Chapter 16: The Rooftop

Bill took up position on the roof of a maintenance shack just above the helipad, while Francis crouched behind him, covering the ladder they had just climbed up.

The veteran pointed over to another small service shack nearby. "Louis, Zoey, get up the ladder onto that rooftop and watch the stairwell door!"

"What about the ventilation ducts?" she yelled back.

"We've got them covered!"

With that, the four survivors took up their respective positions on the rooftop of Mercy Hospital as the sun rose over the horizon, giving a not-so glorious view of the ruined city.

"That helicopter pilot had better show up," Louis called over nervously.

Francis grunted. "If he doesn't, at least we'll die with a nice view of the city."

The stillness of the morning was shattered as Bill squeezed the trigger on his M-16, gunning down a couple of Common Infected that emerged from the stairwell. Their bodies convulsed for a moment, and then crumpled to the ground.

"Nice shooting, Bill!" Louis called out.

"There'll be plenty more where that came from!"

The cold, still air penetrated Zoey's jacket, and she shivered. She longed to get up and move around to get the blood flowing through her body. However, with the horde on its way up, she had to remain diligent for them to make it out of here alive. Everyone had to. For Joe...

"Look alive, people!" Bill yelled, as he gunned down several more Infected that rushed through the doorway. Blood splattered across the concrete, followed by bullet-ridden bodies moments later. "I can't be doing all the shooting, you know!"

The clatter of gunfire echoed in the cold morning air, and Francis began to laugh as he killed two more Common Infected that emerged from the stairwell doorway. "Like shootin' fish in a barrel."

It was then that the loud, collective howl of countless infected people pierced the air, chilling the survivors to the bone. Zoey gritted her teeth and aimed her shotgun downward, mentally preparing herself for the onslaught.

"Oh, I know this is gonna get bad..." Bill muttered.

"Hey, look on the bright side," Francis remarked. "Even if you don't make it, I'll still be really handsome."

The old man chuckled as he reloaded his rifle. He gazed across the rooftop at the small shack that Zoey and Louis were perched atop, and fervently hoped that he had not made a terrible mistake separating them like this.

"Here they come!" Louis yelled, fire dancing off the tip of his Uzi as he fired into a steady stream of people emerging from the stairwell.

Animalistic cries of agony and frustration split the air; sickening wet splats followed as heads burst in foul explosions of blood and bone, shattered by rounds from Zoey's shotgun. Bill and Francis consequently added their fire to the killing ground, liberally painting the hospital rooftop in front of the stairwell red with blood.

The Infected turned their heads, desperately seeking out the places from which death rained down on them from above. A number of them hurtled across the roof toward Bill and Francis' post, while others began to claw and climb their way up in a bid to reach the perch of Zoey and Louis.

"Aw, shit!" he yelled, ejecting a spent magazine and desperately grasping for another.

Zoey saw bony, decaying hands scrabbling over the edge of their roof. She quickly lowered her shotgun and blasted the foul appendages asunder, hearing inhuman shrieks of pain as the attackers fell from the roof.

"Keep an eye on the ventilation ducts too!" Bill yelled to his compatriot, expertly gunning down the offending Common Infected dashing across the roof before they could even reach their maintenance shed.

The roar of the horde grew louder as more and more Infected spilled from the doorway in a bloodthirsty rampage. Fortunately, the pile of dead bodies in front of the door partially blocked the way, and the attackers literally had to claw their way through a small mountain of corpses just to get out onto the roof of the hospital.

"I tell you what, after this, I am done with hospitals!" Louis exclaimed, firing off a quick burst that sent a small group of people tumbling to the ground in a hail of fire. "A dislocated shoulder? No problem! A cancer cell? Give me a knife, and I'll cut the mother out myself!"

"I don't think you pull of the 'badass' attitude as well as Francis," Zoey said lightly, her brow furrowed in concentration as she took down several more attackers below them.

"A man can try, right?" Louis laughed.

Zoey was about to reply, but the words caught in her throat and she felt the blood drain from her face. A burly, blood-covered man had climbed up to their level from the side, and was now eyeing her down hungrily. She swung the butt of her shotgun, striking him in the face and sending him stumbling backward. She then took hasty aim and blasted the man in the chest, sending him flying clear off the rooftop of the hospital. The wail of his death-cry faded as he fell far below, and she shivered.

A loud yell from Bill and a continuous staccato of gunfire across the rooftop caught Louis' attention, and he looked in alarm to see the veteran sending a hail of hot lead across the ventilation ducts. The Infected emerging from them howled with agony as bullets slammed into them.

"Francis, I told you watch the air-ducts, damnit!" Bill growled, sending the last attacker tumbling to the ground with a final shot. He ejected the spent magazine and crammed a fresh one in just below the barrel.

"Sorry, I'm just a little preoccupied shooting motherfuckers!" Francis roared back between the deafening booms of his shotgun.

The continuous stream of maniacs flooded the roof from the stairwell without any indication of letting up.

I don't know how much longer we can keep this up... Bill thought worriedly.

Francis' frantic voice cut into his thoughts. "SHIT! They're climbing up the elevator shaft too! Are you fucking serious?"

The grizzled old man directed his gaze toward the new danger to see a massive crowd of Infected flow unhindered onto the rooftop of the hospital. Without any hesitation, he reached to his belt, pulled the pin off his last grenade and hurled it into the crowd.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

A bright flash of light and smoke reduced the head of the pack to a pile of bloodied remains that splayed across the rooftop, just as Zoey lifted her head to the sound of whirring helicopter blades. Her heart pounding in her chest, she looked toward the sound and spotted a news helicopter coming in to hover beside the helipad.

