Books of the Dead (Book 3): Dead Man's Land (31 page)

“I’m not sure you’d call it winning,” I said. “We’re still alive.  The big bad guy is dead.  There’s a shitload of zombies surrounding the complex.  Or what is left of it.  The front building is burned out.”

“Where are you and who’s with you?” she asked.

“We’re in the back building.  Russell, Aaron, Jo, and Brother Ed are with us.  Plus a young kid named Thomas.  On top of that we have someone else.” I paused to look at Maggie.  She stood off to the side of our group with her arms crossed, acting like she wasn’t listening, but I was sure she was keyed into every word I said.  “I’m not calling her a prisoner and I’m not calling her an ally.  That is to be determined.”  I paused before delivering the next bit of bad news because I knew it would break her heart, but there was no avoiding it.  I stalled with my next question, though.  “Is everyone with you all right?” 

“Yes,” she said. “The girls and Jason are fine. We have Mr. Schultz and the Benton sisters, too.  It was a crazy ride out of there, but we’re all in good shape.”

“Kara, I have to tell you something,” I said and my mouth went dry.  “We lost Travis.”  I didn’t say anything for the next few seconds.  It must have hit her like a punch in the gut because she was quiet.  I felt the same way.  “He was trying to save a young boy.  There was a bomb.”

I listened for a moment and heard her voice, almost whispering.  At first, I couldn’t make out what she was saying, then I heard that it was a prayer.  I didn’t have any words, so I just closed my eyes and listened.  When she was done, she said, “Amen,” but her voice was choked with emotion. 

“Can you get out of there?” She asked breaking the silence.
              I looked around the group to get an assessment.  Jo, Brother Ed, and Russell concurred with my assessment and shook their heads.  “No, we’re stuck here.  At least for now.  We have a truck, but it’s out of gas.  Maybe we can get some gas to it, but the place is thick with the undead.”

“I could come back for you,” she said.

“No, no, no,” I said. “You can’t come back.  We barely made it through the mob back to the complex.  We’ll think of something.”

That’s when it hit me -- another one of God’s text messages.  Like the one I had experienced before, it was as if my soul and psyche were ripped out my body in an instant.  One millisecond I was in the back loading area and the next I was floating in nirvana, surrounded by flowing white light, warm and cool at the same time, enveloping me like comfortable blanket.  It would have been completely unnerving and disconcerting had it not been for the tranquility of the place. 

The last thing I heard as I was spirited away was Kara saying, “Something’s wrong with Naveen and Jason.  Something’s happened…” Her voice got further and further away, sounding as if she were rocketing away into a deep cave. 

The whiteness was around me and in me at the same time.  If I hadn’t experienced something like this before, I would have freaked out, but the truth was, this place completely inhibited freak outs.  It was an existence of pure serenity and, like the first visit, I never wanted to leave.  Despite my love for Kara, Naveen, and Madison I would have forsaken and forgotten them in a second to stay in this state of bliss.  After all the fighting, pain, and loss of the past months, there was no question about what choice I would make.  In fact, it was hands down easy; Hell on Earth or a tranquil paradise.  Which would you chose?

Of course, I didn’t get to choose as something began to form in the endless whiteness.  It looked like black sticks connected together at first, but then they became clear.  It was a word -- just like before.  The word was NORTH.  I only got one word before and while it was a simple word (TURN), it was a word and action of much consequence.  Had I not heeded it, I’m sure my friends and I would be floating in this nirvana right now.  When I reflect on it, it wouldn’t have been a bad thing, but fate is much like comedy.  It’s all about the timing.

It wasn’t my time to leave the world.  I had work to do.

A rushing sound filled my ears, reminding me of Niagara Falls, and the whiteness dissolved away like melting snow.  The transition back to reality shocked my system and when I opened my eyes, four sets of eyes were looking down at me as I lay on my back.  A distant voice shouted away, but I couldn’t tell what it was saying.  It could have been a different language for all I knew.

The faces quickly became familiar.  It was Jo, Brother Ed, Russell and Thomas.  The voice became clear.  It was Kara shouting over the walkie-talkie.  She was shouting about something happening to Jason and Naveen, but my mind still swirled from the whiplash of returning back to reality. 

Jo leaned down and put a hand on my forehead while Russell picked up the walkie-talkie. 

“Joel, you okay?” Jo asked in a quiet voice, as if she were talking to a sick child.

