Zombie Ocean (Book 4): The Loss

by Michael John Grist

  The plane screamed, the fuselage jerked and something ripped sharply off the tail of the plane with a jolt that smacked Anna's forehead against the stick.

  "I love you, sweetheart," Amo's voice came over the radio, "Jake, thank you. I'm so sorry."

  "Amo-" Anna shouted, then the plane hit the runway with an earsplitting-

  CRASH

  The ceiling punched Anna in the back then threw her to the side as the plane's body skidded and screeched over the asphalt, entering a roll that crumpled the left wing like wet tissue paper in a blender. Her arm crunched off the unforgiving instrument panel as the cockpit rolled on its side, tumbling her like clothes in the laundry. Sparks shot off the asphalt as the battered plane scraped out the last of its momentum on the runway and hit the damp, overgrown soil of the verge with a muddy slap.

  The plane body tilted onto its roof then creaked back again, settling in a trench on its side where the torn wing had been. Anna lay against the cockpit side glass, dizzy and in pain.

  "Amo," she whispered, as the darkness drew in from the sides of her vision like a great black tide, shutting her in.

  Seconds later she came up gasping. Her shoulders and head were pressed to the window while her lower body was sprawled upwards across Peters' lap, still fastened to his chair.

  "I think we made it," he wheezed, hanging sideways from his seatbelt.

  Anna tried to push herself up but she was dizzy and her arm shrieked in pain as she tried to put her weight on it.

  "Amo," she shouted, but the radio didn't respond.

  The cab was filling with black smoke, filtering through the cracked front mechanics. The propeller was still spitting out a dying, spluttery roar, and underneath it there was the gulping sound of kerosene spewing out of the fuel tank in back. Anna spun, taking in the state of their wreckage, and used her good left arm to tuck her knees in and get her feet under her.

  Through the cracked windows above Jake's head she saw glowing embers of red-hot metal lying like a slug's trail of torn debris behind them.

  It was going to blow.

  "Get out," she muttered in Peters' face. He nodded but didn't move. She shifted position and slapped at the belt buckle with her good hand, getting it on the third try, and he slid bonelessly against the side window with a crunch that broke his nose and spurted red on the glass.

  "Unhh," he grunted.

  "Shit," she cursed and heaved him to the side. "Jake!"

  Jake didn't answer. Already the smoke was stinging her eyes. Never mind the fuel going up in flames, they would choke first. Dizzily she tried to remember how they'd got in the plane, now that it was rocked nearly onto its roof.

  She grabbed the seat back and crawled through the gap between the pilot and co-pilots' chairs, to where Jake hung sideways in his cradling seatbelt.

  "Jake!" she shouted over the whining in her ears and the startling barks of the sick propeller. His eyes were open but he wasn't all there. There was a wound pumping blood in his forehead and his skin had gone very pale. "Jake, come on!"

  His eyes focused on her for a second then peeled away, his lips mumbling wordlessly. Anna tore off her sweater, her right arm crying out in pain, and fumblingly knotted it as tightly as she could around his head. Then she slapped his belt off and caught his head before it smacked the glass.

  "Jake I need you," she shouted. "I think my arm's broken and I can't carry you out of here. You have to get up!"

  He looked at her faintly between the trailing arms of her sweater, draped now down his face, like a drowning man trying to swim up from under a sheet of clear ice.

  "Jake!"

  He grunted started to move.

  "Get Peters," she ordered, then climbed onto his seat to reach up to the door, which now hung overhead. Working the catch was difficult by the flashing red emergency light, and when she cracked it open for a second fresh air poured in.

  The backdraft set the cockpit aflame. Bright tongues of fire licked at the controls, pumped by the engine, and in a second Peters caught fire too.

  He screamed. Jake had his hands on him and he screamed too as the fire bit them both.

  Anna slammed the door shut again.

  "Smother it!" she shouted, and Jake fumbled around with his shirt trying to stretch it to cover Peter's head, even as his own jacket was on fire. Anna leaned over, stepping on the sides of the seats, and slapped at Jake's back with her one good hand. Acrid black smoke filled the cockpit again in seconds, and soon her eyes were stinging and she was coughing, but it helped them kill the fire.

