900 Miles (Book 2): 900 Minutes Read online

  900 Minutes

  S. Johnathan Davis

  Copyright 2014 S. Johnathan Davis

  For Hayden and Olivia

  Never lose sight of your dreams…wherever they may take you.

  Remember that the journey is far more valuable than the destination.

  We had everything, and our arrogance took it away from us. When the world fell to shit, our lives fell right with it. The dead roam the landscape while Man fights over what little we have left. It wasn’t the strongest or the most intelligent of us that survived. It was the ones most willing to adapt to the new rules of the world. No matter how hard we tried to avoid it, those still alive have all lost a little humanity.

  The Zs may have kick-started our extinction…but we’ll be the ones that finish it. In the end, Mankind has turned out to be the real plague.

  Chapter 1

  My knuckles turned white as I pushed on the flashing instrument panel, bracing for impact. There was a sudden drop in my stomach as the helicopter took the final plunge. I think I was screaming, but it happened so quickly, I can’t really be sure. In the moment before we crashed, I remember seeing the beam from the headlight of the chopper as it got smaller and smaller against the calm, flat water. Glancing over, I watched Kyle’s entire body arch back as he pulled on the yoke in vain.

  There was no stopping this.

  I saw us hit the water more than I felt it. Anything not physically attached in the chopper flung forward in a magnificent fucktastrophy of mayhem. I think the blades hit first and twisted the entire helicopter sideways. A white first aid kit flew forward and cracked Jarvis across the head, shooting a dark splatter of blood across the front window as we continued to turn. Another jarring flip as the tail hit the dark waves flung me against the roof of the cockpit. I felt a stabbing pain in my neck as my body rolled around like a rag doll…my breathing slowed, and the world around me started to fade to black.

  Then there was nothing but darkness.

  In what I think was only a moment later, my eyes went wide as the frigid water slapped across my face. Slowly sitting up, I realized that I was perched on the roof of the cockpit looking up at the chair I had been sitting in. The only light in the cabin came from what was left of the flickering instrument panel, which was now dangling above my head.

  Feeling my ears begin to pop, I clenched my teeth at the realization that we were still sinking. Twisting around to face the front window, I gasped at the sight of water rushing in around the seams of the glass, which for the moment, appeared to be holding under the mounting pressure. Catching my attention, I noticed that the headlight from the helicopter was still on, flickering in short intermittent bursts against the long, standing seaweed as it waved good-bye while we fell further into the abyss.

  Looking over, I saw Kyle hanging upside down from the pilot’s chair. He’d been smart enough to wear his seat belt. Pulling a lever at his hip, the latch dropped him headfirst to the roof of the cabin below. Landing with his arms out, he pulled himself upright in one quick motion.

  Looking over toward me, he finally said,“I’ve had better landings.”

  Nodding wearily, I reached up to find blood dripping down my own forehead. I didn’t know if it was mine, or someone else’s.

  “Jarvis is out, but alive!”Kyle yelled as he pulled his hand back from holding two fingers against Jarvis’s neck.“Where the hell is that gun?”

  We both shot our attention to the cabin behind us. The gun, a small nine millimeter hand pistol, was sitting just out of reach of Rodgers, our fourth and final passenger. He too was out cold, and both his legs appeared to be pinned under one of the seats that had come loose.

  I dove forward to grab the pistol just as Rodgers came to. He looked up at me with a clear sense of terror in his eyes as he realized the situation he was in. Nobody said a word. There wasn’t a sound that could be heard except the ever-present dripping of water as it continued to slowly fill the chopper.

  We were still descending.

  “Get me the fuck out of here. My legs are caught!”Rodgers screamed.

  Looking down at the gun in my hands, a pop from the windshield pulled my gaze just as the first crack started to splinter down its clear finish. We needed to get out of this tomb.

  Rodgers could see what I was thinking.“Don’t you dare do it, John!”Rodgers cried out.“Don’t you shoot out that glass.”

