DUSK 2
The chopper had disappeared three hours before, but the gunmen on the rooftop remained tense and alert. Until a half an hour before, Sam had been shifting between the roof and third floor, taking reports, giving orders, and checking in on everyone. Though she’d left the situation under Sam and Frank’s control, Catherine stayed at the rooftop with a rifle and a small duffle bag filled with medical supplies. Frank had been put in charge of the lower floors, where every automobile had been prepared to make a hasty exit if the need arose, and the guards were on higher alert at the doors and windows.
Although Helen had been in similar situations, giving orders and advice to troops up to fifteen years older than her, who she had not known for even two days felt strange. She wondered how the attack would come. She’d never shot down a helicopter, but had studied accounts of those who had. If the need arose, they could probably counter a small air strike, but she doubted the chopper would be used in the assault.
Air travel was a quick and easy way to gain reconnaissance and mobility, but aircraft were not as commonplace as cars, and not everyone knew how to pilot one. Jeeps, trucks, and other automobiles were more expendable. She expected a sniper attack from a chopper accompanied by an artillery strike, based on how they attacked the colony.
Her eyes moved to Jack, who kneeled behind a fifty caliber machine gun, which was inefficient against the undead unless aimed at a dense crowd, but would penetrate light armor. He saw her glance.
“Do you think they’re coming back?” he asked.
“Do you have to ask? When he does, I don’t think we’ll like what he brings.”
Jack was shaking and an uncertainty filled his eyes and quivered through his lips. She hadn’t seen him this scared when he’d faced an army of homicidal maniacs only days before. She moved closer and took his hand.
“Look, whatever they have, I’m sure we can take it,” Helen lied. “When this is over, you should give me a tour of your home town.”
Did I just say that? Helen thought, feeling a blush flood her cheeks. She’d subdued herself when they first met, and hadn’t thought about flirting since they found the colony deserted and breached, but the words had come out before she knew how she’d answer his statement.
Jack looked out at the distance as though he wasn’t sure how to answer. His shaking grew worse. Instead of pressing the matter, Helen let go of Jack’s hand and turned her eyes to the troops stationed on the roof.
*
As a low ranking and inexperienced guard, Ted was both expendable and interchangeable, which came with advantages. Since his roll was a blazing gun and messenger, he’d changed stations with Roy who had been stationed at a triage window. Before taking his station, he’d made sure Erica had her twenty-two caliber pistol and that it was loaded. He’d told her to stay away from the windows and to get on the floor below her bed if she heard shooting.
“Maybe they didn’t see us,” she’d said.
Though he hadn’t told her otherwise, Ted knew that if a chopper came out a long distance in search of people, it would not miss a building full of them. He also never mentioned his fears about what raiders might do to Erica if she didn’t force them to kill her.
For the past hours at his guard station, Ted had felt his girlfriend’s eyes lingering on him. At the moment, he felt her hand on his back.
“You shouldn’t be up.”
“Nobody’s shooting yet.”
“That’s not what I mean. You should be saving your…”
“I have a broken arm. I’m not crippled.”
She sat on the floor, with her back to the wall so she could have a view of Ted’s face.
“Where’s your piece?”
Erica slid her hand behind her back, pulled the pistol out, and set it on the floor beside her thigh.
“If they can get in here, I don’t know what good that thing will do.”
“I’ll feel better if you have it and I’d feel a lot better if you weren’t right next to the window.”
“How the hell do you think I feel? I’m sorry if it doesn’t make you feel good, but I can’t lay in that bed and wait for you to be shot right in front of my eyes!”
She looked away from his eyes and fought back tears. She lost.
“I don’t want to be alone. If we have to die, we’ll do it together.”
“We’re not going to die.”
“Then why shouldn’t I sit here?”
“Should I tell Sam that he’ll have to kill us both?” Ted groaned.
Erica’s frown broke and she giggled as if Ted had locked her ankle in a foot nelson and tickled the soul.
