by B. T. Wright
“Agreed,” Colt said.
“Alright, then, let’s wake up the house and get ready to move,” Colonel Jenkins said.
Colt returned to the side of his sons and laid his hands on their shoulders and shook. “Boys, it’s time to get up. We need to get ready to go.”
In the background, Colt heard Hunt stretch and yawn. At the noise, his mouth turned in a smile. It was nice hearing a woman for a change. He’d been surrounded by mostly men, and he’d coveted the feeling of regularity again. Even if it wasn’t his wife’s voice, it didn’t matter. In that moment, he enjoyed every minute of it.
Then Colt heard the tapping on Coach Logan’s office door. “Coach Logan, it’s Colonel Jenkins. We need to move out in about fifteen minutes. Could we come in and grab the Beritrix from you?”
Colt turned his ear and waited for Coach Logan to extend the invite, but there was nothing but silence. Colonel Jenkins tapped again, but again nothing.
Colt stood and immediately thought the worst. Coach, what did you do? Tell me you didn’t hurt yourself.
But at the thought, he heard the door click open, and Coach Logan said, “Come in.”
Colt put the flashlight to the floor and led his boys across the room and into the office.
“Do you have extra needles?” Colonel Jenkins said.
“I do. I brought everything from home. I knew this would be my new home—as long as this thing lasted. I couldn’t stay in town, not after what I’d done to my family.”
“Coach Logan, if you don’t mind me asking, how do you keep that refrigerator cold?” Colt said.
“As I told Hunt before, I have a generator outside that I brought from home. I use it sparingly. Only when necessary.”
After each person injected themselves with Beritrix, Colonel Jenkins turned and said, “Let’s go!”
But as everyone filed out, Colt stalled. Coach Logan remained seated. “What are you doing?” Colt said. “Aren’t you coming?”
“I am not,” Coach Logan said.
Colonel Jenkins and Bald reentered the room. “The hell you’re not, let’s move,” Colonel Jenkins said.
“Look, sir. I decided a three days ago, I would not leave my new home. Not after what I’d done.”
Now Hunt returned too. “What’s the deal? Let’s go.”
“Coach Logan has decided he wants to stay,” Bald said.
“What? Don’t be ridiculous? You can’t just stay here. The infected will always be here, swarming the place. You’re not safe.” Hunt’s mouth gaped.
“And there won’t be threats outside these four walls?” Coach Logan said.
“No, but . . .” Hunt stalled. “You’ll die in here, alone.”
“I’m not afraid to die. Part of me died in my house anyway.”
“Enough of the dramatics already, get your ass out of that chair and let’s move,” Colonel Jenkins said.
But Coach Logan’s butt was glued.
“Fine. He wants to stay, let him. We can’t make him do anything. It’s his funeral,” Colonel Jenkins said, then stormed out. Bald followed.
“Don’t do this,” Hunt pleaded with him. “You can come with us, have a chance at a new life, in a new city.”
“I appreciate everything you’re trying to do for me, Cassandra, I really do. But my decision is final,” Coach Logan said.
Hunt looked to Colt. She couldn’t believe it. Why wouldn’t he leave? What was his problem?
Colt needed to say more, but what could he offer the others couldn’t? Out of everyone, Hunt had known him the longest. And if she couldn’t get him to move, no one was going to. If he couldn’t get him to come, maybe he could get him to forgive himself.
“It’s not your fault.” He let those words linger in the air—to take effect on Coach Logan’s psyche. He waited for response, but Coach Logan didn’t respond. Then Colt continued, “Don’t judge yourself too harshly. It’s up to you to determine your fate. Don’t let the evil inside you take you down a path of destruction. Banish it. Fill the darkness with light. You may not know it, but you are loved, even if you don’t love yourself.”
When Colt exited the room to rejoin the others, he heard the Coach Logan begin to weep again. He paused and wanted to return, wishing to know what had brought on the emotion. Had it been his words? Deep down, Colt hoped it had. That was exactly what Coach Logan needed to be filled with.
Hope.
