Griffin had Ethan by at least two strides. He had forgotten about the skull fracturing headache and the intense pressure building against the back of his eyes. He only briefly acknowledged the third man, now positioned between where he was and where he needed to go. Increasing his speed, he raised his pistol and fired a warning shot. The man dropped his weapon and froze in place.
His heart rate climbed as he sprinted toward the chaos. Partly from the exertion of the gradual incline, but mostly because he was about to watch his friends fall at the hands of the dozen or so Feeders that had exited the gated community. They’d taken Cora to the asphalt and were only seconds from making Frank their second victim.
Five seconds from the action, Griffin’s feet pounded the snow-dusted street as he looked for an opening. Unable to get a clear line of sight, he cursed into the night as his best friend disappeared behind a sea of rabid arms and clenching jaws.
Again raising the pistol, Griffin moved quickly to the driver’s side of the SUV. He rounded the door as Frank now fought with a large Feeder who’d climbed in behind the wheel and clawed at Shannon, who sat one row back.
He searched the pile of bodies and listened for her voice. Two male and two female Feeders climbed over one another as they fought for what lay below. Griffin placed the tip of the barrel against the back of the first male’s head, pulled the trigger and quickly moved to the second. Quickly firing a second and third shot as the beasts continued their assault on Cora, he caught his first glimpse of her body, face down on the asphalt.
As Ethan moved to his side and Frank continued to struggle with the Feeder still half inside the SUV, Griffin straddled the last attacking female and grabbed the back of its head. He gripped a handful of greasy, thick black hair and pulled it away from the woman he’d been with since the world went to hell.
Tossing the ravenous beast aside, Griffin placed his boot on its chest and fired one final shot into the forehead of the dark-haired female. Stepping back, he quickly scanned the area before kneeling next to Cora and placing his hand on her back.
The chaos around him died. The shrieking voices faded. He began to lose sight of the others battling the horde around him. And with each second that passed without the rise and fall of her torso, Griffin drifted further from the moment.
She was still face down and although he’d yet to acknowledge it, Griffin knew she was gone. She’d stopped struggling before he’d pulled the bodies off her, maybe even before he had arrived. He didn’t need to confirm her breathing—the pool of blood running from the massive hole in the back of her neck and the silence of her body told him everything that was left to tell.
He should have been here. He should have never left her side. There was nothing left in this world that was worth the risk of losing her and yet he had. His mind ran back to the moment he’d pulled her from that burning bus just over a week earlier. He remembered what it felt like to touch her for the first time. How she’d dropped her head into his chest, threw her arms around him, and told him just how bad he smelled.
He couldn’t go back. There would be no time to regret his decision to leave her. The pain of losing her would remain, and as Ethan shouted into his ear, Griffin was at ease with that. He never wanted this feeling of loss to subside, he needed it. It would be what kept her here with him.
As he began to sink deeper, Ethan’s voice pulled him back.
“GET UP!”
Griffin slouched, his knees giving way. He dropped his weapon at his side, and leaned into her body. Her hair still held the scent of a warm spring afternoon, but had begun to relent to the sharp acrid stench of copper as he slid his arms below her waist, hoisted her onto his shoulder, and stood.
Ethan came again.
“GRIFFIN! SHE’S GONE… WE NEED YOU!”
Large tears formed in both eyes as he began to cry. They ran down his face in thick strands, before falling to his neck and absorbing into his collar. The throbbing in his head gave way to a clarity he wasn’t sure he completely understood. Griffin carried her lifeless body to the far sidewalk, away from the mayhem and laid her in the damp underbrush.
Her lifeless face was untouched, although the blood running from her neck and the milky white haze clouding her blue eyes told him everything he needed to know. She was gone, but in the next few minutes, maybe as long as an hour from now, she’d return… as one of them. He owed it to her to not let that happen.
Reaching into his front pocket, he retrieved a small folding knife. He cradled her head against his chest and leaned in close. Time was slipping away and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to bring her back. Swallowing hard, his throat swelled with emotion. There were many things he wanted to say, so many things he wished he’d said, although at present he was only able to manage three words as he drove the three-inch blade into the back of her skull.
“Cora, I’m sorry.”
There was nothing else to add. Anything more would have been for him, not her. She deserved better than this. More than he could give her in the time he had. There were others who needed him, and through the shouts of panic and cries for help, he would remain calm. For her… for them.
