“I remember.”
“Save the last bullet for me, OK?”
“I’ll save the last two bullets for both of us.”
“Alrighty, then.”
Mikki looked up all around her. Not a cloud in the sky. Remembering Floyd’s suggestion, she closed her eyes and prayed quietly. “Saint Margaret? If you’re up there, can you please send a little rain? I mean like a whole lotta rain?”
Mikki opened her eyes. Nothing. Just a big, beautiful, blue sky and a happy, smiling sun laughing down at her. Stupid sun.
Mikki pulled her sniper rifle off her back and looked through the scope at the area below them. There was a motley crew, if ever there was one. Creepers in pajamas, creepers in business suits, black creepers, white creepers, Asian creepers, men creepers, women creepers, cop creepers, prostitute creepers. Looks like the city had finally met its diversity goals for integration. Everyone was finally equal. Equal in undeath. No more prejudice anywhere. Except against the living.
She looked through the scope at the horizon. The nearest buildings were clearly too far away. None were nearly as tall as the one she was standing on, anyway. The 710 freeway was so close, yet so far. They would never make it there.
Wait a minute! Something caught her eye. Was that a cloud? No, too small. And too dark. Was it a bird? A plane? Superman? It was definitely something though. No, two somethings. What the hell were they?
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The pounding on the door had resumed with a fury. The creepers shove the door open about half an inch. Floyd didn’t even bother trying to push the big metal box back against it.
“Hey, Floyd!”
“Yeah, Mikki.”
“Can zombies fly helicopters?”
“I don’t think so Mikki. But then, I didn’t think they could climb stairs, either. Why?”
“Well, if it ain’t creepers, somethin’s sure as hell comin’ our way!”
Floyd grabbed his binoculars and looked in the direction Mikki was facing with her rifle. He saw it too. Soon, he could even hear it above the dreadful moaning and howling.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said.
“Maybe so. But not today, Floyd.”
The two ran to the electrical box at the same time, pushing as hard as they could. The doorway had opened a few inches and they severed more than a few zombie fingers as the door slammed shut again. They scrambled to pick up their discarded weapons and stuff the empty magazines into their backpacks.
They still couldn’t believe it to be true. Maybe it was a mirage or some kind of mutual hallucination. It couldn’t be true, it just couldn’t be. But it was.
“Floyd and Mikki!” their names came clearly over the loudspeaker.
The two looked at each other, then started waving their helmets in the air at the two approaching black helicopters. As the aircraft came nearer, the pair could see the side doors were open and several heavily armed men in some sort of bluish urban camouflage were inside.
One helicopter hovered just past the edge of the building while the other one landed. Four armed men jumped out and ran over to Floyd and Mikki as the loudspeaker announced, “We are from New California Haven! Come with us!”
There was a loud grinding sound as the door pushed open, despite the heavy electrical box. Zombies began pouring out of the opening, tripping over the bodies of their comrades and getting up again to shuffle towards them. The four new arrivals blew them away with a stream of well-aimed machine gun bullets.
“Go!” one of the men ordered.
Floyd and Mikki ran to the helicopter, followed closely by the four men, who kept firing as they backed up. Everyone jumped inside and the aircraft rose up, out of reach of the stream of zombies pouring out onto the roof.
Just before they pulled away from the building, Mikki pulled a grenade from her bra, pulled the pin, kissed it and tossed it over the side of the helicopter. She had just enough time to yell, “With love from Floyd and Mikki,” before it blew a group of creepers back to hell.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
“So you guys are Floyd and Mikki?” one of the soldiers in blue camo asked.
“How do you know our names?” Floyd asked.
“Are you kidding?” one of the others asked, removing his helmet. “You guys are legend! We been watching you on satellite ever since you left Groverstown!” The man was young, white, and maybe 23, with a blonde military buzz haircut.
A young black soldier with a big, toothy smile removed his helmet, as well. “You guys made me rich! Everyone kept saying you were gonna die and I kept saying, no they ain’t! I bet all my rations every time. I’m gonna be one fat old man by the time I die! All thanks to you!”
