900 Miles: A Zombie Novel

by S. Johnathan Davis

  I lifted my head up. Feeling a jolt of hope, I realized that levelheaded Kyle was right. The Zs didn’t chase the dead.

  Slapping my hands up on the window, I exclaimed, “Somebody must be in the cabin. Jenn must be alive!” Had the helicopter not shifted in the air at that moment, I might have released my harness and jumped out to see for myself. As we continued to circle around the front of the cabin again, watching for any sign of life, Kyle pointed out a white bed sheet hanging out of a window on the top floor, fluttering in the wind created by the chopper. It was the only movement up there.

  I looked wildly at Kyle, my voice in a panic. “We have to get me in there. I have to know!”

  Nodding in agreement, we began discussing options, such as dropping me onto the roof, but that did not provide a way out. Being a charter helicopter, there was no ladder or rope to drop down. We also talked about trying to land on the roof, but the pitch was too steep, too much of an angle to be safe.

  Ultimately, we decided that we needed to lure the zombies away from the home. The trick would be distracting them long enough to get inside, and back out again. Any plan we could come up with would be shit, but then again, so were the circumstances.

  “I have to get into the cabin. I’ll have to do it alone,” I said to Kyle. He knew I was right; we needed him to fly the helicopter.

  “What are you going to do to get out?”

  “Whatever I have to,” I replied shoving my fist into my hand, punctuating each word. “Every step of the way.”

  He nodded with a grin, reached over and extended his hand.

  “I’ll see you soon,” he said strongly.

  I took his hand. It reminded me of the moment we had first met. I felt like it might be the last hand that I’d ever shake. What better person, aside from my wife, to share my last moments with.

  Setting the plan in motion, Kyle navigated the helicopter over the house while I reached down and hit a switch on the instrument panel, turning on the external speakers. Using what we’d learned from the crazies back in the neighborhood, I then pushed a button marked, “ALERT.”

  An ear-piercing siren screeched from the crackling speakers sitting below the cockpit of the craft. All at once, the zombies stopped clawing at the walls of the cabin, and reached their arms up towards the sound.

  “That’s got their attention!” Kyle whooped through the headset. I gave him thumbs up as he started to maneuver the helicopter backward slowly.

  Like the Pied Piper of the undead, we drew the creatures away from the house, easing them toward the pasture.

  Peering out the side window, I watched the long grass flatten in the wind from the chopper blades as we started to descend toward the dark earth. The siren was still blaring as the runners hit the ground with a thump. Kyle looked intently at me.

  “You ready to get their dead blood boiling?”

  Nodding, I shut off the siren, only to push another that said: MICROPHONE. We both began screaming into our headsets.

  “Come on you puss filled maggots!” Kyle screamed into his mic. I chorused with,

  “Yeah, come get us! Fresh meat over here!”

  Resting on the grass with the spotlight off, we relied on our screams for the creatures to find us. It wasn’t long before we saw movement in the trees between us and the house.

  “You know you want us!” Kyle taunted the dead. “Come on! You can do it!”

  As the zombies closed in, I went back and sat on one of the leather seats; preparing myself mentally. Kyle was busy singing, “Take Me out To the Ball Game,” right up until the horde was twenty feet away. He then throttled up and we darted into the sky. Flipping on the spotlight, I realized that I had grossly underestimated their numbers. There was a stream of creatures flowing from the tree line, and it didn’t seem to have an end.

  Flying over them, Kyle flipped off the external speaker and light. He descended right in front of the cabin. There were just a few straggling Zs still stumbling around in the darkness. They were either too crippled or simply too stupid to follow the noise.

  Grabbing the handle to the side door of the helicopter, I pulled it wide open and leapt out as the helicopter hovered just a few feet above the ground.

  Landing into a roll, I stood up with my hammer drawn above my head. With the determination of a man with nothing to lose, I moved in rapidly on one of the creatures. Bringing the hammer down across its head, I kept running towards the front door. Kyle pulled the helicopter up and flew in the direction of the field.

