"Terra Mortis II" - Chapter 2

Terra Mortis II

Chapter 2

By Dwayne MacInnes

Master Sergeant Ronald Douglas Greene had been walking in the woods alone for two days now. He had told the others that he needed to go hunting. Though Nori begged to go along. She wanted to learn, but Ronald said no. Brady wasn't fooled. There was plenty of game meat stored up and most of the deer had already moved to a lower elevation in order to forage for better food. But Brady never said anything; Ronald knew that Brady had suspected the real reason.

Ronald was a tall large man. There wasn't an ounce of fat to be found on his toned muscled body. He was even once asked to play on the Army football team, but Ronald turned it down. He didn't join the army to play ball. Even now in his forties, he could easily have been mistaken for an NFL linebacker.

The black sergeant looked a little odd traipsing through the woods dressed in his battle dress uniform with a large black down coat over it all. When he was deployed to staff one of the checkpoints out of Seattle during the outbreak, it was late spring going on summer. Now it was full winter and fortunately, Brady had found one of his grandfather's winter coats that fit Ronald.

Ronald found a relatively dry spot under one of the pine trees and sat down on the reddish brown needles. The landscape was white with the green bows of the trees poking out from under their blanket of snow.

The sergeant then pulled out his wallet and opened it. He stared at the picture of a beautiful black woman and a teenage girl. They were his family. Dora was his high school sweetheart and later wife. They had a daughter Julie, age fourteen. Even now looking at the picture it was easy to see how people mistook his wife for his daughter's older sister. This, of course, embarrassed his daughter to no end. It had been three years today, a week before Christmas, that they were both killed by a drunk driver.

The pain never left, but he could suppress it most of the time. However when the anniversary of their demise approached he would feel the full brunt of their loss. Sergeant Greene's eyes started to tear up. The picture's image started to get blurry as the tears began to build in his eyes. It wouldn't be long before the tear drops started to run down his cheeks and freeze somewhere on the trip down. That is when he heard the chopper.

The sergeant jumped up and shoved his wallet back into his pocket. The helicopter was flying very low and the engines sounded wrong. He could hear the turbines sputtering erratically as he scanned the sky for the chopper.

Ronald saw the stricken helicopter just before it descended behind some trees. There was the sound of breaking branches and screeching metal as the AH-64 Apache crashed out of sight of the sergeant's view. Smoke soon began rising into the air marking the downed chopper's position.

Sergeant Greene was snapped out of his pensive mood and instinctively jumped into action. Ronald nimbly ran between the trees toward the telltale signs of the helicopter's location. His first concern was to get to those crewmembers before they either burned or froze to death if they survived the impact.

It was only fifteen minutes before Sergeant Greene had weaved his way through the trees to find the twisted remains of the Apache laying slightly tilted against a tree among splintered and shattered braches. The rotors were twisted and broken from smashing into the surrounding tree trunks. Smoke was still billowing from the engines and drifting skyward. There was no fire evident so Ronald moved towards the cockpit. The canopy was cracked in several areas but appeared to be intact. The two bodies inside were both slumped forward against their safety belts.

Ronald ran up to the cockpit and searched for a release the handle. As Ronald was looking for the handle, the pilot regained consciousness and opened the canopy. Ronald was caught off guard and jumped back as the canopy opened. The pilot was visibly shaken and slowly stumbled out of the helicopter.

Ronald rushed to the man. The pilot began taking off his helmet. The sergeant helped him to the ground and assisted him in removing his headgear. Then Ronald ran over to the still unmoving gunner. Ronald felt for his pulse and found that it was still strong.

Ronald began unstrapping the gunner from his restraining belts. The pilot approached having regained most of his composure and helped Ronald lift the gunner out of the cockpit. They then laid the man out on the ground and Sergeant Greene began assessing the man�s condition.

"Thank God, it's only a broken tibia," Ronald finally said.

The pilot sat down next to the gunner and looked up to Ronald.

"I'm LT. William Jones," the pilot introduced himself. "This is my gunner Chief Warrant Officer Gregory Smith."

"Master Sergeant Ronald Greene, Army Rangers," Ronald responded.

"What are the Rangers doing sending ground troops into the quarantined area?" the pilot asked. "Once you are on this side you are here for keeps."