Mother Russia

Chapter Twenty-Two

Hunk braced one foot against the bottom of the thin window frame, and with his free hand carefully pushed himself back. The entire window frame was weakened from the shattered window next to it, and he felt the entire frame bend with the weight as he drew Ada back up. The floor was littered with debris and he had to be careful not to slip on a stray sheet of paper or bit of broken wood. Straining with the effort, he pulled her up enough that she could bring her leg up and climb back inside the building.

He pulled her clear of the window and she rolled onto her back, gasping for breath. She was in terrible shape. Both of her arms were slashed with tiny cuts, and one of her legs had a nasty cut but the blood was already dried. She also sported a gash across her brow. Hunk crawled over to her and put his hand on her shoulder.

“Hi,” she said weakly.

“Are you okay? You look like you’ve been through a meat grinder.”

“I jumped through a plate glass window.”

“I take it you’re not infected.”

“Not that I know of. Now, let me just rest here for a minute,” Ada said, and closed her eyes.

Darby came running over and knelt beside her. “Is she okay?”

“She’s hurt, but I think she’s okay,” Hunk said.

Hunk couldn’t really believe that both he and Ada had somehow made their way to the exact same location, but stranger things had happened. When Okada had carried her out of the stairwell, Hunk didn’t even realize it was her. And then once the shooting started, he was in no position to go and talk to her. When the primary host began to rampage, he ran around the other side of the office area in the hopes of grabbing Ada and pulling her to safety, and he got there just in time to grab her as she was pushed out the window. A moment later and she would have fallen to her death.

Thinking on that, he looked up at Darby. “Is anyone else hurt? Did we lose anyone else?”

Darby looked pained but shook his head. “No. Just Teeäär and Carlin.”

The host had managed to lash out and strike Teeäär, and by the time the other soldiers reached him, he was already dead, probably from a fractured skull. Carlin, the soldier who had been bitten earlier, had selflessly run at the host and thrown the grenades directly underneath it, and was promptly grabbed by the host and torn in half.

Hunk understood the man’s reasoning and felt a deep sense of respect for him. Carlin knew that he wouldn’t leave the city with his squadmates, so he sacrificed himself instead. If they had thrown the grenades from a distance, they might not have exploded close enough to the host to drive it away. Carlin had made sure the grenades went off practically under the host’s feet, and by doing that he had quite possibly saved all of their lives.

“We’re sending everyone to the roof,” Darby said. “Then we’ll go back down to the other floors and check for survivors, although I doubt we’ll find any.”

Ada opened her eyes and looked wearily at Hunk. “You’ll have to carry me. I’m not going up any more stairs for the rest of my life.”

“Understood,” Hunk said. Darby gave him a curious look but Hunk ignored it.

He picked her up, one arm around her shoulders and the other underneath her legs, and followed Darby to the stairs. Abdallah was already leading all the other civilians up to the roof. They had to walk around the piles of wreckage and be careful that more of the wall and ceiling didn’t collapse on top of them. The other civilians looked completely shell-shocked, and they walked up the stairs with dull, tired expressions, huddled against each other for support.

“I didn’t think you’d be here,” Ada said softly, her head pressed against his arm. “I found the crashed helicopter. I didn’t know you came with the team.”

“My orders were to find you if possible.”

“Congratulations on completing your orders.”

“What about you?” he asked.

Ada squirmed a bit and frowned. “No, I didn’t do such a good job this time.”

“You survived,” he said. “I’d say you did a great job.”

“Only because you caught me. Thank you for that, by the way.”

“You’re welcome. You saved my life once, so I’m just returning the favor.”

As Hunk carried Ada up the stairs, he limped slightly, favoring his right leg.

“Does your leg still bother you?” Ada asked.

“Only when I have to climb stairs,” he replied.

Up on the roof, the civilians huddled together in the middle, while the squad spread out and positioned themselves near the edge facing in every direction. They tried the radio, but as expected, they couldn’t reach anyone. Darby took a few men back down to investigate the other floors, while Abdallah took out some flares and got them ready in case they spotted a helicopter. Snyder, now the team’s only translator, stayed to speak with the survivors and keep them informed about what was going on.

Hunk set Ada down as gently as he could, sitting her upright next to a large exhaust vent. She sighed and tilted her head back. “You don’t happen to have anything to eat, do you?”

“Sorry, no,” he said, kneeling down beside her. “Do you think you’re going to be okay if I leave you here for a few minutes?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said. “I’m getting better by the minute.”

“Okay. I’ll be right back.”

He walked over to Snyder and asked her if the civilians were hungry. Snyder asked them and confirmed that some of them were. Hunk told her to keep an eye on Ada, and then went back downstairs all the way to the ground floor.

