900 Miles (Book 2): 900 Minutes Read online

  "Shit!" Kyle ground out.

  My heart dropped as the roar of a distant truck engine emerged. None of us said a word, nearly petrified by the sound. Moving only my eyes to Kyle, he shrugged his shoulders ever so slightly before all of us quickly sprang forward, darting around, grabbing what little we could. All of us except for Jarvis, that is. He continued to stand over the radio, talking to dead air in vain.

  I could feel my pulse rising as the engine continued to roar louder over the cries of the dead. We needed to get the hell out of there before the truck got back, or we’d have a hell of a fight on our hands.

  In that instant, the static from the radio came to life. "Iron Eagle, Iron Eagle…We read you…Over."

  Jarvis popped up, standing straight as a wooden ruler, with the microphone in his hand. The rest of us stopped in our tracks, huddling around him with some distant sense of relief.

  "Yes, we're here, King’s Landing. Glad to hear you, boys," Jarvis whispered into the microphone.

  My momentary relief was put to a halt as I heard the engine go mute. Dashing over toward the window, I wildly looked through the forest, trying to pinpoint where the truck had parked.

  "Where the hell are you?" A woman's voice screamed out through the speaker. It sounded a lot like Mia.

  "We're near a park, Fire Mountain Park. We’re in some trouble out here. However, there is notime to come get us. You need to go on without our help. We’ve got a truck and will be back to you as soon as possible…Over."

  "Bullshit. We're hovering around the park now…Over.”

  I may have been the only one, but I let out a sigh of relief as I yanked hard on the straps to the backpack lying over my shoulders.

  Kyle’s hands landed on the table with a thud.“What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I pulled a search party together when we lost contact. Whole place is burnt to shit. We could see the smoke for miles. Looks like you guys have been busy. I repeat, where are you? Over."

  A number of car doors opened and shut, drawing my attention to the bottom of a tree just fifty or so yards away.

  "They're getting close. We gotta wrap this up," Aidan said with a prepubescent crack in his voice.

  Ignoring him, Jarvis continued to speak into the microphone. "You shouldn't have come after us." Pausing for a moment to think, and lowering his head, he finally said, "There is a downed airplane on a peak just outside the burnt area of the forest. There should be enough room to land your chopper. If we're not there in thirty minutes, you need to leave without us."

  "We're not going anywhere without you!" the woman's voice shot back.

  Kyle snatched the microphone and jerked it to his face.“Mia, this shit storm is too dangerous. You’re more important than - than me. I need you to promise that you'll leave and get back to Avalon.”

  "Don't puss out on me now, Kyle! We’re here, so now you just need to get to us."

  She always had a subtle way of speaking with the guy.

  A rifle shot rang out loudly making my heart thud painfully hard in my chest. I poked my head through the window just in time to see a Z hit the ground as ten men started to climb the first tree.

  "Promise me, Mia. Promise you’ll head back if we can’t make it to you!"

  A cracked, but determined, "No way…Over," came through the radio just before it went silent. Jarvis started to flip the switches back to where they’d been before we got there. Kyle was mumbling something about her being uncompromising and bullheaded, as Jarvis motioned for us to move toward the secondary zip-line leading out the other side of the fortress.

  We were cutting it too tight, and we all knew it.

  Moving down the curved staircase, each step seemed to cry out in pain as our boots hit the planks. Reaching the bottom, my eyes were drawn to the crucified Jesus. A fleeting thought passed through my mind. This place was anything but holy. Continuing around the pews, I noticed Aidan darting to one of the makeshift windows on the far side of the room. His eyes were fixed on the forest floor, and he was grinding his hand around the handle of his weapon.

  The rest of us ran past him and out the wooden door that stood directly across from the one by which we had initially entered. It led to the deck that circled the fort. We found ourselves crouched down, breathing heavily as we peered at a second rope bridge leading in the opposite direction from the other zip line that we’d entered the fortress upon.

  If you were in a chopper flying above, I imagined that it would look as if the fortress was a poorly shaped circle that had two lines running out both east and west of its center.