  Glancing back out the front window, I could see the exterior light illuminating the murky water as we gently landed upside down with a thud on the muddy bottom of the lake. The aircraft shifted forward, then to the side, as we all rolled along with it, before finding its final resting place. A movement caught my attention outside. Something had swayed with the current just at the edge of what was visible from the exterior light.

  “What was that? What the hell was that?”Rodgers yelled as he shifted back and forth, trying to free his legs.

  “Shoosh,”Kyle whispered as he cocked his head to the side.

  We all paused in horror with our eyes fixed on the flickering exterior light.

  A thump from above us broke the silence. Freezing up, not one of us moved as a dull scratching noise emerged. It was soft at first, then slowly grew louder.

  “They’re out there, man. Don’t you shoot that glass. Don’t you do it!”Rodger irrationally said again, this time looking right at me.

  “Holy shit…holy hot fucking shit!”he yelled as he pointed at the front glass.

  I felt my heart jump into my stomach as we all saw it. The slight glow of the instrument panel illuminated those hollow red eyes, the clear mark of the dead, looking in at us. The creature slid down the front of the window into the mud. We lost sight of it for a moment. The monster then stood up in its full deadly glory right in front of the exterior light, its clothing hanging loosely in the dark current.

  A bead of sweat ran down my face, and my hands began to tremble. I could feel the gun shaking as the creature waded toward us, pressing its water-bloated white face against the glass, causing the small crack to spiderweb down the windshield.

  Water continued to pool up and was ankle deep when Jarvis lifted his head. Looking around at our surroundings, and glancing at me holding the gun, he wearily said,“Looks like we’re in a bit of a pickle, huh boys?”

  More scratching from the roof. The creature outside was joined by another, both slowly pounding on the glass. He was right. We were fucked.

  “Can you make it?”Kyle asked, looking down at Jarvis.

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to pass on this lovely swim, my friends,”he said, revealing a blood-covered hand as he lifted it up from his leg. Biting down hard on my lip, I fought to conceal any sense of hysteria as we saw the metal pipe sticking through his thigh.

  Like the beat of a scratchy drum, the creatures continued to press from the outside. The water was at my knee as Kyle moved behind Jarvis to lift his head.

  “Like hell you’re not up for this one,”Kyle said calmly.“It’s time to pull your shit together. We’re gonna get out of here.”

  “Don’t you shoot that fucking glass, John. There has to be another way!”Rodgers screamed again. Looking back, I saw that he had freed himself from beneath the metal seat. On all fours, his eyes landed on the gun, looking like he was ready to pounce to stop me.

  The air was becoming stale, and I could hear the gushing water as I watched it quickly rising against the wall of the chopper.

  Snapping us all to attention, a crackle boomed from the radio.

  “Jarvis…ohhh Jarvis. You better not be dead down there. We’re not done with you yet,”a voice radiated out.

  My blood was boiling as I lifted the gun toward the glass. That so
n of a bitch on the other end of the radio had caused us so much pain.

  “You have to pull the trigger. You’re running out of time. Do it,”Jarvis whispered.

  Kyle reached down and placed his hand on the pole sticking out of Jarvis’s mangled leg.

  “Sorry about this, old friend,”he said. With a quick jerk, he rocked the metal pipe, along with Jarvis’s thigh, back and forth, breaking it free from the roof of the cockpit.

  Jarvis bit hard, and I could see a tear roll down his red face, but he didn’t scream. Leaving the metal pipe firmly in his leg, Kyle pulled Jarvis up into a sitting position against the wall of twisted wires and metal.

  The radio crackled again.“Come on, guys, you’re not giving up already are you? We have so much fun ahead of us.”

  Keeping his distance from me, Rodgers screamed out toward the radio in vain, calling for help. He then fixed his gaze back on the weapon. I could tell that he wanted to stop me, but I was holding all the cards, and he knew I wasn’t in a bluffing mood.