“Maybe we can put our heads together so we can share the bullet.”
Ted relaxed and put his arm around Erica, careful of her injury. The medical unit would make a perfect target for a strike, but they had no way of knowing where it was in the building. Logic might even suggest that it was on the first or second floor to ease mobility, but they’d set up the hospital on the third floor because it was the most secure. There were two floors of guards and potential obstacles on the staircases between any ground invaders and the injured. If there was a lucky guess and they fired a rocket at Ted’s position, then there would be nothing he could do. It was better to let his guard slip a little than frighten Erica.
“My God!” shouted thirty-four year old officer named Kyle, who’d been too transfixed by the horizon to watch the men under his command. “Look out there.”
Erica’s good arm slipped around Ted’s shoulders and tightened as three dots with spinning blades moved closer from the sky.
“Erica, get down and stay down, no matter what happens.”
“No, I want…”
“Do it and don’t argue with me.”
As soon as she did, the whipping of motorized blades drifted over the undead moans and chatter of patients and nurses whose eyes were now locked on the grey sky.
*
“Three choppers?” Jack marveled. “Who the hell are we dealing with?”
“They’re not accompanied by any ground ordinance and they aren’t moving in at a kill speed. I don’t think they are going to hit us yet.”
“Let’s hope they don’t hit us at all.”
Sam dashed through the doorway with a rifle in one hand and a pair of binoculars in the other. He kneeled next to Jack and Helen’s position and gazed at the choppers. She repeated what she had just told Jack. Attempting to maintain a professional air of indifference, Sam handed the binoculars to the nearest officer.
“If they aren’t here to attack us, then what do they want? Why did they wait to contact us until after we were trapped in these buildings?” Jack asked.
“Let’s wait and see what they have to say. I don’t like it, but they know where we are and have the resources to risk three helicopters on one mission. I don’t think we’d stand a chance if they just wanted us dead.”
Sam stood and cupped his hands over his mouth.
“Don’t shoot unless they fire first!”
He then kneeled, and aimed his rifle, ready to fire at the first sign of trouble. All chatter stopped, and all guns were raised. Below, the undead did not notice the commotion and continued their attempt to claw through the walls, save for the two ghouls who were playing catch. Jack’s hands tightened over the fifty caliber gun. His shaking finger almost yanked the trigger, signaling an early start to the fight, so he moved his hand down the handle. He continued aiming as the choppers moved in.
They might not be here to attack us, he thought.
A trickle of sweat rolled down his forehead and into his eye. As the choppers flew into firing range, the sound of their blades no longer drifted over the undead, but over powered their groans. A few of the ghouls at the edge of the crowd stared at the sky, but most continued their usual pounding and moaning. As the choppers continued to grow, Jack tensed. He wondered if he was supposed to shoot at the blades, cockpit, or gas tank, then realized that he didn’t know where the gas tank was. He’d never seen a helicopter that wasn’t a charred wreck in a field or the streets.
When the formation was less than two hundred yards away, the two points on the outside of the triangle veered further outside to cover more of the building, while the chopper in the middle held its course. It stopped twenty yards away from the rooftop, without firing a shot.
“We mean you no harm,” said a voice from a loud speaker. “We wish to send a representative to speak with your people.”
The gunmen on the rooftop held their ground.
“I don’t think we have much of a choice,” Sam shouted over the whipping blades.
The helicopters were fairly small; no good for much else but reconnaissance, but Jack wasn’t sure that it could land on the rooftop. Sam ran around barking orders at some of the roof guards. After leaving each group, the soldiers filed down the stairs. When his rounds were over, Jack, Helen, Sam, and two officers were the only guards left.
“Go to the doorway,” Sam instructed and the four troops followed.
From the huddle, Jack watched the middle chopper land, while the others circled the building. When the chopper landed, then blades continued their whirl, perhaps keeping the vehicle ready for a quick escape.
