Doug gunned the engine and the Winnebago continued pushing its way through the horde until it broke free on the other side. He hit the wipers to clean the gore from the windshield and sped toward the end of the ballpark. Through the wiper smear, Jack spotted the armory a hundred yards in the distance. The dark three-story building looked abandoned, but figures were moving about on the roof while the Army copters circled overhead.
“We’re not going to make it in time,” Telia said.
“Keep going!” Jack shouted to Doug. “Drive through the front doors if you have to!”
Jack snapped up the binoculars and scanned the roof extraction point. As he focused the lens, the two hovering Black Hawks swept the rooftop crowd with powerful searchlights. His breath froze in his chest.
The rooftop was covered with zombies.
“No!” Jack said. “Dear God, no.”
“What is it?” Telia said.
“The rescue is too late. There’s nothing left but zombies!”
The three copters started to pull away from the roof.
Telia shot him a look of hopelessness.
“They’re aborting the airlift and returning to base,” he said.
“Don’t they see us?” Kerri said.
“No,” Telia said, shaking her head.
“Screw this!” Jack shouted. “Stop the RV!”
Doug slammed on the brakes. “What are you doing, Mr. G? We got a whole lot of dead behind us.”
“I’ll try to flag the copters down.”
With the Mossberg and the handheld radio, Jack jumped out of the vehicle and raced for the ladder. Half a ballpark away, the zombie multitude shambled across the grass field toward the RV. Above him, the three helicopters made one last pass over the area and headed north in tight formation. Jack climbed to the roof and fired the Mossberg twice into the air at the retreating copters.
“Come back!” he shouted and grabbed the radio. “This is Jack Garrett. Our Winnebago’s in the park. There are five of us. We need rescue! Please don’t leave us!” He watched with despair as the copters disappeared into the cloud cover. “Don’t leave us!” he shouted one last time.
“It’s no use, Jack,” Telia said from the top of the ladder. “They’re gone.”
“Fuck!” Jack threw the radio as hard as he could into the night. “Fuck everything!”
The strength left his body and he sat on the roof in defeat. Telia joined him, and they watched a wave of undead in National Guard uniforms stumble out the building’s doors and lurch toward the RV. The horde in the ballpark was fifty yards away and closing. In just a few minutes, they would be surrounded by a sea of undead flesh.
“I give up.” Jack felt the sting of new tears in his eyes. “We’re all fucking dead anyway. We might as well shoot ourselves and end it.”
“We came so close,” Telia said, wrapping an arm around him.
Jack leaned against her. “I’m sorry for my kids. I wasn’t able to save them from this hell. Kate and Max are the lucky ones. They don’t have to put up with this zombie bullshit any longer.”
“You gave it your best shot, Jack.” Telia put her head against his shoulder, and for the first time he saw tears in her eyes. “We all did.”
The wailing of hundreds of zombies replaced the fading sound of copter rotors.
Jack nodded toward the east. “It’s almost dawn. The sun’s probably not going to rise again anyway. I guess it doesn’t matter now.”
Telia suddenly leapt to her feet. “Jack! Give me the binoculars!” She whipped them off his neck and took a second to focus the lens. “I can’t believe it.”
“What is it?” He stood up.
She shoved the binoculars into his hands. “Look east.”
He looked where she pointed and spotted a five-story building a mile away. A sign in glowing red letters announced “Osage Regional Medical Center.”
“What am I looking at?”
“Up on the roof.” She pointed frantically.
Jack raised his focus to the hospital’s roof and blinked in disbelief. A red-and-white medical helicopter sat parked on the rooftop landing pad.
“It’s a Medi-Flight copter, Jack,” Telia said. “It’s our ticket out of here!”
“Can you fly it?”
“Damn straight.”
Renewed hope mobilized Jack’s will and gave him strength. Fate had thrown him one last chance to save his children. He scanned the lighted windows of the hospital floors and discerned the shapes of zombies shambling through the various wards and hallways.
“A shitload of zombies are there, too,” he said. “The hospital’s crawling with them.”