I tried to talk, but speech eluded me as I made a whispery croaking noise. 

“Did you have one of your visions?” Brother Ed asked.

“It looked like he had a fit, the way he fell over,” Maggie said, somewhere out of view.

Jo shot her a look that must have had some heat in it, because Maggie kept her mouth shut after that.  At least for a while.

Kara’s voice streamed from the walkie-talkie and was loud and clear, now that I was back in the here and now.  “Joel, something happened with Jason and Naveen.  Are you there, Joel?” Her tone was plaintive and frightened. 

Russell pressed the talk button and said, “Joel passed out, but he’s awake now.”

“Naveen and Jason passed out too, but it seemed more like a light seizure.”

I found my voice.  “Ask them what they saw?”

“What?” she asked, not understanding my question.

“They saw something,” I said.  “Ask them what they saw.”

Russell conveyed my question and I heard Kara ask Naveen and Jason what they saw. 

“Hold on,” Kara said.  “Naveen’s still a bit dazed, but Jason is writing something.”

“What did he write?” Russell asked.

I knew what she was going to say. 

“It’s one word,” Kara said. “North.”

I mouthed the word as she said.

We were silent for a few seconds.  I felt myself drift back to full consciousness with the world being a little too bright and the colors too vivid.  Sounds seemed to have more texture as I heard my friends shift their feet and I could even hear their breathing like they were bulls chuffing away.  These sensations reached an apex and, thankfully, stopped and returned to a more normal level. 

Kara spoke over the walkie-talkie again, “Do you guys hear that?”

“Hear what?” Russell asked.

“That whomping noise.”

I rose to a sitting position, but everyone else stood stock still, listening intently. 

The whomping noise reached us through the loading dock doors.  It was a whomping sound, rhythmic and regular, and it was getting louder.  Everyone wore puzzled looks, but I knew what it was and I knew it didn’t mean good news. 

My text message from God was simple, but there was an urgency to it.  A sense of menace to come.  It was more than coincidence that this sound came just after my last blast from above.

I reached up and grabbed the walkie-walkie from Russell’s hands.  I bought it to my mouth, pressed the talk button, and said, “It’s helicopters.”

Chapter 39

The Cavalry

They were a sight to behold, coming in from the west looking almost majestic.  I didn’t have Brandon’s knowledge of military hardware, but they looked like attack helicopters with a menacing and awesome array of firepower.  I think they were Apache warships, but I wasn’t certain.  I’m sure they were featured on an episode of the History Channel’s Modern Marvels Warfare show at some point and I wished I had watched it.  I was just too busy on my XBox to watch such enriching programs.   Not that knowing would have made a difference. 

After I had informed Kara what the source of the noise was, I told her, no matter what, she was to hold back unless I told her to come to us.  The rest of us at the loading dock quickly moved into the back building and rushed to the second floor to give us a better view of the approaching aircraft. 

Initially, they just swept in over the buildings like giant hovering bees in search of a flower.  They were no doubt taking an assessment of the situation and determining their next action. 

For their part, the zombies stopped shambling about and stopped to watch the airshow, transfixed on the flying beasts.  I’m guessing they were wondering if the helicopters were edible.

“What do they want?” Jo asked.

“Are they here to rescue us?” Russell asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” I said.

“Then what do they want?” Maggie asked, her tone sharp.

“They’re after Jason Carter.”

“Who the hell is that?” Maggie asked.

“You know, the less talking you do right now, the better,” I said giving her a hard stare.  She took the cue.

“Why do they want Jason?” Russell asked.

“Because he’s immune,” I said. 

“Why don’t we let them have him then?” Brother Ed asked.

“Because they’ll kill him,” I said.

“You can’t know that,” Brother Ed replied.

“Listen, don’t ask me how I know this, but he’s more important than we can ever know.  Like, save the world important.”

“You can’t know that,” he said again.

But I did.  I knew it as sure as zombies roamed the planet.  Those text messages from God always carried an undercurrent of other information that took time to decode and process, sort of like a subtle background audio track on a song. 

When the world tilted and the dead started coming back to life, something fundamental changed.  Some would call it a new dark age.  The light of the world had been replaced with blackness.  I wouldn’t disagree, but I would say it was more like gray, maybe very dark shades of gray.  Sometimes it was charcoal gray and sometimes it was almost silver, but those silver times were rare.

