Chapter Thirty – One
Diran crouched low staring at the schematics of the building in the passage leading away from the mess hall. Five soldiers crouched beside him, their faces as grim as his own. The passage was dark and gloomy __ the only illumination came from a Lontor rechargeable lamp clutched in one soldier’s meaty hand.
“You sure we can’t get out through the maintenance tunnel beneath the building?” Diran asked placing a sweaty finger on the map.
“Sir __ we cannot __ we already tried. It’s stuffed with infected __ we still don’t know how they got there.”
“What about the door on the south side of the building?”
The soldier took several deep breaths and counted to five before he responded. He was seconds away from punching Diran in the face.
“For the tenth time sir __ NO!” His voice came out harsher than he intended and he swallowed under the withering look Diran threw his way.
“__ If you’re done giving me attitude maybe you could listen more carefully to what am telling you __ IS THAT CLEAR??!”
The soldier nodded, looking a bit shamefaced.
“Now if we are done measuring our penises why don’t we continue? What I meant was, aren’t the infected at that side of the building less than the ones in front?”
His men nodded giving him puzzled looks wondering where he was going with this.
“So __ how many grenades do we have?”
“Two __ but I don’t think two will be enough to blow a hole wide enough for us to escape through. Neither do we have the bullets to shoot through five hundred or more infected.”
“I wasn’t talking about escaping yet __ what I am suggesting is blowing one of our grenades at the south side taking out as many of those things as possible. We’ve seen they respond to loud noises right? So once the grenade goes off they’re likely to go to that side of the building leaving this side empty or at least heavily depopulated.
“Twelve of us could try and get to the Chengdu’s while the rest make it to the trucks. With any luck we could all make it out of here.”
The men exchanged thoughtful looks. It was obvious they were all wondering why they hadn’t thought about it before. Their worried looks grew confident. Yeah it was a good plan. It might just work __ they set off to make preparations.
Diran’s hands sweated like mad as he and ten of his comrades crouched in front of the building’s main entrance. Each man checked their weapons while trying to slow their racing hearts. No one wanted to dwell on the fact that there was a very strong possibility that most of them would not make it out of here alive. That was assuming they could execute this daredevil plan of theirs.
A man prayed in a fevered almost manic way inches from his ear. Diran was tempted to yell but somehow managed to keep the words from exploding from his lips. The man could very likely die; it was only fair he be allowed to pray to whatever God he believed in. He considered praying but quickly dismissed the idea. Why pray? God wasn’t likely to answer; at least not to a sinner like him.
His mind drifted as his life started to flash before his eyes. He pinched himself, snapping out of his reverie. That wasn’t a good sign. Sighing deeply he rose several inches peering out of the glass in the door. Hundreds of infected milled in several clustered masses fifty feet ahead. There were at least three hundred of them between them and the gate. He swallowed; praying to God their plan worked. Failure or success was the difference between life and death right now, there were no second chances.
The roar of the explosion came before the shuddering quake. The shaking was so great bits and pieces of dirt and debris fell from the roof. His brow roughened with a hard frown. That wasn’t quite right. No grenade could generate the explosive power needed to shake a building this size. Unless __
“Some smart idiot must have tossed it among the kegs of aviation fuel we have sitting close to the south wall.”
Diran turned to face the man with a puzzled look on his face. “Are you telling me we have aviation fuel stacked on the south wall?”
“Yes ___ what did I just say?”
“And you didn’t think to mention it before now?”
The man shrugged. “I only remembered it now.”
Diran shook his head rising a few inches to peer out of the glass. His eyes lit up with joy. Their little ruse was working, all the infected were tearing towards the south side of the building. He raised the walkie talkie to his lips.
“Get back here now __ you have a whole horde of infected heading your way.”
“Yes sir __ we don dey come now.”
He switched off the walkie and tossed it to the praying man beside him who caught it clumsily almost dropping it. The locks were opened in a flash and they were out sprinting to the planes which were some distance away.
Diran’s hand clutched his gun so tight his knuckles were grey, his eyes drifted right and left in a manic way as he scanned his surroundings for infected. There were none in sight. The plan was working. He prayed the rest could make it out in one piece.
They reached the planes without incident. Releasing the clasps and tethers took only minutes. They didn’t have to worry about fuel. The base commander always kept every plane fully fuelled and battle ready. The army had long realized they had to be in a constant state of readiness since the outbreak of the Evonso virus.
He clambered up the ladder in seconds and slid into the plane’s cockpit. Prep time for flight usually took five to ten minutes. But he couldn’t afford to wait that long. He skipped all but the most essential checks and got the Chengdu’s engine going. Seven Chengdu’s started simultaneously making him grit his teeth at the din.
His eyes drifted across the base and he froze. About a dozen infected rounded the corner of the building shrieking their displeasure into the winds. It took seconds, maybe even microseconds and they were tearing their way.
“We have to get out of here now __” Diran yelled moving his plane towards the runway. The other Chengdu’s followed post-haste as more infected poured out from behind the building. It was like a dam bursting. He’d thought he knew the meaning of fear; but seeing the seemingly endless flood of infected; he realized he’d barely scratched the surface.
The door they came from burst open at that instant and fifteen of his men came out sprinting for the trucks. ‘Smart move’ he couldn’t help thinking. The trucks were parked barely thirty feet from the building. There was no way they could reach the planes now. It took about a minute before any infected spotted them, by which time most of them were already in the truck, starting the engines.
Diran’s plane picked up speed streaking across the runway like a flash of black. Six seconds later he was in the air sighing in relief as the ground fell away beneath him and the plane climbed to high altitudes. The last thing he saw was a mass of infected climb the last truck smashing their way through the windscreen. His heart grew heavy. He didn’t need a crystal ball to know the men in that truck were not going to make it. He shook his head to clear it of the sad thoughts and focused on the skies ahead.
Holocaust Page 35
