LZR-1143: Evolution (40 page)

“Only one,” she said. “But it’s a doozy.”

Chapter 41

We stayed on the roof for another half hour, gauging the movements of any packs we saw. We split up, and Kate spotted two from the rear of the building, one moving behind the Supreme Court building towards the Senate Office Buildings to the North, and one moving along Constitution Avenue, toward the river. Both included thousands of creatures.

Ky spotted one pack, moving past the Lincoln Memorial toward the Tidal Basin.

I saw two more, moving along Independence Avenue past the Capitol, and along 7th Street, moving south away from the Mall. So it was that when we reached the front steps of the Capitol, we felt we had a window of opportunity to reach our objective.

“Isn’t there somewhere closer that has a radio?”

It was as close to a whine as I heard from Ky so far, which was impressive considering what we had been through.

I picked my way carefully over another bloody and scorched sandbag emplacement at the foot of the stairs and moved up to the hood of a parked Humvee, staring into the mall. Kate and I had taken a brief siesta and trashed the Capitol gift shop, finding some cheap sunglasses to ward off the piercing sunlight. Ky looked at us like we were crazy the whole time, until she found the piece of beef jerky she was chewing on now, as she looked at us doubtfully.

“Sorry, kid. All these vehicles were abandoned for a reason, and some of them don’t even have radios. We know there’s a radio in the plane with a reserve battery for emergencies.”

“At least we think we know that,” said Kate.

“Right,” I said shortly, stepping over a dismembered hand that had been chewed to the bone.

Ky looked at us both like were crazy, then readjusted her pack.

We skirted the capitol reflecting pond, and picked our way carefully between vehicles and tents, watching the flapping of tent fabric and ropes in the wind, careful to cover any movement. When we had passed the National Gallery of Art, about halfway to the Washington Monument, we heard the signature thumping of helicopter rotor blades high overhead. Suddenly, not more than a hundred feet above our heads, a black military helicopter ripped overhead at more than eighty knots, making a direct line toward the Pentagon.

Ky stood up, arms going above her head as if to try signaling, but I grabbed her by her backpack, dragging her to the ground behind me and taking Kate’s lead as she hit the deck.

“They’re gone already! Don’t make a sound—that helo is going to draw those things to the noise.” My voice was a hard whisper, but she nodded and I released the pack.

We lay there, mute and immobile. No more than five minutes passed as we lay in the grass staring toward the monument, until we heard them.

They emerged into the light from the Gallery of Art, hundreds of them shambling onto Madison Drive, merely a hundred feet from where we lay. From beneath the large truck under which we had sheltered, I watched the feet and legs shamble to the West, following the noise of the helicopter toward the river.

And, coincidentally, toward the plane.

I cursed, and tapped Kate’s leg.

“We’ll have to hang out here for a while. They’re heading in our direction.”

She nodded back to me, and continuing staring toward the road.

Suddenly, Ky squirmed next to me and grabbed my hand, pointing toward Independence Avenue on our other side, where a second large pack was emerging from behind the Air and Space Museum and moving toward the first pack, likely to join in pursuit.

The problem was, we were right smack dab between the two groups.

Romeo whimpered behind us.

I seconded that emotion.

“Kate, we have to move,” I said, and she turned around, eyes wide.

“Are you crazy, those things ... Oh. Shit,” she corrected herself mid-sentence as she saw the second pack drifting toward us.

“If we stay low, and behind cover, they might not see us until we have to sprint across the Monument. Once we’re in the plane, we might be able to climb up top, or ... I don’t know.” I glanced back at them approaching, thousands of them shuffling forward slowly but constantly.

“But we need to leave here, now,” she said, rising to a crouch.

So we ran.

Keeping low and hiding behind shredded and bloody tent fabric and abandoned cars, ducking behind burned out military vehicles and sandbags, we stayed out of sight, careful to make no loud noises. We knew they didn’t see well, and that hearing was their big advantage. We used this knowledge as best we could, and made it to the last row of tents behind the military command center, where toppled equipment and empty chairs sat strewn across the grass floor. Blood stains throughout testified to the fate of its former residents.

