by Ben Reeder
“Sonofabitch!” someone yelled. “That was an Apache!” I felt my blood run cold at the news. I only knew of two things as tough as or tougher than an Apache gunship. One was an A-10 Thunderbolt, a tank buster of a plane known as the Warthog that sported half a ton of armor, and the 60 plus ton M1 Abrams, a main battle tank so indestructible it could withstand close range hits from its own cannons. I’d only heard of a handful of Apaches ever being shot down, and none of them had been brought down by anything short of a missile or concentrated anti-aircraft fire. The only advantage we had was that the Apache, like the Warthog and the Abrams, was designed mostly to fight targets on the ground. Of course, if it was carrying Stingers like we were, all bets were off. I looked at the lone Stinger tube on our right side and hoped it was enough.
We climbed as quickly as we could, our pilot trying to get altitude on the Apache and the still unseen third bandit. We cleared a column of thick smoke and veered right as we found the third chopper, another Blackhawk. Its pilot fired a missile the moment we saw him, but it never came close, and I didn’t see the pilot’s board light up to indicate the bandit had locked on to us. His door gunners were more on the ball, and opened fire on both sides as we passed. I got a brief impression of rounds hitting the left side of the chopper, then one of the Marines tackled me and shoved me back against Amy’s seat. I felt impacts against the Marine on top of me, then we were through the hail of enemy fire. When he didn’t move, I turned to look over my shoulder and saw a dangling eyeball and dripping gore. With a push against the seat, I shoved his body off of mine before Amy could get a good look at the ruin of his face, then turned to take stock of the situation. Blood was running across the deck, and both gunners were slumped at their guns. Looking forward I could see the pilot was dead, and the co-pilot was trying to fight the controls.
“Somebody get on one of the door guns!” the copilot was yelling over the headset. I looked back into the compartment, and only saw three Marines moving. One was pressing his hand down against his leg, the one in the middle seat against the rear wall was cradling a bloody arm, and the other was struggling to unbuckle the left door gunner’s body from his seat. I turned to Amy.
“Are you hurt?” I asked her. My hands were running along her arms and legs, searching for wounds.
“No!” she yelled. “I’m okay!” I nodded to her and moved to the right door gunner’s body. Trying to move a dead Marine and work the four point harness that held him in place was going to take too long. Instead, I pulled his combat knife from his belt and cut the straps, then pulled him to the side.
“Do one of you know how to use this thing?” I asked. They both nodded, then the Marine with the wounded leg pointed to the gunner’s seat.
“Siddown!” he yelled. I must have looked like a fish for a moment because he yelled it at me again, this time like a drill sergeant. “It’s simple! Pull the left trigger first, then the right trigger a second later. Follow your tracers and walk your fire where you want it!”
“I’m not a gunner!” I yelled at him. “I’m not even a Marine!”
“You are today!” he yelled back. I straddled the seat and grabbed the miniguns grips, looking for a target. I also tried to ignore the warm, damp feeling on my butt. As I searched, I saw black smoke coming from the engine cowling. Then the other chopper was above us and to our right. Tracer rounds sliced through the air ahead of us, and the copilot banked hard left as the deadly line of fire cut through the spot we’d just been in. When the other chopper dropped into my field of fire, I pressed the left trigger, then the right and heard the ripping sound of the minigun unleashing three thousand rounds a minute. I watched my own tracer rounds make a bright line in the air behind the other Blackhawk. I swept the spinning barrels left, then right as the bullets chewed the other helicopter’s fuselage, then swept it back and forth in broad swaths to be sure I killed it.
“You’re shooting at my kid!” I yelled at the black chopper as it burst into flames. I let go of the triggers and found myself breathing hard.
“Bandit left!” I heard the man on the other side yell, then the copilot brought our nose up and braked us hard in midair. Again, the metallic hammer of the Apache’s thirty millimeter cannon sounded, then the other bird was passing in front of us.
