“Are you alright?” Henry shouted down from the wall.
Jo put up a hand and said, “I’m alright.”
She clamored to her feet and stepped away from the bulldozer to assess whether it would be enough to block the hole. Kent had done a good job of hitting his mark, placing the blade nearly perfectly against the wall.
“Will it work?” Clayton shouted from beside the Humvee.
“I think it will,” Henry yelled down to Clayton.
A partially desiccated hand shot through a narrow opening in the broken wall and clutched the air. Jo jumped away from it, watching as it scrabbled at the bricks, and looking for something or someone to grab hold of.
Something welled within her. Maybe it was the loss of Del? Maybe it was defending everyone against this onslaught? Maybe it was that she had just reached her limit?
It was if someone had turned up her internal thermostat to the temperature of molten lava. She pulled back her rifle and screamed as she slammed the butt of it against the hand. The impact snapped the zombie’s wrist, leaving shattered bone sticking through the skin. The now useless hand dangled limply, so she brought the barrel down on it, mangling it further.
The battered hand withdrew as she continued to strike it on the way out. She was close to snarling as she smacked it over and over. The hand left a bloody trail on the wall. She was about to hit again when a pair of hands grabbed her shoulders and pulled her away.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Clayton said. “I think you beat the shit out of that hand.”
Clayton slowly twirled her around and saw tears streaming down her cheeks. Her eyes were open wide and wild looking.
“Jo, are you okay?” He asked in a soft, tender voice.
At first she shook her head slowly back and forth, but she stopped, and nodded. The tears stopped and she reached up a hand to wipe them away.
“Maybe you need to sit this one out?” Clayton said.
“No, no,” she said, “I’m going to be okay.” She closed her eyes and slumped forward.
He let her fall into his body and held her tightly as he awkwardly patted her back. The role of comforter did not come naturally, but he did what he could.
After a few seconds, she pushed away from him and wiped her cheeks, which displayed watery trails of tears through a layer of dirt and grime.
“I think I’m okay now,” she said. “Thanks.” She paused and wiped her hands on her shirt. “Sorry.”
“No need to apologize,” he said. “We all lose our shit sometimes.”
Henry shouted down at them, “There’s a new wave coming in. Do we need to do anything else down there?”
Jo looked up and said, “No, I think we’re good. Or, at least, as good as we can be. No zombies are getting past that bulldozer.”
“What do we do now?” Henry asked.
Jo squared her shoulders and said, “We’re going to fight like hell and we’re going to kick some zombie ass.”
Chapter 73
Desperate Measures
The door to the lab slammed against the wall, clanging loudly and reverberating off the rigid, sterile walls, sounding like a dull gong.
Doc Wilson’s first thought was that this was it. The zombies had made it through the wall, and Eli and his men were coming to shoot Grayson. It was that or the zombies themselves. Doc Wilson knew he had nothing to protect himself or his ‘patient.’
Someone stood panting in the darkness of the hallway. Or was it grunting? Doc Wilson couldn’t be sure.
His eyes remained locked on the doorway, trying to get some take on the dark figure there when Eli stepped into the room. His eyes looked almost crazed, and Doc Wilson knew what was coming next. Eli would either come in shooting or brandishing a hand weapon, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to prevent it.
Even if Grayson were no longer the creature he was, his sins would have to be paid for.
Eli came into the room, breathing heavily, and was soaked in sweat. His haze swept the room and fell upon the doctor and his patient at the front of the lab.
“Where’s the rest of the gas?” Eli asked between gasps of breath.
“What?” Doc Wilson asked, somewhat dumbfounded.
“The nerve gas?” Eli asked as he came closer to the doctor. “Where is the rest of it?”
Doc Wilson stood and said, “Uhhhhh.”
“Where is it?!” Eli shouted as his eyes nearly bugged out. His voice filled the room with his fury.
“The scientists stored them in those sealed chambers off to the right,” Doc Wilson said as he pointed a trembling hand at a set of hermetically sealed, narrow doors recessed in the wall.
“Which one?” Eli said. “I’m in a hurry here.”
“The third one,” Doc Wilson said, but under his tone, he hinted that he wanted to say something else. Then he said, “What happened?”
Eli started across the room, but slammed to a stop. “What?!”
“What happened to the first sprayer system?” Doc Wilson asked.
“One of the smart ones nearly blew the helicopter out of the sky,” Eli said. “They lost the sprayer and a good man.”
“You have to know that we don’t have any more sprayer systems,” Doc Wilson.
“We are running out of options,” Eli said. “The smart ones are driving the zombies against the wall, both in front and in back.” He brought both of his hands to his head and started to run his hands through his hair. Halfway through the process and tugged at his hair so hard Doc Wilson was sure that some of it would come out in Eli’s hand. “I have to do something. I’m in charge. People are looking to me for leadership.”
“There’s no way to deliver the gas at any distance,” Doc Wilson said. “If you whiff even a small bit of the gas, you’ll die.”
“But I have to do something,” Eli said. His voice cracked, but he got himself under control. “Is there any way I can deliver it safely?”
