The Undead Chronicles (Book 1): Home and Back Again

by O'Brian, Patrick J.

  Likely seeing the last of his henchmen dead by his side, Xavier refused to rise from cover to provide Metzger with a clear shot. Taking a moment to observe the progress of his four colleagues, Metzger turned to see a dangerous number of undead nearing the labored group. Backpedaling from the armored car, he turned just long enough to take shots at the zombies closest to the group. Taking the first few down with headshots, he heard a subtle click of sorts after the last shot, indicating the magazine finally purged the last of its ammunition.

  Metzger slung the AK-47 behind him with help from the sling attached to the firearm. He reached to his side, pulling the .357 from its holster, glancing to ensure Xavier didn’t attempt to shoot the members of his group before taking down two more undead near Jillian. She took notice of the zombies drawing closer to them, and tried to pick up her pace, but she and Luke weren’t able to move much faster than the undead while supporting Albert’s arms across their shoulders.

  “Leave me,” he heard Albert say as danger drew closer to the group.

  Samantha began backing away from her surrogate parents, threatening to undo the united core the group had maintained while dealing with the undead.

  Beginning to realize the danger around them was too close, Luke dropped his partner’s arm, running back toward the van while waving his arms and yelling for the undead to pursue him. They immediately responded, most of them following him and leaving the remainder of the group alone. Though she struggled to hold Albert up by herself, Jillian handed her sidearm to the injured man so he could shoot the few zombies still pursuing them.

  Metzger continued to monitor the black car as he backed toward his group, ushering Samantha back to them like a sheepdog minding his herd. He helped Albert shoot a few of the nearby zombies in their skulls as Luke drew most of them into the center of the airport. Sounds of the Cessna taxiing onto the runway behind him reached Metzger’s ears, and he felt for the first time they might actually be leaving the airport intact if Xavier would just play dead or voluntarily leave them alone.

  Unfortunately for Luke he ran too close to the van, giving Xavier a vantage point that allowed him to take aim in that direction without exposing any part of his body to Metzger. The plane began to taxi from the staging area near the hangars to the airstrip the group was trying to cross, but as Metzger started to yell for Luke to return to them, a shot rang out. Stuck with his mouth agape, and no words emerging from his throat, Metzger watched as Luke collapsed to the ground. A bloody spot appeared just below his knee, indicating that was just as hobbled as Albert, if not worse.

  Forced to deal with several unpleasant fronts, Metzger started toward Luke, knowing the man faced the most immediate danger. When he saw Luke struggle to his feet and limp around the van for cover, Metzger decided to focus on Xavier instead since he was caught between the van and the armored car, exposed to both the undead and the former leader of the school prison. Pulling the .357 to a ready position, he sidestepped to the car in a cautious military stride, able to defend himself or fire within a split-second.

  Deciding he needed to eliminate the threat to avoid looking over his shoulder as the group attempted to board the plane, Metzger circled around the car, still some fifteen feet away from it. Apparently hearing his footsteps, or sensing the impending showdown, Xavier popped up from behind the car, closer to the end where the ponytail man fell. He didn’t seem to have an immediate lock on Metzger’s location, allowing the former school teacher to take an extra fraction of a second to aim at his skull before firing.

  Minimal blood spurted from the right side of Xavier’s head, indicating the bullet split some skin, but Metzger couldn’t confirm whether or not it struck home and killed the man. Hearing the plane emerge from the staging area, drawing closer, he dashed to the van to retrieve Luke before the undead caught up with them.

  “Come on,” he encouraged Luke as he scooped him under one shoulder, guiding him away from the group of undead trying to feast on his flesh.

  Both managed to elude the pack of zombies pursuing them rather quickly as they headed for the Cessna now emerging from the hangars. To their left, however, Jillian struggled to move Albert by herself as a few independent-minded undead staggered behind the pair. She managed to shoot two zombies closing in on their location, but one escaped her sight, able to walk directly behind Albert before sinking its teeth into his right shoulder, drawing a pained yowl from the former emergency room nurse.

