Read Online This Mortal Coil by Logan Thomas Snyder - Free Book Online Page A

crested low over the lip of the stadium before doubling back and circling just over the field. Even hunkered within the container, they could feel the sound and the fury of it, whipping all about them.
    “Now?” Theresa bellowed into his ear above the cacophony.
    Willem signaled for them to wait while he peeked out, eyes squinted against the maelstrom besieging them. He watched as two medics hopped out of the helicopter’s open sides. Ducking their heads against the tempest, they looked about for the source of the distress beacon.
    “Now?!”
    Willem nodded. At his signal, Arlo and Joss emerged from within the container. They staggered forth as if grievously wounded, swathed in blood donated posthumously by the hunters. The medics were taken wholly aback by the sight, just as Willem intended.
    “What happened to the rest of your team?” one of the medics yelled above the clamor.
    “Inside,” Joss said, “what’s left of them anyway! C’mon, hurry!”
    The medics hurried ahead of them, only to be set upon by a healthy company of the hunted. The struggle was short-lived, as were the medics. Emerging unscathed from within the container, the company moved as quickly as they could against the buffeting mass of air projected against them. The force of the squall shook their rifles in their hands and caused them to squint and screw up their faces, but still they persisted. They had nearly succeeding in surrounding the roosting bird when at last the pilot realized what was happening. Too late he tried to lift off to safety.
    Theresa and Grace, only a few yards away, threw down their rifles and sprinted forward. Together they leapt and caught the skids by a finger’s distance, hoisting themselves with some effort into the open body of the helicopter. The rest of the company could only watch as the women drew their blades, forcing the pilot to relent. The helicopter reversed course, hovering close to the ground again. As Grace reappeared, the others sent up a victorious cheer.
    “Nicely done,” Willem complimented once they were on board.
    Grace reclaimed her rifle as it was offered, grinning fiercely. “Thanks. Didn’t know I had it in me.”
    Willem grinned back knowingly. “Seems to be a lot of that going around lately.”
    “I’ll say.”
    “I said, Take us where you came from, asshole !” Theresa bellowed from the cockpit. “And stay off that radio!”
    The helicopter lurched beneath them as the pilot pulled back on the stick. Soon they were airborne, the stadium and its blood-soaked field shrinking beneath them. The higher they climbed, the farther out they could see, the landscape thrown into stark relief by the hazy onset of dawn. All around them stretched a tableau of utter devastation. Battered and buckled structures stood row after unending row like lines of broken teeth. The bird’s-eye view was so arresting they could hardly tear themselves away; even Theresa found herself momentarily transfixed.
    Sensing an opportunity—perhaps his only opportunity—the pilot yanked hard on the stick. The sudden movement threw the interior of the helicopter into chaos as the deck pitched sharply beneath them. Bodies tumbled over bodies like the inside of a washing machine. Some of the company were lucky enough to get a handful of the hanging straps designed for just such turbulence; others slammed headlong into the interior fuselage, dazed but otherwise cradled against a fatal fall.
    Grace and Arlo proved less than lucky on both counts.
    Grasping desperately for one of the straps, kicking and fighting for purchase against the slide-like tilt of the deck, Willem saw it all. He locked eyes with Grace, her face stricken— I want to live , he heard echo in his ears—as she was pulled into the open air. She seemed to hover for all of a moment, defying gravity, then fell away with a last grasping flex of her fingers.  
    “ NO !” he roared against the whipping wind.
    The wind roared back, wordless and without