  “This is it. The trucks are down there,”Jarvis said in between a few heavy pants while lifting a hand in the direction of the zip-line we were facing.

  “You’re right. We’ll have to slip quietly over the bridge without them putting eyes on us, but it doesn’t look like they’ll have a solid line of sight from their position,”Kyle chimed in.

  Glancing to the edge of this second set of zip lines that served as the Stripes alternate route, and our current path of escape, I realized Kyle was right. At the very least, the fortress itself mostly stood between the two zips, meaning they couldn’t see us from their position as long as we managed to keep our heads down, and we wouldn’t be able to see the Stripes from ours without lifting them up.

  Hopping up and down across the rope bridge, I nearly lost my balance before reaching the far side where the zip-line lay. Glancing down, I could see the creatures reaching up toward us, craving for one tiny slip up.

  As I pulled the harness through my legs, I cautiously leaned up to get a view around the fortress and through the dense forest leaves in the direction of the other line. I was just barely able to make out that the men, our mirror image on the other side, were doing the exact same thing at the other zip-line.

  We waited in silence, ducking down to see if they had noticed us. There were no noticeable movements to indicate they knew we were here. Minutes ticked by like seconds as one-by-one, each of the ten men ascended the rope ladder to the top of the platform preparing to slide across.

  Staying low, I once again shifted to where I could see them better and squinted as I watched one of the men dump over the wooden box that the harnesses were sitting in. They seemed to realize a few were missing.

  As Jarvis pinched his finger between his harness and the zip-line to muffle the metal on metal click, I found myself once again glancing back through the trees toward the men. A few distant words were just barely audible before one of the Stripes looked up toward the fort. Raising his gun, he lifted the sight to his face to get a better look, and began meticulously pivoting from one foot to the other as his weapon peeked into each window of the structure.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Kyle shaking his head back and forth.

  "Where the hell is Aidan?" he whispered.

  Looking around, I realized he was nowhere in sight.

  "I lost track of him at the window." My voice was no louder than his was as I pulled my own harness tight.

  "Damn it! That was nearly ten minutes ago. I’ll go back after him," Kyle said.

  Just as he started to pull his harness off and step toward the rope bridge, Aidan pushed the door open a mere crack, exposing no more than a shadow of his face. Nodding, he stepped out onto the bridge and ran to our platform.

  "What were you doing?" Kyle barked.

  "Keeping an eye out.”

  Kyle shot him a scowl and tossed him a harness. I could tell he didn't trust the answer.

  "The zip-line's too loud. They’re gonna hear us," Aidan said with a look of panic swelling across his face.

  They wouldn't have a clear shot at us, having to get around the fortress before they could see our zip-line. However, we knew it would just take one Stripe to get across…and if they didn't know where we were yet, they sure as shit were about to.

  Before sliding into his harness, Aidan glanced to his wrist at a digital watch, and then looked up to the sky. Meanwhile, Jar
vis was simply standing, hooked up to the zip, waiting.

  “What are you waiting for?”Kyle questioned.

  “If we zip at the same time that the Stripes do, there’s a good chance they won’t hear us.”

  Nodding our heads, we stood by, keenly focused on the starting note of that singing metal…until finally it rang out into the forest.

  Taking a noticeable gulp, Jarvis lifted his legs as Kyle gave him a nudge, shooting him down and causing that same orchestra of metal-on-metal. Peering up, I could see that the Stripes didn’t seem to hear him. Both zips were nearly the same length, so they both ended at roughly the same time. I watched from afar as Jarvis quickly unhooked and grabbed the tree, trying to move around to conceal himself behind the bark.

  Just before stepping up to the line, I noticed Aidan glancing at his watch again. Kyle did too.

  “What are you timing?”Kyle spoke through his teeth.

  Taking a deep breath, Aidan looked at us with pain-filled eyes.

