Dead Frontier/Issue 113

This is Issue #113 of Dead Frontier, titled ''Crash. ''This is the fifth issue in Volume 19.

Issue 113 - Crash
They can’t pull their eyes away from the cloud of dust and smoke quickly mushrooming into the air. The plane has disappeared behind the smoke, the front half of it completely demolished. Adam is the first to react. He jumps to his feet, orders everyone into the trucks, and puts out the steadily dwindling campfire with a few stomps. Everyone complies without question, grabbing the few belongings they’ve brought from the trucks and piling inside the vehicles again afterwards.

Adam leads them in the frontmost truck, speeding across the barren plains and toward the crash site. The smoke gets heavier the closer they get, nearly blocking Adam’s view. Eventually, he pushes through the worst of it, and the mangled remains of the plane come into view. The front of the plane is almost nonexistent; a few seats are scattered around in different directions, as well as luggage, debris, and the occasional charred body. A small flame--much more tame than that daunting ball of fire from the initial explosion--burns at the front of the plane. Adam brakes a good distance away, just as they see a figure crawling out of the wreckage.

Hunter drags himself across the blackened and burned grass toward them. His cries for help are almost unintelligible. Everyone exits whatever truck they’re in, and Hunter scrambles to his feet. He rushes to Duke, the person nearest to him, and grabs him by the shoulders.

“People--still in there,” Hunter mutters. He has a small gash on his right cheek, and his clothes are coated in dirt and fresh blood. Everyone, besides Jake, Cole, Ivy, and Duke, rush toward the wreckage.

“We’re gonna help them,” Duke says with a nod. “Sit over there, and calm yourself down, alright?” Hunter releases his grip on Duke, allowing Duke to follow the others toward the smoking plane. Cole opens up one of the trunks and grabs a bag; he searches through it until he finds a half-full bottle of water. Hunter, stumbling away, eventually collapses onto his knees, digging his face into his hands.

“Guys, get in the truck,” Cole says to Jake and Ivy. Looking absolutely shaken, they don’t protest. With the water in hand, Hunter watches Cole approach and struggle to sit on the grass next to him. Hunter sobs uncontrollably, his body shaking. “Hey,” Cole beckons him, but Hunter doesn’t react. “Hey. Drink this.”

Hunter wipes his cheeks with the back of his hand. His eyes take on an eager look as he spots the water, and he takes it from Cole. He downs it greedily, and when he’s finished Cole asks, “You want more?”

“Yes. Yes--please,” Hunter says weakly.

“Ivy!” Cole shouts, and the back door of one of the trucks swings open, Ivy peeking her head out. “Get me some more water!”

As they approach the plane, more disturbing details come into view. Most of the passengers are motionless, half of them thrown out of the plane itself. Farrah has a deep cut across her forehead; it bleeds heavily, and she finds herself drifting in and out of consciousness as the group reaches the plane. She knows she’s not going to be able to stay awake, not with this pounding pain in her head, so before slipping into unconsciousness, she lets out a small groan, hoping someone hears it. Duke does, and it’s the first sign of life he’s seen inside the ruined aircraft. He carefully walks over the detached seats and pieces of metal to reach her, and presses two fingers to her neck. Her pulse beats faintly.

“She alive?” Adam asks, approaching behind Duke.

“Yeah. I’ll take care of her,” Duke says, and he works on unbuckling her seatbelt. When she’s free, he lifts her from the seat, carrying her with one arm under her back and slipping his other arm under her knees. It takes a bit of maneuvering around the debris, but he gets her safely out of the wreckage. “Chloe!” he calls. “Make sure she’s okay.” Soon, Chloe is by his side as he sets Farrah on the grass next to one of the trucks. Hunter’s eyes drift to their direction, and he shoves his bottle of water back to Cole before crawling over to them.

“Oh, God, Farrah,” he says. “Is she alive?”

“Yeah,” Duke confirms.

“Duke, the third truck should have the first aid--somewhere,” Chloe says. “Get it for me.” Duke jogs to the truck without a word, as Hunter, absolutely defeated, covers his face with his palms again.

Even farther into the rear of the plane, Tora scans the lifeless faces of the passengers. Two men sitting next to each other catch her attention; one is frantically pulling at his seatbelt, but he can’t seem to get it unbuckled. The other doesn’t move, but clutches his stomach, groaning in pain. Tora rushes over to the man struggling with the seatbelt, but he completely ignores her presence in his panic. “Fucking--seatbelt!” Daniel says under his breath.

“Sir,” Tora says as gently as she can, not wanting to irritate him more in his distressed state. He freezes and looks up at her, as if it’s the first time he’s noticed her. “Calm down, I’m gonna help you.”

