The Failed Coward

by Chris Philbrook

  The WPG men slowed their sprint to assist the aging Fitz. The Air Force men ahead with Harold instinctively slowed their gait as well, sensing something was amiss behind them.

  “Fat prick.” Kevin threw his arm under Fitz’s and without missing a step soldiered on carrying a heavy portion of the man’s weight. Ahead of him he watched as the elite Air Force men fanned out and began to fire past him into the bulging horde of undead closing in on them.

  Jaden bucked off ten quick rounds, dropping ten bodies to the slick grass just as fast. When he finished he started walking backwards, assessing their new situation. He thumbed his throat mic and hailed Kate in the plane’s cockpit. “Captain I think we need a ride. Can you come out and start to taxi in our general direction? We’ve got a minor casualty and could use a little hand from you.” He fired five more rounds at the dead before Kate came back to him.

  “We’re spinning up, pulling out now. We’ll drop the back ramp. Make sure that fucking runway is clear for me or this’ll be less of a flying away operation and more a driving in circles operation. See you in a minute.” Once again Kate’s calm demeanor dominated the tension. She would be legendary if they survived this.

  “Roger that. Guys, she’s coming to us. We can slow down.” Jaden’s men dropped to a knee and they picked up their rate of fire. Kevin and Fitz shuffled past Harold as he poured red hot rounds out of his M4’s barrel into the undead behind them.

  The wall of flesh pressing at their rear was horrifying. The men shooting didn’t have the time, or the interest to look at the faces of the dead people they were shooting. They lined up their weapon’s sights on the shape of a head, and sent a 5.56mm projectile into it. The bodies dropped like gory headless bowling pins, tumbling down and into the way of the undead behind them. The men trying to get on the plane might be rescued by the sheer incompetence of the dead. They were simply too stupid to step over the bodies falling in front of them.

  From the direction they had been running in Kate’s enormous MC-130 slid out of the massive hangar opening. The four turboprops picked up speed and the chest shaking buzz grew in intensity. The silent rage of the wall of undead approaching them from one direction was almost overshadowed by the raw mechanical power of the approaching special operations aircraft. The men looked quickly behind them and saw Kate’s face through the tiny cockpit window. She powered the plane up and swung it wide.

  When the massive wing passed over their heads the rain stopped for a moment. Immediately after, they were nearly tossed to their asses when the backwash from the massive engines hit them. The men scrambled to their feet with the scores and scores of undead a mere fifty feet away now. The plane slowed its forward progress and they noticed the tail cargo door was now dropping slowly for them to get in.

  “TAXI!” Kate announced over their comms.

  Fitz and Kevin turned one last time toward their pursuers and separated to empty their weapons. Time for a little sweet payback. They emptied the remainder of the magazines they had, and slapped in fresh ones.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here.” Kevin and the warriors surrounding him ran with their last reserves, and climbed up onto the plane’s rear ramp. Harold yanked Fitz up as the older man grimaced from the burning in his stomach.

  Ten thousand hands, half filled with sharp weapons, reached out towards Kevin as he looked back from the inside of the plane. A white haired elder male zombie dressed as he would’ve been in life, dressed in the garb of a priest, walked out from the now halted army of dead.

  Mysteriously he locked gazes with Kevin from afar, and he raised a long, archaic sword above his head triumphantly. Kevin noticed the downpour came to a halt immediately, and with a single, unified purpose, the collective mass of undead behind them dropped the weapons they had clutched for so long. Their target lost, they disseminated immediately, spreading out to find fresh flesh to murder.

  The priest lowered the sword slowly, and dropped the tip three distinct times in mid air as if he was knighting Kevin from afar. Then, with supernatural strength the priest stabbed the point of the sword down into the concrete, sending a spider web of fractures out from the blade and embedding it there. The hilt wobbled, and Kevin could feel the vibration in his chest even over the rumbling of the massive plane’s engines.

