“Don’t jinx us asshole. Just fix the damn thing,” Joel said, and the men all agreed.
With any luck, tonight’s sunset would be their last sunset on the island.
*****
Five men wearing head-to-toe black clothing cut the chain link fencing that surrounded Lajes airfield shortly after two in the morning. The thin men, each carrying a machete covered in black soot to darken the blade, ran across the expanse to the hangar where the MC130 had just been fully repaired. The ragtag amateurs had leapt into action when they heard the plane roar to life earlier and move forward out of the large structure that had been its home for the duration of its stay in the Azores. Their safety net was leaving.
Dale and Logan were working on the aft of the craft when the malicious crew of locals slid around the shadowed corner of the building. They had eluded the men set out to watch. The two Air Force crewmen were finishing the work of moving the Humvees into the plane and getting them affixed to the floor for flight. Neither noticed the threat moving towards them from the darkness.
“Logan please make sure that other tire is locked in place. I’m gonna check the hangar work tables and see if that case is still there. I think Kate might’ve moved it on us,” Dale hollered over his shoulder into the belly of the plane as he walked into danger obliviously.
Dale jumped down off the edge of the plane’s ramp and walked towards the interior of the hangar. Out of the corner of his eye he saw movement in the darkness, and he drew his pistol. Right before the machete sank into the back of his neck, killing him instantly, he saw one of the men raise a blade to the wheel of the big plane. Dale’s body dropped to its knees and fell flat on its face. His handgun clattered across the tarmac where one of the black clad men scooped it up eagerly.
Inside the plane Logan froze when he heard the metal weapon skid across the concrete. The noise and what it meant was unmistakable. Logan stood up from his crouch behind the truck and drew his own handgun. He crept down the ramp, gun up and searching for the source of the suspicious noise. "Dale?" Logan asked out loud. His friend didn't reply. Logan reached down to his belt and grabbed the small radio to inform the others of the strange occurrence. “Hey guys, I just heard some strange noises near the plane, can I get some support here ASAP?” Logan asked into the radio. Within a second he had a response.
“Enroute.” It was Joel. Logan could tell from the thick curdle in his voice caused by that ugly scar tissue.
Logan breathed a sigh of relief and swallowed hard before putting the radio back on his belt. “Hey Dale, you out there?” As Logan asked he felt a slight tremor in the plane. Almost as if someone were shaking it. The sensation caused him to run down the ramp, worried something was happening outside of the plane.
Logan rounded the corner of the plane and saw a smear of blood on the concrete trailing off into the night. “Dale!” Logan reached down to his belt to grab the radio again but was stopped cold when he heard a quick series of gunshots and saw the corresponding muzzle flashes. The shots were aimed at the plane’s tires, and the shooter was just feet away from Logan. Logan turned and dove backwards, taking cover low against the end of the plane's loading ramp. It wasn’t much cover, but sometimes you really do need any port in a storm. When his body impacted the ground he lost a bit of his breath with a grunt. Logan cursed the blackness and leveled his pistol off where he thought the shots had come from. He drew the trigger three times as smooth as he could, and sent lead downrange, hoping it’d find the hidden shooter.
One of the rounds did. Logan heard a yelp of pain immediately followed by the distinct sound of a person falling down hard on the ground. Logan celebrated his victory with a grin and another squeeze of the trigger. He heard the same person shout out something in Portuguese as the second bullet bit into their flesh. Logan saw a faint movement in the dark suddenly, and saw a pair of pale hands point a weapon in his direction. Logan didn’t hear the shots, but he saw the flashes of the gun going off.
He certainly felt the bullets as they burrowed deep into his stomach, one by one.
