by S. Ganley
"Huntress?" He queried.
"Roger, I’ve got good tone and lock." She replied.
He was proud to hear that her voice remained strong and neutral, no emotion shown through, just a naval aviator doing her job. Even if that job was about as shitty as they came.
The target hadn't strayed an inch from its course, hadn't increased or decreased speed, didn't try to dive for the deck or take any form or evasive action. The pilots knew what was coming and had resigned themselves to their fate. There was nothing left for either of them to do, they had the plane in their sights and drawing things out only made it that much worse for those inside who knew they were about to be blown from the sky.
"On my mark, three, two, one, FOX TWO." He called out as he let his missile fly. A second missile leapt from the wing of Huntress' plane an instant later.
"FOX TWO." She called.
The smoke from the two missile trails was still obscuring his view as the pair of missiles hit their respective targets dead on. The plane dipped to the right as a result of the missile strike to the engine, preventing him from seeing the full effects on that side of the fuselage. From the dozens of jagged holes that suddenly appeared on the far side of the passenger compartment he could tell that the damage on the inside was nothing short of catastrophic. As the plane continued to roll into a slopping dive towards the port side, Crusher and Huntress formed back into a standard flight team with him taking the lead while she came along slightly behind and below following in a nice tight pattern as they banked along with the stricken plane. As long as it remained airborne they were required to stay with it in the event they pilot was somehow able to regain control and resume their approach towards the invisible line marking the boundary of the exclusion zone only a few miles ahead of the them. As soon as Crusher got a good look at the exit hole his own missile had left underneath the cockpit after it tore from top to bottom through the flight deck, he knew there was no chance at all of the aircraft remaining airworthy. The hole was fifteen to twenty feet in diameter with wires and cables dangling freely several feet from the edge of the twisted metal marking the edges of the opening. His missile had not only killed everyone in the cockpit but also obliterated all of the flight controls and smashed the hydraulic system that controlled the flaps and air brakes.
As the plane continued to roll to the port side its angle of dive and relevant airspeed rapidly increased until it was falling so fast that both fighters had to break away from their pursuit and start making wide lazy figure eight turns at altitude while continuing to monitor its last few seconds before striking the sea. At several thousand feet above the water the actual impact appeared as a large white discoloration on the open water, seconds later the foam around the point of impact began to dissipate and from their altitude they could see no further evidence that the plane had ever existed.
Toggling his radio frequency he called in the result of the engagement, "Guntrain this is Champion 56. Splash one, over."
The reply was cool, calm and level. He imagined that watching the whole thing unfold on the computerized screens back in the CIC of the Lincoln gave the radio operator enough detachment from the whole episode that it was nothing more than a high tech video game for them. They were lucky in that respect. "Roger Champion 56, splash one. Return to normal patrol operations. Scope shows you clear of all traffic at this time."
He broke squelch twice to signal his acknowledgment. There was nothing more that needed to be said.
"Huntress, follow me back to level flight path at angels 20. Drop to fuel conservation speed and let’s try and make the most of the rest of this patrol. We’ve still got another two hours before we our relief arrives on station."
Pulling back gently on the stick he eased his fighter into a climb to bring him back to the correct altitude to continue their patrol. He hoped that this was the only excitement they would have for the day. Unlike the exhilaration he had always imagined knocking his first enemy fighter from the sky, he felt nothing but a growing nausea of having just committed nothing more than mass murder. There would be no celebration for him from this first kill.
#
"Her fever is starting to return, I am not sure how much longer she is going to last if she doesn't get some medicine. This is the fourth time her temperature has spiked. She hasn't eaten since we got here and I have only been able to get her to hold down a few cups of water." Miranda announced.