  I saw the spotlight flip on, shining down on the zombies. I could hear Kyle singing and carrying on to keep the Zs attention. Looking down on the field, it was clear that the creatures standing below the spotlight were stagnantly reaching for the sky, literally paralyzed by the light.

  Our plan was working...for the moment.

  My gaze was drawn toward the horizon. The pre-dawn light was coming. There was no telling how long the spotlight would hold them off as the sun emerged and cancelled out the effects of the helicopter’s light. I needed to move now.

  As soon as I realized the door was barricaded from the inside, I ran over towards one of the broken windows. Stepping around a hunter dressed in green camouflage, complete with an orange vest, I jumped through a window into what appeared to be the living room. The furniture was overturned, and pictures of bears and scenic landscapes were crooked on each wall. I almost fell to my back, discovering a seven-foot, stuffed black bear hiding in the shadows of one of the corners.

  As I continued through the room, I noticed the windows looked like they had been boarded up before they were broken down, and there were a number of dead Zs lying slumped on the wooden floors. The metallic smell of blood was strong, stinging the back of my throat.

  A crippled zombie, missing both legs, was dragging itself in front of a large imposing stone fireplace that took up an entire wall of the cabin. Ignoring the creature, I headed toward the staircase. I noticed a sign on a wall by the front door proudly displaying, “Welcome to Black Bear Cabin.” At the bottom of the stairs, I avoided a small Guest Sign In book, which had a red streak of blood across the front cover.

  The dead had signed in...

  Racing up the stairs, I fought hard to keep emotion at bay, as images of my pregnant wife struggling through this horrific battle below crept into my mind. It was hard to imagine anybody being able to survive.

  Once I reached the second level, I noticed that all but one of the doors were wide open. I didn’t have the time or patience to explore each room, so I honed in on the closed one. Based on the direction it faced, it looked like the room that would have had the white linen hanging out.

  I tried the handle, not surprised that the door was locked from the inside. I began banging on the door.

  “Jenn! Jenn!” I yelled frantically; I pressed my ear to the wood. No answer, but I could hear something moving inside. I tried again to no avail.

  Over the helicopter’s microphone, Kyle stopped singing to warn,

  “Hey, John! The sun is coming up. These things are starting to head back in your direction. You wanna move it along?”

  For the first time since I had grabbed it from the rooftop, I finally used the hammer for its intended purpose. Wedging the claw between the latch and the jamb, I wrenched it until the wood began to split. It left a scrape of dried blood on the gleaming wood fiber.

  More noise in the room. I hesitated, not knowing what I’d find, or what to expect. I had to anticipate the worst. It was easier said than done.

  Finally, I stood back, lifted my boot up high, and kicked with all my might, knocking the door wide open. For a moment, there was nothing. No noise, no movement. The spotlight from the helicopter bounced across the window, and revealed someone hunched over on the far side of the room. I stepped in, not saying a word, holding my breath.

  The spotlight shot across the room again. The red eyes stared back at me. It was Joe; he was crouched on the floor tearing at human remains. Joe stood up, entrails
still hanging from his professionally whitened teeth.

  In an instant, he charged me, slamming me into the wall. A nearby mirror fell to the ground, shattering around us. I fell onto my back as Joe’s weight bore down on me. I jerked my head sideways to avoid his snapping teeth.

  Jenn was nowhere to be seen. The room was otherwise empty.

  For the first time, I let doubt slip into my mind. Maybe my family was truly gone.

  “The sun is up. The spotlight isn’t working! They are coming back to the house!” I heard Kyle’s voice, but it was distant, my thoughts were on losing my family and now possibly my life, too. If I lost them, it wouldn’t matter anymore.

  It’s a funny thing...losing hope. Hope is all people have. That one thing holds us to life. I experienced its loss just then. Joe was on top of me, his pearly white teeth moving closer to my flesh. A spray of spit and saliva was dripping down my neck, as I thought back to that morning before I got on the plane.

