by Luke Duffy
THE DEAD WALK THE EARTH
PART III
http://www.lukeduffybooks.com/
Copyright©2015 Luke Duffy
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or copied
without the permission
of the registered Author and Owner.
1
The landscape below was one of complete devastation. The carnage was on a scale that she had never seen before, even when compared to countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan where she had served and seen the massive bombing campaigns that had been conducted to flush out the insurgency. Even in those war-torn countries, she had never witnessed such destruction. Where proud and elegant buildings had once stood alongside sprawling financial districts and shopping arcades, nothing but charred rubble and twisted steel framework remained, appearing like the colossal skeletons of ancient beasts. Huge craters, surrounded by piles of debris and mangled human bodies, exposed the impact points of the thousands of tons of ordnance that had been dropped upon the city.
The ground beneath the helicopter was colourless, a collage of greys and blacks with no signs of life. As the aircraft passed slowly over the ruins, Melanie imagined that the worst hit cities of Europe during the bombing missions of the Second World War would have appeared similar to what she was now seeing below them. For a vast area, there was virtually nothing left standing. Even the dead seemed to have fled from the vicinity.
The helicopter, a French designed SA-342, also known as a Gazelle, was a much smaller aircraft from the huge Chinooks that Melanie had become accustomed to flying. Compared to its large, heavy, twin rotor counterpart, the Gazelle was exactly as its name suggested. It was fast and extremely manoeuvrable, even in small spaces. It was agile, and its controls reacted instantly to the lightest touch. For the pilots who flew them, they were almost like toys after becoming used to giant CH-47s. The high-pitched scream of the Gazelle’s single turbine was distinctly different from the heavy thudding of the Chinooks and seemed to be in perfect tune with its size and capabilities. The appearance of the Gazelle had gained it the nickname ‘chicken-leg’ amongst British soldiers, but that did not detract from the value and appreciation they felt towards such aircraft. It was quick and capable of twists and turns that would tear the lumbering heavier aircraft apart at the seams. The machine was ideal for searching and scouting and could even be used, in a limited role, as an airborne fire support platform. Most of all, its small size had proven more fuel efficient than the larger helicopters.
“This is where the bulk of the fighting took place,” Melanie said to her co-pilot, Mike. “I doubt we’ll find anything in this area.”
“Jesus, just look at the place. I doubt we’ll find anything left alive in the whole damn city,” Mike replied bleakly.
He stared out of his window, scanning the ground in futile hope of catching a glimpse of anyone that was still alive. Amongst the debris and craters, he could see nothing but sprawled and dismembered bodies mixed in with the wreckage of vehicles and aircraft that had been caught in the blasts as the city was torn to pieces in the final desperate attempts to stem the flow of the dead tide. It had all been for nothing. No matter how hard the infected were hit, they refused to yield under the onslaught. In the end, it had been the living who had suffered a terrible and irreversible defeat.
Melanie could not blame Mike for his pessimism. They had been running search and rescue missions on a daily basis since the ground forces retreated from London. That had been more than four weeks ago. In the days that followed, they had picked up hundreds of survivors who were clinging to rooftops or hiding in basements. Some had even made it out of the city by themselves, but as the weeks passed, fewer and fewer of the trapped soldiers were found. The distress calls became less frequent, and of the intermittent radio transmissions that they did manage to hear, it was often too late by the time the helicopter crews reached their locations. Too many times the pilots arrived to find nothing but silence or the vacant dead eyes of the infected staring up at them as the stranded soldiers reanimated.
There were thousands of men and women still unaccounted for. The pilots knew in their hearts that most of them were either dead or walking dead, but they had to keep looking. They had seen how people managed to survive on countless occasions against the odds, and as long as there was still hope, they would continue to fly their machines over the ruins of the city, searching for anyone that remained.
“I know,” she said quietly through her intercom, “but we can’t give up. They were ready to call an end to the searches a week ago, then one of the choppers came back with two men on board who had been living like rats amongst the rubble.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. We can’t stop until we know for sure. But how the hell will we ever know for sure?”
“When the boss tells us, I suppose,” she replied with a shrug. She bit at her lip and then turned to him with an expression of sadness. “Actually, that day has come, Mike. We’re the last of them, and as of tonight, the search and rescue has been called off.”
The fuel stocks that they had managed to salvage from the airfield at Farnborough after the withdrawal had begun were almost dry. On the Isle of Wight, many of the larger aircraft were grounded indefinitely and were only to be used in an absolute emergency. With fewer and fewer survivors being found as the days ticked by, it had finally been decided by the senior officers to put an end to the excessive waste of fuel and resources and conserve what little they had left.
“Jesus, so whoever’s left down there will be left to rot?” Mike uttered as he stared back at her and then turned his attention to the ground below. “Poor bastards.”
“Ours is not to reason why, I guess,” she replied with a tone of regret.
