The Infected Dead (Book 2): Survive For Now (16 page)

Tom asked, “You mean something like a place without naming it and then a distance and direction?”

“Yeah, something like five miles east of that place where we had our picnic the last time,” said the Chief.

“Got it,” said Tom. He pulled out a map of northern Alabama and started studying it with a flashlight. Guntersville had a large number of lakes and caves, and they had gone on plenty of picnics with Molly and her friends.

Kathy was tuning the radio through the frequencies and finally said, “You’re coming through loud and clear, Jean. Is everything okay back there? Over.”

She unplugged the headphones and put her on the speaker so everyone could hear. “I’m fine, Kathy. Tell Ed I love him, and tell the Chief I’m going to kick his butt the next time I see him, so he’d better come back in one piece. Over.”

Kathy said, “They can hear you, Jean. I put you on the speaker. Over.”

“She could do it, Chief,” I said. “Don’t underestimate her.”

He could have laughed, but the Chief knew how to play the game. “I’ll be sure to get us all back in one piece, Jean. I haven’t had my butt kicked in a long time, and I could probably use it. Over.”

“Hi, Aunt Jean,” said Molly.

“Awwwww, hi Sweetie. I miss you already,” said Jean.

Jean also knew when to get serious, and she said, “Your Russian friends are mad, Chief. I saw the deck guns turning back and forth. Were you zigzagging or something? Over.”

“You could say that,” said the Chief. “That bow gun isn’t very powerful, but it’s accurate almost to the horizon. I figured they wouldn’t be able to track us too well on the other side of the trees, but I wasn’t going to fly in a straight line for them and find out if they could hit us. What are they doing now? Over.”

“They sent two Zodiacs full of people over to the houseboat. Did something happen over there that I should know about? The lights are all out, so I can’t see anything through the camera inside. Over.”

Jean was going to be completely safe inside the shelter, but she was sounding more worried than usual. I guess that’s because this was the first time Mud Island was crawling with angry Russians who were probably looking for the Chief.

“I had to punch a ticket for someone they had hiding in the houseboat,” said the Chief. “I didn’t kill him, so they can’t be too mad. They just wonder where I went and probably figure the radar contact they had was me. They also don’t want me telling anyone else where they are. Over.”

Jean said, “I’ve switched all of the cameras to night vision. I forgot they could do that. I can see armed men in the field of every camera except the one at the front door. Over.”

I leaned toward the microphone and yelled over the engine, “Don’t worry, Jean. Even if they find the front door, they won’t be able to get in. Over.”

The Chief added, “That deck gun of theirs would probably sound bad to you inside, Jean, but I’ve seen the specs on that door Uncle Titus had installed on the shelter. He wasn’t kidding when he said it could probably take a direct hit in a nuclear war. Everything else might be gone, but that door will still be there. Over.”

“That’s reassuring,” said Jean. “But I’d rather not find out. Over.”

“Jean,” said Kathy, “we don’t know if they’re listening or not, but it doesn’t really matter. They can’t get to you. Just stay inside, and stay quite. We’ll be back in no time. Just listen for our broadcast. We have to sign off for now and start trying to contact Bus. Over.”

Jean said, “I hear you, Kathy, and bring back the father of my child for me, okay? Over.”

“Will do, Jean. He’s in good hands. Over and out,” said Kathy.

Kathy switched off the radio and looked over her shoulder at me, and it was everything I could do not to get choked up. I could see in her look that Kathy knew what we all did. This was a dangerous thing we were doing for Tom and Molly. It was a unanimous decision to do it, but it wasn’t the brightest or safest thing to do.

The hardest part wasn’t getting away from the island, and the hardest part wasn’t the trip anymore. The hardest part might just be getting back into the shelter now that the Russians were searching the island. If they searched long enough, they would find the door. They might not be able to get inside, but it wasn’t going to be easy for us to get back in with them camped outside.

Tom said, “I’ve got it, Chief. There’s a place where Allison and I were when we got the call from Dr. Bus about Allison being pregnant with Molly. It was during the off season, and I was back home. Our team didn’t make it to the post season that year, so I was back home early. It was a cool day, so we were enjoying the fresh air down by one of the campsites. It wasn’t far from Bus’s property, as I recall.”

“Okay, Kathy,” said the Chief. “You know what to do. If my estimate is right, we should be in that area by two in the morning.”

Tom said, “Not that it really matters, Chief, but they’re Central Time Zone, so it will be one o’clock in the morning.”

“Even better,” said the Chief. “If anyone else is around, I want them to be sleeping for as long as possible while we’re there. Maybe we can drop you and Molly off, top off our fuel somewhere, and be gone before people even know we were there.”

“Hey, Chief,” said Kathy, “you ever consider the possibility that Bus has fuel?”

Tom answered for him, “Bus was always talking about being ready for anything. I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Did he have a plane or a helicopter that you know of?” asked the Chief. “If not, I wouldn’t expect him to have the right fuel. The Otter 3 has a turbine engine that takes a specialized blend of aviation fuel. It’s basically a really pure type of kerosene with additives.”

“Why wouldn’t he have just kept some on site?” asked Tom.

“The stuff is really bad for the environment, Tom. I doubt he could have gotten the permits needed to store it in a cave,” said the Chief. “We’re more likely to find aviation fuel in a truck parked by one of the convenience stores. There are probably a lot of seaplanes used on those big lakes, and the trucks would have to drive down to fill them up.”

I said, “Do you really think Uncle Titus got a permit to have a fuel pump on his island, Chief? I didn’t see any fuel trucks parked out by the dock.”

The Chief thought it over for a moment and looked at me. “Ed, you never cease to amaze me.”

“I lull everybody into thinking I’m not too bright, Chief. That way they never expect much out of me, and they’re surprised when I think of something they didn’t.”