  "Come on!"

  Jake lurched and hugged Peters to him, and together they tumbled back into the second tier of seats.

  "Quickly now," Anna called over the sound of the propeller shrieking itself to a crescendo as the engine burned itself out, and threw the door open again. Smoke sucked out, fresh air flushed in and this time the whole instrument panel lit up in a wall of flame. Peters screamed.

  "You have to climb," Anna shouted, looking into Jake's bleary face. "Jake, you first."

  He nodded, his eyes far away, and tipped Peters casually onto Anna. She caught him around the back with her bad arm, and the pain was excruciating. Jake climbed feebly up, kicking wildly off her cheek.

  "Now wait up there, I can't lift him alone."

  A moment later Jake's head appeared above the open door, lit by the red emergency light, looking barely awake and dripping thick blood on her face. The propeller was frantic now as the engine tore itself apart in a fury, ripping at the air, and the heat of the cockpit fire was unbearable and spreading.

  Anna strained, lifting with her thighs and her shoulders, pushing Peters' frail body up with her hips. His face passed her by, bubbling with blood from his broken nose, then Jake had him and pulled him through.

  Anna was left alone in the fuselage, shrouded with smoke and fire. The cockpit glass started to warp and crack and the instruments began to pop out of their settings in the plastic dashboard.

  "Anna!" came a tinny little voice through the thick of it, "Jake!"

  Amo on the radio.

  Then Jake was leaning back in, his arms trailing down like climbing ivy, and she gave him her hand. Her skin was slippy with sweat or blood though and he couldn't get a grip.

  "Uurgh," he grunted, his mouth barely opening, flapping his right hand at her. "Uurgh."

  She gritted her teeth and flung him her broken arm too. Extending it almost made her pass out. The forearm was visibly broken, one stick of bone sticking out through the skin. Jake caught it by the wrist and heaved.

  She screamed. It was like being stretched on the rack, as the meat of her arm alone took her weight for jerking, huffing seconds. Silver lights sparkled in her eyes and the bone sucked back into her arm, followed by a sharp grating on the inside like nails on a chalkboard, then she was up and over the lip and scrabbling instinctively with her good arm.

  The plane was scoured black and lit by fires consuming the propeller and spilling out onto the scorched grass. Jake slumped by the entrance with his legs trailing along the plane's white underbelly, while Peters lay like a broom across his lap.

  Anna let herself slide down the plane's side and tugged at Jake as she went, pulling them both after her. They tumbled into a soggy puddle of mud and kerosene, which splashed on her face and stung her eyes. They needed to get away.

  She shoved Jake and dragged Peters after her, only seconds before the puddle of fuel caught with a lifting whuff of flame.

  Ten seconds later, shuffling backward over the runway, the plane's tank caught and the back end exploded, tearing the fin and back fuselage to flying shrapnel. Anna sagged to her side as chunks of metal and fiberglass rained around and thunked off her. Jake dropped by her side and vomited on her legs. Peters lay motionless nearby. She closed her eyes for just a second.

  * * *

  A warm rain woke her, rinsing the soot out of her eyes. The sky was a gentle morning gray, overcast and humid. The sun was low and the demons were coming.
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  "Come on," she mumbled, nudging Jake. He roused and looked around. The makeshift bandage on his head had shifted and she could see the wound in his temple beneath it. It looked bad, a deep cut that had crusted over wildly, making it look like half his face had been ripped away. His eyes were slow and unresponsive.

  "Jake can you hear me?"

  He nodded.

  "But you can't talk?"

  A sharp tinge of panic grew in his eyes, then ebbed as though under a fog.

  "That's fine," Anna pressed on, tasting smoke and gritty kerosene in her mouth. Her own head throbbed. "But I need you to help me."

  He nodded slowly.

  She got to her feet. Where was Peters?

  She staggered over the runway calling out his name. He was a dark streak fifty yards away, crawling inch by inch over the weed-cracked asphalt. His back was charred black burned clothing, half his hair had been scorched away, but when she rolled him over his eyes were bright despite the bloody wreck of his broken nose.