She brought the helicopter into a hover and stared out through the Perspex bubble at her feet, peering thoughtfully into a deep and dark crater. She turned and watched the broken and crumbling walls of the destroyed buildings on either side of them. Only a few remained standing, stubbornly clinging to their foundations as the rest of the rickety structures collapsed around them.
“We’ll head towards the river,” Melanie said after a while. “We still have a few hours of daylight left, so we may as well use it.”
She pulled her attention away from her thoughts and the desolate landscape below as she increased the collective control and twisted the throttle in her left hand. She pushed down slightly on the cyclic stick, and the aircraft instantly tilted its nose and they began to gather speed and forward movement.
“I think anyone who could have, would’ve headed for the water’s edge. At least that’s what I’d do if I were stuck down there.”
“Yeah, me, too, I guess, but we haven’t found anyone in weeks.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky?” Melanie replied with an optimistic smile.
Mike nodded in agreement, keeping his attention split between the ground below them and the map he held open in his lap. Soon they had passed over the wasteland of the battle zone and began to make their way towards the city centre and the south bank of the River Thames, flying just a few metres above the rooftops. The rubble and smashed streets began to give way to buildings and pavements that had escaped the obliteration. Signs of damage could still be seen, but the ground beneath them appeared more recognisable as streets and roads compared to the lunar landscape they left behind on the southern outskirts. However, they remained in no doubt that the city was completely dead. Abandoned cars littered the corridors of the capital and piles of light debris fluttered along on the wind, becoming entangled with the mounds of motionless bodies that lay clumped together in the deserted avenues. A number of dark and featureless fi
gures stood in the streets staring back up at them. The ghostly shapes clawed at the air and shook their heads with excitement, staggering along as they followed the noisy machine that glided over their heads.
Mike paid them very little attention. He had become completely desensitised to their appearance, at least when they were a distance away. He was more concerned with looking for signs of the living, and focussing his attention at street level would be a waste of time. The streets were the domain of the dead. Anyone surviving down there would be on rooftops or barricaded into the higher floors of buildings. He had realised that fact early on during the outbreak; the living, when being hunted by the infected, always sought higher ground. He noted that it seemed to be an instinct that most of the animal kingdom carried.
Up ahead, a building with a wide flat rooftop caught his attention. It was five storeys high, and the only thing breaking up the smooth expanse of the roof was a fire door situated at one end. To the left of it was a communications mast and a number of high cables that connected onto the tops of other buildings in the surrounding streets. It looked as though there were a number of bodies on the rooftop, lying motionless. However, one of them seemed to be moving. On hearing the rapid beat of the Gazelle, the figure stood up. It was far too animated to be one of the infected. Mike squinted and leaned forward in his seat, hoping to gain confirmation of what he thought he could see.
“There,” he cried over the intercom with excitement and pointed to an area north-west of their position. “Someone’s alive down there.”
Melanie instantly turned her head and followed Mike’s finger. She saw it too. The man was quite a distance away, but she could see his arms waving above his head and his body bobbing up and down as he desperately attempted to gain the attention of the pilots.
“Seen,” Melanie confirmed as Mike began sending a sighting report back to the operations centre at the Isle of Wight.
She pushed the cyclic to the left and twisted the throttle as she increased the pressure on the right anti-torque pedal. The aircraft swung around in a lazy arc and headed straight for the building where the trapped man continued to flail his arms and bounce on the spot. Soon, they were directly overhead. The survivor below them, as the downwash of the rotors buffeted him and blew dust into his eyes, continued to stare up at the hovering helicopter. He was becoming more frantic in his actions, shouting up to them so loudly that Melanie and Mike were able to hear him over the noise of their turbine engine.
“Let’s not be too hasty,” Melanie said as she moved to begin a three-hundred and sixty degree sweep around the building’s perimeter.
The man beneath them began to scream. His face was one of confusion and hopelessness as he watched the aircraft begin to pull away from him. In panic, he bounded across to the roof’s edge, waving his arms more vigorously in an attempt to gain the attention of the pilot and to show them that he was alive.
Mike, seeing the unfortunate man’s expression and understanding his plight, gave him a reassuring wave, rotated his finger around in a circular motion, and then pointed to his own eyes, hoping to relay the message that they needed to ensure that the area was safe first. The figure on the rooftop appeared to understand, but the fear in his face did not seem to ease. His eyes remained locked upon the Gazelle and the two pilots as they swung out and away from the building.
At street level, Melanie could see hordes of the infected pushing themselves up against the exterior, hammering against the walls and doors. More bodies were converging on the area, adding to the seething mass of browns and greys below. Their droning sound could be heard inside the cockpit. A relentless hum as thousands of voices wailed and moaned together. Despite the fact that the barricades seemed to be holding for the moment, both pilots knew that it would only be a matter of time before they weakened and collapsed. The dead had proven to have far more endurance and tenacity than any manmade structure. Eventually, they would smash their way inside and tear through the building, searching for living flesh.
