Zombie Road: The Second Omnibus | Books 4-6 | Jessie+Scarlet

by Simpson, David A.

  They hurried back to the hangar in time to see Griz grab the propeller and give a mighty yank, spinning the motor by hand. The battery was too weak to crank it over and there was no time to figure out where it was. It almost caught and he tried again, quickly pulling his hands out of the way when it coughed to life. Gunny was still throwing out boxes of ammo, tossing in backpacks instead and Scratch was still desperately scribbling notes while Carl talked.

  “Don’t forget to lean it out!” he yelled over the howl of the motor, nearly deafening inside the hangar. The zombies pouring through the fence chasing the car hesitated at the new sound. The closer sound, and turned towards it.

  “Here they come!” Griz yelled, “Load up, now. We’ve got to beat them to the runway!”

  “Go!” Gunny yelled at Stabby. “Get rolling, stay ahead of them.”

  He pulled Bridget inside, tumbling her over his lap and out of the way. The plane started moving towards the opening and they felt Griz swing aboard through the other door, the whole plane leaning with his weight. The Cessna cleared the hangar doors and Stabby turned it toward a runway. Lars swung aboard next and waved frantically at Scratch who finally abandoned the radio and was running for all he was worth to catch up, the notebook flapping in his one good hand.

  The plane was slow and cumbersome on the ground, barely ahead of the hundred strong mob that was chasing the noise and the smells of fear and blood. Once on the runway and not afraid of tipping it, Stabby gave a little more throttle to keep ahead of a pack running towards them to intercept. He couldn’t hit any, not one. He didn’t know if the propeller would chop them up like in the movies or break and fly apart and he didn’t want to find out. The little plane started to pick up speed and the few that were still chasing the Caddy turned and ran for the shouting voices.

  “Take it!” Scratch shouted, extending his good hand towards Gunny, stretching to give him the notebook. The noise and commotion had agitated the undead trapped inside the pilots lounge and they burst through the doors, screaming and running, leaping on all fours. Day one zombies and they were fast. Gunny pulled his Glock and blasted at the nearest only a few feet away, jumping towards Scratch.

  Scratch was starting to fall behind as the plane picked up speed, the door handle just out of his reach.

  “Griz, on me!” Gunny shouted and didn’t wait for an answer.

  He leaned out past the point of no return and felt the big man’s hands grab his belt before he fell. Griz held Gunny with one hand and the grab bar with the other as he leaned dangerously out of the door.

  Scratch put on one last desperate burst of speed, still waving the notebook. Gunny ignored it, grabbed Scratch’s wrist instead and tugged him towards the bouncing airplane, pulling him off balance.

  “Go!” Griz shouted at Stabby “We got him!”

  The undead were closing in from all sides, arms reaching and sand filled voices screaming. Stabby had the yoke pulled back, shoved the throttle to its stops and the plane seemed to leap into the air. It lifted, tilted precariously and Scratch’s feet left the ground. The zombies screamed, seeing their food, their blood, the first they’d had in months, slip away skyward. Hollywood lunged for Griz, trying to pull him away from the door to center the weight, to get the plane back on an even keel. They were airborne but listing hard, one wing dipping for the ground. Gunny was trying to reel Scratch in but he only had one hand and he wouldn’t let go of the notebook, their only way of knowing how to fly the plane.

  “Give me your arm!” Bridget shouted at Hollywood, grabbed on and dove for the other door, leaning far out into space. The plane righted itself, the wings leveling as they barely skimmed over the fence, the wheels missed snagging it by inches.

  “Grab on!” Gunny yelled at the dangling Scratch. “I can’t hold you, you’re slipping!”

  Scratch hesitated for only another second, now some twenty feet in the air with apartment buildings coming up fast across the open field. He let go, the papers fluttered away and he dug his fingers into Gunny’s wrist in a death grip, hanging on for dear life as the plane started to buck and shudder.

  Griz and Hollywood strained against the dead weight of the two men and Gunny finally got a knee inside, locked it behind the door frame and put his back into pulling Scratch aboard. With a final mighty heave, they tumbled in only to hear Stabby yelling at them to shut the doors. Bridget swung back in blithely and grabbed the handle, slamming her side shut while the boys all reached for the other one, just getting in each other’s way. She stepped over all of them and wrenched it shut, not bothering to tell them to watch their fingers. The plane smoothed out immediately, the shuddering subsided. Stabby eased back on the controls, fighting for altitude and the engine bogged down on the verge of stalling out. He reached for the throttle and yanked on it and the Cessna bucked and rocked forward, the nose lifting. Everyone in the back slid towards the tail of the plane and the nose rose even further.

  “Stop bloody moving around!” Stabby yelled and pushed the yoke in a little, trying his best to keep it from stalling out in a climb or power-diving straight into the rooftops. They stopped struggling and slowly extricated themselves from the pile, moved forward and folded down tiny little seats bolted to the walls. There were only two normal seats for the pilot and copilot, the others were collapsible to make room for cargo.

  “These chairs were made for people with tiny butts.” Griz grumbled as Gunny took the front seat, sliding in next to Stabby.

