Scott turned the helicopter inland and increased altitude to get a bird’s eye view of the city. No cars were moving that he could see. It became impossible to tell if the specks below were normal people or zombies, but most of those below seemed to turn and move towards the sound of the helicopter with raised arms and gaping jaws. The figures became mere specks on the landscape as Scott gained altitude, just some of many little things that would haunt his dreams.
Within a few seconds the helicopter was sweeping over the hills that surrounded the Los Cabos airport. The new view was no less discouraging. Only a few small private jets remained on the tarmac. A larger airliner had crashed at the north end of the field, spreading debris across the highway beyond which was jammed with burned and abandoned vehicles. In response to the appearance of the helicopter there was movement at the terminals. Hundreds of figures moved out towards the sound of the helicopter. Obviously zombies, but not the slow shambling zombies depicted in most movies. They ran out onto the runway. This was truly scary. They moved fast.
Scott had set the radio to the approach control for Los Cabos and attempted contact several times since departure from the ship. Now he tried it again. “Los Cabos Approach, this is Bell November Hotel Three Two Foxtrot, over the field. Do you copy?” He repeated that message three times with no response as the helicopter circled the field. The only evident response below was more zombies boiling out of the terminal and onto the tarmac. Most of them were dressed like tourists, but some wore military, police and airline uniforms too. All of them milled around with raised arms and gaping mouths, reaching towards the circling helicopter.
“This place is history,” said Mick over the intercom. “Let’s split.”
“Roger that,” said Scott. “Take us back to the coast and up to Cabo San Lucas.”
“Looks like everyone here is infected,” commented Mark from the rear of the cabin. “You think it’s like this everywhere?
“The airport might have been the worst place to be,” replied Scott. “Whoever brought the infection here probably came through those terminals and it would have spread out from there. Then, after the outbreak yesterday, a lot of people would have run to the airport trying to escape. Once a few zombies started biting people the infection would have snowballed fast.”
By that time the helicopter was sweeping up the coast at 150 mph. Cabo San Lucas was ten minutes away. Everyone aboard was struck by the view along the way. Dozens of resorts lined the coast. Zombies milled on the beaches in front of them. Many were wearing bathing suits, but none of them went close to the water. The ones closest to the ocean seemed to be acting even crazier than the rest of them, jumping up and down or rolling in the sand. Most of them were covered in various amounts of blood. All of them turned and reached towards the chopper with open mouths, reaching arms and blank stares.
“Hey - look there,” said Clint, pointing at a beachfront hotel. “Those people on the balconies are signaling for help! See ‘em?” There were people waving sheets from one balcony and others waving their arms back and forth on another.
“Yep,” Scott responded. “They’re probably trapped in their rooms. But there’s nothing we can do for them now, except pray.” The helicopter swept past without pause. It was a cruel decision, but a necessary one. There was no way to rescue anyone without exposing everyone on the helicopter to the risk of infection and dooming their own mission.
They saw similar sights all along the beachfront tourist corridor. It was clear that a lot of people were holding out in their hotel rooms, but they were all surrounded by zombies and none of these tourists would have any weapons to fight their way out of those death traps. The coastal highway was jammed up behind crashes in numerous locations, leaving other stretches relatively clear. But no vehicles were moving anywhere now. There were few signs of actual destruction below, but the total absence of intelligent human activity gave the landscape a truly apocalyptic feel. Here and there buildings were burning, probably due to untended fires or something knocked over by a brainless zombie. Nobody seemed interested in putting them out.
Soon they could see the rocks of El Arco poking out of the sea ahead. This most famous feature of Cabo San Lucas, the natural arch of rock at the south-westernmost point of Baja California, was also known as Land’s End. It marked the confluence of the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortez. Just east of this landmark was the picturesque harbor of Cabo San Lucas. There was one big cruise ship anchored in front of the town, outside of the small harbor, with several tenders clustered along the shoreward side of her hull. Scott didn’t see any movement on her decks. Were the passengers safe in their cabins? Being attacked ashore? Or hunting each other along the passageways of the ship? It was just another mystery that they might or might not decipher today.
