by David Smith
I guess Sergeant Brown knew we weren't all going to make it because as they got closer, he got down and low crawled out toward them, shooting the whole way. "Lay off that 240!" He shouted. "You gonna burn it up." But I just kept squeezing.
"Left side!" The pilot yelled and I looked out the other door and thousands more were coming across the field. I guess all the noise got their attention.
I let off the trigger to try to take it out of the mount and it was too late. It just kept cooking off rounds so I held onto it and kept traversing. A couple seconds later, it jammed, blew the feed tray right off in my face, knocked me on my back in the chopper. I was disoriented for a second and when I sat up I saw Brown getting torn apart. All three civilians were next to me in the chopper and the medic was laying in the grass with his own knife sticking out of his throat, blood still pumping out around it. The Dad had pulled my side arm out of my holster and was shooting into the crowd and all of a sudden, one of them grabbed me from the open door on the other side.
I'm not even sure what happened next with all the blood in my eyes but with a lot of kicking and stabbing, I managed to get the left door shut. The ones on the right were climbing in with us though. Brown and the medic had distracted a dozen or more but the rest just rolled right over them like a tidal wave. The Dad had gotten the door closed as far as he could with the gun mount in the way and he was a big guy, had most of the doorway blocked but they had him tangled up like an octopus, just tearing into him.
"We gotta go, now!" I yelled and the rotors started beating hard. All the weight in the right side with all of them hanging on, it leaned toward them when we started up and the blades dipped down, got about fifty of them in a big half crescent shape. It put us in a spin and I just knew we were about to be without a ride so I drop kicked the dad out the door with all the rest of them hanging on. All the scratches on his back and chunks of meat bit out all over his arms and legs, I knew he was good as dead anyway.
Flying back to base, I noticed that the boy had been bitten on the arm. It probably happened in the chopper because it looked fresh. I looked at the mother and she started crying and hugged him.
"He's infected, isn't he." I yelled and she nodded. I put on the headset and told the pilot. "The boy got bit in the fight."
After a long sigh he said, "We can't take him out of the city."
I covered the mic to tell her the bad news and I she just nodded before I could say anything, and wiped the tears from her face. She already knew.
We set down on a rooftop of a ten story, brick apartment building across the street from a White Castle burger joint. She calmly stepped out of the chopper, holding the boy in one arm and holding my hand with the other. "I'm sorry!" I yelled to her as the wind beat down on her from the rotors. I watched her as we lifted off and she got smaller and smaller. I was still looking at her as we crossed the river and watched her walk off the edge of the building, still holding him to her chest. I looked out over the city and saw two more choppers going down, out of control, one in the river and one disappearing between the buildings.
When we got back to the airport, I sat in the door of the chopper and let a medic pick the shrapnel out of my face and put on a couple of bandaids and butterflies. After all, I didn't want to lose my place in line. As soon as they were done I went to the nearest supply truck I could find and tried to get another machine gun for the door.
"What unit are you with, Specialist?" The supply sergeant asked me. He wouldn't give me the gun so I went to the next one, then the next. Finally, I found my unit and the commander told me to go to our medic and sit this one out. I told him I would but went back to the chopper instead.
"You ready to go back?" I asked the pilot.
"We're not going anywhere till a crew chief checks out these rotors." He answered so I ran to another one that was waiting to take off. Three guys were coming to this one so I just fell in behind them, jumped on, sat down and buckled in.
They all turned and looked at me, a fresh Lieutenant, a young Sergeant and a forty year old Specialist, and I waited for them to tell me to get out of their chopper. I saw the Lieutenant's eyes go to my rank, then my unit patch and ranger tab and he said, "Welcome aboard young man. I'm Lieutenant Burton, New Jersey National Guard."
As we took off I put on the headset. "Fly south, I just came from the north end. No survivors on that end." I said and they all three looked at me.
"My orders are to start in Harlem and go north. Who is this anyway?" The pilot asked.
"Might as well do as he says, sir." The Lieutenant said. "From the looks of him, he's been there and back."