  “You need to know what’s about to happen.”He paused and let the breath out of his lungs.“I just used the radio to signal to Gordon that I’m here. Using the downed plane crash site as a marker, and a quick triangulation of the signal from the radio, they are going to find us, and there is a heavily armed chopper en route to this location right now. It should be here in less than five minutes.”

  Kyle’s face looked like it was going to burst.“I knew it, you little shit!”

  Holding his ground, Aiden lifted both hands up and replied,“Before you go ape on me, you need to know two things. One, Gordon doesn’t realize you’re here. For all he knows, you died back in the fire. They think I was taken captive by the Stripes and escaped. Two, I’m not going to tell him you’re here.”

  Taking a step back, Kyle’s face turned to a lighter shade of red. Neither of us said a word. The only thing audible over the moans from the monsters below was the distant sound of the zip-line as another Stripe started down toward the base.

  Looking back toward the Stripes for only a moment, Aidan met our gaze and spoke with what I can only describe as unremitting pain.“I don’t know who’s right and who’s wrong in this world, but I’ve been with Gordon and the people there for seven months. I have friends, and there are many great survivors there. We’ll see how this battle shakes out. Until then, I wish you luck as you try to get back to your chopper. You’re gonna need it.”

  It was the most mature thing I’d ever heard a seventeen-year-old say.

  “Now go! Gordon wants these guys almost as bad as he wants Avalon. This place is about to go all fire and brimstone if you know what I’m saying. In the meantime, I’m staying behind to signal them from the tower up there. For all our sakes, I hope we never see each other again.”

  Before we could respond, he turned and darted back to the fortress. Standing there, watching his new Nike Pegasus shoes bounce up and down across the rope bridge, the realization that there was a warship on its way hit me.

  “There’s no time, Kyle. We can’t wait for the parallel zip-lines. We’ve gotta get the hell out of these trees now!”I said, almost a bit too loud.

  Throwing caution to the wind is a liberating thing if you’ve been sneaking around…especially when your life is literally on the line.

  Chapter 26

  Vindictive bastards seemed to be holding a grudge.

  Snapping onto the zip, I lifted my legs and took off down the narrow line. It would only be a minute or two before they realized where we were, and I hoped like hell I’d be across to the other side before they did. Manic screaming from across the bridge shattered the silence as one of the Stripes pointed toward me.

  Once again, Lady Luck seemed to give me a giant Karate Kid style Flamingo Kick to the ball sack.

  Tree limbs and branches exploded to my left as bullets passed through their frail bark. Looking back over my shoulder, I saw one of the Stripes had made it around the building and was shooting a rifle in my direction. All I saw was muzzle flash as I tried to curl up my body to make it as small as possible.

  The weapon shook up and down with each shot. I wasn’t close enough to see his face well, but in between each bullet, I could hear his screams of fury. We’d invaded their lair, and they had no interest in“talking”this out.

  The Stripe was so singularly focused on leveling his sight on my moving body that he didn't see Kyle coming up from beside him. With one fell swoop, Kyle knocked into him, sending him over the edge as a barrage of wooden splinters erupted from the railing. The Stripe’s scream went shrill just before he hit the ground.

  Still alive, he tried to crawl away from the horde, but it was on him in a matter of seconds. All that waiting. Someone had finally slipped up. Dinner time.

  Gordon’s chopper came into hearing range just as I landed with my feet on the platform that Jarvis was standing on. Watching Kyle snap in behind us and lift his legs, I looked through the woods to see a few of the Stripes rushing down the ladder back to the trucks. Each of them cocked their heads and their guns, up to the sky in disbelief.

  Something caught my attention from the top of the fortress, a slight movement that was out of place. I realized it was Aidan as he started to climb the ladder to the lookout tower. One foot after another, he was heading up, no doubt to try to signal his exact location to the chopper.

  With the tree canopy beginning to tremble, the men at the bottom of the trees started to duck down, shifting their weapons up to where they thought the noise was coming from.

  “Over there!”I heard from the fortress. Two more of the Stripes had made it around the bend and were raising their guns toward Kyle.

