A Dark Evolution (Book 2): Deranged (11 page)

The screen was zooming away from him, and Jason couldn't keep it there. The satellite was moving too far away now. Jason watched the screen pan out, and watched as the Magic Kingdom faded in all its corpse-filled, bloody glory. Then the city of Orlando appeared. There were fires blazing all over the city, and Jason could see crazed people in the streets, running like mindless ants with no leader. He shook his head at the devastation. It really was all coming to an end, he thought.
All the happy times are gone.

Jason blackened the monitor. Yesterday he had felt righteous, brave, and ready to help fight. Now he felt powerless, tiny and scared. It had been easy for him to criticize Rosa and the efforts being made at the CDC, or lack thereof; it had been easy to throw stones. But now that he was faced with the weight of the situation and the responsibility of saving perhaps billions of lives, he only wanted to return home, to crawl under his crocheted afghan, turn on some Call of Duty, and ignore the world.
I need to get off the defensive, I need a plan of attack, I need to be aggressive or this will consume the world.
In his head, the old cheer played, “Be, aggressive, B-E aggressive…”
Aggressive, I need to be aggressive.
Aggressive bees.
Holy shit.
Jason tapped back on the satellite link monitor and traveled over the Atlantic Ocean.

Robert watched the newscast with Manuel. Manuel spoke fluent Spanish, being raised in Mexico, but understood English perfectly well. The young man on the screen was broadcasting on all stations. He was not from the CNN desk, but from the global ecological diversity initiative. Robert had seen him before, working on endangered species awareness projects of one sort or another. Robert didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to him then, but now his attention was rapt.

“Is this true?” Manuel asked him quietly. His wife was in the kitchen behind them, working with Robert’s granddaughters on a large dinner.

“I think it is.”

“I cannot stress enough to every citizen of the great nation of America, and the world, the pesticide use must end! The damage being caused to our global ecology is already catastrophic. The world will experience unprecedented crop losses, and with that loss will come a drought of food that will plunge the wealthiest nations into a third world existence. This is no exaggeration; this is happening now. We are working hard to find a solution to feed our world, but we need the help of the nation. Every crop duster must be brought down, every barrel of pesticide locked away. We cannot possibly hope to survive if our land is further poisoned. Please, I implore you, help me save this earth.”

“Dios mio,” Manuel muttered.

“Manuel, do you still have that sack of corn seed in the pole barn?”

“Yes, but it is a year old already, I don’t know how viable the seeds will be.”

“Doesn't matter. You heard what he said, famine is coming. We have eighteen acres here, we must plant every bit of it we can. Corn is wind pollinated, so it will pollinate without the bees.”

Manuel frowned. “It is not that I cannot do it, but we are not corn farmers, Robert, we don’t have the right equipment or irrigation.”

Robert sighed. “We have the old tractor with the big plow and the brush-hog on it. It's rusty but it will work. We’ll have to sow the seeds by hand, get all the kids to work.”

“And irrigation?”

Robert looked up to the ceiling. “We’ll just have to rely on God for that.”

Manuel stood. “I will clean up the tractor, see if we even have the diesel to run it. Then maybe it will work in the morning.”

Robert shook his hand. “Thank you, Manuel. Be sure you are using the bug spray.”

He nodded and left the room.

Robert looked behind him to the women working. His two granddaughters were there. One of their eyes wore deep red circles and she looked close to tears. He knew why. It was six p.m. The husbands should have all been home an hour ago, but only Mark had arrived, and the news he gave was grim.

“They’re all over the city,” he sputtered, his bald head shining with the sweat of exertion and fear. “I was driving over - over bodies to get out of the city.” The man shuddered and his shoulders sagged. “It was like Armageddon out there.”

Elizabeth had wrapped her arms around him and led him away.

As they left, Robert heard her say, “You will not be leaving me again.”

“No, no I won’t,” was his nervous response.

*****

Rosa woke. The world around him was a raucous mix of sirens, gunshots and screams. Everything was black at first and then his eyes, a dark bloodshot red, fluttered open. He was on his back, staring at the ceiling in what looked like a convenience store. He tried to rise to a sitting position, but an enormous, throbbing pressure sprang up in his chest. He winced in pain, and let out an agonized groan.

“Just stay still, sir,” a nervous sounding voice called down to him.

