The Common Cold (Book 2): A Zombie Chronicle-Cabin Fever (12 page)

“Behind us!”
Chuck shouted. The
herd that had led the hunters away from the cabin had rounded the corner and
appeared to be rushing as fast as their frozen joints would allow, groaning
their ecstasy at their impending success. Even in his shaken state Danny could
sense the throng’s lust for warm food. Tom and Danny began thinning the herd
coming from the rear while the others finished up the frontal assault.

“I’m out of ammo,” Rob said, drawing his machete. He stood
his ground, waiting for any that might get past the two man enfilade at the
rear. With no more zombies between the men and the hut they all turned to
concentrate their remaining ammunition on the now-decimated group coming down
the road. After a few more well-placed shots, the field of fire went silent as the
last targets collapsed, inert.

“Jesus,” Tom sighed as he realised it was over for now.

“I never dreamt they could do this,” Chuck said, surveying
the scene of carnage they had just created. The women came out from the cabin, stepping
gingerly over the dead. Danny heard instructions to the kids to stay inside and
look after Oskar. Nice bit of reverse psychology, he thought.

Janet ran over to Danny and into his arms. “I thought you
were going to die. Are you alright?” Those around him stiffened at the
question, realising what even a scratch might mean.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry. Whatever it is just landed on
me rather heavily, that’s all.”

Janet started looking closely at his exposed skin but found
nothing. There was a gaping tear in the down filled jacket he was wearing;
fluffy feathers were making their way out of their once neat confine.

“What was that thing, anyway?” Tom asked. They gathered
around the creature. It appeared to be some sort of mountain lion. It was big. Chuck
leant down and pulling off a glove, felt its body.

“It’s warm so it hadn’t turned.”

“Maybe it was just scared. With these things around I bet it
was pretty edgy,” Danny suggested. He was rubbing his chest where the great
animal had collided with him at speed. There would be significant bruising but
at least you had to be alive to bruise.

“I would have thought it would steer clear of people with
guns,” Rob countered. “Animals around here must understand the hunter, I’d have
thought.”

Chuck was checking out its mouth, and sighed. “I think it
has tried to eat one of those rotting creatures. I can see dark, greenish meat
between its teeth.” He poked a finger at some of the detritus and smelled it.

“
Ew
,” Sandy said, horrified.
“That’s nasty. Don’t tell me you’re one of those people that will eat dung to see
how fresh it is?”

“I might if I had to,” he replied, smiling and enjoying her
discomfort a little. “Definitely from one of
these
devil-spawn.
It smells very much like old, rotten meat.”

“Damn,” Tom said, “I hope whatever this thing is can’t cross
the species divide. Or we’re f…, sorry, in trouble.”

“It hasn’t turned,” Chuck stated, having pulled open its now
closed eyes, revealing normal irides.

“Okay. Whatever the problem, let’s just scour the area to
make sure there aren’t any more surprises in store,” Danny suggested. “Perhaps
we should have done this yesterday.” Nods of agreement all round; hindsight was
a wonderful thing to possess; still, they wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

“I need some more ammo first,” Rob said.
“Nothing
more useless than a gun without bullets.
Anyone else need anything?”

Replenishing their ammunition, the men went back out. Before
widening their search for more zombies, they confirmed all those in the field
of battle were dead. The occasional shot rang out as they discovered a
survivor, but not from Rob, he had taken to using the machete instead of
bullets; probably a good way to vent steam, Danny thought.

Agreeing a plan to search the area, Danny looked up as he
felt the first snow flake land on his forehead. They wouldn’t have long before
their search would have to be called to a halt. At least a heavy snow fall
ought to protect them.

BB had trouble not smiling, to the extent that his cheeks
were beginning to ache. He really couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so
goddam happy. All that pent up desire to get back to Kimberley in combination
with the sheer effort and emotion of it, made him suddenly feel thoroughly exhausted
while at the same time over the moon. Now it was time to try and think
straight. He had promised his friend and colleague, Tom Morgan, that he would
return to the cabin although he knew that both he and Kim definitely hated the
cold that going back would land them in the middle of. Still, at least he knew
the group and liked them. That was more than they had here, people would be the
only constant and hope for the foreseeable future.

“BB, you know I’ll go wherever you are,” Kim said
unequivocally. “Anyway, without the hospital I haven’t got anything here and we
sure as hell don’t have the house any longer.”

BB looked off into the distance; he could also see what was
left of the house from here, at least in his imagination. “That’s a real shame,
I loved that place. Maybe one day,” he said leaving the sentence unfinished. “Well,
I won’t bullshit you,
it’s
bloody cold up there and it’s
probably started snowing by now.”

“Look, just get me some decent clothing and I’ll be fine.”

“Sorted.
They’ve got plenty of
stuff you can use. Danny and Rob, two of the guys in the group, seem to have
stopped and picked up a whole cold weather sports shop so don’t worry about
that. What about you, Emily? Are you happy to come with us? Do you have any
relatives you want to get back to?”

“I’ll come with you. If that’s okay,” she hurried to add.
“I’ve got no-one.”

