One Crazy Pilot (Apocalypse Paused Book 7)

by Michael Todd

  “Here goes!” The pilot took a few steps out on to the bridge.

  Already, she could see the bark was wet. The bottom of the trunk was partially in the water, so the fast current pulled and splashed against the barrier and sprayed the entire thing with droplets.

  Manny moved slowly, careful to test each step before he took another. The side Ava and Gunnar were still on seemed stable enough. The man’s weight had pushed the roots deeper into the mud and anchored it well, but as he neared the halfway point of the river, the trunk seemed to bounce under his steps.

  “Oh, wow, it’s like a trampoline out here,” he called as he crouched and then straightened once more. The tree bobbed under his weight.

  The problem was the far side of the river. The canopy of the tree spread out so was more like a net than an anchor. While the branches supported the trunk, they also flexed under any additional weight.

  “Keep moving!” Ava yelled, perhaps unnecessarily, but she couldn’t help herself. She had now begun to sweat. Honestly, she wanted to cross already, get this over with, and push through and out of the Zoo.

  “Aye, aye, Captain!” Manny said and set off once more. He made it almost all the way across without slipping, but barely ten feet from the other river bank, one of the branches supporting the trunk cracked and the tree shifted down about a foot. He slipped and landed on his ass with a loud slap. Awkwardly, he rolled to the side, getting his legs wet, but kept his backpack with the radio inside dry, pulled himself back up, and crawled the rest of the way. For the last few feet, he had to distribute his weight between multiple branches. The main trunk simply didn’t go far enough.

  Finally, the pilot hopped onto the far shore, stood, and took a bow.

  “And for my next trick,” he yelled across the river, “I’ll juggle Gunnar’s grenades!”

  “You left ʼem here,” the soldier said and smiled once more. He hadn’t seemed pleased since he’d discovered Manny’s plan had to been to explode them a bridge, but he seemed to have recovered. “I gotta say, I hoped you would slip. Can I have my money back?”

  “I tell ya what, you get over and I’ll give you an encore performance—I’ll go back across walking on my hands. Sound good?”

  “Sounds great! That’d give me a chance to push those branches off the shore and leave you and the whole dingo-for-parents routine in the Zoo where it belongs.”

  “You wish, mate! We both know you lack the upper body strength and the moral fortitude for such an act. Ava, though. Well, we gotta be careful with her around.”

  Gunnar turned to her. “Are you ready?”

  She nodded. Their banter had done little to calm her nerves, but she appreciated the effort all the same. Her leg both itched and ached now, and another sensation—something like heat—spread out from the wound and followed the itch.

  Ava used the roots to pull herself up onto the top of the tree trunk. It didn’t shift under her weight nearly as much as it had under Manny’s. A good sign.

  “Keep your eyes on the far side. That’s the best way to keep your balance,” Gunnar said as he drew his rifle and scanned the woods behind them. That did little to calm her nerves, but she knew it would be evening before too long, and Manny had caused an extremely loud explosion.

  None of that mattered, though, not for the moment anyway. All that mattered was that she took a step, then another, and another. She kept her weight low and her arms out like she walked on a frozen sidewalk. The surface of the tree was already soaked, but fortunately, the bark was rough enough to provide decent traction for nurse’s shoes.

  Now that would seem like an embellishment if she survived long enough to tell this story. To think of crossing a raging river on a fallen tree trunk in nurse’s shoes. The idea of it made her smile. She took another step. And another.

  She made it halfway without incident. The trunk bobbed less under her weight than it had under Manny’s, but now, she had to be careful. The trunk divided into the canopy. There were still branches thick enough for her to walk on, but none as sturdy as the main trunk.

  Ava crouched and searched for the safest way forward. Near the middle, a little on the downstream side, were two fairly thick branches that extended almost all the way to the shore. She would take those. If she got close enough to the bank, she could always jump. Manny would catch her. He’d probably tell the story like she’d fallen from the sky or locusts had followed her.