  The army of undead spilled around the form of the priest as if he were a dam stopping a small portion of a flood. The dead priest slowly lifted his left arm, and gently pulled up his blood encrusted black sleeve, revealing his wrist watch underneath. Then with ominous intelligence, the priest rested his finger down on the bezel, counting out for those watching that there would be another time, and soon.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  The men gathered around Kevin in the back of the plane watched all this as the ramp door lifted up, shutting the solitary dead priest out from their newly safe environment. The plane powered up further as it made the turn onto the runway for takeoff.

  Fitz stepped in front of Kevin and waved a hand in front of his face, snapping Kevin out of his sudden trance.

  “Yeah? What?” Kevin shook the cobwebs out of his head.

  “What the fuck was that?” Fitz looked at Kevin intently, with fear filled eyes.

  “I don’t know,” Kevin muttered.

  Harold, standing next to them, added his two cents before walking away, deep into the cargo bay of the plane. “Mate, they didn’t get what they came for. Now they’re taking what they can get.”

  Kevin didn’t like that thought one little bit.

  *****

  After he double checked to make sure Becky and Shelby had made it aboard the plane, Kevin made his way up to the cockpit to talk to his pilot. He leaned over in between the two seats in the cockpit as he adjusted the microphone on the bulky aviation helmet. Kate looked over her shoulder at him for a moment as she leveled the bird out. The glass of the cockpit was covered in rivulets of water from the rain storm that had just ended.

  “What’s the plan Captain?” Kevin asked her as he tried to see something, anything through the thick clouds they were in.

  The plane shuddered with heavy turbulence, causing Kate to pause, “Well Mr. Whitten. Due to an inability to top off our tanks, we definitely cannot follow our ideal flight pattern. We are now on plan B.” Her sarcasm was unmistakable.

  Kevin sighed. “How fucked up is plan B?”

  “Ever been to Morocco?” Kate asked.

  “A long time ago. What the hell is in Morocco?” Kevin asked her as the clouds parted, and the sunlight burst into view. The golden orb was still far above, and from the vantage high atop the angry clouds below, they looked white, and puffy, and even friendly.

  “There’s a small FOB there that we were doing covert shit out of. It should have an ass ton of fuel for us, and if we’re lucky, some of the Green Berets that were there might want to go home with us.” She turned and winked at him.

  “They’re gonna be all men Kate. You’re shit out of luck.” Kevin poked her.

  “Hey, head is head. I’m gay but I’m not that gay.” Kate adjusted some controls and sat back as the two men laughed at her.

  “What’s after Morocco?” Kevin asked.

  “We bunny hop to the Azores, refuel again there hopefully, then we fly all the way home.” Kate and Nick crossed their fingers in unison.

  “Um, what the fuck was that?” Kevin pointed his wagging finger at their superstitious activity. It was bad juju to pull that bullshit.

  “Well, even if we top off at both locations, we’re gonna be flying on fumes when we reach the eastern seaboard. It’s going to come down to how bad the head winds are.”

  “There you go talking about head again. How close is it gonna be? What if there’s no fuel for us in the Azores? I mean, should I seriously think about buying a time share while we’re in Morocco and skipping this whole trip home idea?” Kevin scratched his ass.

  “Well Kevin, if there’s no fuel for us in the Azores…”

  “Yeah?”

 
Kate looked straight forward as she responded to him, “Then we fucking swim home.”

  Kevin clucked his tongue like Lancaster used to during their phone conversations. He hoped that wasn’t a new habit he had formed.

  “Sounds cool, let’s do it.”

  Kate smiled.

  Kevin shrugged as he sat the helmet down and turned to leave the cockpit.

  Some tickets are one way he thought to himself.

  He wondered what interesting things awaited them in wonderful, dark Africa.

  Where this bullshit all began.

  April 9th

  There’s always drama when people collect together. Always. Sometimes the drama is good, and other times the drama is bad. Right now, we’re teeter-tottering back and forth between the two. Good drama: Gavin and Abby are getting along well, and they seem to be very mature, and level headed about their relationship. Also good is Ollie and Melissa. They are clearly awesome together, and both are workaholics here on campus. They’re machines that are happy to do their work.

