“We have to get out of here,” said Nix sternly. “We have to try and find Riot and Eve, and then we have to get back to our town.”
“To do what? Four kids can’t save a town,” said Reid. “And from what Joe told me about Mountainside, it’s indefensible. A flat field and a chain-link fence is no defense at all.”
“Yeah,” said Nix bitterly, “I guess you found that out here. The minefield beyond the fence didn’t stop the balloons, and sensors inside the fence couldn’t alert anyone because everyone was sick. The reapers just waltzed in here.”
Reid’s face darkened.
Nix dug her journal out of her pack. “See this? I’ve been collecting everything there is to know about zoms, and about the way people fight zoms. I’ve also asked Joe about a million questions about tactics and strategies. If I can get home to Mountainside, I can help them get ready. Earthworks, deadfalls, spiked walls, fire pits… I understand this stuff. It’s all I’ve been thinking about.”
“She’s not joking,” said Chong. “If we can get out of here, we might actually be able to do something to help our town. We need to find a way out of this compound.”
Reid started to shake her head, but Chong cut her off.
“My family is in Mountainside,” he said, and his voice held an edge Benny had never before heard there. “I’ve been through too much hell over the last month to want to debate this.”
“He’s right,” said Benny. “Look, Colonel, your soldiers are either dead or recovering from the plague, so right now I think there are more of us than there are of you. We’re going to get out of here. The question is whether you help us, in which case you get to lock the door behind us, or you don’t help us, and you take your chances with whoever or whatever walks through that door.”
The moment stretched as Reid looked from Benny to Chong to Lilah to Nix.
In the silence, Joe Ledger spoke. Benny knew that he had to be in terrible pain, and yet the ranger imposed a degree of control over his voice that spoke to an incredible strength of will. Like Tom’s. Unique in its own way, but also like Tom’s. Brothers of a kind.
“Jane,” he said evenly, “I know what you’re thinking. These are four teenagers. Kids. Benny’s stitched up and looks like he was thrown down an elevator shaft. Chong — hell, a few hours ago Chong was willing to eat people. Lilah’s been punched twice in the face by a powerful adult male. And little Phoenix — she’s not even five feet tall and looks like she’s ninety pounds of red hair and freckles. Kids, sure. And who are kids compared to what’s out there? Kids aren’t able to do this kind of thing.”
“That’s just it… they don’t stand a chance out there.”
“If I thought that, I’d crawl out of this bed and tackle them myself. Or I’d sic Grimm on them.”
Grimm said, Whuff.
“So, yeah, they’re teenagers, but let’s face it… they’re not kids anymore. There was a line in the sand somewhere, and they each crossed it. Look at them, Jane. Look in their eyes. Every one of them is a seasoned fighter. They’ve been in battle. They’ve killed. Humans and zoms. I couldn’t have found or saved Monica without them. And if it wasn’t for these four young samurai, we’d all be dead in the hall downstairs, or we’d be shambling around looking for a hot meal of human flesh. Because of them we still have Archangel, which means, like it or not, these kids may actually have helped save the world. The actual world, including the part you’re standing on with such self-righteous indignity.”
The room tumbled into a big well of silence.
Monica McReady shook her head, but it was more in exasperation and helplessness than in protest. Reid stood foursquare at the foot of the bed and said nothing.
Finally she said, “How? Tell me that, Joe. How do we help them get out?”
“I’m working on that. Jane, can you get the hangar doors closed?”
“They are closed,” she said. “We sealed the place while you were in surgery. The, um, girls helped.”
Benny already knew about that. Nix had told him while they were waiting for Reid and McReady to join them. Once the exterior doors, including the big hangar doors, were closed, then it was a matter of going room to room, hall by hall, tracking down the dead and any stray reapers and cutting them down. Grimm was with Reid and the girls, and even though he was bruised from Brother Peter’s kick, the monstrous mastiff had been as useful as a pet tank. He smashed into zoms and cut them down, leaving the wounded wrecks for Nix, Lilah, and Reid to finish. The whole process took five grueling hours.
The worst part was clearing out the hangar. There were more than a hundred zoms in there. Colonel Reid had to do most of the work with a machine gun, and the girls offered backup and protection while she reloaded.
Joe said, “Okay, so all we need now is a plan.”
Benny cleared his throat. “Actually,” he said, “I think I have one. But I’m pretty sure no one’s going to like it.”
He told them.
As usual… no one liked it.
But they did it anyway.
CHAPTER 88
Nix pushed Benny’s chair, Lilah pushed Chong’s, and Monica McReady pushed Joe’s. The elevator was turned off because of the limited power available from the backup generator, but Reid temporarily shut down the lighting and air-conditioning long enough to use the lift. Joe had a pistol on his lap — completely against doctor’s orders. Reid had a .45 in her hands. Benny sat with his kami katana resting between his knees, and Chong had the bow that had been used to fire the arrow into him. Riot had kept it, and it was among Chong’s possessions in the infirmary. The arrows in the quiver had all been steam sterilized, though. Benny approved of the choice of weapons. In the Scouts and in gym class, Chong had always excelled in archery.
Once they were back at ground level, they moved through a few dogleg turns until they rolled out into the hangar. The state of the vast room gave everyone pause, even Nix and Lilah, who’d helped cause this. There were bodies everywhere, and splashes of blood and black muck on virtually every surface.
Benny reached up and took Nix’s hand and gave it a squeeze.
Words really couldn’t cover this sort of thing. However, as Joe had said, they’d stood on too many battlefields by now to need words. Sometimes all that really matters is the knowledge that someone else understands.
She bent and kissed his fingers and then the top of his head.
They made their way to the helicopter. It wasn’t easy. Bodies and parts of bodies had to be dragged out of the way to make room for the chairs.
No one said anything until they were at the door of the Black Hawk. Colonel Reid grasped the handle and rolled the door back while Lilah covered her with a pistol. Just in case there were any surprises in there.
There weren’t.
It was a small, meager slice of relief that they all dined on.
Then Joe had to talk Reid, Lilah, and Nix through the process of reloading the thirty-millimeter chain guns that were mounted below the Black Hawk’s stubby wings. Reid, despite being an officer, was really a bureaucrat. She’d never done this kind of work. Joe knew every bit of it, and he talked them through it. He didn’t bother getting them to replace the missiles he’d fired.
He said, “This bird is configured to carry sixteen of them on those ESSS wings. I used six, so we have ten left. If ten Hellfires won’t git ’er done, then we’re using them the wrong way.”