The Living and the Dead

by R. J. Spears

  “He sounds important,” the voice responded. “Why should we give him up?”

  “So, you do have him?”

  “Hell, we don’t know who he is.” the voice responded with a slight laugh.

  Kilgore felt something stir inside his stomach. An eager anticipation. “His name is Jason Carter.” He went on to give a brief description of Jason.

  There was a slight pause and Kilgore thought he saw some movement in the shadows. The fires burned, the flames flickering in their orange and yellow hues, casting long shadows across the asphalt.

  “So, if we have him and we give him to you, what’s in it for us?” the voice asked.

  “You will have the gratitude of your country and maybe the world,” Kilgore said.

  Again, there was no immediate response, but the voice finally said, “That’s not good enough. We need something more concrete. More useful, if you know what I mean.”

  “Sir, I don’t like this,” Soto said.

  “Keep your mouth shut,” Kilgore snapped. Then he spoke to the voice, “What do you have in mind?”

  “I see that you have some pretty nice weapons on that chopper,” the voice responded. “We’d like to have something like that. We could use some medicine, too.”

  “Sir, I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Soto said. “We don’t even know if they have him.”

  “They have him. I know they do,” Kilgore said.

  “How do you know that?” Private Miller asked from the back section of the helicopter.

  Kilgore turned back to him and said, “Who asked you anything? Keep your eyes out the sides.” He returned his attention back out the front window. Wheels turned in his head, walking through different options. He also knew that he was burning time. If these people were up to something, then he was just giving them more time to do it. Better to take preemptive action. Carter was here, and he didn’t need Carter alive to get the monkey off his back.

  A large figure stepped out from the shadows and stepped into the light of one of the fires burning in a fifty-gallon drum. The figure had a rifle of some sort, held relaxed at his side. “Hey, you in there, we’re talking here. We can negotiate this.”

  Miller spoke excitedly, “I have movement off to the side. At least four people and they all have weapons.”

  “Take us up, Soto,” Kilgore snapped out.

  Soto fumbled with the control stick for several seconds, his eyes wide. A moment later, he saw muzzle flashes and bullets pinged off the side of the helicopter. Soto regained his composure and revved the engine, kicking up a cloud of dust and debris as the helicopter started to rise. Kilgore watched as the figure dropped to one knee while bringing up his gun.

  “Fire!” Kilgore yelled at the two gunners

  A series of bullets ricocheted into the interior of the helicopter and Meinke pitched forward, slamming into Kilgore’s back. A spray of blood showered the ceiling from the gunshot wound to Meinke’s head. Without a second thought, Kilgore shoved Meinke backward where he tumbled onto the floor and then he slid out the side of the rising chopper. Four seconds later, his lifeless body slammed to the pavement below like a bag of wet concrete.

  Beltran and Miller barely took notice as both of them opened up with their machine guns, firing a ferocious number of bullets at anything that was moving down on the ground. The fire from their gun lit up the night like a fireworks show. The war was on.

  Chapter 29

  War

  The rumble of the heavy guns rattled the windows in our little room and sent Linda into a series of yelps and screams. I grabbed Naveen and pulled her into my body and wrapped my arms around her as we backed toward the inner wall. I felt trapped and vulnerable. I knew it was Kilgore, and I knew he had brought some of his heavy firepower with him. All my memories of watching his attack helicopters churn up a whole army of zombies flooded back. It had been awesome and frightening and now that same thing was happening just outside the walls of where we were being held.

  “Get away from the walls and get down,” I shouted. A moment later, it sounded like Thor was using a power drill on the outside wall, only he was doing it with the speed of the Flash. Dust lifted off the wall, filling the air. I thought I felt the fillings in my teeth rattle from the force of the impacts. The blocks of glass near the ceiling shattered, sending a spray of broken glass across the room. I felt something cut into the top of my head and I wrapped Naveen up, hoping to shield her from any flying debris.