  I couldn’t do anything about it…he was a sliding duck, and they were about to pull the trigger. I screamed,“Come on!”in vain. Waving my arms, and nearly jumping up and down, I knew this was bad. The terrified look in Kyle’s eyes told me he knew it too.

  Suddenly, the sky erupted with bullet fire. I watched trees all around splintering, their branches falling to the ground. However, to my surprise Kyle remained unharmed. Looking past him, I watched as the two Stripes at the fort were literally blown to pieces by some sort of giant caliber gun. Dropping from the fort, body parts were strewn across the forest floor.

  It was raining gore on the Zs heads, and they were eating it up.

  The chopper was above us, decimating the fortress. The wall the Stripes were standing near had a hole blown through it, and I could hear the small arms fire from the rest of the Stripes, across the way, shooting up toward the chopper.

  Kyle slammed into me just as I heard the large caliber weapon open up again. Pulling Kyle forward to help steady him, I looked over his shoulder to see the trees around where the other zip-line once stood being blown to pieces.

  “I think Gordon’s men just saved your ass,”I said to Kyle as he, Jarvis, and I slid down the rope ladder.

  “Yeah, holy shit! If they only knew,”he replied as his feet hit the ground.

  The Zs that once had surrounded this exit had been pulled away toward the fight. Darting to the parked vehicles, the three of us picked the largest, and tugged on the tarp covering its massive body. Revealing a black armor-covered truck with an orange stripe painted down the side, I quickly noticed that the glass windshield had been replaced by a series of metal bars.

  Jarvis tossed the three sets of keys to me as he jumped into the back. Sliding into the driver’s side door, I tried the first set. No fit. Throwing them out the window, I wiped the sweat from my brow and lifted the second set to the ignition.

  Looking in the rear view mirror, I watched entire walls start to fall off of the fortress, landing on the ground, crushing a number of the Zs stumbling around below.

  The key slid into the ignition. Lifting my elbow, I turned the key forward, bringing life roaring out of its metal parts. Letting out the deep breath, I realized I hadn’t inhaled since trying to start the truck.

  “Hit it!”Kyle yelled out from the front passenger seat.

  Sh
ifting the truck into drive, I turned the wheel and slammed on the gas. Dirt and leaves shot up behind us as we tore off down a partially cleared path that the Stripes had created.

  The firefight was still raging to the right of the truck. In the distance, I watched the large caliber gun tear right through two of the Stripes who were trying to hide behind a tree. It split the tree in half, which fell as both men dropped to the ground. Still hovering above, the chopper was spinning around the fortress, the trees waving wildly all around us. Just enough of a distraction for us to speed off unnoticed…at least so we thought.

  We couldn’t hear the engine start over the sound of the chopper up above, but Kyle saw them peel out and cried,“They’re in their truck.”

  To my right, I saw the Stripes immediately. They were trying to head us off. Vindictive bastards seemed to be holding a grudge.

  Dodging trees, pushing the truck to its limits, the very real sound of bullets clanging along the armored exterior of the vehicle kept my foot to the pedal. Kyle was going on about not having anything to fire back at them with while ducking down into his seat. I glanced into the rearview mirror only to see the Stripes’vehicle steady out right behind us.

  There only appeared to be two of them, the driver and another who was hanging out the passenger side with some sort semi-automatic rifle. Luckily, the chopper wasn’t in pursuit, clearly staying back to destroy the Stripes’fortress. They didn’t know we were there, and in the end, we had Aidan to thank for that.

  “Watch out!”Kyle yelled, wide-eyed, looking out the metal-gated windshield. There was a creature standing directly in our path. With no time to react, my only thought was to go faster. Hitting the gas, I watched as that same Z from the parking lot, the one with the backpack and clanging metal pots and pans, flipped up and over the hood.

  In what seemed like slow motion, it practically disintegrated from the force. One of the pots clanged across the metal bars, that replaced the windshield, followed by a flood of black bile that poured into our faces. Losing control momentarily, I desperately pulled my sleeve up to wipe the gunk from my eyes just as the truck slammed through a rotten stump, sending splinters up all around us.