"CHOPPER'S HERE!" she screamed.

"GO! Make your way to the helipad!" Bill yelled back at her and Louis. "Francis and I will cover you from here!"

She and Louis gratefully leapt down from their post and began to run across the rooftop toward the metal ramps leading up to the helipad, firing at fleeting figures bearing down on them as they ran. Zoey lingered slightly behind to cover Louis' retreat, his movement speed slightly hindered by his injuries. The feisty young woman blew away two attackers at once with a blast from her shotgun, sending blood spurting into the air. However, she felt a rough force tackling her from behind, sending her crashing to the ground. She looked up in terror to see an infected woman above her, snarling with inhuman rage.

"HELP!" she cried out.

SPLAT! A burst of rifle rounds slammed into the infected woman's head, blasting her away from Zoey, who quickly climbed to her feet and gave Bill a grateful nod. As soon as she and Louis made it up the ramp onto the helipad, they turned back around, crouched down and resumed firing into the infected crowd tearing across the rooftop. They covered Bill and Francis as they leapt down from their perch to join them. With a final sprint, the four survivors crossed the ruined helipad and threw themselves into the back of the helicopter.

"GO! GO! GO!" everyone screamed, and the pilot immediately manoeuvred the helicopter away from the building.

Several ambitious Infected leapt at the helicopter in a desperate attempt to board, but their plans were foiled by a controlled burst from Bill's M-16, sending them hurtling downward to their demise in the streets far below.

"I can't... believe it..." Louis gasped between grateful gulps of air. "We made it..."

Zoey gave him a high-five and broke into a wide smile as the helicopter flew across the city. Francis threw the compartment door shut, separating them from the morning sky.

"You all okay?" the pilot's voice crackled through a speaker.

Louis looked through the door into the cockpit and gave him a thumbs-up.

"Thank you!" Zoey called out to him. However, the pilot motioned to the headphones covering his ears, and then pointed to a similar set lying on the backseat of the helicopter.

Bill picked up the headphones and placed them on his head. "Thanks for coming to rescue us," he said into the microphone of the headset.

The pilot turned his head back to the windshield to focus on his flying. "You're welcome. Is it just you four, then?"

The veteran nodded sadly. "Yes. There were four others in the hospital before us, but we got attacked by the Infected."

There was a sombre silence, through which only the steady thrum of the helicopter blades could be heard overhead.

"Well, at least someone made it," the pilot finally said. "Get some rest. I'm taking you folk to the north-east safe-zone."

Bill nodded and sat back wearily against the seat. The four survivors sat in silence for a while, letting the reality of the situation sink in. They had been rescued. It was finally over.

Francis and Louis drifted off into sleep as the sun rose in the sky, partially obscured by some dark clouds. Bill gazed over at the others, and finally discovered some sort of peace. He had done his duty. They were all finally safe, against all odds.

Zoey, however, could not sleep after everything that had happened. She lost track of how long they had been flying in the helicopter, as she gazed out the window over the city that had once been her home. She wondered if she would ever be able to return. Something in the back of her mind told her that she would not be coming back any time soon.

Her thoughts were interrupted, and her head shot up when she felt the helicopter begin to jerk around erratically. She glanced over at Bill to see him look up in surprise as well.

He picked up the headset again and spoke into the microphone. "Hey, everything alright up there?"

However, the pilot did not respond. Zoey looked toward the cockpit in alarm to see him standing up, facing away from the doorway. What the hell was he doing? The helicopter jerked violently again, startling the others awake.

"Wha's goin' on..." Louis mumbled sleepily.

Zoey squinted ahead into the cockpit, just as the pilot turned to face her. Her blood ran cold when she saw the look of pure, soulless rage in the eyes staring back at her.

"Shit!" she cried, fumbling for her gun.

With an insane roar of anger, the pilot leapt through the doorway into the back compartment, bearing down on the frightened woman. A gunshot rang out, and a smoking hole appeared in his chest. With a pathetic squeal, he crumpled to the floor.

"Zoey, what the fuck!" Francis bellowed. "You just shot the pilot!"

Blinking lights began to flash, and an urgent-sounding alarm screeched throughout the helicopter as it lurched again, steadily losing altitude.

"Shit, shit, SHIT! We're gonna crash!" Louis shouted.

Bill stumbled ahead into the cockpit and eased himself into the pilot's chair. With a sinking feeling, he saw that the helicopter was hurtling down toward an outer industrial district of the city. He gripped the control stick tightly and pulled up with all of his might.

"Come on, come on, pull up..."

"Bill, you know how to fly one of these things?" Louis cried out in shock.

"Not a damn clue!" he shouted back. He pulled harder on the stick, fighting desperately to stabilise the descent. "Come on, level out..." If the helicopter crashed at its current angle, none of them would survive.

Zoey, Louis and Francis quickly buckled themselves tightly into their seats and braced for impact. The ground was coming up to meet them at an alarming rate. Bill wrestled desperately with the control stick and finally felt the helicopter begin to stabilise in its fall. However, it was too little, too late.

With a sickening CRASH, a horrible shudder tore its way through the helicopter. An ear-splitting screech of rending metal and shattering glass exploded in everyone's ears. They were violently thrown around in their seats like ragdolls; their seat-belts straining against the impossible tension on them. With a final, shuddering CRASH, everything went dark.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

And that's it for No Mercy! I hope you all enjoyed the ride. Reviews are greatly appreciated, so please take the time to leave one.

Thanks for reading!