The helicopter swooped over the last clusters of beachfront resorts, swarming with even more zombies combing the beach than they had seen previously, and banked into a turn over the harbor. Scott immediately spotted the Expiscator. The 118’ Hatteras cockpit motor yacht was one of the largest boats in the harbor and it was still tied up at the end of one of the docks closest to the ocean; right where it should be. The yacht was very distinctive, with a Jacuzzi on the forward deck, a sundeck bar behind the flying bridge, and a fully equipped fishing cockpit at the stern. Scott had gotten a great deal on her through a bank repo and he was glad to give George a chance to use the yacht for his escape, especially since he would bring it along on their voyage north. Although it was dwarfed by the Sovereign Spirit, the Expiscator was still a borderline mega-yacht in her own right and it would be a shame to lose her.
There were zombies wandering along the rim of the harbor, but they did not seem to have been able to get past the security gates onto the docks yet. A closer look revealed several people coming above deck on boats in the harbor and waving, normally this time, at the helicopter. At least some normal people had taken refuge on those vessels. Nobody seemed to be aboard the Expiscator though. That made Scott worry about the skipper that he had hired to take care of her, but at least it looked like George and his family would not have to evict a bunch of refugees or, worse yet, zombies. If they could get there.
“Okay, George,” said Scott through the intercom. “The yacht is still there and looks untouched. No zombies on the dock. All you need to do is get through the gate and close it behind you. I gave you the gate key and my spare keys for the boat. Now we just need to scout a path from the house, find a clear road. And then hope your family is safe in the house you built for me.”
“They better be there!” said George loudly through the intercom. “They should be staying in the RV that I parked inside the wall and used as a construction office. Or they’ll be inside your house, if they got scared. Both are protected by a ten foot wall on the street and the cliff on the ocean side. They should be safe there. So let’s go!” He was clearly getting anxious.
“Roger that,” Scott agreed and banked the helicopter up towards Pedregal, a wealthy community perched on a small mountain overlooking the harbor. They flew rather slowly up and over the hill. Scott was looking down at the roads, searching for obstructions. There was one overturned car on the main road, but it looked like it was possible to drive around it, or push it aside with a vehicle as large as George’s RV. Mick also scanned the hill as he piloted the helicopter over the crest to the Pacific side.
The mountain of Pedregal was covered with mansions and vacation homes for the rich and famous. Rock stars and famous actors and actresses, not to mention an overly famous talk show host or two, had all built villas and compounds on this piece of arid paradise. One thing that both Scott and Mick noticed was that few if any of the zombies were hiking up the hill. A few began staggering uphill after the helicopter, but all of them seemed to have been walking downhill before they arrived. The zombies following them were all easily identified by their raised arms and open mouths. It was clear that the helicopter attracted their attention. Scott filed that fact away as a potentiall
y valuable aspect of the mission. But so was the fact that they were not swarming the hill, as they were on the beach.
“You see what I see?” asked Scott to no one in particular. “The zombies seem to be thickest on the beaches. None of them appear to be climbing the hills, except the ones trying to follow us. Until we arrived, I think they were all moving down towards the harbor.”
“So what?” Mick asked. “There’re still a lot of the fuckers all over.”
“Yeah,” replied Scott. “But, all things being equal, if they don’t have a ‘target’ to pursue, I think they would all prefer to move downhill. It’s like they follow the force of gravity, if they don’t have a better target to fix on.”
“That makes sense,” Mark commented. “These brainless freaks would tend to follow the path of least resistance, unless their hunter-killer mode was engaged. So how do we use that to our advantage?”
“Just watch this,” said Scott. Mick nodded and released control. “We’re going to attract the zombies on the Harbor side of the hill away from Pedregal. The ones on the other side should keep going down, away from us, as long as we are out of sight and mind.” Scott was breaking right along the ridge line and dropping back down towards the harbor. Then he pulled up into a hover and rotated the helicopter using the rudder pedals. “Look and see what I mean.”
