The Living and the Dead Page 6

  This wasn’t normal, but neither was it extraordinary. They had taken fire before, but it was when the pilot shouted, “RPG,” that Kilgore felt his blood pressure rise. RPG’s were notoriously bad at shooting down helicopters or other aircraft, but they did work. Helicopters are relatively fragile and unlike some aircraft, there was no bailing out. Everybody went down with the ship.

  The Osprey had none of the nimbleness of the other smaller attack helicopters. One of his pilots had said it was like flying a mid-sized boat and that’s what it felt like to the men inside the chopper. Only this boat was on rough seas and it was being chased by a ferocious sea monster.

  The pilot jerked the big helicopter one way and then in another in a whipsaw motion, tossing the men in the back around like jumping beans.

  It was when the RPG was on its path toward them that Kilgore felt a tinge of terror. Had he been at the stick, he might not have felt it, but he was just as powerless as the rest of the passengers. He was at the mercy of the pilot’s skills and the mercy of the RPG. He hated being at the mercy of others. Hated it.

  It flew at them with its telltale smoke trail, seemingly moving in slow motion through the sky as the pilot tried his best to avoid it.

  The pilot shoved the stick down and to the right at the last moment and the RPG whizzed by the helicopter. A few seconds later they heard and felt the whomp of the explosion on the craggy mountainside. The helicopter waffled in the air for a few seconds until the pilot brought it under control. Everyone on board let out a sigh of relief and they move past the hot zone and onto their objective.

  Out of control was how Kilgore felt as he sat bolt upright in his bed. This thing that visited him at night was at the stick and it had all the control. The terror rolling, uncontrolled within him, was like a runaway train, rambling and teetering down the tracks. And the train was on fire. He knew only fools denied they felt fear. Fear was a tool to be harnessed and used, but not this time. This time it ran wild inside him.

  He jumped out of bed, flipped on the light, and took a look at himself in the mirror on the wall beside his bed. Two large red welts a couple inches wide ran down his forehead ending on his cheeks. His hair looked frazzled and burnt in places, sticking out wildly.

  His breaths came in convulsive gasps, and his heart beat like a spastic hammer, pounding out a relentless rhythm in his chest. His vision blurred and the world tilted sideways for a moment, but he steadied himself by planting his hands on the wall.

  “I can’t take this much longer,” he said to no one but himself as soon as his equilibrium returned.

  He pushed off the wall, got dressed quickly, and left his room. He walked down a short hallway and entered a room where Lodwick, Gary Kinsler, and a couple other soldiers sat. All of them looked more asleep than awake. It was the middle of the night.

  One of the soldiers snapped a headset to his ears and looked intent on listening to something. Anything to avoid looking in Kilgore’s direction. The other soldier’s eyes fluttered open as he shook off sleep and started monitoring a small bank of monitors, doing what he could to look busy and engaged.

  Lodwick jumped out of his seat as soon as he registered the Colonel’s presence. Kinsler remained in his seat, shrugging off sleep.

  “Lodwick, we’re going to need to step up our pressure on the folks here,” Kilgore said, his voice strained. “We need to start interrogating these people. I want it done by the end of tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lodwick replied. “Who should I pick?”

  “That redhead who seems to be their leader -- Jo. Start with her.”

  “What tactics can I use, sir?” Lodwick asked.

  “Whatever is necessary.”

  Kinsler stood up and asked, “Sir, are you talking about torturing these people?”

  Kilgore turned his attention to Kinsler and held him in a hard stare for several seconds. Then he said, “I don’t care what it takes.” He spun on his heels and left the room.

  Kinsler let out a deep breath, watching Kilgore leave the room while the corners of Lodwick’s mouth turned up slightly in a grin.

  “Did you see him?” Kinsler asked.

  “And?” Lodwick responded, tilting his head slightly like a dog who didn’t understand what Kinsler was saying.

  “He looked like he had his head in an oven.”

  The other two soldiers pretended not to hear, working hard to not even look towards either Kinsler or Lodwick. It was better to remain on the sidelines when it came to Kilgore and Lodwick.

  “Whatever he looks like, he’s in charge and we’re here to follow orders. We’re soldiers, aren’t we?”

  Kinsler’s mouth opened to respond, but he stopped before any words came out. They stood in silence until Kinsler decided it was time to fold his cards and leave the table.

  Kinsler walked out and neither of the other two soldiers said a word.

  Chapter 10

  The Trojan Girl

  Madison looked worn out from pushing the wheelbarrow through the trees and bushes, her arms shaking from the effort. A patina of sweat covered her body despite the chill in the night air.

  She and Mr. Schultz had been placing weapons at the edge of the woods throughout the night under a cloudless sky with the pale blue moonlight giving them some illumination to work in. Schultzy made sure he left a couple clips of ammunition with each cache. It was a painstaking process for the girl and the old man, but they did it without complaint.

  Madison asked more than once why they were doing it, but Schultzy came back with evasive and vague answers, not wanting to tell her that he was told to do it in his dreams. He liked and respected Joel because he was unconventional, but Schultzy knew he wanted nothing to do with being a half-baked prophet.