  “More room to fly in bales of dope.” Hollywood said. “I bet this thing made runs down to Guatemala all the time.”

  “You remember what I’m supposed to do next?” Stabby asked when Scratch stood between the seats looking at the bewildering cluster of instruments, dials and gauges.

  “I lost the notebook, man.” Scratch said. “But we’re up in the air that was the hard part wasn’t it? Just make sure we’re going back to America, I’m done with Mexico.”

  “Carl said take off was easy. Everybody crashes trying to land.” Stabby replied and bumped the throttle up a few more notches. He played with the foot pedals and carefully moved the wheel, trying to figure out how to turn it without sending them into a death spiral.

  He spotted the winding Rio Grande and eased the plane towards it, unsure of his movements and afraid to stall it out. They were high up in the air and still climbing, the altimeter steadily increasing.

  “Anybody remember what freq Wire Bender said Casey was on?” Gunny asked flipping on the radio.

  Nobody did. They didn’t have air control radios in their cars so it didn’t matter.

  “Can’t you call Lakota on that?” Bridget asked “Get Carl to talk us into a landing?”

  “This only has airline frequencies.” Gunny said. “Different band than ham or CB. It’s why we never heard any of their traffic, the sneaky bastards.”

  There was a quiet cheer as the green line of the river passed below them and they entered U.S. airspace.

  “Uh, which way is Oklahoma?” Stabby asked “Geography wasn’t my best subject.”

  He got the plane headed in the right general direction and Scratch figured out how to retract the wheels, Stabby’s hands in a death grip on the yoke, white knuckling it.

  They all stopped talking when Casey’s voice filled the cockpit.

  “Found him.” Gunny grinned and turned the volume up a little.

  “…care how you do it but just do it!” his angry outburst blasted through the plane then there was silence.

  “I think we’ve upset that ball headed bitch.” Scratch said then pointed at one of the gauges. “Which one of those is fuel?” he asked.

  Now that the plane was level and seemed to be behaving normally, they started looking for other things that could go wrong. They found it, half hidden behind the yoke Stabby still held nervously, in the cluster of dozens of knobs and screens and levers and gauges.

  “Maybe it’s broke.” Stabby said hopefully just as a red ‘low fuel light’ flashed on and star
ted blinking.

  51

  Gunny

  “Okay. No worries, can you land this thing?” Gunny asked, looking below them at the unforgiving desert and the single visible road. “We can siphon some gas from somewhere.”

  “Carl said that’s the dangerous part.” Scratch said. “He said taking off was easy. Coming down is when you die.”

  They all looked at Stabby, still stiff, staring straight ahead and gripping the controls.

  “Well, at least we don’t have to worry about burning up if there’s no gas.” Bridget said. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

  “We stall and nose dive into the ground at a hundred miles an hour.” Stabby said.

  “Come in wrong, get sideways and start tumbling down the road at a hundred miles an hour.” Griz said

  “The wheels break off and we start flipping end over end at a hundred miles an hour.” Hollywood said.

  “Would you guys quit being such negative Nancy’s?” Gunny said, exasperated. “You’ve got this, right Stabby? You remember what Carl said you had to do?”

  “Nah, mate. We didn’t get to that part. I’m not good with this, you’ve got a steering wheel on your side, maybe you’d better do it.”

  Gunny looked at the yoke, at the pedals, the levers and buttons and didn’t know what any of them did. What he did know was if they forgot even one little thing, didn’t set a flap right or stalled the engine pushed the wrong pedal at the wrong time, they’d wind up splattered all over the road. He’d seen a lot of news reports over the years of little planes crashing, even with experienced pilots.

  “Okay, plan B.” he said. “Take us up to at least six thousand feet and we’ll go until we run out of gas.”

  There was silence as they all looked at each other.

  This wasn’t their idea of a good plan.

  “And then?” Bridget asked.

  “This was a touring and skydiving plane.” Gunny said “There’s ‘chutes in the back.”

  “Man, I thought you were tossing in our bugout bags.” Hollywood said and got up to pass them out to everyone.

  “I hate jumps.” Griz complained. “I had a riser come out tangled once, nearly busted my legs when I hit.”

  The radio came to life again, an excited voice filling the cabin. “I’m on 95, I just seen a plane fly over, it has to be them!”

  Casey came back almost instantly. “Don’t lose them. Everybody in that area, we know where they’re going so start leading them, they’re heading back to Oklahoma.”

  The sky was clear, only a few scattered clouds here and there. They couldn’t hide. If they would have had fuel, they could easily out run them, the plane was cruising at nearly a hundred and fifty miles an hour, flying over the mountains where the raiders would have to follow the roads. But they didn’t have fuel, didn’t know how much longer they could stay in the air, it could probably be measured in minutes. Any one on the ground with a good pair of binoculars could spot them from miles away and apparently, Casey still had some of his crews up raiding in the States.

  “We need to jump before the plane dies and starts nosediving.” Gunny said. “See any likely spots? Any signs of civilization where we can get some cars?” They all peered out the windows as they strapped the packs in place, Griz and Scratch helping the others get them tightened and adjusted. Gunny sent Stabby back, the plane was flying itself.

