"Yeah," said Jones, "that’s bad news." "What do we want to do about the civilians on the deck above us?"

  "How are we going to explain to a thousand people to keep their mouths shut?" Hoover replied.

  "We can’t," Eason said. He knew he would regret this later. "And I don’t think there are enough of us left to stop this.

  "No way man," Hoover said, "I took an oath.”

  "How are you going to fulfill that oath by ending up getting killed here?" Jones said.

  "I can’t make it alone," Eason said. "But the three of us just might have a shot."

  "Ok, say we make it out, then where to?" Hoover said while clearing his M-16.

  "Those C-130s are coming from 911th at Pittsburgh International," Jones said. "If we can make it there, we should be alright."

  "That’s 15 miles away," Eason said.

  "Then I hope you had a good breakfast,” Jones said, “cause your about to burn some calories.”

  ###

  Captain Rick Anderson slammed his radio headset against the metal bulkhead of the Command Stryker. Outside the front window of the Stryker, Anderson noticed the yellow of school buses lined up inside the airport.

  “They’re out of their minds,” Anderson said. “We can’t bomb our own people.”

  “And our orders?” asked Sergeant Ryan Winters.

  Anderson picked up the printout of the orders he had received from Division; they were not marked with a signature.

  “Captain Anderson,” he read, “As of 1400 hours, martial law has been declared across the continental United States. You are hereby ordered to abandon all refugees after eliminating all wounded. You will link up with additional guard forces at the Beaver Falls Reserve Center by 2100 tonight.”

  Anderson crumpled the printout, “Someone orders a massacre of civilians and doesn’t have the courage to put their name to it. Sergeant, I have no intention of following what I consider to be illegal orders.”

  “Sir,” Winters said, “I think the Air Force is jamming communication south of us; it’s all garbled down there now.”

  “Have we heard anything else from the C-130s that were ordered to break off from Pittsburgh?” Anderson said.

  “Negative,” Winters replied. “The last transmission I heard 15 minutes ago ordered them out of the way to make room for the B-52’s run. The Hercules’ pilots seemed pretty pissed and asked for confirmation twice.”

  “Get me those pilots as soon as the jamming quits,” Anderson ordered. “I don’t care what it-.” The noise of a large plane stopped Anderson in mid-sentence. He turned around and looked out the open back ramp of the Stryker. Out of view, Anderson heard the screech of tires hitting the runway and the engines of the plane throttle back. A camouflaged green C-130 raced past his view as it feathered its props to slow down.

  “Belay that Winters,” Anderson said. “In fact, go radio silent.”

  The C-130 slowed to a crawl near the end of the runway and turned a right U-turn on to the taxiway. The props of the plane re-throttled giving it the momentum to carry down the lane. People moved out of the plane’s way well in advance of its approach. It cruised past the hanger and administration building and moved to the end of the taxiway as if it was about to realign at the end of the runway for take-off. Instead, the plane shut down at the end of the taxiway.

  Anderson’s Stryker rolled to a stop as the back cargo hatch of the Hercules opened, and its pilot walked down the ramp.

  “Major Sam Warren,” the pilot said as Anderson exchanged salutes with him.

  “Captain Rick Anderson. Sir, can I assume you are having radio troubles that you would need to land.”

  “Let’s be blunt here, Captain,” Major Warren said. “We just bombed our own people, both military and civilians alike. I refused to move my plane, and my co-pilot was ordered by coded message to subdue me and take over the mission. He complied with his order long enough to move the plane out of harm’s way then turned command back over to me. Our Air Police have orders to arrest us the moment we land back at the 911th. I am afraid that under the circumstances my crew may be shot on sight. Considering that you are in the same boat as the people that were just bombed in Pittsburgh, I’d rather surrender to you, Captain.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that Sir,” Anderson said. “I have orders to quit this post and abandon the civilians. I was also instructed to kill anyone injured regardless of circumstances. I have no intention of following those orders, Sir.”

