Chaos Theory: A Zombie Novel (6 page)

Kat Got Your Tongue

I remember snippets. Slung over Ship’s shoulder like a very light sack of potatoes. The dead reaching for us as he ran with me draped over said shoulder. Pain going for the Mike Tyson knock-out on
my
shoulder. I was in and out, but the thing I most remember thinking was that we were leaving a blood trail on the snow that even a blind zombie in a wheelchair could follow. Also, that blood was coming from me.

When I woke up, I was on a cot in the darkness, and I was freezing. I knew it was cold outside, but there was a fire in a stove next to me. It didn’t compute. I was shirtless, my wound bandaged and my arm in a crude but effective tape-sling. I tried to sit up, but my pain receptors gave me an exceptionally impolite F-U, and I had to lie back down. I was immediately nauseated and thought I was going to barf, but pain punched out the nausea and showed his title belt to the crowd. I was very thirsty as well.

I glanced through the darkness as my eyes adjusted and I noticed I was alone. Terrified, I called quietly to Ship. My voice sounded like it was crashing through broken glass, and I swallowed and tried again. No dice. There was a canteen and an oblong object on the table next to me. I was able to move my damaged shoulder enough to take a drink and turn on the flashlight that my buddy had left. A note stuck in the canteen chain said:
Back soon. Lost a lot of blood. Stay near the fire.

It was time to man up, so I sat up. It was tough, but I did it. I drank half of the canteen and stood, panning the beam from the light around. My weapons were near, on a bench. I seemed to be in some type of metal structure. A shed or hangar, as the sides sloped down from the roof in a half circle. Draping the blanket around me, I was able to get my gun belt on, and checked my weapons to make sure they were loaded. The pistol was loaded, but the rifle mag was empty. Two loaded spares were on the dresser.

I explored my little world and found out that I was at an airport. There were airplane parts and manuals all over and some old flight plans that I looked at. Even some tires sat in a corner. On a desk was a phone, and I just had to know, so I picked it up. Like most people, it was dead. There wasn’t much else to do, so I waited, probing my boo-boo for pain spots. There were plenty.

I think the closest I came to death that night was when the door to the small hanger flew open and a hybrid sasquatch-Santa Claus ducked its head and stepped over the threshold. The humongous Saint Nick plopped his blue toy sack, which was actually a sleeping bag, on the floor with great care. The door closed, and Ship stepped forward, giving the prone form a nudge with his boot. It struggled weakly out of its tubular prison as Ship folded his massive arms. When its head popped out, it looked up and I was shocked to see a teenage girl staring at me with wide and terrified eyes.

I was still smiling at Ship, and realized what I must have looked like to the girl. I probably looked hungry, with a bloody bandage and no shirt on. I immediately stood, and that was a terrible idea because I got woozy, and the kid probably thought I was drunk too. Sitting back down, I offered her my canteen. She just looked at me with those scared eyes.

I took a drink. “We won’t hurt you.“  

Ship stood there with his arms folded, giving me the stinkeye. “What?” I demanded. The look continued.

“Relax partner, I didn’t go line dancing, I just checked the perimeter. You got shot in the damn head if I remember, and you were driving a snowmobile with my ever-so-sexy ass on the back the same night, so shut it.” I lowered my glance toward the kid. “Where did you find her?”

He pointed at her, made a gun figure with his thumb and index finger, and then pointed at me.

“No shit?” He nodded his giant melon. “She shot me?” I looked at her. “You shot me?”

She started to cry. What a dick I was. Kid had probably lost her whole family, they might have even tried to eat her. She had been holed up who knows where in that crappy hick town, hungry, terrified, with redneck rapists and dead cannibals everywhere. Yup, a giant, heartless dick.      

I was horrified. “No, no it’s OK, we aren’t going to hurt you, I swear. He brought you here because you were dead if you stayed in town. Eventually it would have gotten bad for you.”

She looked at me with those teary doe eyes, and for one second I thought she was going to bolt for sure. It wouldn’t have done her any good, because short of an Olympic sprinter, or unless she had an Abrams tank handy, she wasn’t getting by Ship.

