it. The figure stumbled along, but picked up speed, heading for the water. The stumble became a run as it bashed through the zombies congregated along the shore.

  Running wasn’t something that zombies did. It was something that humans did.

  “Holy shit,” Garver said, and when he finished the last word, his mouth remained open.

  Jones let his hand drop, and he leaned forward toward the windshield. Clayton took a half step forward, regaining the space he had lost when he backed away from Jones.

  “Is that…?” He asked in a soft voice.

  The figure kept moving but had to slow down because of the thickness of zombies in the area. After a couple of more steps, it stopped, and it looked up at the helicopter. There was no mistaking it. Those were human eyes looking up at them. The eyes looked both bewildered and afraid at the same time.

  Another zombie clutched at the figure, pawing at its arm. The figure yanked his arm away, but the momentum of the effort sent him backward into two zombies. Both of these zombies had been looking up at the chopper, but this impact broke them from that.

  Things sped up then. A kind of recognition came across the zombies. They weren’t the most expressive of creatures, but it was clear to see that they saw something in the figure. The figure wasn’t one of their kind. Maybe the helicopter had, indeed, dropped food in their laps, and they went into motion.

  A long-armed zombie snatched at the figure, clamping onto its arm. The figure tried to pull its arm free, but the zombie was having none of it as it held on for dear life. The figure’s mouth opened wide as it yelled at the zombie, but whatever it said was lost in the rumble of the helicopter’s engine.

  It kicked out at the zombie holding its arm, but the commotion caught the attention of other zombies in that area. It was as if a light went on in their eyes, and they started toward the figure, closing in around it.

  The figure whirled around, flailing its free arm, but with the zombies pressing inwards from all directions, it didn’t do any good. The zombies continued to close in on the figure, pressing in it until there was no place for the figure to go.

  The last thing Garver and Jones saw was the figure raising its head to look upward. Its mouth was wide open in a soundless scream. And then zombies took it down.

  “Holy shit,” Clayton said. “It fucking worked.” The pitch of his voice rose with the second sentence and got a little squeaky.

  Jones continued to watch the carnage below, but Garver had his fill and looked away.

  “We’ve got more of this gas,” Del shouted from his place at the side door.

  “We need to do another run at the ones heading up the hill,” Jones said.

  “Hell yeah,” Garver said, his face breaking into a big smile. “Absolutely, hell, yes.”

  Clayton turned to look back to Del, but something caught his eye in the distance. A brilliant yellow flash on the hill leading up the Sanctum. Whatever jubilation he felt went arctic cold as a smoke trail headed their way at remarkable speed.

  Clayton opened his mouth and yelled, “RPG.”

  Garver jerked his head to his left and went into auto-pilot, starting the evasive action maneuvers he had learned in Afghanistan. He pulled back on the stick and began to accelerate upward, while also pivoting the chopper in the sky.

  But it was too little, too late.

  The next thing they experienced was an explosion on the left side of the craft. It was like someone had set off a small bomb. The sound was almost deafening, and the light show was blinding, filling the inside with a bright yellow glow. The helicopter tilted to the right as if it had fallen off a table. Clayton slammed against the right side of the helicopter. The impact blew the air out of his lungs, and he gasped out a truncated breath.

  The helicopter tilted forward, and all Jones saw was a sea of undead, bathed in the bright yellow afterglow of the blast. It seemed as if all the zombies were looking skyward with hungry expressions.

  The chopper began to fall downward, and Jones desperately hoped the crash would kill him. He didn’t want to be torn to pieces by the undead below.

  The descent started. They were falling toward the raised and hungry faces below. Garver let out a loud curse, and it was as if the hand of God had reached down and yanked the craft upwards. The view shifted from the faces of the zombies below and was replaced by the blue sky above. The whiplash of the movement made Jones feel sick to his stomach, but he was glad to not be looking at the zombies.

  Despite the motion, he felt the helicopter continue to fall.

  “Come on!” Garver yelled as he struggled with the controls. “Come on!”

  They fell a few more feet, but the craft shuddered wildly, making Jones think of a wet dog shaking off water. But their descent ended. The chopper shook crazily. The movement was so violent, Jones thought the fillings in
his teeth might shake loose.