*****
Joel was already running faster than most people could manage when the first shots rang out. Joel’s powerful legs pistoned him forward even more powerfully when the flashes of the weapons illuminated the scene in the hangar as he approached. He briefly saw a handful of men turning to run away from the side of the plane, each dressed in what appeared to be black pajamas. Joel slowed his run to a steady combat walk and brought up his M4. Through the AimPoint sight he couldn’t see a thing. Joel was on watch that night, observing the far side of the airfield, and as such was wearing night vision goggles on his helmet. As fast as a cat snatching a mouse Joel flipped the goggles down from the front of the helmet, throwing the world into a thousand shades of green. The light spilling out of the hangar was near overwhelming, and made him squint.
The four men still standing and the man on the ground near the plane could not have been better illuminated in the operator’s vision once it adjusted. Those familiar with the green world of the night vision equipment could see as well as if they were standing in daylight. Joel was intimately familiar with the goggles he was looking through, and when he put the red dot of the AimPoint sight on his targets, they might as well have been tied down in a barrel with him standing over them.
Like the vengeful hand of an angry god Joel pulled the trigger of his rifle four times, and all four men tumbled to the ground, dead or dying. Joel scanned the area as he dropped into a low crouch, making his profile as small as possible. He had no idea if anyone else was out there. After a second or two the communications network the Americans used exploded with confused and animated traffic. Jaden, Kevin, Fitz, Hal, Roger, and Ethan all began to call out where they were, or where they were headed.
Kevin asked the biggest question over the radio, “What the fuck is happening? Are we being attacked, or is it undead?”
Joel waited a couple seconds to give Dale or Logan a chance to answer, but when they didn’t, he knew they were hurt. He thumbed his mic and responded to Kevin, “Kev we had five live at the bird up to no good. Looks like Dale and Logan engaged one, I dropped the other four. I’m moving in now to see if our two are okay, and to get the hostiles in check. I could use a hand, I think Dale and Logan are hit or injured.”
“Copy that. Roger and Ethan, please go to the bird, everyone else follow the plan and lock the airfield down with fields of fire like normal. Looks like the locals don’t want us to leave after all.”
Joel stood up, and started running to the plane again. Two of his friends were either hurt or dead, and that meant time was a factor.
He didn’t want to shoot his friends in the head when they stood back up again.
*****
“Goddamn it,” Kate said, tears running down her face in the dark of night. It wouldn’t be long before dawn cast its light on the runway. On the tarmac at her feet were two body bags. Two occupied body bags.
Dale and Logan had died.
Michelle, ever the comforting soul, stood next to Kate and put her arm around the angry pilot’s shoulders. Kate let her guard down for a moment and pressed her body into the blonde that served as their spiritual leader. Michelle’s presence was calming, and soothing.
Kate wiped the tears away and cleared her throat with a wet cough. She turned to Nick, her co-pilot, and then tilted her head at the big plane. “What’s the deal with her?”
Nick looked up to Kate from the bags on the ground, his own eyes red and streaked with emotion. “We have a flat tire. They managed to hack at one, and get a bullet through. We can take off, and land, but it’ll be dicey. If we can get one of the spares on, we’d be much better off. Playing it safe and all.”
Kate nodded. “Let’s do it then. I want off this fucking rock before the locals come looking for more blood. No. Fuck that. I want off this rock before I go looking for more of their blood.” Kate brushed Michelle’s arm off and walked away with Nick. She was still dealing with her own fury
and working on the plane might at least distract it away for a time.
Michelle watched her walk away and when the two pilots were out of sight around a corner, she turned back and looked to the wheelchair bound Jaden, and the somber Kevin. Kevin had taken off his white baseball cap to pay respect to the fallen airmen. Michelle saw the sadness and weariness in his eyes. It was another pair of dead to remember.
“What happens now?” Michelle asked.
Kevin looked up to her, donning his cap absently, reflexively. “The locals might come again. We need to make sure we have enough time for Kate and Nick to get that wheel replaced. Thank goodness the airfield here has the right kind of tires still. If the locals come, we put them down hard and fast if they get close. No more free lunches or fucking band aids for these people. I’m sorry Michelle. It’s too much of a risk.”