  Brother Ed helped Jason get across the room as we listened to the chaos outside. All I could tell was that there was a helicopter out there and folks from the ground were firing at it. The helicopter angrily returned fire with what sounded like heavy weapons. Marlow and his men had guns, but I doubted whether they had anything like what Kilgore could bring to a party. His toys were for the big boys.

  My thoughts drifted to Kara. I had no idea where she was and whether she was in the direct flow of fire or not. The only thing I could do that moment was to keep Naveen alive, and I felt very ill prepared to do that.

  Gunfire was coming up from the ground in all directions as Soto circled the helicopter around the buildings below. He wanted to get the hell out of there entirely, but Kilgore insisted they stay, so that’s what they did. Still, he had the chopper at a high enough distance off the ground, that he felt safe even though he knew that feeling was probably an illusion.

  The windshield cracked across the bottom looking like a giant spider had just spun a super-sized web across it, but it held in place. For that, Kilgore was thankful. He saw muzzle flashes below him, reminding him of some of his flights in Afghanistan, surrounded by Taliban.

  “Keep your fire up, boys!” he shouted back to his gunners who needed no direction. They saw a muzzle flash, and they brought a withering array of gunfire down onto that position a moment later. The only problem was that there were too many positions to cover.

  “Sir, do you want me to continue up?” Soto asked, keeping the chopper hovering at a safe firing distance.

  “No, let’s stay low enough to beat the shit out of them. They’ve only got small arms,” Kilgore said. “We can take that for a while.”

  But small arms can take a helicopter down, Soto thought. Especially one as old as the Iroquois. He kept that to himself because he was more worried about a bullet hitting him. If that happened, then they all were screwed.

  “I’m going to man the 20mm,” Kilgore said as he pushed in close to Soto.

  Kilgore had had his men retrofit a 20mm cannon pod onto the front of the Iroquois months ago. The pod had been sitting around one of the hangars at Wright-Patterson Air Base where Kilgore had marshaled soldiers from the four arms of the military after the Outbreak. He figured one day they might need that sort of firepower and it was looking like this day was it.

  “Let’s show these assholes a thing or two,” he said as he pivoted the control handle that rotated the 20mm gun. “Level out and turn us to the right twenty degrees, Soto.”

  Soto did as was told. Bullets flew through the night sky tinkling on the exterior of the helicopter. A few made it inside but landed on the ceiling. Soto winced with each impact.

  Kilgore pressed the trigger, and the 20mm roared to life with a rapid fire booming sound. A truck that had been a shield for a group of the ground attackers literally ripped apart, sending metal shrapnel into the surrounding area. Two men hiding behind it were killed right away and two more were put down and out of action with grievous wounds to their torsos. There was nothing subtle about the 20mm. It was meant to wreak havoc and Kilgore was doing just that.

  “What the hell was that?” Brent shouted as it sounded like someone had let loose with a Fourth of July fireworks just outside our room.

  “I don’t know,” I said, “but I have to take a look.”

  “Don’t!” Linda yelled.

  I ignored her, jumped up, and grabbed the ledge below the windows and then pulled myself up. A section of the window was now missing, giving me a view
through broken glass out onto a battlefield. I saw more than a few bodies in various states of dismanglement. (If that is a real word?) It wasn’t pretty. Kilgore’s helicopter was wreaking havoc on Marlow’s little empire, both on buildings and bodies.

  Men ran from obstacle to obstacle, using trucks, cars, or whatever cover to stay out of the fire the chopper was pouring down on them. A few of the men fired back, but they were few and far between. One of these men was Marlow, standing outside the school’s main building across from where we were, firing an assault rifle up into the sky. He seemed oblivious to the danger and fired at will, screaming at the top of his voice. It wasn’t distinguishable, but just some sort of animal howl.

