The whole front of the Dacha erupted in a bowel-shaking explosion of smoke, flame, and debris, causing Aliyev to cover up, cower, and seriously worry for the structural integrity of the helicopter.
“Fuck the internal checks!” he yelped, as debris rained down all around, plinking on the thin skin of the helo, the dead not even noticing as they continued to paw and shove, rocking the aircraft violently on its wheels…
“Starting selector to on…” Aliyev almost began to breathe again as he felt and heard the big rotors begin to turn up above him, and then he stared daggers down at the instrumentation. “Oil pressure increasing… rotary handle back to flight notch…”
He could now only barely see out the cockpit glass at all as the whole helipad, the whole mountainside apparently, filled with dust and black smoke – not to mention with smallpox, and with Marburg, and schistosomiasis, and Dengue fever, and Hantavirus, and Lassa, and Holy fucking SHIT…
Aliyev looked frantically down to the instrumentation panel, and hit the Recirculate button on the internal climate control system.
Thank fuck for luxury aircraft for rich assholes!
He had no idea how far or fast those pathogens were going to spread, nor even if they’d survive the explosion. But he sure as hell wasn’t counting on them not surviving. They’d done okay out in the world so far.
And the mayhem certainly hadn’t discouraged or slowed the mob of undead Mongols that was still pouring onto the helipad, both from inside the Dacha and also from the path down the mountain out front, and which was now shoving and climbing up around the airframe of the helo with increasing vigor and violence.
And, on top of that, as Aliyev could just make out behind all the dead bodies, and through the billowing smoke, the Dacha was, in the wake of the explosion, now burning furiously – the flames leaping and spreading at a breath-stealing rate toward this side of the complex.
And now he remembered one other thing: that there was a gigantic tank of aviation fuel sitting right the fuck beneath this fucking helipad. When that raging fire reached this spot – never mind that by then he’d already be breathing weaponized anthrax, and fucking Ebola, plus being torn to pieces by the rampaging undead Mongol horde – he would burn to death in a flaming inferno, a massive and intense firestorm that he imagined would engulf this whole face of the towering Belukha Mountain.
Basically, there was now.
And there was never.
All but slamming his eyes shut in terror, Aliyev jacked up power at the same time as he yanked on the collective, jerking the helo off the ground in a manic dust-off that would be described as safe or professional by absolutely no one…
“Ha!” He glanced down to see the hands falling away from the door – and there were thank fuck no skids for them to grab onto…
“HA! I’M OUT OF HERE, BIZZLES!!!”
The big, sleek, and powerful helo now drifted and floated recklessly and perilously from one side to the other – and too much lateral movement would take it either into the burning remains of the Dacha on the left, or the nearly sheer mountainside on the right, neither of which Aliyev could even fucking see now in all the billowing black smoke…
He worked the pedals to try and keep it something like steady and level, and forced himself to keep power static and climb with the collective only, finally rising out of the clouds of ash and smoke (and Ebola, and zombies) and soaring like a phoenix over the top of the burning and exploding and overrun Dacha, his home and sanctuary for these last two long, horrible years.
The mountain itself started to fall away beneath him, and the black smoke thinned, and the great brown-and-white wilderness of the Altai mountains and this endless ass-end of the world began to spread out below, and Aliyev drew in a great intake of breath. He had forgotten the extent of the utter wasteland he had long inhabited – and also realized with a start that he had never in his life been so glad to see the back of anything.
He shouted out loud again:
“Ha! HA! I am NOT going to die in this shithole!”
He had been so convinced of that, that he would buy it here, one way or the other – and the realization now that he would not was like a massive jolt of some extremely illegal stimulant to his system.
The fact that he had no idea whatsoever if he could even survive actually exiting the helicopter – with the horror-movie menagerie of pathogens that probably coated its surface now – was of relatively little concern. He’d just deal with that shit later.
He revved up the power, pushed the cyclic forward sharply – and as the rotor disc above him tilted dramatically forward, Oleg Aliyev, and his sleek Eurocopter, and his bug-out bag, and his crate of grenades, and his coldbox of meningitis Z and meningitis Z vaccine, all took off like a high-tech bat out of a remote Eurasian hell, blasting straight out to the west and directly into the setting sun.
* * *
As he finally remembered to start breathing again, Aliyev mastered his thoughts and tried to mentally review the travel plan he’d put together earlier. This was a theoretical route that might, if he were super-lucky – a lot luckier than he remotely deserved – might just allow him to hopscotch his way across Eurasia, landing only in places where he A) could find fuel for the helo; and B) might not immediately be swarmed and devoured by arbitrarily large numbers of rampaging dead fuckers, who would instantly be drawn by the noise of the engines and rotors.
He figured his odds of A were pretty decent, considering how quickly and completely civilization had fallen. Plenty of fuel depots and tanks would still be topped off.
But his odds of B were shit.
He knew he would have to keep the rotors running. And if the dead turned up before he could finish refueling… well, even if he played it safe and landed a lot more often than he strictly had to… eventually, too many failed refueling attempts would doom him. He’d be out of fuel and dead in the water. Much more to the point: he’d be dead.
