Cade continued to scrutinize the scene as it passed underneath the helo. There appeared to be forty or fifty Zs at the gate. The guards’ fire raked over them, downing at least half their number before the viewing angle changed and all he could see was sun-drenched desert and the road to Yoder splitting the horizon to the east. With the word ‘hot’ echoing in his head, he wondered silently to himself what percentage of the walking corpses were radioactive. A cold finger traced his spine as he pondered the ramifications of a two-sided attack. An irradiated herd from Denver would be disastrous. But add a large exodus from Pueblo, and Schriever would be caught in an undead pincer that would be hard to defend against and nearly impossible to escape.
“Say goodbye to our rotting friends,” Ari said in his best Pacino. “Thanks for flying Night Stalker Airways. We will be cruising at two hundred knots at a sustained eight thousand feet AGL—above ground level—Major Ripley is going to throttle back her Frankencopter so we can keep pace.”
Cade grinned at Ari’s disparaging description of the Osprey. Clearly the SOAR pilot was one of the old school aviators—the kind who cut their teeth first on UH-1s and then the early Black Hawk variants. To say he was biased would be an understatement of monumental proportions.
He craned his neck and watched the big Osprey off the port side for a few seconds. And as he closed his eyes to begin his mental preparations, he felt Ari change the Ghost’s angle of attack which in turn sharpened their rate of climb. Though it was nothing like rocketing up the face of the Flaming Gorge Dam, his stomach still closed the distance with his scrotum, and in no time Jedi One-One had leveled out and they were cruising along smoothly. With the harmonic whirring of the rotors directly overhead and the baffled turbines off to his right providing a nice white noise, his chin hit his chest and he quickly fell asleep.
Chapter 48
Outbreak - Day 16
Schriever AFB
Colorado Springs, Colorado
The first airplanes had rumbled down the distant runway just before dawn. Their engine noise as they turned and roared overhead had been loud enough to snap Wilson from a blissful sleep. Whatever he had been dreaming about must have been good, he thought as he rolled over and faced away from Taryn in order to conceal his morning wood.
But as he tried to will the thing down, he had drifted back into another round of satisfying REM sleep which lasted only a handful of minutes before he was rudely jolted awake by a new, raucous noise that he couldn’t place.
Outside, somewhere in the distance, the thunder of rotors beating the air rose to a sonic tempest. It was coming from the part of the base occupied by the large hangars where he had endured all twelve hours of his quarantine time.
He sat up and looked around the room, searching for his cargo shorts. A thin shaft of light speared through the cracked curtains and fell across the tangled khaki lump sitting on the floor five feet away. He untangled the thin sheet from his legs and looked down at his lap. His face colored as he realized he was buck naked. Then he pinched his nipple just to be sure he wasn’t dreaming or imagining things. It hurt, so he surmised the situation he was in was not some figment of his vivid erotic imagination. That he wasn’t somehow reliving in his subconscious one of those Forum stories that had kept him somewhat sane and relieved during those frequent months’ long dry spells was indeed a welcome revelation.
Looking over his shoulder, he noticed Taryn’s raven-black hair splayed across the pillow. The sheet was pulled up, covering her chest which he imagined was still bare. She was still sleeping, so he continued to drink in the sight. Her ears were pierced multiple times and the strange see-through necklace the thumb drive had been dangling on was nestled against her neck. The black and gray tattoos encircling both arms had at first seemed out of place to Wilson. The inked-on skulls, demons, and skeletons belonged on bikers and ex-cons, he’d thought, not on first year college students.
But that been before he had met the nineteen-year-old, and though she was younger than him by nearly two years, she seemed to have a poise and bearing of someone much older.
The aircraft noise outside picked up and the whole base seemed to be languishing under it.
Still, Taryn continued to breath steady. Rhythmically.
A pang of guilt twisted his stomach as he averted his eyes from her lithe form and focused on his discarded shorts. Suddenly the guilt was replaced by a sense of dread and a gut-churning dose of worry as his sagging self-esteem torpedoed the magical moment.