“Look, did he scare you?” I pointed at you know who. “I know he’s big and scary, but he’s super cool, I swear to God. I’m cool too, right buddy?” I looked at him and he stuck his hand out palm down and wiggled it.
Mezza mezza.
I flipped him off and it hurt like hell. “He can’t talk, he was born that way.”

She looked at him and sniffled, then looked back at me. I stood and took a step toward her. She stiffened visibly and I held the blanket out to her. “Take this and sit by the fire, you look freezing. I’m going to get dressed.” She took the blanket but didn’t move.

I most assuredly had special needs when it came to putting on a shirt. The hole in my shoulder screamed at me to knock it off, but the kid was scared and I had had enough of the pain. Ship tossed me something that rattled, and it hit me in the forehead and fell on the cot. It was a pill bottle, but there was no label.

“Pain pills?”

Ship shook his head in the negative.

“Antibiotics?”

More stinkeye from the Shipster. Try as I might, I couldn’t open the damn bottle either. I couldn’t move my arm correctly and it was very weak. The only people that can open those child-proof bottles are children anyway, and as it would happen, we had one. She tentatively held her hand out and I passed the bottle to her with my good arm.

She opened it in three seconds, passing the bottle back and then the cap, “I’m sorry I shot you,” she said staring at the floor. “I thought you were with those other…people. They killed my dad.”

“We are
not
with those assholes. They’ve been trying to kill us too,” I shook my head in disgust. “You would think what with the end of the world, and humanity on the brink, we would be better to each other.”

A small gasp, and a tiny voice: “End of the world? You mean it’s not just here?”

Stinkeye, complete with follow-up eye roll. Guy could make me feel terrible on a whim. How was I supposed to know she didn’t know the extent of whatever was happening. Hell, I didn’t know either at that time, I was just making assumptions.

“No kiddo, it looks like it’s all over. I came from Boston, and it was all kinds of awful there…what’s your name?”

“Katrina. But everybody calls me Kat.”

I sat down and rubbed my shoulder; it ached. “Well Kat, here’s the plan…actually, I have no idea what we’re going to do, but I’m sure Ship does.”

She perked up. “There’s a ship? Is it safe?”

“No, no,” I said, pointing at my large friend. “He’s Ship.”

She looked confused, but perked up immediately when the first fist smacked against the side of the hanger. It was followed by many more. If I thought she had been scared before, she showed all new prowess in the scared-look area when the moans began. We had a crowd outside, and with the wind howling it was impossible to tell how many.

I pulled my pistol, as there was no way I was going to be able to use my rifle. As an afterthought, I passed the rifle to Kat. She grabbed it, but I didn’t let go straightaway. “I’ll be wanting that back when this is over.”

She nodded, wide-eyed, and I let go, “If you would kindly not shoot me again, I would be grateful.”

I turned to look at the big guy, and he gave me the worst look yet. He really didn’t like the fact that I gave this girl a weapon. “What? She needs a gun if she’s going to help.” I shifted my gaze to the terrified girl. “You do want to live, right?”

She nodded quickly.

“Then shoot any that get past us.”

Ship shook his head no, then pointed at himself, then to the door. He pointed at me and then to the cot.

“Nope. Not letting you do it by yourself.” I jacked the slide on my Glock, and spears of agony lanced through my shoulder and into my neck. I tried my best not to show it, but it was tough. Ship scribbled something in his book and passed it to me. I used the flashlight to read it:
You’re a liability out there. Watch her.

He was right, and I knew he was right. The worst part of it was he knew I knew it. He stood there waiting, like a smug Sasquatch that had just won a bet. I walked past the girl and whispered in his ear, “The rifle I gave her isn’t loaded.” He nodded, slung his rifle and pulled his machete. He shushed us. He actually shushed us with his finger in front of his lips, then strode to the door and ran into the storm. I holstered my pistol, slamming the flimsy door.

There were windows, more like skylights, in the top sides of the metal structure, and I stood on a desk and peeked outside. I couldn’t see anything, not even the falling snow.