The nose dropped back down, and I heard a half second of tone before the copilot called out, “Fox one, motherfucker.” The Stinger pod spat its lethal payload into the air, then the rocket motor ignited and sent it straight for the Apache. The enemy pilot tried to maneuver out of the way, but we were too close for him to do more than tilt his aircraft. The missile slammed into the gunship just behind the pilot’s seat, and sent the black helicopter down in a ball of fire.
“Oorah!” the Marine on the other gun called out, and the other two echoed him. I climbed over the bodies sprawled on the deck and stuck my head into the front compartment.
“How bad is it?” I asked. The copilot’s face told me what I suspected, and I grabbed the pilot’s headset to replace mine.
“We’re gonna lose power in a couple of minutes. I can bring us in, but it ain’t gonna be pretty. If we survive the landing, it might be easier than staying alive afterward.”
“Am I patched into the radio on this?” I asked.
“Yes, just press that button there to transmit. Our callsign is Talon 3,” he told me as he put both hands on the stick.
“Bobcat, this is Dave Stewart on Talon 3,” I said, making hash of radio etiquette. Static answered me for a few seconds, then a familiar voice filled my ears.
“For Christ’s sake, Stewart, you are harder to kill than a goddamn cockroach,” the Marine major said with something resembling humor in his voice.
“Kind of you to say so, sir. Look, I need to ask you a favor. Is there a woman named Maya Weiss on your plane? If she is, I’d really like to talk to her.”
“Is it important enough that it can’t wait ‘til we land, son?” he asked. Moments later, the C-130 came into sight through the smoke. “Aw, hell,” I heard him say.
“I don’t think we’re going to be landing in the same place, so yeah, I need to know if she’s still alive and if she is, I need to talk to her.” Moments later, Maya’s voice was in my ears, and I felt my breath catch in my throat.
“Dave? Baby, are you okay? What about Amy and Karl?” she asked. Her voice was thick with emotion, and a little rough around the edges.
“I’m fine, baby. So is Amy. Karl…he…he didn’t make it. He saved our lives.” I looked out the front canopy and saw the ground getting a little closer to us. I took a deep breath and steeled myself for the next part. “Look, we’re going down, Maya. You’re going to have to get Cassie and Bryce to Nate’s. I’m sorry to put that on you, but I’m going to catch up to you as soon as I can.”
“I told you not to do that to me again,” she said, her tone forced.
“And I told you I couldn’t promise that. But I will promise you this, Maya Weiss. Amy and I will make it back to you.”
“Swear it?” her voice cracked.
“I swear it. Like I told you before, even the zombie apocalypse can’t keep me away from you.”
“I’ve got good news,” she said with the barest hint of a waver in her tone. “Leo and Sherman are on the plane with us. They even got our Land Masters loaded. Did you get my care package?”
“Yeah,” I said, my throat tight.
“Then you better get your ass in gear. You know how your cat gets when you’re gone too long.” A red light started flashing on the instrument panel, then another, and alarms started buzzing.
“I gotta go, baby. I love you,” I said as the plane banked in front of us and circled to our left.
“I love you, Dave.” Her voice was strong by then, and steady. I pulled the headphones off and went to the right side of the compartment. The chopper began to shudder as we got closer to the layer of smoke that blanketed the middle of Kansas City, forcing me to grab one of the straps next to the door. Then, the sound o
f the C-130’s turboprop engines was clear and loud in my ears as it passed by on our right side. The black haze rose around us as I watched the plane head west, and we fell into darkness, the chopper’s engine silent, the only thing slowing our descent the rotors themselves.
“I will never falter,” I recited from the Airman’s Creed as I started to strap myself into the seat beside Amy’s. “And I will not fail.” I reached out, grabbed her hand…and prayed.
