“Back at you, mate. She was a tough nut to crack.”
Nodding, Cade turned away from the gruesome sight. He quickly stripped off his chest rig and plate carrier. Though it was sweat-soaked, he peeled off his Crye Precision top and dressed the young girl in it.
Chapter 78
The pair of stealth Chinooks were flaring and settling on the tarmac when Cade, Axe, and Tory emerged from between the hangar and administration building. Jedi One-One had already landed and was a hundred yards away, near the first of the smaller hangars, its rotor blades still spinning under power. Lopez, Cross, and Griff had collected Katy and were approaching one of the Green Berets, who was standing before a pair of body bags.
Having received the bad news in his ear from Lopez as he was helping Tory climb down from the loft, Cade walked as slowly as possible across the distance with the knowledge of what was to come weighing heavily on him the entire way. He knew that by walking half-speed he was only delaying the inevitable, but that didn’t make a blip on his give-a-shit radar. The longer he could go without confirming the death of another of his friends, the better.
Slow walk becoming a plodding slog, Cade watched Tory break from Axe’s side and sprint toward her older sister’s outstretched arms.
After watching Katy wrap Tory in a tearful embrace, Cade shifted his attention to the two oblong shapes resting on the asphalt beside the idling Ghost Hawk. Having seen enough in the ghostly phosphor glow, he flipped his NVGs away from his face and covered the final thirty feet in the dark. Fully aware of the blades scything the air over his helmeted head, he walked erect until the oblong forms materialized to his fore.
With the words “Dagger One found your friends, Wyatt. I’m sorry, they didn’t make it” still resonating in his head in Lopez’s mournful voice, he aimed his M4 at the pair of body bags and thumbed on the tactical light.
Instantly the glossy bags were reflecting the light back at him. He set the M4 on the tarmac, the beam from the light only partially illuminating the bags, and knelt next to the one nearest him. He noted that it was filled out more than the other. And though he wasn’t a great judge of someone’s height as they lay horizontal, at first glance his gut told him his friend was zippered up inside.
Going to one knee, he lifted up the end of the bag and located the zipper. Slowly, he drew it up and over the filled-out area where the corpse’s head lay. Once the zipper reached the point where he could see the dreadlocks and the flat of the corpse’s forehead, he yanked forcefully on it until he saw more of the upturned profile. And it was all wrong. The thick ratty dreads were the first clue. That the nose was flat and crooked as a lightning bolt from being broken in the past confirmed he was not staring down on a dead Daymon Bush.
After leaning back, looking skyward and uttering a prayer of thanks, he regarded Lopez. “That is not Daymon.”
Smiling wide, Lopez flashed a thumbs-up.
Hopes buoyed by the revelation, Cade scrambled around on hands and knees and knelt by the head of the second body bag. Without pause, he grabbed the zipper and drew it away from him. The instant the two halves parted, revealing the aquiline nose, narrow lips, and alabaster skin, his stomach clenched. He didn’t need to see the profile right side up. Nor did he need to illuminate the corpse’s flowing hair to know he was looking down on Heidi. The split-second glimpse had been enough to confirm the worst.
Thinking, So much loss in so short a span, he grabbed his M4, rose, and trudged toward the Ghost Hawk’s open door.
Epilogue
In a handful of seconds the Ghost Hawk was free of the clearing and plowing west into the darkness soon to be broken by the coming Utah dawn.
During the entire forty-minute flight to the Eden compound, Cade’s eyes never left the black cadaver bag containing Heidi’s fleshless corpse. He continued staring at the black vinyl draped over his boots even as Ari was calling out the five-minute mark.
Landing and unloading the incredibly light bag was a blur. He barely remembered opening the DHS Black Hawk and placing Heidi inside with Helen and Ray.
Cade didn’t really come to until he was safely in his quarters and slipping Brook’s wedding ring back onto the chain alongside his dog tags.
The one thing that did stick indelibly in his memory as he lay down on his bunk, spent and dog-tired, was his daughter stirring and calling down from her bunk to profess her love for him.
“Love you, too, sweetie.”
“What about the bad guys?” she mumbled.
“The bad guys won’t be bothering us. Now go back to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.”
The End
To be continued in a new Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse novel in early 2018
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Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 12): Abyss Page 41
