With a gun pointed at Lily’s head I didn’t see why not. “Yes sir.”
“Good. This is what I want you to do. There is a sat phone at the nurse’s station on the main floor at the hospital in Fort Leonard Wood. We are going to call that number. From what I understand your father’s friend Al is sick and this is where they are now.”
I started to say something. He held a hand up to stop me.
“No games Captain. You are going to tell them that you are with us, that we are coming by helicopter, and that they are to wait for us there. I also want you to make it clear to your father that we are all friends now. Can you do that Captain?”
“Why should I help you? You’re just going to kill us all anyway.”
“That’s a good question. I’m afraid I don’t have an answer. No wait I do have an answer. Sargent, I’m going to count to five. When I get to five kill her.”
I had no choice. Maybe I could say something to warn my dad. I had to do something. “Just get me the phone.”
“Fuck that. These assholes can suck my dick. Don’t sell your dad out.”
Lily had such a way with words. “I’m not going to stand here and watch them kill you.”
“I’ll make a deal with you Captain. My doctor says we only need one or two test subjects. You pick the two. The rest I’ll let live.”
If he thought I would fall for that he was crazier than I thought he was. Lily and I were dead. My only hope was to get them to kill us before they could do whatever experiments they were planning. “In that case general, you’ve got your two test subjects. Do with us as you will.”
I could tell I’d taken him by surprise. “Fine captain. That will be fine. We’ll still be going to Fort Leonard Wood. So I’ll still need you to call your father. I don’t want any trouble with them when we get there.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking. I’ll just tell them to clear out then”
“That won’t be necessary. All I want is for them to know we pose no threat.”
“You pose no threat?” I shouted. “You’re a General in the United States Army. You’re supposed to protect the citizens of this country. Instead you’re busy trying to round up enough people to run some kind of half assed zombie experiment on. I’m not calling anyone.”
“Sargent hand me your sidearm.”
The gun was already in the Sargent’s hand. All he had to do was hand it over to General Simmons.
General Simmons put the gun to Lily’s head and looked me dead in the eye. “I want you to understand how serious I am. So I’m going to do this myself. You’ll make the call. If you don’t I’ll blow your whore’s head off her shoulders right in front of you. Your choice.”
As crazy as it sounded I knew if I didn’t make the call he would do exactly as he said. “Make the call.”
The phone must have rung fifty times before I gave up. “They’re not at the hospital,” I said, and disconnected.
“They’re there. I know they are. Hit the redial.”
I hit redial. “How long are we going to keep this up?” I shouted. “I’m doing what you want. At least you could point the gun away from her.”
“Not until what I ask of you is done!”
“And what happens if no one answers?”
“I haven’t decided on that yet.”
The ringing stopped. I could hear someone breathing, anticipating what I was about to say.
“They answered, didn’t they?”
“Take the gun away from my head,” Lily shouted. “Don’t say a word ‘til he does.”
General Simmons lowered the gun. “Let’s all calm down now. Say something Captain.”
“Dad, is that you? It’s me Tim?”
I could hear his friend Gina talking on the other end but didn’t pay much attention. I needed a way to let them know things were very wrong on this end. “Is Uncle Al any better?” I knew it was lame but I couldn’t think of anything else to try and tip them off. “That’s too bad I hope he’s not infected. Look the reason I called was to let you know that we’ll be there sometime today.”
General Simmons pushed Lily towards the Sargent and brought the gun up and pointed it at me. “He’s not your uncle he’s your dad’s neighbor!”
I was pretty sure he was going to shoot me so I dropped the phone and went for the gun. My first instinct was to make a sweeping motion with my arm to get the barrel to where it wasn’t pointed at me. The gun discharged. I could feel the heat from the round as it went past my arm. If someone would have been watching I’m sure they would have come away with the impression that I knew what I was doing. I knocked the gun from his hand and brought the same hand up to punch him in the throat in one motion. After that I felt something hit me in the back of the head. As I went down things started looking a little fuzzy around the edges. I heard another gunshot then things went black. I’d been shot and was dying.
……………….
“Tim you’ve got to wake up.”
I could feel something large jabbing into my side. The pain would go away then start over seconds later. No matter how many times I moved away from whatever was jabbing into my side the pain would return. “Leave me alone. I’m dead.”
“No you’re not, dammit open your eyes. We don’t have much time.”
I recognized that voice. Either Lily was dead too or I was still alive. There was no way I could be dead and hurt this bad. Maybe I was a zombie. Not even they could be in this much pain. My head felt like it was about to explode. I was definitely still alive. This was worse than any hangover I’d ever had. Almost worse than the constant throbbing behind my eyes was the ache I felt in both my sides. And there was that jab again.
“Open your eyes Tim. I need you to untie me.”
Just like that it all came back. I was in the back of the dump truck again and we were on the move. I would like to say my eyes snapped open, I jumped up, untied Lily, and was able to get us out of there, but it didn’t go like that. The best I could do was to pry my eyes open and roll in the direction of the foot that had just been removed from my ribs.
