John Holmes - Even Zombie Killers Need a Break

“Anyway our picture should be on the cover of the next issue of Time Magazine. William and Ethan decided to join a PBR crew since IST5 is being reconstituted. They didn’t want to serve under the new CO.”

“No wonder you are going to be making speeches. When you tell tall tales like that.” said Doc, who I did not think was still awake.

“My only question is how did the brass find out you could tell such a fanciful story?” commented Nick.

“Are you guys kidding me? Every word of that was true, beautifully poetic, but true. But I can’t help that I have a Liberal Arts Degree. In fact next week I sail for Hawaii to be the keynote speaker for the recommissioning ceremony for the Battleship Missouri.”

“It was good seeing you again, but we really need to head outta here. We start teaching tomorrow.” Nick said.

“Have you started the PowerPoint yet?” Doc asked.

“Nope.” Nick answered as they walked out.

I asked the bartender “Do you know anywhere I can find pretzels?”

He shook his head no and I walked out. I had to get back home and feed my rabbit. As I walked I pulled out my phone and began typing into the database.

Sex—female

Race—Caucasian

Hair—blond

Eyes—green

Age—20-25

Last known location—Austin TX

Identifying marks—scar on bridge of nose…

The Evacuation of Manhattan, Z Day + 7

Stewart Air National Guard base is a post 1996 relic of a joint Air Force / Army base that sits about 60 miles up the Hudson river from New York City. It was once a quiet regional international airport with a few second rate airlines , a heavy lift C-5 squadron on the Air Force side and a VIP helicopter detachment on the Army side. It was pretty disconnected from the rest of world, and a safe haven for senior military aviators to hang out and ride out the dogs days of the Hudson Valley summer to retirement.

Today, it was the busiest airport on the planet. Air Force heavy lift aircraft hogged the tarmac constantly coming and going. Their heavy engines rumbled the cracked pavement and rattled the Plexiglas windows of the bombed out terminal. LMTVs, HEMMET refuelers and maintenance teams scrambled in chaos like pissed off fire ants on an anthill. CH-47 Chinooks and their deep turbine engines and UH-60s roared all over the airfield, landing at PAX terminals and dropping off survivors from the Evac out of Manhattan.

“Clear two?”

“Clear”

“Rodger Starting Two” I pressed in, and release the starter button on the number 2 engine Power Control Lever.

Jackal flipped through some papers and hands me the mission packet “Looks like today is going to be a long one bro” he says with a smirk. I flip through the packet looking at a shitty Google earth picture of the intrepid. “They get the FARP (Forward Aircraft Refueling Point) set up yet?” I asked as I tucked the mission packet under the steel clip on my knee board.

“Almost, a bunch of Zs broke through the security barricade and overran that bitch, rumor has it the FARP guys stuck a flare in his HEMMET tank before they got waxed” Jackal said while packing a lip with chew.

One of our crew chief’s, “Slim” as we called him, keyed the mike from outside. With the ambient noise of the rotor system heard in the ICS he said “Yeah I saw that shit go down sir, talk about a bunch of fucking noobs…. The explosion was really cool.”

Slim was a bean pole of a SGT, standing at 6’7” he had to wear knee pads behind his gun even with the seat jacked all the way back as his long ass legs stuck into the side of the aircraft. He was a funny dude, he had “WARLOCK” spray painted on one side on his helmet visor, and a “Your mom sends me care” packages patch slapped across the other side. Slim is an avid World of Warcraft junkie with an addiction to blasting Zs, he was an awesome crew chief and could build a Black Hawk from the wheel s up if you gave him an aluminum block and a chisel, as an Wyoming native he grew up toting around a level action 30/30 before he would walk. Our other crew chief, SPC Thompson was as cherry as they come, but a good kid. Competent crew dogs were hard to come by, even at 19 and barely 120 pounds soaking wet Thompson knew how to dissect every avionics component he put his hands on and had the midas touch with the hydraulic system.

I advanced both engine control levels forward. The rotor system roared and the engines whined up in a furious roar and get your adrenaline pumping.

“Alright PCLs going to fly, rotor 100% bro, avionics are good, crew/pax.”

“Secure left rear.”

“Right rear.”

I looked back to see Thompson screwing with his seatbelt.

“Jackal you have the controls on the way out bro, I’ll take the radio calls, swap at palisades?”

“You got it Sir.”

“1-2 this 1-1 you guys ready to hit it?”

CW3 Jim Coffee was chalk two behind us, Jim was one of my most experienced pilots, a test pilot by day and a hippie by night. “Grim Jim” was from out west, up in Seattle Washington, back in Iraq he used to do Tai Chi on top of the Phalanx cannon every morning, and had gotten shot down 3 times as the sole survivor, hence his name. He was flying with WO1 “Buck” Baker, the FNG, fresh out of flight school.

“We are ugghhhhhh redcon 1.”

“Fucking new guys…” Jackal sneered and shook his head. “They always suck on the radios.”

“RodgO Calling tower” I tapped the radio selector switch on my ICS panel “Stewart tower, Voodoo 41, flight of two on bravo ramp, requesting present position departure to the south.”

“Rodger, Black Magic 41 you are clear for takeoff winds, 220 at 15 knots gusting 21.”

Jackal pulled in some power and we took off flying low over the airfield. The gigantic FEMA camp was packed full of civilians in temporary housing, aka the tent city, it was gruesome, piles of trash lay scattered everywhere while people slogged through the mud and swarmed LMTVs throwing out boxes of MRES, the smell of burning human remains and feces hovered over the camp like a pestilent smog, we cleared out of it and rolled down low over the Hudson River.

The whole Valley looked dead, except for the columns of smoke rising over the urban areas. We overflew the Academy: West Point. It was in lock down mode, serving as a Tactical Operations Center for ground commanders in the Hudson Valley, fighting a holding action against the millions of zombies and refugees coming out of the City.

A pair of Apaches circled high over the top of Storm King Mountain, like vultures looking for some Zs to swoop down on. “64 traffic over the point this is voodoo 41 flight of two NOE over the river, we got you guys in sight, we’re no factor for you” I called a courtesy “heads up” call to them so they didn’t shoot near us or hit us when they fuck around and crash, as 64 Pilots love to do. “What’s up voodoo, yeah we see you guys, you guys headed down to the city?”

“RodgO fourteenth trip this week,” I pushed back.

“Good luck fellas, I hear it’s a mad house down there stay safe”.

“Thanks guys, you too. Good hunting.”

Jackal sped up to 150 knots over the water, the brown and grey burbles of the Hudson spit up at us. It was a choppy day, and the ribbons of oil and chemicals were bright and vibrant, reflecting like a rainbow like oil puddles you see in parking lots. We banked hard to the right and Jackal pulled the aircraft into a steep cyclic climb over the Bear Mountain Bridge and then cranked the aircraft over hard on the left and gave her a healthy nose down attitude, BONG BONG BONG! The radar altimeter was going off. Out of the side window I could see the Armored Personnel Carriers parked on either end of the bridge. I could reach out and touch them, almost.