  Bad drama: arguing over plans. Everything was going great until we met Blake. Not that he himself has been a problem. He’s pretty good all things considered, especially when there’s food involved for him. What’s been shitty, is the information he’s revealed to us.

  Sometimes ignorance is bliss. I’ll get to that in a bit.

  We returned back to the cul de sac yesterday with the HRT, Gavin’s truck, and the plow. Obviously, Gilbert’s vehicle was abandoned on the side of the road, but when we approached the cul de sac for our prescheduled noon meeting, we noticed the truck was gone from the spot where it died. It seemed unlikely that the police had it towed too, which boded well for us.

  Parked in the middle of Walt’s road was Gilbert’s truck. Blake was sitting on the hood, patiently waiting for us with a smile on his face a yard wide. All I could think of was the guilty cat with the feather in his mouth. He looked like he’d gotten his cake, and it was delicious.

  We parked at the end of the road, and as agreed, I walked towards him alone. We thought it best not to scare him by showing up with a bunch of folks right off the bat. He slid off the hood of the truck as I approached.

  We said our hellos, and right off the bat you could tell he was far more prepared for this. He almost seemed, well, like his dialogue was scripted.

  “Mr. Adrian, pleasure to see you again,” was the first thing he said. I was reminded of when Gavin was all nervous to talk to Patty. It felt like he was a little nervous, as well as a little excited.

  “Nice to see you as well Blake. Hope all is well with you.” I smiled at him, and noticed his color was better than the day before. He didn’t look fatter or anything, but he looked, I dunno, healthier?

  “I’m great. Eating pretty good, had a safe night last night, and I got your truck working too. Feeling like I earned all that food from the house over there.” He thumbed at the beige cape we let him get all the food out of.

  I nodded at him in agreement and thanked him. We made idle chat about the truck, then the weather for a bit, and he pointed at the plow truck as well as Gavin’s Dodge, and mentioned some neat facts about the vehicles that I think were supposed to highlight his usefulness and intelligence. He obviously liked vehicles, and knew quite a bit about them. I was secretly hoping that he could be our Hector. He didn’t look Mexican though. We would have to make do.

  Blake explained the gas tank of the truck was almost one third water. He siphoned the tank dry, emptied the fuel lines, found some usable gas somewhere, added in a thing of fuel additive, and he said it turned right over. He could not have looked happier.

  He also told us our vehicles were probably all going to shit the bed in a similar fashion sooner or later. I’m not an expert, please keep that in mind Mr. Journal, but he seems pretty bright on the subject. Our fuel will be accumulating moisture even if stored in drums, and sealed. As the moisture content rises, the fuel loses potency, and eventually, it becomes inert. We need to maintain our fuel, removing the water every so often, or it’ll go bad. Even the diesel.

  As he explained it all right over my head I kept a close watch on our surroundings. We didn’t hot key this conversation over the walkie in the event something happened, and mid stream he was interrupted by Abby calling out the presence of a zombie on Route 18, slowly shuffling our way.

  Blake’s face straight up went stiff as a board when he heard the radio crackle with her voice. His response after hearing her over the radio was, “Holy shit a girl? How old is she?”

  I grinned, and before I responded to Abby’s radio call, I said to him, “She’s younger than you, prettier than me, and more dangerous than the both of us.” He looked defeated.

  I radioed back for her and Gavin to deal with it preferably without a gun involved, and after a minute or so of nervous waiting, they gave the all clear. Blake looked more relieved than I felt.

  I changed the subject, “So Blake. We’ve got an offer for you. I’d like to hear your opinion on it, and if you’re game, I’d like to get started on it immediately.”

  “Let’s hear it.” He licked his lips again. I vowed to find him some Chapstick.

  “You know more about downtown than any of us do at the moment, and like I said the other day, that information is valuable to us. We’ve got ammunition for the guns you’re using, as well as spare food and clean water we can trade you for that information, and other help down the line.”

