LZR-1143: Redemption

by Bryan James

  “Copy Iron Eagle, stand by.”

  “Standing by.”

  The radio crackled and I took Kate’s hand as we tilted to the left as the plane reached firing position. No rockets from the ground yet, that was good. Boise had told Drexel that the militia had raided a National Guard depot two weeks ago, but hadn’t gotten much in the way of heavy arms, since the Guard had taken what they could carry when they started their last counter offensive against the herd. Boise thought they didn’t have any rockets left.

  We were admittedly risking quite a lot on what Boise thought.

  A scary proposition.

  As we banked into position above the fight, the tenuous situation on the ground became even more apparent. The Army was clustered around a large train station, with a massive dark form winding back and away from the station, the tracks enclosed by fencing that appeared far too feeble for the circumstances. The train was smoking, and men ran back and forth into the station carrying boxes, and hauling hoses of some sort. A large crowd of people, probably civilians, was clustered around the tracks near the station, and they were being loaded into large boxcars and passenger cars, as armed men looked nervously around.

  Around the large rectangular station, several warehouses and commercial districts were arrayed, with a wide main avenue leading directly up to the main entrance. Armored vehicles were parked behind a massive barricade of wrecked cars, and on the side streets paralleling the main avenue, similar blockages were manned by troops with machine guns and mortars. Clearly, the building had been fortified before the attack against the advances of the zombie threat, and these fortifications were all that had stopped the overwhelming numbers of the militia from taking the train and the station.

  On the other side of the tracks, a thick line of parked trains—heavy steel and iron beasts—sat like a vast wall, reinforced by more wrecked cars and steel plates welded to the gaps between the trains. A small force from each side traded small amounts of gunfire in token gestures, but both sides were concentrated on each other on the forward front.

  Arrayed in a vast semicircle trying to push into the fenced interior around the train yard, thousands of militia swarmed between buildings, on roofs, and in cars. The steady pop of gunfire couldn’t be heard from our position, except in the backgrounds of the transmissions from below, but we could imagine the rapid fire between the humans on the ground.

  But this fight—as brutal as it was becoming—was not what we were looking for. We were looking to save the two sides from a threat they didn’t totally appreciate, even now.

  Because as dickish and idiotic as the militia was, and as jacked up on anarchical pride as they were, they were still human. And that counted for more today than it ever had before.

  Interstate 90 runs through Boise from east to west on the southernmost side of the city, running merely a hundred yards from the train station and airport. It’s a broad avenue of multiple lanes and off ramps, all designed to facilitate the orderly and rapid movement of people from one place to another, with a conveniently placed off ramp immediately adjacent to the train station, to help serve the public better.

  It was definitely serving that purpose today.

  At least, as far as the newest definition of the American ‘public’ was concerned.

  More than a hundred thousand creatures were clustered together on the roadway, streaming between parked and wrecked cars like a wave of flesh through a canal, appearing as if they were merely ants or small animals from this distance. I knew their smell and their sound from memory—the brittle rustle of dry skin and bone against concrete, the raspy moan of hunger.

  The front edge of the group was no more than a mile from the off ramp that would funnel them directly into the back of the militia and the inadequate barricades of the Army.

  My hand tightened on Kate’s hand as we began a steady circle above their heads.

  In my mind’s eye, I could swear I saw them look up.

  If they were wise, they would now begin to curse the sky.

  “Position,” said Drexel. “Weapons hot, free to engage.”

  “Copy,” said Granger and Rhodes at the same time.

  The 25mm was simply a loud buzz, but the rapid fire of the 40mm was much louder, shaking the whole plane each time it discharged. The noise inside was nothing compared to the hurt on the ground.

  The AC-130 fired from the left side, which meant that the plane essentially does circles in the air above the target when it’s in a permanent station or firing position. Our first barrage of fire hit the horde in the very front ranks, and the first of the tracer rounds from the Gatling cannon hit the zeds as they were swarming like locusts underneath the large overhead, green signs directing drivers to various points within the city.