Rosa’s frightened eyes found the voice. It was a soldier, kneeling down next to him. It was the soldier who had been driving the Humvee after - after the attack. Flashes of the violent zombie onslaught out on the road came rushing into his mind, and he shuddered against the grotesque images.

“Calm down sir, stay calm,” the soldier urged him. “You’ve had a heart attack, but you are safe now. You have to stay calm until we can get you to a medical facility.”

Calm, calm, heart attack.
What the hell is happening? “I need to, I need to sit up.”

“Okay, sir.” The soldier gripped him under the shoulders and heaved upward. Rosa’s considerable bulk was hesitant to move, but he managed a sitting position. His vision swam as he sat, and he wiped a swath of sweat from his dark forehead. Rosa sucked in deep breaths, trying to calm himself.

“Where, where are we, son?”

“We are in a Quicky Mart on the outskirts of Atlanta. We escaped the metropolitan area, but the Humvee overheated. Can you believe that? We’re in the middle of the zombie apocalypse and the damn engine overheated.” The soldier shook his head, his half-shell helmet shaking as he did. There’s only two of us left, and you. Sparks bled out in the back seat. Tori is the only other person left.” His voice hitched just a little as he spoke, and Rosa registered the shine of tears in his eyes. This soldier was young. He was hard and tough, but young. “Tori is securing the front with the fifty cal she took from the Humvee. We’ve called for an air evac, but we have no idea when they’ll come.”

“The city has fallen?” Rosa croaked out, then placed a hand over his chest, on top of his large belly.

The man cleared his throat. “Yes sir, it has fallen. Heard the chatter on the radio, they’re ordering everyone out.”

“Police?”

“Police too. There’s no use, it is completely overrun.”

“But all those people, they’re helpless out there.”

“Sir, you’d best be concerned with us in here, we’re not much better off.” As if to emphasize his point, Tori let off a short burst with the machine gun from the front of the room.

“We good?” he shouted up to her.

“I think so,” Tori answered, but her voice didn’t sound so sure. The radio at the soldier’s side crackled. “Clear the street, and be ready for a hot evac.”

“Oh thank God,” he said. “All right, sir, we’ve got a chopper coming in, but we have to get you on your feet. They won't be able to stay on the ground for very long.”

“Tori, bird coming in, keep the street clear.”

“That's what I’m doing.”

Rosa and the soldier struggled with each other to get Rosa on his feet. “Sorry son, I guess I should work on getting some more exercise.” The man didn’t respond, just shook his head a little. “Hey, I sit behind a desk for a living. The last time I went out for a run I was your age. I sprained my ankle jumping over a log on a trail. Quit running and I’ve been gaining weight ever since.”

“Well, it’s never too late to start again,” the man said with a smirk. “Except now, you know, at the end of the world.”

He shuffled with Rosa to the front of the store, where Tori was lying on her stomach with an enormous machine gun in front of her.

Rosa leaned on a metal shelving unit, allowing the soldiers to sneak out to the front windows and look from side to side. Then he looked up, and made a circling signal with his hand to Tori. “Bird’s coming down.”

Then the wash of the rotors became audible and Rosa felt great bursts of air pulsing in through the blown out plate glass windows. Debris and bits of glass were forced in against them, and he had to cover his eyes to keep them from being punctured by the flying particles. He could barely hear Tori shout over the roar of wind and engine as the chopper lowered itself onto the street. It was a United States Army Blackhawk, the real deal. There was a gunner on a 30 mil cannon hanging out the door. As soon as the chopper was near enough, the door gunner jumped to the ground, swinging the big gun out on an articulating arm.
Clever,
Rosa thought, then he was being dragged forward by the young soldier.

“Sergio, take him and go!” Tori screamed back to them.

“Come on sir, we have to hurry!”

“Okay, okay,” Rosa huffed. His chest was pounding with the unseen pressure and his breathing came hard. They burst through the door and into the darkness of night. “How long were we in there?” Rosa shouted.

The soldier ignored him, half running, half dragging him to the chopper before two sets of arms from inside grabbed Rosa and pulled him up and inside.

“You’re safe now sir,” a man with a helmet and a bright red cruciform patch on his arm yelled into his face.