I was breathing hard, and Romeo wagged once at me before sitting down, staring at Ky as she adjusted her pack. The kid wasn’t even winded.

Kate was inhaling deeply, eyes up and watching the herd approaching, now from our rear and slightly to the left. I scanned the distance and spoke quietly but urgently, breath coming in gasps.

“Okay, this is it. They can’t avoid seeing us when we make this sprint over the monument hill and toward the plane. Keep moving, try to keep quiet as long as possible, and remember that there’s another herd in front of us. When the second one sees us ... well, we don’t know if these things can communicate, but they can sure make noise, and that’s enough to turn that other group around.”

I finished as Kate simply nodded once and Ky frowned.

“And what if we can’t get in the plane? Or the radio doesn’t work? Or ...”

I shook my head.

“We’ll think about it when we get there. No time now.” I leaned my head out, scanning the pathway to the plane.

“Now’s as good a time as any,” I said. “Let’s go!”

I had never run so hard in my life. We bolted from our cover behind the erstwhile command tent and up the slight incline, past the burned out military vehicles, and crested the small hill. As we began down the hill, we heard them.

All of them.

In a chorus of moans, they saw something they might not have seen for days, maybe weeks: fresh meat. In the mind’s eye of my imagination, I heard them accelerate. I saw them salivate. I knew them to be hungry.

We crossed the long expanse of grass and then over 17th Street and through the World War II Memorial. I spared a glance to my right as we passed within view of the White House, several blocks distant to the North. A thin stream of black smoke rose into the air from behind the iron fence, but the building looked to be intact. A multitude of military vehicles were arrayed in front, likely the last bastion of protection afforded the President before he left D.C..

If he was
able
to leave D.C..

The belly of the plane was facing us, and we jogged around the crumpled nose, looking up at the cracked windows in the cockpit. The fuselage of the plane was shattered in several places, and the largest opening was in the rear, where the tail section had been ripped from the body in the violent crash.

The horde behind us had reached the Washington Monument, and Ky was watching worriedly for signs that the pack in front of us, now shambling past the Lincoln Memorial and toward the Arlington Bridge in pursuit of the low and fast flying helicopter, was aware of our presence. They hadn’t turned yet, and were gaining distance from us as they pursued the elusive metal bird.

Romeo darted into the fuselage, tail up and alert. I followed him slowly, noting the bloody and burned interior of the aircraft, and the many mangled and bloodied bodies still strapped to their seats. Several were still mobile, arms moving and bodies thrashing violently as we picked our way carefully through the cabin. They were seated on the wall—formerly the bottom of the plane—and were suspended by the thick nylon of their seat belts, and I had to destroy several with quick blows from the machete as we skirted along the ceiling and toward the cockpit. Those seated nearer to the far windows, I left suspended and dangling, no danger to any of us. Kate followed us both, machete raised. Ky was the lookout, and was now staring at the approaching horde from the top of the fuselage.

“Past the first ring road,” she called in, referring to the first of two small roads that ringed the Monument, the first one being about fifty feet from the large obelisk.

We had about four minutes.

I reached the spiral staircase to the top level, which extended to the right, up toward the First Class level. I crawled in carefully, a touch of claustrophobia compelling me to move quickly to the second level. This cabin was virtually empty, most of the passengers having somehow found a way out—likely crawling through the same passage which had afforded me entry.

I awkwardly moved between seats, finding it harder to gain footing between the larger spaces in First Class. The cockpit door was battered down, shards of wood and metal hanging from the dented and mangled frame. Blood and gore covered the pasty white walls and the blue and gray carpeting.

As I got closer, I saw the exposed bone of a partially eaten arm hanging from the short sleeve of a white shirt with golden epaulettes on the shoulder. The arm twitched once as I entered the cabin, but the head couldn’t raise towards me, the tendons and muscles having been severed so severely as to render it useless for feeding—unless you put something into its mouth.

And I wasn’t going to do that.

He moaned slightly, his other hand twitching uselessly as I realized it was melted to the controls, a small electrical fire having scorched the panel in front of him.

