Those inside the helicopter stared out through the few tiny windows, but couldn’t see much beyond the incessant muzzle flashes as the fully automatic assault rifles ripped great swaths in the night, cutting down the infected by the dozens. But for every one that fell, another ten took their place. The soldiers tightened their perimeter, backing slowly to the Sikorsky, firing nonstop.

The infected got close enough that Lee could see them in the glow of the landing lights. He yelled up the cabin at Phil, “Oh, shit! They’re everywhere!”

Phil opened the cockpit door again, and said, “Go! Go!”

Something smashed the door into Phil’s head, stunning him enough that he dropped to his knees. His revolver fell to the floor.

Tommy was on his hands and knees, but he wasn’t helpless. He’d been waiting for his chance. So when Phil stuck his head in the cockpit door, Tommy launched himself at the door and drove his shoulder into it, slamming Phil’s head in the doorframe. As Phil dropped, Tommy came up and turned to catch Grace, who had leapt out of her seat and wrapped her arms around her daddy’s neck.

He rose to his feet and started back down the aisle.

Lee blocked his way. He smiled. “I’m gonna be there when that crazy fuck cuts into you. I want to watch the—”

Tommy didn’t have the time. He shifted Grace to the side, still holding her with his left hand, and pulled Lee’s Glock out of his waistband with his right. He’d slipped it out of Lee’s shoulder holster when Lee had been lifting him outside of the chopper. After faking the extent of the blow so he could curl up and slip it into his pants, he’d let himself be thrown onboard, keeping the pistol pinned to his hip with his elbow.

As he brought it up, there was just enough time for the expression on Lee’s face to crumble from a satisfied smirk to a narrowing of the eyes. He was reaching for his holster, as if to check if his handgun was still there, when Tommy shot him in the face at point-blank range.

Lee’s head snapped back and he fell flat into the aisle. Kimmy screamed, wiping at the blood on her face.

“Run!” Tommy yelled at her, not stopping, still coming down the aisle, stepping on Lee’s corpse. He heard movement behind him and started to turn, knowing that he was too slow, knowing that the bullet from Phil’s revolver was in on its way. He couldn’t believe Phil was upright so quickly.

But Phil was indeed standing up, wobbling and blinking through the pain. His nose had been smashed, and blood sheeted his upper lip, dribbling down over his mouth and pouring over his chin. “Mudderfugger,” he wheezed and squeezed off a shot with his stubby .38.

Tommy flinched at the report, but the blast went wide.

Phil started forward, blowing bubbles of blood, intent on getting close enough so he couldn’t miss. Tommy stumbled backwards, trying to shift Grace to the side so he could shield her with his own body. Phil fired again.

Tommy heard a harsh grunt and glanced over his shoulder at Kimmy. The slug had caught her in the neck. She dropped back into one of the flight crew’s bench seats, raised her hand to her throat. She looked down in surprise at the blood on her fingers.

Tommy had the Glock up now, fired twice, and missed both times.

Phil dove sideways behind a row of seats.

Tommy turned back and ran, jumping through the open doorway.

Outside, the soldiers were still learning the hard way how noise and light drew the infected. The soldiers ignored Tommy and Grace completely, intent on shooting at the rushing swarm. More soldiers were now escaping from the subway and once they saw the chopper, they went sprinting for it across the plaza.

Metal scraped across metal. About fifteen yards down Washington, a manhole cover popped out of its groove and slid into the street. Soldiers immediately lunged out, crawling feverishly onto the street. Most were unarmed, having lost their weapons below. As soon as they found their feet, they broke out running in all directions. Some saw the chopper and broke for it.

Tommy stayed low and kept moving, holding Grace tight on his hip, running like a fullback weaving and dodging through the defensive linemen. He reached the sandbag wall on the western side of the plaza and dropped to his knees, crouching, covering Grace with his body. Her emotions had caught up to her and she started to cry. He put his lips against her ears and whispered, “Shhhh, shhhh. It’s okay. Daddy’s got you now. Daddy’s got you. Shhh. Shhhh.”

Behind him, the sound of the Sikorsky’s rotors changed pitch. The pilots had finally decided enough was enough, and they were pulling out. The massive engines whined, and the tree-length blades sliced through the air, slow at first, then faster and faster as the last of the soldiers scrambled on board. More soldiers ran into Daley Plaza every second, bursting out of more manhole covers and the shadows surrounding Washington and Clark. But the CH-53K wasn’t waiting. Lights flashed as the chopper lifted into the air like a constipated dragonfly, moving slowly, weaving slightly, having trouble putting distance between itself and the ground.

Some of the soldiers started shooting at the ascending helicopter. The panic had slipped into anger that quickly; if they couldn’t get a lift out, if the chopper wouldn’t wait for them, then fuck it, no one was getting out. At least two of the squads carried a rocket launcher and fired them. They missed two out of three times. The third time, the first rocket caught the helicopter right in the guts, and vaporized seven of the soldiers inside.

The CH-53K was blown sideways, tail up, nose at the rushing ground. The pilot fought against being blown head over heels, a death spasm for this helicopter. The blades, seventy-nine feet long, whipped through the air at eight hundred feet per second. The pilot brought the nose up but couldn’t manage to stay in the middle of the street.

Phil spent the last seconds of his life trying to get out of his seat belt. He thought if he could just get out of the seat and move to the back of the helicopter he could survive the crash. He tried, but couldn’t manage to compress the right buttons in his panic and stayed trapped in his seat. Not that it would have mattered in the end.

The pilot had almost leveled off when the blades smacked through the glass and concrete of one of the theater buildings to the east. One of the four blades caught fast on a steel beam in the building’s fourteenth floor, and in less time then it takes to blink, the rest of the blades snapped into the beam and it was all over. The chopper whipped around as if it was slapping the building with its tail rotors. The fuel didn’t catch until it was halfway down the building, tumbling and bouncing down the side of the wall of glass, and it finally exploded. The wreckage slammed into the sidewalk in front of a Starbucks, sending burning fuel across the street in a blazing sunflower display. The impact blew an angry huff of wind back through the streets.

Dr. Reischtal watched it all unfold on the two monitors fed by the Apaches. The Sikorsky’s explosion blew out the infrared cameras and the images dissolved in a bright blast of green light.

Dr. Reischtal didn’t move. He watched the chaos without expression.

A few seconds later, the heat died away, and he could once again see how the plaza had been overrun. It was impossible to discern the soldiers from the infected. He kept searching for a figure carrying a child. This individual was all that mattered now. He wanted, no needed, to see the figure surrounded and attacked, to watch the infected hack Tommy Krazinsky and his daughter into pieces, to witness the man and the girl being ripped limb from limb.