Priest moved back from the edge and turned on his back to look at the sky. “Damn, that will be risky no matter what. Doug, how long does it take to get that bird prepped enough to take off?”
“Well, forgoing all the pre-flight checks, about 5-6 minutes to start the engines, 1-2 minutes to achieve lift RPM. So anywhere from 7 to 10 minutes.”
“Shit! That’s too much time. We will need a distraction to draw the infected away so they don’t hear the chopper spinning up or see anyone running to it.”
“I could go to one side of the building and start shooting and bring them over.” Shaw said.
“Yeah, I am just worried that once they hear the engines fire up, it will drown out all other sounds, and they’ll swarm the chopper.”
“That’s if there are any of those things out there.” Doug chimed in
“Oh, they’re out there. Bet your ass on that.” Priest flipped over and crawled back to look over the ledge. He was thinking about what he could use as a distraction as he scanned the area. He stopped on an item sitting about 200 yards from their location. In a small ditch to the east of the terminal building sat a Dodge Challenger. Priest pointed it out to Doug and Shaw. “Dude, how about the car?” Priest said in a subdued tone as he thought about it.
Shaw piped up, “Well, if we assume the keys are in it and it’s not stuck, yeah, you could use it to draw the horde away.”
Priest chuckled, “Wonder if it’s a Hell Cat, that sure would be nice. Never could afford one of those. I think it’s worth the risk to find out if it is operational.”
“Well, knowing how stubborn you are, I guess the
re is no chance of talking you out of it. I guess I will just have to cover your crazy ass.”
“Ok, Mr. Shaw, let’s make it happen.”
They found an awning for one of the businesses that Priest could jump down onto. The issue was that it was too high to grab from the ground, so once you were down, you were down. Priest jumped to the awning and stopped to listen for any infected. He didn’t hear any but it didn’t make him feel any better, because he knew they were out there somewhere. He was sure he would probably find out soon enough.
Priest took a deep breath, jumped to the ground with a grunt and took off as fast as his legs would carry him. He was older than anyone else on the team, but he was pretty fast for an old fart.
As soon as he cleared the corner of the terminal building, he heard multiple screams and shouts. The hair on his arm stood on end with a chill running through him. Was that adrenaline, or was that fear? As he glanced back, he saw more infected coming at him from some buildings to his left-front. “Get there, please let me get there, he swore to himself.” The screams from behind were getting louder, as they were gaining on him.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he yelled. Just then he heard… chunk…. chunk… chunk… chunk! The sound of Shaw’s M48 cutting through the infected was recognizable.
The infected from the front were still closing in. Priest could raise his rifle and take some of these fuckers out, but that would slow him down, and then the infected might catch up. He just had to keep chugging and make it to the car. The infected were closing the gap and were now only 100 yards from him.
“Go old man, move your fucking ass!” Priest yelled at himself. Giving him one last burst of courage or maybe fear, but whichever it was it allowed him to reach the car. He jumped in, shut and locked the doors, and took a breath. Priest reached down with eyes closed and holy shit, the keys were in it. He turned the key, and the car started and idled with a harmonious rumble.
The infected had reached him and were banging on the glass as he slapped the vehicle in reverse and punched it. The car shot out of the ditch and sped backward. He hit the brakes, slapped it in drive, and stomped on the gas. The tires smoked as they spun on the pavement, then the car launched itself forward, hitting three infected with the front of the vehicle. He continued to keep his foot on the gas, and the vehicle fishtailed, taking two infected out on the right side.
Priest looked down at the steering wheel and saw the Demon emblem. “Holy Shit. Get some,” he yelled. He sped down the flight line while blowing the horn, which captured the infected attention, and they took off after the car.
Shaw and Doug made it to the news chopper and Doug immediately went to his storage panel on the side. He started rifling through it as Shaw looked around the nose of the chopper.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for a wrench or my socket set to remove that equipment on the right side. It’s just broadcast transmission equipment.” Doug answered.
Shaw looked at him, annoyed. “We don’t have time for that.” Shaw slung his M48 on his back, opened the right-side door and shoved his arms inside. His massive hands grabbed ahold of the first piece of equipment and with a heave, ripped it out and threw it on the ground.
Doug looked over at him in amazement. He held the wrench he just pulled out in front of his face, stared at it for a second and then tossed it back where he had gotten it from. He ran to the pilot’s seat and started the engine. Shaw had all the equipment removed in minutes. A scene of broken screws, bent brackets and mangled metal remained in place of the equipment, but he had all the equipment cleared out.
As Shaw was standing right at the pilot door, he looked at Doug, then looked at Priest running around in the car, “You think he is having too much fun out there?”
Doug glanced up, “Yep, sure looks like it,” and shakes his head. “He ain’t all there, is he?”
“Nope, he sure ain’t.”
By now, Priest had close to two or three dozen infected chasing him, trying to get to him, trying to infect him and join their ranks. Priest had the crowd of contaminated about 500 yards away from Shaw and Doug.
As Shaw patrolled around the news chopper, a pack of infected came running out of a nook in the terminal building approximately some distance away. Shaw’s M48 barked out .50 caliber rounds that shredded the pack of infected in mere seconds. The figures of humans, once running toward them, were now piles of blood, viscera, and unrecognizable fragments of bone, skin and hair. “Damn, looks like chunky soup,” Shaw remarked.