They had been taking turns tending to Kimberly since their arrival inside Great Falls Park. Garrett had been familiar enough with the area to get them to a park ranger station situated well back into the forested refuge where they felt somewhat secure for the first time since the zombies first started to appear. The small ranger station was more of a checkpoint set back into the woods along some of the more isolated hiking trails. It had been constructed to allow park personal to maintain a presence and render aid to the occasional hiker or naturalist who found themselves lost or in most cases, dehydrated from not packing water, and in need of assistance. Since the park catered primarily to the more upscale neighborhoods within Fairfax County and the DC area, the station was well maintained and kept in good shape. It just wouldn't do for millionaires and their guests to be hiking through the woods and come up a run down eyesore of a facility that their hard earned tax dollars went into financing. The station provided them with a roof over their heads, some basic medical supplies and a generator with two spare five gallon cans of fuel. There were three rooms inside the small building, a central office space with supply cabinets and a desk, a bunk room with two cots set up to maintain injured hikers until they could be transported out of the park or recovered enough to walk out on their own power and a separate bathroom area with showers and locker space. They had been pleasantly surprised to note that while there may not have been hot water, the water system was gravitational and they were still able to run water from the sinks but unfortunately not the showers. Kimberly had been tucked into one of the cots while Miranda and Shellie rotated on the other, the three men were relegated to floor space in the outer office area, but it still beat roughing it out under the stars. They had left Garrett's truck and Kyle's police cruiser parked a little over a mile away alongside a service road with access to the trails leading back to the station. It had been a difficult task to move Kimberly and their supplies back through the woods, but they had all agreed that the isolated building would be a much better alternative than the much larger and easier accessed nature center situated not far from the entrance to the park. Garrett and Calvin had returned on foot the day after their arrival to scout out the nature center and had spotted a few of the flesh eating abominations. It had looked like a couple of the park rangers as well as two or three hikers had fallen victim to the virus there in the park and were standing vigil near the nature center in search of their next meal. While that handful of zombies was a concern for them, it was nothing in comparison to large masses that were roaming the streets out in the more populated areas of the surrounding towns. Even keeping their distance from the nature center and studying it through high powered binoculars they had been concerned that those zombies may have started detecting their presence. Only a few minutes after they had moved into position they noticed that a couple of them had turned their faces skyward and started sniffing the air like bloodhounds picking up a trail. Both men had retreated further into the woods and come back towards the center from a different direction against the breeze and were able to maintain an observation point for close to twenty minutes without any further sign that those zombies were aware of their presence. The episode had further supported their suspicions that the creatures were capable of detecting the scent from surviving humans from a good distance away, it was something they had to ensure they were always conscious of.
For the time being they felt that they were safe as long as they stayed clear of any populated areas, but they also recognized that it was not a situation they could maintain long term. Kimberly was sick with the virus and
while it was a miracle she had held on as long as she had if there was any hope of her pulling through, they needed to get her some help very soon. There was also the issue of food, Calvin had saved their ass by thinking to bring along a quantity of MRE's, the plastic pouches containing field rations issued to soldiers in the field. Even though everyone was more than willing to make do with the prepackaged meals. There was already rumblings with Miranda and Shellie that they were having a hard time stomaching the high calorie diets that those packets of food provided. The lack of some other necessities was something that the ladies were also having a hard time doing without. Toilet paper had become the biggest gripe since their arrival, the ranger station had only a few sheets of the valuable paper on hand and that was gone even with careful rationing by the afternoon after they arrived. Shellie had mentioned that other basic toiletry items in addition to something to help combat boredom were going to eventually be needed or she felt that all of them would start climbing the walls pretty soon. Garrett had to agree with her in principle on those points. While they would physically be fine without any of those items, there short time in isolation had already been marked with periods of extreme boredom. They had discovered a total of three magazines and a collection of information brochures about the park inside the station, but each of them had covered that material more than once already and if they were going to be spending a long time out in the middle of the woods, there just had to be something for them to do to keep their minds occupied. Constantly staring out into the trees and jumping at each squirrel or deer that happened by was going to drive them all crazy before too long. The three men were taking turns on guard duty, walking a perimeter around the building and into the surrounding woods while the ladies rotated the duty of keeping a constant eye on Kimberly. Garrett had stressed to each of them that not only were they concerned with her well-being but it was important that she always be under observation since none of them knew much about the virus and how it turned someone into a zombie. If she turned and none of them were there to see it, she could possibly do a lot of damage before they were able to react. They already knew that a single bite from a zombie was the end of the road for the victim. Garrett had already been faced with the unsavory task of putting a bullet through the head of his own neighbor after he had suffered just such a bite from his own son.
Probably the one thing above and beyond food, toiletries and something to keep them entertained while in isolation was news. They needed to try and find out what was happening elsewhere in the world. They had spent a great deal of time discussing how rescue operations could even now be well underway and that they would be overlooked if they remained in hiding deep in the park. Kyle had been their best source of information on that front. As a Fairfax county police officer he had been dealing with the outbreak from the government’s point of view longer than any of them and had been privy to information about how at least the local county authorities had been handling things. Unfortunately none of the news that he brought to the table was very good. He had gone into detail about his department’s efforts to deal with the growing problem and how none of them really truly understood the depth and scope of the outbreak until it was too late. The news about how his own department and their primary fire station had been completely overrun with all personnel slaughtered, was not well received. If the police had been that caught off guard and so easily outmatched, it was a good bet that other departments across the country had met with a similar fate. He had no idea what wide scale efforts may have been in place on the federal level, the loss of his police station and the radio relay station at the firehouse had limited his communication abilities to only the local area.
They spent some time that morning discussing their options and Garrett had been the first one to offer to make a run in search of medication and supplies. His plan for that initial excursion was to hit a neighborhood close to the park entrance. He felt confident that he would be able to find ample supplies and medications stored in the homes of some the wealthy suburbanites living nearby.
"Just you? No way man, I'm coming along." Calvin fired off as Garrett outlined his plan to make a supply run.
