Eastern Front: Zombie Crusade IV (11 page)

“Do you have any idea how many islands there are in Lake Huron?”
Hiram Anderson’s smooth baritone voice had made him a hypnotic speaker in his Ward back in Utah, but Christy found his soothing tone condescending.

“Actually, I don’t,” she replied with feigned sweetness, “but I do know that my Dad shared information about how to protect yourself from the infected with one person on one island. Maybe that’s just a coincidence, but
I won’t discount the importance of Jack’s knowledge and advice in those early days.”

“Agreed,”
Hiram replied, “and I certainly think the chances are excellent that your relatives could have survived if they followed Jack’s advice. I was simply pointing out that there are many, many possibilities when it comes to isolated groups of survivors—“

“Of course,” Christy cut him off. “But Gracie said they’d been in radio contact. Manitoulin Island happens to be the largest island on a freshwater lake in the entire world. It has lakes of its own, with other islands on those. But my point is they have resources there—towns, hospitals, giant radio towers. And there is only one bridge connecting it to the mainland . . .” She slapped her forehead. “Why didn’t I think of this before? They have only one bridge, and the damn thing swings sideways
to let boats pass!”

Sal’s eyes lit up. “How far away is this island? That could be ideal, unless people brought the infection in by boat.”

“I guess I didn’t think of it because it’s pretty damn far,” Christy conceded. “I’ve only been there a couple times, and we always drove up. It seemed like it took forever to get there. I don’t know what it would be like to try to get there by water.” She looked to Gracie. “Did Father O’Brien mention any island by name?”

Gracie shook her head. “No, but I know he’s planning to leave tomorrow.”

Christy sighed and drummed her fingers on the back of a chair before focusing in on Deb. “You are the organizational miracle worker. I know it won’t be easy, but we have more resources now than we used to—hell, we have helicopters. Tell me, how quickly could we get a team to Middle Bass to go with Father O’Brien?”

CHAPTER
7

With the increased firepower from such deadly sources as Marcus and Bobby, a gap of at least twenty meters was maintained as David, Lori, and the rest of the exhausted fighters stumbled toward the Indiana side of the bridge. Perhaps not surprisingly, the pilot and crew-chief were waiting for them at the first place they believed they could climb down into the brush and make a dash for the river.

“Why are you guys still here?” David breat
hlessly panted as they approached their former captives.

The pilot, seeing a score of hunters following closely behind the humans exclaimed, “Our hands are tied
and we don’t have any weapons; since you let us run I’m assuming you want us alive for some reason, and we won’t be for long if we don’t stick with you!”

Carter
quickly pulled out his combat knife and cut the air crew’s bonds. “We get separated, at least ya gotta chance. If ya stick with us, don’t make one threatenin’ move or I’ll havta blow yer brains out.”

“Do
n’t worry about that,” the pilot promised as he and his crew-chief followed Carter over the railing and into the mud below. “Just get us outta here and we’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

Carter
nodded before turning to Marcus, “What’d you guys set up?”

“Semtex—enough
to take out at least forty meters. Bobby has the remote; we can set it off as soon as we’re sure Gabe won’t be under the explosion.”

Carter turned to David
and ordered, “Get everyone to the bank ASAP.” Bobby and Marcus had opened up with their ARs again, signaling that the hunters were following them down from the bridge. “We’ll hold ‘em here till y’all find Gabe and get on them boats.”

David looked as if he wanted to protest leaving the Rangers behind, but experience had taught him that somebody had to be in charge
in dangerous situations or disaster would ensue. He nodded in agreement and said, “See you in a few minutes,” before turning to lead the rest of the group down to the river.

Gabe had followed his instructions to the letter, waiting for the two teams with one raft
in tow as he drifted about thirty meters from the bank. As soon as he saw Lori and Blake stumbling down a narrow path toward the water, he instantly motored toward the shoreline. The boats reached the fighters and their prisoners a few seconds later, and David radioed Carter to let him know they were safe. The gunfire slackened but didn’t completely stop, and then an earth-shattering explosion about four hundred meters away ripped through the night, leaving the people climbing into the boats nearly breathless as the shock wave passed over them.

“Holy crap!” Blake exclaimed
as huge pieces of the bridge fell into the Ohio with mighty splashes that sent waves thundering in every direction.

By the time the surge
s of water reached them they merely rocked the boats a bit, but if they’d been a few hundred meters closer David thought that they probably would have capsized. Even the hunters seemed confused by the incredible blast, as Carter, Marcus, and Bobby came running toward the rafts with no monsters chasing them. A few minutes later the two teams, with their guests, were motoring out on the river to inspect the damage they’d caused. Everyone but Bobby was suitably impressed with the nearly fifty meter gap the explosives had created.

“Won’t take a rocket scientist to bridge that gap,” Bobby grumpily observed.

“Hey man,” Carter argued, “that was as rough a fight as I’ve been in and nobody died. Even if Barnes has the material and know-how to fix this thing, he ain’t gonna be able to do it before Jack gets down here to finish the job.”

“Uh, sir,” t
he pilot interrupted, “if y’all are talking about that army of flesh-eaters General Barnes is pushing through Kentucky, you don’t have to worry about them getting over that hole you just made.”

“Why you say that?” Lori immediately asked.

“Well, ma’am, he’s just got a bunch of helicopters pushing the infected along, and a few more protecting the cowboys herding the cattle. He doesn’t have any soldiers or trucks or anything. He’d have to wait for a bunch of materials to be sent up from Tennessee or Georgia before he could fix this.”

The pilot looked toward his crew chief for confirmation, and after the sergeant nodded he continued, “General Barnes ain’t exactly the patient type. He’ll just head for another bridge somewhere.”

“What’ll he do if there ain’t another bridge anywhere?” Carter asked.

