Voyage of the Dead - Book One Sovereign Spirit Saga (12 page)

“Molly!  Fred!  Kids!  It’s me!”  There was no immediate response.  But now the helicopter was pulling away, down and around to clear his escape route.  The noise level fell.  Time was critical.  Were they even here?  “Molly!!” he shouted even louder.

“Daddy?!” came a cry from behind him.  He turned and saw his daughter in an open window on the second floor of the house he had built for Mr. Allen. Thank God she was alive!

“Yes, baby!” George bellowed.  “Come down here!  We have to leave right now!”

“We can’t, Daddy,” yelled Molly.  “Fred’s gone crazy!  He’s one of them.  He’s down there somewhere.  I can’t bring the boys down!”

“Shit,” said George quietly.  “OK,” he yelled.  “I’m coming to get you.  Get ready.  If I have to shoot Fred, I will.  If he is one of them, it’s not Fred anymore.  You understand? Thank God you knew enough to stay away from him when he changed.  Just get ready to leave.  I’m coming.”

“OK, Dad,” Molly called.  “We’ll be ready.  But Fred is somewhere in the house, or maybe out there.  Watch out!  He’s like one of those monsters on TV.”

“Don’t worry, Baby,” yelled George.  “I’m armed and I’m coming for you and the boys.”  He moved quickly from the RV to the side entrance of the house.  It was unlocked.  He held the handgun elevated, but at the ready.  With heightened awareness he moved quickly through the kitchen towards the rear staircase.  Having built this house, he knew every inch of it. 

George had thought his building days were over when he moved to Cabo five years ago.  He had sold his construction business and house in Los Angeles to buy a condo and charter fishing boat in Cabo San Lucas.  It was the fulfillment of his dream for retirement and it had been great, for a while.  He became as familiar with running a fishing boat as he was with reading blueprints.  He felt like Nick Nolte’s character in
“Rich Man, Poor Man”
and his wife had never seemed happier.  Then the economy started to tank and his charter business took a nose dive.  After a year of poor returns he decided to sell the boat and return to the construction business.  It hadn’t been easy, but George had worked all of his contacts to convince developers that he would be the best builder in Cabo.  Scott Allen was one of the men who saw the value of having an experienced American contractor build his dream vacation home in Mexico.  It was a decision that seemed very fortuitous for George right now.

Yes, as the builder, George was familiar with every nook and corner of the house.  He knew where every anchor bolt and shot pin had been installed.  The floor plan of the house was like a head’s up display over his vision.  Nobody knew this building like he did.  Nobody could find a hiding place that he did not know, especially since most of the furniture had not been installed yet.  No zombie was going to take him by surprise in this house!

“Shit!” yelled George, as something leaped down behind him from an open access panel in the kitchen ceiling.  He turned quickly and fired at point blank range.  The 357 Magnum hollow point hit dead center on the figure that had dropped out of the crawlspace above the hard lid ceiling.  But the creature didn’t go down.  The man sized beast staggered back from the force of the shot, but then he leapt forward again.  George recognized his son-in-law, Fred Marsh, at the same moment that he fired another round into the familiar face.  This time Fred went down and stayed down.

            George felt himself shaking slightly as he stepped around the body.  He noticed that Fred had been wearing a bandage on his left arm.  Had one of the other zombies bitten him?  George hoped that was what had infected Fred and not an airborne virus that George might be breathing, or that Molly and the boys might have already caught. 

            “Daddy!” his daughter screamed from upstairs for perhaps the third or fourth time following the two gunshots.  He finally reacted to it.

            “It’s OK, Molly,” George called, even though it clearly wasn’t, since he had just shot her husband.  “Get the boys and come down the front stairs.  We’ll go out through the door to the pool.  Hurry!  We have to leave now!”  He felt they could afford the extra 30 seconds it would take for them to avoid coming through the kitchen. It would be better if they didn’t have to see Fred.  George stared down at the body.  It was not a sight that any wife or son of that man would want to have as their last memory of him.