  “You’ll miss it. You’ll miss the birth of your son!” Jenn’s words whispered in my mind as I struggled with the will to live. Joe was very close, death even closer.

  At first, I thought I was dreaming. Another whisper, not accusing, not irate but more…hopeful.

  “John!” The voice was so distant. I heard it again, louder this time. It wasn’t in my head!

  “John!”

  “Jenn!” I screamed, pushing Joe up a few inches away from my throat.

  “We’re in here!” The voice was coming from a closet that had been nailed shut from the outside.

  With a renewed sense of hope, I squeezed the hammer tight, and pushed it up through Joe’s face. His jawbone snapped from his cheek, jerking his head sideways. The rage in his red eyes amplified as he relentlessly came back for more. Twisting around, I gained the upper hand. He was pinned down, chomping at me with only his top teeth still intact. Looking at the closet door, I could hear Jenn calling out.

  “What’s happening? John...are you there?”

  Looking down at this monster, this creature who tried to take my Jenn from me, I felt a fire burning inside. Viciously digging my knee into its chest, pinning it to the floor, I lifted the hammer high above my head. Holding it with both hands, I slammed it down towards Joes face. On impulse, I brought it back up, and drove it down again, then again, each blow feeling better than the last. The final blow cracked through the back of its head, pounding loudly against the wooden surface. Breathing heavy, muscles burning, it was then that I realized what Jenn had said.

  I called out to her “What do you mean, we’re in here?”

  Crawling to my feet, I rushed to the closet. Using the hammer, I pried the boards from the doorframe, and yanked it open.

  Time stopped, as the spotlight shined through the window again. She ran towards me through the light, with an angelic glow, before our lips met. Her arms wrapped around my shoulders. I felt no pain, no sorrow. I only felt the two of us, wrapped in that moment. I slid my hand down the small of her back and around to her stomach, preventing us from a full embrace. I had not missed it. I had not missed the birth of our child.

  Everything around us faded. There was no house. There were no zombies. There was no death. I only felt her.

  Just as Jenn pulled back from our embrace, her face went deathly pale.

  “John!” she shrieked in panic.

  Spinning around, I brought my hammer down on a zombie that had burst into the room. It dropped to the ground with a thud. Stepping closer, I brought my foot down onto its skull, making sure that it wasn’t going to hop back up.

  “They’re at the house! Get out of there! Abort! Abort!” Kyle bellowed into the microphone.

  I grabbed Jenn’s wrist as we started out into the hallway. Looking over the banister facing the room below, I could see the zombies approaching the house through the broken window. The shadows disappeared as the sun peaked over the distant mountaintops. We could hear the blades of the helicopter hovering above. A tiny whimper escaped my wife’s lips as she trembled beside me.

  “John! You need to get out here pronto! ” We raced down the stairs, as the helicopter landed in front of the cabin. Kyle jumped out of the helicopter with a Molotov cocktail lit, while we made it to the broken window. Slipping out, I turned to catch Jenn coming right out after me. She might have been nine months pregnant, but she wasn’t letting on.

  Jenn’s torn jacket flapped angrily in the wind while we scrambled to the helicopter. Kyle covered us by throwing his cocktail bombs at the horde. Inflamed Zs flooded the gravel driveway, running into the helicopter, the house and each other. The sound of primal panic-stricken screeches was deafening just as much as it was blood curdling. The house had caught fire and the brush nearby was going up even swifter.

  Pulling open the side door to the helicopter, I helped Jenn up and then dove into the helicopter.

  I screamed to Kyle, “Pull up!” Just like that, we lifted off, leaving Hell behind.

  Higher and higher we climbed, my pregnant wife sitting safely in my arms.

  Chapter 30

  After everything, you made it back to us.

  Kyle looked back through the door of the cabin at us.

  “You going to introduce me or what?” he asked into the microphone headset. After flying several miles, I had regained my bearings enough to help my wife get situated in the cabin. She even giggled when I fumbled with the headset.

