by R. J. Spears
When he looked up, the cloud of birds was approaching scarily fast, filling the sky like black water.
The new message, sounding within his own consciousness, was clear. He had to get the hell out of there.
The first group of birds smashed against the windshield, startling him. He yanked back on the control stick and the helicopter jerked upward violently, causing the whole chopper to shake. The birds continued their assault, surrounding the helicopter in their screeches and flapping of wings, pounding against the side of the chopper like soft, wet hail.
“What is that noise?” Naveen asked.
I heard it too, but over the sound of the helicopter, it was hard to make out.
“It sounds like birds,” Kara said. “Lots of them.”
She was right. It was if someone had just released a world full of birds on top of the area, but what did that mean?
“I need to take a look,” I said as I started to push Naveen off my chest.
“No, stay with us,” Naveen said, her voice rising in fear.
“I’ll just poke my head out,” I said. The bird’s screeches increased in volume.
She didn’t like it, but released her death grip on me. The sounds of the birds nearly drown out the sound of the helicopter. I rolled towards the edge of the underside of the home we were hiding under and looked up into the sky and it was as if the day had turned to night. A huge black cloud of birds filled my view as far as I could see. Birds of every different shape and size flew overhead, passing by the mobiles homes and heading south, blotting out the sky.
Through the mass of birds, I could make out the form of a helicopter, but it was indistinct, more of a block form covered in the swarm of birds. The ones that flew past the chopper, swept back around and on it, enveloping it entirely. From what I could tell, they were battering it relentlessly, sacrificing their small forms in a suicidal effort. As soon as they hit, they would fall away.
The dark form of the chopper and the birds ascended into the sky away from us, moving up quickly at first, and then slowing. For a few moments, it hung up in the sky as birds flocked around it. The small bodies of the birds fell from the sky, coming down slowly at first, like the beginning of a rain storm, but that changed quickly. They pattered down on the mobile homes, sounding like wet socks hitting the metal with hollow thuds.
The mass around the helicopter jerked in the sky, flitting back and forth, wildly for a few seconds. After several more seconds of ascension, it stopped and the whole mess, birds and all, fell dramatically in the sky, descending frighteningly fast, but then it stopped suddenly and jerked slightly upwards as if it were being tugged back up by an unseen force. It held there for several seconds, hovering a few hundred yards above our hiding place, the swarm surrounding it.
The conglomeration started to quake back and forth, dropping, then rising in the sky. It was if there were some battle going on inside the amorphous mass of birds. And they kept coming, more and more birds flying into the flock already assaulting the chopper.
A dull whomping sound broke through the cawing and screeches and the whole mass began to fall, but slowly as if resisting something inevitable. A tiny trail of smoke leaked out the top of the tight scrum of birds, initially, but then it turned into a plume. Through the swarm of birds, I thought I could see flames.
Birds fell in a steady stream, starting to pound down on the roofs of the mobiles homes.
Kara grabbed my arm and shouted above the din, “What’s going on?”
“Something good and something bad,” I yelled back.
“That’s not helpful,” she shouted.
“The birds smashed into the helicopter. I think something bad happened to the helicopter.”
“What did you mean by something bad?” She was still fully under the mobile home without my awe inspiring view, but she saw the birds plummeting to the ground in droves into the gaps between the homes.
“I’ll stick with the good for now. I’m pretty sure it’s mechanical,” I said and that’s when the helicopter exploded.
The whole mess above bloomed into a huge fireball, spreading out from the center, incinerating any birds in close proximity. The conflagration must have spread out in a fifty foot circle. Some of the birds on the periphery caught fire and streaked through the sky like fireworks. They flamed out quickly in their descent and trailed thin wisps of smoke reminding me of fighter planes blown out of the air.
That was then when I said, “Uh oh.”
“What? I don’t like the sound of that.” Kara said.
“Time to move out the other side. NOW!”
I rolled over and pushed against both Kara and Naveen’s backs. Moving their weight with the friction of the wet grass made it slow going and we didn’t have any time.
“Crawling won’t get it done. Roll,” I yelled and there was no disguising the panic in my voice.
They got the message, moved to the sides, tucked in their arms, and started rolling. I did likewise, but I took one last look out the other side and saw the world getting brighter with an orange and scary tinge.
In my mind’s eye, I saw the flaming mass of above us picking up speed in its descent. I saw it falling on top of the home we were under, crushing it flatter than runway model before the apocalypse. My angle upward had been slightly skewed and I had no idea of how far the falling mass was really away from us. All I knew was that it was going to be close.
Kara and Naveen must have sensed my urgency because they started rolling faster, picking up some speed. I only hoped it was enough speed to get us away from the fireball heading our way.
As it turned out, it was, but just barely.
The helicopter smashed onto the roof of a mobile home two rows away from where we finally ended up. The noise of the crash was almost deafening as it crushed the rusted out hulk down into a much thinner version of itself. The sound reminded me of a middle school percussion section being smashed in a trash compactor. A concussive ripple rolled under us and through all the homes, rattling them. The heat from the fireball came next. It washed over us alarmingly close. The next wave came as pieces of metal and other debris sliced through the thin metal walls of the mobile homes around us.
