Ghosts: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

by Shawn Chesser

  Helena sat down across from Brook. Smoothed her apron and unfolded a linen napkin which went on her lap.

  Ray passed the ham and then spooned a fat helping of green bean casserole, complete with onion crisps, atop his slices of ham. “If you’re not going to eat,” he said, “at least let me indulge you in some food for thought.”

  On the verge of openly salivating, Brook nodded as she watched Helena scoop the creamy green bean goodness—one of Brook’s mom’s signature dishes—onto what looked to be the elderly couple’s best gold-trimmed china.

  Between bites, Ray said, “Are you familiar with Friedrich Nietzsche?”

  Brook nodded. Said, “German philosopher who said God is dead. Even as bad as it’s gotten ... I don’t subscribe to his thinking.”

  “Wow,” said Helen. “You’re the first one who’s heard of him ... so far.”

  Having company for dinner.

  Brook squirmed in her seat. Nodded and watched Helena cut into the ham on her plate.

  Ray put his knife and fork on his plate. Craned and looked out the picture window. He said, “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he ... or she ...” He smiled at his display of gender sensitivity and went on, “... does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”

  Brook smiled. Nodded again. She wished she had kept her Glock and tucked it in next to the small of her back. Just in case things got any weirder.

  Helena glanced out the window and placed her silverware next to her plate. Fork on the left. Knife on the right. The napkin she refolded and arranged neatly at twelve o’clock. She cleared her throat.

  Brook noticed the woman’s red lipstick was smudged, some of it rubbed off on a front tooth.

  Helena said, “To live is to suffer. To survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.”

  Doing her best not to sound flippant, Brook said, “Nietzsche?”

  “Correct,” Ray said. He bent over and snatched the sack off the floor. “It’s been long enough since the main group of deaders passed to set you and your friends off on your own. But first I want you to have these. Figure given the circumstances … we’ll not be needing them again. I just hope it’s what the doctor ordered ... so to speak.”

  Brook’s chair squealed against the hardwood floor as she stood to accept the offering. She unfolded the top and looked inside and her heart skipped a beat. Trailing a shouted, “Thank you,” she bolted for the door.

  “You’ll need these,” called Ray.

  After skidding on the hall runner and almost falling on her backside, Brook about-faced and rushed back and took the keys to the padlocks from him. Then, still speechless, she turned a one-eighty, straightened the rug, and was out the front door and taking the stairs down two at a time.

  Before Brook could begin to doubt her reversal of fortune, she was at the barn with the key turning in the first lock. A beat later both locks were in the dirt and she could hear Wilson rallying the others. With those inside helping, the doors parted effortlessly.

  Wilson squinted against the sunlight, his face a mix of emotion.

  Brook said, “Chief?”

  Wilson answered, “He’s sleeping.”

  “Something is wrong with Max,” said Sasha. “He hates Chief all of a sudden. Why do you think that is?”

  Brook saw Taryn’s features awash in worry. She said, “The Zs are gone, guys.” She opened the paper bag, displaying the contents for all to see. “And we can go home now.”

  Nobody moved. Nor did they acknowledge the good news.

  Wilson said, “When were you going to tell us about Chief?”

  Brook glanced at her watch. Did a couple of calculations involving mileage and time and estimated airspeed. After a beat she said, “He’s not dead yet. So there’s still hope. But only if we go right now.”

  “He died when he got bit,” said Sasha. “He did get bit ... right?”

  “I think so,” conceded Brook. “Just trust me. There’s still a chance to bring him back.”

  Sasha mouthed, “Trust me,” to Taryn. She looked at Wilson and, spinning a finger by her ear—the universal sign for this lady is crazy—she turned, walked a few paces to the Raptor, and climbed in behind the driver’s seat.

  Taryn’s face suddenly lit up. She grabbed Brook by the elbow and said, “Does this have something to do with the thumb drive I found at Schriever?”

  Brook nodded slowly. She said, “Let’s go. Now!”

  Sasha called Max and he came running and jumped into the truck with her.

