Riker's Apocalypse (Book 3): The Precipice

by Chesser, Shawn

  Based on the civilian Airbus EC-145, the Lakota was similar in size and maneuverability to the helicopters the forty-eight-year-old son of a Texas oil baron had flown for the Manhattan, New-York-based charter outfit where he had most recently worked. This particular helicopter had been specially modified for a multi-mission role that included search and rescue and VIP recovery.

  While not as cushy as the rides the elites Clark had been rescuing were accustomed to, not one of his customers had balked at boarding her. Being surrounded by ravenous dead was indeed a great socioeconomic equalizer.

  Positioned lengthwise on the right side and accessible via the clamshell doors at the rear of the helicopter was a single stretcher.

  On the left side, loomed over by a sliding door fitted with a large rectangular window, were three adjoined forward-facing seats. Across the aisle and separated by the cockpit pass through was a pair of rear-facing seats.

  In the left seat up front, helmeted head tracking something off to the helo’s right, Sarah “Country” Rhoads gestured with a gloved hand to where she was looking. “Santa Fe Regional must have been a major shit show at the end.” Employed by the same charter outfit as Clark at the onset of the Romero virus, forty-two-year-old Rhoads had been lured away by Clark to do contracting work for the DoD. Having flown alongside Clark in the sandbox during the early days of the war in Afghanistan, back when the rubble pile that had been the Twin Towers was still smoking and the full-scale invasion of Iraq had yet to happen, the promise of triple the pay and adrenaline-pumping missions was impossible for Rhoads to resist. It was the third time over the last five years that Rhoads had followed her former commander on to bigger and better things. First, it had been flying geologists in and out of Alaska. Checked some bucket list items during that two-year contract. Considering how fast Manhattan had fallen, with the bridges and tunnels being blown in order to contain the undead, she considered her abrupt departure from her former employer the best decision she had ever made.

  Now, having just come from Army Aviation Facility 1 in Columbus, Ohio, where a frantic return to base call saw them do just that, only to find the facility in much worse shape than Santa Fe Regional, they were both suddenly out of a job.

  “You have the bird,” Clark drawled. “Let’s make a quick orbit over Santa Fe Regional. See if we can get anything moving on the FLIR.”

  “Copy that,” Rhoads replied, “I have the bird.”

  Theoretically, the “bird” belonged to the United States Government. At the moment, barring further instruction from either the DoD or Department of Homeland Security, the “bird” was in their collective care.

  Whereas the Airbus AS365 Dauphin they flew in their previous lives could be called the Cadillac Escalade of helicopters, the Lakota was more Ford F-150. Utilitarian and reliable, the Lakota—most often utilized as a medevac asset—was rumored to replace the venerable Kiowa Warrior.

  While not as fast or comfortable as the Dauphin, the unarmed Lakota was far superior where communications, navigation, and sensor capabilities were concerned.

  Hands flashing over the glass cockpit’s touchscreen while the helo banked to the left, Clark brought the Advanced Targeting Forward Looking-Infrared pod (FLIR for short) online and spun it around in its nose-mounted gimbal.

  As Rhoads started the wide clockwise orbit, the bird slightly nose down and listing a few degrees to the right, Clark kept the FLIR pod trained on the ground a thousand feet below. The moving black-and-white imagery picked up by the high-tech optics suite and beamed onto the cockpit display revealed only the static hulks of passenger jets and a pair of helicopters. Scattered among the aircraft, most of them boxy and low-to-the-ground, were a myriad of wheeled vehicles used to transport baggage, in-flight meals, and move the airplanes about the tarmac.

  Their cadaverous bodies presenting like gray ghosts against the dark, cold background, no less than a hundred dead things patrolled the tarmac, runways, and grassy infields where the sprawling quarantine facility had been thrown up.

  “The dead own this one, too,” Clark stated soberly. “Next stop … Trinity House.”

  Being one of the more junior, but not necessarily less experienced aviators at her previous job, Rhoads instinctively offered the controls back to Clark.

