Ellie's Story
Chapter 1
What is, What was, What will be...
I start to remember. It has been days since I have had time to really remember anything. It started, two weeks ago, with a few stories on the radio and television. At that time, I was far too busy to pay attention. I was going to Paris, foreign exchange student paradise. I worked my whole short life to get here, to Paris. Nothing was going to screw this up for me.
Then the news reports became more than sporadic, they became so very common. Ordinary people, suddenly dropping dead, then coming back, biting and eating people. The zombie plague had become real. Weaponized rabies had been spread in the public water supply, or by air, nobody knows anymore. How, why, who... at this point it makes no difference. In two weeks, the world went from sane, to hell.
But that story, of how it happened, and how nobody could stop what was coming, is a story for another day. Instead, I am more concerned with my present situation. That situation, is very bad indeed. When Paris was being evacuated, through Hamburg, eventually to the island of Ithaca, Greece, I had pretty much given up on feeling in control of my life. Paris and Hamburg were two of the last human safe zones. Then news spread, that Ithaca was zombie free. A lottery was taken, the few of us lucky enough to get picked, were to fly down to Ithaca, to become the last survivors of the human race.
The helicopter is huge. This is what strikes me first, as I board it. The huge tanks on what look like long fat short little wings, look like they hold enough fuel, I guess, to fly around the world, but I am sure it is just my ignorance. Still, they hurry us aboard, Twenty of us, picked at random, or so they claim. I notice however, nobody "randomly picked" is older than their twenties, and most are female too. I really have nothing to say about this, so I say nothing. I am just glad to be leaving the UN Base, alive.
As the helicopter lifts off, I get my first look outside the tall metal gates. The pile of zombies is terrifying. They tear at each other to get to the gates and walls. Their screams and moans are audible even at this altitude. The noise of the engines on the helicopter can not drown out the horrific squeals. I cover my ears, putting my ear buds in and turning up my music. I am afraid to look any longer, so I turn away as the guns once again fire from the top of the guard towers, ripping into the hoards. They are running low on ammunition, I overheard soldiers say. They estimate that the base will fall in less than a week. Until then, the soldiers will continue to try to keep the majority of the hoards back. Still, the weight of the masses pressing against the walls and gates will eventually bring them down. There is no stopping it.
The flight is peaceful, once aloft. The tension seems to ease considerably. Even the UN Soldiers guarding us take time to sit down and close their eyes for a few minutes each. Maybe I am wrong to feel safe. Still, I do. We are away from that hell. We have left the ragged fortification. I try to put the memory of the smell out of my mind. With no running water, the waste from the few thousand survivors is a problem initially, and becomes critical the longer we are trapped there, but the alternative is to leave the relative security of the compound, into the wasteland that has become Europe.
The flight remains peaceful for quite a while. I switch off my music and close my eyes trying to nap. It has been so long since I felt safe enough to allow myself to really sleep. That makes it all too easy now. I close my eyes, head resting on the top of the net seating. I sleep, visions of the undead as they chased us down streets, of the screams, the pools of blood from victims, of the shooting from random places, all invade my troubled rest. The dreams obfuscate the reality happening at the moment, to the helicopter. I am reliving the previous day, being pushed and jostled around by larger people, gun fire going off, the alarms blasting. I sleep through the fact that the helicopter is being shot down. I only wake up when we start to fall.
The pilot counter-rotates the helicopter as best as he can, but we still hit the ground hard. Though we are, most all, strapped into our seats, the soldiers are not so lucky, manning their guns to the end. Returning fire as best as they can, they are thrown around by the impact with the first mound of dirt.
We spin, rolling, tumbling along like a mad carnival ride gone horribly wrong. I hear screaming, a high pitched yell of terror and realize it is my own. Then we are sliding. I catch a glimpse out the now shattered side window, of a building. It is relentlessly approaching. I know we can not possibly stop, and the closing speed is going to be lethal. I close my eyes, thinking, I do not want to see it come. I am about to die, and I do not want to know. And then, I am numb.
Flashes of light assail my vision. Intermittent noises, a popping, a groan and some metal bending alert me to consciousness. Slowly, like the brightness being turned up from zero to full eleven, the world starts to come into focus. Briefly, my mind sorts itself. What happened, who am I, where is this place?
It comes back to me in a rush. I am nauseous and expel the meager serving of rice and beans I had eaten prior to our leaving Hamburg. I expect it to drop, slovenly, onto my lap, instead it appears to fly across the helicopter and impact with a sickening splatter, on one of the dead soldiers, who is miraculously, floating in mid air. I blink a few times, holding my head. I am hanging from my harness.
We are atilt, the fuselage is askew at an angle. Releasing the harness proves to be no easy task. I fumble, uselessly, with the catch for what seems eternity. I have neither a clear vision of this task, nor do I have experience at it. I hang helplessly in the harness, blood starting to pool in my limp legs and arms. I am dizzy, both from the impact and from the lack of circulation in my brain.
I feel a strong hand pull my head back. I groan, too weakened to resist. I open my eyes, seeing one of the soldiers looking back at me. He looks to be in very bad condition. Still, with much exertion, we manage to extricate my bruised body from the harness. We fall, together, onto the ground side of the fuselage. I hear him grunt, feel him reflexively curl away from me. Then he pushes me toward the broken tail section of the helicopter. This is where the smoke and light have been coming from. The tail section appears to have broken off.