  Chief was snoring when Brook opened the door and climbed in. A good sign, considering the alternative. Plus, at rest, a person’s metabolism is much slower. And in theory, so would be the speed in which the virus moved throughout his bloodstream.

  She checked the sat-phone. Nothing new there. She thought about hailing the compound but decided once again no news is good news. So she stuck the keys in the ignition and turned the engine over, praying Chief was correct in his assumptions concerning his constitution. Then, with the V10 rumble echoing off the rafters, she amended her prayer, asking that her friend be granted a slow burn against Omega. She wasn’t being greedy and asking for the same seven-hour rate of turn the DHS agent named Archie (the first surviving recipient of the Omega antiserum) had been blessed with. On the contrary. She’d only asked her God for another hour. Nothing more. Nothing less.

  Chapter 69

  Somewhere above Utah

  The hollow thunk of the Ghost Hawk disengaging from the refueling tanker jolted Cade awake. Instinctively his hands went for his carbine. A millisecond later he recognized the white noise of the turbines and muffled rotor signature and relaxed. A tick after that he opened his eyes and stretched and noticed the trailing fuel line and fluttering drogue chute tracking slightly above and right of the stealth helo’s nose.

  Through the port side glass he saw the land below gliding by. From altitude a large swath of ochre desert was crisscrossed by gray stripes of road that merged and ran through a mosaic of circles and rectangles in varied shades of browns and greens. Tiny white and red structures, some with shiny corrugated roofs, rose up here and there. Farmland going fallow, he thought. Nobody left to eat all that food anyway. He returned his gaze to the blue sky visible through the cockpit glass and watched the gray-blue turboprop, still trailing the refueling boom, gain some altitude. Suddenly there was a flurry of radio chatter in his headset as rounds of beer were promised and then, as absurd as it sounded, considering money had lost all value, an argument broke out over which air crew was buying first. Then there was a whirr and a clunk somewhere fore and below his feet as the refueling boom retracted back into Jedi One-One’s fuselage, thus reducing her radio signature by a large degree. Not that it mattered, thought Cade. All of the threats to the helo and everyone aboard were below them on the ground. And as long as Ari kept them airborne from here—wherever here was—to the compound and his family, he didn’t care if every Z they overflew detected the chopper.

  Out of left field the girl named Emily asked, “How can you sleep this close to a dead man?”

  Cade answered, “Because he’s one of the lucky ones. He’s not coming back hungry.”

  Emily couldn’t take her eyes off the form so Cade tried distracting her with conversation. “Where are we?” he asked.

  Still staring at the husk that used to be Lasseigne, she said, “I don’t know.”

  But Ari did. And he just so happened to be listening in. He said, “We just finished our third and final refueling of the trip. We’ll be setting down in fifteen minutes northwest of Moab.”

  “Why are we landing?” asked Cade.

  “To transfer the girls. They’ll go the rest of the way to Schriever in the Osprey.”

  Cade nodded. Said, “ETA to home?”

  “Wait one,” said Haynes. “I’m working it up for you.”

  While Cade waited, he alternated between looking out the port and starb
oard windows. For as far as he could see the landscape had a reddish-orange hue, made more so by the low westering sun. Smooth wave-looking formations rose up, lending the impression they’d been frozen mid-geological-break. There were spires of wind-eroded sandstone and canyons and arches both formed by eons of hydraulic influence.

  Haynes finally came back on and said, “Ninety minutes. Give or take.”

  Cade fished out the sat-phone, hit a key to wake it up, and saw there were no new messages. Which was a good thing to see. So he tapped out a message to let Brook know approximately when he would be returning to the compound.

  The phone went back into his pocket. Then he lolled his head right, closed his eyes, and through his lids still detected a faint residual glow of the sun-splashed landscape flitting by outside the starboard side window.

  FOB Bastion

  The two-way radio on Beeson’s desk emitted an electronic trill. He picked it up, hit the Talk key, and said, “Beeson.”

  A voice on the other end came out of the speaker and said, “The DHS bird is ready.”

  Beeson said, “Thank you,” though it was more of a grunt than two one-syllable words. He looked a question at Duncan.

  Duncan said, “I was out of here two hours ago.” He rose from his chair and thanked Beeson for everything.