  Jillian and Metzger both noticed the zombie an instant before the deadly deed was committed, but Jillian turned and shot it in the skull first, causing Albert to raise a hand to his freshly ringing ear.

  “No!” Luke cried out in horror, knowing immediately what the bite meant for any intended future he planned with his life partner.

  Vazquez brought the plane as close to the group as he could without risking the wheels running into the grass. The ground wasn’t necessarily solid enough to support the weight of a plane, and potentially dangerous litter was scattered throughout the airport. Once the Cessna drew to a complete stop the pilot jumped out to assist a shocked Luke inside. This freed Metzger to use his few remaining rounds on the closest undead, ensuring no one else received a fatal bite before takeoff. With the final bullet expended, he replaced the revolver to its holster, kicking a few undead to the ground to buy some time.

  “Get them inside!” he yelled to Vazquez, drawing the survival knife from the other side of his belt to dispatch the remaining nearby zombies.

  Fighting off a few more undead with defensive kicks, Metzger turned to see everyone now loaded into the back of the plane, Albert clasping his fresh wound with one hand. Blood soaked into his shirt, indicating the bite pierced his skin, allowing whatever virus or bacteria the undead carried to enter his system. Metzger held out the slightest hope initially that the bite didn’t reach his flesh and muscles through the shirt, but now his heart sank at the thought of losing someone else who meant something to him.

  He leaned into the already open side door of the plane, looking to Vazquez directly. Appearing a bit sweaty and pale after being shot, the pilot put forth a strong front without saying a word.

  “I need about thirty seconds,” Metzger said, pointing toward the hangars and the car he was about to leave behind.

  Though obviously in pain, Vazquez nodded, allowing Metzger to sprint across the concrete to the staging area where he opened one of the rear car doors while using the remote to pop the trunk. Like a badger burrows into the ground, he quickly scavenged what ammunition and firepower he could from the Prius, along with his blades. He took an additional few seconds to grab the sat phone and its charger, along with a recent family photo of himself, Bryce, and their parents together. He couldn’t afford to be selfish and grab entire family albums, but as he shut the car doors and trunk, Metzger stuffed the remote into his pocket after locking the car. He did so just in case he returned to the Buffalo area someday and found time enough to retrieve family photographs and heirlooms.

  As he left the hangar area, Metzger stole a glance toward the armored car, seeing a dozen zombies stagger in the direction of the ponytail man and Xavier, glad because the group’s escape was now assured. He could only hope the man who murdered his parents died a slow and painful death, ripped apart by ravenous fingers and teeth. Wishing he could have assured the job was completed by his own hand, Metzger closed his eyes for the briefest of seconds, opening them to begin the next phase of his existence.

  Vazquez did him the service of pulling the plane closer, so Metzger quickly climbed into the open door on the left side of the plane behind the wing, dropping the excess gear in the center of the plane. The group left him a spot up front beside Vazquez, so he carefully walked the narrow aisle, assuming the co-pilot’s seat.

  “Buckle up,” Vazquez warned, sweat beginning to soak through his shirt. “And put these on.”

  He handed Metzger a set of ear-encompassing headphones that worked, muting any sounds around them. It allowed them to converse
while drowning out any panicked sounds behind them while everyone tried gathering their wits and assisting Albert.

  All of them knew this was the furthest thing possible from a conventional flight.

  “You going to be okay?” Metzger inquired, noticing a rotating compass embedded within the Cessna’s front panel.

  All kinds of dials, switches, and knobs surrounded him, leaving him extremely nervous about the prospect of taking over any flight duties.

  “I’ll make it,” Vazquez said, though his appearance didn’t back his reassuring words.