I turn back to help him, but he points to one of the packs the soldiers had hung on the sides of the helicopter. I point to it as well and he nods. I climb up onto the seating and tug at it furiously, until it gives up its tenacious hold of the wall, now ceiling. Together we tumble into the side, which served as the bottom, prior to our unintended decent. As I get to my feet, I hear the sound of him tossing his gun belt to me. He had picked up one of the rifles that were scattered about, flotsam from the impact. He yells something at me, but I do not understand him. Then he points to the blue helmet and pistol and mimics putting them on. I do as instructed. As he tries to stand again, I realize why he is failing to do so. He has but one leg below the knee, the other I can not account for. He is rapidly losing blood. I gasp, but the time for this has come and passed. I hear the, now, familiar screams of the undead, outside.
He turns and fires out a hole in the floor, turned wall. I stand, uselessly transfixed by this macabre display, being enacted before my clouded mind. He looks over at me and yells something that I interpret to be "run!" I do. I hold the pack in my hands, rolling out of the disassembled tail section of the helicopter. I look back at the crippled soldier and see him turn his rifle on himself as the zombies are now visibly closing the gap to where he is firing from. His head explodes from the rifle shot. In my diminished capacity, I pause, my mind unable to process this situation. Instinct compels me to flee. I have no recollection of my flight.
The screams of the undead are distant from me now. My weary limbs can no longer support me as I give in to the relentless pull of the Earth. I collapse into a pile of leaves, coming to rest under some brush. I roll onto my back, my exhaustion precipitates an uncontrolled fit of laughter; relief from the terror, and the overall confusion. I have no idea what I am laughing about. Tears mark my cheeks, where they vacate the dark patches of soot from the smoke that coated my exposed flesh. I could be forgiven for looking much like the undead at this point. I certainly feel half alive.
I rest, catching my breath, but still wary. I have learned to always be wary, they come abruptly, ravenously. While I rest, I draw the pistol. My brief training at the compound serves me. I know how to release the magazine. I see it is full of bullets. I push one out with my thumb. It has 9mm engraved into the back of it around the silvery middle. I commit that to memory. I have a 9mm pistol. I put the magazine back into it and examine the rest. The safety is off. The hammer is not back, so it may not be ready to fire. I pull the back of the slide as we were taught and it puts a bullet into the port as I release it. I know that it is now ready to shoot. I consider putting the safety on, but in my ill experienced state, should I need it quickly, I would not remember to flip it up to fire. I know that it is more dangerous, but should I need it, I will need it quickly, and if it is not able to shoot, it will be my death.
I replace it back within the canvas holster. It is far too large, and I spend some time adjusting it. Then I get to my knees. I have spent far too long in one place. I am unprotected, lost, and on my own. I do not allow my mind to navigate the myriad of ways I will meet my demise. I have to take control of the situation, not let it take control of me. "Okay, Ellie, change of plans. We are not going to Ithaca, we will not be spending the rest of our life on a beach, fishing and probably repopulating Earth." I tell myself, somewhat over dramatically, but given my circumstances, I feel such an extravagance is acceptable, this one time. "No, it seems we will be learning to survive, in this... place. Which brings to question, where is this place?" I at this point recognize I am talking to myself, briefly wondering at my own sanity, then really, in a fit of abandon, disregarding the entire notion of losing my sanity. I am the sole survivor of a helicopter crash, in the middle of a strange place, infested with zombies, armed with a dead man's gun. By what do I measure sanity?
With what I label Herculean effort, I collect my legs under me. With a few unsure paces, I begin to walk. I choose to start down the gentle glide, towards the small body of collected water below me. Looking back towards the path of my flight, I see that I ran up a hill, away from what seems to be the burning remains of what used to be an airport of some kind.
As I descend unto the water's edge, the airport is obscured from my view. I see only the rise of smoke from the fires. I turn away and attend myself at the waterline. I am a mess. My hands shake as I pull my over shirt off and use it to wash away the soot from my arms and legs. I have various small scrapes and some fresh bruises. I am sure I have more on my shoulders and legs from the turbulent jostling I received. I open the pack. It is full of gear. I pull out some boots, too large, so I remove the laces and toss them aside. I remove some blue and white camouflage blouses and trousers. They are large, but the trousers seem to adjust smaller by pulling two straps on the sides. I take off the gun belt and my own boots. They are military style boots, given to me at the compound, since my trainers had been ruined. I quickly undress and pull the trousers on, then blouse over my undershirt. They fit very loose, obviously too large, but they are clean and dry and will protect me more than the shorts and thin tank top I had. I buckle the gun belt back on and return to examining my supplies.
I sit on the blue helmet as I pull what remains out. There were three sets of the cammies, another pair of the boots, that I remove the laces from, then discard them as well. I find a couple of the packaged meals, then on the outside, the harness that many of the soldiers wore. I spend some time learning how they assemble to the gun belt. I can now attach the two canteens and what appears to be a first aid kit. That will come in handy. In another pouch is what appears to be a small sewing kit. Another has iodine tablets for purifying water. I sip some canteen water as I survey the final items of the inventory. Some magazines for the pistol. I find two grenades but decide not to mess with those, they seem dangerous. I find a gas mask, which I am not sure would work on me, it seems too large. Dubious, I discard it. The compass looks useful. I keep it. Finally, I find what I assume is a bible of some sort. It is not in a language I understand. I discard it, though I do that with some reverence, considering it must be a very special item to be in a soldiers gear.
I know that it is foolish, but I turn back towards the smoke. If I am to survive, wherever I am. I will need something more than this pistol. That airport is the only place I know of. So with trepidation, I make my way back to the site of this tumultuous adventure.