As the helicopter continued its sweep, the man followed them with his eyes, turning his body and refusing to lose sight of the machine for even a second in fear of them flying away without him. Mike watched him and wondered how he had found himself stranded on the roof and for how long he had been there.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I don’t think anything, yet.”
Melanie eyed the man. She could see that he was wearing an army uniform. It was torn and covered with grime, but he was identifiable as a soldier. Around him were a number of bodies that she presumed were the remains of his unit. They too wore uniforms, but they were unmistakably dead. Even from a distance, Melanie could see that their heads were deformed, having been smashed inwards, and pools of dark liquid had seeped out onto the gravelled surface around them. The living person did not seem to have any equipment or weapons with him, not even any indication of food or water. It was obvious to Melanie that he had not been on the roof the whole time since the failure of the offensive. He could have hidden elsewhere but was finally discovered, and by sheer luck, made it to this particular rooftop. Regardless of what his story was, the man was alive, and he needed rescuing.
“Looks pretty secure to me. I don’t think the dead are inside, and the roof looks strong enough for us to land.”
“You really want to land?” Mike asked, turning to her with an anxious look.
“We can’t risk a hover in this little bird, Mike. That comms mast and cables could ruin our day if we were hit by a sudden gust of wind.”
Mike looked back at the asphalt of the roof and then at the waving man. She was right about the tower and cables, but he still did not like the idea of landing on a rooftop in a city that had been bombed extensively. The entire structure could be unstable.
“A gust of wind? I thought you were fast, with lightning reactions, Mel?” He grinned back at her daringly.
It was nothing to do with him wanting to witness her flying skills, although he did his best to disguise it as such. He was just terrified of touching down and becoming vulnerable to attack. She shook her head, refusing to be drawn in by his fear fuelled challenge. For years she had flown much larger and heavier aircraft, and she still did not completely trust her reactions and instincts in the Gazelle.
“It’ll be fine, Mike,” she said reassuringly and nodding towards the waving man with the desperate expression etched into his face. “We’ll pick that poor bastard up and be in the air again before we know it.”
Mike looked at her and could instinctively sense that there was a ‘but’ coming. He checked the control panel in front of him, and without Melanie needing to say anything, he knew what the potential risk was.
“The wind will be behind us,” he said with an air of regret and acceptance.
Melanie nodded.
The ideal landing position was facing into the wind, but with the position of the communications mast, power lines, and fire escape, she had no choice but to approach with the wind blowing them forward from the tail rotor. With such a light aircraft and such little room for manoeuvre, it would be difficult to maintain a stationary position as the helicopter decreased power for landing, and any sudden gusts could cause them serious difficulties. With little else in the way of choice, they had no other option but to take the risk.
“We’ll be okay, Mike. Just keep an eye on the ground, and watch for any drift.”
They carried out a final sweep along perimeter of the building, staring down at the infested streets below them. The masses of bodies paused in their assault against the walls and doors as the aircraft passed over them, staring up with their gaunt ashen faces and dead eyes. A ripple of energy seemed to flow through the crowds, making them sway like the long stalks of a wheat field in a sudden breeze. The corpses thrashed and clawed at one another, howling up at the helicopter as it drifted by over their heads.
“Jesus,” Mike whispered.
A few moments later, and the helicopter was once again positione
d above the lone survivor. As Melanie controlled the aircraft, Mike guided her down.
“Nine feet, eight feet…” Mike relayed to Mel as he looked down on to the roof. “The left is good and you have six feet clearance on the right.”
The man below stepped back, keeping the landing site clear but remaining close enough to reach the Gazelle in just a couple of bounds once it was in position. He continued to alternate his attention between the aircraft and the fire door behind him. His eyes darted nervously and his body language betrayed his high level of anxiety. As the helicopter began to lower towards the roof’s surface, he turned and stared at the dark doorway of the fire escape, as though expecting someone or something to come up from inside the building and drag him away when he was just moments from rescue.
Melanie stole a glance to her right and watched as the edge of the helicopter’s rotor disc swept around above them, just two metres away from the communications tower and the steel cables that could snag their blades and send them crashing to the ground.
“Five feet, four, three feet…”
The skids touched down lightly against the gravel of the building’s rooftop, and the cockpit rocked as the aircraft settled. Melanie maintained as much power as possible in order to prevent the roof having to support the whole weight of the Gazelle. Like controlling the clutch of a car with a manual gearbox, keeping the helicopter’s power at the point of bite would also allow them a rapid take-off if the situation suddenly changed.
“Okay, Mike, get him in here.”
Mike was just as eager as the bedraggled soldier to get into the air and away from the roof. He turned to the survivor to wave him forward from his position just a few metres away but saw that the man was already moving.
As the helicopter made contact with the building’s roof, the man instantly sprang forward. Ducking slightly to ensure that he remained beneath the spinning disc, he reached for the rear door with shaking hands and expressions of panic and relief fighting for dominance over his grime covered face.
