Battlefield Z Series 2 (Book 1): Flyover Zombie

by Chris Lowry

  “We lost one of your people,” Sharp informed Jacob.

  The town leader bowed his head and sent up a silent prayer.

  “Which one?”

  “The smart one,” said Bear.

  “Rodney.”

  “Damn,” Jacob sighed. “I hope it was worth it.”

  “They’re coming.”

  Pam clapped her hands together and rubbed them.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said to Jacob. “But this is our chance to get the rest of your people to safety.”

  “There’s room for all of us on the plane?”

  “No,” said Sharp. “There’s not. There’s room for the mission personnel.”

  "We can save all of these people."

  "Not my job lady."

  "Your job is to protect them."

  "My job is to protect you and get you back to your father safe. That's it. Not one thing more."

  "Then your job sucks."

  "That may be true, and I think that sometimes, but right now, it's the only work I've got."

  "I'm not going."

  "Don't make me carry you."

  "I'd like to see you try."

  Sharp groaned. He didn't want it to come to this.

  "Bear."

  The giant moved in fast and scooped her up over his shoulder.

  She barely had time to squeal before a massive forearm clamped down across her legs and pinned her to him.

  She beat against his broad back, but it was like hitting a side of beef covered in Kevlar.

  "You're only going to make yourself uncomfortable."

  "Stop fighting," Sharp told her. "We're moving out."

  "Now?" she stopped hitting Bear and tried to peer around at Sharp.

  "Now. The plane is on the way."

  "At least let me tell them good bye, and let them know I'm coming back to get them."

  "No."

  "No?"

  "Too much blood rushing in your ears? I thought I was making myself clear."

  "You can't tell me no, I don't take orders from you."

  "Walk her out Bear."

  The giant turned around and trundled toward the gate. Javi jogged behind him.

  Jacob stood on the porch and watched them pass.

  "This is for the best," he called out.

  Sharp couldn't tell if it was a question or a statement.

  23

  Sharp and Bear made it to the gate again with a grumbling and squirming charge in tow.

  “Did you get my distraction?” Sharp asked.

  Javi nodded and pointed with his chin.

  “Moved the main body of them to that side of the fence. We’re going to have stragglers get in the way.”

  Sharp pulled the entire squad in close so they could hear him.

  “We’re making a run for the plane,” he said. “The backup LZ may be hot, and we’re going to have to make a path. Don’t shoot unless you have no choice. Shooting draws them to us. We move fast, we move quiet.”

  “Put. Me. Down,” Pam squealed.

  “We stay silent once the gate is open,” Sharp said for her benefit.

  “Once we’re on the plane, we’ll make a call for an airlift to get the rest of these people out of here. Coordinated and not on the fly.”

  That made Pam quiet down, or it could have been the blood rushing to her head.

  “Put her down?” Bear asked.

  “Not yet. We clear?” he called up to one of the compound guards that had replaced his men at the lookout by the gate.

  The man gave him a thumbs up.

  “We’re green. Sgt., let’s move out.”

  Javi turned the squad around and they moved out as the gates swung open.

  The main mass of zombies had moved away, but there were stragglers still in their path.

  The men jogged with quick precision, and quietly dispatched the moaning Z as they encountered them.

  They kept the pace up until they reached the edge of town and then moved faster.

  Bear set Pam down, helped her stay steady and then shadowed her as they ran with the others.

  The backup landing zone was ten miles out of town on a long stretch of straight highway.

  The trip to the LZ would have been gorgeous under different circumstances. Brilliant spots of sparkling starlight cascaded across the nighttime sky.

  Since the zombie apocalypse, most of the electrical pollution that hid the expanse of the galaxies had disappeared.

  No wonder all of the ancient cultures had advanced concepts of astronomy, Sharp thought as he listened to their boots on the asphalt.

  The stars were wondrous, and with nothing to interfere, mesmerizing to watch and study.

  He could imagine the ancients laying in flat fields, gazing up at the heavens and learning, noting the changes, the shifts in color and location.

  It distracted him until he saw one of the stars moving.

  “Is that our ride?” Georgie saw it too.

