Ashes to Ashes (Book 1 of 2) A ZOMBIE FICTION

Chapter 8: New Beginnings

... I pulled the trigger and watched the round enter his skull, shattering it and then leaving through the other side. He went down and I watched as the blood poured from his skull, puddling on the floor.

I saw Josh look up to me, then back down to the body, then at me with a grim but thankful expression. Even the others were in shock from the event, and no one seemed to mourn the dead. Not even the man I had found him with in the store. I kept my sights on the corpse, as if to make sure he stayed down, then returned to the cockpit. 

I hadn't even been paying attention to our course, straight over the Canadian/US border; damn....

That's when the true problem started. I banked the plane back towards our country, then the emergency sirens kicked on, then the plane began dropping altitude. We were out of fuel...

"Shit! Everyone start loading the vehicles! Josh, tie the chutes to the ones you're taking; and take my truck, she'll survive the longest! I'll try to keep the plane in the sky."

We were over the great plains of the United States of America, then I banked to the East. Before long we were at ten thousand feet, then five thousand.

"Alright! We're loaded up and ready, come on!" Josh shouted over the intercom.

"I can't! I'm gonna put her down somewhere, but once I lower the ramp you need to go!" 

We were two hundred feet over a large group of what had been crops, that's when I started dropping the ramp. The landing gears weren't engaging, and the only working electronics were in the ramp. Fifty feet over the ground and I could hear the vehicles backing out of the plane, at that height it would've been uncomfortable, but survivable. The middle of the desert is where I finally came down, right on the side of Route 66...

The plane hit the ground with enough force to rip the left wing off, then I could hear the tail of the aircraft rip itself off as we began rolling in the sand. The only thing to stop us was the last remaining wing. I was stationary in the pilots seat and suddenly the V-22 came to mind as I sat up-side down. 

I struggled with the buckles and eventually got myself down as I heard shouting from the back. I grabbed my gear and fought my disorientation to take cover on the door to the cockpit. The Coalition was searching through the wreckage, looking for survivors.

I gripped my M4 and took aim at the closest one, then fired. He went down with a thud and I took aim at another. The firefight that followed was like out of a movie. Rounds pinging off the steel cockpit as I took cover in a crashed plane that was quickly catching itself on fire.

I peered around my cover and fired two more rounds, dropping another hostile. I could hear vehicles in the distance, Shiiit! These fuckers have more!?

I continued to fire and take cover, then I heard the beautiful sound of a .50 caliber machine gun and watched as hostiles fell. I stepped out of the cockpit and looked out the back to see the two pick-up trucks loaded with gear and weapons with the SUV, Bulldozer, and Miss Piggy not far behind. They had managed to pick the plane clean of anything useful. The only weapons that had been left...were mine.

I jogged out of the back, keeping my hands raised and ran to Babe.

"Alex, you are one crazy son of a bitch! And we love you for it!" I heard Drew yell from the bulldozer.

"Does anyone know where they came from?" I asked as I opened the driver side door of the Ford.

"I saw a camp as we were dropping, maybe there." Josh told me from the passenger seat.

"Point the way."