24
Colt caught up to Colonel Jenkins and Bald, who waited at the exit of the locker room. His boys were there, and Hunt stood by his side.
“Still not coming, huh?” Colonel Jenkins said.
“No,” Colt said.
“Idiot,” Bald said.
Colt was about to speak, but before he could, Hunt did instead. “Although I agree with you, you heard what he’s been through. He’s sad. Frustrated. Blames himself for having to kill his family. How would you feel? What would you do?” She looked to Bald.
“Not shrivel up and die. I’d fight,” Bald said.
“That’s a typical macho response. How do you know? Do be so quick to judge,” she said.
Colt needed to add more, to show Bald, and perhaps all of them, that not everyone was wired the same. “But that’s what you were trained for. You’re part of the Air Force. Trained to move forward. To shut off your emotions for the betterment of the mission. Logan’s mission in life wasn’t to follow an order, but rather a life to live for his family. I can relate to that. I’m more like him than any of you.” Colt let his words sink in. There was truth behind them.
“Thanks, Dr. Freud,” Bald began.
“That’s enough!” Colonel Jenkins scolded him. “Mr. Maddox is right. Leave the man be. If wants to stay, let him stay. He has his mission, we have ours, now let’s move!”
Somebody’s showing some humanity, Colt thought. Maybe he had Colonel Jenkins pegged wrong. After all, he didn’t know the full story behind his own rescue in the mountain town of Woodland Park.
“Lock and load,” Colonel Jenkins grasped the door and pushed through.
Colt filed out behind his sons. Hunt stood behind him, and this time, Bald pulled up the rear. They made short work of the hallway and were well on their way to the extraction point when they came across the first sign of infected.
One woman stood next to a small child—the child couldn’t have been older than four. They were waiting next to the vehicles, as if they expected people to come.
You’ve got to be kidding me, Colt thought. But his thought wasn’t glib. Immediately, Colt thought of Coach Logan and his family. Could it be his wife and child? There’s no way. Coach Logan said he’d killed them in their home. But still, that didn’t make the sight of the woman and the small child any less unnerving.
“Bald, take the woman, and do it quietly,” Colonel Jenkins instructed as he moved toward the child.
Colt turned away; he couldn’t watch. Not when it came to harming children that young, even if there was no trace of what they used to be.
“You can’t watch, huh?” Hunt noticed Colt’s weak constitution.
“When it comes to young kids . . .” Colt stalled. “It’s hard.”
“It’s hard for me too.” She offered a consoling smile.
“All clear,” Colonel Jenkins said. “Let’s get going. We’ll lead.”
Once inside the SUV, Colt sat shotgun and Hunt drove.
“How far do we have to go?” Dylan asked from the backseat.
“As the crow flies, about three and half miles. But I imagine we’ll be driving slowly . . . so, I’d say we’ll be there in about ten-fifteen minutes or so.”
“And will there be jets? Like F-16s?” Wesley’s excitement grew. Next to his dinosaurs, airplanes were the things he liked best.
“I don’t know what we had in service at the time of the apocalypse, but I assume there will be some pretty sweet aircraft.”
“Huh, cool.” Wesley couldn’t mask his excitement.
Once outside the protecti
on of the stadium, they didn’t know what to anticipate. Part of Colt expected there to be a crowd of infected waiting for them. After the helicopter went down, almost a hundred had chased them to the airplane hangar, only to fail at setting them on fire. But where did those surviving infected go? Then at the golf course . . . there were so many left alive.
However, as they proceeded into the light of day, there was not one sign of infected anywhere. “Where are they?” Colt needed to say it out loud. For his own personal benefit. Everyone had to be thinking it as well.
Hunt searched the fields, but she too saw no sign. “No idea.”
It was eerie, frightening even, to not even see one. Maybe they were waiting for them at the airfield. Waiting inside a hangar—a building—for the right moment to begin a hostile takeover.
Travelling south on Stadium Boulevard, Colt kept his eye out his own window, studying the dense trees for any sign of movement.
“What’s that over there?” Wesley said, looking out the driver’s side.
