Remains of the Dead by Iain McKinnon Read Free Book Online Page A

hear her protests.
    “Okay miss, in you go,” Cahz said in way of preamble as he scooped up the young girl. As he shoved the girl into the cabin, he called on the scrawny survivor, “You! In the bird now!”
    Nathan was ushered into the middle seat.
    “Soon as you can, get back here and pick us up,” Cahz said, looking at Idris. His attention then went immediately to Bates, who was retrieving his equipment. “Bates, leave that behind. How much juice is in those batteries?” Cahz pointed at the beat up ghetto blaster.
    “Not much, boss,” Bates replied with a shrug. “They’re rechargeable and they’re pre-Zee. If you turn the sound down a bit you might eke out another fifteen, twenty minutes, but I guess about an hour is it.”
    Cahz gave a nod. “Okay.”
    “Boss!” Cannon’s deep voice bellowed. “Gettin’ a bit close!”
    The snarling growl of machine gun fire overwhelmed the dawdle of the chopper blades as Cannon cut a sway through the closest zombies.
    “You looking for a decoy?” Bates asked.
    “Yep,” Cahz replied.
    Bates produced a modified land mine. It was a green oblong with a slight banana curve. Unlike standard issue mines, Bates had been busy modifying this one. One corner had what appeared to be a travel alarm clock duct taped in place. A pair of clumsy wires, intermittently hidden behind more silver duct tape, wound their way into the back of the casing. Cahz had warned Bates about tampering with explosives on more than one occasion, but now wasn’t the time for a reprimand.
    “Set a timer on it for, what, five minutes?” Bates offered.
    “Make it twenty,” Cahz said. “It’ll act as a distraction. Maybe pull a few away from us.”
    Bates made an adjustment to the timer before setting it down and picking up the rest of his gear.
    “You packing any more useful toys?” Cahz asked as the soldier perched on the rear seat of the chopper.
    “Yeah, sure.” Bates lay down his rifle and unfastened the thigh pouches from his webbing. With a smile he tossed the two packs at Cahz. “Two more claymores, two flares, a smoke grenade and one MRE.”
    Cahz caught the packs by their strapping. “Ain’t planning on staying long enough to have to eat army rations. Maybe we can tempt those motherfuckers to eat these instead.”
    “Smear it all over you,” Bates teased. “Then no fucker will want to bite you.”
    Cannon shouted over the noise with some urgency, “It’s gettin’ tight, boss!”
    Cahz rapped his knuckles on the windscreen to get the pilot’s attention. “Get these people out of here!”
    Idris gave a nod.
    Angel called out from her seat in the front, “Cahz, it’s at least an eight hour turnaround!”
    Eight hours was a long time out here and Cahz knew it. But he cocked his head and smiled.
    “Quicker you go the quicker you get back!” he said.
    “Good luck, Cahz.” Angel passed out her sidearm and a bundle of magazines. There was an assortment of magazines for the sidearm and one chunkier magazine for her rifle. The larger of the clips bore the unfamiliar Cyrillic writing Cahz had seen on much of her Russian equipment.
    Cahz looked her in the eye. “You sure?”
    “I want empties back,” Angel warned. “Since Izhmash closed, are bitch to get hold of.”
    Cahz nodded, taking the friendly jibe.
    Cahz firmly handed Angel’s pistol to Ryan. “Okay, we need somewhere high and defendable. Which way?”
    Ryan took the gun in his hand. “This way.”
    “Stay close, stay sharp, stay alive!” Cahz hollered.
     
     

Chapter Three
Barrel
     
    “Stay on me!” Cahz hollered.
    Elspeth and the baby were being ushered forward by Ryan. Flanking them was Cannon. The further they ran the denser the crowds of undead became. They were less spaced out and now impossible to simply run past.
    A dead man stepped into Cahz’s path. Using his momentum he swung the butt of his rifle and floored the creature. Its face split open. The dead skin sloughed off, revealing the vomit-yellow