  Beeson said, “A little nip for the road?”

  Shaking his head, Duncan said, “Thanks. But, no. I’ve got a fella who can take the stick now and again ... but I’ve got to be OK to take off and land that bird.”

  “Are you ... OK?”

  “Thanks to you, I am now.” With one hand already on the door knob, Duncan held his other out palm flat to the ground. It was no longer jumping like a live flounder in a frying pan.

  Beeson tossed the empty cups in the wastebasket and gave the Vietnam-era aviator a wink and a nod.

  ***

  Daymon rose from the ground, walked from the Black Hawk’s shadow and met Duncan a dozen feet from Lev and Jamie, out of earshot. Talking slowly and putting extra emphasis on each word, he asked the older man how he was doing.

  “Fine,” replied Duncan.

  “Fucked up. Insecure. Neurotic. Emotional?”

  “Just the latter three,” said Duncan. “I’m OK to fly. Raven, on the other hand ... is not doing well.” He detailed all that he knew.

  Running his hands through his stubby dreads, Daymon asked, “And Cade?”

  “No idea,” answered Duncan. Pointing at Daymon’s hands, which were grease-streaked, complete with dirty fingernails, he asked, “You were helping them with the chopper?”

  “Yep. And Jamie and Lev also. We learned a lot and helped shave an hour or two off of our stay here.”

  “I owe you then,” said Duncan. “Stick time on the way home for Urch. Let’s mount up.”

  A handful of minutes later the fully refueled Black Hawk was in the air and the little group of survivors had put FOB Bastion in their metaphorical rearview mirrors.

  Utah Farmhouse

  At the end of the rutted drive, after enduring the jarring return trip to the smooth asphalt of Highway 16, Brook rolled the F-650 to a crunching halt so Chief could find a more comfortable position for the thirty-minute ride ahead of them.

  The second they wheeled out of the barn and the sunlight spilled into the cab she had noticed that his deeply tanned skin had taken on a gray pallor. Now, some five-odd minutes later, he was going white. She saw his eyelids flutter and said, “Chief. Can you hear me?”

  Nothing.

  Simultaneously, the two-way radio came to life and the sat-phone vibrated in her pocket against her thigh. “What are we waiting for?” asked Wilson in clipped syntax, a hard edge to his voice.

  Brook said nothing. She thought: He’s stressed. Hell, who isn’t. She’d had a swarm of butterflies bouncing around inside her gut since the realization Chief was dying finally sunk in.

  Pressing, Wilson said, “There’s a trickle of rotters coming from the left. Let’s go.”

  Brook said, “Gimme a second, will you, Wilson?” She tossed down the radio. Pulled up the hinged lid and stuck her arm elbow-deep into the center console, searching for something by feel. After stirring the contents and dragging her nails across the very bottom she came up with a handful of heavy duty plastic zip-ties.

  Wilson again: “Better look up now.”

  Shooting the radio a dirty look, Brook snatched up her Glock, the suppressor still attached, and peered over her left shoulder. Always amazed by the Zs’ tenacity she shook her head and checked the chamber for the glint of brass. Then, cursing under her breath, she punched out of her seatbelt and powered down the window.

  There was a guttural groan from the passenger seat. Then, immediately following, a low rasp from the trio of deaders—as Helen and Ray had called them—carried to her window. Deaders. Has a nice ring to it, she thought as she squeezed the trigger continuously and the pistol bucked in her two-handed grasp.

  “Good shooting,” said Wilson over the radio. In the background, Brook heard Sasha up to her usual and hollering at Taryn to drive. With a looming sadness, Brook flicked her eyes to Chief , half-expecting to see he had turned. Instead, his eyes were open and he was smiling. He coughed and whispered, “Good shooting,” then his eyes fluttered once and stayed shut.

  Spirits suddenly buoyed, Brook shifted her gaze to the three fallen deaders. She let it linger on the child-sized monster with the thoroughly shattered skull and instantly recognized the pink shirt the little girl had been wearing when she turned. Printed on its front were the likenesses of six different Disney princesses: Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, and Jasmine. In a plastic storage bin under the bed she and Cade had shared in Portland was an identical shirt Raven had grown out of four years ago. Just one of the treasures that had no place in this new world.