  The helicopter swooped around in and out of view, a steady stream of machine gun fire coming from it. At random intervals, it would stop and hover and that’s when it would fire some sort of cannon that was a real show stopper. The men on the ground had no defense from it. It was blowing things up all over Marlow’s compound. That included buildings, too. A hole appeared in a wall of a building just opposite of us large enough to drive a car through.

  The chopper circled, then hovered and fired its cannon. This pattern repeated several times as the machine guns churned up the ground and people below while the cannon brought down targeted devastation. The school building caught fire and I could see flames running across the third floor. A building I took to be an administrative one was completely flattened, flames licking out at the sky from the rubble.

  Kilgore was systematically destroying each of the buildings one-by-one, firing off deadly cannon volleys.

  The helicopter circled around, the machine gunners firing down onto anything that moved, cutting down any resistance from the ground. I watched as the chopper leveled out directly across from our room and, if the pattern played out, we were in a shit creek of trouble.

  I jumped down from my perch and yelled, “Everybody get down!” I made it two steps across the room when the wall behind me exploded.

  Debris pelted my back as I was thrown forward by the blast. My body rolled across the room, ending up against the inner wall, feeling like I had been hit by a truck.

  My ears rang with sounds coming at me in muted waves. My body resonated pain from my head to my toes, but there was no time for that. Only for action.

  It took everything in me to will my body to roll over, but I did it and a moment after that I pushed myself off the floor.

  When the dust cleared, I could see the outside. There was a gaping hole in the wall.

  Why we were still alive and not post toasties was beyond me. My only guess was the cannon shot came up short, hitting the pavement outside, and the wall took most of the blast, but don’t tell my body that.

  “Is everybody okay?” I yelled.

  Someone yelled off to my right, “I’m okay.” It turned out to be Brother Ed.

  “Linda is hurt,” Brent said. “It’s her arm, but Chelsea is okay.”

  “Naveen?” I yelled, as a surge of fear rising within my chest.

  I heard someone cough off to my left and this was followed by Naveen’s soft voice, “I’m alright.” She stood up while using both of her hands to brush dust out of her hair.

  “Brother Ed, how is Jason?” I asked.

  “He’s shook up, but I think he’s good to travel.” I saw him help Jason to his feet. “What are we doing?”

  That was the $1,000,000 question. I had made the call, and the cavalry had arrived. The only problem was that they weren’t too discriminating, trying to kill us as well as our enemy. That was telling in and of itself. Kilgore wasn’t here to recapture Jason, he wanted him dead and there was nothing good in that.

  I stepped over bricks and made my way to the hole in the wall. It was a bigger view than the windows, but not a whole lot better. The view wasn’t that great, and it wasn’t my ability to see that I was talking about. It was what I was seeing. It wasn’t any better than it had been a few seconds ago. In fact, it was trending decidedly worse.

  The helicopter still rained its special kind of hell down on the area. The machine gunners pinned Marlow’s men down, while the cannon smashed away at the structures, taking them apart a cannon blast at a time. We were fortunate that he must have thought our little room was finished. When I looked out at the pavement directly outside the room, I saw the blast crater from the cannon shot.

  We had come just feet from being blown to pieces. That was little consolation, considering our predicament. That morbid part of my mind said there was still time for that to happen.

  Feeling a little bold, I stuck my head out the hole in the wall, looking to the left and the right. What I saw didn’t make things dramatically better, but there was an opening to our right. A burning overturned truck sat just ten yards in that direction and fifteen or so yards after that was a gap in between the buildings. If we could make it past the truck, then we might be able to sneak away in the chaos.

  I pulled back from the hole and reported those findings. I added, “Brother Ed, there’s a gap off to our right. You take Jason and Naveen and get through there. Grab any weapons you can find. There are a few out there on the ground. Once you’re through, find a vehicle and get the hell out of here.”

  “Wait, what are you doing?” Brother Ed asked.

  “I’m not leaving here without Kara,” I said.

  “You have no idea where she is or if she is even still alive,” he replied, stepping closer to me.