  She took a step onto one of the smaller branches, careful to tread lightly.

  A wave of nausea washed over her and she slipped.

  The branch struck her chest as she fell and submerged herself in the river from the waist down. She tried to pull herself out, but another wave of nausea flooded her system. The poison now took effect with a vengeance, she was sure of it.

  Ava suppressed the urge to dry heave. If anything, the water flowing around her legs made this easier, and she tried to pull herself out of the water and back on to the branch. She almost made it out, but her arms began to shake. It didn’t make sense. She had pulled herself out of a pool thousands of times, but there it was, her arms trembled and had lost their strength—another effect of the poison, it had to be.

  She glanced behind her and noticed another branch. Cautiously, she reached out with her leg, put her weight against the branch, and pushed.

  The limb snapped off the trunk.

  The entire tree shifted with her as she splashed into the water. The branch she’d broken had extended all the way to the shore. Now, it was yanked away by the rushing water. With the sudden loss of its support, the tree leaned toward her and branches that had been in the water lifted out as it began to roll.

  Ava grabbed a branch as the entire tree pulled free and was dragged into the river.

  Submerged now, she tried opening her eyes but saw nothing except angry brown water so she shut them quickly. At least her leg didn’t hurt.

  In almost the same instant, her head shoved above the surface. The branch she’d held had rolled under the trunk and come back out the other side.

  “Ava!” Manny yelled. He had plunged into the river and now swam toward her, although he barely moved faster than the current.

  “Manny!” she shouted in response and earned a mouthful of water as she pushed off the tree not a moment too soon.

  The massive trunk struck a rock hidden beneath the raging brown waters with sufficient force to split in half. Both parts swung out toward the middle of the river.

  Manny grabbed Ava and swam toward land with her helping as best she could. They were washed another fifty feet downstream before they covered the ten they needed to reach the shore on the opposite side from Gunnar. Gasping, they stepped from the river onto a mess of tangled roots.

  Ava plopped down and hugged her knees to her chest. The nausea wasn’t as bad now, but it was still there. She looked at the tree. Both halves were almost lost from sight, carried downstream faster than a man could run.

  “Gunnar!” Manny called.

  That made her shake herself out of the shock that seemed to settle in. Now was not the time to be worried about a bout of queasiness.

  The soldier now ran downstream on the opposite side of the river.

  “Take a second then come on,” Manny said to Ava and ran upstream and opposite the other man’s position. “Do you have more grenades?”

  “Of course!” Gunnar said.

  “Then we keep moving upstream. It’s bound to get narrower. We’ll find another tree. Even your shit accuracy should be good enough to get you across.”

  “Right. And if you see one over there, I can probably throw a grenade across. Did you ever catch an egg?”

  She pushed to her feet. The nausea was still there, a reminder that they needed to hurry. The itching was gone, though, now replaced by the warming sensation. She didn’t know if this was a good sign or bad.

  Ava started after Manny and tried to keep pace. She looked across the river at Gunnar, only to see him stop, his eyes wide enough that sh
e could almost see the whites from fifty feet away.

  “What is it, Gunnar? Gunnar? What the fuck, man? Did your momma finally get the paternity results and you found out you’re half dingo? There are worse things than being my brother.”

  “It’s Peppy!” the soldier replied as he dropped to his knees and retrieved the radio. He talked into it for a minute, the words lost to the sound of the river.

  She caught up to Manny.

  Gunnar looked at them. “She’s alive but in trouble! Cat-sharks.” He sounded so relieved that Peppy was alive that he said cat-sharks the way most people would talk about a dinner with their in-laws. “I’ll…we’ll have to come back for her.”

  “No way!” Ava yelled. “Go find your girl!”

  He shook his head. “I’m not leaving you with that poison in your system. I saw you lose your balance. It’s getting worse!”

  “She has a point,” Manny said. “At this rate, you’ll only slow us down. I mean, you’ll only slow us down even more than you already have. Plus, I rang the dinner bell. We can’t stay here.”