The pounding and moaning continued, echoing back and forth through that metal tomb. One of them had found the door and had begun to whack at it. Kat racked the bolt on the M4 and then looked at me funny. “I’m from New Hampshire. I know when the gun is empty.” The little square window in the door gave way, and a lacerated arm clad in flannel poked through.

My machete was brandished in my good hand and I pointed to a full magazine on the desk. She dropped the old mag, grabbed the fresh one, popped it in, and charged a round. I walked to the door and waited with the machete. Ship didn’t want any unnecessary shots fired, as they would draw more dead to our little sanctuary. The reaching arm was pissing me off, so I hacked at it a couple times and it fell to the floor. The thing that the arm belonged to stuck its face in the window and growled. I was horrified and overcome with sadness at the same time. The dead thing was Ernie. I spun, thinking that this was no time to be sad, and saw the kid with the rifle. The weapon was pointed at me, center mass.

I lifted my machete bearing appendage toward the sky. The other arm was tied to me with the sling. The gun looked damn big when I was on this side of it.

“I could shoot you now. Just let me go,” she said between Ernie’s growls.

“Kid, you can leave at any time, but you’re better off with us, and I’ll make you shoot me before I let you leave me without my gun. Again. I mean shoot me again, you already shot me once.”

She brought the rifle to her shoulder and looked down the sight. I lowered my machete, putting one hand on my hip. I could hear Ernie and a couple of his new buddies scratching at the door. One of them had grabbed the window frame and was either pushing or pulling, I couldn’t tell.

“They’re in here with us in thirty seconds, if you’re going to shoot me, get on with it.” I turned around, waiting for the shot that would kill me, or further incapacitate me so that the dead could kill me. When it didn’t come, I hacked at whatever was sticking through the window. Digits and pieces of arm fell on both sides of the weakening door. I heard steps behind me, and all of a sudden she was there with a spade shovel. She used it well, pushing one of them back from the door, using the tool like a spear.

I knew they were going to get in, so I used a poking motion and went for the eyes of the one closest to the door, apparently Ernie had been shoved aside. I got one eye before one of them grabbed the machete with both hands. A normal human would have let go when the brush-clearer bit into their palms, but this thing didn’t care, and it had two arms to my one. I had to let go of the machete, or I would have been dragged through the window.

Kat stabbed the one-eyed critter in the other eye, the orb going with a squish, and we had ourselves our first blind zombie. I drew the Glock and took a step back. “Can you shoot?”

She looked at me dumbfounded. “New
Hamp
shire!”

“Then back up and get the rifle, this door is done.”

She dropped the shovel and ran for the rifle. Ernie was back, his face a mess, and he was reaching for me with his remaining arm. I don’t think he was inviting me to tea. The door was almost down, and I cocked the hammer on the Glock and pointed at his nose, but suddenly there was something sticking out of it. It was a machete blade, and it was withdrawn as quickly as I had seen it. Ernie collapsed, lifeless. Well, more lifeless, and another dead guy went down with a split cranium. The crowd at the door turned around to see what was going on, and they were cut down one by one.

The door fell to the ground and Ship stood there, covered in gore. He was surprised to see Kat pointing an assault rifle at him, but remembered it was unloaded, and the surprise was replaced with a mild disgust directed at me.

Ship’s surprise was reignited when Kat raised the rifle and fired.

A zombie woman fell to the floor next to Ship, half her head missing. Ship looked at the kid, who shrugged. “I reloaded.”

Escape

Ship and Kat fixed the door while I got some noodles cooking on the stove. I was still freezing, and Ship told me via notebook that I was cold because I had lost so much blood. Kat apologized again when she heard that she had almost killed me. I was already feeling better, and the big guy told me I had been out for over a day. I had thought it was the same night that we escaped from the town that the zombies had found us at the hanger, but it had been the following night. Ship also told me that I would stop feeling cold in a couple of hours.

