JIMMY WAVED TO the drone duo as they climbed aboard the C-28. “Steve and Raoul, we’ll be right behind you.”
They didn’t respond, didn’t seem to care what their handler did, but Jimmy liked conducting his business this way. It kept him from feeling so alone, and he reminded himself that soon enough he’d get to save the day and be back with Nick and Lusa. What a celebration. What a party they would throw.
He directed the remaining four drones to help load the rest of the supplies onto the two planes parked behind Steve and Raoul’s C-28. And for the first time since before he’d met Vaughn, Jimmy was alone. He felt goose bumps tingle on the back of his neck. “Easy, killer,” he told himself. “They’ll be right back. And besides, the base is all quiet.”
He listened to be sure. There was nothing but the deliberate footsteps of drones in the distance and the rat tat tat of that annoying sign flapping on the fence.
Then over his headset came the final confirmation from Steve: “Ready for takeoff, sir.”
Jimmy looked up at the cockpit window and thought he could make out Steve’s shadow behind the controls. He looked around once more. The other drones had already reached the two cargo planes and were dutifully inside, unloading the equipment.
“Alright, Steve,” Jimmy said. “Start engines and get out of here. Remember to wait for the rest of us before heading to Fairbanks. We’ll meet you in the air.”
Jimmy thought he saw Steve give a little salute, though that didn’t seem likely given what he knew about them. Seconds later, he heard a clicking sound come from the plane’s massive propeller engines. They roared to life, the propellers turning into a solid blur. Then the engine throttled up, and the plane slowly lurched forward on the runway.
“There they go,” he said to no one.
Suddenly, a new sound competed with the roar of the plane. Jimmy struggled to figure it out. But by the time he recognized the scuffs of racing footsteps behind him, it was too late.
The wheezing crazy tackled him, Jimmy’s face smashing against the concrete runway.
Jimmy strained to get free, to twist away from his attacker. But the crazy pounded him, punching him from behind. And just as Jimmy would lift his head, another punch would smack his face down hard against the ground.
He tried yelling for help but choked on a mouthful of blood. Jimmy realized he was on his own. In a moment of clarity, he pulled his arms forward and raised his hands over his head, protecting himself.
The crazy continued bashing him, and he felt new sharp pain as his fingers were smashed. But then, Jimmy caught the crazy’s fist and held on for dear life.
The break in the crazy’s rhythm gave him time to twist around onto his side. Then Jimmy clutched the fist with two hands, and the crazy punched angrily with its left hand.
The weaker blows told Jimmy that the once human animal must have been right-handed. Still, Jimmy was receiving a beating. He pulled hard on the crazy’s arm, causing it to lose its balance and fall sideways.
Jimmy jumped to his feet, hurrying to gain an advantage over the crazy. He now could see she had once been an attractive woman. What was left of her blood-stained summer dress revealed long bruised legs.
She rolled onto her feet like a judo master, wheezed angrily, then charged Jimmy.
He reached down, pulling out his Colt .45 pistol, and fired from the hip. Its heavy bullets tore through the crazy’s body, pushing her back with its kinetic force. Three shots later, she was on the ground, dead.
Before he could celebrate, Jimmy caught sight of a new threat. Up ahead, a mob of crazies had emerged from a hangar on the far side of the base, the opposite end of the runway.
He wanted to warn Steve and Raoul, but there wasn’t time. He watched what seemed like a slow-motion train wreck as the dozen-plus crazies ran headfirst toward the C-28 as it attempted to take off.
The bodies unflinchingly plunged themselves into certain destruction, their update-inspired hatred greater than their instinct for self-preservation. Blood splattered in all directions as the propeller blades instantly pureed the on-comers into torso-less piles of legs.
The C-28 whose front wheels had been only inches off the runway slammed down to the ground violently. Then its back wheels ran over the pile of remains.
Jimmy watched helplessly as the plane bounced hard, momentarily going airborne. Then its nose crashed down onto the runway, and by the time the fuselage came to rest upside-down, the plane was engulfed in flames.
Jimmy felt his sore jaw drop in stunned amazement. Movement to his left pulled him out of his trance, and he turned to see the rest of Charlie Five emerge from the remaining two planes.
“Too little, too late,” he mouthed toward them. His instinct was to blame them for what had just happened, but the truth was crashing in on him faster than his ability to deny it. This was his fault. He hadn’t cleared the base properly, and the sound of those engines had roused the dormant crazies inside the hanger.
He looked back at the wreckage. There was no way Steve or Raoul was alive, and there was no way that plane could ever fly again. Not only that, the runway was blocked, and he couldn’t think of a way to clear it in time to take off with the other two planes.
Nick and Lusa! They needed to know. They needed to be warned before they got in harm’s way.
Jimmy reached for his headset, but it wasn’t there. He looked all around him on the ground for it. Then he found it.
He walked to it slowly, hoping his eyes were deceiving him. But they weren’t. Jimmy knelt over pieces of broken plastic and protruding slivers of exposed wire.
As the reality set in, he felt his chest move erratically, in short waves of breath, in and out. Panic washed over him, and he knew there was no stopping it. There was nothing he could do now. He was stranded with no plane and no radio, without the ability to come to his brother’s aid or even warn him. He was useless, and the dark voices inside that he fought off daily sang louder and louder, an echoing chant: Screwup! Screwup! Screwup!