I put the machete to the exposed bone of the spine behind the torn throat and pushed down, severing whatever connection between the head and the body that delivered the mobility to the undead. The hand went limp and I looked around the cabin, noting the massive amounts of blood spread around the small space and scanning the controls for the radio.

I had played a pilot once, in “Desperation Air,” and they had shown me where ... There!

It was a complicated looking piece of electronics, but as Kate made her way to the door to the cockpit, I was already flipping the power switch. A faint, dull red light blinked on and a frequency read-out lit up. I quickly searched for an extra headset, and Kate handed me one she saw on the floor near her foot. I pulled them on and pressed the button activating the transmitter.

“Hello? Anyone out there? My name is Mike McKnight, I’m a civilian, and I’m with two other people who need help. We are inside the crashed 747 on the National Mall, and require assistance. I carry with me a possible vaccine to the virus that caused this shit, and we need a lift. Does anyone copy this?”

The radio hissed, and I switched frequencies, trying again.

On the fifth frequency, a garbled voice shot back.

“ ... is Captain Gladding in ... repeat your last ...”

I got the gist, and repeated the important parts.

From the rear of the plane, Ky’s shouted voice, “Past the second ring. Closing fast!”

That meant they were less than two minutes away. We needed to leave.

Now.

“I don’t have a lot of time here, we need a pickup. I know you have choppers. We will be at the Lincoln Memorial, understand! Lincoln Memorial! Ten minutes, or the last possible hope for a damn cure to this plague dies with us!”

I threw the headset down and started back, following Kate as she crawled to the first floor, and then picked her way toward the tail.

“17th Street,” said Ky, dancing nervously outside as if she had to pee.

Romeo was whining, running back and forth between us as if to convey his own little sense of urgency about the matter.

We shot out from the shattered plane, and I yelled to Ky.

“Lincoln Memorial, Ky! Let’s go!”

We didn’t need to tell her twice.

We were fifty feet away from the plane when the first zombie stumbled around the crumpled nosecone of the 747. It saw us running and moaned loudly, pausing as it did so, head lolling on its neck as it looked to the sky briefly, then back to us, moving forward again.

A chorus of moans responded from behind the doomed jet, spurring us to run faster.

We ran through the dry reflecting pond, all the water having drained from the massive cracks imposed by the ruined jet. Pieces of the cement were scattered around the pond, and a deep rivet ran most of the length of the pool, dirt and debris covering the ground.

As we got closer to the Lincoln Memorial, I realized that it had been fortified at some point, similar to the fortifications around the Capitol. Sandbags lined the foot of the stairs, and blocked off the two sides of the open-aired monument, leaving only one line of access to the main site inside the many columns. The massive marble statue of President Lincoln looked out on the shattered Mall, gaze seeming to lend gravity and sorrow to the sad state of his nation’s capital.

Behind the sandbags, a large green tent was erected on the first landing. A red cross inside a white box indicated the purpose of this station, while two Humvees were parked on the first landing, fifty caliber guns amazingly intact on the roof emplacements. Unlike the barriers we had passed on Route 50, D.C. was probably abandoned late, and considered a hot zone after that. Very few looters coming through under those circumstances.

A small gap in the sandbags allowed us through, and we ran for the top of the stairs to recon the small area for more weapons.

On that front, we were finally rewarded.

In addition to the fifty caliber machine guns that were loaded on the roof of each Humvee, there were several M-4’s, a crate of grenades marked “M67 Anti-Personnel” on the side, and the royale-with-cheese, master of disaster, find of all finds: a large gun pre-mounted on a huge tripod laying undeployed in a wooden crate.

The label read “XM134” and until I opened the crate, I didn’t know what that meant.

Now I did.

I hastily moved the gun into position behind the last barricade at the very top of the stairs, almost in Lincoln’s crotch. The legs folded out and clicked into place, and I grabbed the belt of ammunition, dragging it across the marble floor and inserting it as I ignored the absurdity of mounting a last-ditch defense against zombie hordes on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.