  From in front of the screens, I watched as large, armor-piercing rounds cut into the soft, rotting bodies as if they were paper, slicing them in half, tearing limbs and bone and flesh. The front rank simply disappeared in a haze of body parts and congealed blood. A mist of liquid and semi-solid detritus rose up as the ranks behind tripped and faltered over the huddled masses of their former comrades. Lacking the sense of human self-preservation that would have prevented them from continuing on in the face of such winnowing fire, they pressed on, thousands of bodies moving forward.

  The gun ripped open again, humming as the barrels rotated from a different angle as the plane moved slowly. Hundreds of rounds tore into the supports from the overhanging street sign, and it fell, bereft of its thick steel supports, into the surging crowd below. Many creatures were crushed beneath its weight as several tons of thick steel girders, mangled by the ammunition and the work of the heavy weight pulling it to the ground, fell to the concrete roadway.

  Then, the fun began.

  The zeds that weren’t crushed when the thick steel fell to the ground were suddenly stopped by the mangled, twisted wreckage and large steel signs blocking the path. Thousands of creatures were massed behind them, and didn’t know enough to stop. The herd started to compress against itself, compacting the slow moving bodies into a thick, writhing mass. Those at the very front were turned to a fleshy pulp against the wreckage and the remnants of broken cars. They were forced against each other, and against the road. Thousands pressed into thousands and thousands more. And they kept coming.

  That’s when the large, incendiary rounds of the 40mm cannon began their work.

  As we rotated away from the front ranks, where Granger’s withering fire had cut down the leading phalanx, Rhodes began to move his fire from the rear of the group, where he had been thinning out the mass, to the very front, where they had all been packed so closely together.

  Where they couldn’t move away.

  Where high explosive rounds sprayed final death among the undead.

  Bodies disintegrated within the immediate impact zone, shattered into small, flaming pieces. Those not close enough to catch the fire caught the blast. Corpses were thrown into the air, falling apart as they tumbled. Flesh, unable to bind bone together under the deluge of falling fire, was blasted from the weakened bodies.

  The rounds were coming from the side of the interstate now, and in groupings of two. Concrete became a tool that Granger used to his advantage, spraying chunks and chips of roadway into the pack, tearing into heads and turning pavement into shrapnel.

  Cars were likewise used as secondary explosives, and half-full fuel tanks became small flowers of fire on the packed highway. The flow of bodies forward en masse quickly became a massive fire, and thick oily smoke curled away from the roadway as the plane came around to a new position for the 25mm to fire directly into the advancing herd again.

  “Granger, what’s the status?”

  Colonel Drexel’s voice revealed a small hint of anxiety and I looked out the window to search immediately for a trail of fire in the night sky that would betray a rocket launch. I knew he had his eyes glued to the advance warning systems and the flare release.

  “Kicking ass and taking name
s, sir,” said Granger, checking a display to get a distance readout.

  “Estimates?”

  “Sir, hard to tell. Estimate approximately ten to twenty percent down. We also created a little roadblock on the freeway, and we’ve got some nice fires burning. Since this part of the road is an overpass, we’re also making some nice little holes for the fuckers to fall into.”

  “We’re going to need to move off station for a while. We’re getting some bad indicator lights from that wing. Standby to retarget.”

  I looked outside, but saw nothing. A sudden vibration as the plane changed course rocked through the cabin and Granger looked up, clearly frustrated.

  “God damn it,” he said, taking his helmet off and running a hand through his hair. “We have to hit them when they’re clustered… the Colonel has been to enough of these ass rodeos to know th—”

  We would never know what he was about to say next.

  The bullet that flew through his throat and into a console of avionics on the far side of the cabin punctured the outer wall of the fuselage and lights started to flash.

  Kate and Ky screamed as Granger’s body fell to the floor, blood pooling beneath his head as his eyes flashed about wildly, as if searching for a reason or a purpose. Kate moved to get up to help him, but I held her back, pushing her into her seat as I watched the tracer rounds fly up from below.