As we flew over the river and headed south, the pilot asked, "Seeing as your chopper was the only one to make it back from the first run, any suggestions?"
"I'm full of them, sir." I was looking at a 240 in the door. "First, you got any rockets on this bird?"
"Negative."
"You might want to get some next trip."
"We've been instructed not to engage." He informed me.
"Just telling you what I saw, sir. These people aren't just sick or crazy. They're killing anything slow enough to catch and besides, they're already dead."
He looked at me over his shoulder then back ahead. "Say again?"
"That was a good copy, sir. You see those crowds in the streets? They're dead."
"You're talking about zombies?" He said sarcastically. "Like in the movies. No heartbeat, eating people, gotta shoot them in the head zombies."
"Roger that."
There was silence for a moment then he spoke. "Shepard X-Ray this is Shepard 1. Are you hearing this?"
"That's a good copy, Shepard 1." Another voice said.
I didn't bother arguing. I knew he'd have to see it for himself. "Second, don't land anywhere until I rappel down first and make sure it's safe. Who's the medic?" The Sergeant raised his hand. "Sergeant, When I rappel down, I'll check any survivors for bites. When they get in the chopper, you do whatever it is you have to do. No one gets in the chopper if they have bite marks or fingernail scratches." I looked at the specialist. "You know how to operate the 240"
"It's my favorite." He replied, grinning from ear to ear. He was a hard looking man and, the way he smiled at the mention of blowing something up, I knew he had experience.
"Anything that looks like a walking corpse, blow it away, gotta get their head though. Be careful you don't hit the ones running away. You'll be able to tell which ones are alive."
He nodded, unbuckled, jumped down in the floor and hung his legs out the door, straddling the 240.
We were flying down the edge of the city, high over the East River when I saw someone run out onto the top balcony of a forty-something story, red brick building. There were three other balconies sticking out below it, each further than the one above it, then a straight drop a few hundred feet onto the roof of an adjacent building.
"To the right!" I shouted and the pilot slowed and flew closer. It was a doctor who looked ready to do surgery with the a cap on his head and a surgical mask hanging around his neck. He looked down over the edge of the balcony to the one below it and turned to yell something back into the apartment. A woman in maroon scrubs ran out next, also wearing a surgical cap and mask, followed by a middle aged, slightly overweight man with male pattern baldness and a hospital gown, wielding a fire ax. As we hovered closer I could see that the nurse was holding a scalpel and her hand was covered in blood up to the wrist.
She dropped it over the edge, to the balcony below then climbed over and hung down, the doctor holding on to her wrists as the man with the ax waved to us. We were only thirty yards or more away from them and slightly above when I saw inside the apartment. The wall facing us had three plate glass windows, high as the ceiling, and inside were several dead coming after them.
"Put some rounds into that apartment!" I shouted to the Specialist.
He opened fire through the windows. One pane of glass shattered at a time and I could see the dead falli
ng as he blew their legs out, just below the knees. The doctor dropped the nurse, who landed hard and rolled to her backside on the next balcony down. He then climbed over, hung at arms length and dropped down, landing on his feet. The dead were now laying on the floor of the upstairs apartment, dragging their shattered legs behind them, smearing the beige carpet with blood.
The man with the ax looked over the edge and back at the dead crawling out onto the balcony, over the broken glass. He looked over the edge again as the doctor motioned for him to jump down but decided against it. He then ran back into the apartment and started chopping with the ax, busting heads in two or severing them from their bodies.
The nurse was up and limping to the edge with the help of the doctor as the man with the ax came back out onto the balcony. We hovered above them and as I tied a rope to the landing skid, two more dead men, both of them in their boxers, came out of the apartment in a sprint and tackled the man over the edge. I hooked in and slid down the rope so fast I could feel the heat through my gloves. They were on top of him, tearing at him as I landed on the second balcony, next to the doctor and screaming nurse. He was fighting back but losing, his forearms chewed up and bleeding. I pulled my side arm out and shot them in the backs of their heads and they fell limply on top of him. I rolled them off and he couldn't get up, couldn't move his legs. I think he broke his back in the fall so I started checking the other two for bites. They were clean so I motioned for the pilot to get as close as he could to the edge.
