Arisen, Book Six - The Horizon Read online

  Well, sure enough, now they were fighting in the goddamned fields – ones less than fifty miles from the bloody M25, which was the ring-road, and now the ZPW (Zulu-Proof Wall), that defined the outer border of London.

  No, Charlotte’s parents weren’t down there, and she wouldn’t recognize them even if they were. God knew they wouldn’t have had the strength, or the adaptability, or in particular the resolve, to survive the Zulu Alpha. But Charlotte did. She was damned well going to survive all this. And so were her friends in the Army.

  And so was Britain.

  The next wave of surging dead was still nearly two kilometers back behind what had been defined as the MLR, the main line of resistance. But she was due to be relieved in this sector, and this carve-up of airspace, in a few minutes. And she still had a lot of ordnance left. There was little point in spending the fuel to ferry those heavy rockets and missiles all the way out here, and then right back to base again.

  Moreover, Charlotte suddenly just found herself not in a defensive mood. And she was under her own tactical control right now – CentCom seemed task-saturated, as it woke up to the seriousness of the threat, and tried to run the many fronts of this battle from their Joint Operations Center (JOC) in Oxfordshire. Come to think of it, she hadn’t heard from the USOC TOC at Hereford in hours, either.

  Fuck it, she thought. We’re not backing up anymore. Not today. Not on my watch.

  She didn’t know for sure what unit was meant to replace her. But whoever it was, she was going to make damn sure their backs weren’t up against the sodding wall.

  She revved up her bird’s dual custom Rolls-Royce engines to something in the ballpark of their peak 2,100 horsepower, climbed until she’d gained 400 feet, and the engines, wind, and rotors were all screaming around her. And then she put her targeting laser just ahead of the next rank of advancing dead, out on the left flank. And she fired all four Hellfire missiles from her rail, moving the targeting laser a half a kilometer to the right each time. She then put her remaining rockets into the surviving dead behind that. And then she played clean-up with her 30mm auto-cannon, dropping dozens of the rapid-fire high-explosive rounds into groups and singles that were somehow still on their feet.

  Sixty seconds later, she had single handedly cleared up a major chunk of overrun Kentish real estate. But then she remembered another Churchill quote – “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results” – and performed another careful battle damage assessment (BDA). Her effect on target was still excellent. She’d knocked the dead, at least in her sector, halfway back to effing Calais.

  With these weapons and targeting systems, she almost couldn’t miss. And against that level of firepower, nothing could stand. Basically, nothing cleans house like an Apache.

  “Quality, mate,” she said aloud. “Fucking quality.”

  After this one-sided curb-stomp battle, she was now “Winchester” on ammo (totally out), and within five minutes of “bingo fuel” (just enough to get her home). And with that, her radio chirped up on the air-mission net, a flat and staticky voice, but recognizably masculine, growling at her across the sky – and approaching quickly.

  “Wyvern Two Zero, this is Dambuster One One, coming on station. We are a flight of two Typhoon FGR4s, with standard weapons payload and two hours playtime. Requesting handover of your sector, over.”

  Charlotte smiled as she keyed her mike. “Dambuster One One, Wyvern Two Zero. She’s all yours, mate. Happy times. Out.” And she kept on smiling – because she knew it took four men in two 90-million-Euro jet planes to take the place of her, riding alone in her dragon.

  For the past 36 hours of this combat mission, she had been grabbing gas, and ordnance, and the odd half-hour of sleep, at a forward rearming and refueling point (FARP), about two klicks behind the MLR. But now her deployment was definitely done – it wasn’t safe to fly any longer without sleep, and CentCom wouldn’t let her try it even if she asked.

  So she tightened her grips on the collective and cyclic, checked the moving map display, and mentally computed a course. She would be heading now toward the opposite horizon, the green and hopeful one. And, out beyond that, maybe her future lay waiting for her… So she wheeled her agile and deadly bird of prey around in a tight arc, the whole 80-foot and 16,000-pound machine feeling like a single sleek prosthesis, an extension of her body.