  The helicopter jerked in the sky but began to settle down and then started to ascend gradually, climbing toward the blue sky above. Once it got above the bridge, Jones let out the long breath of air he had been holding. The helicopter leveled out, but quivers rippled through the craft. To make matters worse, the cabin was beginning to fill with smoke, and he knew that was never a good thing.

  He heard something clatter behind him and looked through the smoke to see Clayton scrambling to get to his feet. He gripped the side of the chopper and slowly pulled himself to his feet. Even through the smoke, Jones could tell from Clayton’s body language that he was looking toward the back left side of the helicopter. He also saw the flicker of flames back there, and he felt his blood pressure rise.

  “Oh no,” Clayton said.

  “What?!” Garver shouted, but he was still fighting to keep the chopper under control.

  “Del’s gone,” Clayton said.

  “What the hell are you saying?” Garver asked. “What do you mean, gone?”

  “He went out the side,” Clayton said.

  When Sergeant Jones looked to the left side of the helicopter, all he saw was a gaping hole where the door had been, and flames licked at the roof. Del was not there, and neither was the nerve gas sprayer.

  Chapter 53

  Observation Point

  “They just fired on the chopper!” Eli shouted, his voice rising.

  Jo was fifty-feet away, but Eli’s statement sent a chill through her body. Del and Sergeant Jones were on board that helicopter along with Clayton and Garver. She had seen the flash and heard the explosion resonate from down near the south bridge, but she didn’t have binoculars.

  Almost without knowing it, she went into motion, rushing along the catwalk at the top of the wall. Running wasn’t possible with the catwalk packed with people, but she somehow managed a pace faster than walking. Most of the people along the wall, leaned against it to get a better vantage on what was happening down at the south bridge, and that made her path easier. Still, more than once, she had to make acrobatic moves to avoid falling to the ground ten-feet below.

  Once she got to Eli, she asked, “What did you see?”

  Eli had the binocular glued to his eyes, but he lowered them slightly and looked her way. “What are you doing here?”

  “Those are my people onboard that chopper,” Jo said, pointing to the west.

  “There’s nothing you need to know,” Eli said. “Get back to your position.”

  “No!” She replied, and the word came out sharply.

  “I’m in charge here,” Eli said, lowering the binoculars and narrowing his eyes. “And I say you need to get back to your position.”

  “I will when you tell me what you saw,” Jo said. “If you hadn’t noticed, none of your people are onboard that chopper. They are my people. My friends. I think I deserve to know what happened.”

  “It doesn’t change anything, whether you know or not,” Eli replied, locking Jo in a hot stare.

  “Just tell her,” Lassiter said from behind Eli. “We don’t need a pissing match here.”

  Eli slowly turned toward Lassiter and said, “I didn’t ask you for your opinion.”

  Instead of backing down, Lassiter squared up on Eli and said, “But you’re getting it.”

  This wasn’t what Eli had expected, and his shoulders slumped, but he rallied. “Remember who calls the shots here,” he said.

  Lassiter had a choice to escalate this conflict or to take it down a notch.

  “You’re right,” Lassiter said, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. “You’re in charge, but we’re all on the same team here. It’s us against them.”

  Eli brought up a hand and rubbed it through his hair, and looked down.

  “Okay,” he said and looked up. “The reason I wanted you to go back to your position was that it is bad. Really bad.”

  “What?” Jo said, and it was her turn to deflate. “What are you saying?”

  He pulled the straps of the binoculars over his neck and handed them over to Jo. She snatched the binoculars from Eli’s hand and wheeled to look down at the south bridge.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “It’s on fire.”

  She continued to watch the helicopter rise slowly in the sky, a smoke trail following it up. Its path was a shaky one as it seemed to be shuddering as it tried to gain altitude. It looked like a wounded bird barely able to stay aloft.

  At the bottom of her vision, she saw a flash of white. A second later, something shot into her field of view, and she nearly jumped.

  “They’re shooting again!” She yelled.

