Mortal: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Read Free Page B

Hawk at
Schriever came rushing back. He remembered the stocky operator saying that since
the CDC mission during which Desantos ordered him to carry the decaying Alpha
specimen up thirteen flights of stairs, he always wore at least two pair
of surgical latex gloves underneath his tactical gloves. Protects against
the demonio blood , Lopez said as he snapped them on. So Cross reached over
and checked the man’s carotid and felt a strong pulse there. “These two are
alive,” he said, looking about the cabin, “but where the hell is Tice ...
anyone see the Spook?”
    “Could be the body I saw out there—near the fence,” Jasper
said to Cross. “I’m certain that he’s dead. He was pale as a ghost and his eyes
were stuck wide open.”
    “ Dead? Are you certain?” asked Cross incredulously
while holding the compress to the general’s abdomen with one hand.
    “Positive,” the undertaker replied from his perch atop the
wreck. “He’s all contorted and hasn’t moved a muscle since I first saw him.”
    “What happened?” asked Lopez groggily.
    “Multiple bird strikes,” answered Cross.
    Hicks was stirring now. He shook his head side to side and
instinctively ran his hands over his extremities, checking his bones and joints
for fractures.
    Hicks looked over at Cade. “How long have I been out?” he
asked.
    “Just a few minutes, I think,” replied Cade.
    “Did Ari and Durant make it?” Hicks pressed.
    “Durant bought it,” answered Cade. “Ari’s lapsing in and out
of consciousness.”
    “Fire?”
    “Not yet,” said Cade. “Ari took measures.”
    Hicks inched up his visor. “Radios?”
    “I’m sure the shipboard comms are down,” Cade said. “I
already tried the general’s sat-phone ... it won’t power on. And mine’s in my
ruck ... if we can locate it in all this mess.”
    Trying to take this all in, Hicks closed his eyes for a
beat. When he reopened them he popped his harness, bent down and shimmied past
the debris and into the cockpit.
    Cade called out, reminding the crew chief to steer clear of
Durant. Then he checked Gaines’s pulse again. It was very weak and fading.
Gently he eased up on the compress. He dug around in the medical bag and
brought out a syringe filled with morphine, and set it aside. “I need another
bandage,” he grunted as he reapplied pressure to the grievous wound.
    A few seconds after Hicks disappeared into the cockpit he
slithered back out, clutching Ari’s emergency radio. He powered it on and
started sending a silent distress signal which would be picked up by either an
overhead satellite, nearby aircraft—or hopefully a combination of both. Then he
tried to hail Jedi One-Two on the emergency dust-off band. Nothing. “Looks like there’ll be no dust-off bird for the general,” he said, slumping
against the bulkhead.
     “No dust-off,” Lopez added morosely.
    Cross ripped open another clean compress and pressed it next
to the one Cade was holding. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “If I know
President Clay like I think I do ... we’re secondary. She’ll push for the scientists’
safe return before diverting any assets to look for us.”
    “As will Nash and Shrill. They have to. The anti-serum is
more important than any one man. That means we’re on our own for now, boys,”
Cade replied. Then he went on and filled the operators in on all that they had
missed while unconscious.
    “Mierda,” said Lopez. “Tice is dead?”
    Cade looked down and bobbed his head. He unsheathed his
Gerber and, with short precise strokes, sliced through the first half dozen
laces on his left boot which was still inextricably wedged under the general’s
extremely mangled seat frame. He gazed up at Jasper, who, from where he sat,
had a clean view into the cockpit and the cabin. “How’s Durant now?” he asked
through clenched teeth as he twisted and pulled on his leg until finally it
corkscrewed free.
    Jasper disappeared for a second and then returned and said,