Dead America The Northwest Invasion | Book 9 | Dead America: Seattle [Part 7] Read online

  DEAD AMERICA

  THE NORTHWEST INVASION

  BOOK 9

  SEATTLE PART 7

  BY DEREK SLATON

  © 2020

  CHAPTER ONE

  Day Zero +26

  Benny pulled his jacket over his shoulder, repositioning himself against the cheap sheetrock wall of the office to savor the last few moments of his nap. The sun would be up over the horizon soon, and the last several days had been exhausting. Every second he could have his eyes closed was precious.

  The door to the building opened up, and two soldiers walked inside, jabbering loudly with one another.

  Benny grumbled and shifted, trying to tune them out, and then finally sat up. “Hey assholes,” he barked. “People trying to sleep in here. So take it outside unless you want to join the ranks of the unconscious.”

  The venom in the old man’s voice made the two soldiers zip their lips and slowly back out of the room, closing the door behind them. This office had become an official napping room, so that the exhausted soldiers that needed some shut-eye between constant missions could get some rest.

  “Ignorant fucks,” he muttered, and let out a huff as he tried to get comfortable again. Alas, the damage had already been done. He was all riled up. He checked his watch. It was a little before seven. Twenty minutes before sun up, he thought bitterly. Might as well get the blood flowing.

  He pulled himself up off of the ground, bones creaking from the uncomfortable bedding, which was really just a few random blankets tossed on the floor. What he wouldn’t give for a good night’s sleep in an actual bed.

  With one of the few working transport helicopters, Benny had been constantly shuttling vital goods to the troops on the front lines of the war. This was the same job he’d had decades prior during Vietnam, and while he had to admit it was nice to not have to worry about return fire, it was still a drastic change from a month ago running aerial tours of the region from Spokane.

  As he headed for the door of the napping room, he spotted a young soldier, no more than twenty, curled up under a desk. The kid shivered, hugging his knees, and Benny knelt down, laying his jacket over the kid like a blanket. He slipped out the door, shutting it as quietly as he could.

  The airfield was still a hive of activity, just like it had been since the invasion began. The only major difference from the beginning of the invasion was the lack of front-line troops running around, as they’d mostly all moved up.

  In their place were a couple hundred supply personnel, scrambling to unload trucks that had driven up from Spokane filled with goods.

  The supply lines were rough, to say the least. The rail lines that had been bringing in ammo and rations from god knew where stopped in Spokane. Benny had heard rumours of a derailment, or something going wrong with the tracks, but it didn’t really matter. The cold fact was that things had to be offloaded and put onto trucks, which slowed things to a crawl.

  Everywhere Benny landed, the story was the same—soldiers from Privates all the way up to Captains begging and pleading with him to bring them more ammo, more weapons, more of anything they could use to fight off the dead.

  Would be comical if it weren’t so damned tragic, he thought as he walked through the airfield. Experienced soldiers begging and pleading with a retired civilian for what they need… amazing it’s come to this.

  Benny’s eyes finally began to clear up, something that seemed to take longer and longer with each passing day. It was one of the many gifts that his sixties were giving to him. Able to focus, he spotted his helicopter in the middle hangar, receiving some work.

  “There’s my girl,” he murmured. “Let’s see how they’re treating you.”

  His tour helicopter was large enough to fit ten full-grown adults, or at least it had been before the war. When the supply lines were faltering, a team of mechanics ripped out the seating to make room for more cargo. Benny really didn’t mind it, since his aerial touring days were well behind him, but there was a part of him that was pained to see his baby torn apart like that.

  “You boys treating her nice like a lady should be?” he drawled as he approached the mechanics.

  Jerry smirked as he headed over in grease-stained coveralls, wiping his hands on a rag. “Oh yeah, treating her better than I treated my wife,” he replied.

  From underneath the helicopter, a muffled voice yelled, “Ex-wife!”

  Jerry chuckled and glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah, well, this chopper isn’t running around fucking the neighbors,” he quipped, “so if course it’s getting better treatment.”

  A chorus of laughter erupted throughout the mechanics in the hangar.

  “Y’all make sure not to load me down too much,” Benny declared as he watched a couple loading up wooden crates with a forklift. “I gotta get that baby off of the ground!”

  Jerry clapped him on the shoulder with his now-clean hand. “Don’t worry bud,” he said, “we’re keeping a close eye on it. These soldier boys like to go for broke, but we ain’t gonna let them put you in danger.”

  The pilot smiled at him in thanks and then crossed his arms, turning back to his chopper. “So, how’s she looking?”

  “With as much flight time as she has on her, she’s looking pretty good,” Jerry replied. “Long term, we’re going to have to source some engine parts to make sure she keeps purring, but for right now you’re good to go.”

  Benny nodded. “So what am I hauling today?”

  “Hell if I know,” the mechanic admitted with a shrug. “That pencil-pusher David is around here somewhere, he’s got the details.”

  The pilot raised an eyebrow. “Pencil-pusher?” he asked. “Come on now, don’t be too hard on the kid. If we had the shit they have today when we were his age, we probably wouldn’t have gone outside much either.”