  “I am not leaving here without her. I can’t. If I don’t make it, use Jason and Naveen’s visions to guide you north.”

  “We can’t do it without you,” he said.

  “You can and you will,” I said and turned to Brent, Linda, and Chelsea. He was huddled over Linda, working with her hurt arm. “Brent, you guys are welcome to go with them,” I said.

  He swiveled his head in my direction, “I don’t know. You guys seem to bring a lot of trouble where you go.”

  “I don’t think staying here is really an option,” I said, then added, “Since I‘m not sure how much longer there will be a here here.”

  I looked back out the hole. The helicopter swooped into view and started to swivel back in our direction. Whether it was to finish the job on our building or not, I did not know, but I knew we shouldn’t wait around to find out.

  “We have to move and do it now,” I said. “That helicopter may be winding up for another pitch at us.”

  That got Brother Ed moving as he looped an arm around Jason’s waist and started toward the hole. “Come on, Naveen.”

  Brent helped Linda get to her feet and Chelsea stood too, looking shell-shocked.

  “Come on, honey, Brent said, taking Chelsea by the hand and leading her gently to the opening.

  “Brent, do you know where Marlow would have taken Kara?” I asked.

  Brent looked back at me, seeming perplexed.

  “Where do you think Kara could be?”

  “Marlow has a special room in the administration area just off to the right of the school,” he said. “I think it was the principal’s office or a vice superintendent. I don’t know. That’s where he took Chelsea.”

  I could tell that the mere memory of the incident caused him pain, and I hated making him recall it, but I needed information.

  The gunners in the helicopter grabbed my attention, churning out a new blistering attack, their bullets tearing parts of the inner area of the school compound to shreds. I looked across the parking lot and saw that Marlow was still out there, firing at the chopper. He no longer stood out in the open but had gotten smart and was shooting under the cover of an overhang off the main building.

  Brother Ed paused at the hole in the wall, as if trying to gain some courage or divine inspiration to head outside. I had only looked out the hole. It would take some big cajones to actually step outside. I know people used to overuse the word ‘literally’ too much, but it was literally hell on earth out there.

  I looked past him and watched the helicopter hove
r into position and they looked completely aligned to take another shot at us.

  “Go, Ed, Go!” I shouted.

  He put his head down and pulled Jason along with them. Naveen ducked out the hole right behind them, disappearing to the right and out of my view.

  Brent, Linda, and Chelsea seemed to be moving in slow motion. My eyes were locked on the helicopter. All I saw was their lights and their bulky silhouette hovering in the sky. It looked like their lights were shining directly onto the hole leading out of our building. The light reminded me of some giant eye dangling on a black backdrop searching the ground angrily. It made me think of The Lord of the Rings where that giant evil eye was looking across the Middle Earth, only this eye was staring at me, unblinking and malevolent.

  A warning bell sounded inside my head and I moved to Brent and his family and started pushing at their backs, shoving them out the hole. Brent seemed to resist me for a moment, but then he surrendered to my momentum and they were outside the hole a moment later. They headed after Brother Ed, Jason, and Naveen, crouched down and running.

  Among the chaos outside I saw the familiar shambling of the zombies. One of the shots from the helicopter must have damaged Marlow’s pen full of undead. A familiar childhood rhyme flitted into my brain and I heard, “School’s out, school’s out, teacher let the monkeys out,” only my rhyme replaced ‘monkeys’ with zombies.

  Sometime, I would seriously have to consider how my mind works.

  My eyes stayed on the helicopter and I fully expected the fatal cannon shot to be fired at any second. The light from the helicopter was almost blinding as it shown on my face.

  I wondered if Kilgore was in that chopper and wondered if he was looking at me? Something inside me knew he was in there.

  I did the only mature thing I could and flipped him off -- with both hands.

  One part of my gesture was sheer stupid defiance, but the other part was to distract them from watching Jason get away, because that’s who I knew he was after.