Free 900 Miles: A Zombie Novel by S. Johnathan Davis

little differently.
    With a blue sleeping bag over my legs, I pulled my phone down from the dashboard.  The solar charger wasn’t in direct sunlight long enough, and was still not turning on.  Already owning one of these things, I knew that they needed to sit in direct sunlight for four or five hours before I’d get even a few bars of charge.  It was the proverbial blessing and a curse.
    I looked up at the full moon, watching some dark clouds pass by.  Kyle was asleep, or at least as asleep as one could pull off, given the circumstances. He had told me to sleep with one eye open.
    I finally drifted off thinking about my wife, hoping that she had found refuge and was safe.  Once my phone was charged, I would have to find an operating cell tower and call.  At the very least, I hoped to get a message to her to let her know I was still alive.
    Back in those first few days of this mess, I would fall asleep with my hammer sitting next to me.  Now I can’t fall asleep unless it’s clutched firmly in my hand.
    The night passed uneventfully, though morning came too soon. We received a rude awakening when three zombies stumbled past the billboard, moaning loudly. Neither Kyle nor I risked moving a muscle. I held my breath, listening to them until the sound died away.
    I was standing outside taking my morning piss when I heard a sound in the distance.  At first, I couldn’t tell quite what it was; it was just an echo really, carried on the gentle breeze.
    I looked at Kyle, his face telling me that he heard it, too.  We both sat in silence, an ear turned in the direction we thought it came from.  It kept getting closer, and louder .
    “Helicopter,” Kyle said, scanning the sky. He pointed suddenly toward the tree line.
    I looked to the north, glimpsing it through the trees. The chopper was army green with two large rotating blades keeping it airborne. Kyle called it a Chinook, confirming that it was military.
    “Sure would be nice to be in that thing right about now,” I said .
    He nodded, studying the aircraft with a scowl. “Maybe not.”
    Looking back at the chopper as it hovered closer; even I could tell something was off. It was rising and descending wildly in the air when the tail suddenly jerked from side-to-side, and the whole thing plunged a good fifty feet.  I found myself feeling glad to be planted safely on the ground.
    As it passed by Kyle and I, the door on the side of the Chopper swung open.  Even in the distance, I could make out a man emerging from the side. He was dressed in green, matching the color of the aircraft.  I took a step back in disbelief as the person leapt from the side door. My heart skipped a beat as he was almost immediately followed by what appeared to be a woman as she cast herself out of the cabin in tow.
    The guy in green pulled a parachute, but it didn’t have time to fully deploy as the woman came crashing down on top of him, crippling any chance of a slowed decent. I don’t know if they were zombies or people, but one thing was for sure as we watched the two of them tangled up together, plummeting toward the earth; they were heading for a certain death.
    The chopper continued moving erratically, and we watched as it dropped another fifty or so feet.
    “That thing’s coming down!” yelled Kyle. “If it stays in one piece, I can fly it!”
    We both raced to the Hummer.  Kyle had his head hanging out the side window directing me on where to go.
    In the distance, hovering at maybe one hundred feet above a small park, we watched as the chopper started to spin completely out of control.  The tail hit first, flinging the rotor directly through a small yellow slide nearby.  The nose came crashing down, crippling under the force of its own weight.  The two blades on top smashed into the grass at the same time, sending the entire thing hurtling into the rest of a nearby wooden playground.
    I braked the Hummer just as a massive cloud of dust and debris rocketed into the air.