  Chapter 54

  Damages

  Jones hoped the explosion or the fall killed Del. Even contemplating that he survived the fall only to be taken apart by the zombies below caused him to shudder. In any other circumstances, he would have ordered Garver to do a sweep over the area to see if there was any chance to find Del or even his body, but that wasn’t an option. There was a flaming hole in the chopper, and the land below was swarming with zombies.

  He had been there over in the Mideast, and he had never left a man behind, but this wasn’t any conventional war. Del was lost, and it was his responsibility to get the men inside the helicopter back to safety. It was a cold reality, but one he knew he could not ignore.

  “Damage report,” Jones yelled.

  “Well, we’re on fire,” Clayton said as he tried to hold to one of the inner struts.

  “Get that fire out,” Jones shouted.

  “HOLD ON!” Garver yelled. “Another one is headed our way.”

  Once again, he jerked the stick hard, but this time to the right. Jones groaned as his safety belt cut into his midsection. Clayton let out a yelp as he held on for dear life because he wasn’t belted in.

  “Shiiiiit,” Clayton said as he rocketed around the inside of the helicopter.

  Jones looked over his shoulder out the hole in the side of the craft and saw a white-hot streak heading toward them. Garver grunted as he flipped the stick hard to the left, tossing Clayton in the opposite direction as before.

  “Give me a fucking warning next time,” Clayton said.

  “Hold on!” Garver yelled again.

  Jones saw something flash by the chopper, and a second later, the RPG exploded against the side of the bridge. The impact sent a shock wave that shook the helicopter so hard that he wasn’t sure that they hadn’t been hit.

  The helicopter fell as if someone had yanked it down with a cable. Garver cursed loudly as he did everything he could to keep the craft airborne. To him, it felt like he was wrestling an eight-thousand-pound bull. A bull that was ready to take them down and grind them into the dirt below.

  “Come on, baby,” Garver said as he struggled with the controls. The ground came up fast. The zombies below looked up, unafraid of the eight tons of metal falling towards them.

  Jones gritted his teeth and gripped the armrests on his seat so hard, his fingers nearly tore into fake leather covering them. Clayton was close to vomiting after being tossed around like a doll, and a part of him actually wanted the helicopter to crash. Just to get it over with.

  Somehow, Garver, maybe by will alone, pulled the chopper out of its fall, but it was just a few feet above the outreached arms of the undead below. He steered the helicopter on a shuddering path parallel to the river and away from the horde.

  Jones looked to the horde on the other side of the river. They were huddled together about a hundred yards ahead, spread out across a set of intramural sports fields. Jones estimated their numbers at well over a thousand. Maybe a little more, or a little less. He was puzzled as to why they hadn’t continued their path of the hill, but he figured whoever was leading them must have turned to protect the second group.

  When Jones looked down at the second group, he saw most of them had congregated at the river’s edge, looking forlorn about the idea of venturing across the river. They milled at the water’s e
dge, seeming rudderless without their leader. But a terrifying thought struck Jones. There had to be a leader in that group. If he returned and led the second group across the river, that additional thousand zombies could mean real trouble.

  “We need to take on the group on the other side of the river,” Jones said.

  “Are you out of your mind!? We’re barely in the air,” Garver said. “If you hadn’t noticed, we’re still on fire.”

  “It can’t be that bad, we’re still in the air,” Jones replied.

  “For how long?” Clayton asked as he moved toward his door gun.

  “Hey, you two assholes,” Jones said with some heat behind his words, “we need to make sure the group across the river does not come back and pick up the group on this side. That will double their numbers.”

  Garver said, “If they fire another RPG, I can’t evade them. This bird will come apart.”

  “Then we had better defend ourselves,” Jones said. “Clayton, you going to do anything about the fire, or are we going to burn up?”

  “Okay, okay,” Clayton said as he unhooked a firing extinguisher and did what he could about the fire.

  “This bird is barely limping along, and I can’t get any altitude,” Garver said. “Something’s wrong with the collective.”

  “If we’re moving slow, we’re an easy target, but if we’re raining hellfire down on them, then maybe they’ll be running to get out of the way,” Jones replied.

  Garver couldn’t assail Jones’ logic, so he reached down the gun trigger and held it tightly in his hand as the helicopter limped across the sky.