  “Then what do you suggest, Captain?” Major Warren said.

  “They’re going to line us up with a firing squad for sure Sir,” Anderson said. “We might as well make it a conspiracy. What about the rest of your squadron?”

  “Grounded,” said Warren, “They headed home and have been ordered to re-fuel, re-arm, and stand by. We can decrypt through the jamming and we heard that there are some problems at the airside of the civilian terminal at Pittsburgh International. Supposedly, a few of the infected made it through security before they expired. The terminal is teaming with the undead. What’s your status here?

  “Stable,” Anderson said. “The local government managed to get organized and form a militia to deal with the immediate problems. With what we brought them we could hold out here for months. The problem is we are concerned about what is going to happen to the nuke reactor to the West of us if things go from completely fucked, to no chance of survival fucked. By the way, that’s a nice plane you’ve got there. How many people does it hold?”

  “Just under a hundred if we’re not carrying toys like your Stryker there,” the Major said.

  ###

  “You wanted to talk to me, Rex,” Paul Sulla said as he walked up to Rex’s black truck.

  Rex noticed that his old high school friend looked tired.

  “You look like you need a nap” Rex said.

  “Yeah,” Paul said, “I do. But I don’t think I’m going to get one, especially after I heard about that trouble you ran into a couple of hours back. Is there anything I can do?”

  Rex looked over at Alison sitting with his wife inside the cab. “I think things are as calm as they can be for the moment,” Rex said. “I’m sure if we’re lucky enough, we might get to deal with the emotional aspects of this in the future. Let’s put that aside for now; I wanted you to meet someone. Paul, this is Mazie. She’s a med-student at a school down south. She’s the reason I wanted to talk to you.

  “What about?” Paul said.

  “Mazie may be able to help us,” Rex said. “I’ll let her explain it though.”

  “I’m a 4th year med-student in Pikeville, Kentucky,” Mazie said. I was headed back to school for a seminar when I got sidetracked here. Well, Rex here was telling me about the problem with the radiation, and that we needed to find a place to bug-out to. Pikeville could be an ideal place to go off the grid.”

  “I’m listening,” Sulla said.

  Mazie continued, “Pikeville is smack dab in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains; it’s a two hour drive to the next biggest city or even an interstate. The population of Pikeville is pretty small. It’s a huge county, takes a little more than an hour to drive through on roads that wind through the mountains.”

  “Can we fly in?” Sulla said.

  “Yeah,” Mazie said. “They have an airport that sits on top of a mountain about 10 miles outside of town. There are only two roads that cut up the mountain to get to it, and there is nothing around it. The rumor is that the only reason they built it was to smuggle in drugs late at night. I’d say that they really put it there because someone in Washington needs votes from people in their district.”

  Another man walked up to the conversation carrying some type of aviation book. “Rex,” Sulla said, “You remember Jack from the meeting earlier; we were going to meet to discuss where to run to. This will fit perfectly.”

  “What did I miss?” asked Jack.

  “Pikeville, Kentucky,” Sulla replied.

  Jack opened his spiral bound book and flipped through the pages. “PBX is the Federal Aviation Administration designation for the airport,” Jack said. He ran his index finger down the page. “The weight limit may be a problem if we use that C-130. I am sure the pilots are going to have to consider this. The smaller planes here will have no problem; it’s even inside our maximum envelope of fuel.”

  Twenty minutes later, Major Sam Warren and Captain Rick Anderson joined the conversation.

  “That’s rugged country,” said Warren. “I’ve flown over those mountains; they are nothing to sneeze at.”

  “What about the airstrip?” Jack said.

  “Let me see the book,” said Warren. “Yeah, that weight limit is a problem. We for sure can land, but we may tear the runway to hell when we do it. Of course this other section of the field to the west looks like it’s not paved. We can land on grass or dirt if need be. I don’t see this as a huge problem, but I would like one of your planes to run a pass on the airstrip before we go. In relation to this, I have good and bad news.”