  Once they finished, Schultzy knew he had a problem. He had weapons for his friends inside the Manor, but they had no idea he was there with any weapons. It was as if he didn’t exist at all and neither did the guns. How could he let them know?

  It all came down to choices. None of them were good and one of them was a big gamble, but it had the best choice of paying off. It also happened to be the one that put Madison at most risk.

  He could try to sneak up to the Manor and find a way in, but at his age, he was all out of stealth. But maybe they would take him captive and then he could get the word out about his little stashes? Then again, they could just shoot him, and that would leave them nowhere. Worse than nowhere. Madison would be alone in the woods and he would be dead.

  Before they had left, Schultzy had walked through the options with Madison and she was smart enough to know the best one. Even before he did.

  “I’ll do it,” she had said without hesitation just before they left the old farmhouse. “They won’t shoot a little girl.”

  He was stunned by her grasp of the possible situation and was more amazed that she had the willingness to propose doing it. He was also saddened that the world had taken so much innocence from her that she could see the need for desperate measures.

  But they were at the stepping off point with no chance of return. His primary concern, no matter what he thought, was that ‘they’ would shoot anyone, living or dead, young or old.

  Still, it was their best shot, and she knew her role.

  He knelt down beside her, his knees cracking like dried sticks, as they stood back from the tree line under a canopy of darkness. He took her hands in hers and said, “You don’t have to do this.”

  “I know, but I want to,” she responded. “I’ve got people inside I care about, too. There’s Jo and Aaron. (He hadn’t told her about Aaron being killed.) And Russell. And Henry and Ellen.” She trailed off and he knew she was thinking of the people who were no longer with them, but she continued. “Besides, I’m the safest bet to get inside.”

  They both knew it, but that didn’t make it any easier.

  “Okay, okay,” he said, glancing down at the ground as if getting courage from the earth itself, then he looked back directly into her e
yes, although they were hard to see in the darkness. “Remember, don’t try to sneak. Walk directly down the path to the south entrance. There are guards in the third-floor rooms. When you get close enough, put your arms straight up and wave this flashlight back and forth.” He handed over a heavy metal flashlight. It was a big one and looked even bigger in her small hands. “We don’t want them to think you are a zombie. Once you get inside, you know what to do.

  “I know all this,” she said. “You don’t have to go over it again.”

  “Alrighty then, I guess you’re ready.”

  “I am.”

  They sat in tense silence for several seconds, then she leaned into him and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tightly. “I love you, Mr. Schultz,” she said. “Everything is going to be alright, I know it.”

  He felt something clench in his chest and his eyes moistened. He wasn’t very sentimental, almost crusty to be honest, but this little girl almost made him want to cry. He stifled it back, knowing that this wasn’t a time for tears. She needed all the courage he could give her.

  “I love you, too, kiddo.”

  Their embrace only lasted a few seconds, then he broke it, knowing that the clock was ticking.

  “Be careful,” he said as she turned away from him and looked directly at the hulking dark shadow of the Manor. He knew she would have to do anything but be careful.

  “I’ll be okay,” she said and walked out of their cover of darkness and into the open field.

  She almost glowed as the cool blue light of the moon enveloped her as she took her first few tentative steps into the wide-open expanse of grass between the woods and the complex. To both of them it seemed like miles. She walked ten steps, and he was about to shout for her to turn on the flashlight, but she snapped it on and continued walking, slowly, but making steady progress.

  She made it about a third of the way when she yelled, “Hello?” She waited a few seconds, then yelled again, “Hello, is there anyone in there?”

  He could barely breathe as he watched from behind a large oak as Madison, his little Trojan Girl, made cautious progress across the field. Dim lights shone from several of the windows in the dark, blocky building. There was no movement he could tell, but he strongly suspected that there would be soldiers on watch. That was standard operating procedure. You never knew when the enemy would attack. He had learned that all too well in Korea all those years ago.

  The seconds ticked by and he knew this was a bad idea. He shouldn’t have been risking her at all. If she got killed, he would never forgive himself.

  “Hello!” she shouted even louder than before and he nearly jumped. She swished the flashlight back and forth, splaying her beam across the front of the building.

  Still nothing. The tension was maddening.

  Maybe they had pulled out? No, he knew better. They were still there. His gut told him that. So did the lights coming from inside.

  She took a dozen more steps when a blindingly intense beam flashed on, swished across the grassy field for a moment. It only took five more seconds to find and lock onto her like some sort of science fiction laser cannon.

  His heart moved into overdrive and he was sure he was about to have a heart attack, but he couldn’t help himself. His hand tightened on his rifle. If they shot her, there would be hell to pay and he would be the one coming as the bill collector.

  “STOP WHERE YOU ARE!” An amplified and anxious voice bellowed across the field.

  Madison froze in place and shot her arms up straight into the sky.

  The seconds stretched on like the flow of a lazy stream. Nothing happened for a few seconds.

  “Are you alone?” the voice shouted.

  Madison said something, but she was too quiet and she knew it, so she shouted back at them, “Yes. I’m alone. My family was killed by zombies. All of them.” She added a pitiful quality to her voice, and it even made Schultzy’s heart ache.