  With Disneyland’s demise and all of the things she used to take for granted running through her mind, Brook secured Chief’s wrists with two of the zip-ties. He was unresponsive now and seemed not to notice. Then she leaned across the console and tightened the seat belt around his waist, and with her head near his couldn’t help but notice how his shallow breathing had turned ragged and now contained an underlying wet rattle.

  Ten minutes seemed like a lifetime sitting in the Raptor with so much horsepower at her disposal and nowhere to go. Fingers knuckle white on the steering wheel, Taryn said, “Do you think Brook is doing what I think she’s doing?”

  “No,” said Wilson. “If Chief dies we’ll be the first to know. She wasn’t lying to us about his condition before. I just think she didn’t want to misdiagnose his wounds. With Jenkins gone she probably didn’t want to jump the gun and sign Chief’s death warrant.”

  Sasha said, “Lying by omission is still lying, Wilson.”

  Taryn turned to face Sasha and said, “Me and her have butted heads ... but I still trust her.”

  “And so do I.” proffered Wilson.

  Sasha nudged Max aside and leaned over the seat back and stared at Wilson. “Alright, Amazing Kreskin,” she said, a thick vein of sarcasm in her tone. “Why don’t you tell me what she’s doing in there right now.”

  Looking sidelong at his sister, Wilson said, “Cuffing him so he’s less of a threat if he does turn.”

  Knowing there wasn’t a valid argument to counter what Wilson said, Sasha growled something unintelligible and slammed back into her seat.

  In the F-650 Brook rattled the shifter into Drive and steered the big Ford onto the two-lane.

  Heading north on 16 with the Raptor on her bumper, Brook divided her attention between the scattered groups of slow moving Zs and watching the road a good distance ahead.

  With the navigation unit still on the fritz and her gut telling her Randolph and the junction with 39 was near, she halved her speed from sixty.

  Highway 16 jogged to the west and went laser-straight for a short distance with familiar-looking farms passing on the right and the T-shaped tops of power poles and hori
zontal lines showing through the trees north of them. Brook picked up the radio, keyed to talk, and said, “Stay frosty. I see Woodruff to the right so we’re real close now. And if we encounter Zs around the corner I’m going right over top of them and making a thunder run for the junction.” She looked at her watch. Thirteen minutes had passed since they left the farmhouse behind.

  When Brook finally cut the corner where 16 became Main Street, trees and fencing momentarily blocked her view of the distant intersection. However, she could see the camouflage Blazer listing in the ditch opposite the southbound lane. But what troubled her most was that Jenkins’s Tahoe was in the far ditch and the school bus was now perpendicular to 16 with its bashed-in front end facing her. It was immediately obvious the force of the passing horde when they emerged from the narrow highway and spread out at the junction had spun the bus ninety degrees to the north, leaving a fresh arc of yellow paint on the blacktop and the mess of pulped bodies it and the Tahoe had been resting atop exposed and drying in the afternoon sun.

  Suddenly Taryn’s voice emanated from the radio. Drawing the words out, she said, “We are fucked.”

  “Don’t worry. We have a winch,” Brook stated rather pragmatically given the circumstances. She stopped the Ford a dozen yards short of the inches-deep pink and white paste. And to her horror saw movement in there. A hand protruding skyward twitched and the fingers started kneading the air. Elsewhere, tethered by a knot of sinew and trapezius muscle and still receiving nerve impulses, a single left arm pulled along a misshapen head and length of bare spinal column. Reach. Grip. Pull. The disgusting mess moved at a glacial pace. Reach. Grip. Pull. She couldn’t believe her eyes, but it was there—crossing the road from left to right.

  Brook slapped the transmission into Park, grabbed her carbine and Glock, and opened the door. She paused and looked over at Chief and saw the rise and fall of his chest. She also saw the blue veins showing under his skin. Like runners of ivy they seemed to be climbing up his neck and branching out on his parchment white cheek. Just like Archie. She hopped down to the road, looked towards the Raptor, and motioned Wilson over.