  And she pointed it toward home.

  “Home.” She said that aloud as well.

  She liked the sound of it.

  * * *

  “Hotel X, this is Wyvern Two Zero, I am RTB minus one mike, requesting priority clearance for primary helipad.”

  Because she was so obviously within radio range, and because this was such a routine clearance request – hers was one of only a handful of helos that used the USOC helipad – she hadn’t even waited for an acknowledgement before broadcasting it.

  But now nothing came back. No clearance. No acknowledgement. No answer of any sort.

  “Hotel X, Wyvern Two Zero, commo check.” Her eyes darted down to her radio panel. Everything was glowing in the right places. Looking up again, she could actually see the base, nestled in the Herefordshire hills, and growing in perspective. She was actually visual with the people she was trying to talk to.

  But her Spidey sense was perking up now, so instead of flying straight to the X and flaring in to land, she instead wheeled around and did a clockwise circuit over the base.

  Not only were there no other aircraft coming or going – but she couldn’t even see anyone moving on the ground. That made zero sense. She did a second circuit, while hailing the TOC twice more. Sweet F-A. No radio contact, no visual on anyone or anything.

  Her dragon was basically breathing fumes at this point, so she had no choice but to put it down. She didn’t have the range to reach any other military airbase now. And she certainly wasn’t going to put it down outside the wire. Not with the island's defenses breached and the hills crawling with dead fuckers.

  Dust billowed up around her as the beast settled on its three fat tires. Charlotte got her head out of her heavy, high-tech helmet, while the canopy lifted around her. Before climbing out of the cockpit, she unholstered her HK MP7 personal defense weapon from where it was nestled under her arm, then hopped down to the tarmac.

  There was no ground crew rushing forward to meet her and to block the wheels. No techs from the Aviation Maintenance Company shoving aside refuelers and rearming guys to clip in computers, run checks, and make sure the bird was ready to go back out and deal more death. This was nothing like the normal Indy 500 pit stop routine.

  Squinting slightly in alarm and confusion, she moved forward in her Nomex flight suit across the tarmac. Directly ahead of her was the aviation hangar. She checked that first, along with the attached offices, as well as the pilot ready room. Nothing; nobody. Then she actually ran across the open helipad to the officers’ and NCOs’ mess – now everybody’s mess, since the enlisted one got destroyed by that Hellfire mishap a week ago. She even did a run by the half-destroyed and boarded-up hospital.

  Nobody – anywhere.

  She knew that at any given time, and particularly lately, many or most of the operational teams could be outside the wire on deployment. And she’d already heard that more and more of them were being pulled into the defense of the southeast. But even if every single operator were out in the field… where the hell was everyone else? The support people, the command element, the TOC jocks, medical, comms? She’d only been gone two days. Yet they’d all vanished without a fucking trace.

  Her beloved home had become a ghost town.

  “This makes zero fucking sense.” She quickly realized that not only had she stopped and was standing in place – but that she was speaking aloud again. Maybe she was spending too much time in her own company. Logging too many hours without a gunner.

  Fuck it. She decided to go to the top.

  She found the Colonel’s office unlocked, and empty. Stepping
forward, the short barrel of her MP7 seeming to rise up under its own power, she pushed her way in. Loose papers covered the desk, as if he’d left in a hurry. Normally the Colonel was a fiend for OPSEC – he certainly observed a clean-desk policy in Charlotte’s experience.

  Fuck. She shook her head again. This was like a bad dream. Exiting the command shack, she ran toward the operators’ quarters and ready rooms. Echo’s area was locked. She tried around the other side, and found an unlocked door, which led to the Alpha billets and team room. She entered, pointing her weapon ahead of her, the screaming silence ringing in her ears. Hot tears began to leak from the corners of her eyes.

  She was being abandoned – again.