He hovered down to us but was still about ten feet away. I saw the Specialist look over his shoulder then point to the balcony above us. He was as close as he could get without the rotors hitting the building, we were going to have to jump. The skid was a little past the third balcony and over the fourth with the three hundred foot drop just past it.
I realized there was no way we were going to jump the gap without a running start and the wall was too high to clear in a leap anyway so I motioned for the pilot to hover directly above us instead. As he moved into position I asked the nurse. "Were you ever a cheerleader?"
"No, why?" She yelled over the beating wind.
"You're gonna learn real quick then. Doc, come here."
He looked about forty years old but was in good shape, built like a man who was divorced and hit the gym an hour a day or more and a little taller than me. I positioned him in front of and facing me and pulled her next to us.
"Put your hands on our shoulders and your good foot in our hands. On the count of three, we're gonna lift and you jump and grab the skid with both hands."
She looked very nervous but nodded.
"Listen, if you miss, we'll be right hereto catch you. You gotta jump hard and high, okay?" She nodded.
On three, we threw her. It was perfect, any lower and she would have missed but she grabbed the skid right at the pause. Seeing that the Lieutenant and the Sergeant were reaching down to pull her up, I turned to try to figure out how to get the doctor up to them and saw three dead coming through the door, out onto the balcony with us. Through the plate glass windows, I could see that there were several more coming behind them.
I shot the first three as they came out, all of them in hospital gowns, then turned the corner and fired till I ran out. I dropped four more but that only made the rest come after us even faster.
"Climb the rope!" I shouted at the doctor. He seemed to be in good shape, I wasn't sure how good but there was no time to devise another way.
He started up and made it about halfway before his arms started giving out. It was further than I thought he would make it, those climbing ropes are hard to free climb wIthout the right technique. Ironic.
I pulled my knife and in few seconds I was backed up to the wall, pinned by three of them while the rest went after the doctor, still hanging from the rope about four feet from the skid. I was punching, kneeing, stabbing, just trying to do anything to keep their teeth away from me.
The doctor realized he couldn't pull himself up, the Specialist didn't have a shot from his angle, and the Sergeant couldn't pull the rope up with the dead standing on it. The Lieutenant pulled his pistol and started shooting at the dead that had me pinned. Normally, I would have been pissed at the close range but if he didn't, I was dead anyway. He couldn't hit them with everything moving the way it was and the doctor suddenly let go. He came crashing down into a crowd of the dead and they all fell. He then jumped up as they started to reach for him and charged at the ones that had me pinned. He slammed into them hard enough that we all fell. We got up, stomping and stabbing as the ones from under the chopper got to their feet and a few from the balcony above came tumbling over the edge down to us.
The chopper hovered away from us then down and I saw the gunner taking aim. Just before he opened fire I ducked behind the wall, pulling the doctor down with me. I closed my eyes and could hear the bullets passing through the bodies, glass shattering, concrete crackling, and felt blood and bits of human shrapnel raining down on us. When I looked up, the only thing left was two with their legs shot off, crawling toward us. I got up, stabbed them in the head and turned to the doctor. "Let's get out of here."
"You get out of here." He said and held out his arm. Above the elbow, on the tricep, there was a long gash. "I think one of them caught me with his mouth open when I fell."
"You saved me. Thanks." I said to him.
"I'm a doctor. You're a soldier. It's what we do, right?"
I left him there on the balcony. I hooked in to the rope and had the pilot set us down on a building a block away so I could get in. I had always hated doctors, felt like they were all just greedy assholes who would say anything to make another buck off of you. I still think most of them are, but not that one.
I flew thirty more missions with those guys over the next seven or eight days and slept maybe a total of 12 hours. We did switch out pilots though, a couple of times. We got around sixty or seventy people out those first few days but after that it got harder and harder to find anyone alive. There were a lot of rooftops where we had to leave people behind on one trip and came back to find nothing but a herd having a feeding frenzy. The pilot requested rockets but they were all being sent to the forces stationed at the George Washington Bridge. After losing six birds, command insisted we didn't need them to perform rescue operations.
