Mortal: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Read Free Page A

noting wisps of acrid smoke wafting from the rear
half of the wreckage, he said, “How do you expect me to get inside there?”
    “ Improvise ,” Cade said sharply.
     
     

Chapter 3
     
     
    Utilizing the titanium frame like
the rungs of a ladder, Jasper scaled the listing helicopter. When he reached
the top—which was really the helicopter’s right side—he saw a gaping hole where
some kind of a sliding door had once been. He ducked under a drooping slab of rotor
blade, lay flat on his stomach on the warm black fuselage, and stared down into
the crumpled crew compartment. Instantly he was hit full in the face with the reek
of fear-laced sweat and the metallic tang of spilt blood.
    Arms blood-slickened and fighting a losing battle to hold Ronnie
Gaines’ guts in, Cade looked up at the man whom so far he’d only seen reflected
in miniature scale on Ari’s smoked visor. “Jasper, I need you to jump on in
here and start seeing to them,” he said, gesturing with a nod of his helmet
towards the limp forms strapped in across the way. “Check for a pulse, and if
you don’t find one right away, move on to the next person.”
    Jump? Yeah right , thought Jasper. I’m forty-five going
on sixty . Gingerly he scrabbled over the edge, placed his feet on the frame
of the shattered flat-panel display mounted to the fore bulkhead, and then
reached for the neck of the closest of the three still strapped-in bodies. The
second his fingers grazed the man’s carotid, a gloved hand shot upward and
grabbed his wrist in a vice-like grip. Then the soldier—who was clad head-to-toe
in black body armor and matching helmet—opened his eyes and whispered two words:
“What happened?”
    Good question , thought Jasper as he pulled free from
the man’s clutch, and with a flick of the eyes deferred the question to the man
calling himself Cade.
    “I’m certain I heard Durant say “ Bird strike ” and the
cockpit went black just before the helo went lawn dart on us,” replied Cade.
“None of that matters now. How are you doing, Cross?”
    “I don’t think anything’s broken,” the man responded. “Probably
gonna have some serious whiplash. Maybe gonna need a massage when we get back
to Schriever.”
    With a dog-like tilt to his head, Jasper followed the
conversation.
    “We’ve got to make it out of here alive first,” intoned
Cade. He ripped another trauma bandage from its packaging, tossed the blood-soaked
one aside, and pressed the fresh item into Gaines’s abdomen, eliciting a groan
from the ashen general. “Cross, my hands are full here ... you’re going to have
to triage Lopez and Hicks.”
    “Copy that,” answered Cross as he gripped the airframe above
his head and released the harness that had most likely saved his life. Holding all
of his weight with his upper body, he ducked his head around a dangling wiring
harness and lowered himself down, careful not to step on Cade or the general.
Carefully, he placed the sole of one boot on the hand grip of the port side
mini-gun, and then toed the other securely into some nylon webbing hanging off
the aft bulkhead. Then he wrestled his gloves off, reached up and grabbed
Sergeant Hicks’ wrist. He worked his fingers under the glove and detected a
very strong pulse there. He let go of Hicks’ arm, and then, like some kind of aerial
contortionist, or an astronaut in space, performed a slow motion pirouette. Now
in a position where he could reach Lopez, he grabbed a handful of webbing to
steady himself, lifted the operator’s limp arm and wormed two fingers under his
glove and blindly felt his wrist in search of a radial pulse. Nothing. The operator’s skin was cool and slick to the touch.
    With a sick feeling washing over him, Cross released the
dead man’s arm and let gravity take it. As he watched it fall away, a flash of
purple showed between the man’s camouflage sleeve and his tan tactical glove.
Then a conversation he’d had with Lopez prior to boarding the Ghost