He kicked out from underneath it and rolled over onto his feet. The zombie regained whatever amounted to its senses and reached out for Rex again. He stepped back and cocked the slide back on his .45; it slammed a round into the chamber on its return. He lightly squeezed the trigger until the gun erupted in his hand. The round struck true in the zombie's head and painted a red splash on the tarmac. Rex scanned the area, but it was clear. Then he reached down and picked up the radio.
"This is Rex, everyone else is dead."
"Where are you?" Cotta said.
"I’m at end of the burning section of the terminal," Rex said. The sound of a small plane’s engine droned over the crackling of fire in the background.
"I’ve got a visual on you,” Cotta said. “Listen, you got more of those things falling out of the broken windows of the next concourse back; you need to get the hell out of there."
Rex walked over to his AK and picked it back up.
"Roger that, I’m headed toward the land-side section of the airport."
"Copy that,” Cotta said. “I can land where they park the Regional Jets, but you’d better hurry."
The first zombie rounded the corner behind him and locked onto Rex, several more popped out behind it.
He slung his rifle over his shoulder and took off running in the opposite direction.
The small plane landed in the distance a half-mile away. Rex wiped the blood out of his eye and looked over his shoulder to see dozens of the undead following him. He had the distance on them, but he felt hunted.
Cotta’s plane was in front of him. It slowed and turned sharply to the right in his direction and back the way it landed setting up for takeoff. Zombies poured out of a glass gate to the regional jet section of the tarmac.
”New plan,” Cotta said. “Keep coming toward me, I’m going to try and close the distance to you. We need to be outta here before my new fan club meets your fan club."
"No, shit," said Rex, "and I don’t do autographs."
Rex pumped his legs harder across a grass section of the airport; his lungs were desperate for more air. Come on Rex, he thought, push it. Cotta's plane closed the distance faster than Rex could, but it stopped next to the grass.
"I'm not going to push our luck by getting stuck in the grass,” Cotta said. “I suggest you hurry."
Rex was close enough to see someone in the passenger’s seat pop open the side window and take aim at the oncoming undead. Several shots popped out of the plane by the time Rex rounded its tail. Rex was surprised to see Donna leaning out the open door with a rifle in her hand. If she had managed to knock any of them out, the mass of undead approaching the plane swallowed the bodies in their wake. Donna jumped out of the plane covering Rex while he scrambled over the final distance.
Donna pulled the rifle up to his shoulder and took aim at the nearest zombie, a woman in a red business suit. She squeezed the trigger, and the zombie tumbled over. The body tripped the ghoul behind it creating a cascade of falling zombies. Donna flipped the safety on the rifle and climbed into the open door of the plane behind Rex.
Jack throttled the plane, and it lurched forward away from death’s reaching hands. The undead continued to follow the plane, but every second they fell away from their hearts only desire.
"Hang on," Jack said, "I'm not going to bother with the runway."
Cotta pushed the plane down the tarmac of the concrete terminal apron and the small craft quickly picked up speed. The Cessna's wheels left the ground as its wings and engine clawed into the sky. Jack banked the plane to the left to bring their heading around to face north.
Rex looked past the pilot down at the burning terminal below. The fuel truck had torn through a section of the concourse collapsing a section of the building. A crater existed where the truck had been.
"You would all be dead," Jack said. "If they hadn’t blown that truck, all of you could have been caught between groups of those things."
Jack leveled the wings of the plane and the final resting place of the men who liberated the C-130s dipped below the horizon forever.
###
Hours later, Alison and Ginger sat inside the late Captain Anderson's Stryker. Rex and an Air Force Captain, Dan Arnett, were talking outside the hatch of the vehicle. The death of the Captain, Sergeant, and Paul Sulla ripped a sizeable whole in the organization of the survivors at the airport.
Captain Arnett and his C-130s had been challenged by an Air Force radar station out of Ohio and were forced to drop to the deck after F-16s were dispatched to escort them home. Three of the five remaining C-130s broke off, lured the fighters away and were either forced to land back in Ohio or be shot down. Now there were only three heavy lifting planes back at the Butler Airport, including Major Warren's former craft.
"If we take off now," Arnett said, "we are likely to get shot down or forced to land back at Wright Patterson."
"It's not going to be too hard for them to figure out we are here," Rex said.
"The crews disabled their GPS systems before takeoff," Arnett said. "They flew up toward the Great Lakes before breaking off back down South here. I think they are going to have more pressing things on their agenda than looking for us. The tactical nets are buzzing with activity, and those fighters are going to be re-tasked to bombing missions on bridges if I had my guess."
Inside the Stryker, Alison spun the black dial on the short-wave radio system. She settled in on a frequency and a British man's voice crackled to life on the radio.
"The Russian President has just issued a statement demanding that the United States take drastic action to control the outbreaks spreading in North America. He went on to indicate that Russia has a right and responsibility as a sovereign nation to protect its citizens and the citizens of the world from the threat posed by the outbreak. Russia is now threatening nuclear detonations if the United States will not take action to reduce the threat. We are told that the American President has responded by stating that now is not the time for threats, but rather a time to set aside differences to work toward common goals.
The United States maybe attempting to comply with Russian demands as there are now rumors of the chemical weapons stockpiles being prepared to use on infected zones.
In related news, New York City appears to be a total loss for the Americans despite the efforts of increased military support. Police and emergency personnel are still trying to maintain a safe zone in Time Square, but plans are already underway to fully evacuate the last remaining safe zones before they are overrun.
The nations of Mexico and Canada are now both admitting to outbreak activity within their borders. Mexico's Yucatan peninsula fell victim to the outbreak. Reportedly, a dozen of the undead emerged from the jungle and surrounded a small town. They are spreading panic throughout the region. This is causing some in the scientific community to question the origins of patient zero. Currently, it is believed that the outbreak started in Western Pennsylvania."
"Hey," Rex said poking his head in the vehicle. "Anything we should know about?"