  Gunnar nodded but his grimace grew worse as if he had to make a thousand decisions and hated all of them. Finally, all he said was. “Right. Stay safe. You don’t have much further. Fly, you fools.” Without a backward glance, he shouldered his pack, checked the sky, and vanished into the gloom of the jungle.

  “Did he really make a fucking Lord of the Rings reference?” Ava said.

  “Gunnar’s a huge nerd. I don’t doubt it for a second,” Manny said. “But I thought the line was, “Get moving you gol-dang morons. It’s supposed to sound more old-timey.”

  “He’ll be okay, right?”

  The pilot nodded. “Of course he will. But I won’t be if we don’t get you to Wall Two. Gunnar’s right about Peppy. She’ll kill me herself. Are you ready?”

  “What if I say no?”

  “Did I ever tell you about the time I hogtied a wombat, threw it over my shoulder, and completed a half marathon? I set a personal record if you believe that.”

  Ava snorted. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The pain wasn’t that bad. Or it hadn’t been, at least. It had definitely grown worse, though, and their breakneck pace didn’t help. In the back of her mind, Ava knew this was a good thing. They had to get out of there before dark. Gunnar had said that was when the poison would get worse, and it was already painful, so moving fast was good. If only her body believed that.

  “You know, I’m glad we left Gunnar behind. Him and his guns, and his MRE’s, and his fancy digital radio. He was a constant reminder that you yanks are obsessed with your guns and processed foods and fancy techno-phones.”

  She said nothing in reply and he didn’t seem to mind. Her left leg now radiated heat. It no longer itched. That sensation had burned away completely. She felt heat in her crotch too, and her right thigh, and her abdomen, all signs that the poison had spread.

  “It’s better without him. And Peppy was even worse. I swear, that woman would fake her own death only to make people go to her funeral. She wouldn’t even get a band. She’d make everyone sit in silence, trying to think of a nice thing to say about her and failing.”

  Ava tried to focus on the terrain. There wasn’t anything she could do about the poison except reach Wall Two, and that meant they had to keep moving.

  Fortunately, the going was easier. The Zoo wasn’t as thick there with less undergrowth and the trees spaced farther apart. Sunlight might even have streamed through the canopy in places if the sun had been overhead. Now, dusk was upon them, which made it harder to navigate.

  “What do you want most when we get back to civilization? I know you’re not gonna believe this, but I think I want a bath. A nice hot one with some o’ them fancy salts in there. There’s nothing I like more than a nice bath.”

  “You’re right. I don’t believe you.” Ava tripped on a root and sprawled forward. Her hands landed hard and shoved away an inch of dirt to reveal a bed of yellowish sand.

  “Manny!” Ava said, as loudly as she dared. “Look.”

  He looked at her with wide eyes. He hadn’t heard her fall and the sight of her sprawled on the ground seemed to really surprise him. Slowly, he put his pack down. Ava knew it was heavy because he’d never ditched the radio.

  “What am I looking at? You trying to cool down like a kangaroo? You know they lick themselves to do it? I don’t exactly think that’s a good idea, given your current state. I guess I could do it but honestly, I like to be romanced a little, maybe get a glass of wine in me before a girl asks me to lick her.”

  “No, look at the sand. The soil’s not as thick here as it was farther back. It’s probably because the Zoo had less time to develop.”

  “That sounds like an absolutely wonderful thing to share with some science nerd who gives a damn, but unless you find the keys to a helicopter and a maybe string tied to said helicopter, I gotta say I don’t entirely see the significance.”

  “It means we’re close. The Zoo’s not as deep here. That’s probably because the Surge only happened what…a week ago?”

  “That was yesterday, Ava. Come on, we gotta keep moving.”

  Manny pulled her to her feet. Did he think she was that bad? She had been joking. Of course she knew they’d only been here for a day—a single day that seemed longer than an entire year of being tortured by Mr. Bradley.