  Granger was trying to breath, but his throat was ruined. Beside him, Rhodes was flat on the floor, trying to reach the mortally wounded airman. I turned to Ky and Romeo, who were closer to the rear of the plane. Ky was staring at the young man in shock, and Romeo simply lay whining on the seat, restraints fastened awkwardly around his chest.

  “Don’t move! They’re still—”

  Then, the next volley hit, and the cabin was on fire.

  We were thrown against our restraints, and then back against our seats. The floor dropped out from under us, then the ceiling rose to meet us. We were torn from side to side, and gear stowed in the back rocketed forward as the nose dipped nearly forty-five degrees.

  Rhodes was thrown bodily over the prone remains of Granger’s now lifeless form and into the bulkhead separating the flight deck from the cabin. As we spun on a vertical axis, wings flailing in the air and engines whining in protest, more bullets found their way into the cabin, puncturing the thick frame of the warplane and ricocheting with sharp pinging sounds. I felt a sudden pain in my left forearm, but as I looked down to see what it was, I felt Kate’s hand tighten on my arm, and I looked out the window.

  We were nearly perpendicular with the ground, and the lights of the battle outside were very close. We were going down, and we were going down hard.

  Glancing up, I saw Rhodes grasping for some canvas restraints that had been used to tie down some gear, and he wrapped the straps tightly around his arms. The cabin pitched backward suddenly as the plane found some stability and the engines roared in protest. Then, the engines sputtered suddenly and died.

  We were only hundreds of feet from the surface now, and I watched in horror as multi-story buildings flashed by the window, seemingly only an arm’s length away. My breath caught in my lungs and I gulped air as I fought the urge to panic.

  I had a right.

  We were in a torn up metal tube hurtling to the ground at breakneck speed into a war zone full of zombies.

  Easy on the judgment.

  The frame of the massive plane groaned in protest, and it finally succumbed. Overtaken by the sudden catastrophe of circumstance, the massive whale of the sky shuddered once, and died.

  And when it died, it simply fell from the air onto what had once been the thriving, commercial center of Boise, Idaho.

  The ground fell from beneath us all, and the world went dark.

  The last thing I felt was Kate’s hand slipping out of my own.

  FIFTEEN

  Someone was playing the drums on the inside of my head.

  Someone was pounding a mallet against my brain.

  Someone was going to get a foot in their ass.

  I couldn’t control my eyes. I tried to open them, to focus, but I couldn’t. It was all black.

  Then, it was all shades of gray and white, flaring in my eyes like someone was whipping a flashlight in front of me in the pitch black. I groaned.

  Or someone else did.

  My arm throbbed slowly, and I tried to move my head. Beside me, a heavy weight leaned in, pushing me down, and against a restraint of some sort. I was canted to my left, and something was digging in to my side.

  It was the moan that did it.

  It was the ungodly, empty, soulless moan that I knew so well.

  The hunger and the rage and the unknowing evil.

  Stuff like that has a tendency to bring a man out of a sound sleep.

  My eyes opened painfully, first in a narrow horizontal line, then as the light invaded my skull like a worm burrowing into a piece of rotten fruit, they widened slowly.

  Wires and tangled pieces of metal hung from a ceiling that had remained remarkably intact. A slow vibrating roar still permeated the enclosed space, and the source of the moan from farther forward in the cabin was not immediately apparent. I lifted my head slowly, truly feeling the sharp pain in my left arm for the first time, and grinding my teeth against a more severe pain in my head. Holding my head back against the seat, I forced my neck to rotate, looking at Kate for the first time. Her head lay resting against my shoulder, eyes closed.

  A thin stream of blood trailed from her nose, and dripped slowly from her upper lip onto my shirt.

  “Kate,” I said softly, surprised by the low volume of my own voice.

  Behind me, I heard a rustling movement, and I turned to see Ky struggling to move under a large crate of supplies.

  “Kate,” I said again, this time shaking her lightly.

  Still nothing.

