Cade tightened the nylon lanyard securing the carbine and swung it around his chest until it was behind his right shoulder next to his pack. Made certain his Glock was snug in its drop-leg holster. Tightened the hook and loop straps on both tactical gloves. Then flashed the ruddy-faced Marine loadmaster a thumbs up.
Tanpepper, who was now tethered to the bird with a safety strap, hinged over and grabbed the rope, took a step down the ramp into the eddies created by the prop-driven slipstream, and waited while the aircraft simultaneously pitched up and slowed noticeably.
Cade was tethered as well and had been watching the ground rush up. When the bird pitched back he noticed the gentle curve of the highway drift past, then came the treetops, pointed and seemingly reaching up for the Osprey. Through the canopy he caught snippets of the gravel feeder road now and again. Once all forward movement had ceased and the ground was spinning counter to the bird’s clockwise rotation, Tanpepper heaved the coiled rope into space and stepped out of the way.
A veteran of hundreds of insertions such as this, most in the dark, some under fire, Cade grasped the rope and disengaged the safety strap. Though not in uniform, he flashed a crisp salute to the Rangers who were once again staying behind. He bumped fists with the loadmaster before stepping out into the void.
During the five-second slide to the wind-whipped clearing he was bombarded by a dozen different stimuli.
In the first second, painted yellow and orange by the setting sun and looking like an Old West snapshot, he saw the blue and gold Black Hawk at rest near the tree line, its blades already tied down. His eyes flicked to the motor pool where, save for the Police Tahoe and the battered Land Cruiser, all of the vehicles looked to be accounted for. As his body spun around a few degrees clockwise he saw that the solar panels were on their newly constructed frame and facing south.
As seconds two and three rolled by he saw expectant faces staring up at him. Duncan, and Heidi, and Daymon with his shortened dreads whipping about in the rotor wash, were all accounted for. Near the white and black Ford pickups, he saw Taryn and Sasha and Wilson standing in a loose knot, the latter redhead’s boonie hat whipping wildly in the down blast. And nearby, prostrate on the ground, its face obscured by a flapping jacket, was a husky male body that by logical deduction had to be Charlie Jenkins’s.
During the fourth second Cade’s palms and fingers grew hot due to the friction of the fast rope ripping through his gloves.
And finally a wave of sadness hit him as the faces of the recently lost flashed in front of his eyes like a jittery film reel. It sped forward, frame-by-frame, one face at a time until his boots hit earth and he was left with the final indelible image of Desantos staring skyward, eyes open, features frozen in a death grimace.
Praying that he wouldn’t be splicing Brook’s visage into the feature anytime soon, Cade let go of the rope and, oblivious of everything and everyone, clicked the quick release and let gravity steal his carbine. He leaned into a full sprint towards the compound’s entrance and began shedding gear. Legs pumping furiously, he slipped out of his ruck and it bounced and skidded and came to rest on the faux crop circle. He unbuckled his helmet and didn’t look back as it fell hard to the dirt airstrip, took a weird bounce, and spun crazily into the long grass, NVGs and comms headset still attached.
Sixty pounds lighter than Cade, Tran failed to heed passage and took an unintentional hockey check near the door that sent him caroming off the metal jam.
“Brook,” Cade hollered, his cracking voice preceding him and echoing in the tight corridor.
Startled for the second time in an hour, Seth stood up from his chair and suffered Tran’s fate. He went sprawling, his buck-fifty losing out to Cade’s bull-in-a-china-shop charge through the space. Flat on his back, Seth bellowed, “She’s in the Kids’ quarters.”
Cade said nothing as he retraced his steps. He didn’t stop to help Seth. Just stepped over him. He was on a mission. After a right and a left he barged through the door and into the container without a knock. He saw Raven staring at him wide-eyed. He thought she looked a little pale. Or it could have been the light. But overall she seemed to be OK. “How are you, sweetie,” he asked as he went to one knee next to her bunk.
“I’m peachy, Dad,” she said in a smarty tone. Then she smiled and Cade’s gut told him she’d get by without him for a few minutes. So he shifted his gaze to the woman on the folding chair at the end of the bunk. He had no idea who she was, but seeing how she was alone with his daughter, someone had already vetted her—most likely Brook. He had lots of questions that would have to be levied later. And a very pressing matter just a few footsteps away. So he smoothed Raven’s hair and gave her a peck on the forehead and rose, giving her the look he always did upon leaving.
And she took it for what it meant. He always returned when he said he would. Then her face morphed and the smile was replaced with a frown as she looked about the room.