“Wait a minute!” Mikki got angry. “You been watchin’ us all this time? Where the hell were you before? We nearly got out asses killed over and over!”
“Calm down, Miss,” said the eldest soldier. He had short silver hair, a little longer than the others. Authority exuded from his very pores. Yet, he had a kind smile and didn’t seem like just a jarhead asshole.
“We couldn’t get to you before,” he continued. “We could watch, but that was all we could do. Then we got the radio broadcast from Emerald Valley Campground. We’ve stayed in contact with them. They told us your names and what you did for them. When we saw you on the roof, we were close enough to assist, so we came right away. Glad to see you made it. Although, God only knows how.”
“Yeah, when Groverstown lit up, we got an alert from the satellite division. When we zoomed in, your truck was the only thing moving. But you were way too far away to communicate with.”
“How did you survive the Groverstown disaster?” Blondie asked.
“Survive it?” Floyd grunted. “She caused it.”
“Stupid little town wasn’t worth nothin’, anyway.”
“Actually, it was worth quite a bit. That reactor was experimental. We lost a lot of important data when that went up.”
“Oops,” Mikki said sarcastically, without a trace of sorrow. She clearly couldn’t give a shit about some kinda data. All she could remember was Zeke.
“Well, nothing we can do about that now. We’ll be back at the base soon. You two will be given a hero’s welcome!”
“Hey, can I get a picture?” asked the smiley one. He held out a camera to take a selfie, then handed the camera to the silver-haired leader, asking, “Can you take a few shots for me, Captain?” Blondie inserted himself into the shot and the two mugged for several more photos.
“Hold up one of your grenades!” Blondie begged. Mikki obliged, showing the nail polish logo to the camera.
“Oh, yeah! That’s priceless! That’s the shot, baby!” Smiley agreed.
“Coming up on the LZ, Captain!” the pilot shouted back.
Floyd and Mikki looked out the window. Sure enough, they were over downtown Long Beach. They could see the Queen Mary in its permanent berth, not far away. There was smoke coming from several industry smokestacks and traffic lights were working on all the streets below. There wasn’t much traffic other than a few busses, but there was life. There was civilization. The two could barely believe it.
They passed over a large cement wall with razor wire interleaved between a chain link fence that arched upward and over the outer perimeter. The copter headed for a gray, fortified compound near the wall inside the complex. As it started down, Floyd and Mikki saw about a dozen other rotary-wing aircraft on the ground lined up nicely in neat rows throughout the area. The nearer they came to landing, the more they could see crowds of uniformed people along the inner perimeter.
Every eye below was glued to the arriving helicopters. A few held up cardboard signs that read, “We love you Floyd and Mikki.” Instead of the word, “love,” however, they had drawn a heart. Others held up signs with the F+M heart logo on them. Neither Floyd nor Mikki knew what to make of it all.
The four soldiers exited the chopper first, then offered a hand to help the two Zombie Hunters down. As soon as Floyd and Mikki emer
ged from the aircraft, a huge cheer went up and everyone broke out into applause. There were hoots and hollers like two rock stars had just arrived onstage for a long awaited reunion concert. For all of her earlier talk about a deer in the headlights, Mikki looked like one now. So did Floyd.
A couple of base photographers appeared out of nowhere, snapping digital photos and taking videos to document the historic arrival. The captain nodded in the direction they were to go, and waved for Floyd and Mikki to follow them.
“Smile! Wave!” Smiley advised, as Blondie and he waved to the crowd, staying close to Floyd and Mikki to get in all the photos.
Floyd gave a little wave to the crowd and it went wild. Mikki started waving and a cheer went up. She waved bigger, with a huge smile on her face. When she blew a big kiss to the onlookers, they all nearly had a conniption fit.