He darted to his shorts and quickly pulled them over his blindingly white backside, cinched the belt and pulled his sweat-stained black tee over his red mop. He located his boonie hat and crunched it down over his hair. Who needs a comb, he mused.
As he laced on his boots he wondered if this had been his one real shot with Taryn. He wouldn’t trade the night for anything, but still he had a sick feeling it had been a fluke. Or what was even worse, maybe, he thought, last night’s events were a sympathy fling. That was it. He knew it. He shook his head and grimaced as the thought of how out of his league Taryn was polluted his mind. Then he stole one last look. Locked it away—just in case. Taryn’s face was placid and she seemed totally at peace. Angelic was the adjective that crossed his mind as he stepped into the humid morning air and closed and locked the door behind him.
Wilson heard the heavy chop of rotor blades approaching from the west, and in seconds the source of the racket was directly overhead. He shielded his eyes against the rising sun and picked up the matte-black hybrid-looking helicopter as it disappeared east over the nearby tents. Then he felt a sort of harmonic, breath-robbing pressure in his chest. He shifted his gaze towards the piece of sky the first craft had come from and picked up the near-silent angular black helicopter as it blazed directly overhead. It seemed close enough to touch and was following the same heading as the other aircraft.
Something is up, he thought as he unlocked the door to his humble abode. But that thought disappeared the moment he placed a foot inside the darkened room and found himself under interrogation.
“So I see you grew a pair, big brother,” said Sasha. The disembodied voice caught him off guard and startled him a bit.
“Sorry if I woke you up, sis,” he replied.
“You didn’t, Wilson I’m always up before seven,” she said sarcastically. “Truth is I couldn’t sleep... something about being alone when a zombie outbreak can happen at any moment.”
Wilson propped his Todd Helton Louisville Slugger against the nearest wall, strode across the room and parted the blackout curtains. “I said I’m sorry and I meant it. I woulda called but you know how bad the cell coverage is out here,” he added jokingly.
Sasha covered her eyes and was silent for a second. Then she rose from her bunk and padded back towards the bathroom. “You really like her,” she called back over her shoulder.
“More than any other girl I’ve ever known. But I don’t want to talk about it... I don’t want to get my hopes up.”
Noticing the hangdog look on her brother’s face when she returned, Sasha tried to cheer him up. “You know, Wilson, the way she shut me out yesterday says more than words. Take it from me. Most younger sisters try to get in the way of their big brother’s suitors and she knows that,” she said, nodding her head in order to validate the random line of bull she had just pulled out of the blue. “Besides, Wilson... what’s not to like about you?”
He wasn’t falling for it. Chances were Sasha was just trying to get him to let his guard down so she could kick him in the junk with one of her patented zingers.
“You are a nice guy, Wil...”
“Yeah, and you know what they say about nice guys... they always finish last.”
“Newsflash, Mister Nice Guy, there are no other civilian guys here even close to her age. Sooo— apparently last just became first. Besides, Wilson, if she didn’t like your company she wouldn’t have inserted herself into the whole leaving Schriever fantasy that you and that Brook lady cooked up.�
��
“It’s no fantasy, Sash. She and her husband and their daughter are leaving today, and you and I are going too... if she can talk her husband into it.”
“Big if... It’s boring as hell here but I’m not holding my breath, Wilson. I’m going back to sleep,” she added as she slipped between her sheets. “Wake me when you go to breakfast.”
“I didn’t sleep but a couple of hours since I snuck out on you, so breakfast is going to have to take a back seat to a few more minutes of shut eye,” Wilson said sheepishly.
“Good for you, Mister Nice Guy... you grew a pair and apparently they work just fine,” Sasha said, trying to keep a straight face. Then she pulled the covers over her head and muffled laughter filtered out.
Wilson threw his shorts on the floor and climbed into his bunk. Amazing how fast Sash is growing up, he thought to himself. Fourteen going on twenty.
“Sorry brother. I love you.”
“I love you too sis.”