Zompoc Survivor:
Evac
A Zompoc Survivor short story
First published in
All Things Zombie:
The Gathering Horde
“Negative, Angel Seven, evac is a no go,” I said into the mic. “Primary LZ is compromised, secondary LZ is out of reach.” I kept my eyes forward so I didn’t have to see the faces of the two hundred kids I’d just condemned to die and handed the radio handset back to Private Jamison. Not that the view outside the front doors of the high school was much better. Three Humvees were parked nose to tail across the recessed concrete slab in front of the doors. Beyond them, I could see the blank, hungry faces of the horde of infected that waited patiently to get inside and eat us. Beyond them, I could see the two Humvees that had pulled up ten minutes before and had tried to get us out. I’d watched three soldiers die as the horde turned and sprinted into the hail of 5.56 rounds they’d poured into them without hesitating. They’d been overrun in seconds.
“LT?” Jamison asked a few seconds later. “It’s him, ma’am. He wants to talk to you.” Skinny, nervous and unsure of himself, Jamison was the stereotype of the weekend warrior. He licked his lips and offered me the handset, his dark eyes scared. Three days ago, it would have been like looking in a mirror. I’d been just as scared then as he was now. Somewhere along the way, the fear had stopped.
“Lieutenant Carson here,” I said.
“What do you mean your primary landing zone is compromised?” a familiar voice grated over the line. “It’s on top of the goddamn school. How in the hell did you manage to fuck that up?”
“Colonel Kearnes turned, sir,” I said curtly. “His armor wasn’t thick enough to keep one of the infected from biting through it, and the suppressor drug you gave us only made it worse. He turned half of the men who made it in. I had to lock them in the gym to keep them from getting in where the kids were. Any other questions, sir?”
“You’d better watch your tone, woman. Do you know who you’re talking to?”
“Yes, I do, Mr. Sikes. I’m talking to a civilian who has zero authority to order me around. Being VP of whatever at Monos means dick to me. You’re outside my chain of command, and I’m ordering you to clear this goddamn channel.”
“Those children are a valuable asset, lieu-” I heard him start to say as I tossed the handset back to Jamison and turned my attention back to the view outside. Movement from across the road caught my eye. Frantically, I pulled my binoculars from my vest and focused on the two Humvees on the street. In the fading light, I could see a man crouched low as he made his way behind the two trucks. Moments later, he emerged into the open space between them, and I got a brief look at him. Dark slacks and a dark green polo shirt, with dark hair. He was a fucking office worker. I had to give him his due, the dude was ballsy. But sooner or later, he was going to find out what I already knew; eventually, the dead ones got back up, and they didn’t go back down. When they did, a thousand infected were going to swarm him, and he was going to be lunch. Some dark scary part of me that had woken up over the past few days also realized when the dead tried to eat, him, he was going to be a distraction. There was nothing I could do to save him, but he was about to save two hundred kids.
“Jamison!” I snapped. “Take Saunders! Break ‘em into four groups!” I turned and ran back down the hallway. “Listen up! We’re getting out of here. We have four choppers coming in. Break into four groups, do it fast!” To my left and right, kids looked up at me with stunned expressions. I went to the middle of the line against one wall and pointed at the two kids on either side of me. “You start group one, you’re group two.” I pointed to the kids on the other side of the hall. “Three and four!” I called out. They nodded. Behind me Jamison and Saunders were looking at me for guidance. I pointed to Jamison, held up on finger, then to Saunders and held up two. They nodded and I slipped my own earpiece and mic into place and switched my personal radio on. “Cal, Tran, you’re leading groups three and four, you got it?” I said over the radio. They acknowledged and I went to look back out the front doors. The idiot by the Humvees was out in front of them now, fiddling with the boot of the lone soldier who was laying in the open. Then he was moving back around the front of the lead Humvee. Whoever he was, he didn’t have long for this world, and I wasn’t about to let his idiocy go to waste. Sure enough, one of the dead ones started to move. And seconds later, I heard gunshots.