Doc Wilson stood up from where he was sitting next to Grayson. “If you wore some sort of protective gear, but the zombies would rip that off of you in a minute.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Eli practically howled. “They’re coming over the walls. Maybe if I can get to the smart one, I can stop them.”
“It would be a long shot,” Doc Wilson said.
Eli opened his mouth, but a voice blasted from the walkie-talkie, “Eli, where are you?”
It was Lassiter, and he didn’t wait for a response. “The helicopter went out again, but it’s crash-landed outside the wall.”
Eli snatched the walkie-talkie off his belt and asked, “How far out?”
“Close,” Lassiter said.
“What about the zombies? Are they swarming it?”
“When it fell, its blades took out a lot of them, but they’re regrouping,” Lassiter said.
Eli dropped the walkie-talkie from his mouth and stared back at Doc Wilson. Something shifted in his face. To describe it would be to say it went flat.
“Help me get one of those things.” he said as he brought the walkie-talkie back up and said, “I’m coming with reinforcements.”
Doc Wilson rushed over to one of the narrow doors and released the latches. The door hissed open, making Doc Wilson think of a pit of snakes, which was what it felt like. A pit of very dangerous snakes. He gingerly reached inside and grabbed one of the nerve canisters, holding it like it was one of the snakes he was thinking about.
“Give it to me,” Eli snapped out from behind the doctor.
Doc Wilson jumped, and the canister nearly slipped from his hand. “Geez.”
He slowly pivoted around with the gas canister in hand, holding it gently but firmly. It felt both cool and warm at the same time, but he attributed that heat to his nerves.
Eli’s body language said he both wanted to gas canister, and he also wanted nothing to do with it at the same time. Frankly, Doc Wilson knew that feeling all too well.
“How do you spray this thing?” Eli asked as he dove in and to
ok it from the doctor.
Doc Wilson stuck out a hand and pointed at a nozzle apparatus on one end of it and said, “There’s a nozzle here, but as I said, this isn’t going to spray all that far. If you get even a whiff of this stuff, you’re dead.”
“Then give me something to protect myself,” Eli said.
“How are you going to spray it past the zombies?”
“Just get me the shit and let me worry about that,” Eli said.
“Whatever you say,” Doc Wilson, said and he went to one of the tall closets on the other side of the room to get one of the hazmat suits.[3] When he returned, he handed the safety equipment over to Eli. The Doc stepped away from him, feeling like he was sharing the room with a dangerous animal.
Eli rushed across the room but skidded to an abrupt stop and looked past the doctor to Grayson. The once half-dead thing lay unconscious on the gurney, emitting an almost perceptible moan. The doctor couldn’t help but notice that Eli’s hand fell to his holster. Doc Wilson slowly moved across the room toward the gurney.
“Doc, if it were up to me,” Eli said. “I’d put a bullet in that thing’s head.”
Doc Wilson took a step back and to his left, trying to angle his body between Eli and Grayson. “You don’t need to do that. He’s not a threat.”
“How sure of that are you, Doc?”
Doc Wilson edged over to his left another two feet. “He’s not going to live long, no matter what.”
Eli’s hand relaxed on his holster, “I don’t have time for this.”
He sped out of the room, and Doc Wilson relaxed, letting himself drift back until his hip hit the gurney, jostling it.
“Thanks, Doc, but you should have let him do it,” Grayson said. “Those things are getting in, and, like I said, I’m not going anywhere.”
“I won’t let them get to you,” Doc Wilson said, but he knew they were empty words. He had no way to do anything other than hope and pray.
Chapter 74
Caught in No-Man’s Land
“We’ve gotta get out of here,” Garver said.
“I’m stuck,” Jones said as he tugged at his safety belt, but it did not budge.
More smoke drifted into the cabin from the back half of the chopper. It was getting thicker, and Jones could feel the heat from the fire. He didn’t want to burn to death, but he also knew there was forty to fifty feet between them and the wall. While the helicopter had taken out quite a few of the undead creatures, there were still twenty or so still intact in the immediate proximity of the chopper. Some of those were on two feet, while others were still recovering from the helicopter’s impact.
“Jonsey,” Garver said, trying to grab Jones’ attention.
Jones hated being called Jonsey, but he let it go. Garver flicked his hand, and the next thing Jones saw was a pocket knife flipping end-over-end toward him. He was sure it was going to smack off his forehead and bounce onto the floor of the helicopter, but he snapped a hand up and snatched the knife out of the air.
“Asshole,” Jones said.
“You’ve always had cat-like reflexes,” Garver said.
Jones knew the clock was ticking, so he flicked open the knife and sliced it through his seat belt. He was free but far from being safe. The helicopter was burning ,and more and more zombies were starting to pop into view through the cracked windshield. At that moment, they staggered around, stunned by what had happened, but it was only a matter of time before they regained what sense they had in their shriveled little brains.
“What do we have?” Jones said.
“What?” Garver said.
“As in weapons,” Jones said.
“I’ve got a sidearm,” Garver said. “You’ve got yours. And…”
“And what?” Jones asked.
“We have those two fire bombs,” Garver said.