Ship’s jacket was covered in zombie goo, so it had to go. We couldn’t risk him or Kat getting infected because of a jacket. Unfortunately, there was nothing else big enough for him to wear. The big guy and the girl sat down to some noodles, and when they were done, Kat asked for a knife. I gave her one of the knives I took from the dead rednecks, and she started cutting up the sleeping bag Ship used to transport her. She found some wire, and soon enough my giant buddy had a functional poncho. He smiled at her and she smiled back.

We got some shut-eye, Ship taking the only watch, and had crappy coffee and some kind of chicken MRE for breakfast. Kat announced that she had to pee, and we were shit out of bathrooms, no pun intended. I still wasn’t up to doing much, so Ship took the kid outside, both of them armed to the teeth, while I checked our packs and started making a list of what we had and what we would need.

We were OK with food for a while, and there was plenty of snow to melt for water. Ammo was good too, with a total of six hundred sixty rounds for the Glocks, twenty six rounds for my .357, and two hundred and eight rounds for the rifles. Ship had been carrying most of the ammo, and it was damn heavy. I distributed some into my tactical vest ammo pouches, but Ship would still have to carry more than I would. I would carry the MREs and other sundries, but I wasn’t ready to travel yet, and just performing these mundane tasks exhausted me. Every now and then the pain regulator dude would let me know he was still in control and amped up my substance p. Pity there’s no more Google, or you could look up what substance p is. Guess you’re shit out of luck.

I hit my rack pretty quick, keeping my weapons near. When the makeshift door opened and Ship and Kat strolled in, the bright outside light hit me hard in the face. They had been gone longer than it takes to take a piss, so I asked what was up. This was when the Sasquatch clued me in to his little strategy.

Apparently we were flying out of here, and Kat wanted to come. She had decided that if we meant her harm, we had had plenty of time to do said harm and hadn’t. We were the lesser of three evils, zombies and rednecks being the primary two. Ship had a plane, which is why we had come through Psycho Town, and were now holed up in a hangar. His plane was in another hangar across the tarmac. Problem was, there was a foot of snow on the runway, and the plows weren’t running. Solution was that Ship had found an airport plow, and it was gassed and ready. It was already at the end of the airfield.

So the plan was to pack our shit into the plane, which was fully fueled, tow it through the snow with the plow to the end of the northern runway, run the plow down the runway a couple of times, and take the F off. All the while we needed no zombies to come looking at what the plow noise was, or rednecks to shoot holes in our plane when we were airborne. Great plan.

We were all dead if we stayed here. Even though the area was less populated than a big city, there were too many people, and everybody wanted to kill us. If we went north, there would be less people, but the infrastructure would be as collapsed as it was here, so we weren’t sure if we could land the plane in the snow that would undoubtedly cover any runway we would use. It would truly suck if we survived zombies and evil hillbillies to die in a plane crash because somebody left a toolbox on a runway. On the other hand, if we were to pursue a southern course, there would be plenty of places to go, but all of them had the potential to be infested with dead folks.

Ship told me that the aircraft had a one thousand mile range. I found that hard to believe, at which point he told me it was a Beechcraft J50 Twin Bonanza. I had no idea what that meant other than it probably had two engines. The look of smug superiority on his face when he told me that the plane was already full of ammo and rations was priceless. He also told me he had two more aircraft at other fields in a twenty mile radius, all equipped with limited weapons, ammo, and food. This one had been the closest and it was in a private hanger.

The reason we were holed up in this hangar was that it had the stove. Ship helped me off of the cot and we looked at a chart of the area. There were several small towns, lots of lakes and mountains, and dozens of small roads. The interstate zipped north to south off to our east, and I could see just about where my prison pals had left me to die, not that I blame them. The irony. They were all dead, or undead, and I wasn’t.

In the end, we decided to go south. We made good arguments for north, but there was just no way to safely land the plane, assuming we could even find the runways under a carpet of white. Ship knew of a runway in a town in Tennessee. Tenne-fucking-ssee. It was right at the outside of our operational fuel range, and as far as I was concerned, it was hillbilly heaven. Can you come from Tennessee and not be a redneck?
Exceptionally rural
was what Ship wrote in his book. The good side was that the entire populace; every single person, had multiple weapons, and were trained in how best to use them since they were sperm. This might mean less of the dead folks. It could also mean that those folks were worse than the fuckers that lived in this area, no offense to Ship or Kat. At that point, all we had was hope.