  They weren’t ready for this, they’d been on the defensive since the bullet hit the glass back at Casey’s compound. They’d been running for their lives, barely staying one step ahead of the killers, and every time it seemed like their situation got a little worse. How long before someone died? How many more close calls did they have before they ran out of luck? It would probably be better to be caught by the zombies, though. At least with them, your agony was over in a few minutes. They didn’t take pleasure in seeing how much they could make you suffer.

  The mountainous terrain below them looked unforgiving and they didn’t have any supplies or water with them, just their pistols and knives. Everything else had been tossed to save weight and they had barely cleared the fence. He looked at the flashing fuel gauge again. Probably a good thing it was nearly empty. With a full tank, it would have been too heavy, they would already be dead at the end of the runway.

  They were over the Kofa Wildlife Refuge, some of the most brutal and unforgiving lands of the desert southwest. Thousands of square miles of nothing but sand and rocks.

  The motor coughed once and died, the roaring of the engine replaced by the rush of wind.

  “Oh, God.” Bridget said, panic edging her voice. “What do I do again? Just pull this?”

  “Yeah, as soon as you clear the plane!” Scratch said and grabbed the door handle, ready to open it.

  “But what if it doesn’t open?” she nearly wailed, her voice rising. “What do I do? How do I steer it? How hard will I hit the ground?”

  The plane held steady on the currents but it was losing airspeed fast. They didn’t know how long it would glide or how slow it had to be going before it lost it’s lift but they didn’t want to be inside when it started plummeting earthward.

  “You’ll figure it out!” Griz said and nodded at Scratch. They both ripped their doors open and wind filled the plane, making it shudder. Gunny made one last check of Stabby’s gear before shouldering his parachute and shoving him out the door after a screaming Bridget. He and Griz exchanged a grin as they leapt free of the plane and out into the open sky. They had jumped at about five thousand feet, plenty of time for the chutes to deploy and they would even have a few minutes to enjoy the scenery, maybe try to spot a camp or a car or something. The canopies bloomed and Bridget had stopped screaming, Hollywood was playing with his riser cords and figuring out how to steer. The plane continued its slow descent, loosing altitude faster than them for a time then it seemed to stop, went into a spiraling dive and they watched as it plummeted into the ground in an awful crunching explosion of flying debris.

  It was quiet in the air as they floated down, normal conversation could be had even though they were hundreds of feet apart. Scratch pulled his riser and swung under Griz, stealing his air and causing his chute to start to collapse. He laughed maniacally as Griz cursed him and ran along the top of Scratch’s parachute to jump off and back out into the open air to fill his canopy back up. There was nothing like almost dying to make you feel alive. Stabby and Bridget both were starting to relax a little and enjoy the ride but the ground was coming up fast.

  “Bridget, Lars! Gunny raised his voice to be heard over the laughing and cursing. “Right before you land pull down hard on these.”

  He pointed out the handles attached to the risers, then demonstrated. His descent slowed and suddenly he was above them. “It’ll slow you down so you don’t break a leg. Avoid the rock, try to aim for the sand.”

  Scratch was below them, going in circles around Griz but before he could cause any more mischief, he had to break off and find a good spot to land. Rocks and bushes and cactus dotted the soil. There was no wind so Gunny didn’t tell the two beginners about the release buckles to collapse their chutes once they landed. He didn’t want to complicate matters and maybe have them pulled in the confusion. He aimed for the dirt road cutting through the scrub, flared out and ran a few steps before gathering in the cords, collapsing the canopy.

  “Next time, I’m just gonna slash your lines.” Griz threatened Scratch who was still giggling at the scare he’d given the big man.

  Gunny looked off in the distance at the plane wreckage. There was no fire and the dust cloud it had sent pluming into the air was already dissipated. He didn’t know if that was good or bad. The raiders didn’t have a column of smoke from a fire to follow and find them but if the raiders didn’t find them, then they couldn’t set up an ambush and get a few vehicles. They had the stealth advantage, they’d hear anyone coming and see a cloud they churned up for miles. They’d have plenty of time to set up a trap and eliminate the raiders. Witho
ut a smoke trail though, the raiders would never find them. There would be no ambush. No air-conditioned trucks and bottle of water.

  It was a long hike to anywhere, he hadn’t seen anything resembling civilization before he jumped. He wasn’t even sure exactly where they were except somewhere deep in a wilderness area. The middle of nowhere. At least there was a dirt path to follow, it had to lead somewhere. Maybe to a ranger station.

  It was still early in May, the heat wouldn’t be too harsh, but it was well up into the eighties and he was already starting to sweat. Staying hydrated would become an issue. They were nearly a mile up when they bailed out and he hadn’t spotted any paved roads or houses. At five thousand feet, visibility on clear day was at least twenty, maybe thirty miles.

  “Did anyone see anything?” he asked, pulling his knife and slicing pieces from the parachute to make a head covering. “A car, an RV, anything?”

  Griz shook his head as he cut lengths of cord from the risers, coiling them in long loops to throw over one shoulder.