Chapter 49
Outbreak - Day 16
Near Driggs, Idaho
When Jenkins stepped from the Tahoe to unchain the gate, nothing on the other side was moving. Earlier, he and Daymon had gone down the fence line and systematically killed the zombies one by one, he with the Japanese sushi knife and Daymon with a utilitarian neon-handled machete.
Though he had worked at a small chicken processing plant as a teen, and had sent his fair share of future McNuggets to the great coop in the sky, he had balked at using the knife. Just the thought of jamming a blade into a former human being’s eye socket gave him a case of the heebs.
But due to the prospect of gunfire drawing even more of the walking dead up the feeder road, he had followed Daymon’s lead, sucked it up, and started on the high side of the property. And by the time he and Daymon, who had started on the low side, had met in the middle, Jenkins had chalked up eighteen kills up close and personal while Daymon had culled twenty-four of the putrefying corpses.
“Easy peasy mac and cheesy,” Daymon sang as he wiped the machete off in the tall grass.
“Says you,” Jenkins spat as he fought back the bile rising in his throat. “I prefer a bullet to a blade any day.”
“Still, you better bring along the Ginsu,” Daymon said with a wink. “Who knows... it may come in handy down the road.” He poked his head in the back window and checked on Heidi, who seemed to be feeling better by the minute. Funny, he mused, how the prospect of being trapped by a horde of dead could speed up the healing process.
Jenkins waited until Daymon was in the passenger seat and had closed the door, and then he eased the patrol Tahoe over the prostrate dead.
As the front wheels found purchase, Daymon clucked his tongue and said, “I’d gun it if I was you.”
“You wanna drive?” Jenkins shot back. In fact, Daymon’s attitude was starting to rub him the wrong way. So to show the younger man who was boss, he continued over the pile at a crawl, only to be greeted by the awful sound of gas escaping bloated organs. And as the rig bounced overtop, the gunshot-sounding cracks of bone snapping under the weight of the SUV emanated through the floor pan.
“See what I mean?”
Fuck you, thought Jenkins as he relented and pinned the accelerator to the floor, causing the SUV to slew sideways and the spinning rear tires to spew flesh.
“Better than dragging a ton of dead meat from the road and breaking our backs in the process, don’t you think?” said Daymon. “Hell, at the least, I probably would have popped these cuts on my gut open again.”
“Always thinking about yourself. Let’s go. Now, now, now...” Jenkins said, shaking his head. “Like a spoiled brat only child.”
“How did you know?” Daymon said sarcastically.
Jenkins wheeled the rig around a small knot of dead, hung a hard right, and laid down two black stripes as he buried the gas pedal. He took his eyes from the road for a second and looked Daymon in the eye. “If it walks like a duck,” he said.
“Boys will be boys... I get that. But too much is at stake here,” said Heidi. Her head and shoulders poked into the front of the SUV. She looked at Jenkins, then shifted her gaze to Daymon where it lingered for a long silent moment. “I didn’t persevere while Christian and his wealthy shitbirds had their way with me just so I can ride along and listen to you two juveniles argue like a couple of fucktards.”
Jenkins mouthed the word ‘fucktard’ and tried to grasp its meaning. He’d never heard the term, though he figured she was right. He was acting like an exposed nerve and should have never let Daymon get to him. Time to drop the Officer Friendly
protect and serve mentality, he told himself. Time to grow some hide, Charlie. In his peripheral vision he noticed Heidi retreat back into the middle row of seats. And without saying a word Daymon sunk into his seat and his head mechanically turned to gaze out his window. Charlie decided to join the silence party and keep his eyes forward and his words to himself unless he had something pertinent to add.
Chapter 50
Outbreak - Day 16
Near Pierre, South Dakota
The minute deceleration awoke Cade from his slumber a few seconds before Ari’s voice resounded in his flight helmet. He looked out the port window as Ripley guided her Osprey to a perfect linkup with the white refueling hose extending behind the trailing edge of the KC-130s right wing.
“Nice...” Durant intoned. “She got the basket on the first shot.”
