Road to Grissom: Part three of the Aftermath series

by Duncan McArdle

  Behind this initial grouping of the undead, stood another group larger in size, each of them aimlessly ambling along the street, following those in front. Behind this second, larger group, was another, and behind that another, and behind that a sea of heads continued much further than the eye could see. Clearly the undead’s population in this small area had suddenly risen, but soon enough it smashed through the realms of being a large group, and continued on right through being classed as a horde. Before long, it became apparent that this was a gathering of the dead no normal person had ever laid eyes on, this was some kind of super-horde.

  For several streets in every direction, the pavement was near invisible beneath the masses of blackened limbs, the majority of which dragged impotently across the ground at a pace slower than that of the most elderly of individuals pre-apocalypse. Thousands upon thousands of bodies coated the area, clogging the previously empty streets and overflowing onto lawns, into alleyways, through car parks and along railway lines, anywhere that could accommodate the additional bodies.

  So large was the horde in fact, that its end was invisible to anybody on ground level, disappearing into the distance thanks to the curvature of the earth. But one person it was visible to, was the pilot of the small Robinson R22 helicopter that was circling the front of the horde, high enough up for the dead not to pay the floating object any attention, but low enough down to get a good look at just what exactly was going on below.

  “It’s even bigger than it was yesterday”, said the pilot into the microphone clipped to the headset he was wearing, “I can see more coming in from all kinds of places, it’s gonna’ keep merging and getting bigger like this until we do something”, he continued, obviously explaining the situation to someone at a remote location, “I’m not too sure what we can do about it at this point to be honest with you”.

  The small Robinson would have been short work for a small horde, much less one of this kind of size. Its tiny frame meant that a few extra bodies would be enough to stop it from taking off, a single raised hand would probably distort and damage the blades, and anything more than that would more than overrun the entire aircraft. This was no military grade machine capable of repelling an attack and dropping the kind of heavy explosives needed to clear out a large gathering, it was a recon chopper, sent to keep tabs on something someone was clearly worried about.

  “I can try that but…”, the pilot started again in response to whatever orders he’d evidently been given, “Honestly I’m not sure it’s gonna’ work, not when there’s this many of them”, he said with little to no confidence in his voice. “I’d need to make a whole lot of noise to steer this many, at best I might just splinter a few off, but we both know if I do that they’ll just find their way back towards each other again”.

  The pilot spoke the truth. The undead’s ability to re-gather once separated was second to none. Like a homing beacon that guides someone back to base, they would latch onto the faint sounds of movement and groaning that their fellow beasts emitted, tracking bigger hordes for miles upon miles until they could eventually reunite and form an even bigger threat. Separating the dead was an almost impossible task, and even in the rare circumstance where it could be done, rarely lasted more than a few days at best.

  “Alright”, said the pilot in a less than enthusiastic tone, sighing to himself having evidently having been given an order in a firm enough manner that he knew he had no say in the matter, “I’ll give it a shot”, he confirmed.

  With that, the tiny Robinson banked hard to the right, angling its blade so as to propel the aircraft north-east, away from the otherwise north-western heading horde.

  Given its small size, the R22 quickly darted over to the north-eastern edge, and began descending quickly towards ground level. The skilled pilot – who had clearly been familiar with the process of flying long before the end – stopped with just enough room to level out the chopper a few metres above the waving arms of the dead, and then began to move from side to side, covering as wide an area as possible, drawing more and more attention.

  To an onlooker, this series of movements might have looked suspiciously similar to that of a cattle farmer; sending their dogs to run along one side so as to discourage their sheep from heading in that direction. But where things differed with the dead, was that the objective was instead to actually encourage them to head in that direction, and with all the noise of the blades above, coupled with the engines of the helicopter, that objective was starting to be achieved.

  Unfortunately, even with all the noise, only a small fragment of the tens of thousands of bodies below were within earshot of the chopper’s small presence. With the groan of so many biters coating the area, and the majority of them much more interested in the masses of movement going on in front, few had the ability or the interest to pay attention to the noise, decipher its source, and then actually manage to physically look up at the helicopter.

  Realising this, the pilot began to enlarge his pattern of movement, making every effort to cover even more surface area. He was now effectively doing laps of the northern side, sticking around for only short periods of time along each section, but doing so to enough areas to hopefully draw a larger chunk. If this didn’t work, he wasn’t sure there would be much else he could do, despite his orders.

  Gradually, more and more of the undead began to break off and join the now secondary horde. With each passing moment, more layers peeled away, exposing the ears of the next to the sound of the chopper, and in turn drawing their attention also. But even with the process working as well as it was, barely a tenth of the undead population were really giving the chopper any notice, and so it was becoming painfully obvious that this wasn’t going to work.