The door opened, and three passengers stepped out. The last one off looked back, and gave a slit throat motion to the pilot and the engine stopped. All three men wore blue uniforms that buttoned in the front, and looked somewhat dressy, but utilitarian at the same time and navy blue in color. The men each wore a holster, but none carried a rifle. Their boots were black and shiny, but looked as though they were constructed for running through the woods, kicking down doors, and stomping skulls. None of the men wore a hat, and their hair cuts were all nearly short enough to meet military standards.
“Who’s in charge here?” the man who ordered the engine’s deactivation asked.
Sam stepped forward, eyeing the other two men, then drilling his eyes into the other man’s set of blues.
“My name is Grant Sobczak, and these men are Vincent Chambers and Lou Sanchez. Is there somewhere we can talk?”
*
After leading the visitors to the war room, Sam posted guards to keep them inside, and told them not to tell the newcomers a thing. He’d left Frank in charge of the guard, after telling him to forget everything he knew about the expedition. He didn’t want to tell them anything unless he knew Sobczak and his men were friendly or if he could use their find as a bargaining chip.
When Sam found Catherine, he huddled with her, Jack, and Helen.
“Listen, we don’t know anything about these people and I think it’s pretty funny that they showed up when they did. Let’s not mention the mission. If they ask, we came back empty handed. Tell them what we told Franklin.”
Everyone nodded.
Unlike before, every eye was on them as if the fellow refugees thought that their comrades in the huddle had summoned the choppers themselves. As they moved from the medical room, Sam spotted Ted Wendell holding his girlfriend. His eyes then moved to Phil Harker, who held an open Bible but did not attempt to look like he was reading. Helen shivered and quickened her retreat from the room. When they reached the war room, Sam instructed the guards to hold their positions.
“Sorry about the wait,” Sam said. “I had to hunt down another delegate.”
“We understand that you were attacked a few days ago. My commander believes he knows who did it.”
Sam pulled a chair out for Catherine, then another for himself. Before Jack could grab a chair, Helen had planted herself in one so the boy took the seat for himself.
“Our defensive wall was damaged,” Catherine said. “There was a rocket attack.”
“We come from a rather large establishment, which had a strong military defense. Ten years ago, our base commander died of a heart attack. Though our leader was the next in command, one of the former commander’s other officers challenged the claim. He’d wanted power for himself, and years of this had driven him over the edge. To call what happened a war would be an injustice, because the rebellion hardly lasted a day. Though we’d captured their leader and executed him for treason, some remnants of his army escaped. They run a guerilla war against us from the outside and have spies in our walls.”
“So why did they attack us?” Sam asked.
“That’s what we want to find out. Right now it’s not safe for you here.”
“What do you propose?” Catherine asked.
“We have the space, so my commander would like to give your people shelter.”
“We have another group…” Jack started.
Sam tried not to give the boy a dirty look, but Helen kicked him under the table.
“Your mistrust is understandable. I assume that you thought we were the ones who hit you the first time when we came around. Maybe you thought we wanted to finish the job.”
As Sobczak spoke, a grin slipped through Lou’s poker face. Sam straightened his posture and rubbed his chin in an attempt to hid his discomfort.
“I have already talked to Franklin and Hunter. They’ve agreed to move.”
Fuck! Sam thought. How could they agree to stay on unfamiliar territory?
Then he remembered their conditions and thought of his own base. Nobody was starving now, but how would it be in a week? Their location was not a secret, and the newcomers claimed that the buildings were not safe hideouts. Even if Sobczak was lying, he was right. If only Sam and a small group of his troops were in trouble, they could disappear. They could live in a rural wasteland or even the wilderness or the shadows of the undead city and remain undetected, but he had over a hundred civilians under his care. Many of whom had not confronted a ghoul in the wild since the dead had stopped resting.
He also recalled the group he’d sent to the other base.
“Have you evacuated the others yet?”
“We are two-hundred miles to the west and there is no way we can airlift everyone. A convoy should be here in less than two days to take everyone back.”