“I hope so. If they figure out that we’re here still, then we’re dead.” Randy replied.
“I guess this kind of screws up the plan of snagging a car and heading up the interstate to freedom.”
“Yeah.” Randy was trying to come up with the best way to get out of this mess. He was coming up with a big old blank so far.
“We move at night. We stay on foot and we head north still. If we can get into the next territory, we should be safe. I don’t think he’s going to go to war to try and find us. I get the feeling the people up in South Carolina may hate the Brotherhood.” Kelly said when Randy didn’t qualify his one-word response with any more details.
“That sounds right. Maybe we can find some three wheelers or something and take the back roads. Those helicopters may not even be for us. We may be caught in the middle of them expanding. I don’t think the Brotherhood is going to be happy with just owning Florida and Georgia. I think they’ll try and grab more. We need to head either very far north or maybe turn west. They may not hunt us forever, but we still won’t be safe in any territory they control. The Senator must’ve had a West Virginia kind of love for his sister to go to all this trouble.”
“Gross.”
“Agreed. Let’s see what kind of supplies they have in here then hurry back to the kids. I’m not going to feel safe until we get lost in the woods somewhere.” Randy said looking around the room they were in for anything that may be useful. He’d switched from hoping for a car in the garage to hoping for camping gear and a couple of three wheelers.
Chapter 16: Hot Pursuit
“Helicopters?” Kyler asked looking up at the row of dots on the horizon.
“Search and rescue.” Krantz said sitting up at the sound of the helicopter blades beating in the air. “They must be trying to find the wreckage.”
“Seems pretty excessive.” Kyler said.
“Yeah. Well I’m tired of walking. Try to wake up Rodriguez.” Krantz pulled out his walkie and shoved the speaker in his ear before walking out to stand in the middle of the road. Kyler prodded the unmoving Rodriguez while he watched Krantz start waving his arms in the air. The group of helicopters thundered by overhead shaking the ground and putting them in the middle of a dust storm. Kyler resigned himself to walking.
A single helicopter broke away from the group and came back to hover over where Krantz was standing. Krantz looked over and waved for Kyler and Rodriguez to join him. Rodriguez worked his way up to standing and stumbled out to the middle of the highway with Kyler. The helicopter continued to hover until they were all in the middle then it descended rapidly. A chorus of demonic screeches broke out from the tree line as Zombies heard the thumping of the blades and intuited it meant their prey was near.
The helicopter rotated and blasted away at the edge of the forest with the dual machine guns mounted on the front of it. It stopped firing after a few bursts and touched down. The men in the passenger compartment stuck weapons out and started firing at the approaching Zombies while yelling for them to get on board. The three of them wasted no time jumping into the helicopter. The helicopter immediately shot back into the air to try and avoid the adrenalized Zombies who were hopping towards them like NBA stars on pogo sticks.
They were passed helmets to wear that allowed them to communicate with the rest of the people in the helicopter. Kyler assumed they could be patched into whatever channel the pilot decided to connect them too. He also knew he was so far down the totem pole he might as well not even have a microphone in his helmet. He was patched into the channel everyone else in the helicopter was communicating on currently, so he was at least able to listen in while the important people talked.
“You’re Krantz right? The guy who was supposed to pick up the people on the plane from Florida this morning?” Someone asked on the open channel. Kyler assumed it was whoever was in charge of the group in the helicopter.
“Yes sir. We were dispatched to pick them up, but the plane never landed. My team got swarmed by a group of the adrenalized infected. We took off in pursuit as soon as we were told the plane had crashed.”
“This your whole team?” The voice in charge asked.
“Yes sir. This is what’s left of it.”
“See anything we should know about?”
“No sir.” Krantz answered after a few seconds consideration. The other voice went off the air for a couple of minutes and Kyler assumed that meant the other voice was talking to someone else.
“You’re all Brotherhood, right?” The voice asked.
“Yes sir.” Krantz answered immediately. He produced his ID card and handed it to one of the men sitting by the open area by the cockpit. He signaled for Kyler and Rodriguez to show theirs as well. Rodriguez immediately passed over a crusty looking card he pulled out of his wallet while Kyler frantically dug around in all his pockets trying to remember what he’d done with his. The man next to him reached over and yanked up his shirt revealing his Brotherhood brand. The man who’d been looking at the IDs nodded at seeing Kyler’s back and handed Krantz back their cards.
“Ok. You now report to me. We’re heading to support the Chattanooga outpost. We made a run at Tennessee through the pass and encountered some light guerilla type resistance. We’re working on wiping them out. As a side mission we’re trying to track down the traitor who took out the governess down in Florida that your team was supposed to pick up. They were being flown up here to be tried and executed. The plane they were on veered way off course and crash. We want to find them and make sure they’re good and dead.”
“Who’s attacking us in Chattanooga?” Kyler asked forgetting he wasn’t important enough to talk.
