When the Wind Blows - James Patterson [109]
Guards began to rush out from a couple of doors. They were heavily armed. They had already spotted us. I gauged that we were too far from the woods to get away.
“Fly!” I yelled at the kids. “Fly away right now!”
And that’s exactly what Oz, Ic, Peter and Wendy, and Matthew did. It was really something to see. The flock took off as if they’d been practicing together for years. Even Matthew fit right in.
“That’s it—fly! Get away!” I kept shouting.
“Up and away!” Kit was at my side, calling to the kids, too. “Get to the woods! Hurry!”
I saw Gillian and my heart froze. She was in a blue suit and she was running from the house. What kind of meeting had we interrupted? She screamed at the guards to shoot. What are friends for?
She was heading right toward me, shrieking her head off, when I suddenly took off and went straight for her. I zoned in on her. We were on a collision course.
That confused her for a couple of seconds. I could see it on her face. Maybe she wasn’t so smart, after all.
“Fly away!” I kept yelling encouragement to the kids. “Get out of here. Go, go. The woods!”
I looked at Gillian. She was still coming for me, even picking up speed.
Collision course.
All right, then. You’ll be sorry, lady. You’ll regret this.
I hit her head-on.
I tackled that awful bitch the same way I used to do with my brothers, about fifteen years ago when we played no-helmet, tackle football on the family farm in Wisconsin. I drove my shoulder into her pillow-soft stomach, no holding back. It was shades of Paul Hornung, Jimmy Taylor, Ray Nitschke, and the world champion Green Bay Packers. I used to worship the Packers as a little kid, as a cheesehead up in Wisconsin.
Gillian groaned and actually said, “Ooff!” It was an unbelievable, indescribable pleasure to give her some physical pain. I hoped I’d broken a few of her bones. I gave Gillian an extra kick while she was down, and I felt really good about that, too.
Then ohmygoodGod, I saw Max flying over the roof and chimney of the house.
Chapter 117
ABALDING, RUGGED-LOOKING MAN named Eddy Friedfeld was piloting the KCNC Live News 4 chopper. He was in charge, and he was used to making fast, reasonably smart decisions. He usually could think over the hammering noise of the Bell Jet Ranger’s blades.
Suddenly it wasn’t possible for him to think in straight lines, though. Not now. Not anymore. His mind had been short-circuited.
He grabbed the cyclic central control that steered the chopper. He held on tight as he could. He glanced down at his primary instruments: airspeed indicator, vertical velocity indicator, compass control, radio. All the controls looked okay. There was nothing wrong inside the cockpit.
He was doing about 105 mph. Everything normal, right?
Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! There was nothing even close to normal about what was happening to him this morning.
He had spotted the girl at about a hundred and fifty yards off the chopper’s right side. He almost had a coronary, almost lost his cookies in the cockpit.
He blinked his eyes shut and open a few times. She was still there.
The little girl was flying!
It wasn’t possible! But there she was!
She had the most beautiful white and silver-blue wings.
It sure looked like she had wings!
And she sure as shit looked as if she were flying under her own power. As if she were the biggest, proudest hawk or American eagle he had ever seen.
“Randi?” he whispered into his mike.
His twenty-two-year-old camerawoman Randi Wittenauer’s voice was in his headset: “Are you seeing what I think I see? Please tell me I’m hallucinating, Eddy.”
“We’re both hallucinating, pal. That must be the explanation. Has to be.”
The “UFO,” whatever was out there, was at about five hundred feet now and closing on the helicopter fast.
Eddy Friedfeld was getting a prickle up and down his neck. His shoulders were tensed so tight they hurt. Like just before combat. Like Desert Storm. Jesus! She was flying right at him.
He touched the collective gently, slightly changed the angle of pitch. The thing he loved about