Others would say that the darkness was the end of our rational age and the start of a new age of magic.  These same people would say it was dark magic. 

Me, I didn’t think of it as magic, but there was a massive sea change in motion.  Things had shifted seismically.  There was no denying it.  Because of the little movies God was sending me, I knew it firsthand that God was in the mix, but sometimes it seemed like He was on the sideline, watching from afar.  I also knew that someone or something was filling the void that God had left open.  And that thing was at work and up to no good. 

I had no idea why God had selected me as His messenger boy and, honestly, sometimes felt like I was being played, but I knew the messages He was sending me were true.  They were as real as the love I felt for Kara.  So, I couldn’t deny God still had His hand at work.  But, I also felt like there was some cosmic chess game going on and I felt like I was just a pawn. 

What I
did
know was that Jason was a bishop, maybe a King.  He was the most important piece on the board and I would do what I had to do to protect him.  I didn’t have any idea of how I was going to make that happen, but I knew I’d think of something.

“Brother Ed, I
do
know that,” I said.  “When they first got him, they experimented on him so viciously they nearly killed him.  Jason told me that he wasn’t the only immune person they had and every one of them had been killed.  He knew he was next.”

“Then what are we going to do?” Russell asked.

“They’re not getting in here with all these zombies around.”

“But we can’t go anywhere, either,” Maggie said.

I let that go. 

“Is there more fuel around?” I asked.

“There’s some in the shed, but that’s fifty feet off the back of the building and there’s a whole hell of a lot zombies out there,” Russell replied.

He was more than right.  The ruckus we had made drew a lot of attention from the undead, with a mass of them teeming in and around the loading dock.  I toyed with the idea of heading out of the front and making a run for the woods, when the decision was taken out of my hands.

The helicopters, which were once floating gently in the sky like butterflies, got angry and brought all their firepower to the party. 

To say it was awe inspiring was an understatement.  I’m sure my mouth fell open and stayed that way for the next few seconds.  Maybe minutes.  They opened up with their big guns, bursts of yellow and orange raining down from the barrels of the weapons, and started churning up the zombies like a tree shredder.  It didn’t matter if they were armored or not, the bullets ripped the zombies apart.  Limbs were shredded off the zombies, sending geysers of blood into the air.  Torsos were torn into pieces as if they were made out of wet paper. 

Knowing no fear, the zombies didn’t run, but looked skyward, transfixed on the birds of prey that circled the complex.  It was as if the noise of the guns attracted the undead as they clustered into the field.  In the shriveled brains of the zombies, noise meant activity, which meant the possibility of food.  Always hungry, they came to feed.  But in this case, noise meant destruction.

“Holy shit,” Maggie said under her breath.  “Holy shit.”

This went on for several minutes as the helicopters strafed the field around the complex.  The pounding of the guns shook the windows in the building.  Zombie blood and guts filled the field, turned the once green grass red.  The zombie throng thinned out considerably after ten minutes, but more rogue zombies, attracted by the commotion, filtered in from the woods.  While one helicopter concentrated on the ones left standing in the field, the other flitted off and took out these newcomers.

It wasn’t much of a welcome, but the zombies weren’t a very welcoming lot, either.

A little warning alarm went off in my head and finally pulled my attention away from the carnage and I looked to the west.  The hill where the burning trucks still sat was lined with Humvees and other military vehicles, sitting and waiting their turn.  An electric wire lit up in my gut and I knew that they meant trouble.

“Hey guys, the ground troops are here,” I said. 

It took an act of will for the others to break their gaze away from the field and to look to the west.  The impact of the military vehicles stunned them as Jo and Russell took a step away from the windows.  I resisted the impulse.

“Holy shit,” Maggie said.  I’m sure she had a more diverse vocabulary, but those recent events must have reduced her cognitive functions somewhat.

“Joel, are you sure these are the bad guys?” Jo said.

“Yes and no,” I said. “They want Jason.  Maybe if I get him away, they’ll move on.”

“What if they don’t like you taking him?” Brother Ed said.

“I’m not letting them take him,” I said. “Not without a fight.”

“Did you see their firepower?” Maggie asked.  “That’s not a fight you’re going to win.”

“I hope to be long gone from here before a fight can even start.”

“How are you getting Jason out of here?” Jo asked.

“Anyway, I can.”