He nods and she reaches over to remove his seatbelt. It’s jammed, but after a few firm tugs, she gets the buckle loose. He lets out a sigh of relief and lifts the seatbelt over his head. “They’re people waiting out there; they’ll help you,” Tora says when he stands. He seems to be in better shape than Cedric, so she’s already moved on to assisting him. Instead of fleeing the plane like she expected, he reaches into the overhead compartment. “What are you doing?”

“I--I need this,” he mumbles, and he pulls on the handle to get the compartment open. A small bag falls out, and he catches it before it can hit the ground. He’s relieved it looks relatively unscatched. Tora makes note of how he handles the bag with such care, but she’s too focused on getting Cedric out of his seat to be concerned. Daniel finds his own way out of the plane; the adrenaline subsides and the fatigue kicks in, so he allows himself to collapse onto the grass, laying on his back, bag clutched in his arms.

His vision is slightly fuzzy, but a few minutes later, a face comes into few. Hunter is crouched over him, a water bottle in hand. “Danny-boy, drink this,” Hunter says. With the same eagerness as Hunter just a few moments earlier, Daniel grabs the bottle and takes a few grateful gulps of the lukewarm water. Lifting his head up slightly, he sees Tora and another woman--Lienne--helping Cedric through the wreckage. He has an arm over each of their shoulders and he tries as best as he can to walk, but his energy is draining quickly. It only takes a few seconds before Tora and Lienne can’t support him any longer and he falls to his knees.

A small piece of metal--still large enough to do significant damage--juts out of his stomach at an odd angle. He clutches his abdomen, but waves Lienne and Tora away with his hand when they try to lift him to his feet. “I’m...fine,” Cedric groans.

Hunter has assisted in getting Daniel up and closer to the trucks. Cole sits with them, offering them water and rags to wipe any of the blood and grime from their faces. Daniel looks dazed; he sits a few feet away from them, scouring silently through his bag to make sure everything’s intact.

“What’s your name?” Cole asks.

“Hunter Daft.”

“Not from here, are you?”

“No, no. Lancashire.” He pauses, then notes Cole’s confusion. “England.”

“Right. That’s where the plane was coming from?”

“From New York, actually,” Hunter says. “There was a safe zone. Lived there for months with those people in there.” He gestures sadly to what’s left of the plane. “The place was completely fucked, so we needed to get out--” He’s cut off by Duke’s shouts, and he and Cole turn their heads to see Duke reaching into one of the trucks and retrieving a pistol. He fires into the distance, and Cole and Hunter see a few infected tumble the ground. “Fuckin’ perfect.”

“We’re leaving--now!” Duke shouts. “Gonna have to leave the rest of them.”

Hunter rises and, noticing Cole’s limp earlier but saying nothing of it, he extends his hand out. Cole takes it, and Hunter assists him to his feet before they slide in the backseat of one of the trucks, next to Jake and Ivy.

Farrah sits in the back of one of the trucks, still motionless. Chloe checks her pulse periodically, but it stays steady. The wound on her head has stopped bleeding, covered with a clean, white bandage. Daniel sits next to them, constantly checking in on her condition, but Chloe gives him the same report each time.

Cedric sits in the seat in front of them, grimacing at the constant, sharp pains in his abdomen. He recklessly pulled out the piece of metal himself and was supplied with a rag to press down on the wound; the bleeding isn’t as severe as he thought it would be, and they didn’t have enough time for any other treatment. He doesn’t care, as long as he lives.

They dodge small clusters of roaming infected that follow the sound of the crash and the sight of billowing smoke. Eventually, the smoke fades out of view as they depart from the more rural areas and into somewhere more urban. As urban as it gets in Iowa, anyway. They’re surrounded by a few low standing buildings and the occasional wandering infected in an otherwise deserted town. A large record shop catches Adam’s eye, and he stops in front of it. The windows are intact, but the inside has been stripped of any items. He can only see shelves, but if they move them out of the way, he assumes it’ll be enough space for them to stay for the night. “Right here,” he says.

A sole infected approaches his side of the car; he waits for it to get closer, then swings his door open. The door collides with the infected’s torso, and it collapses hard onto the ground. Adam gives it a quick stomp to the face after exiting the car. Duke, Dre, and Lienne are ordered to clear the surrounding area of any infected, while everyone else grabs their belongings and transfers them inside.

Hunter and Daniel, the healthiest of the four newcomers, sit with eyes glued on them. Besides Farrah, who still hasn’t woken up, everyone listens intently. A plane, falling out of the sky. They think they deserve some kind of explanation. Hunter reiterates what he told Cole: that he, Daniel, Farrah, and Cedric were a part of a safe zone in New York City. However, Hunter claims, the story gets a little more complicated after that.