Michelle looked at him. She could see he was sad knowing that more bloodshed was likely. She understood what he meant the other day suddenly. He and the men here were professionals at their craft, and did want to use their skills lightly. The thought of killing more people, even in self defense weighed heavily on the man. She saw the same pained expression on Jaden’s face.
“I had a dream,” Michelle said suddenly. She hadn’t meant to say that.
Both men turned to her like they’d been shocked with a cattle prod. “What? You didn't think to tell us this before now?” Kevin asked.
“I dreamt of a man named Gilbert, and a man named Gavin. It was a dream in The White Room. They told me the Soul is in America. And that we needed to move soon, because the Soul would be in danger before long, and that perhaps only The Warden could save him. Kevin, I understand you don’t want to kill these people, but I understand now. We have a mission. We have a goal, a quest, whatever you want to call it. And I understand now that there will be people who get in our way, and that these people may not know what they are doing when they hinder us on this mission to save humanity.
I also understand now that your role as The Warden is to see this through, and that sometimes violence is the only answer, and that some souls must be sent on their way at the end of a blade, or at the end of your gun barrel Kevin. So be it. Even God had an Angel of Death.”
Kevin’s blood ran cold hearing her words.
*****
Kevin sprinted up the steps to the top of the tower near the edge of the airfield. Dawn had only reached an hour in age, and the population of the island had already started its march on the airfield. Down the street heading directly towards their position Kevin could see at least two hundred men and women walking this way, all carrying implements intended to do harm to the Americans. They held axes, pitchforks, kitchen knives, and even some guns. The tall veteran reached the top of the tower and stopped abruptly next to Ethan, the PJ sniper.
Ethan was leaning over the edge of the tower’s fortified railing with his high powered bolt-action sniper rifle leveled directly at a man in the crowd with a similar rifle. Ethan had already assessed the threats, and that man was first on the list. Kevin wondered if the stranger with the gun knew his life could be forfeit in a heartbeat.
“Wow,” Kevin said.
“Yeah. Not good. Roger is bringing the SAW over here now. If push comes to shove, we’re gonna have to mow the fucking crowd down. This is going to be a fucking bloodbath Kevin. We need to figure this out fucking quick,” Ethan said calmly, never taking his eye off the scope of the rifle. The man down below was not given a millisecond’s reprieve.
“Alright. I’ll get Michelle. She’s good at this kind of thing. Maybe she has an idea of what we can try and say,” Kevin said. Ethan grunted a soft reply in the affirmative, and Kevin was off. As Kevin leapt from the last stair he saw Roger sprinting full tilt towards him, light machine gun in hand. Roger’s face was desperate, energized, adrenalized. Even if the killing was a tragedy, the moment still spiked the heart and made the blood run hot.
Kevin found Michelle nearby, packing up a small steel container of fruits and vegetables that the locals had bartered to the group. She was clearly distressed, wearing a furrowed brow on her face as she put everything away. She knew something very bad was brewing. Michelle clamped the lid shut just as Kevin reached her side.
“They’re here aren’t they?” She asked without looking at him.
“Yeah.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know, two or three hundred, maybe more,” Kevin said.
“Are we going to have to kill them?” Michelle finally looked up at him, unhappy at the train of thought running through her mind.
“I don’t know. I was hoping you had an idea of what we might be able to say to them. If we open up on them it’ll be a fucking massacre. Then we’ll have a slew of undead to put down too. We can’t just drop them then leave the island to fend the dead off," Kevin said as he rested his hand on the holstered Glock on his hip.
“There will be two massacres in that case.” Michelle observed quietly. Far off in the distance the nearing crowd’s roar could be heard. They did not sound happy. They wanted blood for the men that had died just a few hours prior. It was insanity. To commit murder, and then demand justice for the death of the murderers killed in kind. Kevin nodded at her in response.