We loaded our stuff into the plane, which was quite spacious, even if it had been built right alongside that Airstream trailer I almost died in. The plane was manufactured in nineteen sixty one. Not ninety one,
sixty one
. You read it correctly the first time. The aircraft was more than fifty years old. I hope I look as good when I’m fifty though. It looked brand new. Shiny.

I was still scared shitless to ride in it though. Kat and I watched as Ship, clad in his sleeping bag poncho, trudged through the snow toward the plow. He got in, and as instructed, we closed the hangar door.

The sound of a diesel vehicle engine starting up when everybody else is dead, and there’s no other sound at all, is indescribable. I mean, it was so quiet we could hear the snow falling. I shit you not. Whatever a bejesus is, it was scared right the hell out of me, because I knew what was coming next. Zombies, lots of them.

The length of the runway was about a mile, and Ship plowed it like a pro. He had to make four passes. Before he was done, there was a white coating back on the tarmac from the falling snow, but it was well under an inch. All of our stuff was on the plane, and the big guy backed the truck up to the hanger and we hooked the plane to the rear sander with a length of chain. Kat and I got in the plane and waited. Ship had to be careful pulling the aircraft so as not to damage the front strut, which is where the chain was attached.

When we were taxied up to the northern end of the runway, Ship got out of the truck, removed the chain, pointed down the end of the runway, and got back in the truck and started her up. The dead folks had arrived in force and were coming from every direction. They were already on the far south end of the runway, finding it easier to trek through the plowed areas. As it turns out, although intended for snow, plows are also adept at removing the living dead from runways.

Ship took care of all the dead people from the southern end of the runway, and the ones near the plane. There were more coming, but from angles that wouldn’t affect us if we got going soon. The big guy parked the plow off to the side of the plane, but was doing something inside the vehicle that we couldn’t see. A guy in jeans and a red t-shirt was high-stepping through the unplowed snow from around one of the hangars. He was moving at top speed toward the plow. Even from a couple hundred feet away, I could tell he was infected. Something about the way they carry themselves and the way they move just isn’t…human.

It was then that I found out planes don’t have horns, or if they did I had no effing idea where it was in the copiousness of dials and switches. I wanted to beep a warning, but I couldn’t. I struggled with the door to the plane, and Kat demanded to know what the hell I was doing. I informed her that our pilot was about to get jumped by a Runner, at which point she demanded to know what a Runner is. I pointed to the infected guy and told her they looked like him. I got the door open and stood on the stairs with my .357. There was no way I could hit the target from here. I started yelling, and popped off a round at the truck, which missed wildly and threw my shoulder into total rebellion.

Ship got the message when he heard the gunfire and got out of the truck wary with rifle raised. He couldn’t see the infected from his vantage, and I began gesturing wildly with the magnum in the direction of his impending doom. Standing on the snow-dusted tarmac now, I took aim again and heard the gun fire before I pulled the trigger. It had been from above and behind me. The guy in the red T-shirt spun and fell to the ground. I looked back up at the plane, and sure enough, Kat was scanning the area with my M4. She had put down the bad guy with one round.

Ship made it to the plane and we all got back in. He made it to the cockpit and took the left side chair, strapping himself in and indicating I should do the same. Kat was behind us in another chair, holding on to my M4 like it was a new born baby. Ship looked like an elephant on a stool sitting there checking things and flipping switches. The plane started, and so did I when a thump came from outside followed by another. The dead had reached us.

The plane lurched forward a couple of times, then got into a rhythm, and moved down the tarmac gradually picking up speed. I didn’t want to think of what would happen if we hit one of the zombies while screwing down the runway at a hundred miles per hour. As luck would have it we didn’t, and I felt the wheels leave the ground in just a few moments, leaving those pus sacks behind. I felt euphoric at being away from a zombie plague, at least for a while. We could finally relax.

Of course had we known what we were flying into, we would have headed north instead of south, but hey, hindsight is twenty-twenty.