Free 9.0 - Sanctum by Bobby Adair

does it hurt when hopes shatter? Isn’t the world full of enough pain over real things, like when our loved ones die?
    All I saw was the evidence of death, and it was depressing.  It gave the impression that nothing below was alive except for the Whites who moved in their helices and gangs.  Some hunted individually and in small groups with no organization.  They all looked up, though, when they heard the sound of the Black Hawk.  Though it wasn’t likely any of them had heard the sound of an engine or seen a moving vehicle on the ground or in the air for months, their snail brains still remembered the smorgasbord from those first days and weeks, when cars were everywhere, full of fleeing food.  In those days, a White barely needed to do anything to feed except wait by a road for a car to come to a stop.  Then it was only a matter of breaking the glass or taking advantage of humans’ bad choices to get out of their cars.
    As Martin drew the Black Hawk into tighter circles around the campus, Murphy pointed and said, “You see what I’m seeing?”
    “Yeah.” 
    The density of remains got thicker and thicker near the western corner of the campus, and the flowery pattern of death seemed to be centered on a cluster of buildings.
    Martin's voice crackled over the intercom.  "Tell me where to go, fellas."
    Murphy pointed to the carnage around the buildings at the western corner of the campus.  “If they’re here, that’s got to be where.”
    “Can we go lower?” I asked into the intercom.
    “We can go all the way down to the ground,” Martin laughed.
    Rolling my eyes for no one to see, I said, “You know what I mean.”
    “Somewhat.”  He asked, “How low do you want to go?”
    “Low enough to tell what kind of cars are parked down there?”
    Martin laughed.
    Murphy turned and looked at me.
    I pointed at the ground.  “If the Mustang is down there, then we’re in the right place.  Right?”
    Martin said, “I could drop down to about five hundred feet.”
    Murphy turned back to his window and resituated himself in front of his machine gun.
    I put a hand on a bulkhead and leaned forward.
    “You’re crowding me, man.”  Murphy shouldered me over a bit.  “Why don’t you go back to your side?”
    “Everything is on this side of the helicopter.”
    Martin said, “The copilot seat is empty.”
    I leaned away from Murphy and seated myself in one of the four jump seats facing forward.  Looking to my right gave me a view out the same side of the aircraft as Murphy.  It also left me feeling unnerved to have floor to ceiling open doorways to my left and right, because of the angle of the Black Hawk, one showing nothing but sky and the other ground.  It didn’t help that Martin was descending, leaving my feet feeling a little light, with a little less friction under my soles than I preferred.
    I grabbed the frame of the jump seat tightly as I watched the ground.
    Martin turned the Black Hawk into a tighter circle and the helicopter banked more steeply. 
    With growing worry that I’d slip right out the side, I’d have gotten myself strapped in, but I couldn’t bring myself to let go of anything.  “This is more exhilarating than I thought it would be.”
    Murphy chuckled, telling Martin, "He's afraid he's going to fall out."
    Martin laughed and angled the helicopter into another steeply banking turn.
    “Asshole!”  I yelled.  “Why don’t you just hover?”
    Martin leveled out and straightened it up again.  “Sorry.  Couldn’t help myself.”
    “I think I see it,” said Murphy.
    “It?” Martin asked.
    “The car.  The Mustang,” Murphy clarified.  “Look, Zed.  Down there by the four-story building.”
    I scanned below.  “The one with the solar panels all over the roof?”
    "Yeah, back at the corner in the parking lot.  By that loading dock.  I think it's attached to a cable.  I think they're charging it."
    “That your Mustang?” Martin asked as he found a spot in the