  He chewed on that thought for a few seconds, and came back with, “I’ll tell you where the zombies are. I’ll tell you where I think food is. I can also tell you where some of the asshole survivors are too. I mean, there are a few groups out there that are pretty nasty people. I don’t care what happens to them. I won’t tell you where the good people are yet. I need to know you’re all good folks first.”

  I nodded, understanding most of what he meant, “Asshole survivors?”

  He looked very displeased having to talk about it. But the tale he told… explained why. Here’s as much of his tale as I can recall;

  “When things first went bad, everyone in town scrambled to get everything they could. The grocery store had a gun battle, Moore’s got all shot up, the used car dealership across town got robbed, and even the damn gas stations got ugly. After a few weeks though, everyone kinda settled in, and the haves ate well, and the have-nots starved, or had to come out with all the fresh dead wandering. Those folks usually died. Those that made it out and back from my trailer park before they died too told me about this huge house south of town where you could get some food and water for a price.

  You had to bring bullets, or something of value to trade for it, but they had a lot of food I guess, so I went to check it out one day about three months after everything happened, just as the cool weather hit, and the leaves started to turn.

  The house had a huge reinforced metal fence around it, one built originally because it was a small farm. I saw a few cows inside the fence, and at the gate they’d built some kind of guard shack or gatehouse or whatever out of plywood, and corrugated metal roofing. The house was a big white farm sat about a hundred yards back at the end of a long dirt driveway. They hollered out to me to stop moving when I got to within maybe fifty feet of the shack, and they asked what I was there for.

  I told them I needed food, and water if they had it, and the older man’s voice from inside the shack asked me what I had to trade for it. Back then I had little to nothing, and I said just that. He said to get moving then, because all I’d be was a burden. I tried to say I could work for them, but he said I couldn’t be trusted, and to go my way.

  When I left, I looped around wide, and came back to a good hide in the woods where I could see the gatehouse, and I hid there, watching for a few days to see what happened. I watched all day, every day. I saw about ten or twelve folks, all over the farm, working. There were maybe five men, and each had a rifle, one just like the one you have Adrian, and they came out at night to farm, to harvest the back garden they ha
d. After the first day I recognized the old man as the husband of the family that ran the big farm stand on the south end of town. You know the one right? They just built an ice cream window on it? They used to make their own ice cream?

  So anyway, the people on that farm run that farm stand. Well, used to run it. During the time I watched, I saw them trade with people several times. Once, the last trade I saw before I took off, I watched the old man and his wife come out of the shack to look at two kids that had come with two parents.

  Now I can’t read lips, and I can’t say for certain what they were saying, but I think they traded for those two kids. I mean yeah it’s possible that they just took them in, but Adrian I tell you, they were looking at them like sides of beef. You know, looking at their arms and legs and seeing if they were strong? Making sure they were healthy and shit?

  I ran off after that, because I had a bad feeling. About when the snow started to fall, I was hunting down in that area there trying to get a deer or some rabbits or something, and I realized that I was near the farm. I figured I should look back into it to see what’d happened there, and wouldn’t you know, they were still there. I even saw the two kids they’d traded for out on the land inside the fence, working the few cows they had. After a few hours, I could just tell those kids were miserable. I mean Adrian, they looked like death warmed over. They looked like me for cripe’s sake.

  Someone yelled from the farm after awhile, and the kids went inside. I went to leave, but I noticed outside on the road, there were a lot of bodies. I mean a lot man. Looked like they’d been shooting zombies a lot lately. I couldn’t help but wonder how many of those bodies belonged to living, breathing people though.

  I don’t know man, maybe they’re good, maybe they’re shit, either way, I don’t trust em.”

  Yeah not cool Mr. Journal. His story gave me the creeps.

  He told me exactly where to find that farm. He also told me about six or seven concentrated spots of undead around town. He didn’t know why those spots were heavily overrun with the dead. I guess it could mean that there are survivors there, or maybe there is something making noise there, or maybe, just maybe, it’s utterly fucking random.