“Some militia out of Tennessee. We’re going to decimate them then take Tennessee and add it to the Brotherhood territory.” The man answered before realizing it was a nobody who’d asked the question.
“Where do you need us?” Krantz asked. Their new man in charge snorted dismissively at Kyler before answering.
“I honestly don’t know. We’ve got a VIP in the group, but he’s got plenty of guards. We have men on the way for the assault. We need to send in a team to check out the wrecked plane when we find it. We’ve got a ton of balls in the air so I figured picking you up would help out.”
“You picked us up to get more hands on your balls.” Rodriguez snorted on the common channel. He then proceeded to crack up as did over half the men listening in. Kyler held his breath waiting for them to get kicked out of the helicopter. Instead their new commander grinned real big and told Rodriguez to shut the hell up and let the adults talk. Kyler let out his breath and punched Rodriguez in the arm. He wanted to take off his helmet to tell him to lay off the jokes until they weren’t sitting on the edge of an open door a thousand feet above the ground.
The conversation died down while everyone focused on searching for the wreckage and preparing for the firefight coming up in Chattanooga. Krantz pointed out their vehicles still sitting beside the road as they soared over them a minute later. A few minutes after that the man in charge got on the comms again.
“Ok. Wreckage has been found. The plane veered off onto 575. We’re going to circle around and drop you off at your vehicles so you can get up there and investigate. We want to make sure the traitors are dead so get some pictures. Report in at the next town up afterwards. We’re setting a bird down there to check out the town in case the prisoners managed to walk away from the crash. Once you confirm they’re dead you’ll meet up with those guys and fly on up to meet us in Chattanooga. You’ll report to a man named Roberts who’s the warrant officer in charge of that flight crew. Any questions before we drop you off?”
“Yes sir. What’s the name of the town we’re meeting up with them at?” Krantz asked.
“It’s only a mile or two from the wreckage.” The officer gave Rodriguez a crooked grin as the helicopter set down and they started unstrapping their helmets. “It’s called Ball Ground.”
Kyler hurried to help Rodriguez ge
t his helmet off before he could say anything. They got themselves disconnected and stepped out onto the road. The helicopter immediately soared back into the sky. They ran away from the blast of rotor wash beating down on them. Dust and debris managing to find every opening in their clothing. They blinked painfully from the tiny particles of grit getting shoved into their eyes and right up their noses. Kyler didn’t know about the others, but he personally would’ve considered selling his soul right then for a shower and some clean clothes. He’d been marinated in the gushy insides of Zombies all day and now he’d just topped it off with a dirt shower.
“Let’s go!” Krantz ordered jogging towards where their vehicles were sitting beside the road up ahead. Hopefully they were still gassed up and full of supplies. The sooner they got inside the trucks the sooner they could stop worrying about some ironman Zombie swooping in and ruining their day.
Twenty minutes later they were huffing and puffing in the grass by the cars they’d left sitting beside the road what felt like a decade ago. Even though it’d really only been about a week. Two slow Zombies walked towards them from the vehicles. For some reason those two had chosen to hang out there instead of following the rest of the herd to wherever. Krantz and Kyler pulled out their machetes. Rodriguez was still busy trying to catch his breath and waved them forward. Shaking his head at Rodriguez Krantz motioned for Kyler to take the one on the right.
Since it was a one to one fight against a couple of slow-moving Zombies, they didn’t bother with anything fancy. They each walked towards their designated Zombie and when they were close enough started bashing away until the Zombies fell to the ground. Feeling more winded than ever Kyler wiped the blood off his machete before shoving it back into his belt. He hopped in one of the supped-up F-150s and waited for Rodriguez to crawl in beside him. There were still waters on the floor so each of them grabbed one and started drinking while they waited for Krantz to get his truck in gear.
“I think I’m bleeding internally.” Rodriguez said in between sips of water.
“We’ll stop and get band aids.” Kyler said after looking at Rodriguez to make sure he was screwing around. The pained grin on his face said it all.
“Cool.”
In front of them the brake lights on the back of the truck Krantz had claimed flashed on. A second or two later Krantz drove the truck up onto the road. Krantz was driving with one hand while he messed around with the radio with the other. A minute later they heard Krantz’s voice break in and ask for directions to I-575. One of the nearby outposts got them to read back what mile marker they were at then gave them some quick and concise directions. Kyler had a brief flashback to being able to just ask Siri how to get somewhere then the car talking you turn by turn through the route.
“We’ll be back to waiting for lightening to strike somewhere to make fire in a couple of generations.” Rodriguez said. He was thinking along the same lines as Kyler.
“As long as they don’t run out of whiskey before you die right?” Kyler joked.
“Amen brother.”
They drove until the signs for exiting onto I-575 popped up. There were occasional Zombies, but they were able to deal with them much easier in the larger, more powerful trucks they were driving now. If nothing else, they were a lot higher off the ground so the Zombies couldn’t jump in or on them as easily. It still made for a terrifying ride but now it was more like a safari where you observed the lions but probably weren’t going to be eaten by one. Of course, the lions they were seeing were driven insane with rabies and could sometimes jump twenty feet further than should be possible. They were also definitely man eaters.