Ari matched speed with the flying gas station and watched with one eye the delicate dance happening off the Ghost Hawk’s nose. After what must have seemed like an hour to Ripley, but in reality had been only a couple of minutes, the fuel had been transferred from the Herc into the Osprey’s puncture-resistant fuel bladders, and she had disengaged and put her bird in a position mirroring that of the Ghost Hawk—only on the opposite side of the refueling bird.
“Oil Can Five-Five, how copy?” Ari said to the pilot of the turboprop Hercules.
“Good copy, Jedi One-One,” came the pilot’s tinny reply.
“Seems like Whipper’s turned over a new leaf,” said Ari. “Word is he released enough fuel for the mission and then some. Any truth to that?”
“Pull up and find out,” said the Hercules pilot. He had a familiar southern twang in his voice but Ari couldn’t place where he had heard it before.
“Copy that,” Ari replied as he matched airspeed with the Herc and finessed his own controls as the bigger aircraft’s slipstream buffeted the helo momentarily. “In the sweet spot. Hitting the drogue,” he informed the crew chief, who was in the rear of the refueling plane looking through a small porthole, and had, for very good reason, the best seat and view of the refueling procedure than any of them.
Sitting with his back pressed firmly to the bulkhead and his eyes shut tightly, Cade smiled at the comment about Whipper and his newfound understanding of a concept most people learned early on in life: Sharing is Caring. Then, through the ship’s thinly-layered carbon fiber skin, he sensed the coupling taking place thirty feet in front of where he was. The slight clunk reverberated almost imperceptibly through the seat of his pants as the trailing hose mated with the retractable fuel probe sticking from under the helo’s chin plexi.
Another few minutes passed and Cade felt the helo shudder and decelerate and lose altitude.
He looked out the port side window at the hardscrabble landscape gliding by. From the briefing two hours earlier, he knew their first refueling was set to take place seventy-five miles south and west of Pierre, South Dakota, and from what little he remembered from geography in school, the sparkling silver snake running off into the distance on the left had to be the Missouri River.
Meanwhile, in the cockpit, Ari flashed the boom operator a thumbs up that he hoped got noticed. “Jedi One-One. Going to the hard deck to recon Pierre,” he said to Ripley in One-Two over a separate secure channel. Then, after receiving a “Copy” from Ripley’s co-pilot, he switched over to the previous frequency—the same one on w
hich he had been chatting up Oil Can Five-Five.
“Where the heck have my manners gone?” said Ari. “Thank you for the drink, Oil Can Five-Five.”
“You got it, Jedi One-One,” the pilot drawled.
“Looks like we’ll be picking you up over Winnipeg for a top off,” added Ari, who had just received updated flight data on his HUD—Heads-Up-Display—courtesy of Durant, who was also in the process of setting up a live satellite downlink to be shared between both the Ghost Hawk and the Osprey. “Maybe we’ll take in a Jet’s game and get a couple of Molsons when my customers finish their transaction,” he added.
“Copy that,” said the pilot, playing along. “And they had better be frosty. It’s been too long since I’ve enjoyed a cold beer... or a hot woman for that matter.”
“Copy that, I feel ya, Tex,” Ari quipped as he nudged the stick forward and fought hard not to chuckle. “You know what they say... misery loves company, and beggars can never be choosers. And if you ask me... those two go together like OJ and his gloves.”
The Hercules pilot laughed and then signed off and nosed the gray bird into a climb to get to a more fuel-friendly cruising altitude.
The SOAR pilot, being anything but demure, almost always left the shipboard comms open so that anyone wearing a flight helmet and had it plugged in would be privy to his ongoing banter. And it was no secret among his peers and the people he delivered into combat that the exceptional chopper jock considered his knack for comedy a close second only to his prowess at the stick. Desantos, in a roundabout way, had kind of contributed to these antics. The salty operator had always looked the other way when it came to the Night Stalker’s penchant for ongoing chatter, because he knew from experience gained on battlefields all over the world that when the time came for Ari to do his job—which was flying a helicopter as if his nerve endings were grafted with the thing—the aviator was all business. So Gaines had been content to just sit back and enjoy the dog and pony show. After all, the precedent had been set by one of his all-time favorite peers, so who was he to go changing the rules in the middle of the game.
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