“Let’s give it one last shot and go down fighting.”
Jack looked at her and smiled. “Fuck yeah.”
He looked over the horde of the walking undead surrounding Natalie. Soon they would cut off their chance of escape. With renewed exuberance, Jack and Telia jumped off the Winnebago roof and rejoined the others anxiously waiting inside.
“Dad, are the helicopters coming back?” Kerri said.
“I wasn’t able to flag them down.”
“What do we do now?” Kerri said with panic in her voice. “Just let the zombies get us?”
“Not hardly.” He turned to Doug. “You know where the Osage medical center is?”
“Sure. About a mile east of here.”
“There’s a Medi-Flight copter parked on the roof. Telia can fly us out of here.”
“Sick.” Doug put the RV in gear, stomped on the gas, and sped through a narrowing gap in the undead mass. Zombie fists pounded the side of the vehicle as it raced past. One undead National Guardsman attempted to climb in through the broken side window and grabbed at Kerri. The thing managed to snag her hair. Jack rushed forward and kicked him hard in the face. The zombie soldier disappeared into the crowd. Seconds later, Natalie broke free of the horde and headed back across the ballpark.
“The hospital is just off the main highway,” Doug said.
“Good,” Jack said.
“We’d better arm ourselves with everything we’ve got,” Telia said. “The place is crawling with zombies.”
She bent down to pick through the remaining equipment and found a camouflaged rucksack. She stuffed it with the ammo magazines retrieved from the Highway Patrol officers and strapped it over one shoulder. She stuck the two extra Glocks in the waist of her leather riding pants and picked up the AR-15 rifle.
Jack unpacked Max’s Remington 700 sniper rifle and slung it on his back. Then he grabbed the Mossberg shotgun and looked at Telia. They exchanged looks of grim determination.
“Let’s kick some zombie ass,” Telia said, cocking the AR-15.
“I’ll second that emotion.” He jacked the shotgun slide.
“Give me a weapon, too,” Kerri said.
“Kerri, you’re wounded.” Jack pointed to her bandaged left hand.
“I’m part of this group, so give me something I can fight with. I’m tired of zombies grabbing my fucking hair.”
“Watch the language, young lady,” Jack said.
Telia chuckled. “She’s definitely your daughter, Jack.” She slid the machete out of the sheath and handed it to her. “Here you go, girl.”
“Thanks,” Kerri said.
“Don’t I get something to fight with?” Brett said.
“You just stay close to me, buddy,” Jack said. “Remember what your Mom said in your dream. You have to do what I say.”
Doug once again drove underneath the line of halogen streetlights on the main street. Rising a half-mile in the distance, the fully lighted medical center waited with the helicopter parked on the rooftop landing pad, surrounded by flashing beacons.
“What’s the plan, Mr. G?” Doug said.
“Just like at the armory. We bust in the front doors and fight our way to the top. I can’t think of any other way to reach—”
The sound of gunfire cut him off. Bullets ripped through Natalie’s side windows in a spray o
f glass and lead.
Jack threw Kerri and Brett to the floor and shielded them with his body. More shots blazed through the back window and tore out chunks from the refrigerator and the kitchen cabinets.
“Who the fuck is shooting at us?” Jack shouted above the hail of gunfire.
“I caught a glimpse of a blue pickup behind us,” Telia said from her prone position on the floor.
“It’s the Cordells,” Doug said and veered Natalie to the left. The Winnebago scraped the side of a wrecked vehicle before continuing headlong toward the hospital. “They found us again.”
Jack felt Kerri and Brett tremble beneath him.
“Are either of you hurt?” he said.
“No, Dad,” Brett said.
Kerri replied. “I’m okay but scared shitless.”
“Me, too,” Jack said.
He rose up enough to look out the shattered bedroom window. The Dodge pickup was bearing down fast on them. Jody stood in the truck bed with an AR-15 rifle aimed over the cab roof. Behind the wheel, Brody drove with a look of insane determination in his eyes.
“Hey, Jack!” Jody shouted at the RV. “How’s this for being neighborly, motherfucker!”
