Flock
Kahwihta watched as the flock rose up out of the ruins of New York City. They were far enough away for the moment that she couldn’t make out individual birds, just a dark mass boiling upwards. It spread as it rose until the city skyline was all but blotted out by the sheer number of feathered shapes.
Animals were not as susceptible to turning zombie as humans were. It took more time and special circumstances. The most common cause was the regular ingestion of zombie flesh. Eat a zombie, become a zombie. Scavengers were prone to this; she’d seen it in rats, birds, dogs, bears – even a house cat, once. That had been a bad one. Attila had nearly lost an ear. She reached down and scratched the dog on the snout.
“They’re still coming,” Ramirez muttered. “How many of them can there be?”
“There was supposed to be one pigeon per person in New York City, before things went wrong,” Kahwihta said, absently. “So, around eighteen million, give or take.”
Ramirez grimaced. “Oh, that makes me feel better. Thank you for that.”
“Could be worse,” Kahwihta said. “Could be rats.” She leaned over the back of Ptolemy’s seat. “Can we go any faster?”
“Not without using up a lot of fuel. And even then, I don’t figure it’ll be fast enough.” Ramirez tapped a gauge. Kahwihta wasn’t certain what that accomplished, but it seemed to make Ramirez feel better. Maybe it was akin to sympathetic magic. Tap the gauge enough, and maybe it’ll change the reading. Ramirez cleared her throat. “Between the extra weight and the headwinds, we can’t get enough altitude.”
“Altitude doesn’t matter,” Kahwihta said. “Nor does speed, really. If those birds are dead, they’ll keep going until they fall apart.” She bit her knuckle, trying to think. She was supposed to be the zombologist, after all. “The noise of the engines is drawing them after us. So long as we’re in the air, we’re a target. They’ll keep after us until they catch up.”
“How dangerous can a few pigeons be?” Sayers asked from the compartment. She and Calavera were standing near the hatch. From Sayers’s expression, she felt as useless as Kahwihta did. It was hard to tell how Calavera felt, what with the mask, but the way he kept flexing his hands said he wasn’t happy.
“If they get sucked into the engines, very,” Ptolemy said. “How close are we to Atlantic City? Do we have time to reach the airfield before they catch up?”
Ramirez frowned. “Maybe. I might have to put down before then, though. Especially if we keep pushing it this way. Faster we go, the more fuel we burn.”
“What about the plan?” Sayers asked.
“A plan is only as good as its first meeting with the enemy,” Calavera said. He went back to the rear of the compartment and sat down. Sayers looked at him.
“What are you doing?”
“Resting. For when I am needed. Which is what you should be doing.” Calavera gestured to the seat nearest him. “Ramirez will do what she can, but our fate is now in the hands of Santa Muerte. We must be ready for her call.”
“Good idea,” Ramirez said. “I could do with a bit less crowding up here, thanks.” She glanced at Kahwihta. “That means you too. Take the dog with you. And buckle your seatbelt, please.”
“I don’t think a seatbelt is going to help,” Kahwihta said. The birds were still rising. Not as one, as she’d first thought, but in clumps – flocks within flocks. Zombies – human ones – did something similar. She pulled a battered Moleskine travel notebook from her coat pocket. She’d filled up almost a dozen notebooks of varying sizes since the end of the world. Notes, sketches, theories. She wasn’t sure how useful any of it was, but it kept her mind busy, and that was a good enough reason to do it.
Ramirez shook her head. “Humor me.”
Kahwihta saluted. “Sure thing, Boss.”
“Don’t call me Boss!”
Kahwihta laughed and made her way to a seat. It felt good to prod Ramirez in such a way, falling back on old nicknames from when they’d first met a long time ago at a resort town. As she strapped herself in, she took a look out the nearest window. The birds were a lot closer now, and the city far behind. Like regular zombies, the closer they got to prey, the quicker they moved. They were shedding pieces of themselves as well, leaving a cloud of particles in their wake. She imagined she could hear the thunderous flutter of their arrival.