“Angel Seven! Angel Seven!” I called into the mic. “This is Warrior One, reassess for evac, I say again, reassess for evac.” The infected were turning, heading for the hapless idiot across the parking lot. Behind me, my team was getting the kids to their feet, hope a sudden buzz in the air. Out on the road, the office worker dropped one of the dead. I shook my head, waiting for the soldier he’d just wasted a round on to get back up.
But he didn’t.
The office guy popped one, then shot another, ran up on it and put a bullet into its head; they stayed down. He backpedaled to cover behind the Humvees. Why wasn’t he running?
“Angel Seven, this is Ranger Nine, I’m on station. Tangos are on the move, still too hot for evac.” In the odd way of things since the outbreak began, that made sense. For some reason the infection rate among kids was almost zero. If there were a lot of survivors, you were going to find them at a school. But even by those standards, we were still too big a risk. My heart fell at the words. Hope died in my chest even as I saw the headlights of a little blue truck come at the office guy. One of the infected bounced down the road, and moments later, the truck was moving again, with the office guy in the back, looking back at the horde. More and more of the infected started after the truck, and I expected them to burn rubber to get as far away as they could. But the truck kept an even speed as more and more infected fell in behind it. He had the chance to get away clean, but he wasn’t. Either this was all part of office guy’s plan, or he was improvising like hell. Either way, I was impressed.
“Holy….” I heard the voice of Ranger Nine’s pilot say slowly. “Angel Seven, move in for evac of Warrior One.”
“Ranger Nine, this is CQ. How many tangoes remain?” another voice came over the line.
“CQ, this son of a bitch is leading almost all of the tangoes off. Angel Seven, Angel Flight has a window. Repeat, Angel Flight has a window.”
“Way to go, office guy,” I whispered as I turned and headed down the hallway. Hope returned like a flood. “Heads up everyone! Let’s get to the back door. There are four choppers landing here damn quick. You have one minute to be on board before they are wheels up again. If you are not on board when that happens, you will be left behind!” Kids started getting to their feet and filing toward the rear doors.
“Group One, follow me!” Jamison said with a crisp, confident tone I’d never heard from him before.
“Group Two, on me!” Saunders called out. Cal and Tran were standing at the head of their groups as well. I did a quick check, hoping we’d got it right, and each group was about fifty kids. Too many in one group would ground the big Chinooks of the Angel Flights.
“Warrior One, this is Angel Flight. We are wheels down in five…four…three…”
“Go! Go! Go!” I yelled. My team pushed the doors open and sprinted across the asphalt behind the school. Four big Chinooks were touching down on the blacktop as four lines of kids poured out of the school. My boys ran at the head of each line, and I ran toward the open space between the two middle birds. I let myself have a moment of pride as each man stopped himself at the edge of the ramp,
turned like a pro and brought his rifle up to cover the kids. Saunders and Cal covered the inside while Jamison and Tran got our flanks.
I sprinted between the two choppers and put myself into position in front of them, the place the worst danger was going to come from. Office guy and his friend in the truck had cleared our six, but Cox South Hospital was less than a mile to the east of us. Already, I could see the jerky movements of infected as they were silhouetted against the street lights in the parking lot of one of the clinics. Soon…too soon…they’d be on us. I reached into my vest, pulled out my Mk 1 Illumination grenade and pulled the pin. The spoon flew to the side as I tossed it ahead of me. Right on the three count, it went off, and showed me easily a dozen infected sprinting toward us. They were too close.
It was time to make The Call. Over the past couple of days, I‘d seen a hundred soldiers make it, and every time I’d wondered if I had the guts to do the right thing when the time came. Did I sacrifice myself to save the kids, or did I run and save my own ass? It didn’t turn out to be a hard decision at all.
Without another thought, I dropped to one knee, brought my M4 up and laid the sights on the nearest infected. The butt of the rifle bucked against my shoulder, and the tango dropped. I moved my aim left and popped another one, then a third. For a moment, they stopped. Their heads turned left and right, as if they were looking for something. Was the rotor noise and prop wash confusing them? Or was it the light from the grenade? Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to waste it.