Worse, if the helo got swarmed or overrun before he could lift off, then the game would be up as well. To say that this was going to be touch-and-go would be to indulge in unwarranted optimism.
Aliyev sighed out loud, figuring he would just have to take his damned chances, and deal with all that as it came. And letting the details of his forthcoming odyssey go out of mental focus, instead he thought about what he was leaving behind… what he was heading toward… and all that would scroll by underneath him along the way.
Behind him was his little empire – his Empire of One, with his handful of hapless zombie test subjects – now fallen and destroyed. It had gone down hard, fast, and violently, as had virtually every other empire across all of human history. And, amusingly, it had also sat at the heart of what had once been the Mongol Empire – the second largest ever known, until it fractured into bloody infighting and dissolution after the death of Kublai Khan…
Ahead of him, along his path, if he lasted that long, Aliyev would also overfly the former lands of the Islamic Caliphate, taken down by the great blood-drenched catastrophe of World War One… and he’d fly within sight of much of the remains of the Soviet Empire, which was eventually (and peacefully) put out of its misery by simple capitalism and modernity…
Finally, far out beyond the Atlantic Ocean, lay the remains of what had once been the mighty American hegemony, that gargantuanly powerful, culturally all-conquering, and globe-straddling benevolent despot – which in the end could only be taken down by… the very end of the world.
None of these empires had lasted. All had fallen.
All lay in ashes and ruins.
But now Aliyev was going to try to make his way to the very heart, and all that remained, of the once-mighty British Empire – which had been the very largest and most powerful of all time, the world’s dominant power for well over a century.
Now that globe-straddling dominion had been reduced down to just a single city – London, the world’s final capital – and humanity’s last stand. And, as far as Aliyev could make out,
that final spark was a hair’s breadth away from going out forever.
And when it did, that would be it for humanity: evolution’s weird, hyper-intelligent, neurotic, self-destructive experiment – so sacred and profane, divine and damned, nearly unlimited in its potential for both achievement and failure, triumph and tragedy, good and evil.
And when the last of them died, the contest would be decided – and all of life’s staggering potential would have been squandered.
And instead the Empire of the Dead would be triumphant. And complete.
And eternal.
But, even now, in the final hour, there was still some trace, some hint, some ghost, of a hope. But, even if there wasn’t, and it was already too late… well, there was nothing to do but act as if hope still lived – and carry on.
London or bust, Aliyev thought, putting the helo on autopilot just long enough to stab himself with the syringe, and flood his veins with the meningitis Z vaccine.
And, with that, he vowed to stop looking back.
One way or the other.
Forever.
Epilogue: Sparks in the Dark
Brilliant blue sparks rained down from above, turning the previously rich blackness into brilliant glare and deep shadows. The overhead lights had gone off a while ago now – no doubt due to the portable generators finally running out of fuel.
Way down below this shower of sparks, a single eye half-opened to take in the show. Its owner had long ago lost the ability to sit up. He was slumped on the floor, neck bent at an awkward angle. His body sat at the center of a wide, rich, and nearly perfectly circular pool of his own blood.
He lay like that, unmoving, as the sparks finally came to a stop – and then a very large circular section of roof, made of heavy corrugated steel, came loose with a groan and a shriek, and fell whistling through thirty feet of open air, landing like a thunderclap on the bare concrete floor below. Daylight poured in through the opening, not exactly illuminating the gargantuan space below, but definitely chasing away some of the darkness.
A human form – well, it was recognizably of human shape, but seemed much too big to be an actual human – appeared inside the circle, blotting out much of the light. The figure was in the posture of a rapeller, leaning back in a harness, and the man slumped on the floor below could just see a big bundle of rope drop and fall free down to the floor. The rapeller took the full distance in a single bound.
The slumping, bloodied man on the floor let the immense weight of his eyelids bring them down again.
Whatever was going on, he was well past helping.
* * *
When Juice opened his eyes again, he was in a moving aircraft, the noises and vibrations telling him it was a helicopter. He looked to his side where a thick IV tube – pumping red blood, not clear plasma, and presumably his own blood type – snaked out of his arm, up into the hands of a Navy medic. She was focused on monitoring his vital signs.
“Right here, man.”
This rumbling voice – definitely not from the woman – was deep and loud enough to cut through the wind, rotor, and engine noise. Juice turned his head to the other side, and the next thing he saw was the man-mountain of his friend: Predator.
He was holding Juice’s hand, squeezing it tightly.
“You’re gonna be okay, buddy,” Pred said, nodding toward the medic as she replaced the liter bag of blood at the end of the IV. “Just gotta fill you back up is all. You sprung a couple leaks.”
Juice nodded weakly.
Trying to see around Predator – not an easy task at the best of times – he looked out the half-open side door of the helo. And he could see they were just crossing the border between land and water, leaving SAS Saldanha behind, and heading out to sea – presumably back to the Kennedy.