The travel time to the wreckage site would’ve only been about forty minutes in the days when you didn’t have to dodge debris and random Zombies. Some effort had been put into clearing this road but nowhere near as much as had been put into the major roads. There was also a decent amount of Zombie activity happening along the road which was a concern. They’d have a hard time investigating the wrecked plane if it was crawling with the infected. Krantz must’ve been thinking the same thing since he didn’t bother stopping when they passed the crash site.
They drove another mile before he pulled over and parked his truck by the side of the road. He locked it up and shoved the keys in his pocket. Kyler did the same with the truck he was driving. There were so many cars sitting around turning into giant piles of rust that would never be started again. The owners having gotten infected and wandered away with the keys in their pockets. Without the chips in those keys most of the latest model cars just weren’t possible to start. It wasn’t like the people left behind could easily jump on YouTube to learn how to hot wire a car. It was one reason an auto mechanic was even more valuable in this new normal than a trained soldier. They were up there with doctors, nurses and pilots.
They moved quickly to avoid being seen before disappearing into the woods. Once in the woods they went in a good hundred feet to be invisible from the road then began walking towards the crash site. The undergrowth in this section of the forest was minimal allowing for them to move quickly. It wasn’t long before they could see the trail of broken trees leading into the woods where the plane had come to rest. There was at least a dozen Zombies moving around in the vicinity of the downed plane.
Pissed off he was going to have to risk his life to check and see if the people the Senator wanted executed were dead yet or not Kyler put on a pair of his work gloves and pulled out his machete. He made sure his hammer was hanging on his belt where he could easily reach it. It was there as a backup in case he had to abandon the machete. He saw Rodriguez eyeing his work gloves and stopped to look through his bag for a second pair. He found one more pair of those and a pair of weightlifting gloves in the very bottom of his pack. He started to offer the weightlifting gloves to Krantz but Krantz just waved at him with a smile on his face and a pair of metal studded diving gloves that were truly bad ass already on his hands.
They helped each other unstrap their packs quietly. They left them hanging from a tree for easy recovery later. As ready as they were going to get Krantz led them towards the downed plane. He was hoping to take out as many of the Zombies as they could before the rest of them even figured out that they were there. Kyler thought the even better solution may have been to just take a nap and come back later when the Zombies had all left, but no one asked him for his opinion.
They snuck through the forest being as silent as they could without stressing every single step. Kyler had learned in the scouts that one of the biggest mistakes people make moving through the woods is trying to be absolutely silent. The trick was not to make any sounds that were out of the ordinary. Watch where you stepped and move methodically. Remember to breathe so you didn’t find yourself close to your target suddenly realizing you needed to gasp for air. All of these thoughts and more rolled through Kyler’s head as they edged closer to the wreckage of the jet.
The front of the plane was buried in a huge oak. A branch from the oak had smashed through the cockpit windshield. Kyler looked at the bottom of the oak searching for branches they could use to climb up into the plane. There was a ton of loose brush. A small mountain of dirt had built up in front of the bent landing gear under the plane. He didn’t see an easy way to climb up that wouldn’t expose whoever was doing the climbing to the infected in the area. It would also be noisy to get up there with all the loose branches and dirt. One misstep could cause the whole plane to settle differently.
Krantz must’ve come to the same conclusion as he continued working his way around the perimeter of the crash site. They avoided the side closest to the interstate where a line of Zombies still trickled in past the ones who’d given up and were heading out. On the far side of the plane from the highway Krantz went down to his knees and motioned for them to do the same. They crawled slowly through the brush towards the plane looking for a way in.
The hatch leading into the plane was wide open. A few Zombies were standing inside the plane sniffing aro
und. A few more were standing in the woods on that side of the plane by the door. The ones inside the plane didn’t look like they were leaving anytime soon. They probably smelled blood. There must be something that they were sensing causing them to hang out inside anyway.
Krantz counted five Zombies hanging out in the woods in front of them. There was an unknown number inside the plane itself. They needed to get inside the plane to see if there were any bodies or not. They could always lie and say it looked like the Zombies had eaten whoever had been on the plane. Without pictures of the inside of the plane though someone may call their bluff. It sucked but they were going to have to figure out a way to get inside.
Rodriguez tapped Krantz on the boot and had him crawl back with him about twenty yards deeper into the forest. He pantomimed grabbing his pack then going and getting one of the trucks by himself. He’d drive it by the wreckage site and blow the horn a few times to try and get the Zombies attention then take off down the road. Kyler and Krantz were both nodding along. It could definitely work. They’d probably still be stuck with a few Zombies to deal with, but it was considerably better than the current plan of sitting in the woods with their fingers up their butts.
Zombies! (Book 5): Greater Love Hath No Man Page 13