  "Anna," he croaked, "you're alive."

  "Just barely," she said. "Can you not walk?"

  "Something's broken," he said, and nodded, "down there."

  Anna squatted back and looked. Her right arm was useless, but with her left she peeled a torn strip of his pants back.

  Both his legs were broken; one twisted sideways at the ankle and the other at the calf, though at least the skin wasn't broken. She gagged but held it in, plastering a calm look on her face.

  "Broken, you're right," she said. "Wait right here."

  "Jake!" she called. He was up now and wandering off to the right, leaning at a strange angle, but corrected when he saw her, even raised a hand to wave.

  "Come here," she said, and he did, tottering on his tiptoes in a way that looked like he couldn't remember how to walk. Every step nearly saw him tip on his face.

  "Sit with him," she told Peters. "I'm coming back. Jake, sit down."

  He sat down.

  She didn't have time to be scared or worried. There was only time to act.

  She ran. Her whole body hurt at first, resisting with a tightness in her muscles which soon devolved into a warming throb that signaled deep bruises spreading under the skin. She'd wrecked her yachts and been tossed bodily into the waves enough times to recognize that pain, and knew that it was only going to get worse.

  The runway thumped against her feet, and every time her right arm moved even the slightest amount, merciless spikes of pain shot up into her shoulder and neck. She held it close to her chest and adopted a loping sideways gait, bounding through the lukewarm puddles and knee-high weeds of the neglected runway, all while sorting through the challenges ahead as best she could.

  Peters had broken legs. She had a broken arm. Jake had sustained a serious head injury. They all needed intensive care, the kind only Ozark could provide, but Ozark wasn't here and she was, and all she had was the emergency go-bag stowed in the Jeep.

  She hit the open hangar and loped to the Jeep. The key was in the ignition, the engine started like a dream, and she was back on the runway beside them in a minute. In the trunk she rifled through the pack for bottles of water, dropping one by each of them, giving thanks she'd decided not to bring the go-bag on board the plane. She fished out a roll of antibiotic pills packaged in plastic and silver foil, popped two and washed them down with a healthy glug of water.

  "Here," she said, popping two into Peters' hand. "For any infection." He swallowed them. She had to guide Jake to take his, as he couldn't get his own hand to his mouth. They were all at risk of blood poisoning at the least, considering the amount of damage they'd sustained.

  Painkillers followed. She dosed both herself and Peters but not Jake, as she didn't want to do anything that tampered with his brain. Next she set to work cleaning and bandaging what she could. The split in Jake's temple was deep, his skull was probably cracked, but she didn't know what to do about that except bind it securely and try to keep him awake.

  The gash in her broken arm wasn't wide, so she wrapped it tightly with a plastic butterfly stitch, then smashed the Jeep's pneumatic trunk extenders with a mallet and used one as a splint, binding it tightly to her arm then hanging it in a sling.

  "I'm going to straighten your legs," she told Peters, holding his hand tightly. "If I don't do it now you won't be able to move for the pain. Don't die on me, all right?"

  He gave a watery grin. "I'm used to," he said, then stopped to breathe, "pain."

  "Bite on this." She handed him a strip of thick gauze, then dropped down at his feet. She peeled back his pants and surveyed the damage. This one a tug and twist to the left, this a twist to the right. That was a guess, but she only had her own judgment now.

  She did both in quick succession, bracing her feet mercilessly against his crotch and holding his legs between her left arm and chest. He shouted but didn't pass out. She used the trunk extender to splint his broken calf and a smashed bit of plastic from a storage crate to cup his shattered ankle.

  "Good as new," he breathed.

  Anna grinned. "That's the spirit. Now we have to move."

  She went to Jake and took his hand. "It's going to be OK," she said. He nodded at her though the panic was there again, hidden behind a veil of fog in his eyes. "Trust me. I need your help."

  He wobbled up to his feet. She pinched his jacket tightly behind the shoulder blades with her one good arm, enough to slow his descent if he fell.

  "Can you lift Peters into the trunk? Carefully, his legs are broken."

  He managed it, curling Peters onto a blanket and depositing him surprisingly gently into the trunk, then without being asked he got into the trunk with him.