  “Looks like they’re ahead of schedule,” Javi answered. “Not by much.”

  The plane banked to the south of them as the pilots searched for the roadway.

  They had the coordinates plotted, but Sharp realized he and his men failed to consult the map.

  “It’s coming in,” he said as he noticed they were in the middle of the longest, flattest stretch of the road.

  They watched the pilot bank the giant C-130 and bank again as he lined up on the road they were on.

  “Do you hear that?”

  Sharp strained to listen, but it didn’t sound like the whine of plane engines.

  It sounded like a thumping motor with a low moaning growl underneath it.

  “Captain?” Javi pointed.

  He couldn’t make out details at this distance.

  But he could see a mass of shadows moving up the road toward them.

  Led by a riding lawn mower.

  “Son of a.”

  "What the hell is that?"

  "That is a lot of flocking zombies."

  "That's what we're going to call them? A flock?"

  "A herd? A stampeded? Whatever the fuck you want to call them, there are a lot of them."

  "A metric fuckton?"

  "A metric double fuckload."

  “Incoming,” Combine pointed.

  The pilot had lined up on the road and was coming in on top of them.

  The squad moved out of the way as the plane hit the highway and screeched past them.

  It crushed the lawn mower and plowed into the herd of zombies.

  Sharp watched the bodies clog the wheels around the jet, cover the road with a swarming press of rotting flesh.

  The sound of their moans was irksome from this distance. He could imagine the sound inside the plane.

  There was no way it was taking off.

  Even as they watched, the pilot tried to turn the wheels, spin around on the asphalt and clear a path.

  All it did was get him stuck more, the engines revving as he applied more torque to get them going.

  The suction whipped a body off the ground and splattered it through the spinning turbine.

  Followed by another, and another until the engine locked up on gore and meat.

  The whine of metal on metal as it sheared off inside the housing echoed off the side of the plane and flames erupted from the compromised motor.

  It popped and exploded, shrapnel piercing the wing.

  Fuel splattered out across the motor from the holes, and the wing erupted.

  One second later the plane exploded in a massive detonation that knocked Sharp and his squad to the ground.

  He scrambled to his knees and ducked as zombie pieces rained down around them, and then half bodies began falling.

  A torso with one arm landed on Combine.

  He screamed and batted it away, but the dead latched on his arm and bit.

  He screamed again as it bit down harder, gnawing at the sleeve of his fatigues.

  Javi jammed a knife through its
head.

  "Move! Move out!" Sharp screamed and led them away from the carnage.

  The blast had blown huge sections of the herd in their way.

  The squad ran through a gauntlet of mutilated animated corpses as they dodged left and right to avoid them.

  24

  “Open the gate!”

  The two metal walls cracked out to let the running group of soldier’s back into the compound.

  They collapsed on the curb under the worried watch of the guards.

  “What happened?” one called down in a panic.

  He kept glancing over his shoulder to the Z that ambled from between the houses toward the now closed gates.

  There were a lot of them, so many he lost count.

  His fingers clenched and unclenched on the handle of his rifle.

  “Get Doc,” Sharp ordered Javi.

  His Sgt. ran toward the auditorium where the rest of the squad waited.

  He ran back with Doc in tow and the medic started examining Combine.

  It didn’t take long.

  “He’s bit,” he announced.

  “We know that,” Sharp snapped. “Can you do something?”

  Combine huffed and gasped, but didn’t talk. Large tears leaked from the corner of his eyes and spread tracks in the dirt on his black cheeks.

  They called him Combine because he tried out for the NFL twice before going into the service after college.

  His speed on the field was almost poetic, and several of his squad mates knew him by name from watching highlight reels on sports talk shows.

  It was like having a celebrity in the squad.

  Quiet, reliable, and dedicated.

  “Give him morphine,” Sharp ordered.

  Doc backed away.

  “Our supplies are limited Cap,” he said. “I don’t want to waste it.”

  Combine snuffled a sob.

  Doc meant he didn’t want to waste it on a dead man.

  Sharp grabbed the medic by the straps and yanked him down close to Combine.

  “Help him.”