  “God damn it”, the pilot said to himself, stabilising the chopper’s movement before moving out a few hundred feet north so as to get a better view out across the horde. With one final series of thoughts, he gave every consideration to what else he might do. He could fire a gun, let off a flare, yell at the top of his lungs, do a variety of things to draw attention, but every time he came up with something new, the overwhelming sound of groaning outside reminded him that there was no way he was going to come out on top. So instead, he pressed the transmit button once more.

  “It’s no good, I’m not even making a dent in it, there’s too many of ‘em”, he reasoned, before awaiting a response from camp. “No you don’t get it, there are thousands here, hell tens of thousands I think, I can’t even see the end of it, there’s no way in hell I’m getting them all in this thing”, he continued, before pausing once more. “Heck I don’t know, maybe a few choppers or something? A plane would be good, hell even just a few trucks to lead them from a few different spots at once would be better than this. There’s just no way I can-“.

  With that, the pilot stopped speaking. The sudden lurch of movement that hits the stomach and notifies you of an instantaneous change of momentum had knocked the ability to talk right out of his mouth. The chopper’s rotors above had sheared clean off, removing all remnants of upwards propulsion, and turning the aircraft into a very heavy, very deadly rock that soon endured a very quick descent back to the hard floor below. There was no time to continue the statement, no time to try and explain what was going on, what happened next happened in an instant.

  Had it been a bird strike? Some kind of catastrophic mechanical failure? Had all that evasive flying taken its toll on a poorly maintained aircraft? Perhaps the pilot had been to blame, pulling off some kind of bad maneuverer that had pushed the helicopter beyond normal limits? Such thoughts all rushed by in the brief moment between the rotors coming off and the inevitable crash down below, but the pilot didn’t have time to answer, managing only to exert some kind of yelp as he watched the ground below get closer and closer.

  When the chopper hit the ground, the initial volume of the crash was loud, but not deafening. Glass shattered and metal flew out in various directions, hitting everything in the vicinity hard and scraping up
every ounce of pavement within reach. But aside from the initial impact, little of this was heard over the still monstrous sound of the nearby super-horde. Even in death, the pilot had failed to achieve the one thing he’d set out to do.

  That was of course, until the now cracked and leaking fuel tanks caught a single stray spark.

  Suddenly the entire area was lit up in an intense shade of yellow and orange, a blistering heat searing everything around and propelling the chopper parts that remained well into the distance, some of them piercing through those biters near enough to have been drawn to the commotion. The noise of the explosion was all encompassing, drowning out every groan and shuffle and carrying for many miles of desolate and empty air, to be heard as far as the city and no doubt much further. Having an almost completely full set of fuel meant that there was absolutely no chance of the pilot surviving – though this had already been unlikely – but did at least help him to carry out his duty post-mortem.

  Almost every biter all but immediately turned to inspect what had happened. Hearing a noise as loud as that one, and following it up with the sight of a large mushroom cloud billowing into the sky, and an intensely bright light in the same direction, all culminated in something far more interesting than that which currently held their attention. Almost every biter turned and immediately began a new, north-eastern march towards the fireball, their own decision grabbing the attention of any who had yet to change their own mind, and before long the entire horde had now changed its direction.

  Masses of dead numbering in their tens of thousands were now facing the exact opposite direction to the Chicago stadium. Instead, they were now facing towards Milwaukee.

  Chapter 19: Family ties

  Barely a few seconds went by between John and his fellow guards exiting the hospital’s main entrance and their Ford Focus starting up. With a small army of the dead no doubt breaking through their hastily thrown together barricade at any moment, there was little time to waste, and with no incentive to stick around anyway, it had been a quick sprint to the car, followed by everyone just about leaping into their seat, and John hastily starting the engine up.

  The area around the Ford was both mercifully and surprisingly quiet. Given the commotion they’d caused inside, John was sure attention would have been drawn in from all angles, but thus far he’d yet to see a single wandering body. Ever grateful that they’d refrained from firing a shot during their overnight stay in the building, John found himself mentally congratulating himself for the way they’d handled their visit.

  The car itself was the final surprise. John’s opinion of those that remained alive in the new world was an incredibly low one. He’d seen family members turn on each other, forced labour by gangs, unspeakable human on human acts of violence and much, much more. Knowing so little about Jen, the group’s most recently met outsider, John had been positive the girl would have staged something to either hinder their ability to make a getaway, or stop it completely. Yet despite making their way down a corridor she could have blocked off, and parking their vehicle right outside, the newcomer had taken neither opportunity to get one over the group, an act which briefly made John question whether his opinion on the new human race was quite so valid anymore.

  In any case, the group had more pressing matters to consider. With Jennifer’s information pointing yet another finger at the local stadium, John’s target was clearly marked in the front of his mind. But approaching a stadium was no simple task; such places were surrounded with huge ground floor parking areas that exposed anybody approaching, had numerous buildings that provided high up vantage points to spot movement in any direction, and were so big that knowing what was inside was virtually impossible. John had come up against some well defended foes before, but a stadium full of either the living or the dead had yet to be one of them.