  Lifting Jarvis toward the front of the chopper and bracing himself against the seat above, Kyle looked over at me.

  “You ready for this?”

  “No,”I replied, looking directly in his eyes.

  “Me neither,”he said with a grim smile. I looked back at Rodgers as I pulled the weapon up toward the glass.

  Two hundred miles to go, a madman hot on our tails…the odds were stacked against us. However, sometimes it’s the long shots that payoff the biggest.

  “Don’t you do it, man. John. John. Please man, don’t do this. There’s got to be another way!”Rodger pleaded with me, edging closer.

  The radio cracked one final time“Come on up, men…this game has just begun.”

  Cringing at his voice, I peered through the cracking window as one single thought ran through my mind. The clock was ticking. We only had fifteen hours left. With each second counting down, it was a number that left us with no more than…

  900 Minutes

  _________________________________

  Earlier that day, before we were stuck in an underwater grave with the dead crawling outside…and a madman hot on our tail.

  Chapter 2

  In this new world I’d become a dealer of death, and that hammer was my deck of cards.

  I had two weeks’worth of stubble. Might have been a beard if I could actually grow one. Instead, mine was a patchy mess, and covered only parts of my face. Reflecting back in the mirror, the puffs under my eyes appeared heavier than normal. Taking a deep breath, I watched my lungs lift and drop as I realized my face seemed to have aged ten years in the seven months since the dead began to…well, not stay dead.

  Buried deep in the underground bunker, I often wondered if we had made the right choice…that fateful decision to return to Avalon. Even at the time, heading back to a place where we were forced to fight as gladiators in the Arena while sparking a revolt within the walls of that supposed safe haven had seemed like a pretty awful idea.

  In the end, we returned mostly because we had nowhere else to go. With Fort Gordon in Augusta, Georgia being a dead end, we were out of any real options. Besides, they were willing to welcome us back with open arms. The heroes of the Arena. The men who’d helped to take down the Elites.

  Personally, I felt like it was all bullshit. We were just trying to survive.

  Rinsing a three-inch metal razor under warm water in the sink, I watched as the clear liquid filled up the metal bowl before spiraling down the drain. Shaving cream was a rare commodity these days, and I’d been avoiding this for far too long.

  Pulling me from the mirror, a tiny cough came from the dimly lit makeshift crib across the room. Setting the razor down, I shook a plastic bottle that I’d prepared earlier that night, stepped around the table, and passed the long side of the bed to where Tyler was lying. His deep blue eyes peered up at me as he pulled his tiny feet to his face and gummed them.

  Reaching down with my left arm, I lifted him up from the base of the crib, and we plopped down together on the couch. The room was huge compared to what most people at Avalon had. I think the others just stuck us in it, away from the common area, so they wouldn’t have to listen to the crying in the middle of the night.

  Trust me, I wasn’t complaining.

  Slowly putting the nipple of the bottle into his mouth, I looked down at his now-closed eyes as he chugged down the milk. You’d think he hadn’t eaten in days, but I’d been up doing this same routine just hours earlier.

  Rinse and repeat all night long until the morning.

  Those dark nights with my son, holding him close, feeling his heartbeat, should have been the most precious moments of my life. Instead, it simply seemed to create too much time to think. Too much time for memories. Too much time for pain.

  Sitting there in the silence, trying to keep my mind clear, I couldn’t help but glance down at his face. Feeling my eyes beginning to well up, I tilted my head and looked at the rust creeping across the metal-covered ceiling, once again, taking a deep breath of recycled air into my lungs.

  He looked so much like her…

  My mind would drift, often to the last time I’d seen my wife. Memories always seemed to find their way down that dark path to the moment she’d turned. Those savage red eyes staring blankly at me.

  I would think back to her grave.

  Most everything about that day is a blur…except the moment I had buried my wife.

