Paradise Revisited

[strayrider]

(Author's note: this is an open-ended story. Feel free to join if you wish, just keep in mind that there will be an established plot dealing with specific locations and events...curve balls and twists, however, are welcome. At this point the characters are rough and open for development. With the exception of Perez and Tyler, you may assume the role of any one of them...or create another. In addition to the characters mentioned in this first installment, there are three troopers and two civilians on board the chopper. More may be added as the story unfolds.)

60 Miles North of Pittsburgh

“There’s some kind of structure to the north. Big place,” McKraken spoke into his throat mic. “You wanna check it out?”

Piper shook her helmeted head. “Negative, we’re flying on fumes as it is,” she replied, glancing at the bird’s fuel gauge. “If we don’t make Grove City, I’m going to have to find some place to take us down.”

“Whatever you do, don’t take us down here,” Gregg’s voice crackled over the ‘net. The crew chief sat in the starboard door gunner’s seat, looking down at the landscape below. “Christ! Look at all them shitbags.”

I-80 heading west into Grove City was a snarl of abandoned cars and trucks some of which were mangled in multi-vehicle pile-ups that had blocked travel in both directions. Walking with unmistakable gaits among them lumbered hundreds of the living dead. Even from a high altitude the survivors in the Huey could see their pallid faces turned upward as the military chopper puttered overhead.

“Grove City should be just over the horizon,” McKraken said. “Due west.”

He turned in his seat and gave the troopers in the passenger compartment a hand signal. The soldiers responded by readying their weapons. One of them tapped a 30 round banana clip against his helmet before seating the magazine in his carbine.

“Fuel stop,” he said to the petite Latina trooper sitting next to him. He had to raise his voice over the noise of the helicopter’s whining rotors to be heard. “You ready, Perez, or are you going to pull another F Troop on us?”

She extended her middle finger. “Sit on this, Tyler. You might like it.”

“Maybe later,” He replied, grinning. “If you’re lucky.”

A hulking man with sergeant’s stripes on his sleeves squared off with them. Dickerson’s dark face was slick with perspiration.

“You two shitheads can the chatter,” he barked, teeth clamped down hard on the half-smoked stogie that rested in one side of his mouth. “If Grove City is anything like that goddamn highway down there, this LZ is definitely going to be hot. I want everyone on their toes when we hit dirt.”

Tyler gave him a half-hearted salute, still grinning. Dickerson turned and squeezed past the civilians huddled together in the cramped space of the passenger compartment. He began issuing instructions to the soldiers squatting next to the door on the opposite side of the bird. Tyler’s eyes focused on one of the civilians.

She was a blonde, middle-aged woman—still attractive even after the stress of the past three weeks. Her name was Rene Borchers and she had been a reporter for the ABC affiliate in Philly. They only had that information because of the driver's license they found in her purse. Otherwise she was an enigma to them. She hadn’t spoken a word since they had found her hiding in a dumpster at a small airport outside of the city.

“She still gives me the creeps,” Perez said, leaning close to Tyler.

“You’re just jealous because she’s prettier than you,” he replied.

“Thirty seconds,” Dickerson’s voice boomed over the noise of the machine. “Get in the doors. Bail as soon as the skids touch earth.”

Piper brought the bird around in a tight orbit over the single runway airfield below. A hundred undead eyes watched its approach.