Ethan continued to shout in his direction as Griffin hugged Cora, kissed her forehead, and turned away. Standing, he slowly began to return to their world. He had six friends who still needed him here, and a lone figure to his left who Griffin no longer felt the need to kill.
Marching away from the sidewalk, Griffin didn’t turn to the man who stood motionless in the middle of the road. As he increased his speed and moved off toward the battle his friends were now losing, he simply gave the man in black a chance. A chance that he hoped he wouldn’t regret giving.
“RUN!”
Again he didn’t turn to watch whether or not the man had taken advantage of his oddly timed gesture. He didn’t need to. The rapid footfalls disappearing off his left shoulder told him that the man had done exactly as he was told. Instead, Griffin strode without hesitation back to his weapon, retrieved it from the street, and quickly assessed the individual battles taking place simultaneously.
Ethan and Frank fought with two of the more aggressive Feeders on the driver’s side of the SUV. The doors were now open and the women had moved Ben out onto the opposite sidewalk. Their injured friend was now awake and moving, but at a much slower pace than the others.
Stepping in behind Frank, Griffin didn’t quite have a line on the target attacking his older friend. He was through wasting time and wasn’t about to allow another tragedy to take place on the cold dimly lit street. He was going to end this right now.
Sliding to the left, he grabbed Frank’s shoulder and gently pulled him back. Surprised, Frank flinched and fired his rifle as he spun to the right. The weapon exploded as Frank was switching hands, blowing apart the lower leg of the former mail carrier he’d been wrestling with.
Moving aside, Griffin kicked the other leg out from under the badly disfigured former postal employee. The middle-aged, heavyset man with only half a face dropped quickly, crashing to the ground in a heap.
Rolling onto his back, the enraged Feeder swung at the air and growled at the men as he attempted to right himself. Using his mangled right foot for balance, he pushed away from the asphalt, only to immediately topple back to the ground.
Striding past Frank and holding out his left arm, Griffin leveled his pistol and fired one shot into the head of the former mail carrier. Instantly eliminated. Without hesitation, he turned his attention to the group of seven Feeders that had given up on the SUV and started for the women on the opposite sidewalk.
Griffin shouted as he moved around the front of the SUV. “ETHAN, TWO AT YOUR BACK!”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ethan take a step back, fire two shots into the head of the Feeder he’d been struggling with, and then quickly reload. Frank hurried to Ethan’s side, shouldered his rifle and fired at close range on the two that Griffin had warned of, only taking down the first.
As Ethan jammed home a new magazine, he fired three quick shots. The first went wide to the left; the second and third struck a former female law enforcement officer in the torso. She was rocked backward, but still marched toward him. Taking in a slow breath, he fired one last time, striking the woman just above the nose, and blowing the back of her head into the wintery night.
Before her body hit the ground, Ethan had turned and was running toward the others. Frank had joined Griffin and the pair now stood between the women and the horde of seven.
Griffin called out to Frank as Ethan slipped in between them. “GET THEM BACK IN THE SUV, THERE’S MORE COMING!”
Frank nodded and fell back as Griffin dropped a new magazine in his pistol, took aim, and stood shoulder to shoulder with Ethan.
As the friends fired into the crowd, Frank rushed back to the women and to Ben. He hurried the group of four in through the passenger side of the SUV, keeping one eye on the dwindling pack of Feeders.
Having quickly reduced the adversary’s numbers to less than half, Griffin and Ethan repositioned themselves. Not only to get a better vantage of their targets, but also to draw the remaining beasts away from the vehicle.
“GO!” Griffin shouted. “Get it started, I’ll be right behind you.”
“No,” Ethan replied. “We go together!”
Griffin nodded and before Ethan could react, he fired three close range shots, the blowback sending thick shards of diseased skin and blood skipping off the rear passenger side of the SUV. As the bodies dropped to the sidewalk, he lowered his weapon, checked his magazine, and turned back to Ethan.
“Let’s get the hell out of here!”
Ethan paused a moment and stared back at his friend. “Griff… look man, I’m really—”
“Not now, Ethan.” Motioning toward the gated community where the street ended, another group of Feeders were making their way toward them. “Even if we had the time—” Griffin stopped mid-sentence, his eyes staring blankly into the night. “Just not right now.”
