Run (Book 2): The Crossing (8 page)

10

The plane smelled like rot.

Rick and Dallas walked left and found the lower-level first class cabin to be devoid of anything living or dead. All the seat backs and tray tables were in their upright positions. They turned and walked back toward the coach cabin. There was a white box with a red cross on the side, indicating a first aid station on the wall just inside the door, but it was open and drenched with blood. The door of the small box was still dripping, and gore soaked bandages were on the floor of the cabin.

“Watch the stairs,” Rick whispered to Dallas, who nodded and stepped onto the first stair with his right boot.

“There’re more aid stations on both sides,” Dallas whispered back, “in the third part of the plane.”

It was Rick’s turn to nod. A bloody blue curtain was hanging from four of its twelve chrome rings, partially obscuring the view of the coach cabin. Rick used the barrel of his battle rifle to nudge the remains of the drape out of his way. He could see carnage throughout the cabin. There was blood on the forward seats, and a body in the aisle in front of him. The front of the cabin was partially illuminated as most of the window shades were up for the first fifteen rows or so, but the rear of the aircraft was shrouded in darkness.

Rick shone his light right and left across the aisles to clear the area as he moved toward the rear of the plane. He was in the right side aisle with three seats to his right, four to his left, another aisle, and then three more seats.

Six rows back there was a dead person in the widow seat to his left. The man, if it had been a man, had been devoured. Its right arm was gone, as was all the flesh of his right side. The abdominal cavity was just that, an empty cavity, and the face was torn away. Rick shone his light on the thing, and the person still had their seatbelt on. The top if the victim’s head was missing, and the brain was gone as well. The stench of blood was so strong Rick gagged.

There was a body in the aisle in front of him, the back of its head missing. There were two more farther on, and some slumped over the seats. Several bullet holes in the fuselage let small beams of light in through the side of the cabin bulkhead.

Rick checked each body and they all had holes in their heads. He was almost to the second junction, and the curtain on this one was missing, when he heard movement on his right, but the beam of his light couldn’t detect anything. Rick was sweating profusely. When he got to the flight attendant’s station, there was a thump in the bathroom next to him. He brought the tac-light up and noticed a barf bag with something scrawled on it in large black letters had been duct taped to the bathroom door.

It read: 
I’m dead, and I’m in here.

The latch had been turned from the inside, and the red
Occupied
indicator told Rick that there was indeed someone in the bathroom. While he didn’t relish the thought of a zombie between the exit and himself, Rick decided that opening the door to exterminate this poor victim was too risky, and he moved on.

Reaching the back of the first cabin compartment, yet another blue drape was between him and the rear cabin. Fortunately, there was another flight attendant’s station, this one with a closed white box complete with red cross on the wall. He let his rifle hang from the single point sling and quietly opened the box. Although the box was only half full, there were many supplies in it. He didn’t think perusing them at the current moment was the best plan. He pushed up on the box while holding two pressure release locks on the side, and the box slid free of the wall. Taking it under his arm, he decided to go one cabin farther to get another box if there was one.

He nudged the curtain open again as he had done before. This time his tac-light illuminated dozens of people sitting in the cabin seats, all of whom looked at the light, and all of whom were dead. They started standing as he heard Dallas start yelling.

“Rick! They’re comin’ from upstairs!” The boom of the shotgun spurred Rick into action, and he turned and sprinted back down the aisle. Dallas was running at him, and both were blinded by each other’s tactical lights. Rick threw his arm in front of his face as he ran back at Dallas. Just before he ran back through the attendant’s station, the small bathroom door burst open, and Rick ran into the one arm of the occupant, who immediately bent in to attempt to snatch a morsel from Rick’s shoulder as they crashed to the carpeted aisle.

Waiting for the inevitable pain took two seconds before he realized it wasn’t coming. The thing had two arms, but one was duct-taped to its side, the fingers on the other were taped together, and it had half a roll of tape around its mouth. Rick easily pushed away from the dead man and stood, his boot on the guy’s chest. One round spread the back of the man’s head on the carpet.

Dallas arrived a second later. “We gotta go back! They’re comin!” He looked past Rick and noticed the passengers coming for them. “Christ!”

Dallas turned and ran back the way he came. “C’mon!” The shotgun boomed again. Rick followed him. He fired toward the front of the plane again. “Cover, Hoss!” He slung his shotgun and turned a handle on the wall, opening a door which let in the bright sunlight. Dallas squinted before reaching up and smashing his hand against the wall. He did it a second time, then yelled, “Shit! It ain’t workin’!”

He pushed the door all the way open so that it banged against the fuselage of the aircraft, then smacked his hand on the wall again, “Goddammit!” Rick began firing toward the rear of the plane.