  I cursed, suddenly angry.

  Lifting my arms to my chest, I searched for the release latch on my harness and forced my fingers to operate the small button. It wouldn’t operate. It was bent or mangled somehow. In a surge of energy and anger, I pulled the thick nylon sharply, and it detached suddenly from the metal snaps. I fell forward, out of my chair and against the console across the small aisle. The floor was still vibrating, as if the plane was still flying, and I couldn’t see what was causing it.

  Ky muttered something weakly, and I rose up, fighting to keep my vision clear through the blinding pain, and blinking to clear the blood from my eyes. I wiped the thick mask of crimson from my face and flung the blood away, seeing it splatter against the floor as I stepped forward. Beside Ky, a miraculously unharmed Romeo—a testament to the dog’s resilience and obscene flexibility—struggled against his own harness, whimpering softly as he tried to get to Ky.

  Angrily, I pushed through the pain and grabbed the handle on one side of the crate and pulled up, sending the large box to the rear of the plane, which was now a jumbled mass of metal and insulation. The remains of the large Howitzer lay sadly unused, but protruding like a light post out of the skin of the aircraft.

  “Help me with Kate,” I said, ripping the harness from Ky and Romeo and checking the young woman quickly for damage.

  “No headache or pain in your ribs or anything, right?” I asked, putting my hand to my head.

  “No, nothing like that,” she said, voice shaking. “But you look like crap in a bag, man. You okay?”

  “Yeah, just sugar and peaches, kid.” I nodded toward Kate.

  “Try to get her to wake up before we undo the harness. I need to check something.”

  She nodded and climbed over the remains of an avionics console into the small area where Kate lay, still unconscious.

  I followed the moans.

  Granger’s corpse had been thrown forward, and lay looking oddly peaceful against the door into the flight deck. His face had taken on the contorted, pressed look of the newly undead, and his eyes had taken on the hunger. Merely feet away, Rhodes’ body lay unmoving,
his legs within feet of Granger’s lifeless arms—arms that were twitching with desire.

  But they weren’t going anywhere.

  He had been impaled by the large barrel of the 40mm cannon, somehow thrown free of its housing and twisted into a large metal spear, which pinned the lifeless but still active Granger against the interior wall.

  His eyes tracked my movement as I struggled forward in the destroyed, confined space. He moaned louder, and I stared at the man’s face, wondering what remained. What thoughts, what memories.

  Did he know who I was, and ignore it? Did some part of him have to watch what he did, and recoil at the horror of what he had become? Of what he wanted to do.

  The handle of the machete was hard and substantial, and I relished the cold reality of it as it rested in my palm. Blood trickled from the creature’s throat, not yet congealed with death. Behind me, I heard Ky and Kate stirring and a low, human moan from what must be Rhodes somewhere in the wreckage.

  It was a quick cut, and I grit my teeth against the memory of the person within the thing. The door behind it was jammed shut, and I knocked on it twice with the butt of the machete. There was some sort of movement, but it was slow and no voices rose up, asking for help or crying in pain.

  “Colonel,” I tried hopefully over the comm system, but only static greeted my attempt.

  “McKnight, they’re dead,” said Rhodes’ voice, a raspy baritone in my ear.

  Outside the plane, the whine of something mechanical increased in volume, and the floor of the airplane shook again.

  “We don’t know that,” I said weakly, staring at the door.

  “We’ll check from outside,” he said calmly. “We need to get out of this thing. It’s a beacon for any of those shits outside, and the militia is damn sure on its way here.” He had found his suppressed carbine, and was sighting down the barrel to make sure it hadn’t been damaged. Behind him, Kate was standing, hand to her head.

  “Where’s the kid?” she asked, voice soft.

  I pointed at a pile of twisted metal and the remains of the bulkhead wall. A large console of computer equipment lay in a pile, blood spattered against the floor and ceiling, where the young man had been crushed by the weight of the material. His feet were slowly grinding against the floor, and one hand was visible, protruding from underneath a keyboard like a cruel joke.