Sues stopped the buggy, turned with one arm draped over the seat and stared at the plane. Without being able to see what was happening, I’d guess Dave was running to unhook the rope from the front.

“Go get your seat. Buckle in. It’s going to be bumpy, loud and cold.”

“Yeah, I get that,” I said, and turned to leave but stopped. “Will there be any movie, or meal served? I didn’t see a single stewardess--”

“Ask a flight attendant,” Erway said. “We’re pilots.”

“Right,” I said, and smiled, knowing the slight attempt at humor was appreciated. “Well, there were no flight attendants anywhere--”

Palmeri yelled. “Ah, shit! They need help!”

I looked out the window again. I couldn’t see what caused alarm, but neither was I going to wait to find out. I ran out of the cockpit.

“What is it?” Allison said.

“Stay!” I said.

I went out the opened door on the side of the plane and jumped the few feet down to the tarmac. “Dave!”

The buggy was off to the side, a chopped up zombie on the ground beside it. Dave held Sues in his arms. “She’s not dead! She’s okay. She’s going to be fine, Chase. She’s all right.”

Chapter Five

Sues Melia was far from fine. Dave was wrong. Her eyes were open, and she was breathing. The zombie bit her shoulder. Shredded cloth and skin flapped in the November breeze. Holding her tight, Dave kept telling me how everything was going to be okay.

“Let’s get her on the plane,” I said. It was against better judgment. Taking a now-infected person onto the plane with us would be foolish, but more than foolish, dangerous. Dave had my back since the start of this thing. I’d watched him bury his brother. I couldn’t tell him to just leave her. Should have, but couldn’t.

“Help me, Chase. Help me.” Dave reminded me of a child. His tears streaked the dirt from his face. His hands covered in blood kept shifting their hold on Sues’ body.

I knelt beside them. “How are you feeling, Sues?”

“I don’t want to turn into one of them.” It was a mere whisper. I heard it, though.

“We’re going to help you,” I said.

The lie was just as bold as it was obvious. Might be the only one who believed it was Dave. The smile he wore was forming on trembling lips. “That’s, right, honey. We’re going to help you. We are. I am.”

I looked back at the plane. I knew Erway and Palmeri had to be watching. I couldn’t see into the cockpit, but I felt their eyes on me. I could almost feel their thoughts. Feel them. What’s the hold up? Come on. We have to go.

“Let’s carry her to the plane,” I said, and stood up.

“I’m not going with you, Chase. I’m not going anywhere.” The color in her face drained before my eyes. Her skin clammy, lips grey almost blue.

“She’s lost a lot of blood,” I said.

“We need to stop the bleeding,” Dave said.

Stop the bleeding, I thought. What good would it do? “Let’s just get her to the plane. Erway can have a closer look.”

Sues grabbed my shirt tight and I was surprised by the strength exhibited when she pulled me close. “I’m not going. You need to take care of Dave. You need to be there for him. He looks up to you. You know that, don’t you? That he looks up to you?”

“Stop it, honey. We’re going to get you on that plane. Tell her, Chase, Tell her Erway can help her. We can stop this. Fix it. You, you’re not going to be like one of them. You won’t turn into one of those things,” he said. That smile he’d worn was gone. He ran his hands through his hair, brushing in dirt and sweat, and Sues’ blood. “Chase, man. Chase.”

“Sues,” I said, “let us get you to the plane, okay? We’ll sort this out on the plane. We need to get off the tarmac. No telling how many more of those things are coming this way. And like this--” I looked around, “--we’re sitting ducks. You know? We’re out in the open.”

“Let’s just get you onto the plane,” Dave said.

“Shoot me,” Sues said. “Get it over with. Just end this for me.”

I got under an arm, and lifted Sues up off of Dave. He got under the other, and we hoisted her up onto her feet. “That hurts,” she said, and winced.

“We’re almost to the plane,” Dave said. We weren’t. We shuffled forward, Sues’ feet nearly toe-dragging on the asphalt.

Allison stood in the doorway at the top of the small set of stairs. “Is she okay?”

“Gonna be fine,” Dave said.

I kept my eyes on Allison’s. She knew better. No one needed to be a zombie apocalyptic expert these days to recognize bad when bad was thrust into your face. And for Sues, this was bad.

Only thing was, it wasn’t Sues I was worried about. A bullet to the head, it didn’t sound like such a bad thing. We were struggling to survive, and I had my daughter to think of, but for what? Why were we doing this? Why were on the go, always moving, trying to get from here to anywhere else? There was no reason. The human race might be just about over, quickly becoming extinct. It could happen. Something wiped out the fucking dinosaurs. Doubt it was a zombie pandemic, but it was something. Their time to rule ended. People came next. Once we were destroyed, you couldn’t help but wonder what would be the next King of the Shit species.

Allison came down the steps. She took Dave’s spot. “Go fix her a spot in back,” she said. “We got her.”

Dave ran up the steps and disappeared into the plane.

“This is wrong,” Sues said. “Please, with him gone, kill me.”

“We’re not killing you,” Allison said.

Not yet, I thought. The thing was, the time would come. What if it happened in the air and she turned on the plane?

“You can’t let this happen,” Sues said. She felt frail and weak. Allison and I supported all of her weight. “You can’t put everyone else in danger. I saw what happened to that guy on the boat, on the Coast Guard vessel. He’d been bitten, and tried to hide it, but it caught up to him. When he turned, that was the most horrible thing I’d ever seen.”

I couldn’t tell her it wasn’t going to happen to her. She knew it was going to happen. She knew she was on borrowed time, especially with how much blood she’d lost. And I remembered it, too. Nick Dentino. He’d been with two other civilian survivors rescued by Palmeri and the military. They’d all watched him go from human to fucking zombie right before their eyes. Then they shot him. They could have shot him first, saved him the agony and the suffering, maybe even the humiliation of the transformation. Instead, we’d all watched. Waited and watched. When it was complete, the military shot him.

The plane’s engine started, and I nearly jumped back. I didn’t expect it to whine so loudly. It startled me. I almost needed my hands to cover my ears. The twin propellers spun slowly, gained momentum and then were twirled so fast I couldn’t see the spinning blades.

The decision to kill Sues before getting on the plane was past. Dave was back at the doorway. “Hurry. We’ve got zombies coming out of the woods. The sound of the engine must be drawing them.”

Allison and Dave got Sues up the stairs and into the plane. I climbed into the plane, and then on my belly, reached down and brought the rolling stairs into the plane with us before closing and locking the door.

We were as safe as we could be in the plane. “Everyone buckle in,” I said.

Allison helped Dave get Sues situated. They sat her in a seat toward the tail of the plane. At least she was away from my daughter. I hated to think that way, but I was a parent. What other way could I look at it?

I made the motion of pulling the seat belt tight. Charlene gave me a thumbs up. I smiled, and returned the gesture. I stuck my head into the cockpit. “Tell me you can do this, Palmeri?”

“I can do this,” she said. “We’ve mapped out some airports and coordinates. No GPS, so kind of flying blind. Got an idea of a best-route. Like I said, we should make it to the western part of Pennsylvania. Won’t make it even halfway to Texas, but we’ll be a few hundred miles closer.”