Jeff Hirsch - The Darkest Path

Our trio of helicopters pulled away from Waylon, but the destruction didn’t stop. The sun came up, bloody and dim, through clouds of black smoke that rose from town after burning town. The Path may have come for Waylon, but they clearly weren’t stopping there. Nat stared down at the scene below, unblinking.

The pilot’s voice came through the static of our headsets. “Nat?” he said, turning back to us. “Hold on, I’ve got your dad. Billy, go ahead.”

One of the other helicopters rose beside us, a reddish dawn gleaming off its silver side. I could just make out Nat’s father through her window.

“Are you two okay?” he asked over the radio.

“We’re fine,” Nat shouted into the mic. “What happened to the hospital? Did they get away?”

There was a pause and a burst of static.

“Dad?”

“Honey, we don’t know. We can’t seem to raise anyone down there.”

“Have the Feds come?” I asked.

“Word is there will be reinforcements, but no one knows when. Sounds like there are battles going on everywhere now.”

“Where are we going?”

“We think we can make it into South Dakota. We haven’t heard anything about—”

His voice cut out and the line went from static to hurried voices all talking over each other.

“Dad?”

“—we have to turn, we—”

There were heavy booms below us. Our helicopter shuddered and pitched left.

“What’s going on?” I shouted up to the pilot, but he was too busy with his controls to respond. The helicopter next to us wavered, dropping out of sight before surging up again.

“Dad!”

A string of explosions thundered and then Nat’s father’s voice returned in our headsets.

“Don’t worry — we’re just going to climb to get away from this,” he said. He pressed closer to his window, one hand on the glass. “This will all be over soon and then we’ll—”

There was a roar behind us. “Up!” someone cried. “Up! Pull up!”

Nat’s father turned to us, his wide face framed in sandy hair, his big hand pressed against the glass like he was reaching out to her.

“Dad!”

Nat threw herself against the glass as the helicopter next to us erupted in a wall of fire.

The shock wave sent our chopper reeling, until the pilot somehow righted us again. Warning sirens screamed through the cabin, and the air was thick with smoke streaming in through gashes in the windshield. The smooth turn of the rotors above now sounded labored, straining, then slacking, over and over.

Nat was sitting limp in her chair, the shaking of the helicopter rocking her like a doll. I grabbed her chin and turned her to me. Her eyes were wide and there was a smear of blood on her forehead.

“Are you hurt? Nat?”

She tore away from me and drew her knees up to her chest, hugging them close and letting herself fall onto the side of the chopper. Bear was cowering on the floor beneath me but he looked unharmed, so I popped my harness and leaned forward into the cockpit.

The pilot was wrestling with controls that jerked and shimmied in his hands. Dials were spinning wildly.

“Can I help?” I screamed over the blare of the sirens, but it was like I wasn’t there. I pushed myself farther forward and saw that the dash directly in front of the pilot was covered in a dark slick of blood.

Windows were smashed, and there was a long gash on his left side. Blood covered his hands and was pooling in his lap.

The air shuddered with explosions all around us.

“Strap in!” the pilot yelled.

Once back in my seat, I dragged Bear up into my lap, pulling the harness over both of us and fastening it tight. He struggled and whined, but I just pressed harder. The ride grew wilder by the second as the pilot struggled to keep us in the air as long as he could, constantly pulling us up out of sudden plunges while the helicopter pitched from side to side. The world outside the window spun madly and the smoke inside the cabin grew thicker, choking me and burning my eyes. The warning sirens screamed on and on.

I spared a look at Nat and she was terrifyingly still, huddled up like a child, not lifting her face from between her knees.

“We’re going in!”

The engines strained one last time and then a sea of green came at us from below. I grabbed Bear and held on as we went belly first into a stand of trees. Everything in the cabin pitched forward, loose bits hitting the windshield like bullets and smashing the glass. The belt around my waist cut into my middle and I screamed out in pain. Bear howled but I refused to let him go.

The helicopter tumbled onto its side, momentum carrying it through the trees, their limbs slamming into the helicopter’s steel hide over and over, sending body-rattling booms through the space around us. Glass shattered and metal tore. Nat began to scream, long and high. The still-turning rotors snapped as they tried to cut through the assault of trees.

When we finally came to rest, I lay over Bear’s body, panting, arms aching, but too terrified to move. He was still, but his heart thudded heavy against my thighs. There were a few metallic groans as the helicopter settled into place and then it was astonishingly quiet. Even the distant booms of the war were wiped away.

Every muscle in my body burned as I sat up. Nat was breathing but unconscious. A gash dripped blood down one arm. The window next to me was shattered by a heavy bough. What remained of the window was splattered with blood. I let go of Bear and touched my cheek. My fingers came back stained bright red.

I unhooked the belt around my waist and eased Bear over between me and Nat. He went to her, his small legs unsteady, sniffing at her neck and her torn arm. I grabbed the edge of the front seats and pulled myself forward into the cockpit.

The pilot was unconscious, hands at his sides, slumped against the harness across his chest.

“Hey,” I said, unnerved by the sound of my own voice breaking through the silence. I pushed at his shoulder. “We gotta get out of here.”

He didn’t move, so I dragged myself up farther into the passenger seat.

“Hey.”

I turned his head toward me and that’s when I saw a shard of glass as big as my hand buried more than an inch into his throat. Blood, thick and black, covered his chest. I don’t know how long I sat there staring at him. I didn’t seem to be able to move until Bear’s whine turned me around.

His paws were up on the helicopter’s door, scrabbling to get out. I looked into the sky behind us, and even though it was clear now, we couldn’t afford to wait around. We had to move. Nat was still unconscious, so I reached over her to force her door open. Bear jumped out first, stumbling when he hit the ground but quickly righting himself. I followed, crawling over Nat, then leaning back in to undo her harness.

She moaned. Her head, bloody from a spray of glass, lolled to one side. Her eyes opened, surveying the damage around her.

“Can you move?”

Nat looked at me but said nothing. Twin sonic booms split the silence above the tree line as two fighters streaked past. I dug one arm behind Nat’s back and the other beneath her knees. A knife of pain shot through my busted wrist, but I lifted her up and out of the helicopter anyway, easing her weight onto my chest.

I got us away from the helicopter, then set Nat down at the base of a hill. The forest seemed to stretch out endlessly on all sides. Were we in Wyoming still? South Dakota? I squinted up into the sky, hoping to orient myself off the sun, but a blanket of gray clouds were in the way. Without knowing north from south or east from west, I could walk us right into the Path and not have any idea until it was too late.