  Though Clark had transitioned out of Army aviation ahead of Rhoads, and had done so at a higher rank, in his eyes they were equals. “Keep her,” he said. “Take us to the waypoint. If the work on the LZ is not finished, I’ll scan the ground for an alternate.”

  “Copy that,” Rhoads said as she fed the twin turbines more juice and broke from the racetrack orbit. As she upped the Lakota’s airspeed to a tick under eighty knots, the ground below—as seen through her four-tube night vision goggles—resembled a turbid green river as scrub, cactus, and the occasional building flashed by. Off to the right, on the periphery of her field of vision, was a cluster of buildings that caught her attention. “What’s over there?” she asked, pointing in the general direction.

  Panning and zooming the camera, Clark said, “Looks like a prison. Fencing topped with concertina. Lots of zekes in the yard and parking lots. Yeah … gotta be a correctional facility.”

  “Sucks to be them,” Rhoads stated.

  “Definitely, with Romero still burning across the country,” replied Clark. “Doesn’t look like anyone could have made it out of there alive.”

  Rhoads said, “Would you stick your neck out to save a bunch of felons?”

  “Point taken.”

  Bringing the Lakota up to one thousand feet AGL, Rhoads said, “Fifteen mikes out. Any way you can give them a heads up that we’re en route?”

  “Negative,” Clark said. “They’re aware I’m coming today. But that’s it. Haven’t been in contact with Lee since cell service went tits up.”

  Rhoads was one of the “boys” in and out of the cockpit. Clark had never seen her blush. Doubted anything he could say would ever bring color to her cheeks.

  Rhoads said, “That’s a helluva wide-open window, Grizz. What are you, the cable guy?”

  Clark chuckled. Both at being called Grizz—the abbreviated version of Griswold–and his memory of that old comedy flick.

  Rhoads said, “Five minutes out,” and started grabbing more altitude. Viewed through the NVGs, the peak rising over the general area her waypoint was taking them looked like the top of a poorly executed serving of soft-serve ice cream. The top was rounded, with a sharper, secondary peak sprouting, like a conjoined twin, from the peak’s eastern flank. To the left of the peak, southwest of the tree line, was a rambling structure. Equidistant to the two points, glowing like an angel’s halo, was the landing zone.

  “One o’clock,” Clark said. “Lee came through.”

  Rhoads said, “What’s it lit up with? Tiki torches?”

  “Can’t be sure, “Clark replied. “But whatever they’re using, it works for me.”

  “Looks like a burning ring of fire.”

  As the helo drew nearer, two things became evident. First was the pair of headlights moving down the hillside’s southern flank. They belonged to a large pickup truck wheeling downhill toward the road west of the peak. It was speeding, taking the curves like the police were hot on its tail.

  Second was the change in the “ring of fire.” As the helo came in from the south and banked to the east, the circle of lights morphed into an upside-down teardrop.

  Rhoads asked, “Think the cone’s going to be in the clear?”

  Clark nodded. “Affirmative. I was expecting to arrive here in the Dauphin. So I tasked them with expanding the LZ. Worked in a ten-foot buffer for us, too. From the looks of it, they went above and beyond to make extra room for the tail rotor.”

  Flaring the Lakota, Rhoads said, “I have movement.”

  Clark rotated the FLIR pod, bracketing the forms on the active matrix LCD. Zooming in, the two people—or at least the parts of them not covered by clothing—glowed white-hot against the ragged tree line behind them
.

  Rhoads bled airspeed and altitude as she brought the Lakota in from the west. With the skids maybe a hundred feet above the ground, high-intensity landing lights bathing Trinity House in a huge passing blue-white cone, she threaded the Lakota expertly through a pair of tall trees. Having “split the uprights,” she dropped them down into the elongated end of the LZ, flared hard, then settled the bird atop the uneven patch of recently cleared ground.

  Clark bumped fists with Rhoads. “Like you wrote the book on tight LZ landings.” He looked off to his right. “Who do we have here?”

  Two forms glowed green in their NVGs.

  Rhoads said, “One woman, one man.”

  Clark said, “Those aren’t the Rikers. The guy fits the description of their friend, Benny.”

  Rhoads asked, “What do you want to do?”