The Chief put on a really awestruck expression and said, “You mean that’s all been an act?”

I was trying to come up with something witty to lay on the Chief when Kathy said, “Hold up on the manhood contest for just a moment, boys. Check out the view outside my window at about three o’clock.”

We all looked in that direction and saw light, and not just a little of it. It looked like spotlights, most of which were facing outward around a series of barricades. I guessed the area in the center of the lights was a couple of miles across in all directions.

“That looks like Fort Jackson,” said Kathy. “That’s the Army Basic Training Center in Columbia. I wonder how they circled their wagons so well. Is that a wall around the entire perimeter?”

“Looks like it,” I said. I had dug through the supplies and had a big set of binoculars pressed against the window. “Can you make out people, Kathy?”

“There’s a lot of activity along the walls,” she said. Then she just added in a low voice, “Oh, my god.”

The Chief was trying to get a look past Kathy, and Molly was climbing into the back to be with Tom. Kathy and I had the best view, and what we saw was incredible. Outside the wall was a series of barricades. Concertina wire, concrete vehicle barriers, spiked personnel traps, and tank traps were spread all around the wall. It looked like each barrier had been overwhelmed one at a time by the sheer numbers of the infected dead.

Once the razors on the wire barricades had become completely full with trapped bodies, the infected started crawling over them. The vehicle barricades had slowed the infected better because they weren’t climbers, but as more and more pushed from behind, the infected began to be literally pushed over the barriers by those behind them. Some were severally mangled by being crushed against concrete, and they didn’t get up and walk toward the walls, but they still crawled. The area in between the vehicle barriers and the final line of defense was a mixture of crawling and walking infected, and the number was growing.

There was a bright flash of light along the western wall, and Tom asked, “What was that?”

“They’re using flame throwers from the top of the wall,” said the Chief. He had his own binoculars aimed at the drama taking place below, and he steered the plane to stay parallel to the base. We didn’t need to pass too close and pick up a stray bullet. Besides, there wasn’t anything we could do to help.”

Kathy said, “Chief, I can’t really tell from this high up, but I think those walls are nothing more than concrete lane dividers like the ones you see on highway construction sites. They’re just stacked on top of each other, and the soldiers are using bayonets between the gaps.”

“Where did they find that many lane dividers?” I asked. I knew it was a dumb question as soon as I asked. “Wait, don’t tell me. Every interstate is under construction somewhere.”

“They probably ran low on ammunition a long time ago and are having to do whatever they can. The flame throwers are probably the most effective things they have,” I said.

As we got closer, we could see that there was a long line of helicopters warming up in the center of the base. Troops were climbing aboard in large numbers, and one by one they were lifting off from the tarmac and banking away to the East. There were clearly not enough helicopters for everyone.

“Kathy,” said the Chief, “we have way more fuel than we need, and we have to give those guys a fighting chance. There’s a knob up under your console. Turn it to the SPRAY setting. Then pump that red lever next to it until you feel it resist.”

Kathy did as the Chief said and began banking the plane toward the base. He turned toward us and said, “I’m going to make one pass as fast as I can, and we’re going to spray those suckers outside the walls with a little high octane hairspray. When the guys inside hit them with their flame throwers again, it should give them a chance.”

We already knew that the infected were drawn to flame, but if everything outside those walls burned long enough, it was going to go a long way toward burning up all of the infected in the area.

“The helicopters could have done this themselves, couldn’t they?” I asked.

The Chief said, “They were probably wanting to save their fuel to get as many people out as they could. For all we know, they may have a regrouping site somewhere, and they’re coming back for more soldiers. We can buy them some time if that’s what they’re doing.”

The Chief lined up the plane with the western wall of the Army base and dropped at high speed toward the dense crowd of the infected that was just beyond the reach of the soldiers. The idea was to wet down the ones coming up from behind those who had already breached the barriers. When they caught fire, it would spread toward the walls and away from them.

When we reached the thickest part of the horde below us, the Chief hit a switch and a fine spray of fuel went out behind us like a crop duster. We reached the first turn in seconds, and he threw the plane into a steep bank to the right. I practically rolled up the wall of the plane, and my face was against a window looking straight down at the huge horde of infected. There had to be well over a hundred thousand.

As we completed our turn and sprayed the infected approaching the northern wall, I caught a glimpse back toward the western wall. Someone had used a flame thrower and the effect was spectacular. The fire spread in all directions and engulfed the infected that hadn’t even reached the concertina wire yet. I yelled at the Chief that it was working, and we all let out a wild cheer.

We could only imagine what the soldiers on the walls were thinking. Many of them were probably just praying that the troop carrier helicopters were going to make it back in time, while others were sure they were going to die. Suddenly, there was a seaplane with yellow stripes coming out of the darkness and passing the front wall, lit up by the flood light and fires, and it was spraying the monstrosities approaching the wall. When a soldier shot out a burst of flame toward the advancing horde, it was like someone threw lighter fluid on the barbecue grill, and the soldiers knew instantly what the seaplane had sprayed. They didn’t know who we were or where we had come from, but more than a few were waving their thanks at us with flags and anything else they could find.

It was probably going to be warm inside the walls of the base, but warm was better than dead. We made our second turn at the eastern wall and then back along the southern wall again. We could see the soldiers along every wall turned toward us with their hands pointing to the right sides of their heads in a perfect salute. The Chief wagged the wings to return their salute as we finished our pass and began climbing again. He flipped the switch back to the off position and turned in his seat to look at us. We were all smiling.

He said, “Damn that was fun. I wish we had enough fuel for a second pass.”

I’m not sure how long we cheered, but it was a good feeling to strike back for once. We were still overflowing with emotion when a brief burst came over the radio.