“Rick, we gotta jump!” Rick backed up, and between shots, looked down to the tarmac.

“Fuck that.”

“You got a better plan?”

“Yeah, anything that doesn’t include jumping twenty feet to an asphalt runway! Where’s the damn emergency slide thingie?” Rick fired as he spoke:
Pap! Pap pap pap!

The dead were starting to get close, twenty feet from Rick’s side, and ten from Dallas’. The stink off the things was incredible, and Dallas began to gag.

“It won’t deploy, I dunno why!”

Rick fired twice more and looked at the bulkhead of the plane, running his finger across the pictograph of how to deploy the slide as he read it.

Dallas fired two booming shots into the small crowd in front of him, destroying a granny zombie and a dead hippie. He then fired the shotgun at the door, and there was a whoosh as the escape slide speedily filled with compressed air. The slide was fully extended in less than five seconds, but that was long enough for the dead to reach Dallas. His weapon clicked empty, and he pulled his rebar club to go hand to hand with two creatures. A sideways whack to the head of a blue-faced pastor sent the creature sprawling, but the two things behind the priest reached past him and grabbed Dallas by the shirt. Dallas was shrieking four letter curses when he was grabbed by the waist from behind and thrown unceremoniously from the plane.

Rick, Dallas, and two monsters tumbled down the inflated silver escape ramp all the way to the tarmac. Rick was able to extricate himself immediately, but Dallas had two zombies on him. The big man was using his rebar to keep them at bay. Rick raised his rifle, but a shot rang out before he was able, and dropped one of the dead men. Dallas jammed the pointed end of his rebar up under the second thing’s chin and kept going until the metal would go no farther.

Androwski was at the top of the mobile stairs, aiming at the escape hatch. “Get to the LAV!” Less than two seconds later, dead began to spill down the ramp. Rick and Dallas sprinted toward the vehicle and Androwski ran down the steps. “Stark! Stark, exfil!”

The turret on the LAV spun toward the plane, and machine gun fire belched from the gunner’s position as Seyfert let loose on the growing group from the aircraft.

All three men made it to the LAV quickly and gained entry. “Why the fuck didn’t you answer your radios?” Androwski demanded as the hatch closed.

Rick checked his radio and noticed that the ear bud cord had been ripped from the receiver. He held it up for Androwski to see. Dallas checked his radio and it seemed to be fine. “Didn’t hear ya.”

“LAV One to Lone Wolf, come in,” Androwski shouted into the com unit, “Lone Wolf, come in! Do you copy? Over.”

Cole’s deep voice came over the radio, “One this is Two, SITREP?”

“Objective secured, but Actual is unaccounted for. How’s our boy?”

“Bad. Still unconscious, breathing ragged. You’re gonna need to hurry back.”

Androwski clicked the mic off. “Shit!” His eyes glazed over while he thought.

Seyfert poked his head down from the gunner’s emplacement. “Limas are almost on us.”

Androwski looked up. “Boone can take care of himself. We need to get the meds back to Martinez before he kicks it.” He looked at Rick as he spoke into the radio, “Lone Wolf, this is LAV One, if able to receive but not transmit: One is bugging out to accomplish primary objective. One will return in two hours to retrieve Lone Wolf. Sit tight, out.”

Seyfert looked at Stark with raised eyes while Androwski pinched his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “Go, Stark.”

The thumps of dead fists rang through the armored vehicle as Stark shifted into gear.

11

“Cole, do you copy? Cole, we’re almost there, how’s our man? Fucking radios are for shit.” Androwski raged as he slammed the radio into his hip. “First order of business when the world gets back together is to find the dickweed responsible for these radios and string him up!”

The return trip to the other LAV only took half an hour. There were three zombies stumbling around outside when they arrived. Seyfert took them out with single shots from his suppressed sidearm. “Clear!”

The back of LAV One opened and the team got out. Androwski was fuming. “Cole! Cole, open up, we’ve got some meds for Martinez! Stark, try the comms in the LAV.”

“Nothing, sir,” replied Stark after a few seconds. “He’s not responding.”

Androwski rapped his fist on the hull. “Cole! If you’re sleeping in there I will kick your ass, I shit you not!” The SEAL walked around to the front of the vehicle, swearing. The blast shields were open over the windows, and he climbed on the nose of the LAV. Putting his hand up to the red window to shield his eyes from the sun, he peered in but couldn’t see anything. He rapped on the window and still there was nothing.

“I need to get in there, Stark.” The man’s voice was past angry, there was now a tinge of worry. “How do we open her up?”

“Can’t. The vehicle is specifically designed to repel invaders. Without somebody inside, or an access code that’s on the manual, which is also inside, we aren’t getting in.”

“Fuck! Are you telling me that if the driver goes outside to take a piss and shuts the hatch behind him, he can’t get in without the code?”