  “Keep her hot.” Clark grabbed a suppressed H&K MP-5 submachine gun from the floor behind his seat. “I’m going out to communicate.”

  Chapter 53

  The helicopter that had just carved a right-to-left path across the night sky could still be heard off of Tara’s left shoulder when a second engine noise rose over the rapidly diminishing din. Slinking off into nearby bushes, she crouched down and drew the sleeping bag tight, leaving only her face exposed. Trying to be one with the foliage pressing all around her, she remained still. Wisps of her own breath curled around her face as she kept her gaze locked on the distant spot in the road where she guessed the vehicle would soon emerge.

  She saw the faint glow of headlights wash treetops way off in the distance. As the whine of the helicopter turbines faded to nothing, she recognized the noise of the approaching vehicle for what it was. The powerful roar of the big engine. The low throaty exhaust growl.

  Definitely Dolly! No doubt. But who’s driving?

  The headlights swept the near corner. Growing larger by the second, the twin suns came down the road, straight for her, bouncing and jinking with the road’s rise and fall, slowing only when the vehicle reached the T in the road.

  Tara signaled the vehicle with two quick strobes from her headlamp. She rose and stepped over the guardrail. Picking her brother’s prosthesis off the shoulder, she leaned against the guardrail, waiting as the pickup slow-rolled up to her.

  The “we” in “we are coming to you” ended up being Shorty. He looked like a kid behind the wheel of the big pickup. Though Tara had talked to him earlier, she didn’t expect him to be the one coming to get her. Still, the little man was a sight for sore eyes. Even after all that had happened today, Tara was anxious to ask him how the rest of the United States—hell, the rest of the world for that matter—was faring in the age of Romero. But that could all wait. Finding her brother was the utmost priority.

  Suddenly aware that she was naked as a newborn underneath the sleeping bag, Tara dropped the prosthesis and turned away from the pickup. Making a gimme motion with one hand, she called, “Throw me my clothes and shoes.”

  Killing the Shelby’s lights, Shorty said, “I’ll deliver them to you. I promise I won’t look.” He opened the door and climbed to the road, clothes and shoes wrapped in one big bundle. He walked backward, eyes averted, about ten paces in all.

  Tara said, “That’s close enough, Shorty. Put ‘em down.”

  Bending at the waist, he arranged the clothes and shoes in a neat pile, then put a belt and the holstered Sig Legion atop it all. Lastly, he laid down the winter coat Benny had thrown in as an afterthought. Keeping his gaze trained skyward, he retraced his steps to the idling truck.

  “Stand behind the door while I dress.” Tara pawed through the clothes until she found her undergarments. She stepped quickly into her panties, then nearly jumped into her jeans.

  Eschewing the bra for a tee shirt and fleece sweater, she slipped her arms into the coat and zipped it to her neck.

  The shivers continued wracking her body as she stuffed her bare feet into the Salomon hikers.

  “Why not bring me a Glock?”

  “Benny said he didn’t want you to think he was patronizing you. I think Benny is afraid of Lee’s hand cannon.”

  The Sig was big in Tara’s hand. Almost too big. Still, she went through the motions, dumping the mag and press checking the slide. Good to go. She threw the safety on and slipped the pistol into her waistband—the belt and holster would have to wait.

  The next thing out of Tara’s mouth was not a greeting. And like her tremoring body, the tone of the question lacked even a semblance of warmth.

  “Where’d you come from?”

  Always the smartass, Shorty said, “Trinity House.”

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  “After talking to you earlier, I turned around and drove back into Santa Fe. Ran into Lee at the county lockup.” He breathed in deeply, then exhaled. “There’s more to it. I’ll tell you all about it later. It’s a long story.”

  Tara nodded.

  “Get in and warm up. I’ve got the heater running.” Shorty craned around the open door. “What about your bra? Just going to leave it there on the road?”

  “I’m done with those fucking things.”

  Shorty made no comment. He clambered aboard and shut his door.

  Once Tara was inside the warm cab, he said, “What’s with the aerated biters?”

  “I killed one. The others were here already. Shot up by the nephew, I presume.”