Sure enough, the few zombies that had been following them up Pedregal were turning towards the sound, or sight, of the helicopter and moving back down with their now distinctive raised arms and open mouths. Were they screaming? No way to tell at the moment. The important thing was that they were distracted by, or attracted to, the helicopter. The plan gelled in Scott’s mind. Yes, it could, even should, work.
“Come to Daddy,” he unintentionally muttered over the voice activated intercom.
“Now we’re talking,” said Clint. “Can I tap some of them now?”
“Go for it,” said Scott. “Try for one head shot on an adult male near the front of the bunch following us. Not women or kids. And let’s see what they do.” Scott felt a tinge of guilt as he said it, but the cruel reality of the situation they faced pushed those sentiments aside. Mark growled into the intercom, but Scott knew it was because he wanted to be the one green-lighted for the first kill. However, Scott knew that Clint had the better weapon for this shot.
Clint raised the BAR Safari 30-06 and drew a bead on the head of a zombie that had been a fat older man who was running near the front of the small crowd storming down the street towards them. The helicopter hovered at about 100 feet over the road. That put the running zombies at about 100 yards and closing fast. Perfect.
CRACK!
The first shot of their Zombie War was fired. It was a head shot. The back of the fat zombie’s cranium virtually exploded. As Scott had hoped, it had a distinctive effect on the zombie’s companions. As brain matter spattered the other zombies, especially those behind who were clearly sprayed with gore, they halted their rush towards the helicopter and turned to feast on the spilled brains of the fallen zombie. Most of them even continued to cluster around the corpse hungrily as Scott pulled the chopper up and away. Two of Scott’s preliminary theories seemed to be correct.
His half-baked plan just might have a real chance at success.
“Okay,” said Scott. “Here’s the plan. We do this one more time a few blocks down. We wait for as many of them as want to come running. Then we spill the brains of half a dozen or so, and haul ass back to drop George off at the house. Actually, I think it’s better to hover over the RV for him to jump off. Okay, George?”
“Hell, yes!” replied George. “Just get me anywhere inside the wall. But then what?”
“Here’s what I’m thinking,” said Scott, turning the helicopter and climbing above the ridge so they could all see both sides of Pedregal and the harbor below. “We’ll draw the zombies away from the gate to the property. It’s hooked into the solar power backup, if you built to plan, right?”
“Damned right it is,” George confirmed.
“Good,” Scott said. “So we’ll drop you off, circle around so they don’t gang up there. We’ll draw as many as we can down the hill towards the beach on the Pacific side. When you give the signal that you have your people ready to go, we’ll come back up to give you cover. Then you open the gate and drive that RV down the other side of the hill to the harbor. It’s a rear engine diesel pusher?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. So you should be able to push anything out of the way without any damage to the drive train. Just keep the wheels operational and on the road. I’m making one more pass over the harbor side of the hill now, so you can see the bottle necks. Just remember that your only priority is to get down to the harbor. Screw any damage to the RV or anything in your path. Just get there. Got it?”
“. Just give me a few minutes to find my family and load them up.”
“Roger that,” said Scott. “But you need to remember that they might not all be the people you think they are. They could be infected already. Even if they aren’t zombies yet, just coming in contact with them might be your own death sentence. But, as long as you know and accept that risk, I’ll give you the ammo clips for that pistol. Still want ‘em?”
“Yes sir, Mr. Allen,” said George. “And I’m damned glad you’re offering to back me up. Hell, if Millie and I hadn’t gotten that bonus trip on your ship, we would all be down there in a world of hurt. So let’s do this!”
“Tally ho!” said Mick, as he pitched the chopper’s nose down to sweep over the harbor once more. “Let’s attract some attention!” The helicopter swooped down into a hover above Cabo Wabo, a famous bar and grill. The main street immediately filled with zombies. Mick moved the helicopter slowly down the main drag, towards Costco a mile away. The zombie horde followed. “Follow the leader!” called Mick. “I feel like the Pied Piper.”