“I don’t think it’s safe for you to talk to them. I can’t risk you getting killed. I’m here to protect you from things like this, right? It seems a bit stupid to let you walk into the middle of a crowd of angry folks and just hope for the best. I am going to try and talk to them. I’d love some advice.”
Michelle sat on the large metal case filled with fruit. She took a long minute to organize her thoughts before responding. “Tell them who we are.”
“I’m not sure I understand.” Kevin was confused.
“I’m not sure I do either. But I think if you reach deep down inside yourself Kevin, and tell them who you are, who we really are, they’ll understand you.” Michelle shrugged.
“Getting awfully fucking vague on me Michelle. You’re starting to sound like a philosopher.”
She smiled. “Might be, yeah. Or do I sound like a preacher? Wise idioms some old man wrote a thousand years ago that may or may not apply. I don’t know Kevin. I have a feeling. Try it. Feel this out on your own. Let the moment guide you.”
Kevin shook his head, and walked away.
Religious mumbo jumbo pissed him off.
*****
Down at the gate below the tower where the two special operators stood, weapons pointed down like biblical archangels full of fury and wielding spears of divine wrath, Kevin waited for the crowd to reach him. Kevin’s M4 rifle was slung comfortably across his chest where it had lived for months now. It wasn’t new, or a threat, just a piece of him, no different than the fingers at the ends of his hands, or the toes at the ends of his feet.
The angry mob reached the chain link fence and started to press into it, straining the metal mightily. They were yelling at him, and his two men in the tower. Angry curses in Portuguese and Spanish came out unending as they threatened with their weapons. Luckily the construction of the gate was firm, and held for many a second before the crowd spilled out wide, filling the area in front of Kevin for a hundred feet in both directions. Kevin suddenly felt the enormity of the moment. If he failed here, every one of these people would be gunned down by the men above him. It would be a slaughter. It would be a tragedy.
Kevin inhaled deeply and took in the scent of flowers. He couldn’t place the exact flower, or even see them anywhere around, but he’d caught the aroma on the air many times recently. It was a sweet scent, cloying but welcome, and for no reason he could pick out, he was reminded of honey. Kevin felt a moment of inner peace as he closed his eyes, and gathered himself for what could be the most important moment of his life. Kevin spoke in a loud tone, just below a yell, and just above normal. He felt it carry on the wind, and hoped for the best.
“I was born in a city to a mother that loved me, and a father that wasn’t there. My mother work
ed three jobs in the city of Boston to make sure I ate every meal every day, and to make sure I wore clothes that were nice enough that the other kids wouldn’t laugh at me in.
My mother taught me that hard work always pays off if you’re patient. She taught me to laugh hard, live life like today was your last day, and love the people that mean the most to you like you can’t live without them.
I left home and joined the Army because it was good work, and would allow me to free my mother from the burden of caring for me. I sent money home as I could to help her live a better life. I tried to be a good person, a good soldier, a good citizen, and a good son.
I miss my mother. I miss my friends. I miss my home. I want to leave here today to try and head back, and find a man that is supposed to save us all from this wretched curse. I want to find that man to save my mother, and to save my friends, and God willing, save this forsaken world.
It is sheer, utter madness that we stand here, as people who cared for one another for so long and now ready to kill one another because we are afraid of losing each other’s support. There is so much death in this world now, so much suffering, and greed, and hatred. Every day we wake up should be celebrated like the gift it is. It is folly for us to murder one another when we can go our separate ways, mourn for our dead, and start anew in our homes, with those we love.
But I will tell you this; I carry as much fury inside me as you all do right now, and just as you have come to this moment, this place, here, to wreak vengeance on me and mine I shall do the same on you. I will not hesitate to put every one of you in the ground, one by one should you come between who I love, where I want to go, and what I seek to achieve.
Adrian's Undead Diary (Book 6): In the Arms of Family Page 30