  Metzger glanced behind him, checking on Albert, who was being tended to by Luke in the two rear seats. Jillian wore guilt on her face, though she did nothing wrong, and poor Samantha appeared completely upended by the experience as though she might never recover. Metzger removed his headset momentarily in case he needed to speak with the people behind him.

  “You’ve got to pull through,” Luke said in a concerned voice, trying to avoid worrying Samantha any further.

  “We both know that’s not going to happen,” Albert replied. “I’ll get you patched up when we land, but you have to make preparations for life without me.”

  Metzger’s heart sank. He never intended for anyone to get harmed while joining him on his personal journey. While he hadn’t requested anyone come along, he still felt some guilt for hurrying and not taking care of business around the school before departing.

  Luke began openly crying as he and Albert embraced across their seats. As concerned as he felt for everyone aboard the Cessna, Metzger knew he needed to focus on keeping Vazquez conscious for the duration. Practically no one ended up bringing items aboard with them, meaning extra weapons were scarce, and no extra clothes were lying around for use as dressings.

  Metzger had left his motorcycle gear behind, so he began tearing off the sleeves of his shirt, using them to dress both sides of the gunshot wound as he applied pressure. Vazquez winced, uttering no words as he groaned from the pain a bit.

  “Sorry,” Metzger said. “It’s all I’ve got at the moment.”

  Albert painfully removed his button-up shirt, left with a white T-shirt as he handed the shirt forward for Metzger to use on the wound.

  “Thanks,” Metzger said with a nod to Albert.

  “I won’t be needing it,” the former nurse said with a forced smile.

  “Ain’t we a sorry lot,” Vazquez said when Metzger tore away the bloody part of Albert’s shirt to avoid any possible contamination.

  He used the remainder of the shirt to apply pressure to both the entrance and exit wounds as best he could.

  “I suppose we are. Hope you can stay conscious, because I don’t think any of us know how to fly this thing.”

  “I’ll do my best. It’s going to be a couple hours, so if anything happens, just keep the plane level and do your best to wake me up.”

  “That’s not very reassuring.”

  Each side had a control wheel, and Metzger had watched enough movies to know that pushing forward sent the plane careening toward the ground and pulling back gained altitude. He didn’t know how to put flaps down, use landing gears, or a host of other important steps that would keep the plane from crashing into a giant fireball.

  Even while being treated, Vazquez had managed to get to one end of the runway and gained enough speed to get them into the air momentarily. For a private plane, the Cessna glided easily, taking to the sky so smoothly it felt more like a metal roller coaster ride than sitting inside a box of metal and plastic with wings. Some tilting and jockeying was required by Vazquez to get them to safe altitude and heading in the right direction.

  “No sense in using the radio,” the pilot muttered. “No one would hear us anyway.”

  Half an hour passed with Metzger looking back to check on everyone, seeing little difference in their faces. The cloth dressings had stopped the bleeding in Vazquez’s shoulder for the time being, but the pilot had lost a fair amount of blood before he even boarded the plane. Despite his injury, he provided Metzger with a crash course in how to handle the Cessna in case he blacked out. In short, Metzger would need to keep the control wheel in its current position while making certain the plane continued in the same direction.

  “Artificial horizon,” Metzger said aloud, quizzing himself to make certain he understood the vital portions of his abbreviated lessons from Vazquez.

  He pointed to a gauge with a blue top portion and a brown bottom, divided in half by a white line that would move as the plane tilted to the left or right. It kept the pilot aware of how level the plane was compared to the ground below, allowing him to adjust to keep both the wings and pitch level.

  “You got it,” Vazquez answered a bit more weakly than before.

  His skin continued to appear pale, though the sweating had dropped off, possibly because his body required fluids.

  “Altimeter,” Metzger said next, pointing to a gauge that looked a bit like a clock.

