Bannon threw the boot away and started to run.
He went up the gentle rise, scrambling hand over hand at stringy clumps of grass until he crested the hill and reached the side of the road that looped back into town. He paused for a moment. The helicopter was back over his shoulder, but coming on quickly. He could see dark shapes in the open cargo doors. The helicopter began to descend.
Bannon started running again.
He went across the road and into the woods. Through the filter of the trees he could see the helicopter dropping down out of the sky. It swooped over the sports field and seemed to hang there for an instant, maybe fifty feet off the ground. Bannon ran with his eyes fixed on the big bird, stumbling and tripping until the woods began to thin and he was running downhill – down the rocky slope that sheltered the sports field from the ocean breeze.
The bodies of the undead that had attacked the special forces team lay spread across the long grass, many of the corpses bloating with gases so that their hideous shapes were almost impossible to recognize as human. Bannon ran down until the ground began to level out. He was waving his arms frantically.
The wash from the helicopter slapped against his face and threw debris into the air. Bannon staggered, exhausted into the open field and looked up.
The swollen drab green belly of the helicopter was almost directly above him. He shouted, but the words were whipped away as they reached his lips. He thrust the pistol into the air, aiming away at the distant buildings of the town.
And he fired.
The helicopter jinked – yawed sideways, and then came rocking back. Bannon could see the blurred darkened shapes of men, leaning out through the cargo door. There were four soldiers perched on the lip of the opening, weapons across their laps, their faces obscured by camouflage paint and heavy Kevlar helmets. The helicopter crawled across the sky and then turned tightly.
It began to descend.
All of Bannon’s attention was on the helicopter, watching it drop from above. His head was craned back, his arms thrown up to his eyes to shield it from the swirling debris.
He didn’t see the undead come from the buildings.
He didn’t see them swarm at the top of the hill, gathering on the edge of the road.
He didn’t see them congeal together into a hideous writhing mass, and begin lurching down through the long grass.
The helicopter dropped the last thirty feet, heavy as a stone. At the instant before landing, it leveled, and then sank down onto the heavy suspension of its struts. Bannon felt the air become a howling blast – like a physical fist that punched at him so that he staggered back a pace. The helicopter had landed thirty feet away, amidst the carnage of zombie bodies that were strewn across the field. The four men sitting in the open cargo door leaped out from the body of the beast and ran…
… away from him!
The men went at a run, hunched and weighed down. They fanned out in an arc around the perimeter of the helicopter, dropping into the grass and taking up firing positions.
Bannon suddenly saw why.
The hillside was swarming with undead. There seemed no end to their number. Hundreds of ghouls, incensed and maddened by the thunderous roar of the helicopter, swayed on the skyline as the sun crested the edge of the ocean and painted the world in glorious golden hues. It was a dreamlike scene. A moment of nature’s true beauty made gruesome by the stench of death and the frenzied howls of the zombies. They spilled down the slope in a relentless rushing tide of virulent madness.
Bannon ran for the helicopter. A soldier in grey camouflage fatigues leaped to the ground to help him aboard. The man was wearing a flight helmet. He stared at Bannon for just long enough to be sure he was human.
“Who the fuck are you?” the man roared at Bannon. The soldier had a face full of crags, and steady dark eyes that looked like they had seen just about all life had to offer.
“Bannon! Steve Bannon.”
The man pressed his face closer. “Where is the team that came with you?”
“Dead.”
“All of them?”
“Yes.”
The soldier flinched, and then narrowed his eyes. “I’m crew chief, Staff Sergeant Walters,” he shouted into Bannon’s face above the thudding roar of the big rotors and the whine of the engines. “I’ll be your hostess for today’s flight. Now get on the fucking chopper!” Then he seized Bannon by the arm and unceremoniously hurled him like a heavy sack in through the cargo door. Bannon crashed against a steel support of a seat and heaved himself upright. He was panting. His legs and arms felt weak. He buckled over and vomited across the floor of the cargo area.
The howling clatter of the helicopter’s big rotors had not slowed. The chopper was prancing in little buoyant leaps across the grass, eager to take flight, while the two pilots in the cockpit held the beast tethered by careful control.
Bannon heard a sound like canvas being ripped, and realized the men spread out in the field had begun shooting.
The zombies hurled themselves against the defensive line of soldiers like a seething wall of water that crashed against rocks. The roar of automatic fire was deafening. The crew chief clambered aboard behind Bannon and flung himself into a small seat forward of the cargo area. He hunched down behind the sights of a machine gun and opened fire. A hail of shiny spent shells sprayed across the cabin floor, and the sound was like a chain saw, ripping through the morning sky.