Scott and Mick were surprised to hear a radio transmission. It was coming in on the emergency channel, so it was automatically fed into their headsets by the high tech com gear on the chopper. A Mexican accented voice said, “Unidentified helicopter over Cabo San Lucas, this is Cabo San Lucas Tower broadcasting on 121.5. Please identify immediately, over.”
“Shit,” said Scott. “I’ll handle this.” He reached for the radio controls. “Cabo Tower, this is Bell November Hotel Three Two Foxtrot. Copy. Over.”
“Three Two Foxtrot,” came the quick reply, “Divert immediately to Cabo San Lucas Airport, over.”
Scott smiled at Mick and turned to give a calming gesture to the others onboard before replying, “Negative, Cabo Tower. We are conducting a search and rescue mission. Please clear the airspace. We are declaring an emergency, over.”
“What is the nature of your emergency, Three Two Foxtrot?”
“Zombies,” replied Mick before Scott could stop him.
“Please repeat, Three Two Foxtrot,” said the voice on the radio.
“Shut up, Mickey,” said Scott on the intercom before activating the transmitter. “Three Two Foxtrot is engaged in a search and rescue mission. Unable to divert.”
“Three Two Foxtrot, you are ordered to divert to Cabo San Lucas Airport immediately. If you do not land, you will be declared hostile and force will be used to bring you down.” Scott and Mick exchanged troubled glances. What was this?
“CSL Tower, Three Two Foxtrot is on a mission of mercy to rescue a personal friend of the President of the United States of America and with approval of the President of Mexico. Call Mexico City, if you need confirmation. Do not interfere with our mission.”
“What the fuck?” exclaimed Mick on the intercom.
“If you’re going to bluff,” relied Scott smugly, “bluff big. Besides, they have no chance of getting anyone in Mexico City to confirm or deny right now.” The response on the radio was slow in coming. By now the helicopter was approaching the most popular bars along the beach and zombies were boiling out onto the streets and sand.
Then the accented radio v
oice spoke again, “Copy, Three Two Foxtrot. Are you here to rescue Oprah?” Scott and Mick exchanged another surprised look, then grins.
Scott smiled as he said, “I am not at liberty to define our objective, except to assure you that it is a purely humanitarian search and rescue mission. Please do not interfere.” There was an even longer pause.
“Roger, Three Two Foxtrot. Stand by. We will send troops to assist you.”
“Oh shit,” said Scott on the intercom. “They are only ten minutes from the harbor by road, unless something slows them down. We need to haul ass. I have the stick!” They had reached the main intersection from the beach road towards the airport and beyond to La Paz. “Negative, Cabo San Lucas Tower,” he said on the radio. “We have this mission under control. Do not endanger yourselves.”
Scott kicked in the rudder, lowered the nose, and aimed inland along the road leading to the airport. At least a thousand zombies were now swarming along the surface road after them. Glancing back, Scott added, “I hope those soldiers stay put. But if these freaks don’t slow them down, I don’t know what will! Okay, guys, let’s rock. Just pop as many skulls as you can!” Clint and Mark both leaned out the side doors, held in place by their safety harnesses, and began going for head shots among the mass of zombies behind them as Scott pulled into a hover 100 feet above the mob. He saw at least a dozen zombies go down and hundreds turned to swarm over them in a feeding frenzy.
The helicopter swooped low for the next mile, and then angled westward to loop around the mountain of Pedregal, back to the Pacific Ocean. Quickly accelerating to 150 mph, they swung out over the new resorts on the Pacific side of Pedregal. By now the helicopter was climbing and it was pleasantly difficult to tell the difference between zombies reaching for a snack and normal people begging for help from their windows and balconies. It was still clear, however, that everyone down there was attracted to the chopper. Scott banked back towards the mountain of Pedregal and zeroed in on his newly finished cliff-side home. He could see Hammer’s RV in the side yard, but did not see any obvious signs of life.
01 Voyage of the Dead Page 7