But as he struggled to focus, he could also just make out, in the distance behind them, a second helicopter. It was rising up over that big warehouse, the one he now knew too well. A heavy line descended from its belly down to the roof of the structure, and disappeared through that big circular hole. As the helo continued to climb, it pulled up a huge and ponderous sling-load – composed of probably half a dozen lashed-together pallets of crates, barrels, and boxes.
Supplies. A whole shit-ton of them.
Juice’s mission objective.
He somehow found the energy to laugh aloud, though it devolved quickly into a coughing spasm.
“Rest easy, man,” Pred said, propping up Juice’s head, then cradling it. “Take it easy. We’re all going home.”
Juice nodded, then let his head fall back into his brother’s catchers-mitt-sized hand, and let his eyes drift blissfully closed again. It occurred to him now that there must be some painkillers in that IV. Which was just fine with him.
Yeah. Juice let the image of those beautiful pallets, all lashed together, linger on the insides of his eyelids.
He could definitely take it easy now.
* * *
Standing shoulder-to-shoulder on the observation deck of the JFK’s island, high up and just outside the bridge, Command Sergeant Major Handon, Master Gunnery Sergeant Fick, and Commander Abrams all watched the first incoming helo grow in aspect and volume.
Soon the big Seahawk was flaring in to land beside the island, and medical personnel were rushing out to meet it with a rolling gurney. Off in the distance, back over land, they could also just make out their second helo, coming in slowly and carefully, with its first giant load of critically needed supplies slung underneath it.
Abrams exhaled heavily before speaking. “What do you say we load up all this crap – and get the hell out of here? The Gulf of Aden’s not going to come to us.”
“Seriously,” Fick said. “Next stop Somalia. Six lanes, no waiting. And no more fucking field trips. Or firefights.”
Handon’s steel jaw just remained set, as his strong hands gripped the railing before him. “That’s if we’re not already too late. This has been a hell of a costly diversion.”
The expressions of the other two darkened as they all looked down at the Seahawk, its spinning blades slowing, as Juice was lifted out and transferred to the waiting gurney.
Handon shook his head. “And not just in time. What a price to pay for some MREs and ammo crates. Dead Marines, grievously wounded aircrew, another one of my guys hit.”
Abrams said, “Supplies are life. And the Russians knew that. That’s why they wanted the base so badly – and fought so hard to keep it.”
Fick grunted. “Yeah, maybe they did. But at the end of a prize fight, you look at the guy who’s dancing around, and that’s who won.”
Looking down again and squinting intently, Fick now saw Juice being wheeled across the flight deck – and noticed that his pants had been cut completely off him, to expose the leg wound. Cupping his hands, Fick shouted down, probably louder than necessary:
“Hey Green Beret! When you’re done fuckin‘ those dead guys, you’re supposed to put your pants back on!”
Flat on his back, half-conscious, most of his blood gone, and hopped up on painkillers, Juice evidently still heard him. Because, in response, he raised up his right hand, middle finger extended – and held it proudly aloft every second until he was finally wheeled out of sight down below.
Handon and Abrams laughed, then exchanged sad looks behind Fick’s back. Still shaking their heads, they both turned and went back inside.
All alone on the observation deck now, wind rippling his uniform, Fick gripped the railing and nodded his head once in satisfaction.
Damn, sometimes I do still really love this job…
Come back and live through the beginning of the end of the world in
ARISEN : GENESIS, the pulse-pounding and bestselling first ARISEN prequel.
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Thanks and Acknowledgements
Michael
Thank you, forever, to our amazing readers. You make us so happy and grateful, and we love you so much.
Here’s an overdue thank-you to the special operators – not only for going out and saving the world and battling for freedom and decency every day; not only for training like professional athletes and performing like minor gods; not only for their enormous sacrifice and commitment; but for providing such an amazing and priceless example of how to make it through life successfully: with resilience to all difficulties, and with resolve to never quit. (More on this, and how the operators saved my life, here.)
This author also wishes to thank indispensable uber-reader Amanda Jo Moore, as well as go-to readers (and subject matter experts) Mark George Pitely and Alexander M. Heublein; also Anna K. Brooksbank, Sara Natalie Fuchs, Richard S. Fuchs, Virginia Ann Sayers-King, Valerie Sayers, Matthew David Grabowy, and Michael and Jayne Barnard, for their indispensable support. Also, Bruce, Wanda, Alec, and Brendan Fyfe.
The bit about how the typical Spetsnaz soldier is “a skeptic, a cynic, and a pessimist” – as well as about how “one second is how long anyone can hold out against Spetsnaz interrogation” – was taken pretty much wholesale from Spetsnaz: The Story Behind the Soviet Special Forces by Viktor Suvorov. Virtually everything else about Spetsnaz was also taken from this outstanding and fascinating book.
The line “from the moment a helicopter comes off the assembly line, pretty much all it wants to do is kill you” was stolen from an episode of The Unit called “Natural Selection,” written by Sharon Lee Watson (series created by Eric L. Haney and David Mamet). If you haven’t watched The Unit, boy are you missing out big-time.
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