Monster Planet

Monster Planet by Wellington, David





Chapter One


Ayaan shoved the cargo loading door open with one booted foot and dry desert air rushed into the body of the helicopter. The aircraft wobbled but didn't fall out of the sky. The warrior stuck her head out into the blue sky, the graying ringlets of her hair bouncing in the wind. Her face wrinkled as she squinted at something on the ground below. A mass of people'bodies, anyway'advancing on the encampment. For once this was no false alarm. “Get me a close approach”, she shouted.

From his position at the controls Osman didn't turn to answer but the crew all heard him over their radio headsets. “Of course, girl. How close would you like? Do you want to smell them?”

Ayaan ignored him, instead turning to Sarah. She gave the younger woman a warm smile and beckoned her to come over. “Don't worry, ” she said, “I won't let you fall out.”

Sarah moved to the open door of the Mi-8 and leaned out over the long-ago-emptied rocket pods. She needed to get a better look at the army below them, without the interference of the copter's fuselage between her and the mob. Fifty feet below grey arms strained toward the helicopter as if they could grab it and pull it down from the sky. The dead had lousy depth perception.

'I need an estimate of their strength,' Ayaan demanded. 'Are they fresh?'

Sarah studied the crowd as Osman slewed the copter around in a wide turn over them. They had come out of nowhere, this army. The dead rarely announced their movements but a group this size required some kind of coordination. The mindless undead didn't work together unless some strong will was directing them. What they had come for was a mystery. What Sarah did know was that Ayaan wouldn't allow it. This little stretch of the coastline ofEgypt was her nation, maybe the last nation of the living left on Earth. She wasn't about to let the dead take it for themselves. They had scrambled the copter the moment the first reports of movement on the perimeter had come in.

Now Ayaan wanted Sarah's opinion about how to proceed. Sarah was younger, just out of her teens compared to Ayaan's encroaching middle age, so she had better eyes. She also had other senses that Ayaan lacked.

Trying to ignore the howling of the wind outside of the helicopter, the glare of the sun on the sand, Sarah pulled the hood of her sweatshirt up to cover her hair. She focused her attention on the parts of her that could sense death, just as she'd been taught. The hair on the back of her neck and on her forearms. The sensitive skin behind her ears.

She closed her eyes, but she kept looking.

What she saw startled her. The ground below teemed with purplish energy, dark splotches where the profane energy of the dead smoldered cold and hungry. But between those shadows burned beacons of golden light, stronger, more vital'alive. Impossible. The dead and the living couldn't work in close proximity. The dead existed only to devour life. Still. She saw what she saw. Even as she attempted to process what that meant she saw one of the golden shapes moving, lifting something to its eye. Something held with both hands. She opened her eyes and saw a living man with pale white skin aiming a rifle right at her.

'Look out!' she shouted into her microphone, loud enough to make herself wince. Before anyone could respond a bullet tore upward through the fuselage of the Mi-8, barely missing the foot of one of Ayaan's soldiers. The woman shrieked and jumped backwards as automatic rounds tore through the thin skin of the copter's belly. Light shot upwards into the cabin wherever a bullet came through, streaking the dark cool space inside. Noise drummed along the deck plates, pattered on the helicopter's roof. Ayaan started shouting orders but Osman was ahead of her. The helicopter banked around so hard Sarah could hear the airframe wanting to come apart. The pilot yanked back on his control yoke and they popped up into the air like a cork out of a bottle, gaining altitude fast enough to make Sarah's stomach curl up on itself like an injured animal. She swallowed back the vomit that rushed up her throat and lifted one hand to try to brush the sweat from her forehand. She stopped in mid-gesture, though, when she saw her hand was sticky with blood.

Terrified of looking, too scared not to, she turned slowly around. The interior of the helicopter had been painted bright red. Blood had pooled between the crew seats and was draining slowly through maybe a hundred narrow bullet holes. What remained of a dead woman lay sprawled across the deck, one shattered, thumbless hand so close to Sarah she could have reached down and held it. She felt a perverse desire to do just that.

It was Mariam. The expert sniper of the platoon. It had been Mariam. It wouldn't be for long.