  Doc shook his head and struggled to get loose.

  “Can’t.”

  Sharp let go of the man and watched him roll away.

  “Damn it!” he screamed.

  He pulled the knife from the sheath on his vest and put the tip against Combine’s temple.

  “I’m sorry,” he said and slid it in.

  He pulled out the blade and the rest of his men sat there, watching him.

  He knew they would want him to do the same.

  None of them wanted to turn Z.

  He hoped they would take care of him if it happened, though he figured on eating a bullet if it did.

  Save them the hard part.

  But he hated it.

  He hated killing his man, the second on this mission.

  All to save one person.

  Sharp glared at Pam.

  “You better be worth it.”

  He stood up, sheathed his blade and stalked off toward the middle of the compound.

  Javi gave orders to Bear and Specs to get Combine up and out of sight while they figured out the next step.

  He moved over to stand next to Pam.

  “Don’t say anything,” she said.

  He was impressed she wasn’t crying.

  He sure felt like it.

  “I’m not making excuses for him,” Javi said. “I was wondering if he was right.”

  “So was I.”

  She followed after Sharp, but instead of chasing him down, she turned to the porch that lined the front of the auditorium and planted herself on the steps.

  She needed to think up a plan because right now, no one else was working.

  25

  Sharp rounded the corner of the building at the far end of the compound and contemplated pounding the wall.

  Jacob or whoever had come up with the design had done a good job of ringing off several blocks of the small down and putting up steel walls.

  There was only one way in and out, which meant he had privacy back here.

  It’s what he wanted.

  He should have cried.

  That would have given him some release and vented the pent-up emotions that were gurgling in his gut.

  But he didn’t.

  He stared at the wall, stared at the houses, studied the wind in the treetops, higher here since the obstruction blocked and changed the flow of the breeze.

  He used a meditation technique they taught in training, practicing breathing in and out on a four count and let it wash a calm over him.

  No plan ever survived contact with the enemy, which is why the training emphasized thinking on your feet so much.

  A smile cracked his lips as he remembered a line from one of his favorite movies with Clint Eastwood.

  “Improvise. Overcome. Adapt.”

  He wasn’t a Marine but damn he could use their adage.

  The Marine’s had to come up with it because they were so often underfunded, outnumbered and facing overwhelming odds.

  Yet time and again they came out on top and stuck it to the enemy.

  Sharp wished he had a contingent of Marines under his command right now, or one good DI to smack him upside the head and ask him if he needed a wham-bulance.

  They were trapped.

  They were surrounded by zombies in the wasteland of the middle.

  They had no intelligence about the threat, what survived or who.

  So, as he figured it, they had two options.

  They could wait and die.

  Or they could take action.

  He wasn’t quite sure what the action was, but he had an idea.

  The glimmer of one at least.

  It would be an improvise for damn sure.

  He wasn’t certain if they could overcome with it though.

  Sharp sighed.

  He took a long deep breath and turned to go find Pam and Jacob.

  26

  “I have an idea,” he said.

  “So do I.”

  Sharp nodded.

  He didn’t plan to apologize to her and he was slightly impressed that she didn’t ask for one.

  Instead he found her sitting on the steps to the auditorium and thinking of the next thing to do.

  “You first,” he instructed.

  “They thought your plane was lost, right Captain?”

  “They sent a plane.”

  “I meant they thought you were lost when you parachuted in. Then you contacted them and they lost the plane. Do you really think they’re going to send another?”

  “It’s your father,” he waved her off. “You tell me.”

  “I think that he did the best he could, but they don’t know what’s out here. I don’t think another plane is coming.”

  He glanced around at the compound.

  “So what? You want to stay here and pioneer it?”

  “No.”

  “Try to contact NYC?”

  “No.”

  “Then what Ma’am?”

  “I want to take these people to California.”

  “You just said they won’t send another plane.”

  “Then we’ll drive them.”

  Sharp snickered.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Could you stop calling me ma’am?” Pam huffed. “It’s Pam. Ms. Ballantine if you can’t manage that.”

  “Pam,” he tried it on for size to see how it fit on his tongue and found he liked the way it felt.