  In the top position, or normal twelve o’clock location, a white zero would indicate if they were on the ground. The dial contained numbers up to nine in what most would consider the eleven o’clock position on a clock, indicating nine-thousand feet. At the moment, the plane was coasting closer to 3,000 feet off the ground according to the gauge. Such a height left Metzger a bit nervous, but he knew they could just as easily die from a few hundred feet off the ground. Without fear of other aircraft, or many birds at such a height, Vazquez kept them safe from easily being spotted or tracked by anyone on the ground.

  “That’s it,” Vazquez confirmed. “You know I’m staying this high for a reason, and should something happen where you need to land, make it very gradual if at all possible. You’d basically feather the control wheel to a downward angle and get the plane level when you’re very close to landing.”

  Metzger nodded.

  “Directional gyro,” he continued as he pointed to the final important gauge in his crash course. “Keeps us going in the right direction.”

  “Exactly,” Vazquez confirmed.

  Looking a bit like a safe combination dial, the directional gyro possessed numbers in intervals with hash marks marking denominations in between. Metzger didn’t understand exactly what they meant, nor did he much care, because the four directions were represented by their designated letters. As long as the plane traveled south and a little bit east, that was all he needed to worry about.

  “You’ve got the basics,” Vazquez assured him. “We aren’t going to run out of fuel any time soon, so it just needs to stay level.”

  “Just don’t pass out.”

  Vazquez struggled to provide a grin.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Glancing back, Metzger was reminded of the other struggle in his camp.

  Naturally Luke felt heartbroken, but the man risked his own life for the betterment of the group at the airport. Metzger wondered if he did so believing he was the weakest link and it might be his one opportunity to contribute, or if he distracted the undead for the more personal reason of trying to save the man he loved.

  Metzger finally looked to Albert until the man locked eyes with him.

  “I hate to ask this, but how long?”

  Albert immediately knew what he meant. They couldn’t risk him dying and turning undead within a plane full of innocent, living people.

  “It varies,” he answered. “When people die it can take an hour, sometimes three or four. When I lose consciousness and don’t wake up, it’ll be time.”

  Luke looked away, so Albert made a request of Metzger directly.

  “I want you to do it, so they don’t have to.”

  Metzger nodded in understanding, a tear forming in one eye. After only knowing Albert the better part of two days he hated losing such a valuable member of the remaining civilized population, so he couldn’t imagine Luke’s agony. The statement also implied Albert didn’t want Luke or Samantha seeing him in an altered state once he died.

  He returned his attention to Vaz
quez who shook his head from side to side, as though trying to see straight, or rid himself of a headache. Metzger was about to say something to the pilot when the man slumped forward, straight into the control wheel, sending them into an immediate nosedive.

  “Oh, shit!” Metzger exclaimed as he reached over to pull the pilot off the wheel and level the plane before all six of them plummeted into the ground below.

  Fifteen

  Fortunately for Metzger, Vazquez had gotten them a few thousand feet off the ground, enough so that houses and businesses looked like ants below. After the initial panic where his heart skipped a few beats, Metzger collected his wits, pulling the pilot away from the control wheel, shaking him a few seconds to see if he regained consciousness.

  His efforts failed, forcing him to grab hold of the identical control wheel on his side, keeping the plane steady while wondering how in the hell he was going to land the aircraft if necessary. Everyone else had taken notice of the incident, each leaning forward for a better look.

  “Albert!” Metzger called to the back. “He lost consciousness. Anything we can do to remedy that?”

  “We’re a little limited on resources,” Albert replied. “You need him out of the way?”

  “It wouldn’t hurt,” Metzger answered, still trying to keep the plane steady with one hand, awkwardly reaching over to keep Vazquez’s unconscious form from slumping forward.

  From the brief lesson, Metzger knew that the twin control wheel allowed someone in either seat to fly the plane. In the movies people always moved the pilot out of the seat to assume control of a plane, and he instinctively wanted to do just that. He knew the controls necessary for takeoff were within reach of only the left seat, and either seat provided every switch or button needed for landing. Even so, he subliminally wanted the primary seat if he was about to assume control for an undetermined amount of time.