  Inside Alpha’s area, everything was squared away – not as if anyone had left in a hurry, much less a panic. More as if they had been setting off on a long journey. Which they had – Charlotte knew Alpha was on some kind of extended (and top-secret) deployment. Her mind began to scream, desperate for a clue of any sort. She opened one of the lockers at random. Inside was some clothing, load-bearing equipment, a few empty pouches. And taped to the inside of the door…

  …a brilliantly lit photograph. It showed a man, a woman, and two boys, in some kind of beautiful green space. She recognized the man as Captain Ainsley, commander of Alpha team. She had to fight back a half-sob, shoving it back down her chest. The image was so alive and lovely and peaceful, it only underscored Charlotte’s aloneness. Her abandonment. But wherever Captain Ainsley was right now, she prayed he was safe. And wherever his family was… well, she prayed the same thing for them.

  Not only had Fortress Britain been breached, but now, somehow, even Hereford had gone. Which meant no place was safe. Nothing could be more obvious to her.

  On her final walk back to the helipad, just on a hunch, she ducked into the Quarantine Shack. No doctor was there on duty, but both of the Zulu-sniffing dogs were at their post – both looking tragically abandoned and forlorn behind their wire mesh. She took the time to feed and water them both. And then she set them free.

  She didn’t know what else to do.

  * * *

  Charlotte watched the Potemkin Village that was Hereford fall away beneath her, as she turned her Apache back toward the east. She’d had to refuel and rearm the damned thing herself. The fueling was okay, but rearming was not a one-woman job, even if she’d remembered very well how to do it.

  But none of that mattered now. She was back in the air. And, even if alone, she was safe.

  Her prior mission on the line had been her last scheduled for a while, according to the CentCom battle controllers. So she didn’t have to go back there. But she couldn’t stay here.

  And ahead of her, out there somewhere, was her home squadron – 1 Regiment Army Air Corps, based at Wattisham Airfield. This was in Suffolk, nearly on the east coast of England – but at least a bit to the north.

  Captain Charlotte Maidstone said a silent prayer that the airfield still stood. If it didn’t, she had no idea where she was going to land this thing.

  But there was nothing else for her to do.

  It was time to go.

  No Fox Among the Chickens

  Britain – West Sussex

  Alan edged carefully toward the movement in the bushes, his shotgun aimed at the rustling of leaves. This was it, what he had been trying to achieve for days, to finally catch it. The damned thing had been roaming the woods around the farm for weeks now and he’d lost a dozen chickens already.

  The movement in the bushes stopped, the leaves going still, and he took a deep breath and stopped moving. It must have sensed his approach, he figured, and any movement now would completely screw it up. There was far too much cover here, and way too many bolt holes for it to run to. And if it was disturbed and fled, as it had already done a number of times, then he was likely to miss again. And he’d only get one shot. The dog was so damned fast that if he missed it would be away and running, and out of range before he could reload.

  If only he’d taken Tessa’s advice and bought a bolt action instead, then he’d have a second shot if needed. It wasn’t like he couldn’t afford it, and with the gun restrictions lifted he could have bought an assault rifle if he’d wanted. When the ZA hit the world, and the military from other countries started making the UK their home, they’d brought with them all manner of guns. Alan smiled – if there was one thing you could count on the Americans for it was a lot of hardware. Ammunition, that was the problem, as well as the reason he’d stuck to his single-barrel shotgun. He had a few hundred shells stored away in boxes in the house, more than enough to keep him in good supply, and to deal with the occasional wild dog that moved into the area.

  The leaves rustled again, and Alan lifted the shotgun, slowly, and took aim. Should he just let rip? The blast of birdshot wouldn’t be likely to miss in such a small area anyway, but he didn’t fire. He wanted to see the thing before he ended its life.

  The wild dogs were a new problem that had appeared not long after the zombies. There hadn’t been many outbreaks in the UK, and those that did occur had been very small and were stamped out before they spread. But when the rationing started to bite, many people began hoarding their food and prepping for the worst. And even though Alan hated it, he knew this meant that for some, the family dog was booted out to reduce the number of mouths to feed.