            “We’re coming, Dad,” she called back.  “Is Fred…?”

            “It’s okay.  He’s not coming with us, honey.  Just hurry.”

            “Okay Daddy,” she said with a tremble in her voice. “Pablo and Maria are here with us too.  So is Hector.”

            “Bring everyone and hurry.  Leave everything except weapons, if you have them.  Just move.  Now!”  George bellowed.  He heard feet pounding upstairs and turned away from Fred’s body to meet them in the living room.  Molly came running down the main stairs with little Brett.  Hector Suarez, George’s foreman, followed with Brett’s five year old twin brother, Timmy, in toe.  Hector also carried a sharp looking machete in his other had.  
Good man
, thought George as he nodded at him.  Pablo Mendoza, George’s project engineer, and his wife Maria came down last and fast. 

Thirty seconds later they were all at the RV.  George pulled his keys out of his pocket, opened the door, waved everyone in, and then waved to the helicopter that was circling out over the ocean, apparently drawing any zombies on that side of the mountain towards the beach.  Scott or one of the other men must have seen him, because the chopper banked towards them and rose to provide air cover for their escape.

George jumped into the driver’s seat and fired up the diesel engine.  Reaching above the sun visor he grabbed the remote control for the ten foot high gate to the property.  The RV was already pointed in the right direction.  After making sure that all the doors and windows were closed and locked, George shifted into drive and clicked the remote.  The gate slid open smoothly.  “Thank God for solar power!  Hang on!” he yelled and gunned the engine.

*****

“There they are!” said Mark as he spotted the group boarding the RV parked at Scott’s estate on the hillside above the Pacific Ocean.  “Let’s roll!”

“Rolling!” replied Mick Williams as he banked towards the mountain.  “Looks like most of the freaks are out of the way.”  Sure enough, all of the zombies visible on that side of the mountain had moved down towards the beach as the helicopter had swept back and forth along the Pacific coast.

“Okay,” said Scott.  “Let’s take point for them.  We’ll fly the route over the hill.  Weapons free for any zombies on that road.  Got it?”

“Charlie Mike,” said Mark.  Clint gave a thumbs up.  Mick flew the chopper over the RV as it pulled out of the driveway and the chopper continued up and over the hill at reduced airspeed.  Two zombies came away from the door of a house up the street and moved quickly towards the approaching RV.  Mark was hanging out the side door of the chopper, relying on his safety harness.  He fired four shots in rapid succession.  Both zombies dropped with at least one head shot each.

“There’s another one!” called Clint.  Scott looked down where he pointed and saw a woman open the door of the house and run out onto the road.  She was disheveled and moving erratically but not acting quite like a zombie.  She was waving her arms and swinging her head to look back and forth between the helicopter above her and the RV coming up the street.  Her mouth opened to form what looked like words, not just gaping jaws.

“Hold your fire!” yelled Scott.  “I don’t think she’s a zombie.  Let’s see how George handles this.”

*****

George was glad to see the helicopter fire on the two zombies that ran onto the road in front of him, even happier to see their heads blown open and watch them fall dead – really dead.  But then he was shocked to see a woman run into the road waving her arms.  He recognized her.  She was one of the residents on this street, a young and normally attractive American woman who he had often seen with her older husband during the eight months George had spent building Scott’s house.  Today she looked frightful, but more than that, frightened.  Not the look of a zombie.  She was giving him a look like a deer caught in his headlights.

“Shit,” said George.  “Hang on folks.  We’re going to stop for a second.  I know this lady and I don’t think she’s a zombie.”  He hit the brakes and pulled up next to her.  As he rolled down his window part way he heard her babbling fearfully.

“Thank God, thank God! Help me.  They killed my husband!” she screamed.

“Did they bite you?” yelled George.