“Of course it’s okay,” Kim said, putting her arm around the
girl’s shoulders. “You’ve got us now.”

“Thank you. I don’t have anyone else that I can go to. My
dad fell out with his family and my mum’s parents are both dead.” Her eyes
welled up at the thought of her parents and the way they had died.

“This group in Colorado is quite a bunch,” BB explained. “We
have some Brits that got out of England with us, some really nice fellow yanks
and four, sorry, five kids,” he corrected himself remembering saving Cliff’s
young one. “And we have a dog rescued from my plane. We have plenty of supplies
and two helicopters, so all in all we should be alright.”

The young girl smiled a little; at least she would be out of
harm’s way, BB thought, unaware of what was going on back in the mountains as
he spoke.

“Bet you’re glad I kept current on choppers, eh?” he asked
Kim, squeezing her knee.

“And what a big one you’ve got,” she replied coquettishly,
fluttering her eyes at him. Emily blushed at the innuendo and BB held his hands
up in surrender.

“Are you sure you want to spend time with these two?” Zoë
asked the girl, smiling. “He’s a little frightening and so it seems is his
wife.”

“Come on, you lot,” BB chided lightly. “Let’s get going. If
the weather closes in I’m not sure how we’ll get back. Also the GPS is working
for now and I don’t want to push my luck on that front.” The GPS service had
always been BB’s biggest concern. Being predominantly in space, as long as
no-one switched them off from an earth-based station, it was likely they would
have at least six months’ of their use before they became too inaccurate by
which to navigate and then of course, fail altogether. He could read a map and
fly in inclement weather with proper instrumentation, but snow would ground
them if the GPS failed. On top of that the covering of snow would make
everything look the same from the air, making it all but impossible to find the
refuelling dumps under its covering. And that was a fear he wanted to keep to
himself.

“Do you have any food?” Emily asked.

“Of course,” Zoë replied. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”
Rummaging in a heavy duty plastic bag she had thrown on board that morning, she
pulled out some cold sausage sandwiches wrapped in clear plastic bags. She also
brought out cans of Coke; it would quickly add to their energy levels. Those
guys that travelled up from Castle Rock had brought everything but the kitchen
sink. Clearly a woman had thought that out, Zoë thought and smiled.

Emily ate voraciously; it was probable she hadn’t eaten much
for quite a while, perhaps not since the night before with her family. All
she’d had in Kim and BB’s house was a cup of coffee before the creatures had
started sniffing around and making their presence felt. All that pent up fear had
quelled any hunger she might have had, but with the immediate threat gone the
girl fell into the food with relish. So far they had all survived an experience
that taught them that the reanimated weren’t the only threat to their
existence. Survivors might just pose a bigger threat off the back of the
breakdown of law and order.

“Come, on. Let’s get going,” BB instructed. “Zoë, we’ll
refuel at the same place we did on the way down. At least we know where it is
and that it has fuel.”

“We also know it probably won’t have any of
them
around, at least not for a while
yet. It wasn’t exactly in the most visitor-friendly of places. It wouldn’t
surprise me if they hadn’t used a Chinook to drop it in there in the first
place.”

“You may be right.” BB took a deep breath and thought hard.
“I can smell a change coming from the east. That might be another reason for
refuelling there; we may not get much further until the front moves past us.”

Climbing on board, they pulled the doors closed and took
their seats. Zoë offered the left hand seat to Kimberley but BB objected.

“Sorry, love. I might need Zoë’s skills. It’s safer to be
ready for anything right now. This journey is going to be close to eight hours,
I reckon as we’ll have a bit of a headwind. Zoë has shown me she can handle the
bird in straight and level flight. She also knows a few of the systems including
the radio.”

“No problem, I’ll strap in next to Emily.” Kim hugged her
husband. “Just get us there in safety; I don’t care how you do it.”

“Count on it, babe.” Giving her a lingering kiss he pulled
himself away from her side and returned to the cockpit. Donning his bone dome
he indicated that Zoë do the same. Calling back to his wife he instructed her
in how to put on the headsets so they could talk in-flight.

“Right, Zoë. Let’s get this thing underway.” He began the
pre-flight checks and soon the engines began their whine as they started up.
Looking over at the chain-link fence that surrounded and protected the VOR
transmitter he noticed that some Infected had made their way towards the
helicopter but didn’t know how to overcome the fencing. “Maybe we should build
some of that at the cabin,” he said pointing at the zombies.

“God, yeah,” Zoë replied with feeling.
“Anything
to keep those bastards away from me.
They give me the heebie-jeebies. I
thought we were goners in your house. They were everywhere, Kimberley and Emily
wouldn’t have lasted another half an hour. A real eleventh hour rescue and
that’s no lie.”

He looked at her, no sign of amusement on his face. “Thank
you Zoë. You didn’t have to do that, you know.”

“Now you tell me,” she replied joking to hide her
embarrassment at the compliment. Compliments meant someone had noticed her and
that she really didn’t like overly.

“Really,” he replied; he was not going to be deflected in
his gratitude. “I really owe you.”