They followed the captain through a roped-off corridor flanked by security personnel and entered a door. The sign above read, “Reception.” The captain led them down a corridor with small holding rooms on either side. The doors were made of heavy metal and had wires in the little safety glass windows. He opened one of the doors and motioned for Floyd and Mikki to enter. There were two beds, a small table, a couple of chairs, a sink and an adjoining bathroom.
“Welcome to New California Haven. These are just your temporary quarters. It’s not the Ritz-Carlton, but it’s clean and zombie-free. Your quarantine begins now. Someone will be by in the morning to begin your in-processing. Again, it’s been an honor to meet you.”
The captain shook both of their hands, then gave Floyd and Mikki a smart salute. Turning to Blondie and Smiley, he growled, “You two, debriefing. Now.”
Mikki tried the door after it shut. As she suspected, it was locked, but she was too tired to worry or care. Floyd passed out on one of the beds and Mikki collapsed on top of him. The two were snoring away in no time. It had been a long day. A very, very, very long day.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
In the morning, four Military Policemen arrived, asking Floyd and Mikki to follow them. The MPs led the two down a short hallway and into a rather large room. Dozens of empty chairs lined the walls and a couple of folding tables surrounded by chairs stood in the center of the room. A number of service windows lined one of the walls, but they were all empty. No one else was in the room. Apparently, business was not booming.
For a few minutes of awkward silence, Floyd, Mikki and the four MPs holding machine guns stared at each other, saying nothing. Then a door opened. An older officer in a dark blue military dress uniform slowly and deliberately strode into the room. He had a commanding presence and a grim smile on his face.
His white hair was longer than the others, but still short and combed straight back. His eyes were bright blue and he had a deep, jagged scar along running down his left cheek to his neck. He stopped about five feet away, put his fists on his hips, and looked the two up and down.
“So you two are Floyd and Mikki. Please allow me to shake your hands!”
He reached out a hand to Floyd, who shook it awkwardly. Mikki just looked at it in a daze, when he offered it to her. His smile got bigger and he let out a small laugh.
“Welcome to New California Haven. I’m Colonel Trowbridge. I manage security for this facility. I imagine you must have a million questions. Please, place your weapons on the table here and we’ll begin the induction process.”
“Like hell!” Mikki yelled. She aimed Bonnie at him and the four MPs immediately trained their machine guns on her. It was a tense moment for everyone but the colonel.
“Stand down!” he ordered the MPs.
Three of them immediately lowered their weapons, but one did not, because Mikki was still aiming Bonnie at the colonel.
“I said ‘Stand down!’”
“But Sir! The regs say no civilians can have firearms!”
“I know the regs! Now stand down! Or can’t you tell a direct order when you hear it?”
Reluctantly, the MP lowered his weapon. Mikki still did not.
“So, are you going to shoot me?” the colonel asked, with a gentle smile.
“Maybe!”
“Mikki!” Floyd said, annoyed. He reached over and put his hand on Bonnie, lowering the barrel.
“I said, ‘maybe,’” she explained weakly, like a chastised child. “I didn’t say, ‘yes.’”
“That’s probably the best you’ll get out of her,” Floyd explained.
“I’m not surprised. You two have been through a lot.” He picked up a remote control from one of the tables and pointed it at a nearby TV, mounted on the wall. It lit up, displaying a rotation of live camera feeds from various areas around the perimeter wall.
Pulling a radio from his belt, the commander said, “This is Colonel Trowbridge. Play the F and M briefing video. Reception Room.”
“Roger that,” came a reply over the radio.
A recording of various satellite images displayed on the TV, showing snippets of the pair’s adventures. Occasionally the satellite had zoomed in with amazing clarity. Since images had no sound, the video was narrated by a male voice, punctuated with clips from Bob from Emerald Valley Campground talking over the radio about Floyd and Mikki. The video began with the “unexplained” Groverstown disaster and the strange pickup truck that had escaped just ahead of the blast.
