Day 348 - Untitled Zombie Story Chapter 7.4 - (1,412 words)

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UNTITLED ZOMBIE STORY

By Wayne Webb

Chapter 7.4

A distant buzzing woke Derek up a few hours after; the moon had traveled a long way through its nightly arc and light the area below the cliff brilliantly, where the undead had been gathered it was now emptied completely.  Derek could see nothing of the entire zombie horde that had gathered in a shuffling convention outside the walls.

The buzzing he had heard was getting louder and more syncopated, changing to the sound of memory, the thumping regular beat of a blade through the air.  A helicopter was approaching, he was sure of the noise now and over the low hills he could see the blue and red flashing lights in the sky.

In the months and possibly a year since the Great Zombie Apocalypse he had not seen or heard any air traffic after the first few days. The military had turned out in force to contain the undead, but most of the lessons learned back then were the ones that got people killed, and the military fell apart form within. Derek was always suspicious of why the military fell so quickly and thoroughly, it was like they lined up to lose their lives. Even now Derek still saw Army and other armed forces uniforms on the undead, scouting around, usually in advanced states of decomposition, but not always.

It was too dark to see what kind of helicopter it was, but the gates had been cleared of zombies and this Huey was inbound. He guessed that there was nowhere to land the bird safely on the inside of the walls, so they had cleared a space outside the walls for them to land. He had heard no gunfire, that would have surely woken him from his forest slumber, as would have the sounds of auditory distractions, if it had been loud enough to move that many, it would have moved Derek too.

So they must have had the sound devices too, this was either where Ben or Angela wanted to go, possibly both. Despite the underlying animosity, they obviously had some need in common or why else would they be holding each other to some kind of ransom or Faustian bargain? He could surmise all day but with the zombies out of the way this was the best time to assault that wall, there was certainly more than one easy way in, they were only keeping out the undead, not anything with an active brain.

The slope downhill caused him to stumble more than once in his haste, yet he was never seriously injured, just more concerned about getting to the walls before the undead returned. The chopper was getting in closer and closer, and it would land long before he got to the gate, but he was aiming for the land closer to the hill, the steep draw an the open field that showed him the way to a series of handholds built into the outside, intentional or not, he figured he could scale them if he got there in time.

The floodlights lit up an area for the helicopter to land, and Derek was headed well away from that spot, heading in a long curving arc towards the wall and avoiding even a few extra rays of light that might give him away, sprinting hard out for the protection of the wall, wanting to get off the ground as quickly as he could.

As he reached the wall and grabbed the first handhold he felt a slumbering giant wake in the walls and the vibration started shaking the grip he had on the cross beams he was trying to climb on to. Further along the wall that vibration turned into a groaning and creaking noise as the city gate ratcheted open so very slowly, testing his ability to hold on only a few feet off of the ground. He lost his grip and fell backwards with an audible thud that only he could hear this far away from the thudding helicopter blades.

He watched the gates open the whole way and stop, and then looked how far he had to climb. It took about a minute to open the gate and bring it to a stop, and the helicopter was still spinning its rotors on the ground. If he climbed now he needed to get to the peak or to the safest spot he could find, before the gates started to close again and risk throwing him from a much further height to the ground.

The helicopter was slowing down and he heard the door clack open it’s release to give him the starter’s pistol he was waiting for. The crew took its time getting the passengers out and in the amount of time it took them to assemble on the grass Derek was already half way up the wall and confident of his ability to make it to the top.

Then made the mistake of looking of his shoulder, and he saw the passenger on the stretcher. He stopped in mid reach for the next handhold and just hung there unable to believe his eyes or his luck, good or bad he could not say.

“James?” he whispered and then held his tongue, there were guards on the towers and while they may not have heard that, it was stupid to give away his position when they were wheeling in his unconscious brother on a stretcher.

Unable to move without seeing his state, without knowing what they were doing he gripped hard on the handholds and turned to face outwards, keeping his head and eyes focused on the man he would recognize even at this distance, his last remaining relative, not as safe and secure as Ben had promised at all.

They carried him towards the gate; there were six men and a woman all accompanying him in the trek towards the gate. They got within a few dozen feet when it dawned on Derek that he had made zero progress and squandered the lead he had on scaling the gate. Now they were almost on it and the gate would be shutting soon.

Quickly he clambered as far as he could but he was making slower progress the higher he got, the more his arms burned in exhaustion. The energy expended in holding himself in place facing outwards had burned away the energy stored in his arms and now there was no reserve left except that which was being generated by fear and adrenalin.

The top was a few feet away when the pilot of the helicopter ran through the gates and back to his bird, carrying some bags and a rifle slung over the back of his shoulders and as he cleared the space the terrifying sound of the gates closing started up again in earnest.

Derek had nowhere to go but up and the vibration was even stronger than it had been at the ground level, his arms and legs were being tormented by the lack of stability and the rumbling was magnified this far up the wall.

He had to make it to the top, the only other option was now falling and he was sure he would not survive the fall from this height. They had made a pact, he and his brother, that if one of them turned then the other would do what was necessary to prevent the living death that followed after the GZA. It did not matter how you died, if you died you were infected and it was a shuffling afterlife of violence and blood for you. They had no idea if the zombies were able to feel or know what they were doing in that undead state, but they also had no intention of finding out.

One foot gave way and he pulled hard on both hands to go up a few more feet on the fear of falling alone. The gate was getting close to closed, and the roaring of the gears meant that the hard shudder that rippled through the walls was coming, the hard reverse of what happened when the gate opened.

He had a strong foot hold now and the top edge was maybe two feet away, a leap was going to be hard and unlikely, but there was no choice.

The slamming shut and the earthquake-esque movement of the walls hit home just as Derek closed his eyes and committed to the jump, his arms outstretched grasping for the lip.