He opened fire with his AR-15. More bullets ripped through the windows.
“Son of a bitch!” he cried out and ducked back down.
He glanced over to see that Telia had crawled along the floor to just below the broken side window. She drew both spare Glocks from her waistband and met his gaze.
“Keep your head down, Jack,” she said. “I got this.”
Brody gunned the Dodge’s engine and pulled it alongside the RV. “You killed my brother, Jack!” He yelled from the open cab window. “I’m going to do the same shit to your family.”
Telia snapped up and simultaneously fired both Glocks out the side window at the truck. Jody ducked as 9mm rounds slammed the pickup’s body and shattered the side window. In response, Brody swerved the pickup down a side road and disappeared from sight.
“Is everybody all right?” Jack said with his heart hammering in his chest.
Kerri and Brett sat up and nodded. He turned to Telia, who had her hand clamped over a bleeding shoulder wound.
“You’re hit,” Jack said.
“I’m okay,” she said. “Just a graze. No penetration.”
“Damn it,” Jack said. “We don’t need this shit right now. How far is the hospital?”
“Three blocks,” Doug said.
“Maybe I scared them off?” Telia said, dropping the two empty pistols.
Jack shook his head. “Not those two fuckups.”
He turned his attention to the five-story hospital. It had suffered minimal quake damage. Fluorescent lights blazed through the shattered windows on all the floors. Mobs of zombies walked the lighted halls and occupied the parking lot and the front entrance.
Screeching out from a side street, the pickup suddenly slid to a stop outside the main hospital entrance. Jody stood up in the truck bed and opened fire on the oncoming Winnebago with his AR-15. Bullets punched holes in the windshield. Doug threw himself to the side but kept the RV on a collision course with the main hospital entrance. Jack covered Kerri and Brett as Natalie smashed through the front doors in a bone-shaking crash. Accompanied by the sounds of rending metal and breaking glass, the RV hurtled through the entrance, plowing over furniture and zombies before coming to a stop in the center of the lobby.
In the silent aftermath, Jack whispered, “Everyone all right?”
Brushing off broken glass, Telia pulled the AR-15 assault rifle to her side and glanced at Jack. “The Cordells are still out there,” she whispered.
Jack nodded and concentrated on listening. The only sound came from steam hissing from the Winnebago’s shattered engine block. The smell of antifreeze and gasoline choked the air.
“Kerri? Brett?” Jack said in a low voice. “How are you guys?”
“I’m okay, Dad,” Kerri said.
“Me, too,” Brett said.
“Good.”
“Doug?”
No reply.
Jack looked toward the driver’s seat and found the young man lying on the floor with a bloody gash on the side of his face. He reached out and shook his shoulder. Doug opened his dazed eyes and made a weak thumbs-up gesture.
“I’m cool, yo,” he said, grabbing his aluminum baseball bat.
“Thank God.”
Footsteps crunched on debris somewhere in the shattered hospital lobby. Jack couldn’t tell if the source was the Cordell brothers or zombies moving about.
“Jack?” Brody’s voice called out. “You still alive in there?”
Telia risked a peek out the broken side window. “Elevators are thirty yards away at two o’clock,” she whispered. “We can go for them.”
Jack motioned for her to wait. He didn’t like the idea of running his children through a shooting gallery. The Cordell brothers needed to be dealt with first. Easing the Remington off his back, he slid on his side toward the rear window of the Winnebago.
“Come on, Jack, talk to me.” Brody’s voice echoed in the lobby behind them. “Tell me you aren’t dead. I want to do that job myself. Step out and we’ll finish this.”
“Yeah, come out and play,” Jody added with a giggle like a deranged schoolkid.
Jack remained silent and crawled into the bedroom. Rising up enough to look out the broken back window, he managed to catch sight of Jody Cordell peering around one of the support pillars stationed throughout the lobby floor.
“You hear me, Jack?” Brody said somewhere to the left of his brother.
Jack looked past them. Unknown to the Cordells, a mob of undead had entered from the parking lot. They staggered toward the brothers over broken glass and masonry. In a matter of moments, the two would be under attack by the zombies.