“Roger.”

“So how…” Androwski thought he saw a shadow move behind the armored red glass. Again he put his hand above his eyes and pressed his face to the window. Cole’s face slammed against the other side. Thick fluid splashed the pane from the inside as Cole attempted to bite through it. Androwski pulled his face away fast, but not before he saw the malice in his teammate’s dead eyes.

He hopped off the vehicle and walked directly to Rick. “They’re dead,” was the only thing he could think to say. Rick ran around the front of the LAV, and following Androwski’s example, peered in the window.

Sighing, he got down from the LAV and walked back to the group. Androwski was on the radio asking Stark how they could blow their way in to retrieve the ammo for the other LAV.

“Not advisable. We don’t have any cutting tools, and if we did it would take a while. We could try the Bushmaster, but it would probably put holes in the armor before it blew the door off. One stray round could cook off the ammo and then twenty millimeter rounds would be firing in all directions.”

“What about the C-4?”

“It’s in LAV Two, and I don’t know what would happen if a Bushmaster round hit that.”

“I have a brick,” Seyfert interjected. When he noticed everyone looking at him, he went on the defensive. “What? One brick of C-4 and some det-cord is worth having on you on missions like this. I got it from Benotti before he…”

“Alright. Seyfert, shape-charge the bottom hydraulics and the top lock. Let’s pop this bitch open. Stark, man the LMG and check our six while we’re busy. Everyone else keep watching for stray Limas, we’ll let you know when we’re gonna blow this.”

It only took three minutes or so for Seyfert to wire up the explosives. He molded some into the small crevice between the hatch and the hull on the back of the vehicle, and some on the hydraulic pin catch on the bottom of the door. One more larger amount on the locking mechanism at the top, and he thumbs-up signaled to Androwski he was ready. Two suppressed shots hissed out on the left side of the street they were on.

“Contact left,” Chris told them. “They’re down… I mean, clear.”

Androwski pinched his throat mic. “Everybody on me.” When the rest of the team minus Stark, who was manning the LMG, showed up, Androwski told them to get in the LAV. “We’ll blow it from fifty meters back.” The team complied and soon they were backing up.

Seyfert pulled what looked like a small hand-held radio from his tactical vest. He looked at Androwski. “Boom?”

“Boom.”

Seyfert flicked a red safety switch up and moved a silver toggle switch down. A loud popping sound came from outside, and Androwski called to Stark to open the door of LAV One. The team got out and examined LAV Two. The rear hatch was bent and burned and hanging from one hydraulic piston, but what really drew their attention was the occupants that slowly stumbled from the rear of the vehicle.

Martinez came out first. The front of his T-shirt was stained crimson, as was his bandaged arm. His face and neck were a dingy gray, and his eyes were blood red. Cole followed and he looked worse. There were huge chunks missing from the meat of his neck, and the right side of his face had been savaged. Everyone raised their weapons, but Androwski and Rick stepped forward. The live men looked at each other, nodded and then raised their rifles. Two quick reports followed, and the dead men collapsed.

The rest of the team walked up to their dead friends. “Martinez must have died on the bench and then attacked Cole,” Seyfert said. “See? He’s not bitten but Cole is. We didn’t know how bad off he really was, but who dies from a damn broken arm?”

Rick got down on one knee. “Sorry Pabs. Nobody deserves this.” Rick closed his friend’s eyes with a gloved hand. He stood again. “We need to bury them.”

Androwski looked at his shoes, “Rick, Boone might not have that kind of time. We need to hump the ammo from Two to One, and get back there for him. We can move them,” he indicated the dead men, “to the side of the road and cover them, then we can come back.”

“We did that damn plane fer nothin’, Boone is by hisself too,” Dallas said under his breath.

Rick nodded in the negative. “We did it for our friend, and I wouldn’t do it any different for any of us. Boone wouldn’t have it any other way either.”

“Yer right on that, Hoss. Let’s go git ‘that tough bastid.”

“Lieutenant,” a deep voice came over the radio, “I’ve got movement in the woods on the thermals. My door is open and I’m lonely.”

“Roger that, Stark. Everybody saddle up.”

Rick, Dallas, Androwski and Seyfert dragged their fallen comrades to the side of the road, and then helped the others wordlessly carry the extra ammo back to the undamaged LAV. Rick made sure to take Martinez’s SR25 and all its ammo as well. “What about the other guns on LAV Two?” asked Chris. “Shouldn’t we take them?”

The Bushmaster is too big,” Androwski told him. “We could strap the barrel to the outside of this rig though, and we’ll definitely come back for the LMG. Let’s roll, Stark.”

“Solid copy, Lieutenant.”

The light-armored vehicle rumbled back toward the airport.