Just about any time Floyd and Mikki were out in the open, satellite cameras had tracked their every movement. The two watched the overhead video of their encounter with the army truck and the zombie bats, their battles with the raiders, the roadhouse skirmish, and various other scenes. There was even a nice close up of Cement Head as Mikki hurled the grenade down his throat. Floyd let out a little whine of regret when he watched Freedom blow up outside the hospital. The video ended with a close up of the F+M logo Mikki had drawn on one of the walls.
“Nearly everyone in NCH has watched your adventures in real time. After the Groverstown incident, I ordered the IMINT team to track your every movement. As you made your way west, blowing up pretty much everything in your path, you started a cult following in the SCIF Room. The technicians started bringing their buddies in to watch when something exciting was happening. I should have busted them for it, but I understood that something bigger was happening that the regs couldn’t stop.
“People need inspiration. They need to know that what they do has meaning. They need heroes. You two became our heroes. I directed the live satellite feed to be broadcast nonstop on one of our public channels. This is just the Military Security compound. Your adventures were seen by every civilian and military person in NCH.
“You two are our highest-rated Reality TV series! That’s why everyone knows your names. That’s why everyone here loves you. You gave us all hope.”
“So now what?” Mikki asked.
“Well, that’s largely up to you. You can make your own life here. We don’t use money. Everyone gets ration scrip for food and everyone is treated equally. You’ll be assigned housing and you can take your choice of available jobs. You’ll find you have a lot of friends here due to your popularity, but you won’t get any special treatment from the civilian government or the military. You’ll still have to obey all the rules and pull your own weight. We’re still a refugee community with limited resources, but we’re a safe haven.”
“Safe, huh?” Mikki remained unconvinced. “What about rats?”
The colonel smiled. “Bob told us about your rat encounter over the radio. We purge our sewers at least once a week and deploy motion sensors the rest of the time.”
“What do you mean, ‘purge’?” Floyd asked.
“We release natural gas into the sewers and ignite it. Controlled burn. Nothing as dramatic as Mikki is known for, but enough to burn anything that might be crawling inside.
“And bats?” Mikki asked.
“Fortunately, we don’t have that problem. No bats around here. If necessary, we go into lockdown. If you hear the alarm, you head straight for the nearest buildi
ng and wait inside for further instructions. A heavily armored cleanup crew will eliminate the threat with flamethrowers or whatever else is necessary. We have armored vehicles and a host of other options—even tactical nuclear grenades, if it comes to that.”
“A few of those would have come in pretty handy back at the hospital,” Mikki mused aloud.
“Don’t talk about nuke grenades, Colonel. You’ll get her all excited.”
Mikki punched Floyd hard in the arm. It hurt, but he laughed anyway.
“Well, so far, the more extreme protection measures haven’t been necessary,” the colonel continued.
“But why Long Beach, of all places?” Floyd asked. “Why not one of the military bases?”
The colonel’s face turned grim. “You two never visited one of the bases, so you wouldn’t know. When the contagion began, it spread rapidly. Nobody knew why. People were changing in their homes, at work, in cars—for no apparent reason. As I said before, Bob told us about the rats. No one thought about pets or other animals. We all assumed it was human-to-human contact.
“Of course, the CDC and every government facility immediately went to work on a cure, but they immediately ran into one insurmountable problem: you can’t cure someone who’s technically dead. So all efforts shifted to inoculation. Something that would prevent infection if you were bitten. They found one, and it worked. In a manner of speaking.
“The scientists wanted to test the serum more thoroughly, but there wasn’t any time. In desperation, the government ordered all military personnel to be injected. There didn’t seem to be much choice, since projections indicated that all of America would be overtaken by the contagion within a week if we did nothing. It was our best weapon against the disease. Our only weapon. Our only chance at survival.
“As I said before, the serum did work, but not in the way everyone had hoped. A few actually did become immune to the disease, but very few. They could still be torn apart by these monsters if were attacked by a group, but a bite would not infect them. The injection outright killed a smaller percentage within hours. These were deemed ‘acceptable losses,’ considering we were facing the extermination of all Humanity.
Floyd & Mikki (Book 1): Zombie Hunters (Love Should Be Explosive!) Page 28