The pilot chewed his lip as he mulled the question over, finally deciding, “Probably just head west; he’s been heading south and west since this whole thing started.
Well, at least until he decided to head toward Indiana.”

“Carter, let’s just get the hell out of here,” David offered. “These guys don’t know anything more than the dudes we got last night, and we ought to try to get to the next bridge before morning.
”

“You won’t find Barnes or his monsters
anywhere west of here,” the pilot explained, sounding worried that if the conversation ended he and his crew chief might be tossed into the river.

“How can you b
e sure about that?” Carter wondered, ignoring David’s advice for the moment.

“All the aviation troop
s hung together pretty tight,” the pilot continued. “The only other soldiers around were militia and a few of those USMRIID pukes. They were constantly reminding us of the terrible things that would happen to us and our families if we failed them in any way. We hated them. We hated what Barnes was doing to survivors. Anyway, none of us would fly anywhere without letting the other guys know what our orders were. I guess we hoped that if we didn’t come back somebody would fly out to look for us, or at least try to protect our families. Before we headed to this bridge, we were all talking, and everyone kept pointing out that our chopper would be the furthest west.”

Lori looked over at Carter and shrugged, “Hope he’s telling the truth, but it doesn’t matter one way or another. David’s right about us needing to get a move on.
” She motioned to the pilot and the crewman. “I don’t know what to do with these guys, though.”

The pilot stuck out his hand. “My name’s Ryan. This here is Carlos. Us guys will do whatever you tell us to. Never in a million years did I think humans stood a chance against those zombie-creatures. You
’re freakin’ amazing, all of you.” Carlos vigorously nodded his agreement. 

“We may be amazing,” Lori responded, “but first we’re just people who decided to stand up and fight for our survival.
I appreciate the heads-up back at the Blackhawk—you saved my life—but I know I speak for all of us when I say we could never trust anybody who worked for Barnes.”

Carlos actually hung his head before muttering, “I don’t blame you.”

“We’re cowards, we admit it.” Ryan conceded sadly. “It was too easy to avoid the creatures by sticking with our helicopters. But don’t think we—pilots and crews—haven’t talked about rebellion. A few of our guys have actually crashed on purpose, but they’ve just been easily replaced. In Barnes’ air force, no one knows who to trust, and most everybody has something or someone to lose.”

“I have a son,” Carlos almost whispered. “He’s three. Barnes has him.”
 

Lori pictured Jenny at three, and she couldn’t contain a small sob
of empathy for the man’s pain.  She looked around her group, from man to man, before stating, “I would do anything for my child. Anything.” Her eyes settled on her husband. “Blake, I know you. You would too.”

Blake sighed, “Yes, dammit, you’re right. But we really don’t know these men—they could be feeding us a story to gain our sympathy, or they could be telling the truth.” The
pained expression on his face betrayed his personal feelings about the matter; Blake clearly believed every word the man said.

David had a plan. “Our radios will still reach Jack; he’s not too far away in real distance, just river miles.
We scrounge up a boat along the shore here and tie these two up in it, then anchor it near the breach. Jack can send a boat down here to pick these guys up and wreck the bridge some more; he needs to do that anyway.”

Carter nodded but looked sharply at the pilot an
d his crew chief. “I know we ain’t supposed to judge other folks, and I don’t have any kids of my own, but I don’t know how ya can live with yerselves knowin’ ‘bout all the other people’s children yer servin’ up to Barnes and his hunters.”

“Maybe you should just kill us,” the pilot replied
. “Everything you said is right, and Barnes will think we’re dead anyway. Hell, I know I should be dead—my entire family died in the first week of the outbreak. In some ways I died with ‘em.” He looked at Lori. “Whether you believe me or not, I want to tell you that I didn’t have any hope before tonight. After seeing you all kill scores of those monsters, and just knowing that somebody out there is lookin’ to send Barnes back to hell, well, I just want to thank you.” He looked back at Carter, “Do whatever you need to.”

Carter believed the guy
was sincere, but he also worried about the possibility, however remote, that Barnes might get his hands on him before Jack did. The two captives didn’t seem to have any more intelligence that would help the Fort Wayne force stop the hunter army’s invasion, but if they ended up back with Barnes they might cause a lot of trouble for Jack’s people. Carter had never considered himself ruthless or cruel, and in spite of Bobby’s threats to the prisoners the night before, he didn’t think his fellow Rangers were either. Still, he had to weigh the lives of these two men against those of everyone back home.

Lori finally decided the issue. “Look, we have to stop Barnes from crossing the river; I know th
at as well as the rest of you. Everything I’ve done since the outbreak has been to protect Blake and the girls. Hell, even those two rapists I put down on Middle Bass Island was done to protect other people’s daughters in the future. But as far as I know I don’t have innocent blood on my hands, and I don’t want any. I don’t want any of you to have to deal with that either—it’ll give you nightmares. I saw it happen in Iraq. I don’t know if these guys qualify as innocent; they’ve certainly flown missions for Barnes, but they’re defenseless right now. We can always use more pilots too. Let’s just follow our lawyer’s advice and put them in a boat out there. Jack will have someone here in a few hours, and my gut tells me these two will still be here when they arrive.”

Carter knew Lori
was right in her assessment of the situation. Of course, he was right too. Sometimes there was no great option. But the odds were really good that Jack would find these airmen instead of Barnes, especially since they hadn’t seen any sign of the mad general except for the bridge guards. Finally he relented, “All right, we’ll go with David’s plan.”

Thirty minutes later th
e two teams were ready to move on from the Hawesville area, sharing final words before going their separate ways. Carter promised Lori, “We’ll look over the next bridge real good before we pass it by. If anybody’s up there we’ll wait for you and help take ‘em out. If not, we’re headin’ for the Mississippi as fast as we can.”