  Jerry tilted his head back and forth and then finally put up a hand. “Yeah, I guess those drone things of his are pretty nifty,” he begrudgingly said. “Could get into all sorts of shenanigans with those.”

  “I’ve heard stories about you,” Benny accused with a wink, “pretty sure you’ve gotten into enough shenanigans without the need for technology.”

  They shared a hearty laugh and then turned as David skirted some toolboxes to get to them in the hangar.

  “Looks like you two are in a good mood this morning,” he declared, raising a can of some kind of sugary energy drink in a toast before taking a sip.

  Jerry smirked. “Yeah, we were just brainstorming ideas on the kind of fun we could have with your drones there,” he said.

  “Well, once we survive this invasion,” David replied, leaning in conspiratorially, “I’ll break out some of the videos in my archive.” He gave the mechanic a devious wink, and the two older men blinked at him.

  “I’ll be honest,” Jerry said, putting up his hands, “I didn’t think you had that in you.”

  The communications expert shrugged sheepishly. “Well, you know,” he replied, “us pencil-pushers are a lot more devious than people like to give us credit for.”

  Benny gave the mechanic a playful slap on the back, and Jerry’s cheeks pinked as he burst out laughing.

  He shook his head. “All right, you got me,” he said, wrinkling his nose in embarrassment. “I’ll let you boys talk. Benny, you should be good to go in ten.” He waved and headed over to the chopper to continue his pre-flight checks.

  “So, what’s on the menu today?” the pilot asked, back to business after his friend getting busted.

  David took a long swig of his drink and smacke
d his lips. “I hope you got some rest, because we got a busy one for you,” he said. “Two of the transports for the northern front are out of commission.”

  “Wait, what?” Benny’s brow furrowed in worry. “What the hell happened?”

  David put up one of his hands, palm out. “Don’t worry, pilots are safe,” he assured him quickly. “One of the landing zones got overrun while they were unloading, so they had to abandon it for the time being. They’re getting a handle on the situation, but it could be the afternoon or even into the evening before they can resume. They’re going to need supplies before that, though.”

  “Al right, I’ll make that work,” the pilot assured him. “Where’s the landing zone?”

  David cocked his head. “That one is still being determined,” he admitted, and put up a finger, “but you have a stop before that.” He pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket, and then turned around, spreading it out on the small desk behind them. “This is the Renton Airfield,” he explained as he pointed to an airport just south of Mercer Island, southeast from downtown. “We were able to secure it yesterday and have a barricade set up on the interstate here to the east. There’s a whole lot of trouble coming up the road towards them, but they need some heavy duty stuff if they’re going to hold it.”

  “That what they loading up?” Benny asked.

  David nodded. “Yep, fifty-cal rounds,” he confirmed. “These things are worth their weight in gold, and it’s going to be a good long while before we can get our hands on more of them, so treat them well. It's not like we can just go into the Super Center and pick up a few boxes of ammo.”

  “Which is a damn shame, really,” the pilot replied with a sigh. “Could have had a lot of fun with that.”

  David raised an eyebrow. “I think we have different definitions of fun,” he said dryly.

  “I don’t know,” Benny drawled with a mischievous glint in his eye, “I’m looking forward to your archives.”

  They shared a laugh, and David took another long gulp of his drink.

  “So, after I drop this stuff off,” Benny asked, “where am I headed?”

  David pointed to the top left corner of the map. “You need to head out to the fleet to the northwest,” he explained. “Captain McCall will have your next supply run ready and waiting.”

  “Sounds like it’s going to be a fun day,” the pilot declared, and stretched his arms above his head. “On that note, you got anything for me?”

  David nodded and pulled a tote bag from his backpack, handing it over.

  Benny dug through it, checking all of the MREs, as well as a couple of packs of snack food. “All right, all right, looking good,” he murmured, and then looked up. “Now what about my vodka?”

  David’s brow furrowed deep, pursing his lips in concern.

  The pilot burst into laughter, clapping him on the shoulder. “Nah, I’m just fucking with you, boy,” he admitted. “You know damn well I’m a bourbon man.”

  The communications expert shook his head, letting out a relieved chuckle, and reached into his pocket, revealing a silver flask and holding it out. “Not while flying,” he added.

  “Wouldn’t dream of putting my baby in danger like that,” Benny assured him, stuffing the flask into his pocket and patting it. “Saving it for the end of the day, or some other special occasion.”

  “Good man,” David replied. “So, do you have everything you need?”

  Benny nodded. “I’m good to go.”

  “All right, well,” David said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, “I got half a dozen other things I’m already behind on. I’ll see you when you get back. Good luck out there.”

  They shared a nod, and the younger man headed out of the hangar to his next task. Benny reached into his tote bag and pulled out a slightly squished chocolate snack cake. He grinned and tore open the tasty treat.

  With his mouth full of squishy cake, he mumbled, “Breakfast of champions.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Benny flew relatively low over the suburbs on the way to the airfield. The tree-covered neighborhoods did a good job of hiding the horror on the streets, though every now and then there were breaks in the trees.