Since I was the caboose on our little human subway train, I got the brunt of the flying debris as pieces of metal and other items prickled my back. A couple of them burned, but I ignored them as we continued to roll.
Naveen screamed, and I was sure that she had been hit by some of the flying objects. I finished out a barrel roll and saw that she had slammed into two pairs of legs. Human legs. Alive or dead, I couldn’t tell because the bottom of the mobile home we were now under blocked my view.
Kara’s momentum was too much, and she rolled the last few feet, slamming into Naveen’s side with a grunt. Their backs were turned toward me, so their expressions were hidden from view.
I stopped rolling and switched to an all-out crawl, wanting to face whatever was coming next head on. Scrambling along while trying to avoid the pieces of decaying flooring hanging down in my way was a challenge and more than once I smacked my head off dangling pieces of broken flooring. It also made it hard to see, but I could tell that Naveen was trying to retreat from the legs on the other side of the mobile home. Her path was blocked by Kara, who was trying to reverse direction, too, but they were partially tangled together, making it difficult to move at all.
I broke through a nest of rotting insulation just in time to see a set of hands grab a shrieking Naveen and lift her out of view. Kara grabbed for one of Naveen’s legs and caught one by the ankle, yanking it hard. It seemed like she was losing the battle to hold on.
Crawling seemed like the slowest mode of locomotion, but I pounded away, closing the gap between us.
Kara was in an all-out tug of war with whatever had a hold on Naveen. All the while, Naveen screamed, piercing over the sounds of the burning helicopter and the birds flocking above us. The only thing I could see was Kara clinging to Naveen’s ankle for all she
was worth.
I was just about there when someone spoke.
“Naveen, stop screaming,” a voice said, “it’s us.”
Brother Ed. I nearly collapsed in place from relief.
Naveen stopped screaming and the world slowed down, but just a little. Kara released her death grip on Naveen’s ankle, and a moment later Jason’s face appeared into view as he ducked down to take a look at us.
“Man, I’m sure glad to see you,” I said.
He shook his head in agreement, smiling in relief. Things had been too hectic to think about what he and Brother Ed had been through since we had gotten separated. It couldn’t have been a walk in the park. I saw blood on their hand-to-hand weapons.
Jason stuck out a hand and Kara took it. A couple of moments later, she was standing with Naveen and Brother Ed.
I was on my own to make it from under, but it didn’t matter when I got out. Brother Ed was hugging Naveen as she cried into his chest. He didn’t look entirely comfortable with it, but he did his best. Meanwhile, Kara had Jason in a deep embrace.
“I wasn’t sure we’d see you again,” Kara said. Her voice was thick with emotion.
Jason did what he could and just patted her back. I could tell from his expression that he felt the same as she did.
“Where did all those birds come from?” Brother Ed asked.
“They came out of nowhere,” I said.
Kara broke her hug with Jason and said, “It was a God thing.”
Brother Ed contemplated this for a couple of seconds and said, “Well, you’ll get no argument from me.”
Jason nodded his head in agreement.
Being a man of many words, I said, “Ditto.”
“We’ve seen so much of the other side winning,” Kara said. “God must have stepped in to help us.”
“That’s what sort of bothers me,” I said.
“Oh Joel, please, now’s not the time for your cynical remarks,” Kara said. Brother Ed’s scowl mirrored her feelings.
“Hey, don’t blame me,” I said as I put my hands up in surrender. “It’s just that if it’s bad enough for Him to step in like that, things must be pretty bad.”
“And you’re saying that’s not cynical?” She asked.
There are times in life that you should keep your mouth shut and that was one for me. What joy we had from the miracle of the bird swarm and our reunion evaporated like mist on a summer morning.
I shrugged my shoulders to say it wasn’t my fault that I always stated the obvious, but I knew it always was my fault. I had a major problem with impulse control.
Our joyous reunion lasted another 3.2 seconds. That’s when something in the wreckage of the helicopter exploded. It wasn’t as dramatic as the collision with the ground and was more like a release of air from a hot air balloon, but it got everyone’s attention, and that got me to thinking. Zombies liked big noises. Colors and lights were also great attractions for the undead. It was like we were standing around a great big billboard - free smorgasbord!
“We’ve got to get out of here,” I said.
“Joel, can’t we have a minute to recover?” Kara asked.
“No, not really,” I said. “All these noises and lights are going to garner a lot of attention. Zombies from miles around will all want to be here.”
They all got it, and we moved out of the maze of now blazing mobile homes. We only encountered a few deaders and dispatched them with ease. It was so much easier to kill them when you didn’t have to worry about how much noise you made.
We were back on our bikes and headed north within five minutes, leaving behind a blazing scrum of mobile homes and some disappointed deaders. Little did we know, our little fireworks show drew more than just the attention of the undead.
Chapter 29
War Plans
Old Man Schultz wasn’t much of a religious man. His wife had been the one that dragged him to church each week. After she had died, he had gone a few times but felt out of place without her. He still went on Christmas and Easter because he wasn’t a total pagan. If anyone were to characterize his faith at all, they would have said it was withered or, maybe, dormant. But he knew it was still there, deep down. The only reason he had gone to the church back when the undead took over the world was because he knew they had a civil defense shelter. He was a practical man.