That was interesting. They were also definitely hunting by sight and sound rather than by scent. Something to remember for the next time they decided to use a plane. If there was a next time. She started making notes.
Rather than taking a seat, Sayers went to the small galley area at the back of the compartment. “What are you doing?” Kahwihta asked.
“Looking for something to drink.” Sayers found a bottle of something Kahwihta thought was wine and gave it a shake. “Oh, that’s a good vintage.”
Kahwihta stared at her. “You know about wine?”
Sayers popped the cork and sniffed. “You don’t?”
Before Kahwihta could reply, a dull thump echoed through the compartment. Then another, and another. Attila began to growl. Kahwihta looked at the window. What might once have been a pigeon struck it hard enough to spiderweb the outer layer of glass. The remains of the bird slid away, caught by the wind. More thumps, like gunshots. She heard Ramirez curse. “Hold on, everyone! They caught up with us quicker than I thought. I’m going to try and punch through them – gah!”
There was a boom, a flash of light, and the plane bucked sideways, making Kahwihta glad she’d buckled herself in. She grabbed Attila as he shot to his feet, whining, eyes wide. Sayers wasn’t so lucky. She bounced off the galley door and fell back, cursing. Calavera reached out to steady her. “What was that?”
“We’ve lost an engine,” Ptolemy called out, looking back at them from the cockpit. “I suggest you take your seats and hold on.”
Sayers fell into a seat, cradling her head. “I don’t think we’re going to make the airfield,” she snarled, as she hurriedly buckled herself in.
The next few minutes were chaotic ones. The plane seemed to spin and roll. Bird strikes continued. Thump-thump-thump-thump. Kahwihta heard Ramirez cursing as she struggled to keep the plane in the air. She felt a chill draft and turned. A crow, its ribcage split and maggots wriggling in its fur, pecked at the window, losing pieces of itself to the slipstream even as it worked.
She watched in sickened fascination as it carefully pried away at the broken outer glass and started to go to work on the inner, losing a wing and most of its feathers in the process. It was resisting the wind through sheer cussedness. Determined. Insistent. Persistent. Like all zombies. The dead had nothing but patience.
Her world shrank to the crow and the window. Entranced, she put her hand to the glass, and felt the tap-tap reverberation. What was left of the bird grew frantic, frenzied. Down by her feet, Attila’s growling increased. The plane shuddered. Ramirez shouted something that Kahwihta couldn’t make out over the sound of the plane going down. All she could do was watch the crow do its damnedest to reach her eyes.
A lick of flame from the damaged engine caressed the crow, setting its few remaining greasy feathers alight. Kahwihta shrank back into her seat. The burning bird gave no sign that it had even noticed the fire that slowly consumed it.
The plane jolted. The crow vanished. Kahwihta felt her stomach hurtle upwards into her mouth. G-forces pressed her painfully back into her seat. The compartment shook wildly, and it was all she could do not to vomit. A scream backed up in her throat. The next few moments stretched into an eternity of sound and fury. Then–
Impact.
Everything blinked out, just for a moment. At least she thought it was just a moment until Kahwihta found herself on the floor of the compartment. Everything hurt. She looked around. Smoke filled the interior. She coughed. Her eyes blurred with tears. She couldn’t breathe. Her chest felt as if something heavy were pressing down on her. She heard Attila whimper and felt the rough rasp of his tongue on her cheek. “I’m OK,” she wheezed. “I’m all right. Let me up.” She flailed, found an armrest, and pulled herself into a sitting position. She blinked, trying to orient herself.
The compartment looked as if it had been crushed in a giant fist. There were sparks in the air, and she could detect the tang of spilt fuel. The smoke was too thick to see much past her own nose. Attila pressed himself against her, whining urgently. “Yeah, I know,” she murmured. “We have to get out of here. But where’s the hatch?”
As if in answer, there was a crunch from nearby. She heard a grunt and another crunch. Then a third, and with a definite creak of metal as something gave way, a shaft of grainy light pierced the smoke. She saw a vague outline she thought was Calavera wrench the rest of the hatch free of its busted hinges and hurl it aside.