“There’s a bunch of them all over--these safe zones,” Daniel says. “New York, Atlanta, Boston, Seattle...but most important to us was the one in Los Angeles.”

“Yeah, everything else might as well be a pile of dog shit compared to LA,” Hunter says. “New York, especially. Place could barely stand on its own. If it wasn’t for Boston helping us out, it’d be run to the ground already.”

“There was no order,” Daniel says. “We could do whatever the hell we wanted and get away with it. Theft, murder, rape--whatever it was, there was nothing to stop it. So, a good portion of us living there wanted a way out. Now, our president or whatever you wanna call him--corrupt isn’t even a good word to describe him. It was a lot more than that. I’m talking heartless, evil. The VP, though, he was a good guy. Had good ideas, morals. He wanted to fix the place as much as we did. But with a whole damn Congress against him, there was nothing he could do to fight back. Unless he wanted a fucking impeachment and assassination on his hands.”

“And since he was VP, he, of course, could pretty easily contact any of these other safe zones if he wanted. Seattle, Boston, Atlanta--all rubbish, and he knew that,” Hunter says. “So, he got in touch with LA. And those fucking saints set up a deal with us: if we can get a plane over there, they’ll let us in. Open arms. VP did all this in secret, using one of the zone’s planes, their own gasoline. Really slick.”

“Biggest problem was, you can’t take everyone. And you can’t let word get out. So, it was a really quiet, select process, I guess. If you’ve got no record, no known illegal activity, you’re on the flight. Wasn’t many of us.”

“Then the fucking plane crashed! The end,” Hunter says with a clap of his hands. “Never been a fan of happily ever after, but I’d thought we’d at least get an ending a little better than that.”

There’s a short period of silence as everyone takes in the abundance of information. Lucy is the first to speak. “What’s so good about LA?” she asks.

“Oh, we didn’t get into that, did we?” Hunter says. “LA shut down pretty quick, compared to everywhere else. Completely shut everyone out, build themselves up on their own. They’ve got...everything. Technology, resources to last for--for fucking decades. Think about life before this. That’s what we were trying to get back to, going to California.”

Daniel suddenly reaches for his bag and scours through it for a few seconds. Finally, he pulls out a pamphlet. He holds it out, and Cole grabs it. Los Angeles’s beautiful skyline graces the cover, except the city is encircled in a high, metal wall. He flips to the next page, greeted with the smiling face of a woman in a lab coat.

“Working for a cure…” Cole says, reciting the words floating on the page above the woman’s head. “They’re looking for a cure?”

“That’s what they say,” Daniel says.

“And they just--hand these out?”

“They sent them out pretty early on, to the different zones. Everyone got one in their mailbox and a DVD all about it. How we could build a zone like there’s if the ‘community worked together as one.’ Kind of condescending if you think about it.”

“That didn’t work, of course,” Hunter says. “Place was still as shitty as ever. So they ended up agreeing to just bringing some of us there.”

“How do you know this isn’t bullshit?” Dean asks. Hunter and Daniel glance at each other.

“We don’t, technically. The video was enough for me--looked nicer than where we were, so...why the fuck not? The only other choice was to stay and get shivved in a back alley one day.”

Duke takes the pamphlet from Cole and flips through it. Education, jobs, food, homes, electricity--anything he could think of, they have it. It’s way too good to be true, but he finds himself lost in the fantasy of living somewhere other than here, on the road, unsure if whether the next day is going to bring something just as terrible as the last. He turns to the last page, where a smiling man shows off his bright white teeth. In big blue letters, the text next to him says: “Waiting for you.”

“I’ve got more,” Daniel says, and he pulls two more pamphlets from his bag. He hands one to Dre and one to Lienne, and they’re quickly passed around.

“I have a question,” Ivy says, and all eyes turn to her. “If all these safe zones are being built, why wasn’t there one in Chicago?”

“They told us there were plans to make one, just like all the others,” Daniel says. “But the military was so spread out and called to deal with cities where the outbreak hit worse. Same story in Dallas, Miami, and St. Louis, I think. LA is the only one that was a complete success.”

They end up dispersing throughout the store, finding spots to relax or go to sleep. First, the death of a group member. Then, a plane crash. Finally, the revelation of a flourishing safe zone on the other side of the country. Adam can’t believe it. He’s going through the pamphlet for the third time, gawking at the crisp photos taken inside the zone and out. People milling about, glistening buildings, children in school. “Is it stupid I’m getting excited about this?” Adam says to Cole, who sits next to him. Cole sits up straighter, and rubs his eyes. Adam offers him the pamphlet, and he takes it.

“You think we should go?” Cole asks.