“I hear you,” Jack said while sliding the bolt on the rifle. “What do you want?”
“You know what I want. Paybacks for what you did to my brother.”
“Consider us even.” Jack eased the rifle to his shoulder. “My wife died in that shit you pulled at the church.”
“I’ll decide when we’re even,” Brody said. “I guess you missed your National Guard flight. Yeah, I saw the choppers flying over the town. I figured that’s why you came to Watkins. Too bad, huh? Those Army boys won’t be flying you somewhere safe.” He paused for a second. “Tell me, Jack, why did you come to the hospital? There’s nothing but zombies here. Is there something you need? Medical supplies perhaps?”
Jack decided to keep them occupied until the undead reached them. “There’s a helicopter on the roof,” he said.
“You’re fucking kidding me. Can you fly it?”
“One of us can.”
“No shit,” Brody said. “I’ll make a deal with you. Take us with you and I’ll let you live.”
“No deal.”
At that moment, the undead attacked Jody from behind.
“Fucking zombies!” he screamed, firing his AR-15 at the attacking mob.
Jack swung up the sniper rifle and sighted through the scope. He caught a glimpse of Jody’s silhouette and pulled the trigger. With a deafening boom and a muzzle flash, the rifle bucked against his shoulder and he rode the recoil. The bullet struck Jody’s leg, and the impact of the large-caliber round against flesh and bone hurled the youngest Cordell to the floor.
“I’ve been hit,” Jody screamed, thrashing in his own blood. “The bastard shot me in the leg!” He looked up to see the zombies move in to feed on him. “Fucking help me!”
“Shit!” Brody opened fire on the undead attacking his brother.
Knowing this was their one chance to escape, Jack threw aside the empty Remington. “Everyone to the elevators!” he shouted.
Telia kicked open the side door and darted outside with Kerri and Brett. Jack rushed down the length of the RV, grabbed the Mossberg, and followed Doug into the lobby. They charged full force toward the elevators, their feet pounding the
tile floor. Jody’s horrendous dying screams echoed behind them as the zombies continued to feast on the downed Cordell. They’d made it halfway across the lobby when bullets suddenly ripped into a bank of pay phones ten feet to their right.
Jack turned and fired the Mossberg at the last Cordell. The shotgun blast blew out a chunk of masonry from the pillar by Brody’s head, and he ducked back before returning fire with his AR-15. More zombies attacked him from behind. Forced to run from the undead, Brody raced across the lobby as Jack emptied the rest of the shotgun rounds at him. The 12-gauge blasts blew holes in the walls and caught a couple of wandering zombies before Brody flung himself to safety over the admissions counter.
“Keep going!” Jack said, pushing the group before him.
They turned a corner and found the hallway to the elevator doors filled with flesh-hungry zombies. Telia opened up with her AR-15 and gunned down any walking dead blocking their way. Reaching the elevator bank, Jack kicked the button as more undead followed behind them.
“Come on, fucking elevator!” Jack pushed the button again. “Open!”
With a soft electronic beep, the door slid aside to reveal a large zombie dressed in blue hospital scrubs. The thing lunged forward and grabbed Brett by the collar. Doug swung his baseball bat full force against the thing’s skull. It cracked open with a sickening thud, and the corpse fell inert to the elevator floor.
“Home run, yo,” Doug said.
“Thanks,” Brett said, stepping over the body.
“Don’t mention it, little man.”
Jack slid the corpse out of the elevator before everyone crowded inside. With another beep, the doors shut just before the zombies could reach them.
“What floor?” Jack said, looking at the button panel. “It doesn’t go all the way to the top.”
Telia pointed to a diagram of the hospital interior on the elevator wall. “ICU is on the third floor. An elevator runs from there to the landing pad on the roof.”
“Third floor it is.” He pushed the button and started reloading the Mossberg.
Telia propped her AR-15 against the wall. “It’s empty,” she said and drew the Glocks from her shoulder rig. “From now on it’s just pistols.”
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