One of the helicopters buzzed across the field, spraying bullets on a small group of rogue zombies that came through the trees.  Zombies and trees alike were shredded, with body parts mixing with falling leaves and limbs. 

“Russell, give the walkie-talkie back,” I said, holding out my hand.  He complied and immediately started talking to Kara.  “Kara, can you get to the old farm?”

“Yes,” she said, but I could hear a question in her tone.

“Greg put a cache of supplies there.  We’ll need that.”

“What are you saying?” she asked.

“There’s not a lot of time,” I said.  “Send the others east and just get to the farm and lay low.  I’ll meet you there.”

“But how are you going to do that?”

“I have an idea,” I said.

“Don’t you always.”

We were back at the dock in less than a minute.  With the zombies sliced, diced, and turned to mush, the field was now mostly open.  A few zombie stragglers shambled about, walking over what was left of their moribund comrades.  The only thing we had to worry about were the helicopters.  Not that they were a small problem.  From their dexterity to their weaponry, they made the zombies look like the Powder Puff girls.

“What’s your plan?” Jo asked as we peered out across the field.

“We need to get some fuel in that dump truck,” I said.

“How are you going to do that?”  Brother Ed asked.

“Very carefully,” I said, trying to keep it light, but no one was in the mood. 
Party poopers
, was all I could think.  “I’m going to the shed, get some fuel and then I’m going to run to the truck and fill it up as much as I can.”

“They’ll spot you in a second and cut you down like a dog,” Maggie said.

“Aren’t you Miss Optimism?” I said.

“I just call them as I see’em,” she said.

“You’re going to need a distraction,” Aaron said.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like me running out into the field towards the woods as if I were going to escape.”

“I can’t ask you to do that,” I said.

“You don’t have to,” he said.  “I’m doing it.”

“Whatever you do, don’t shoot at them,” I said.  “If you shoot and they return fire, you’re toast.”

“I’ll run out of the north building and head for the woods,” he said.  “That’ll get their attention.”

“What if they shoot everything that moves?” Jo asked.

“I don’t think they will, if they want Jason alive,” Aaron said.

“That’s a big if,” Jo said.

“It’s one I’ll take,” Aaron said.  In the past, he had been aggressive, but most of his bravado came from following Brandon.  There was something different and more determined in him now than there had been.  Maybe it was the ‘screw-it-all’ attitude you get from losing someone you loved?  Maybe he just felt he needed to step up?
              “Who’s going with him?” I asked.

There was some hesitancy on the others part, but Jo said she would. 

“I would prefer you stay with Thomas,” I said.

“That leaves me,” Brother Ed said, shaking his head.  “I can--” he started to say, but Maggie cut him off.

“What am I? Chopped liver?  Look at this thing around my neck.  It goes off tomorrow morning and I’m dead anyway. 
I’ll
do it.”

It was in that moment she went from being an enemy to something else.  Ally was too strong of a word, but I felt that we could give her some rope.

“Okay, that’s set,” I said.  “I’ll give you five minutes and then I’m heading out the back.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Aaron said.

“Not quite,” I said, pulling him aside and whispering.  “Do you still have the sat phone we took off that one soldier?”

“Yeah, it’s up in our…” he stopped, remembering that Brandon was dead and his words got lost for a second. “It’s up in my room.” His expression was fixed in a grimace, fighting back whatever emotions nearly overwhelmed him.

“We have the other one at the old farm,” I said. “I’ll check in with that phone to your phone every morning at 6:00 AM if I can.”

“But won’t they be able to track you?” he asked.

“I’ll pop it on and then pop it off as fast as I can.  It’s a risk, I’ll have to take.  And don’t tell anyone about the phone.  Okay?”

“Sure,” he said, then added, “Of course, all this depends on whether I survive providing you a distraction.”

“There is that,” I said.

The event window was closing.  I could feel it as I watched out across the field.  The helicopters glided in the sky around the complex, dispatching the remaining undead with precision and without mercy.   Brother Ed and Jo stood beside me while Thomas stayed beside the doorway and out of harm’s way.  Both Jo and Brother Ed’s expressions were tight and neither spoke as the seconds ticked by. 

A helicopter zipped across the back of the building and we ducked out of view.  I took my thousandth look at my watch and said, “They’re probably in position.”

“Don’t go before they do,” Jo said.

“We may not have time,” I said, but I waited and listened.