“No!  We were going out to the car yesterday to leave for the airport when they jumped Earl.  They killed him!  Tore him apart!  But I ran back inside and locked the door.  They’ve been pounding on it ever since.  I was so scared.  Then I heard the helicopter and I saw them get shot.  And then I ran out and saw you.  Please take me with you!”

“Are you alone?” George asked.

“Yes!  Please don’t leave me here.  Please!”  This required a split second decision.

“OK, go around to the other door.  We have to go right now.”  George had a feeling he might regret this decision, but he still had his sense of humanity intact. 

*****

“What’s he doing?” asked Clint.

“He’s saving her,” replied Scott. 

“Risky,” Mark commented in his patented dead-pan tone of noncommittal voice.

“But it’s the right thing to do,” said Mick with a little passion.

“Yeah,” confirmed Scott.  “I wish we could save more.  George has the right idea.  I just hope it doesn’t get him killed or infected.  The old rules may not work anymore, but I’m glad George is trying to push the envelope.  Every life counts, especially now.”

They watched as the woman got into the RV and it pulled away.  The rest of the road to the top of the hill was clear.  As they crested the ridge, however, things got more complicated.   There were two roads down towards the harbor.  One of them had the overturned car blocking part of it.  The other had at least a dozen zombies on it and they had turned up towards the RV when it crested the hill. 

            George turned the RV onto the road with the overturned car.  He accelerated smoothly towards the obstruction then slowed to a crawl.  The RV butted into the rear end of the upturned car and pivoted it around to make way for the big vehicle to pass.  It scraped by with obvious but superficial damage and continued down the hill towards the harbor.  The men in the helicopter released their breath that had been held in tension and looked down at the rest of the obstacle course to the docks.  There was no way for the RV to avoid the swarm of zombies that were milling around the parking lot along the harbor. 

            “We need to clear a path near the gate to the dock,” said Scott.  “Let’s sweep low and slow to draw as many as we can east, towards town.   Then we can shoot a few in the head to keep most of them there and swing back to the harbor to give close air support when George and his people go for the gate.”

            “Sounds like a plan,” said Mick.  He dropped the nose of the helicopter and swooped down towards the harbor.  Seconds later we they were hovering over a horde of gaping zombies.  Mick worked the rudders and stick to side slip down the quays.  Most of the zombies turned with them and followed en mass.  

            “Good work, Mick,” said Scott.  “Let’s just keep them moving this way.  Down to the end of the harbor should do it.  Then we can swing back to take care of any left by the gate when the RV gets there.”

*****

             George felt the ripping tear of metal in his gut when he plowed past the overturned BMW on the road down from Pedregal.  His RV would have needed a lot of body work, if he cared about it anymore.  Now his only priority was making sure that it got him to the dock.  He didn’t expect to ever see it again after that.  

“Thanks for taking me with you,” said the woman they had just rescued.  “My name is Carla Mathews.  Where are we going?”

            “I’m George Hammer and I wish I could say it’s nice to meet you too.  We’re going to a boat in the harbor and then out to sea, it’s our only chance, Carla.  The helicopter will give us as much cover as they can, but we may need to fight our way to the gate of the dock.”

            “Okay,” said the woman meekly.  “Just tell me what to do.”

            “Follow the ninos when we get out, Senora,” said Hector.  “Go with the women and children to the gate.  Pablo and I will guard you while Mr. George gets the gate open.”

            “Good plan, Hector,” said George as he swung the RV around a corner in the road down the hill.  “But I’m the one with a gun.  Maybe you should open the gate for them.  Here’s the key.”  George leaned back to pass Hector the key just as a zombie jumped out of the bushes.  The RV hit him head-on and George had to wrestle for control against instinct as they drifted toward the hundred foot drop-off on the right hand side of the road.  The front tire dug into the dirt shoulder and the RV swayed over dangerously.  George gunned the engine and felt the big vehicle fishtail towards the abyss.  Then the tires grabbed traction and the RV snapped back onto the road. 
Close call
, thought George.  “Okay, okay, hang on.  This is an E ticket ride kids.”