On our thirty-first mission, we circled everything south of Central Park and didn't see a living soul, just streets full of dead walking slowly past each other. We were passing the Brooklyn Bridge when we got a call from command.
"Shepard 1, this is Shepard X-Ray, over." I could hear gunfire in the background.
"X-Ray, this is 1, go ahead."
"Do not return to base. I repeat, do not return to base. Alpha point had been compromised." There was desperation in his voice.
"X-Ray, we have about thirty minutes of fuel, please advise, over."
"Your orders are not to leave the city, you have been placed under quarantine, find a safe haven and stand by, over."
"X-Ray, there is no safe haven here. We're are proceeding to your position, over."
That was the last we heard of X-Ray or anyone at the operations center. The pilot banked to the right and started out over the river. Just as he did, two Apache attack choppers came into view at our twelve o'clock from below.
"Shepard 1, this is Gaurdian 6. You are in unauthorized air space. Return to the city or we will be forced to take you down, please respond."
The pilot started climbing. "We're not gonna outmaneuver or outrun them." He said to us.
"What do you want to do, sir?"
The Lieutenant looked at me. "Sir, I think I'd rather take my chances with the zombies than those Apaches." I said.
"Yeah, at least we'll have time to say our prayers while they're killing us. Chief, I saw a skyscraper just south of Central Park, way above the surrounding buildings. It looked like the top twenty floors were under construction."
"I know the one, sir."
"Maybe they wo
n't notice us, it being so high. Can you put us down on top of that one?"
"With my eyes closed."
The chopper banked hard left and dove past the Apaches just as they were catching up to us.
"Guardian, this is Shepard 1 and only." The pilot said. "We are returning to authorized air space, do not engage, over."
The Apaches broke off and headed back out over Queens as we leveled off and headed toward one of the tallest, skinniest buildings in the city, three or four times taller than any of those around it. After we landed, he cut the engines and we just sat.
"Well, what do we do now, sir?" the Sergeant asked, after about five minutes of silence. We were all so tired we couldn't even think.
"Specialist, give me a count of the MREs." The Lieutenant ordered.
He drug through them and looked up with a sarcastic grin. "Ten, sir. About three that are actually edible."
"That's two a piece. We don't know how long we'll be here so we need to make them last." He said.
Then the Sergeant gave his assessment. "Sir, that's only gonna last about two days."
"Well, we'll make that four at least."
"Sir," I interrupted. "There's enough junk around here to make some traps and lots of pigeons. Probably some rats too if we go down into the building."
We sat on top of that building, 1400 feet above the city, for three days. There were so many dead and we were so high up that the streets themselves looked like they were alive and breathing. We only opened one MRE and that was just to get the bread out to use for bait. We caught several birds but none of us were very hungry to begin with, so we let most of them go. It was mostly just a way to pass the time; sitting there, holding the string, waiting for them the walk under the cage. We made a game of it, seeing if we could get two or three at a time.
On the fourth day, about ten in the morning, we heard this noise like none of us had ever heard before. It sounded like Armageddon, like Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined and then broken down into a three hour symphony of explosions and gunfire. Looking north, we could see an armada of Apaches hovering and unloading their entire payload on the George Washington Bridge. They must have been about six miles away and at that distance, looked like a swarm of tiny hornets. The bridge, it's long platform and two towers were just gray streaks against the horizon. A multitude of A-10s and F-16s strafed the area firing rockets and machine guns. Hundreds of tanks and thousand of men were positioned on the New Jersey side and were giving it everything they had, judging from the millions of tracer rounds ricocheting into the sky. After a few minutes, the bridge was no longer visible through the smoke and the only thing that was, were plumes of sparks erupting from somewhere in the smoke. After the first two hours, the smoke began to clear and the bridge was gone except for the towers at the New York end.
