Two Page Shorts by Nick Venom (top reads .txt) 📕

made their way to the entrance to the roof. The zombies attacking us seemed… dumber than the ones that ambushed us. Even so, they were ruthless monsters waiting for an opportunity to kill us and strip us of our flesh.

They began pounding on the door. Echo pushed all of his weight, which wasn’t much, onto the door but was knocked back a few centimeters every time the zombies threw their weight at the door. The collective effort of the zombies standing behind the door was apparent.

A helicopter’s blades could be heard in the distance, Ghost spotting the helicopter first. “Helicopter on our rear. Prepare to leave,” he shouted. I nodded.

“Get civilians on first!” I ordered before focusing my gaze on the door. “Echo, leave the door.” Echo nodded as he backed away from the door. Scarecrow rushed in, stuffing a piece of debris against the door handle. It won't last long, but it’ll give us enough time to flee.

    “One minute until evac” Ghost shouted. The helicopter sounded closer. I turned around and found the helicopter closer than I expected. The helicopter arrived, hovered over the edge of the building. The gunner of the helicopter reached his hand out. Ghost pushed the civilians in first, watching as they got into the seats and secured themselves in. 

When they all got in, he jumped in after them. He sat in the middle of the helicopter, behind the gunner. He motioned at the others to get in.

    “Echo! Hammerhead! Scarecrow! We’re leaving” I shouted at them. The pounding at the door grew louder and louder until I heard the door relent. It broke down, the zombies pouring out of the tight staircase. They were furious at being trapped, stretching out their arms to try and grab at them.

I turned tail and ran, sprinting in the opposite direction of them. I jumped into the helicopter as the loaded machine gun on the helicopter roared to life. It shredded into the closest zombies as the helicopter eased away. The pilot distanced the helicopter from the roof, making sure the zombies couldn’t jump on, before turning away and heading in the opposite direction. They were getting farther and farther away from the roof.

    “I’m Sandman, the pilot is Ozone.” The co-pilot informed us. “The one who helped you and is manning the gun is Frost.”

    I introduced my squad and the civilians to the helicopter crew, sharing a few pleasantries.

“Any luck contacting HQ?” Ghost chimed in.

    “Our connection was cut.” Ozone responded. “Only static remains.” Ghost sighed, disappointed at the predicament we were in.

    “Welcome to Jetfire, hope you enjoy your stay at our luxurious private helicopter, and I can only hope that you rate it a five-star experience.” Sandman joked. A few of us laughed, relieving the tense atmosphere that we carried into the helicopter. We were relieved to be out of danger. 

I turned to face the buildings, sitting in the middle of the helicopter. I glanced out and watched as the buildings passed us bye. Each with sadder and sadder goodbyes. 

Then, I heard a whistling sound. It didn’t appear to be coming from anybody in the helicopter, all of them scratching their heads for the origin of the sound. 

    “Missile inbound!” shouted Frost. He looked over the edge of the helicopter. “Engage maneuvering tactics!” he ordered.

“Copy,” Ozone said. He swerved the helicopter to the left and right, nearly tossing everybody out of the helicopter. Everybody held onto anything they could for dear life, especially me. There was no way I was falling to my death. 

I gripped onto a rail and watched as the missile flew towards us. A homing missile. The type that can end your fun quickly.

 The missile ran forward into our tail. “Our tail’s hit. Going down, going down. Mayday, mayday. Can anybody hear us?” He shouted into his radio, receiving static. Nobody was going to help us. 

The helicopter started rattling and shook furiously. I looked over at my squad and the civilians. Hammerhead looked at me, his eyes wide and his eyebrows pointed up. He held onto the floor but soon lost his grip. He was sucked out of the helicopter.

    “Hammerhead!” I shouted. Nobody could hear me over the whistling and rapid wind. I looked at the civilians, the one named Luke, looked at me, his eyes begging me for something that I had no control over. I looked at the rearview mirror and watched as Ozone, desperately, tried to stabilize the helicopter, but to no avail. Nothing worked and we shortly kissed the ground.

 

   I woke up sometime after. I looked around and noticed that neither of the pilots was moving. I slowly got up, blood pouring out a gash on my face, and went to check their pulses. I checked and realized that they were both dead. Killed on impact. I grabbed their dog tags and made my way out of the helicopter. 

Outside of the helicopter, I noticed that everybody else was alive and moving. Ghost and Echo were checking out the body of Hammerhead, some distance away from the crash, while Jacob and Jessica talked to a body disguised by blood. I lean in closer and notice that the body was Luke. “You’re going to be okay,” Jacob told him, tears dripping down from his face. Jessica stood by his side rubbing his shoulder, knowing that there wasn't any way to save him. Harper laid next to them, bleeding and her eyes wandering, searching the sky for an answer. She wouldn’t get what she was looking for. 

    Echo and Ghost returned to check the back of the helicopter for supplies. They found a stretcher and went to grab Hammerhead’s body when a voice spoke up. “We are the Rikes. Hand over your weapons and supplies and I’ll let you live.” A man shouted. A man dressed in military gear approached us. He had a dark brown beard that went to the bottom of his chin and whiter skin than a ghost. “Name’s Hunter, and I’m the leader here.” He announced. 