  He glanced down and saw asphalt littered with the dead. The glimpses were bad enough, but as he soared over a shopping center, a fuller picture emerged.

  Hundreds of corpses, maybe even thousands, sprawled across the parking lot. Mowed down and left to bake in the sun.

  Benny shook his head, unsure of how to even process this level of carnage. It was even more overwhelming knowing that this was happening all over the city.

  So much life just fucking wasted, he thought bitterly. It’s a damn shame.

  He tried to focus on flying, pushing out memories of Vietnam, the same carnage of bodies sprawled across the ground, easily seen from a bird's-eye view.

  But this isn’t Vietnam, he reminded himself. Those aren’t people down there, at least not anymore. What’s happening here is necessary, and I got a job to do.

  A few miles out from the airport, he spotted the front line of the military, pushing forward street by street. Even over the noise of the blades he could hear muffled gunfire, which hammered home just how prevalent it was on the ground.

  He glanced over, seeing a massive firefight holding back a few hundred creatures. If the front lines are this bad, he thought, what the hell is it like at the airport?

  He ascended, getting high enough to get a better lay of the land. He didn’t have coordinates on the airport, so he had to rely on visual cues. As he rose higher, he spotted the interstate where the barricade was.

  There were cars lined up, bumper-to-bumper, with several 50-cal machine-gun nests spread out across it. The nests were quiet, but several troops fired with standard assault rifles from the line, picking off zombies as they trickled towards the barricade.

  Once the immediate threat was eliminated, several soldiers hopped over the line and got to work, picking up bodies and moving the thirty yards away from the line and stacking them up. Benny shook his head, thinking it was futile to create another corpse barrier, but he supposed that anything that could slow the zombies down even a little bit couldn’t hurt.

  Before looking for the airport, he flew down the interstate a little bit, just to see what was on the horizon. His stomach knotted and clenched, flipping end over end at the sight of a dense horde easily in the thousands heading a couple miles up the highway.

  He immediately swooped around and searched for the airport. It took a few moments, but he finally located it, sitting on the edge of the water. It was a moderately sized airstrip, not big enough for 747s, but still bigger than the tiny regional airport like the one he’d just taken off from.

  As he approached the strip, he spotted someone waving lights to get his attention. He hovered over them, watching, as they motioned to the south end of the runway. He gave the soldier a thumbs up and then moved in that direction. He landed gently and powered down the engine before hopping down to the ground.

  As soon as his boots hit the ground, a few soldiers greeted him, the lead man holding out his hand to shake.

  “Man, are you a sight for sore eyes,” he declared. “I’m Sergeant Farley.”

  The pilot smiled and shook his hand. “Benny,” he replied, “good to meet you.”

  Farley motioned to the men behind him to unload the cargo and then turned back to Benny. “Is everything for us?” he asked.

  “As far as I know,” Benny replied with a shrug. “Should be nothing but fifty-cal rounds. And it looks like you boys are about to need it.”

  The Sergeant’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  “I flew down the interstate a bit,” the pilot explained, pointing, “and you got a whole mess of those fuckers headed your way.”

  Farley’s eyes widened. “How many we talking?”

  “A lot higher than my dumb ass can count,” Benny admitted, shaking his head.

  The Sergeant imme
diately pulled out his walkie-talkie. “We have a massive wave headed our way, boys,” he barked into the receiver. “Let’s get that line secure as quickly as we can. Got more ammo headed up your way too. Make it happen.”

  “Anything I can do to help?” Benny asked.

  Farley cocked his head. “Don’t you have places to be?” he asked.

  “I do,” the pilot admitted, drawing out the word, “but if you can spot me some fuel, I’m sure I can find an excuse to be a little late.”

  The Sergeant cracked a smile and then reached out to grab the arm of one of the soldiers walking past to help with the unloading. “There’s a fuel truck at the north end of the runway,” he said quickly. “Go straight up and it’s on the left, you can’t miss it. Double time it up there and hurry back.”

  “Yes sir,” the soldier replied with a nod, and took off running.

  Farley turned back to his new friend. “How do you feel about bombing runs?”

  Benny grinned. “As long as I’m the one doing the dropping and not the one receiving, I’m good with them,” he replied.

  “Good man,” the Sergeant said, and then raised the radio to his lips again. “Corporal Barnes, do you copy?”

  There were a few seconds of silence before a voice came back, “Little busy at the moment, Sarge, setting the stage for our unwelcome guests.”

  “I’ll keep it brief, then,” Farley assured him. “You want to come help me make some giant fire bombs to drop on our guests?”

  “Hell yeah I do,” Barnes replied immediately.

  The Sergeant nodded. “Well, get your ass down here then,” he demanded. “We don’t have much time with the chopper.”

  “On my way,” the Corporal replied.

  Benny cocked his head. “So, what do you have in mind, Sergeant?”

  Farley shoved his radio back into his pocket. “You ever make a molotov cocktail?”

  “Only when my neighbors were being assholes,” the pilot quipped.

  The Sergeant smirked. “You ever make one out of five gallon water bottles?” he asked.

  A devious grin broke out on Benny’s face. “No,” he admitted, “but looking forward to giving it a shot.”