The undead line wavered, fell back, and then came again. Bannon crawled to the open cabin door. He could see the soldiers working manfully over their weapons, not bothering for accuracy, but merely firing at the mass of undead to stem the surge. Then the two outermost soldiers suddenly got to their feet and sprinted back to the helicopter. They flung themselves aboard and opened fire once more.
Under the cover of the helicopter’s heavy machine gun, the last two men retreated. The storm of fire covering them was like a solid wall of lead. Ghouls were ripped apart, spread splattered and broken into the grass. Others simply disappeared into ghastly mounds of shredded flesh. It was a slaughter-house – a horrendous carnage of gore and awesome firepower.
Two of the zombies reached the helicopter. They came on at an insane rush. They were spitting blood, their bodies torn apart by countless ghastly hits. They were both men. Their eyes were a deep glittering yellow, their snarling mouths wide open ravaged holes. A soldier thrust the barrel of his weapon into one of the thrashing faces and held the trigger down until the ghoul’s head erupted in a spray of misted gore.
So many rounds had hit the other zombie, that its flesh had been flayed back to the bone. It collapsed, just a few clawing feet away from the helicopter, shrieking its hideous horror. A soldier emptied a full magazine into the body.
The last two soldiers reached the cargo door and Bannon helped haul them aboard. Instantly the helicopter seemed to spring from the ground, rising up in a gut-swooping lurch. In seconds they were forty feet in the air, the soldiers still firing down at the undead, until, at last, the big bird’s nose dipped down and it swooped away, heading north.
Towards safety.
Chapter 25.
Steve Bannon slumped against the rear bulkhead of the Black Hawk’s cabin and stared numbly out through the window. The sun was glittering off the ocean, and in the mid distance he could see the black squat shape of the ‘Mandrake’ nudging her way out into the rolling swells.
Bannon smiled.
Further away, at the very limit of his vision, he could see other dark specs massing together close to the horizon. They were coming on with purpose, and in the sky – below the scudding clouds of sunrise – there were more dark silhouettes racing through the cool morning air. Bannon couldn’t hear those helicopters, but he could see them, converging on the signal from the emergency rescue beacon he had activated aboard the fishing boat.
Bannon sighed.
He had fulfilled his promise to the dying special forces soldier.
He had finished the job.
>
Sully would be captured. Now that he was isolated on the fishing boat, there was no chance he could escape, no chance he could hide and blend in with the thousands of undead that ravaged and raged across the countryside.
Bannon only prayed that the scientists and teams of USAMRID doctors would make the big man’s remaining days in a laboratory cage painful and torturous. The fucker deserved it.
His thoughts turned then to Maddie. Bannon made a pensive face, and then shook his head. He felt no guilt for deceiving her.
You reap what you sow.
Maddie and Sully had betrayed him. He had his revenge on both of them. Maddie would be saved from infection, to live a life alone and in fear, without out hope for a future.
Just like him.
Just like everyone who survived the apocalypse.
The End.
Also available: by Nicholas Ryan:
'Ground Zero: A Zombie Apocalypse' - "A bloody zombie smash!" DJ Molles, author of 'The Remaining' series.
'Die Trying: A Zombie Apocalypse' - "A heart stopping zombie thriller!" DA Wearmouth, author of 'First Activation'.
You can follow Nicholas Ryan on Facebook and Twitter.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Acknowledgements:
Part One.
Chapter 1.
Chapter 2.
Chapter 3.
Chapter 4.
Chapter 5.
Chapter 6.
Chapter 7.
Chapter 8.
Part Two.
Chapter 1.
Chapter 2.
Chapter 3.
Chapter 4.
Chapter 5.
Chapter 6.
Part Three.
Chapter 1.
Chapter 2.
Chapter 3.
Chapter 4.
Chapter 5.
Chapter 6
Chapter 7.
Chapter 8.
Chapter 9.
Chapter 10.
Chapter 11.
Chapter 12.
Chapter 13.
Chapter 14.
Chapter 15.
Chapter 16.
Chapter 17.
Chapter 18.
Chapter 19.
Chapter 20.
Chapter 21.
Chapter 22.
Chapter 23.
Chapter 24.
Chapter 25.
Also available: by Nicholas Ryan:
Dead Rage Page 22