  “Jenn, this is Kyle. Kyle, this is Jenn. Kyle is the reason I was able to get to you. We owe him our lives,” I said earnestly.

  “Aw, come on now,” Kyle replied modestly. “We got here together. Good to meet you, Jenn. I feel like I already know you.”

  “Sounds like we owe you everything. Thank you, Kyle.” Jenn squeezed my hand with a grin.

  I poured three glasses of water, dropping in ice from the machine. Jenn’s reaction to the cold liquid was the same as ours had been earlier that night.

  We sat there for some time, holding each other closely. Massaging my hand across the soft skin of her arm, I once again felt complete. After a while, she looked up at me and told me that she’d spent many nights over the past week looking up at the stars thinking about us.

  “One night, there was an amazing spectacle in the sky. I don’t know what it was, maybe a comet, maybe some sort of satellite.” She said putting a hand on my leg. “It reminded me of that night when we were camping, you know the one I’m talking about right…when we first kissed?”

  I pulled my arm over and set my hand on top of hers, clutching it firmly. “Yes. Of course I do,” thinking back to the same space junk that I’d seen flying across the night sky days earlier. Knowing that we were connected in a way that I would never fully understand, put a smile across my face.

  “I realized I was going to marry you that night,” she told me. “I knew it with all my heart.”

  “So did I, Jenn. So did I.”

  Holding her tightly in my arms, we sat in a comfortable silence, deep in our own thoughts for a while longer, before she finally spoke up. Jenn had decided to explain what happened at the cabin.

  She and Joe had spent the days before her last communication boarding up the windows and doors. They wanted to make sure that they would be able to hold off any zombies if any were to show up. With plenty of food and water, they were confident that they would be okay, even when the first few began stumbling towards the walls of the cabin.

  There was no way they could have prepared for the hoard that found them.

  Each day, more and more of the Zs surrounded the house. By day three, the place was completely surrounded, and there was no chance of escape. There was uneasiness in her voice as Jenn explained the feeling of being trapped, surrounded by the moans of the dead clawing at what she and Joe soon realized was a temporary safety.

  It wasn’t long before the monsters outside had enough force to push down the boarded up windows. Jenn and Joe had put up a good fight, evidenced by the looks of the place when we had arrived. As they were lock
ing the door to the upstairs room, one overly persistent creature pushed its way through the door, managing to take a chunk out of Joe’s arm before he killed it. They had seen enough to know what that meant.

  To try to save Jenn and the child, Joe insisted that he lock them up in the closet, hammering boards across it to make sure he couldn’t get in once he turned. I thought that was mighty admirable of him, though I didn’t voice that as she continued in her soft, weary voice.

  At first, Joe was still able to speak. In fact, they held a conversation for some time. He talked about his wife, Sue, and how he’d see her soon. There was one point where they even wondered if he had been infected.

  Not long after, he broke into the fever. His speech began to change.

  She could hear him kicking and hitting the dead body in the room. He was screaming, “You killed me!” over and over again...until he trailed off. She heard a thump on the floorboards. After calling out for him, there was no longer a response. At that point, she speculated that he had died from the wound.

  A low moan shattered the silence in the room. She knew Joe had turned and could hear him pacing around trying to get out. She was locked in that closet, not making a noise for almost twelve hours before she heard the helicopter.

  Pausing, Jenn once again pulled herself into my shoulder. She told me that she knew I would get back to her, and never lost hope that I would get there to save her and our child. I held her tight, pulling her close, the heat from our bodies providing a warm comfort, helping us both relax.

  Safe and sound in the helicopter, wrapped up in a blanket, Jenn mentioned that her stomach felt a little tight before she fell asleep on the leather seats. With the story still fresh in my mind, I decided to move up to the cockpit to discuss our next move. Kyle was heading towards the Army base in Augusta. He told me that we were low on fuel, and that we’d be running on fumes by the time we got there. They would have doctors, and I agreed with the plan, knowing that Jenn would need medical care as soon as possible.