Ethan turned and made his way around the front of the SUV. He climbed into the driver’s seat, sat back, and pounded his fists into the steering wheel. Closing his eyes, he shook his head and turned over the engine.
Waiting for Griffin to enter from the passenger side, Ethan turned his gaze to the rear-view mirror. His mother sat two rows back, quietly crying into Shannon’s shoulder. She stared back through the thick tears running from her puffy red eyes. Ethan knew she still had questions, but he also knew that she had already figured out most of the answers.
Turning away, Ethan gripped the steering wheel and shifted into drive. Running his hands through his thickly matted dark hair, a voice came from the third row, breaking the miserable silence.
“What is Griffin doing?”
Nicholas and Walter had somehow managed to maneuver the Gulfstream G280 through the massive horde gathered on runway number two, and now sat at the far end of runway one. The four men aboard hadn’t spoken a word since returning to their seats, and as the massive jet started down the tarmac, the pilot’s voice was a welcome distraction.
The man who’d only started working for BXF and privately for Marcus Goodwin roughly thirty days before was all business. His no-nonsense attitude meshed well with the other pilots Goodwin employed, and although Walter—his co-pilot—was a bit more outspoken, the pair worked well together. They’d manned the cockpit of this particular G280 for just under one hundred hours in the previous thirty days, but tonight, they needed more than experience to get them safely to their next destination.
Rolling forward, the overhead speakers cracked to life. “Okay men, this may get a bit rough. The tarmac is clear up to about the last third. It looks like we have about two dozen of those things roaming around out there, so stay in your seats until we’re airborne…”
Nicholas’s voice trailed off momentarily. A burst of static briefly filled the line before his voice again came through.
“I’ll get us through, but it’s not going to be pretty.” The overhead speakers again faded away and were quickly replaced by the sound of the G280 rocketing down the runway.
His hands gripped tight to the armrests, Dalton stared straight ahead. His feet were oddly cold and the exposed areas along his lower legs ached. He’d examined them as he was pulled backward into the plane, but at that time he wasn’t necessarily in the proper state of mind to process the full extent of his injuries. That time would come. But right now, he was just hoping to live for another sixty seconds—anything beyond that was incomprehensible.
Closing his eyes and holding his breath, the jet continued down the tarmac, increasing its speed with each passing second. And as the sounds beyond his two-foot world began to fade, Dalton began counting. He figured that if he got to thirty and was still coherent enough to continue counting, then he and the others would be safely in the sky.
“One… two… three…”
Seated along the opposite side of the spacious rear cabin, Goodwin peered out the window. Half ignoring the younger man, he grinned and shook his head. Watching the ground beneath rush by as the jet raced toward the end of runway number one, he had little concern for Dalton’s current frame of mind.
“Mr. Dalton, your life is rushing by at a pace that you’ll never have the capability of fully understanding. Fear is an absolutely useless emotion. Don’t let it control you. Stop counting the seconds until you die and start actually living. You have to be present either way—why not just open your eyes and allow it to come… whatever
it
is?”
“Fourteen… fifteen… sixteen…”
Mind games. Goodwin was probably bored. With little else to do, and the only other passengers being the pilots, he needed a target. However, an idle Goodwin had less of an attention span than a five-year-old child. Dalton knew this, and had on many occasions, used it to his advantage.
As the nose of the G280 lifted off the runway, Goodwin’s antagonistic diatribe was, for the moment, diverted. He leaned forward and craned his neck down and to the right. He glared into the night and appeared to be willing the massive jet into the air.
“Twenty-two… twenty-three… twenty-f—”
The jet rocked violently to the right as Dalton was thrown from his seat. He slammed against the side of the plane and then fell forward onto his left side. The sound of collapsing metal tore through the rear cabin as Dalton gripped the leg of the chair opposite him and looked up at Goodwin. The older man was pushed back in his seat, one hand digging into the arm of the chair and the other wrapped tightly around the half empty bottle of spring water. Not one drop was spilled.
He’d stopped counting; however, the G280 continued along the runway. He knew what had happened, as did Goodwin. The plane had struck at least one of those things, and if the sound of the collision were any indication, the jet had sustained a fair amount of damage.
As the G280’s rear end lifted off the runway, Dalton reached for the other arm of the chair opposite him. He quickly pulled himself up into the soft leather, glancing back at Goodwin as the jet listed right and then immediately corrected itself. Digging in his heels, he pushed back into the seat and stared down at his feet.