Hunt caught sight of a building about 500 feet to her left. “You know, I don’t kn—”
“Hit the brakes! Look out!” Colt’s arms went rigid on the dashboard and braced for impact.
Instinctively, Hunt slammed on the brakes, then shook herself straight after the distraction. The tires squealed, and the rubber gripped the road as smoke rose. She stopped mere inches from Colonel Jenkins’ bumper. Hunt shook from fear in her chair, and her arms were stick-straight on the wheel.
A herd of elk sprinted across the road—at least twenty. They were enormous creatures—Colt had witnessed multiple times what they could do to a vehicle.
“You okay?” Colt said.
She nodded but didn’t say anything.
Colonel Jenkins and Bald both scowled at Hunt. The noise from the screeching tires was more than enough to alert them of a swarm of infected. But the sudden stop wasn’t entirely her fault. If Wesley hadn’t interrupted her gaze, all could’ve been avoided, but they couldn’t change that, not now.
There was silence inside the cabin of the SUV, even the slightest noise could’ve been heard. Colt’s eyes danced from tree to tree, expecting movement, now more than ever.
Still, there was nothing.
Colonel Jenkins drove on, and Hunt followed close behind, keeping her arms locked at ten and two.
“It’s okay,” Colt said, trying to comfort her. “We got this.”
“Do we?” she asked.
Colt couldn’t know. Not with their current situation. Low on ammo. No guarantee of anything.
The road shifted to the left, and after they made the turn, they could see a grass field directly in front of their bumper, maybe 1,500 feet off. Colt wanted to ask if that was the airfield, but the question was likely rhetorical and meaningless. They were closing in, so close now they could almost touch it.
Colonel Jenkins proceeded unhurriedly.
“Why’s he driving so slow?” Dylan asked the question all must have been thinking. “Why not just floor it and get us airborne?”
“Good question, bud. If I had to guess, I would say he doesn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention,” Colt said.
The tires were barely rolling over the pavement when they reached Airfield Drive, and the slow swerving left turn felt like an eternity. Colt shook in his seat. He couldn’t calm his heartrate. He shared in his son’s angst as anxiety hit. C’mon, move your ass, Colt thought.
Once they passed Talon Drive, Colt could see the landing strip.
“Dad! A plane!” Dylan didn’t mean to shout. “On the runway.”
“I see it, bud.”
“Do you think it’s operational?” Dylan asked.
The plane was perpendicular to the landing strip. “From the looks of it, I’d say no.”
Colonel Jenkins hooked a left, toward the landing strip and off Airfield Drive—directly for the control tower.
“There’s a lot of open space here.” Colt ducked down and looked out the windshield. He hadn’t noticed it as they approached but couldn’t help but think about it now.
“That’s good isn’t it?” Hunt said. “If any infected attack, we’ll be able to see them from far off.”
Colt hadn’t thought of that. His mind went darker. “Or we’re more in the open. Sitting ducks for all the infected in the city. In fact, I don’t think we could be more exposed if we tried.”
25
Colonel Jenkins stopped his sedan in the parking lot fifty feet off the door of the control tower. Hunt rolled to a stop as well, and just as she was shoving the SUV into park, Colt opened the door and leapt out.
“Don’t you think we’re a bit exposed here?” Colt yelled, then looked toward the runway just off their bumper.
Colonel Jenkins had his back to Colt, shielding his eyes from the early morning sun. He didn’t acknowledge him right away, not until Colt walked closer and spoke again,” Did you hear what I said?”
He spun to face Colt. “I did.” He nodded, then walked across the parking lot and toward the abandoned plane Dylan had pointed out from the car.
Colt wondered why Colonel Jenkins wasn’t more concerned, then followed him at a jog to keep pace.
“Look, Mr. Maddox,” Colonel Jenkins said. “I understand your worry. You’re concerned about your boys, and I get it, you want them safe. Once we find a plane, hopefully that one there”—Colonel Jenkins nodded ahead—“That has sufficient fuel to get us to Virginia, we’ll be off the ground in no time.”