“Don’t move. I’ll try to get to you. We don’t have much time. I can already hear the chopper starting up. We’ll be there in a few seconds.”
Lily rolled in my direction. Her hands were tied behind her back and I began fumbling with the knots. At least I could still move my hands without too much pain. “How long have I been out?” Whoever had tied her up did a good job but I could feel something loosening.
“Maybe ten minutes. We haven’t been on the road that long. Two minutes top.”
“What happened?”
“After you hit General Simmons in the throat one of his men hit you with the butt of his rifle. The guy that had a hold of me tried to shoot you on your way down. I was able to push him hard enough that he missed. Then General Simmons stopped him from trying again. After that three or four of them took turns kicking the shit out of you while you were on the ground. Then they threw us in the back of this truck. And now here we are.”
The truck came to a stop. The sound of the rotors told me we’d be on the chopper in a few minutes. “I can’t get these undone fast enough.”
“They’re loose enough. I’ll be able to get my hands out in a second. When I make my move be ready.”
I could see how worked up Lily was. I hated to burst her bubble, but if I didn’t say something we would both be dead in a few minutes. Would that be so bad? If they got me first then no. Dead is dead. After that what does it matter? One thing I wasn’t ready for was to see her die. “Lily, I don’t think I can even stand, much less run. If you get a chance take it. I’ll do what I can to help you, but don’t wait for me. I love you.” There I’d said it. “I can’t watch you die.”
I could see her melt before my eyes. Lily was a fighter and she was ready to fight. To stop her now, when she was so ready, was a hard thing. “We go together or we don’t go at all.”
The lift gate on the truck came down. Two of the Gene
ral’s men were waiting for us. “Move your asses over. Intel has it there’s a small group of zombies headed this way. We’re dusting off before they get here.”
Lily stood up and I used her to pull myself to my feet. I held her shoulder while she drug me along with her to the back of the truck. “He can’t get down by himself. Would one of you give us a hand?” Lily shouted, over the roar of the helicopter rotors.
“Sure thing lady.”
They both reached up, grabbed me by the arm, pulled me forward, and let go. I was able to turn my head to the side before I hit the ground. I landed on my ear and shoulder. Instead of flat on my face.
“Now get him on his feet and get you asses moving.”
If I could have gotten up on my own accord I would have ended all this right then. These two seemed pretty nervous. It wouldn’t take much to get one of them to shoot me. The wrong look maybe a few shitty remarks, but that would put Lily in danger. The two of us had to make it to Fort Leonard Wood. Maybe there would be something we could do to keep this from happening to my dad and his friends. Lily reached down and pulled me to my feet. Our captives were too busy worrying about getting left behind by their friends to notice that her hands were untied.
Everyone was already on the helicopter and four of us were the last to board the chopper. Our first guard got on and I was just about in when he tried to push past me. The other guard had fallen back against side of the helicopter. Both of his hands came up to his neck. Blood flowed between his fingers as he clutched at his throat. He’d been shot!
John was out there somewhere. Lily and I had the same idea at the same time. She helped me to get as far away from the chopper as fast as we could. The side door to the helicopter slid closed, obviously they were taking fire. We got about fifty yards away when someone came running towards us from the other side of the helicopter. The rotors were still turning and there was a hell of a noise coming from the chopper but things were starting to quiet down. I could hear shots being fired and saw the man from the helicopter go down as he made his way towards Lily and me.
When the helicopter finally went silent I could hear the General on the chopper’s public address system.
“It seems you lied to me once again Captain. Sargent, my sharp shooter has your friends in his sights. Which one should I have him shoot first, Captain Downs or Corporal Flowers? Tell you what, I’ll decide.”
A second later I heard a shot fire and dirt kicked up at my feet.
“The next one goes between his eyes. I want you to come out with your hands in plain sight.”
John came out of the woods about a hundred yards from Lily and me. He held his assault rifle over his head.
“You don’t need that any longer.”
John dropped the rifle and continued toward us. “Sorry, I tried,” he said, as he walked by.
“They beat the shit out of Tim. I’m sorry John we couldn’t even make a decent escape attempt. It’s not your fault.”
“You got yourself captured for nothing,” I said.
“No more talking. The three of you, hands in the air.”
By the time we were to the chopper six armed soldiers were waiting for us. General Simmons climbed his fat ass down from the helicopter and joined us. After everything that had happened I couldn’t help but want to laugh at him. He was so mad you could feel the anger radiating from every pore of his body.
General Simmons waved a hand at Lily and me. “Hold those two.”
We were both grabbed by the arms. General Simmons drew his sidearm and shot John high in the right side of his chest. It was like in a movie. The classic place for the hero to be shot so that he could survive long enough to come back and defeat the bad guys. Only this wasn’t a movie. John staggered back and fell to the ground. Lily struggled against the soldiers that held her. The one on her right must have done something to get her special attention and she spit in his face. Suddenly I didn’t feel like laughing anymore. I wanted to rip General Simmons throat out with my teeth.