  “Are you armed?” the voice asked.

  “No,” she responded.

  There was a brief pause, and the voice said, “Stay where you are.”

  She stayed locked in place, looking small and fragile, a stark and lonely silhouette in the center of the field between the building and the woods. Between life and death.

  This time the wait went on even longer and questions whittled away at any confidence Schultzy had. Were they just waiting to shoot her? What would he do if they sent her away? What if a zombie came after her? What if a lot of zombies did? He hadn’t thought of that as his focus was on the living enemy.

  All she had was the big metal flashlight to defend herself. That and speed, but that would still leave her in a no man’s land, running for her life if the undead came on the scene.

  The waiting was maddening, but he calmed himself, thinking they were running the question of what to do up the chain of command. That comfort ended when he stomped on the brakes, thinking that this break in the action was just a stay of execution. She stood ramrod straight, her arms still extended skywards, and he knew her little arms had to be aching from the strain.

  An owl hooted out its sonorous call somewhere deep in the woods behind him and a few seconds later came an answer from another owl. The bugs chirped and skittered around him as he strained to hear and see. The woods seemed alive with night creatures that he hadn’t really noticed until he was forced to stop and be absolutely silent.

  The voice boomed again, and he jumped and nearly dropped his gun.

  “Approach the building slowly. Keep your hands up.”

  Madison moved toward the building as instructed, big steps at a time and her hands still up in the air. He watched as she got smaller and smaller until she was just a tiny doll of a girl walking in the piercing beam of their spotlight as it nearly enveloped her in its all-encompassing brightness.

  She got within a short distance of the building when the voice spoke again. “Stop there.” The voice rolled across the field, echoing in the night air, and she complied.

  A few seconds later, the light blinked off and Madison was gone from view. It took Schultzy nearly ten seconds to spot the pinpoint dot of light from her flashlight, but that was the only way he knew she was still there.

  A door opened on the side of the building and light bathed onto Madison as she stood still just outside the entrance. Schultzy watched as two larger, armed figures came out the door, their rifles aimed at Madison. He was too far away to make out anything, but indistinct low murmurs. There was an exchange of voices and he thought he saw one of the men move in on her. His throat felt tight as he knew this might be another dangerous threshold. They had to check her for weapons or to see if maybe she had been bitten like her family.

  This inspection went on for several seconds and then they ushered her inside. The door closed, and the world went dark again.

  She was inside, he thought. It was a good thing. He hoped and even prayed it was.

  Chapter 11

  Herding Undead Cats

  “How much longer can we wait?” Maggie asked, her voice tense with nervous energy. Where Russell was fully committed, Maggie was more than a little reluctant about their mission.

  “As long as we have to,” Russell said. “We’re only going to get one chance at this.”

  “I sure as shit ain’t going to do this twice,” Maggie added as she pushed some of her loose curly hair back from her face.

  Earlier in the day, they had slipped into one of the abandoned rooms on the first floor and had been waiting for nearly four hours. With Kilgore’s curfew in place, it was hard to get out of your room at night, but since they had never gone to their rooms, no one knew they weren’t there. A day or two earlier, Kilgore had soldiers conducting a headcount each night, but with the soldier pool thinning out, that headcount had fallen by the wayside. Still, they were at risk because who could predict that Kilgore wouldn’t do the count himself. So far, they were out and about with no one looking for them.

  They took turns looking out the secu
rity eye hole in the door, switching out every few minutes. Maggie complained that she shouldn’t have to take a turn at all since she would be doing the heavy lifting downstairs when the plan got into full motion. If it did happen at all.

  Their view down the long corridor allowed them to see two armed guards, standing sentry. The guards were positioned to be able to watch down the corridor while also having a good view into the dining hall. Since Kilgore had instituted a curfew of seven o’clock, there was little activity, but he had to post guards to make sure it stayed that way.

  “The guard change was usually fifteen minutes ago,” Russell said, looking down at his wristwatch.

  “They seem to be running low on soldiers,” Maggie said. “Have you noticed that?”

  “Yeah,” Russell responded. “Someone said that some of them had deserted.”

  “Where did you hear that?” Maggie asked.

  “Word gets around.”

  “And you believe it?” Maggie said.

  “The proof is in the pudding,” Russell said. “They usually have four guys on duty and now there’s only two rotating in an out.”

  “Henry’s going to be pissed to we locked him out of this,” Maggie said,

  “Ellen put her foot down. She’s already lost Greg. She wasn’t losing her son, too. Besides, we don’t really need him since it’s your show, and it’s too much of a risk for him.”

  “And not for me?” she asked.

  “Get over it,” Russell replied. “He’s a kid and we need to do this.” This was a strange comment since Russell was only two years older than Henry, but Russell had a lot more mileage in the zombie apocalypse.

  Russell took the lookout position at the eye hole and watched for several minutes until he saw the two guards, who seemed just as impatient as they were, walk off from their guard position. Russell maintained his view for several more seconds just to be safe.

  “Let’s move,” Russell said, “They’re gone.”