  "Keep him awake," she said to Peters. "Don't let him sleep." Then she shut the trunk, got into the front seat and tore the Jeep away.

  * * *

  Back at the Chinese Theater she collected medical supplies, food, gas, a generator, lamp and two of the radios Amo had left behind, moving with urgent, clipped efficiency. Within ten minutes she was back in the Jeep and driving north through Los Angeles, trying to raise Amo on the radio, but with her one good hand on the wheel never was able to dial in for a clear signal.

  She couldn't spare the seconds to stop. The convoy had left at night around twelve hours ago, which probably put them somewhere near Albuquerque now, where they'd expected to cross the demons. She wasn't going to be able to help with that, but with the zombies?

  They were driving blind now toward the horde, hoping it was the right direction.

  Santa Barbara airfield was an hour up the coast, and she smashed right through the barricades to the runways and sped from hangar to hangar as the rain cleared up and the sun came out, searching for another Cessna 400TTx.

  "Is he awake?" she called back at times to Peters.

  "He's got very active eyes," Peters replied.

  There were no propeller Cessnas there though, only jets, and she didn't know the first thing about how a jet engine worked.

  She paused and rigged up a drip for each of them, left them some rice-ball sandwiches and dosed everyone again with antibiotics.

  "Sepsis is a bitch," she said, by way of explanation. Peters grunted.

  "Julio fed us these all the time," he said. "I'm a connoisseur."

  She tried Amo again but had no success; they had to be out of range already, or perhaps stuck in bad weather. She put the radio aside and drove north, headed toward San Francisco and another airfield she remembered passing on a cairn trip this way two years back.

  Hours passed with the Pacific on her left, a warm wind blowing through, in a blur of pain and exhaustion. The deep bruises were starting to push themselves up through her skin, turning her already dark skin a far blacker shade. The pain in her arm surged with even the slightest motion, as the ends of her bones grated against each other.

  Paso Robles airfield was big, and searching all the hangars took far longer than she expected. It was coming into late afternoon by the time she found another Ces
sna, not a TTx but an older 420, cherry red and outfitted for a singular rich pilot, perhaps a Hollywood star who liked to see the world from ten thousand feet.

  She located the kerosene pump and primed that first, checking there was some juice left, and filled the Cessna's tanks. It didn't matter now if the engine failed, because there was no time to find another. Soon enough the convoy would cross the country's mid-point and she'd never be able to catch up in time.

  "Is he awake?" she called back to the Jeep at times.

  "Just barely," Peters replied, his voice stuffy through his clogged broken nose. She dropped down and knelt before him. Both his eyes were ringed with shiny black bruises like a panda, and his nose itself was a crumpled purple mess.

  "I'm going to set this," she said. "It'll help you breathe."

  He gritted his teeth. "Yeah."

  She'd seen it done before. Ozark had done it for her once after she'd taken the wind too sharply on a racing yacht and the boom had swung over and belted her square across the face.

  It had been gristly, sharp and horrible.

  She pressed her fingers firmly either side of his nose, into deeply bruised flesh, and he gasped. It was more of a scoop after that, kneading the structure of his nose back up into position the same way you'd pop a zit.

  "Jesus!" Peters shouted, then sneezed, spraying blood and black clots all over Anna's waist. "Did you have to-" Another sneeze struck and he fell unconscious for a second. Blood trickled from his nose and Anna sat there in shock, until with a sharp gasp he came to.

  Breath wheezed in and out of his nose.

  "Oh God, don't do that again," he mumbled.

  "I need your help."

  Peters helped. He couldn't move, but by the light of the generator, with a fresh IV-bag dripping nutrients into his battered system and him propped up in the Jeep's trunk, he instructed her on what to do.

  They'd done it once already; strip the propeller hood, open up the casing, get into the pistons and check for rust. Oil everything. Strip and replace faulty-looking wires, clean, replace, filter and re-hose.

  She ran tests they hadn't run before, going step-by-step through the same drills Peters had taught himself a long time ago, back when it had been him and Abigail soaring through the skies over America, before Julio came and ruined everything.