All of the lights were off now that the building’s electricity had been severed. Careful to avoid any zombies that might still be lurking around, he made his way to the break room in the back. One of the vending machines had candy cars and snack cakes, so Hunk smashed it open with his rifle and emptied it into a garbage bag. He did the same with a vending machine with bottles of soda. Carrying the bag over his shoulder like Santa Claus, he went back up the stairs and returned to the roof. His leg felt a little sore after climbing so many stairs, but it was a minor inconvenience.

He handed most of his stolen loot to the other survivors, who muttered their thanks in Russian, and then walked back over to where Ada was sitting. Abdallah and Snyder were standing next to her, talking as Hunk approached.

“ – get you some medical attention as soon as we return to the evacuation point,” Abdallah was saying. “It looks like you’ve been through a lot, but your injuries appear to be minor.”

Hunk handed her a bottle of soda and some snack cakes.

“For me?” Ada said. “You shouldn’t have.”

“You said you were hungry.”

She looked at the bottle. “They didn’t have Diet Pepsi?”

Hunk shrugged. “That’s what they had.”

Ada chuckled weakly and pulled open the wrapper for one of the cakes. “You know, I don’t normally eat junk food like this. I try to watch my weight.”

“Could have fooled me. When I was carrying you, I thought you could stand to lose a few pounds.”

“Oh, Hunk, you’re such a charmer.”

Snyder and Abdallah were looking back and forth between them, and Snyder said, “Why do I get the impression that you two know each other?”

Hunk looked at Ada. “Didn’t you tell them?”

“It didn’t seem important,” she said, popping the snack cake into her mouth.

Hunk said, “Yes, we know each other. Miss … um,” he looked back at Ada.

“Jeanette Archambeau,” she said with her mouth full.

He nodded. “Miss Archambeau is an employee of the Tricell Corporation. She was in Yatovska on an unrelated assignment. Our primary mission here was to rescue survivors, but I had additional instructions. I was sent, in part, to find Miss Archambeau and bring her back.”

He was about to explain some more when the faint sound of helicopter rotors reached his ears, and a second later Johannson started yelling, “Sir! Transport spotted! Someone get on the radio!”

Abdallah ordered the men to snap the flares and ran to the edge of the roof, speaking rapidly into his microphone as the helicopter made a lazy circle above the neighborhoods that the squads were supposed to be evacuating. Finally, Abdallah made contact.

“Yes! This is squad leader Abdallah! We have survivors that need immediate evacuation! We also need a resupply and transport to a new landing zone!”

The helicopter flew in their direction. The office building was the tallest building in sight, so they were easy to find even without the men waving flares. As the helicopter swung around, it scattered the tall tower of smoke from the burning stores across the street. When it came closer, all the civilians began to talk loudly, waving their arms and looking hopeful for the first time since the squad had found them. Snyder hurried over to tell them that they would be evacuated first.

Abdallah directed the chopper to the building, but it couldn’t land there. The roof wouldn’t support the weight of the huge vehicle, so it had to lower itself down and hover just touching the roof, so the civilians could climb on. Just before it arrived, Darby and the rest of the squad returned to the roof, having heard the chopper coming.

Hunk didn’t have to ask, but he asked anyway, “Did you find anything?”

Darby shook his head. “Just some infected hosts.”

Everyone was ushered back as the helicopter lowered down to the roof. Once it was low enough and the pilot was holding it steady, Abdallah and Darby began ordering the civilians aboard. Normally, the chopper could hold fourteen people, not including the pilot. But there were thirty-one people on the roof that needed transport – Hunk, Ada, eleven squad members, and eighteen civilians – so Darby decided to put sixteen people on the first trip and fifteen on the second.

Hunk helped Ada to her feet. She winced painfully and leaned on him to remain standing.

He had to talk loudly over the roar of the helicopter. “Are you okay?”

“It’s my feet. God, I think the bottoms of my feet are bruised.”

“You want to get on board?”

She shook her head. “No, it’s all right. I’ll wait for the next one.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I’m not a civilian. You might as well get them out of here first.”

They loaded the first sixteen passengers and Darby slid the door closed. Two more civilians remained, both of them men who volunteered to stay behind and wait for the helicopter to return.

“Okay!” Abdallah shouted into his mike. “You’re good to go!”

The chopper lifted back into the air and swung around to head toward the evacuation zone. Ada turned her head to the side and shielded her eyes as her hair whipped wildly around her face. Hunk merely squinted against the wind.

“All right,” Darby said. “This is good. It shouldn’t take them more than about fifteen minutes to come back and –”

Darby was interrupted by a familiar sound coming from somewhere down on the street below. A drawn-out bestial scream of rage. Hunk hurried to the edge of the roof and looked out.

He raised his rifle. “Let’s hope it gets here quicker than that.”

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