“Sure. Not a problem, maybe I’ll collect one day. I’m sure
you would have done the same for me.”

BB felt a twinge of guilt. The problem was he still wasn’t convinced
he would do that for a stranger; his gung-ho military attitude had faded with
time away from the services and now he was unsure. He’d do it for Zoë, without
a doubt, but now he knew her so it was different. He focused back on the job at
hand and hauled the big bird into the sky and headed east over the San Pablo
Bay. Across the bay they could see that fires had broken out throughout most of
the city and suburbs, the pall of smoke punctuated by florid explosions. Huge
residential areas appeared to be engulfed in flames, and tiny ant-like people ran
around in panic, cars swerving trying to dodge the pandemonium, not always
successfully from what BB could see. A number of boats, some quite large, were
on fire all across the bay. Around them large numbers of bodies floated,
clumping together like logs being floated downriver to a sawmill, and beneath
the surface it appeared schools of sharks were already making free with the
newly available food source. I hope we don’t end up with zombie sharks, BB
thought idly. Listening out on the radio, he still picked up nothing but silence
and static on the airwaves. The emergency services appeared to have completely
lost control; it was as if they never existed. In his ignorance of the facts, he
thanked God he had been able to convince his wife not to go across the bridge
to work; he would never have been able to find her in that devil’s cauldron
across the water.

Mike Simms had agreed to listen out on the hour on the HF
radio in his helicopter for any messages BB might broadcast. Checking his watch
BB saw it was about fifteen minutes until the top of the dial. He gained height
to improve the chances of reception and was grateful for that fact as the
scenes of horror became more indistinct, the haze preventing them from watching
the worst of it.

“You guys okay back there?” he called over the intercom.

“Now we are,” Kim replied, and after a moment commented on
what she had seen. “We saw across the bay. All my friends…”

“I know. Try and put it from your mind, babe.”

“I should be down there, helping,” Kim replied.

“Don’t be daft. You wouldn’t last five minutes. I haven’t
heard a single emergency broadcast since I’ve been in this bird. And that
includes the journey down. We passed by Salt Lake City and I know we should
have heard something.”

“Okay, point taken, hon.”

They travelled on in silence for a while, each deep in their
own thoughts.

The time to call had arrived and so BB tried to make contact
with the other helicopter. They had agreed on using code names with a code word
for safe and another for danger or coercion. There was no point on letting
anyone find their cabin in the hills without a fight. It was amazing just how
paranoid everyone had become since this world changing event began.

“Searcher calling Mother, come in please. Archer.” Archer
was the word to signify that all was well and they were returning in safety. If
they had been overcome and under duress the word was ‘rejoice’. It would be
easy for an enemy to assume this was a good news word and not the warning it in
fact was.

BB kept on repeating the code phrase for several minutes
before deciding he would give up and call at the top of the next hour. Perhaps
atmospherics wasn’t letting the signal get through; that was what he preferred
to think.

“Mother calling Searcher.
Arrow.”
Relief flooded Brad as he heard the familiar voice. Mike
had heard them after all and had used the counter word signalling that all was
well. BB relaxed. Thank God for that, he thought.

“ETA
approx
eight hours including fuelling.”

“Roger. Eight hours.
Cold front over us
from the east, snow about a foot deep now.
Take care.” The voice
crackled and the clarity ebbed and flowed as the atmospherics played with the
signal.

“
Wilco
.
Understood.
May stop at point Charlie until clear.”
They had also
named the various fuelling points Mike had been aware of and given them new names
so no-one could interpret where they meant. Being in the military Mike was
thorough in his flight prep for operations like this; his pedantic attitude had
saved his life more than once.

“Point Charlie, Roger. Hourly updates as agreed. Out.

“Roger and out.”
BB turned to Zoë
and smiled. “Don’t you just love staying in touch with your folks?”

“You bet. Sounds like you were right about the weather. God,
I wish it had waited another day.”

“So you want
everything
to be easy?”

Zoë just snorted derision.

BB relayed the information to Kimberley and Emily. They had
brought plenty of blankets and a couple of spare coats, so if they had to stop
at the fuelling point it would be a pretty crappy experience but at least they
would all survive for about twenty four hours if that was how long they would
have to stay put. They could always start a fire using the local kindling and
aviation fuel.

*

Mike switched off the radio and made his way back into the
cabin.

“They’re on their way back and they’ve been successful,” he
announced.

This announcement was met by cheers and the mood in the room
lifted. The attack on the cabin and the fact that it looked orchestrated by at
least one thinking mind among the Infected had weighed them all down.
Intelligence in the walking dead, in whatever form it took, would mean that
they would be harder to defend against. The fact that they still seemed to be
at least partially functional when semi-frozen made them a worse enemy than any
of them could ever have imagined. By retreating into the mountains the
survivors had hoped that the weather and their remoteness would see them
through the winter in relative safety. By springtime they would be more
organised and able to cope; right now they were living hand to mouth in many
ways, two steps forward and one step back, and of course that made them
vulnerable to any new threats. It had been a miracle that none of the group had
been lost so far.