  Damned stupid city folk, he thought. What happened to that phrase… what was it? A pet is for life… something like that. Well, those people kicked out their best buddies pretty damned quickly, just to save a few tins of food, when times were suddenly hard. He’d never do that to his dogs, no chance. And the thought of his three Border Collies, huddled up next to the fire in the farmhouse, gave him a warm, fuzzy feeling. They were his babies.

  The movement in the bushes had stopped again, and Alan could feel the start of a cramp building in the backs of his legs. He’d wait the beast out if he had to, but he hoped to be back at the farm within the hour. Tessa would have his lunch on the table, and he really didn’t want to miss that today. Being out just after first light, following the trail the dog had left after killing two more of his birds, meant he had already missed breakfast, and his stomach was rumbling uncomfortably. It puzzled him, how the dog was able to get through everything he had set up, and still kill his chickens. Barbed wire, solid wood fences. Doubled-up netting, traps of various types. The dog seemed able to maneuver around everything and still get in there and out again, with a full belly and a mess of feathers and guts left strewn across the chicken pen.

  As Alan stood there, just watching the bush, waiting for the creature to make its move, he noticed for the first time how quiet the woods had gotten. There were usually birds in the trees or other small animals moving about, and normally this place would be full of ambient noise at this time of the morning. But now the air was still, with no sound at all. But then there came a very distant throbbing sound that he couldn’t place. He hadn’t noticed it before, but it was very slowly getting louder.

  Against his better judgment, Alan looked away from the bush and up to the sky, where he thought the sound was coming from. He saw nothing at first, but as he watched, tiny dots appeared on the horizon, heading toward him, and there were a lot, dozens maybe. He frowned, and continued to watch as the specks got bigger, becoming more distinct. A flight of helicopters, coming in from the west. The noise of their rotors grew louder as they approached, and Alan stood, transfixed, the dog in the bushes temporarily forgotten, as two dozen fat, twin-bladed military helicopters sped through the air only a few hundred yards away. The roar and downdraft were tremendous.

  And then the bushes rustled again, and there was a crack of breaking twigs, and Alan spun back to where he should have been watching, toward where the dog was creeping… or had been a moment before. But now all he saw was a dark streak of fur running away. He raised the shotgun, knowing the animal was still in range, and fired, but too late. The dog disappeared behind a large oak, and all that Alan got for his e
fforts was a scattering of wood and bark chips as the blast hit the lowest branches of the tree.

  He cursed aloud, then turned toward the flight of ungainly helicopters, which were now getting smaller as they headed out toward the opposite horizon – toward the east coast. He cursed again.

  Two hours of walking in the woods, tracking the dog down, and he had missed his chance because of those buggers, he thought as he trudged forward, heading in the direction the dog had taken. He would follow it for a while, to see if it might hole up somewhere else, but he knew his chances were pretty slim. It would bolt a couple of miles now, most likely, and his tracking skills were not quite good enough to follow the thing indefinitely. No, he wouldn’t see the evil canine chicken-murderer again today.

  He stepped through bushes and over fallen logs, reloading his shotgun as he went, and eventually made his way across the stream that marked the boundary of his farmland. He had intended to clear this bit of forest, back before the zombies arrived, chop the trees down and turn it into another field for crops, or maybe even plant an orchard. But Tessa had insisted that it it stay wooded, and be left to go overgrown. That woman has always been a nature freak, even in school, he thought. And even though he’d persuaded her to marry him and settle on the farm, he still hadn’t been able to remove the hippy side of her nature, and he was always secretly glad of that.

  He crossed the stream and walked up to the lane on the other side, then started to trudge down it, back toward the farm. He decided the best way to beat the dog was to go back to making the chicken pen even more difficult to get into. This time he’d make the thing damn near impenetrable.