  “Which is?” Sulla said.

  “There are three other birds fueled and ready to join us at the 911th,” Warren said. “The bad news is there are zombies on the runway at Pittsburgh International. We don’t have to worry about the guards; they have bugged out on other planes. The squadron was ordered to move to Dayton Ohio to support Wright Patterson Air Force Base. The birds sitting there disobeyed orders because they want to help us. We’re going to have to figure out a way to clear the runway and get them off the ground.”

  “Major,” Jack said, “Why don’t you use your gunship?”

  “We dumped all our ammo killing zombies before we broke off mission,” said Warren.

  “There are two life-flight helicopters sitting on the other side of the main hanger,” Jack said. “I don’t suppose you can fly one.”

  “As a matter of fact I can,” Warren said. That’s what I do as a civilian for my day job.”

  “So we fly some ground people in and shoot up the dead, drag them off to the side then fly out,” Jack said.

  “Easy enough on paper,” said Rex.

  “It’s a fenced-in facility,” said Warren. “So it might not be too bad till Murphy’s Law turns it into a nightmare.”

  “Well,” Sulla said, “what do you think Captain Anderson? Should we put together a team to do this?”

  ###

  The meeting had broken up hours ago with the decision to head out just before daybreak. Rex had moved his group to the other side of hanger two so his gear would be closer to the life-flight helicopters and a single engine Cessna that was to be used in the operation. Rex was sitting on the back gate of the black Dodge Ram cleaning an AK-47. Jack Cotta stood by the back of the truck petting his cat Naomi. Ginger, Alison, Donna, and Mazie stood by watching Rex clean the weapon.

  Kimberly lay inside the truck curled into a ball. Rex hadn't heard the girl utter more than a couple of words since he brought her back from the field. Rex had expected her to disappear into the crowd of people at the airport, too ashamed to show her face. Instead, she seemed to have accepted Alison as having some authority over her.

  Ginger on the other hand, had plenty to say about Rex's inclusion in the rescue party to free the planes.

  "I don’t care, Rex," Ginger said. "You're not going with them; I need you. You're not a soldier, and you have a responsibility to me."

  "I'm sorry Ginger, I do," Rex said. "But right now that responsibility means I have to make sure there is enough room to fit all of us on a plane."

  "There is another option," Jack said. "I mean I'd feel real shitty about it, but we could take one of the larger civilian planes and scat right out of here."

  "If only it were as easy as that," said Rex. "But we would need to leave too much hardware behind. What would happen a few weeks from now when we might need that stuff to survive? Trust me, I want to bug out, but I have to consider the longer game of survival here."

  Jack nodded his head, "Yeah, I have to agree with you. They would probably shoot us down as we took off anyway."

  "But why does it have to be you?" said Ginger.

  "You know why," Rex said. "I worked out of there for months. If something went wrong and we had to work around the terminals I know the place like the back of my hand."

  "I'm afraid I'm with Ginger on this," Alison said. "This is an unnecessary risk; you should stay."

  "I'll look after him," Jack said. "If something goes wrong, I can land on a much shorter runway. I can fly in like Han Solo on the Millennium Falcon and swoop Rex to safety."

  Donna picked up Naomi from the back of the truck. "Jack, I don’t like the idea of you going either. I'm not going to let you take Naomi with you on the plane. I’ll keep her with me. You should know we've talked, and the two of us will never forgive you if you do something stupid enough to get yourself killed."

  Jacks face reddened and he petted Naomi's soft brown fur as Donna held the cat in her arms.

  "Jack," Rex said, "you should tell Leia and Chewbacca that we’ll be fine tomorrow. We’re going to come back and then we’re going to get the hell out of here, all of us."

  ###

  Later that night, the group rested safely inside the hanger. The air in the hanger remained hot long into the hours of the night. Mazie had moved inside the truck to try and sleep on the front bench seat; Kim was laid out on the seats behind her. The windows of the truck were open to keep the temperature in the cab from becoming unbearable.