  “How far out are we from this place?”, John asked of Devon, who had swapped with Danny to take a back seat, doing so in case they were tailed by any of their new acquaintances.

  “I’d say about a half hour back in the day, so probably no more than ten minutes now”, Devon replied.

  “That’s not a lot of time to prepare”, John pointed out, accelerating along the front of the hospital building and then turning left, so as to once more face west.

  “No it isn’t”, Devon replied, “And from here, it’s a straight line almost the whole way”.

  “Fantastic”, John confirmed, unfolding a map across the steering wheel at the same time as navigating the various body parts that were found sporadically along the street.

  Danny meanwhile was sat in the front passenger seat, his head leant against the window from the second he got in, and no word having yet come from his mouth. The boy was young, and although he appeared cocky and arrogant when the situation demanded it, it was clear to John that he was becoming more and more troubled by how the world looked. Having been inside the camp’s walls – other than his brief excursions out to bait the dead into approaching their firing squads – for so long, Danny had forgotten just how bad the world looked, and he’d never been this far out before.

  “Everything alright?”, John asked of the young man, folding his map back up now that he’d gleaned what he needed to from it, “You’re not looking yourself”.

  “I’m fine”, Danny replied unconvincingly, suddenly sitting up straight and changing his facial expression so as to throw off any trace of whatever it was John had seen.

  John smirked slightly to himself as he watched the tell-tale signs come from his fellow survivor. “I’m pretty damn experienced with soldiers going through PTSD”, he remarked, “So please don’t think you can hide whatever this is from me”.

  Danny looked over to his leader, taking note of his stern expression, but also of the slightly softened tone his voice had changed to, indicating what Danny was fairly certain was a genuine desire to help. “It’s just hard seeing everything like this”, Danny explained, “I thought it would get better the further out we got”.

  “It does”, John pointed out, “When you get a lot further anyway”.

  “How much better?”, Danny asked.

  “Well for starters”, John said, “There’s a lot less of them”, he continued, pointing to a passing biter that was just barely managing to stand, “And a whole lot more green”.

  John’s time in the apocalypse had thus far been spent predominantly in more rural areas. From the woodland hotel where he’d started his journey, to the small towns and villages he’d visited on the way to a campsite that gave him his first real lead towards finding his family. John had had the privilege of getting used to the apocalypse from the comfort of the outback, where biters were less common, people were more likely to survive, and the whole place looked a lot less like the world had come to an end. Of course, he knew not everybody had been so fortunate in their post-apocalyptic experience, some had never ventured outside of the cities, most had tried to and been brought down in the process, and some, like Danny, John had no idea about.

  “How long have you been in camp?”, he eventually asked, hoping to learn more about the boy he’d already shared so many deadly situations with.

  “Since the start”, Danny replied, “We were in Chicago when everything started going wrong, the camp kind of… sprung up around us”, he continued, “We didn’t even need to ask to get in, one day we were just… already inside”.

  “Whose we?”, John asked, picking up on a key word in the sentence.

  “My family”, Danny replied, “Me, my Mom and my two sisters”.

  Having never seen the boy with anybody in the camp more than once, and having never heard any mention of what were presumably three important women in his life, John suddenly realised he might be approaching some unfortunate territory, and so hesitated before continuing. “Are they…”, he struggled to ask.

  Danny went quiet once more. Awkwardly shuffling around in his chair, his neck muscles clenching and moving around so as to rehydrate what had quickly become an incredib
ly dry throat, he made every effort to pre-plan his next sentence. Recalling the incident was going to be difficult enough as it was, the least he could do to ease the pain was figure out what he was going to say in advance.

  “We were all just sat around the dinner table same as always”, he began, “We’d heard about what was going on from the TV, but we hadn’t seen or heard anything in person, honestly the whole thing seemed like it was just blown way out of proportion. Anyway, there’s a knock on the door and my Mom goes to answer it, we were in an apartment on the fourth floor, there’s a peephole but she never used it, I always told her she should but she never listened, just goes ahead and swings the door open”.

  John shifted uncomfortably, having a good idea of what was about to come.

  “Next thing she comes flying backwards onto the ground, the janitor…”, Danny paused for composure, struggling to get through a retelling without his usual more emotional reaction, something he didn’t feel either of the strong, military men he was sharing the ride with would appreciate. “The janitor’s teeth were so far into her neck you couldn’t even see them, and the two of them just went down to the ground. Me and my sisters, we just started screaming, yelling as loud as we could not knowing what to do. Next thing we know the guy from the apartment next door comes running in and puts a bullet in the back of the janitor’s head, starts yelling ‘Get the hell out of here’, and then he’s gone just as quick as he turned up. I go running over to my Mom just in time to see her close her eyes, no chance to say anything to her, no time for a goodbye”.

  “Sorry to hear that”, John jumped in, breaking up the story slightly in order to give Danny what he imagined was a well needed break. “A whole lot of people went out the same way at the beginning, everyone underestimated this thing, everyone thought it would all blow over, nobody was prepared”.