They were weeping. And sometimes they were screaming.
CHAPTER 91
They turned the sirens on.
Chong came in before they flicked the switch. He did not look at the body on the bed. “Do you know the legend of the banshee?” he asked.
Benny shook his head. “A ghost of some kind?”
“It’s an old Gaelic legend,” said Chong. “The bean sídhe—woman of the fairy mounds. It’s a female spirit who begins to wail when someone is about to die. In Scottish mythology, the bean síth is sometimes seen as a woman washing the bloodstained armor of those who are about to die in battle.”
Joe did not comment as he flicked the switch and the unnatural wail of the sirens rose like the screams of the damned.
They closed the door as they left. Across the airfield the R3’s were already flooding across the bridge from the other side of the trench and running toward the bunker. A million running feet kicked up a dust cloud that blocked out the lingering fires in the hangars and rose to challenge the pillars of smoke for dominance of the morning sky.
Benny wrapped his arm around Riot and kissed her head and walked with her to the helicopter. All this made his back hurt, but he would die rather than complain about that kind of pain. Not now. Not anymore.
They closed the helicopter doors, and when the first of the running zoms reached the turnaround, Joe lifted off and rose high into the air. The Black Hawk hung in the screaming air until the dead were so tightly clustered below that Benny couldn’t see the ground.
Joe spoke to them from the radio speakers.
“Last chance to say no.”
Nix said it for all of them. “We can’t.”
The Black Hawk tilted toward the west, and the helicopter tore through dust and smoke back to the hangars.
“Can you blow up the bridge?” asked Chong.
“No. If there are any survivors hiding, that’s the only way they’ll ever make it to the blockhouse.”
“Is there even a chance of that?”
“No matter how bad things are, there’s usually some chance left,” said Joe. “Wouldn’t you say?”
Chong said, “I guess so.”
But he saw Riot, who huddled inside a ring of Nix and Lilah’s overlapping arms. He knew that Joe was not always right about that.
“Setting down,” said Joe. “Some R3’s are already coming back this way. You’ve got about three minutes. Don’t stop for coffee.”
The Black Hawk touched down between the burning dormitory hangar and the row of parked quads.
This was the second part of Benny’s plan. Since the helicopter didn’t have enough fuel to take them to Mountainside — and the pilot was pushing his own personal limits in flying at all — they had to find another way to get home. The quads were the only real option. Benny had a road map in one pocket, courtesy of Colonel Reid. Mountainside was 470 miles away. In a straight run, they could be there in twelve hours. Having driven the quads for weeks now, he knew that on flat ground they averaged about forty-five miles to the gallon, and that the tanks held 4.75 gallons of fuel. That meant that they could get a little less than halfway home on a full tank. However, there were equipment racks on the bikes capable of holding a couple of gas cans. Neither Joe nor Reid had been able to decide whether they could carry enough gas to get them all the way. It was a gamble.
If the quads ran out of fuel, then they would have to go on foot or find a traveler with a horse to carry the message the rest of the way to the Nine Towns.
Provided there were any towns left.
Saint John and the reaper army had left a month ago.
A month.
On a forced march, they could already have been there.
They had to march under hot Nevada suns and then climb the long mountain roads in California. If they stuck to the main roads, the path was serpentine, closer to five hundred miles. If they had to forage for food, that would slow the pace. But even so, they could conceivably be at the fence line. That was a stretch, though, and Benny doubted they were already there.
However, Haven was many miles closer. Would Saint John want to take the towns in order?
There was no way to know until they got there.
After a month here at Sanctuary, they were now in a desperate race.
As soon as the Black Hawk settled, Benny and Chong pulled back the door. Roasted air blew in at them, carrying with it the burned-meat stink of so many deaths. Benny gagged and covered his mouth with his palm.
Nix and Lilah jumped down first, and they helped Benny and Chong down. Riot lingered for a moment in the doorway. She hadn’t yet spoken a word.
“You can stay here,” said Nix.
Riot leaned out and looked around, then turned and stared back the way they’d come. The bunker was invisible behind the mass of running zoms, but the siren towers marked the spot, the metal voices wailing with a grief no human voice could articulate.
“No,” said Riot. “I can’t.”
It was all she said.
Nix helped her down.
“Tick-tock,” yelled Joe.
They worked fast. Benny checked the fuel tanks and found five that were topped off. They grabbed a bunch of plastic two-and-a-half-gallon cans and began filling them from a hundred-gallon tank set on trestles. With the fuel truck destroyed, it was the last source of the precious ethanol. The process seemed to take forever. When Benny looked at the zoms, he felt his heart sink. The leading edge was less than a half mile away. They were running at full speed, drawn by the noise of the helicopter and the sight of fresh meat.
Lilah fired up one quad and was yelling at Chong as she explained how it worked. Benny thought it was probably the worst example of a “crash course” that he could imagine. Luckily, Chong was the smartest person Benny knew; his ability to acquire and process information was superb. His reflexes and mechanical skills were less impressive, and he drove the quad straight into a wall.
As he trudged toward another one, Lilah trailed behind, explaining in a very loud voice how useless he was. But on his second try Chong proved her wrong by driving a wide circle around the Black Hawk.
When he passed in front of the bridge, he slowed for a moment as he saw how close the dead were.
“Joe!” Benny yelled.
The Black Hawk shuddered and rose a few feet off the ground and drifted toward the bridge. Benny knew that Joe didn’t want to blow the bridge, but time was carving away the question of choice.
Nix and Riot began strapping the filled gas cans onto the backs of the quads. Chong and Lilah pitched in to help.
“Hurry!” yelled Joe, his voice booming from external speakers mounted high on the chopper’s hull.
“That’s it,” shouted Chong. “Let’s go.”
They hauled the last gas cans over and strapped them on. Each quad could carry two cans, a total of five extra gallons. A bit more than a full refill for each bike. Would it be enough?
“Get moving!” bellowed Joe.
They secured their weapons and climbed onto the quads. Five engines growled to life.
“Go, go, go!”
They roared away as, behind them, Joe opened up with the chain guns.
Benny had the route committed to memory. He zoomed ahead and took the lead. The others followed. When he looked back, he saw that the Black Hawk had settled back onto the ground. The dead were pouring over the bridge. They swarmed like cockroaches over the chopper, climbing over each other to get to it. The big propellers turned and as the pile rose and rose, the blades chopped at heads and arms. The guns kept up a continuous fire for almost a minute, and then they fell silent.
Benny slowed and stopped. The vibration of the engine and the posture he needed to maintain in order to ride were setting fires in the knife wound in his back.