“Fun times over. I have a surgeon on board. If we all work together he might be able to save your friends life. Men let them go.” We were released. Both of us immediately went to John’s side. “You two help your friend on the chopper. We really should hurry. Don’t you think?”
John was still conscious. I could see he was in immense pain but he resisted. “I’m dead and you know it,” he said, through clenched teeth. “Do me a favor and kill that bastard.” Then he passed out.
Lily looked at me. “What should we do?”
“He’s not dead yet. Get him on board.”
Chapter 20
By the time I made it back to the hospital the girls had gotten most of our crap together. They’d been having a problem with Al though. He was fully conscious by now and had other ideas. Abandoning the hospital was the last thing he wanted us to do.
I could hear Al arguing with Cindy from the moment I hit the front entrance. “Don’t you get it? These bastards are trying to grow the perfect zombie. The last thing we want to do is turn this hospital over to them.”
I walked up on the two of them and caught them by surprise. “He’s right you know.” Cindy jumped when I said this.
“Goddammit Steve you scared the shit out of me.”
“I could hear you coming a mile away,” Al said, with a grin.
“Glad to see you’ve rejoined the living.”
“Takes more than a little zombie blood on a knife to kill me.”
“If it didn’t kill you then it wasn’t zombie blood,” Cindy said.
“I don’t know. I’ve had an urge to eat you ever since I woke up.”
“We’re not talking about your sexual fantasies old man. They don’t count. Licking ain’t the same as biting.”
“You know better than that girl. I bite, lick, suck, hell I do it all.”
“Save it for later you two. Like preferably when you’re alone.”
Gina walked into the room. “Save what?”
“We’re having sex talk. Would you care to join in?”
“The last thing I want to do is talk sex with you old man.”
“Then let’s talk about why you think we should bug out of here?”
This question was for me not Gina. “On the drive back here I rethought my stance on this. Are you up for a possible fight?”
“If we don’t fight we should run as fast as we can out of here and never look back. That means leaving your kid with them. You realize that, don’t you?”
“I didn’t talk to him last, Gina did. But if you ask me it doesn’t sound very good. What have you got in mind?”
“Well I think they’ll be coming here in something pretty big and the helicopter pad next to the hospital won’t be big enough for them to land on.”
He was right. I hadn’t even thought of that. I’m so glad Al is back. “So you think they’ll try to land out by the airfield?”
“No. That’s too far away. They’ll probably set down in that open field. There’s plenty of room out there. They could land three or four choppers out there.”
“So we should set up snipers,” Cindy said. “The four of us can’t cover much of that field though. Especially if they have that many helicopters.”
“There’s only one chopper. I doubt he’s got more than ten or fifteen men with him, and I’d be willing to bet your son and his friends whittled that number down some already.”
I hoped he was right. The only thing I found in the least bit encouraging about that the whole thing was that Gina had talked to Tim a while ago. Hopefully he and his friends were still okay. If they had fought against General Simmons’ men though chances were not everyone had come through unscathed. “So, what’s your plan?”
“It’s not going to be easy. They’ll have some big guns mounted on whatever they come in here with.”
“Once they land those guns won’t be of much use to them,” Gina said.
“You’re right. We’ll want to let them get away from the chopper befor
e we try anything. That way they won’t be able to take it back up and cut us to pieces.”
“How about we blow it up when they’re all out of it? You can hide in those woods,” Gina pointed to the wooded area bordering the field. “When they land and are all out of it you can work your way close to it and throw a couple grenades at it.”
Gina had a pretty good idea. I was sure Al would like blowing up a military helicopter. With all the ammunition it would probably carry there would be a hell of an explosion.
“That would be fun but I’m sure they’ll be ready for us. Remember they’re holding Steve’s son hostage. I don’t think they would take too kindly to that little girl. Do you?”
Gina’s face reddened. Al sure knew how to push her buttons. “Then what’s your plan old man?”
Al wasn’t going to rise to the bait. He just smiled back at her. “One of us has to kill General Simmons. As soon as he gets far enough away from the helicopter we take him out. That should slow down the rest of them.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
“They’ll have guns on your son and his friends. I’ll take the General and whoever’s got a gun on the girl. Steve you take your son’s guard. Cindy you’ve got the guard on the other guy, Tim’s friend.”
“What about me? I’m a better shot than Steve.” Gina catches me looking at her, amazed that she could be so flippant about taking someone’s life. “Sorry baby, but it’s true.”
“That’s not it,” I stammer. “Never mind. Go ahead Al.”
“You are a better shot. That’s why I want you watching the rest of them,” Al said. “You see any other threats take them out. Everybody knows this but I’m going to say it anyway. No hesitation. As soon as I make the first shot, that’s right the General goes first, take your target down. Any questions?”
Al waited a minute and when nobody said anything he started back in.
“We need to get a move on. They’ll be here soon. Everybody take your radio with you but maintain radio silence. I would imagine they’ll be monitoring our frequency. So save whatever you have to say for after the shooting. Even then use your radio only for an emergency.”
Dead Life (Book 5) Page 15