Rosa was shoved back onto a bench seat on which he barely fit, then the man began strapping a harness over him. “I’ll be safe when we are far away from here!” Rosa yelled back, and attempted a smile. The man did not respond. Rosa looked out the door to where Sergio was motioning for Tori to board the chopper. She came out of the building at a sprint. She must have left the fifty cal behind in the store. She slapped Sergio’s hand as she ran by, then vaulted into the chopper. The man looked left and right and was about to jump on when the gunner screamed.

“We’ve got incoming! Multiple targets!”

Rosa’s heart instantly spiked and the pain in his chest mirrored it. From his seat, he could see out both sides of the helicopter. Two ravaged bodies were running at the big bird from the right side of the chopper and to the front. Their mouths were open, their faces were bloody. They didn’t shamble with an uneven gait, they sprinted like goddamn Olympians.

“Oh shit oh shit oh shit!” the medic next to him yelled.

“Get in, get in!” the gunner screamed at the soldier who had stayed with Rosa. He was firing into the oncoming zombies. They jerked with the bullet impacts but did not slow. Finally, the gunner grabbed the firing soldier and flung him into the chopper. Their attackers were only a dozen yard away.

“Lift off, now!” The gunner’s desperate cries echoed through the helicopter as the engines roared and the bird shook with the throes of exertion.

“Garret, get your ass in here!” the medic screamed. The gunner dove onto the chopper and with one arm hauled the heavy gun back into place, locking it and swinging it to bear on the incoming creatures. He wasn’t fast enough. One of the infected smashed into the gun, slamming it askew as Garret tried desperately to fire into them. The big cannon rounds instead tore into the asphalt below, kicking up a storm of black dust and dirt that clouded their vision. Rosa heard an animalistic howl and realized it was coming from the gunner. One of the infected had ahold of his leg and was twisting and jerking it, trying to pull him from the rising helicopter.

“Shoot it, shoot it!” Garret cried.

Then Rosa heard a loud snap over the sound of the engine, and he saw the gunner’s legs bend ninety degrees at the femur.
Oh Christ
. A high-pitched wail filled the chopper as his head flopped back and forth in agony. The bird was five feet off the ground now. Sergio, who had barely escaped the same fate, leaped into action, leaning over the big cannon and firing down into the zombie’s face, obliterating it completely. Finally, it let go and the gunner's legs hung limply out of the chopper. He was jammed under the big gun because of the force of the infected pulling on him.

“Hang on,” Sergio shouted. The crippled man gripped the handle near the door and Sergio grabbed the top of the door frame, then jumped up and slammed his feet into the big gun arm. It swung out, nearly bringing Garret with it, but Sergio dropped down and caught him, dragging him back in with the help of the paramedic. The gunner’s face was still contorted with pain, and the medic went to work on him immediately. They were eight feet off the ground. The ascent had been rocky and slow due to the zombie hanging off the side. Helicopters are much more fragile creatures than many civilians realized. Sergio leaned out to pull the gun back in when he heard the pilot shout.

“Look out! Another incoming!”

The words had only just left his mouth when a flailing shape flew in through the door, tackling Sergio into a heap on the deck. The chopper rocked hard with the sudden weight change, but then righted itself and rose quickly.

The infected man dropped huge, wailing haymakers on the soldier who had rescued Rosa. In only a second his face imploded into a mushy mess, like dark red hummus. The creature howled and looked right at Rosa, then leaped.

A loud staccato burst blasted through the helicopter’s compartment and the zombie’s head whipped back, three red holes blown through its face. Tori stood with her mp5 in hand, still trailing smoke, looking down at her fallen partner. The zombie crumpled into an unmoving heap onto the floor.

The pararescue medic cautiously approached. “It’s down!” he called, then waved over to Tori. They then proceeded to shove the infected out the side door. He brought in the big gun arm that Sergio had tried to grab and locked it in place.

“We’re clear,” the pilot shouted. Rosa saw the tops of buildings pass by outside the doors.

The medic turned to the beaten soldier, lying on the deck next to Garret. His face was unrecognizable and a dark pool was forming beneath him. After a minute of checking vitals, the medic shook his head, his eyes glancing briefly up at Rosa. “He’s gone.”

“His name was Sergio. He was a good man,” Tori said, her tone flat and lifeless. Rosa thought he saw tears glistening in her dark eyes, but then she turned away from him, and sat with her back against the bench seat.
Holy crap.

The medic brought a headset over to Rosa and motioned for him to put it on. When the giant earphones were in place, he heard the pilot. “Are you injured, Mr. Kaopyn?”