Sensing a question coming, Glenda beat Raven to the punch. “Your mom wasn’t feeling well.” She shifted her gaze to Cade and said, “She went to lie down. She stressed that you should go see Chief in the dry storage room first. Said he needs your attention ... she didn’t elaborate further.”
Cade went into the medic pack at his hip and retrieved the antiserum. He exited the Kids’ quarters and in seconds had negotiated the underground warren and was banging on the dry storage door. He stood there waiting. Heard some sounds behind the door. Hushed voices. Then a chair’s legs screeching against the wood floor. Then there was only the sound of the three aluminum cylinders rattling in his palm as he worked them like a pair of worry beads.
The latch clanked and there was a creak of metal on metal as the door swung inward. Lev was staring out at him, a pained look on his face.
Cade handed Lev a cylinder. Figured after serving in Iraq he’d seen all kinds of medical treatments administered in the field. So he didn’t waste words or time. “It’s a modified auto-injector on steroids. Goes in the femoral artery.” He didn’t stick around for a question-and-answer session. He turned and, as he strode down the corridor, he heard Jamie say, “Oh no. Oh no. I’m losing his pulse.”
He kept going. Found the door to his billet latched from the inside. So he took a step back—which was all the room there was between walls—and planted a size nine boot next to the spot where he imagined the latch snugged into the stop was tack-welded to the container wall. And he found it. There was a resonant clang—like a mini-gong had been struck. But the stop’s weld was stronger than his first kick. So with the return energy still coursing through his bones and chattering his teeth, he took another step back and eyeballed the smudge of mud left behind from his first attempt. He took a deep breath and coiled his muscles and imagined he was kicking through a board at a Tae Kwon Do exhibition. It had been years since he’d set foot in a dojo, but muscle memory made up for the passage of time, and as he started his leg moving forward, for good measure, he pushed off of the wall behind him with both hands.
The weld on the stop must have been big enough to hold a battleship hull together. Because it held again. However, the pivot point where the latch was connected did not. There was a ping and a muffled clatter as metal parts rained down on the plywood floor inside.
Everything slowed and like his descent from the Osprey—when all of his senses had been fine-tuned—the scene inside came to him in little revelatory snippets.
He saw the left wall with articles of clothing held up by hooks welded there. As the door opened further he saw Raven’s bunk pushed back against the far wall. Her own little parent-free oasis. Then he saw stocking feet and noticed they were trussed. And the ties binding them were secured to the bed rail by more of the sturdy ties. His eye traced right and saw Brook on the bed, her back to him. He was a step into the room and the door was coming back at him—fast. Equal and opposite reaction. He stepped left and the door missed him by an inch on its return travel.
He slid on his knees and saw the chair by the bed and his mind
registered the bold black writing against yellow that said: I love you both. Take care of my baby bird. His eyes flicked back to her and saw that her small frame was trembling. Sharp tremors interspersed by a kind of nonstop judder. Then the bed moved half a foot as his pelvis hit the lower rail.
With one hand on her shoulder he tried to roll her towards him. Simultaneously he was biting the cap of the cylinder clutched in his left hand.
Realizing her hands were also secured to the bed corner and her body wouldn’t move very far without them being cut through, he readied the injection and climbed on the bed and straddled her body.
Her skin was hot to the touch but there was a pulse, however faint. And like Desantos when Cade had carried him from the Ghost Hawk towards the infirmary at Schriever so many weeks ago, Brook was in the danger zone.
Cade removed the plastic cap with his mouth, exposing the needle, and spit the cap onto the floor. Without a nanosecond’s hesitation he ignored her thigh and instead plunged the needle into her neck where her snaking carotid bulged just under her ashen skin. The antiserum transferred into her bloodstream with no noticeable effect. And like Lasseigne’s plight many hours before, only time would tell.
Cade drew his Gerber from its sheath and started to carefully saw through the ties binding his dying wife. With each swipe of the blade he said a prayer. And during the entire process there was an overwhelming feeling of gratefulness that the blade was only cutting through thin strips of hardened nylon.
Once her feet and hands were freed, Cade stretched out on the bed next to her and, without concern for his own well-being, wrapped her in a bear hug from behind and clasped his hands below her sternum, locking his fingers.
As he nuzzled her neck and basked in her scent, he whispered into her ear, “Fight it, Brooklyn Grayson. For Raven. For me. There’s no room in our lives for another ghost.”
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Thanks for reading Ghosts. Look for a new novel in the Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse series in 2015. Please feel free to Friend Shawn Chesser on Facebook. To receive the latest information on upcoming releases first, please join my mailing list at ShawnChesser.com
Ghosts: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Page 40