The big man paused, and for a moment, as the smoke whirled about him, she thought she saw something – someone – behind him. A woman, maybe. But thin, oh so thin, and white – too white, bone white. The woman had one impossibly thin – fleshless? – hand on Calavera’s shoulder, as if urging him on. Or perhaps restraining him. It was impossible to tell. The woman was gone, and Calavera was stretching a hand towards her. “Kahwihta, come – hurry!”
She lurched towards him, the world spinning. He caught her hand and pulled her to him, before tossing her out. Attila followed with a bark. Calavera ducked back inside, and she could hear him shouting.
She looked around. They’d crashed on an oceanfront boardwalk, tearing up the wood and the street alike. Abandoned cars littered their path, and busted storefronts surrounded them. She could smell the ocean, taste the salt on the air. She took a shaky breath. “I guess we made it,” she coughed.
“You OK, kid?” Sayers asked, roughly. She stood nearby, atop the twisted wreck of a car. She had her bow in her hand, an arrow nocked and ready. Blood stained the side of her face and matted her hair.
“I’m in one piece, I think,” Kahwihta said, hauling herself to her feet. “You?”
“My head hurts.” Sayers squinted. “We made a lot of noise coming down.”
Kahwihta understood why Sayers wasn’t actively pulling the rest of them from the compartment. She was defending them from attack. Kahwihta followed her gaze and saw forms stumbling through the smoke that marked their trail. A lot of them, in fact. She’d lost her gear in the crash, but she still had her icepick. She fumbled it out but it seemed a paltry defense at best. Still, something was better than nothing. “Oh, that is definitely sub-optimal.”
“You sound like Calvin,” Sayers said, peering down the shaft of the arrow. She loosed it, flinched, and shook her head. “Dizzy.”
“Concussion?” Kahwihta looked up at her. “You’re bleeding.”
“I don’t have time to bleed.”
Kahwihta grinned. “Love that movie.”
Sayers blinked. “Movie?” She reached for another arrow but was distracted as Calavera returned, carrying both Ramirez and Ptolemy over his broad shoulders. “What happened – Calvin?” She forgot what she’d been doing and scrambled down off of the car as Calavera laid his burdens on the ground. Both Ramirez and Ptolemy looked the worse for wear; they were bloody and covered in glass and broken metal.
Kahwihta took Ramirez’s pulse. It was thready, but there. Ptolemy was the same. He groaned as she checked him, and tried to sit up. “What…?” he mumbled.
Sayers knelt beside him. “Calvin, look at me. How many fingers am I holding up?” She held up two fingers. Ptolemy blinked in apparent confusion. Sayers frowned and looked at Kahwihta. “How’s Ramirez?”
“Unconscious,” Kahwihta said, lightly slapping the downed woman on the cheeks. “We need to wake her up. There’s no telling how long she’s been out.”
“A minute, maybe less,” Calavera said, looming over them. His clothes were ripped and bloody. There was glass in his bare flesh, but he didn’t seem unduly concerned. “She got Ptolemy out of his seat before she passed out. Tough woman.”
“That’s good,” Kahwihta said. She looked at the others. “I took some general first aid courses, but I’m not a doctor. I think we’ve got to wake her up.”
“Is that strictly safe?” Calavera asked, doubtfully.
“Absolutely not, but if she stays out of it for too long, she might not wake up.” Kahwihta turned. The sound of that all too familiar moaning was getting louder. The smoke was thinning, and she could see the approaching walkers clearly. They’d probably been drawn from all over the city by the sound of the crash. Like the birds, they would keep coming until they reached critical mass.
“We can’t go anywhere with her out of it,” Sayers said, rising to her feet. “Calvin’s in no shape to run either.”
“I could carry them,” Calavera said.
Kahwihta looked at him. “Both of them? While running from zombies?” She shook her head. “You’re strong, but not that strong. We need them on their feet.”
Calavera nodded. “Fine. Do what you can. Sayers and I will buy you time.” With that, he stripped off the remnants of his shirt and wrapped the rags about his forearms. He looked at Sayers. “Cover me.”
Then, with a roar, he charged to meet the oncoming horde.