No shoes. His black socks a tattered mess from being dragged away from those beasts and the exposed area on his right calf was noticeably swollen. He pressed his right forearm against the chair, forced his sleeve up a few inches, and then did the same with his left. Both clear.
He waited another five seconds, and feeling somewhat secure in the fact that they’d left the horrors of the airfield back on the ground, Dalton released his grip on the left armrest. Reaching for his waist, he pulled his shirt away from his pants and arched his back. The pain radiating from his hip held no specific sensation. Abrasion, laceration or possibly something even worse. Without pulling away the blood-soaked fabric, he’d only be guessing.
Wincing as he unintentionally raked his fingers over the injury, Dalton could feel Goodwin’s eyes turn to him. He didn’t look back. Instead, he pulled what remained of the shirt away, like you would a bandage… quick and without thought.
“You weren’t bitten,” Goodwin said. “Pull yourself together, we’re going—”
The jet again jerked hard to the right, this time catching Goodwin off guard as he dropped his bottle of water. As it smashed to the carpeted floor below, his gaze instantly turned toward the front of the plane. Quickly standing and kicking the broken pieces of glass aside, he braced himself against the wall as the rumble beneath their feet began.
Dalton’s eyes shot to the floor below. “What is that?”
The floor shook as the sound of grinding metal reverberated through the rear cabin. It stopped momentarily and then began once again, this time much louder, with a repetitive banging that appeared to shake the jet like a rag doll.
Turning his attention from the floor to Goodwin, and then on to the forward cabin, Dalton fought the urge to shrink further into his seat. He instead pushed away from the leather chair and stood. He was a few paces behind Goodwin and held tight to the overhead compartment with his left hand.
“Marcus!”
Fearing the unknown, Dalton’s mind was now working completely on autopilot. He struggled to right himself, although he was more concerned that these were his last minutes than he was about properly addressing the man who’d caused all of this.
Goodwin turned back, narrowed his eyes, and pointed at the petrified young man.
“Sit down and keep your mouth shut. Pray if you’d like to… go ahead and cry if that’s what you need, but do it quietly. I do not want to hear another word out of your mouth until we’re on the ground. Got it?”
Dalton didn’t respond. He also didn’t move. Standing near the overhead compartment, he only glared back at Goodwin, and for the first time thought about what it would be like to watch him die. He had no intention of doing it himself—hell, he even had a hard time imagining it at all—but as he drilled a hole into the side of Goodwin’s head with his gaze, he thought of the irony of the man who may have ended humanity perishing at the hands of those he created.
One final jolt, and as Goodwin turned and headed for the cockpit, the grinding beneath their feet ended in a slow sputter. It was gone as quickly as it began and was now replaced by the low hiss of cool air escaping through the overhead vents.
Stepping back, Dalton turned away from Goodwin. He dropped down into the crème-colored leather chair, and rested his left arm on the window ledge. Peering out into the night, he watched as the world below shrank, and the only illumination coming from the many spot fires peppering the landscape.
On the opposite side of the cabin, Goodwin brushed aside a few errant pieces of glass, and continued toward the cockpit. Just as he began to call out to the pilots, Nicholas appeared in the doorway. He continued walking quickly toward Goodwin and spoke with just enough volume to also command Dalton’s attention.
“What you heard was our landing gear being torn to pieces by those things out there. We were unable to avoid the crowd at the end of runway number one and as such, the gear took a direct hit from more than a few of the bodies.”
Goodwin looked past Nicholas, in through the cockpit door, and then turned back toward the rear of the jet.
“And?”
“Well,” Nicholas said, “at this point the nose gear is completely inoperable and it appears that the right rear is no longer capable of fully retracting… or extending.”
Goodwin began to speak, but then paused a moment. He stared back at Nicholas, as a look of confusion washed over his face. “You don’t look worried?”
“Yeah, I guess it wouldn’t do any good. We don’t have any other choice now.”
“No?”
“We’re gonna have to put this thing down at some point, and with only one leg left, things are gonna get interesting real fast.”
As Nicholas turned and started back for the cockpit, Goodwin had one final question.
“What are our chances?”
“Don’t know, never had the opportunity to run this one through a simulator.”