  “Come on, girl. Don’t make me tell you another story,” he said. Once he’d hefted his pack, he took her hand and pulled her forward. As soon as she was walking, he increased the pace. Once she caught up, he changed to a jog. She fought to stay with him, even though her legs, and especially her left leg, felt like lead. Her abdomen grew hot, too. She didn’t like that. Her organs were in her abdomen, and she liked those.

  “I like your stories,” Ava said.

  “Well, I’ll be—Ava, that was downright near convincing. Is that the tone you used to use on old Brad when you wanted him to give you a raise?”

  She laughed but it took effort. “Mr. Bradley didn’t give raises. He said that was Washington’s decision, not his. A cop-out for sure.”

  “That sucks, but I’ll do you one better. Whoa, watch your step.” Manny pointed at a fallen branch and she stepped over it. “I worked on a crab boat and had a captain like a fucking cartoon character. This prick had a beard like seaweed, one squinty eye that probably shoulda had a patch on it to save the rest of us the entirely unpleasant sensation of looking, and—”

  “Let me guess, a pegleg?” she said between breaths as they loped along.

  “Nope. That’d be ridiculous on a crab boat. He had a stump for a hand. He said it was pinched off by a lobster but I ain’t ever seen a lobster that big. Some assholes can’t tell a story, you know what I mean?”

  “Can’t we stop?” Ava asked.

  “I’m just getting to the good part,” Manny replied but she could recognize a shaggy dog story when she heard one. Manny was trying to keep her distracted, which meant he was worried too.

  “No, I mean can’t we stop for the night? It’s hard to see and my leg is so heavy. Even a breather would be great.”

  “No, sweetheart. We gotta keep moving. We can’t—”

  Ava heard nothing more. Her foot caught on a branch and then, unbelievably, she felt a slap across her cheek.

  Manny knelt in front of her where she sprawled on the ground. Her face stung.

  “Did you just slap me?” she demanded and tried to focus on her companion in the failing light.

  “If you didn’t like my story, you could’ve simply said so instead of pretending to pass out. It’s a bit melodramatic, don’t you think?”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Hell yes, I slapped you! How was I supposed to wake you up? With the last of our water we drank an hour ago?”

  “You slap like a girl.”

  He grinned. “It’s better than slapping like a dude. A dude needs to know how to throw a proper punch.
Slapping is undignified.”

  “Are you saying you want me to punch you?”

  “I’ll let you do anything to me as long as it gets you back on your feet and walking that way.” Manny pointed ahead.

  Ava had a moment of supreme confusion. She somehow thought they were supposed to go the other way. Not that she didn’t trust Manny, of course. She’d been the one who had blacked out, but it made her wonder more about the poison. It already caused her pain, nausea, and fatigue, but would it mess with her mind too? For what felt like the hundredth time, she cursed Bradley. She should’ve read that damn packet more carefully.

  “Can’t we take a little break?” she asked.

  He looked behind them, up at the canopy, and finally, into the gloom. “No, sweetheart. You already took as much break as you’re gonna get. We need to go. I don’t know much about poison, but Gunnar said we had to get you to Wall Two before…you know, agonizing eternal death and all that.”

  Ava laughed.

  “Well, call me a joey and set my mom to hopping. I guess Gunnar’s laughing in the face of your imminent demise routine is funny after all. Now come on, up we go.” Manny pulled her to her feet. It seemed like he had to do a lot of that lately.

  “This is stupid. I can hardly move and we’re making too much noise. Something will hear us.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

  She laughed again, the sound a little bitter this time. “But we’re out of grenades.”

  He gritted his teeth and hauled her along as he jogged on once again. “This is great. Gallows humor is contagious, apparently. You’d think people would avoid it on account of un-funny humor being the last refuge of the doomed, but I guess once you’re the one who’s doomed, it is kind of funny.”

  “You’re saying we’re doomed?”

  “I’m saying we will be if we don’t move. Now come on, Ava. You Americans only have so many sick days. You don’t want to burn those up out here.”