I glanced over at Echo and Ghost, who dropped the stretcher and slowly tugged at their weapons from their holsters. I glanced at them and nodded. They understood from one nod.

They brandished their guns and sprayed into the crowd of Rikes that appeared. I took my gun out and followed, hearing Scarecrow do the same. The bullets gunned down a huge amount of the small army that Hunter led. Hunter ordered his men to fire back, but they grew cowardly and ran away. Hunter escaped through the chaos while I attended to his men. 

After a couple of minutes of returning fire, the action went silent. I went to check out the carnage, noticing Hunter’s men fleeing down the road accompanied by zombies on their tails. I didn’t fire at them and headed back to the crash site, saving my ammunition. Echo grabbed a medkit from the helicopter and administered medical attention to Luke, crouching down to meet his face.

    While Echo helped with Luke, I shouted orders around. “Scarecrow! Ghost! Set up a perimeter.” They nodded and got to work. I went over to the helicopter and noticed Frost laying on the ground. I went over to him. “Frost? Are you wounded?” He shook his head and slowly got up.

    “Sorry, my back feels a little weird, but I should be fine with some rest.” He said,

    “Perfect, we’ll need you for the future,” I said, turning around and calling out to Echo. “What’s the status of him?”

   Echo let out a sigh. “I can’t save him. Harper, I may be able to.” He informed us. He stood up and went over to Harper. He crouched down to meet her gaze. I looked over at Jessica and Jacob, tears forming in both of their eyes. They crouched in front of Luke, blocking my view of him.

    “I-I-I can c-cross being on a helicopter off my b-bucket list.” Luke joked.

   “You’re gonna be fine,” Jacob repeated.

    “I-I won’t b-be. B-But at l-least you can f-fulfill my d-dreams.” Luke whispered. Jacob laughed a very pained laugh. Then their cries filled the air. Echo called Frost and me over. He needed us to carry the stretcher. We heaved Harper onto the stretcher, her eyes continuing to wander. She appeared broken.

Echo left for a moment and ran to Hammerhead’s body. He came back and showed us Hammerhead’s dog tag.

    “Let’s go,” I shouted. “Zombies are gonna surround us soon. We move to a safe haven to get Harper stabilized.” My team nodded before we began sprinting away from the crash site, Frost helping me with the stretcher; Scarecrow and Ghost were in front, and Echo was in the back. I heard Jessica and Jacob crying as they followed behind Echo.

    Four died in total. Ozone was killed because of the impact, as well as being thrown through the windshield. Sandman was impaled by debris and Hammerhead was ripped out of the helicopter and lying in a pool of his blood. Luke fell out of the helicopter at a distance that severely wounded him, but didn’t kill him on impact. He died due to blood loss.

    After running for what felt like an hour, we made it to a complex of apartments. Scarecrow broke into one of the complexes and got us to an empty apartment. Ghost set up the dining room table to hold Harper. Frost and I slowly lowered the stretcher onto the table. Echo got to work immediately. He started bandaging her up, hoping to stop the blood flow. 

I scanned the room and noticed there wasn’t much food or water to work with. I look over at Jacob and Jessica and realize they were a mess from losing two of their friends and wouldn’t be able to help. 

“Ghost! We’re going to search the nearby apartments for supplies.” I whisper-shouted. Ghost nodded. “Scarecrow! Frost! Secure a perimeter around this apartment and keep an eye out for those people we encountered earlier.” I ordered. They nodded.

I followed Ghost out of the apartment and to the next one. We searched through the apartment and found nothing of use, there being only empty wrappers and bottles. We went through the next room finding a stash of supplies, hidden in a cabinet above the refrigerator. Several bags of chips and instant noodles poured out of the cabinet. We took the supplies and brought them to our apartment. However, the atmosphere was too tense to enjoy the food.

    Night fell and most of the group slept as peacefully as they could. We divided the night hours and established a watch group that would check the perimeter and Harper’s condition. 

The night started with Echo and Ghost then Jessica and Jacob, and finally Scarecrow and myself. We began our night watch quietly, making our rounds through the apartments and entrances to the complex. A clock that we found in a neighboring apartment told us the time, being 3 in the morning. 

As we moved through the apartments, I separated from Scarecrow and headed back to the apartment we were staying at - when the sounds of choking became apparent. I moved towards the sounds and reached Harper. She was choking on her own blood. I tilted her head to relieve some of the blood from her mouth, but it was being replenished at a fast rate. 

I sifted through the medkit from the helicopter but found nothing that could help the situation. I turned to face Harper, doing my best to relieve the blood until she suddenly stopped choking,

I rushed to wake up Echo, who woke up quickly. He rushed over to Harper’s body and checked for a pulse. He looked over at me and shook his head. “She’s gone,” He informed me. “She has no pulse.”

I stood still, unable to move. I couldn’t help her.

Scarecrow came into the room and was told by Echo what happened. None of us spoke, leaving the tension in the air.

    The morning arrived and Echo told the rest of the group about Harper.