Colt glanced to the plane that was sitting on the runway, then spoke his mind. “I thought you wanted a chopper? And what about the noise?”
Colonel Jenkins paused for a moment. “What about it?”
Colt eyed the plane again, then turned back at Colonel Jenkins in disbelief. “We need space. The runway? How are we supposed to overtake a running group of infected if they charge us in that thing?”
Hunt and the boys arrived at Colt’s side at the end of his inquiry.
“I have been thinking about that. In fact, it’s the only thing Bald and I discussed on the way over—aside from the fact, Hunt is a horrible driver.”
She smiled sarcastically.
“We’re going to need another diversion,” Colonel Jenkins continued.
Colt was confused, then found Bald’s eye. “How are we going to create a diversion?”
“That’s where she comes in.” Colonel Jenkins nodded to Hunt.
Colt pointed. “What? Her? No. Absolutely not. We’re not leaving her behind, she’s just a kid.”
Silence filled the air. Why wasn’t she speaking? Sticking up for herself? Colt stared and held his mouth wide open, but Hunt wasn’t shocked. She seemed rather calm. What could possibly be running through her mind?
“It’s okay, Colt. Really it is. And I’m no kid.” She grinned to lighten the stiff mood.
“You can’t possibly be okay with this!” Colt said.
“Actually, it was her idea,” Colonel Jenkins chimed in.
“What?” Colt shot the colonel a stare. Then returned his eyes on Hunt.
“That’s true.”
“What does he mean?” Colt said.
“We discussed this last night. While you were with your boys. We knew we’d have to come up with a something to distract the infected and their onslaught. We hoped there would be a chopper, some way to get us all out, but there isn’t.”
“What was all that ‘what do we do with the girl speech’ in the stadium, then?” Colt found Colonel Jenkins again.
“A lie. Had to get a read on you. To see what you would do. We knew you’d have a problem with this, which is why we didn’t tell you until now,” Colonel Jenkins said.
“How do you know there isn’t space in the plane? Or another aircraft? Maybe a helicopter in the hangar. There’s plenty more area to search.”
“You said it yourself, Mr. Maddox. We’re exposed. We need to move now. There isn’t more time to search. If this plane isn’t operational, we’ll need to
find another, and the only aircraft I see are the four across the field.” Colonel Jenkins pointed over his shoulder. “And those aren’t the easiest to fly with more than one passenger.”
Colt and his boys shot their eyes across the field to see four fighter jets.
Wesley let out a whimsical, “Cool.”
But Colt didn’t share in his excitement but continued criticizing their foolish plan. “Still. No.”
“As you two ladies chit chat about what happens next, Bald and I are going to look over the plane,” Colonel Jenkins said.
After they walked away, Colt leaned into Hunt and whispered, “You know they’re doing this to save their own asses.”
Hunt dropped her head. Then raised it again, this time coming back with empathy for another. “What about Coach Logan? Did you think I was just going to leave him behind?”
Colt stepped back. “What? You knew he was going to stay?”
“I had that inclination, yeah.”
“What if he hadn’t?”
She tilted her head to the side. “C’mon, you know he wasn’t going to come with us. Not after what happened in his office.”
“Cassandra! What you’re talking about is suicide. I’m not allowing you to do this.”
She looked at him contemptuously. “Excuse me? You’re not allowing me do this?”
“You know that’s not what I meant, but still . . .”
“If you can think of any other way, I’m all ears.”
Colt stopped talking. Then looked for any other solution. There was nothing. No other way. His head only rose when he heard rotating propellers.
His eye shot toward the plane, but then was forced back around when she spoke once more. “It’s alright, Colt. I’m a tough chick. Just watch me from the plane. I’ll lure the bastards away, you just watch me.”
Then something happened Colt had expected all along—a sound—a rising hum—emanating from the north and west. It wasn’t the sound of shrieking infected, but rather the pounding of rushing footprints into the earth. Colt whipped around to see a horde, larger than any he’d seen before. Easily over 1,000.