  I remember using a rusted shovel that blistered my hands against that worn handle as I pulled up heaps of red Georgia clay to create the shallow grave…leaving her body to rest in a nameless field just outside the landing pad in Augusta.

  A wife torn from her husband. A boy who would never know his mother.

  We couldn’t take her with us, and I wouldn’t leave her to rot. I remember standing above the grave, reaching down to my wedding ring, twisting it around a swollen finger. She’d told me the ring was a lifetime ring, made of titanium, a nearly indestructible metal. As a symbol of our lives together, we were supposed to last forever. With my hands covered in blood, dirt, and God knows what else, a flash of rage screamed through my body as I yanked the ring off and threw it down into the fresh dirt resting below. I didn’t deserve to wear such a sacred vow.

  I had let her die.

  Feeling my knees tremble, I dropped to the ground to sturdy myself.

  In that moment, my wedding ring caught my eye. I’m not going to call it fate, or anything more than the sun gleaming across it, but I felt compelled to reach down to brush the dirt off its base. Pausing, I picked it up and slid the vow back across my finger.

  I couldn’t let myself off the hook that easily.

  Eventually, we all get knocked down. Sometimes, we get hit harder and more brutally than others. The question always is will you have the strength to get back up? On that day, I was able to dig down and find what I needed to lift my head to keep moving.

  No matter how hard I was hit and how easy it would have been to curl up and die…in the end, I had more than myself to think about.

  After all, I still had one thing worth living for. My son.

  Wiping a sleeve across my face, I sat up, pulling my foot from the table in front of us, and leaned over to adjust the nebulizer. That small medical device that vaporized liquid was designed to push the fine, lifesaving mist deep into Tyler’s lungs. Rubbing his soft cheek with the outside of my finger, I let out a deep sigh as I made sure the face mask sitting over his nose and mouth was firmly in place.

  Administering the precious medicine directly into his lungs, my own chest tightened as I realized this was the last of the medication here in my room. I’d need to head back to the Med Center to pick up more before tomorrow’s dose.

  Tyler was on the countdown timer now, and I had no idea the start button had already been pushed. If only I’d known what was happening down the hall. The chaos that had already broken out. I would have held him a little tighter, kissed him a little harder, and hug
ged him with a little more love. But that’s how this new world works now.

  In a flash, everything can change.

  Bronchial inflammation of the airways, that’s what the doctor called it. With the shit luck of being born premature, Tyler’s lungs were simply underdeveloped. The doc explained it would cause Tyler’s airways to swell, tighten, and produce a crap ton of mucus in his lungs. Something so easily controllable with a simple inhaler.

  Things were different now.

  Between oxygen therapy keeping his lungs moving in those first months of his life, and the daily medication regimen we had him on, I thought we had everything covered. After all, we had enough supplies to last quite a while…

  Looking over toward the mirror, I saw the reflection of the two of us staring back. Taking a deep breath in and letting it out with another sigh, my eyes landed on the razor sitting on the sink. I still needed to shave.

  With Tyler in the crib, I stepped back over to the faucet and slid some white lather across my cheek. Just then, a knock came to the steel door at the entrance to our room. Rolling my eyes, I dropped the razor and wiped my face clean. Shaving would have to wait a bit longer. Dignity would have to take a rain check.

  Gently removing the mask from around Tyler’s face, I lifted him up from the crib on my way to the door while tickling him in the soft spot under his arm–savoring every moment. I grinned as a smile burst across his face, accompanied by a raw but genuine giggle. He stretched over my shoulder, trying to escape. Afraid there was no such luck for the little guy.

  It didn’t matter that there was no peephole in the door. I already knew who patiently waited on the other side. Reaching down to the handle with a sigh, I noticed the ring resting on my finger before I turned it to the left.

  If I had known what was already unfolding on the other side of the complex, I would have been far more cautious…

  Opening the door with an audible metal on metal squeak, I flashed a friendly but unconvincing smile.