Garrett had figured that his good friend would volunteer to join him, and he was grateful that he had. It was not a run he relished making on his own. He simply nodded at Calvin in reply.
"Garrett, I want to go to. I know I may not be very useful to either of you, but I know a little about medicines and might be able to help you find what we need." Miranda added.
Calvin looked at Garrett and said with a shrug, "She's got a good point there. No telling what kind of meds we are going to stumble on and inside a home they probably won’t be lined up on nice neat labeled shelves like a pharmacy."
Garrett was reluctant to take her but he had to agree with Calvin that she had a good point. Neither of them knew exactly what it was they were looking for and if they ended up coming back with a just a pile of birth control pills and Viagra, that wasn't going to help Kimberly much. His reluctance to bring her came only partially from knowing that there was a good chance she would end up slowing them down. If they did get into a jam with the undead, he didn't think she would be much help in a fight. But other than that he had also grown quite fond of her in the short time they had all spent together in the small ranger station. With nothing more than a lot of time on their hands they had talked a great deal and grown to know a lot of about each other’s lives. He found it funny that in a normal situation, meeting her in a club or out at dinner somewhere, he would have never discussed half of the things that he had no problem telling her now. Thrust into an apocalyptic event together somehow made him feel much more at ease with opening up to her about many things in his own life. She must have also felt the same way because some of the things she had shared with him were personal enough in nature that he was sure they were not topics she would have normally poured out to someone who wasn't much more than a stranger.
"Alright Miranda. Kind of hard to argue with that logic." He reached out to the small table next to the door and pulled one of the handguns they had arranged there. "Do you think you can handle one of these?" She took the pistol from him and experimented with the weight of it, held it in her outstretched hands and gazed through the sights down the barrel.
"I have never fired a gun before, but I am a quick learner. Show me what I need to do." She replied with a smile.
Garrett took her a little ways out in front of the house and showed her some of the basics with dry firing the pistol, loading it, clearing a jam and how to sight correctly on a target. He kept it as simple as possible, any situation they came upon that required her to use it would be one where they would be trying to get out of as quickly as they had gotten into it. He hoped that she wouldn't have to pull the trigger even once, but it was best that all of them understood at least the basics of how to use their firearms.
Feeling confident that they were as ready as they could be and seeing no reason to put it off any longer, Garrett led the way back down the trail to where he had left his truck parked alongside Kyle's police cruiser. Both he and Calvin were carrying AK's, they had left their other two handguns behind for Kyle and Shellie. Kyle only had a little over a magazine and a half left for his M4 and about that same amount of ammo for his own pistol. Having proved herself to be efficient with the shotgun from Kyle's patrol car, Shellie was still hanging onto it, but was in the same situation with only a handful of shells remaining. If they ran into a jam at least the extra handguns spare ammo.
Garrett's plan was to locate a prospective neighborhood while still in the truck, they would then park several blocks away from any houses they wanted to check out and go the rest of the way on foot. He knew that the sound of the trucks engine was likely to attract attention and his hope was that by circling the neighborhood first and then parking a distance from their destination they would be able to draw off any zombies that happened to be hanging around near the houses they wanted to hit. He was guessing that the zombie
s would find the truck and once they discovered it was empty they would simply move on to something more interesting. If they returned to the truck and found it to still be swarmed by the undead they would have to leave it behind and make their way back to the ranger’s station on foot. If they had to run for it, they would have to drop whatever they had scavenged and all they would have ended up doing was losing his truck in the process if not one or more of their lives as well. It was a gamble, he knew that, but the alternative of hunkering down and just watching Kimberly die was almost as bad.
Chapter 2
The approaching light of a new day meant that Doug could finally grab a couple hours of restless sleep. Ever since it had started he had been reluctant to allow his wife or their neighbor’s fourteen year old son to stand guard during the hours of darkness. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason when the zombies would come, night or day didn't matter to them. If they were searching for prey they would come. It was at night that he felt most vulnerable, other than the careless manner that they moved, knocking into things and making lots of noise, not to mention the chilling moans they would utter when on the trail of their next meal, they had the advantage at night when they were able to approach in the darkness getting close enough to the house that running would only ensure they were caught.
Douglas Webb and his wife Emily had been hiding in the basement of their upscale Great Falls home for the last three days, they had watched as many of their own neighbors, friend and family had fallen victim to the virus and turned into the hideous and terrifying creatures and turned on their own flesh and blood. As a successful plastic surgeon, Doug had built a practice that allowed him and his wife to enjoy some of the finer things in life, among them was the opportunity to live in a zip code that brought along a certain degree of prestige with it. His office was located in Silver Spring, Maryland, not far from Holy Cross hospital where he performed most surgeries that his line of work required. He would have personally preferred to live closer to his office in one of the upper middle class neighborhoods within a short drive to the hospital, but then again he really had little say in how his money was actually spent.