“Oh, yeah, we’re in a burning helicopter,” Jones said. “That’s what we need, more fire.”
Garver took a long look out the windshield and then back at Jones and said, “There’s more of those things out there.” He paused and bit his lip, then said, “It might come to that. I don’t want those things to get to me.”
“Don’t give up hope,” Jones said, but Garver could sense the dangling unspoken word at the end of that sentence. It was the word, yet.
“Are you alive in there?” A voice shouted from the wall.
Garver leaned down and looked through a clear spot in the cracked windshield. “There’s a guy on the wall.”
“I figured that,” Jones said as he leaned to the side to get a look at who was shouting. Opening the door seemed like a dicey proposition with the dead out there, so he looked through the cracked windshield. “It’s Donovan.”
He wasn’t sure what to do, so he waved his hand back and forth. He thought he saw Donovan wave back.
“We’ll come out to get you!” Donovan shouted.
Jones made a cutting motion with his hand that was meant to say, no. He didn’t want anyone risking their lives to save him. He knew that included Garver, but their chances of getting out of the helicopter and back inside the wall were so slim. One in a thousand at best.
“What are you doing?” Garver said, “Cut that shit out. They’ll come out to get us.”
“That’s what I don’t want,” Jones said. “It’s a suicide mission to come out for us.”
“Well, I don’t want to die out here,” Garver said.
“Then get out and make a run for it,’ Jones said. “You have your gun. You might be able to slip through if you use your bullets wisely.”
“But what about you?” Garver said.
Jones lifted his bad leg up and said, “You’re on your own, I guess,”
“Hey!” Donovan shouted. “We’ve got a chance, but we need to know you’re okay.”
Garver popped open the door on his side of the helicopter just enough to get his head out and shouted, “We’re okay.”
“Don’t tell them that,” Jones said. “They’ll try to get to us.”
Garver looked back at Jones and said, “Well, I want to live.” He looked back out of the small crack he had made in the door and said, “We’ll take whatever help we can get.”
“Garver!” Jones chastised.
“Shut up,” Garver said as he let his door shut and stood up. “I have an idea.”
“You care to let me in on this plan?”
Bent slightly over, Garver moved past him without saying a word and into the depths of the craft. Jones craned his neck to get an angle on what Garver was doing, but it was dark back there, plus all he saw was Garver’s back.
Jones heard a burst of gunfire coming from the wall. When he looked in that direction, he saw multiple people up on the wall concentrating fire down onto the zombies outside the wall. It was clear to see that they were focusing their fire in a line that led from the wall to the helicopter, wanting to clear a path.
A metallic scratching noise came from the back of the helicopter. Glancing in that direction, Jones saw Garver, bent over at the waist, tugging something toward the front of the craft. He stopped once he got to the makeshift repair that had been put in place to cover the hole blasted there by the RPG that killed Del. It was barely more than a piece of sheet metal, and he kicked out at it. His foot clanged off it, but Jones saw a split in the metal where it was connected to the craft.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jones yelled.
“Giving us a chance,” Garver said as he kicked at the metal again. This time it opened the crack wider. Smoke seeped into the opening and immediately began to fill the cabin. Undeterred, Garver kicked even harder this time, and the metal cover shattered free from the craft, and Jones saw flames whip inside. Garver jumped back for a moment but reached down and bent over a blocky, dark object that Jones couldn’t make out.
“You better be doing what I think you’re doing,” Jones shouted.
Garver looked back at Jones and said, “Yeah, I might make it through the gauntlet of the dead, but wit
h your leg, you don’t stand a chance. With what I’m doing, you might get that chance.” He bent back over the object.
“And you just might blow us up,” Jones said.
Garver pushed the object toward the opening, put a foot against the object, and shoved it out the hole. Once it tumbled through the crack, it slipped out of view and clanked onto the ground.
Garver wasted no time and rushed toward the front of the chopper.
“How soon will it go off?” Jones asked.
“Twenty seconds,” Garver said.
“You know it’ll probably set us on fire, right?” Jones said.
“But those undead fuckers hate fire, so it’ll give us some breathing room. Once it goes off, we’re going out your door and making a run for the wall.”
“If we survive the explosion,” Jones said.
“Shut the fuck up,” Garver said.
An internal clock told Jones they had ten seconds. There was nothing to do but let it happen. He never liked giving himself over to fate, but it seems like that was the way of life now.
Chapter 75
Interlude to Battle
Private Gardner leaned against the MAV, listening to the gunfire in the distance. His leg bounced up and down, and as he gnawed his fingernails down to the quick. In so many ways, this was par for the course. Gardner was always one of the high-strung ones.
“We need to get out there,” Navarro said, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“Jones said he would call when he needed us,” Gardner said.
“You heard over the walkie,” Navarro said. “Jones and Garver have been shot down. We can’t wait for the call. He could be dead, or he could need us.”
Unlike Gardner, Navarro wasn’t nervous. He was ripped, roaring, and ready to go, gripping and re-gripping his rifle, his eyes darting around excitedly.
The Deadland Chronicles | Book 4 | Siege of the Dead: Page 32