  Rex had ripped off the fiberglass bed cover of the truck so there would be a place for Ginger, Alison, and him to sleep. Ginger had laid their sleeping bags over top of one another to make as thick a mattress as possible. Rex lay inside the bed of the truck spooning his wife from behind. Alison faced the couple on her side as the entire party listened to news the radio.

  The city of New York is undergoing a crisis of apocalyptic proportions. Earlier today around four in the afternoon, martial law was declared by the President of the United States. “In New York, in a desperate attempt to contain the situation, the Air Force began a process of destroying all bridges leading to the island. This occurred even while civilian foot and vehicle traffic was attempting to cross the various bridges. The effort proved to be of little use as New Jersey is already reporting mass undead activity. As of eight this evening the New York City Mayor’s office indicated that it is now impossible to contain the outbreaks running rampant in Gotham’s streets. Some estimates put the number of undead in the streets of New York at greater than 100,000.

  In Washington D.C., several outbreaks have been contained, but authorities remain cautious as refugee population shifts bring constant threats of new outbreaks. The government shut down the beltway interstates to civilian traffic only to see a major crisis develop in neighboring Fredrick, Virginia and several other towns near the Federal District.

  The FAA has closed down civilian airlines in hopes that the spread of the outbreak can be slowed down in other major U.S. cities. The move came perhaps just hours late for the cities of Atlanta, Miami, and Dallas. These cities are now officially reporting undead activity. The outbreaks are also causing problems across the nation as people are making runs on local grocery and hardware stores. The city of Detroit is attempting to put down mass looting and riots in the already economically stricken region.

  The crisis is drawing mixed reaction from around the world. Some countries like Great Britain and Japan have offered aid and prayer. In other places such as the Middle East, there are several unconfirmed reports that Americans and anyone they have come into contact with have been quarantined and executed. Similar stories are now also coming out of Africa and Asia.

  One thing is for sure, every country around the world is attempting to cut itself off from the continent of America when it comes to air travel and shipping. The growing disaster has caused markets to crash around the world today and most markets have decided to close trading for the immediate future. We are now getting a news alert out of California; I will transfer over to Casey Douglass in San Diego.”

  The broadcaster’s voice changed over to a woman’s voice.

  “Thanks Mike,” the woman said. “The sun has been set for only a couple of hours here in San Diego and there are now unconfirmed reports of zombie activity among the homeless population of the city. Earlier tonight, several victims were attacked in the gas light district of the city. Police have detained the victims, who are believed to be homeless. Authorities hope to monitor their status over the next several hours. Witnesses report that there are other victims who fled the area. Police are now desperate to locate the attacker and other potential victims. Shore Police from the naval station have been brought in to assist local law enforcement in the search. When asked if they believe these attacks are zombie related, officials’ state that they are not taking any chances when dealing with public safety.”

  “Thanks Casey,” male broadcaster said. “In Chicago, the situation has also continued to deteriorate. Early in the day, an accident broke a key water main while the city struggled to deal with the undead. The lack of water pressure wrecked the efforts of firefighters struggling to put out several fires associated with the outbreak. As the day progressed, civil organization collapsed into complete chaos in the downtown area. The Chicago skyline is now ablaze as multiple fires rage unchecked. The inferno can reportedly be seen as many as forty miles away in the night sky. The news around the nation seems bleak this evening; the government is obviously at a loss with how to deal with the magnitude of the disaster that is unfolding. Many governments are outright collapsing in the face of the crisis leaving everyday Americans facing this apocalypse alone in the dark.”

  Rex watched Alison while he squeezed his wife in his arms. The side of Alison’s face showed a dark purple in the low light of the hanger. Alison had turned on her back after the broadcaster’s alone comment. Ginger reached out and took Alison by her hand.

  “Hey,” Ginger said, “You’re not going to face this alone, Alison.” She spoke her next statement so the others in the truck could hear, “We’re all in this together. We have to look out for each other.”