  “Fucking clowns.” Shorty threw a shiver. “Living or dead … I hate the things.”

  “You and me both. They ruined the circus for me.”

  “We all float down here.” He passed a water and sack full of power bars to Tara. “That writer dude has a sick and twisted mind.”

  Tara made no immediate reply. She was two bars down and had guzzled all the water when she said, “Much better than sardines or Vienna sausages. Thank you.” She tore open another cereal bar and gestured with it toward the distant hillock. “We going to go?”

  Shorty started the truck on the first leg of a three-point-turn. “How’s Lee?”

  “No idea,” she said, truthfully. “I don’t even know if he’s alive. I can’t even get a sense of it either way.” He grunted in response. Nothing he could think of to say seemed appropriate.

  No sooner had Shorty gotten the Shelby pointed south than both of the two-way radios in the cab came to life. “Did you find Tara?” sprang from both speakers. It was Benny. He sounded a bit winded.

  “You take the call,” Shorty said. “I insist.”

  Chewing and swallowing the last of the cereal bar, Tara put the radio to her mouth and pressed the Talk button.

  ***

  Five minutes had passed since Tara had gone over everything she knew about her captors—which was little. Before she had signed off, decisions had been made, one of them not so popular.

  No way in hell was she going to stay behind with Rose to watch Trinity House while her brother was in trouble. The military never left one of their own behind, and neither did the Rikers.

  A sure tell that the people coming along on the search had finished collecting their gear and gunning up was the turbine noise echoing down from the hilltop. In a few short seconds, it had risen from a soft whine barely audible over the night sounds to a banshee-like howl that could be heard inside the parked Shelby.

  As they waited to be picked up, Shorty spent the time topping magazines and giving his compact Glock 19 a looking over. He had already backed the Shelby off the highway and parked it on the fire lane. To make it easier for the helicopter to locate them, he kept his foot on the brake pedal, tapping it every once in a while to add a strobe effect to the bright red lights.

  Tara was on full alert through all of this, eyes constantly touring the mirrors. As she kept probing the dark all around for any sign of zombies or breathers, she marveled at how far sound traveled now the once-bustling world had been stripped of all extraneous background noise. The night sky had benefited, too. Without the halide lights ablaze along the highways and byways and the neon-l
ike glow hovering over nearby Santa Fe, every cloudless night seemed to her like a visit to a planetarium. The Milky Way was a tapestry of four hundred billion stars that stretched from one end of the night sky to the other. Constellations were easily discernable. Seeing satellites carve laser-straight tracks across the inky black gave her hope society would one day crawl from the foxhole the tiny virus had them all cowering in.

  Seeing the helicopter’s lights growing larger and tracking straight for the Shelby’s tailgate, Shorty turned to Tara. “They see us.”

  Tara said nothing.

  “You know,” Shorty said, “I’m more to blame than Lee for the situation he is in. The shit you endured, too.” He shook his head. “For that, I am truly sorry.”

  “Oh, hell no,” Tara shot. Her head bobbed with every word. “Lee is a grown ass man. He could have just as easily let those folks on the ferry and allowed the cards to fall however God intended them to. But, no, he had to overthink things. He’s good at that.” She went quiet for a beat. With the noise of the approaching helicopter threatening to drown her out, she went on, saying: “However … knowing what I know now, can’t say that I’d have either of you change what you did. Those folks weren’t straight out of Mayberry. More like straight out of Woodbury.”

  As the helicopter skimmed over the pickup, its bright spot flicked on, bathing the T in the road and a good deal of the surrounding area in bright unnatural light.

  Shorty had collected his mags and was holstering the Glock as the helicopter flared hard and landed parallel to the two-lane’s dashed yellow line. Killing the rig’s lights, he said, “So where’s this Woodbury?”

  “Fictional television town. It’s not important.” She zipped her coat up to her chin and stepped into the chill night air.

  Turning her face away from the leaves and sand kicked up by the helicopter’s whirring rotors, she tucked the radio in a pocket. She cinched the belt around her waist and secured Lee’s holster. Moving the Sig from her waistband to the holster, she stalked toward the tan behemoth filling up the road.