Still, the dream has seemed almost prophetic, and not in a good way. It was more like something out of the Old Testament with foreboding and an overall sense of doom but was devoid of avenging angels and demons. He took small comfort in that.
In the dream, he saw the Manor in chaos. Smoke and gunfire filled the air combined with screams of terror. The soldiers who were in control were on the attack, and they were going from room to room, firing in on the residents. It was a real bloodbath, and his friends didn’t stand a chance. He could see their fear and felt their pain, but the dream also highlighted one specific scene. It wasn’t spelled out and he wasn’t one hundred percent sure what it meant.
The landscape of the dream shifted, and he wasn’t sure if this new portion of the dream was a continuation of the early part or something entirely new. Outside the southwest building, in the field, as if caught in a no man’s land, stood a lone figure. The person was turned away from him and they were caught inside a single high-intensity beam of light. He could clearly see that the figure was a child and he was nearly certain that the child was Madison Bloom. What she was doing there, he had no idea, but the light was coming from the soldiers inside the Manor. He also had no doubt that the beam wasn’t the only thing trained on her. They would have her targeted with their weapons.
The beam shifted upwards, flashed across the field of vision of the dream, and that was it. The motion picture show of the dream was over, leaving him confused and a little more than afraid.
While the dream seemed mostly like a bad omen, it also suggested a possible ray of hope. A possible plan. It was crazy and not one he liked because it was full of uncertainty and risk. He was okay with risk, but in the dream, the risk was not his.
He had shot awake, his body covered in sweat and his heart pounding in his chest.
It took nearly five minutes for his heart to slowly fall into a normal rhythm while the shadow of the dream hung over him. It had been so vivid, complete with the scent of the gunpowder from the weapons and the echoes of the screams of the dying.
He had had nightmares after coming him from Korea, but this dream seemed different. Those haunted him, but this one seemed like some sort of warning. For some odd reason, it made him think of Charles Dicken’s story, A Christmas Carol; only there was no ghostly chaperone. It made him wonder if this was a vision of the past, the present, or things to come?
Something in his gut told him it was more like a vision of what could be and this haunted him like his memories of the war. Questions and doubts assailed him. If he had done this, or he done that, then maybe some of his buddies might have made it out.
His gut told him that the situation at the Manor was getting ready to be sucked down the same drain that the world had gone down. He thought that maybe it was inevitable, the whole situation being too much for their little band of survivors. The magnetic pull of disaster and inevitable death was just too strong to resist with the forces aligned against them.
But this strange dream seemed like some sort of urgent call to action, too. That if he didn’t do something, all his friends were doomed.
But what could he do? He was lucky to have made it out of his last adventure alive and unharmed.
Playing it safe wasn’t his way, though. He had always been a fighter. Or had been one.
Sure, he knew if he had to admit it, that he had gotten a little passive in his old age. Sure, when the apocalypse came down on the world like a black cloud, he had allowed others to carry his load, but no more. He may have been as old as Methuselah, but he wasn’t dead. It was time to take the initiative and do what he could. His only problem was what could that be?
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br /> He weighed his assets and his liabilities. The asset list was small. He had some element of surprise on his side, but most of that had been spent in his short-lived firefight at the Manor. He did have some weapons in the cache stored at the farm, but you couldn’t call it an arsenal by any means and a lone man could only fire one weapon at a time. Still, it could allow him to raise a little hell.
The liability list was extensive. For one, he was old and moved only a tad bit faster than a turtle. He was outnumbered and outgunned by a large margin. He had no allies unless you considered a thirteen-year-old girl and two geriatric ladies who had never fired a gun in the lives. His adversary had air power while he had nothing.
He weighed his options through the night and somewhere just a few hours this side of dawn he decided on a course of action. It was a bad plan and one he doubted he would survive, but he could live with that.
You don’t get to live forever, he told himself.
He crept into Madison’s room just down the hallway from his own bedroom in the old farmhouse. He stood over her as she slept, watching her chest rise and fall in the pale moonlight streaming through the window. The thin blue light made her look almost like a ghost. She reminded him of his granddaughter, a pretty little thing, who had lived halfway across the country in Kansas City with his daughter and son in law. They came back to Ohio twice a year to visit, and he had talked with her on the phone nearly every other week. She had a vitality and kindness about her that he liked. She made him smile, but he knew all of them were probably dead. Death seemed to rule the whole world, and he considered the risk of his plan, specifically for Madison if he brought her into his plan at all, but he decided to give her a choice.
Still, he had his doubts. She had been through so much. Her family had come to the church after the Outbreak. Her father had been a State Trooper, but he had become infected on one of their patrol missions, but it was missed. When he turned, he infected her brother. Her mother, who knew what must be done, took her brother and left, leaving her an orphan overnight. She had reeled from the trauma of that, but they all had witnessed her inner strength as she rallied. Schultzy could see a metal in her, an inner strength that even he admired.
