Jason Campagna: White Ash on Bone: A Zombie Novel

"I say we make run for it," said Jones.

"What about everyone else?" asked Hoover.

"I don’t hear gunfire from back there," Eason said.

"Yeah," said Jones, "that’s bad news." "What do we want to do about the civilians on the deck above us?"

"How are we going to explain to a thousand people to keep their mouths shut?" Hoover replied.

"We can’t," Eason said. He knew he would regret this later. "And I don’t think there are enough of us left to stop this.

"No way man," Hoover said, "I took an oath.”

"How are you going to fulfill that oath by ending up getting killed here?" Jones said.

"I can’t make it alone," Eason said. "But the three of us just might have a shot."

"Ok, say we make it out, then where to?" Hoover said while clearing his M-16.

"Those C-130s are coming from 911th at Pittsburgh International," Jones said. "If we can make it there, we should be alright."

"That’s 15 miles away," Eason said.

"Then I hope you had a good breakfast,” Jones said, “cause your about to burn some calories.”

###

Captain Rick Anderson slammed his radio headset against the metal bulkhead of the Command Stryker. Outside the front window of the Stryker, Anderson noticed the yellow of school buses lined up inside the airport.

“They’re out of their minds,” Anderson said. “We can’t bomb our own people.”

“And our orders?” asked Sergeant Ryan Winters.

Anderson picked up the printout of the orders he had received from Division; they were not marked with a signature.

“Captain Anderson,” he read, “As of 1400 hours, martial law has been declared across the continental United States. You are hereby ordered to abandon all refugees after eliminating all wounded. You will link up with additional guard forces at the Beaver Falls Reserve Center by 2100 tonight.”

Anderson crumpled the printout, “Someone orders a massacre of civilians and doesn’t have the courage to put their name to it. Sergeant, I have no intention of following what I consider to be illegal orders.”

“Sir,” Winters said, “I think the Air Force is jamming communication south of us; it’s all garbled down there now.”

“Have we heard anything else from the C-130s that were ordered to break off from Pittsburgh?” Anderson said.

“Negative,” Winters replied. “The last transmission I heard 15 minutes ago ordered them out of the way to make room for the B-52’s run. The Hercules’ pilots seemed pretty pissed and asked for confirmation twice.”

“Get me those pilots as soon as the jamming quits,” Anderson ordered. “I don’t care what it-.” The noise of a large plane stopped Anderson in mid-sentence. He turned around and looked out the open back ramp of the Stryker. Out of view, Anderson heard the screech of tires hitting the runway and the engines of the plane throttle back. A camouflaged green C-130 raced past his view as it feathered its props to slow down.

“Belay that Winters,” Anderson said. “In fact, go radio silent.”

The C-130 slowed to a crawl near the end of the runway and turned a right U-turn on to the taxiway. The props of the plane re-throttled giving it the momentum to carry down the lane. People moved out of the plane’s way well in advance of its approach. It cruised past the hanger and administration building and moved to the end of the taxiway as if it was about to realign at the end of the runway for take-off. Instead, the plane shut down at the end of the taxiway.

Anderson’s Stryker rolled to a stop as the back cargo hatch of the Hercules opened, and its pilot walked down the ramp.

“Major Sam Warren,” the pilot said as Anderson exchanged salutes with him.

“Captain Rick Anderson. Sir, can I assume you are having radio troubles that you would need to land.”

“Let’s be blunt here, Captain,” Major Warren said. “We just bombed our own people, both military and civilians alike. I refused to move my plane, and my co-pilot was ordered by coded message to subdue me and take over the mission. He complied with his order long enough to move the plane out of harm’s way then turned command back over to me. Our Air Police have orders to arrest us the moment we land back at the 911 th. I am afraid that under the circumstances my crew may be shot on sight. Considering that you are in the same boat as the people that were just bombed in Pittsburgh, I’d rather surrender to you, Captain.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that Sir,” Anderson said. “I have orders to quit this post and abandon the civilians. I was also instructed to kill anyone injured regardless of circumstances. I have no intention of following those orders, Sir.”

“Then what do you suggest, Captain?” Major Warren said.

“They’re going to line us up with a firing squad for sure Sir,” Anderson said. “We might as well make it a conspiracy. What about the rest of your squadron?”

“Grounded,” said Warren, “They headed home and have been ordered to re-fuel, re-arm, and stand by. We can decrypt through the jamming and we heard that there are some problems at the airside of the civilian terminal at Pittsburgh International. Supposedly, a few of the infected made it through security before they expired. The terminal is teaming with the undead. What’s your status here?

“Stable,” Anderson said. “The local government managed to get organized and form a militia to deal with the immediate problems. With what we brought them we could hold out here for months. The problem is we are concerned about what is going to happen to the nuke reactor to the West of us if things go from completely fucked, to no chance of survival fucked. By the way, that’s a nice plane you’ve got there. How many people does it hold?”

“Just under a hundred if we’re not carrying toys like your Stryker there,” the Major said.

###

“You wanted to talk to me, Rex,” Paul Sulla said as he walked up to Rex’s black truck.

Rex noticed that his old high school friend looked tired.

“You look like you need a nap” Rex said.

“Yeah,” Paul said, “I do. But I don’t think I’m going to get one, especially after I heard about that trouble you ran into a couple of hours back. Is there anything I can do?”

Rex looked over at Alison sitting with his wife inside the cab. “I think things are as calm as they can be for the moment,” Rex said. “I’m sure if we’re lucky enough, we might get to deal with the emotional aspects of this in the future. Let’s put that aside for now; I wanted you to meet someone. Paul, this is Mazie. She’s a med-student at a school down south. She’s the reason I wanted to talk to you.

“What about?” Paul said.

“Mazie may be able to help us,” Rex said. “I’ll let her explain it though.”

“I’m a 4 thyear med-student in Pikeville, Kentucky,” Mazie said. I was headed back to school for a seminar when I got sidetracked here. Well, Rex here was telling me about the problem with the radiation, and that we needed to find a place to bug-out to. Pikeville could be an ideal place to go off the grid.”

“I’m listening,” Sulla said.

Mazie continued, “Pikeville is smack dab in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains; it’s a two hour drive to the next biggest city or even an interstate. The population of Pikeville is pretty small. It’s a huge county, takes a little more than an hour to drive through on roads that wind through the mountains.”

“Can we fly in?” Sulla said.

“Yeah,” Mazie said. “They have an airport that sits on top of a mountain about 10 miles outside of town. There are only two roads that cut up the mountain to get to it, and there is nothing around it. The rumor is that the only reason they built it was to smuggle in drugs late at night. I’d say that they really put it there because someone in Washington needs votes from people in their district.”