“We’ve got nowhere else to go. This could be...a goal. Actually give us some kind of purpose instead of driving around, camping out somewhere, and driving around again.” Cole doesn’t bother hiding the doubt as he looks through the photos. “You don’t believe it, do you?”

“I don’t know. It’s...it’s fucking crazy. I’m not stupid enough to believe something like this. And how the hell are we gonna get to California?”

“No point in not trying,” Adam says. “Look, I’m pretty sure they’re exaggerating a little, but if it’s anything like that...I’m not complaining about living there, man.”

Cole thinks about how much of a relief it would be, finally having a set destination, instead of wandering aimlessly as they have been. And the actually possibility of having a life again--it’s enticing, as doubtful as he is. “You up for it?” Adam asks.

Cole hesitates before responding. “West coast might be too bad.”

“Why do you love that bag so much?” Tora says. She leans against a wall, sitting on top of a few sweaters and jackets for some kind of comfort. She looks to her left, toward Daniel, who sits in the same position as her, except he has that bag tucked safely under his arm.

“It’s got...some personal stuff in it,” he says, and Tora raises her eyebrows. Daniel is confused by her reaction, but then his cheeks go pink. “No! Not like that.” He forces a laugh. “Pictures and crap.”

“Oh. Family?”

“Yeah, mostly. Some friends, too. I’ve had ‘em with me for a while. Don’t wanna lose them now. It’s...my only lifeline to them, you know?”

“You had no one in the safe zone?”

“Uh...no family. But I did meet a woman when I got there. We never got married or anything, but it was nice while it lasted.” Before Tora can ask what happened, Daniel is already one step ahead of her: “She was murdered. Someone robbed her house, decided they couldn’t just take her shit, and ended up shooting her, too.”

He reaches into his bag and pulls out a small, faded photograph. He scoots over a few inches and hands it to Tora. A red-haired woman sits on a front porch, beaming at the camera. “She, uh--fell into a depression after a few months. Snapped that picture one of the few times she was actually smiling,” Daniel says.

“Wow. Very pretty,” Tora says, turning the photo over. ‘Sonia’ is written in small, elegant handwriting.

“I’ve got some of my aunt, uncle, cousin. Camera’s in here, too,” Daniel says, patting the bag. “Broke during the crash, I think. I’d risk my life for this stuff, though. It really does keep me sane.”

Farrah’s eyes open slowly, and she’s met with the darkness that’s since shrouded the store. Her head pounds mercilessly, and she tries to sit up; that only makes the pain worse, and she groans and grabs her head.

“Chloe said you’re supposed to stay laying down,” someone says from above her. Looking up, she sees Duke sitting next to her, a bottle of water on the ground next to him. He offers it to her, and she takes it gratefully. She faintly remembers him as the man working to unbuckle her seatbelt, but everything after that is a blur.

“Where am I?” she asks.

“I was with a group of people that saw the crash. We came to help you guys, and now...we’re in some record shop, I don’t know.”

“Is everyone else okay?”

“Uh...no. Only four of you. You and three dudes, Cedric, Hunter, and Daniel. They’re good, though, don’t worry.”

There’s suddenly a terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach, which only amplifies the pain in her head. She takes another sip of water, then tries to sit up again. “It’s fine,” she says before Duke can stop her. She presses her fingers to the bandage on her forehead. “How bad is it?”

“You got pretty fucked up,” he says, then realizes how crude that sounds. “You were knocked out for a few hours, but Chloe said you’ll be alright. Don’t worry.”

“Who the hell’s Chloe?”

“She patched you up and told me to watch you, make sure you don’t die.” He holds his hand out, and she shakes it hesitantly. “Duke Curry.”

“Farrah Riley.”

“Oh, shit. I thought I saw you somewhere before, but now your name sounds familiar, too.”

“I acted and did some modeling.” She pauses. “Ever see CSI?”

“Yeah.”

“I was in, like, four episodes. And an iPhone commercial, once.”

“Was it the one where you’re video chatting with the boyfriend in London and you tell him you’re pregnant?” Duke asks.

“That’s the one.”

“Wow. Sappy shit.”

She laughs softly and nods her head. “You pulled off the crying pretty good, though,” he adds. “Emmy worthy.”

“They don’t hand out Emmy’s for commercials.”

“Then…they shoulda made an exception.” There’s a brief silence, until Duke reaches for his water. “I’ll take that back, if you’re done with it. Get some sleep, too. You had a crazy day.”

“Alright. Thanks, Luke,” she says.

“Duke.”

She looks slightly embarrassed. “Sorry. Just got in a plane crash. That could probably knock a few screws loose.”

“Then I’ll let it slide. See you tomorrow.”