Shaw’s the first to reach the Flying Fish, he swings the passenger door open, and throws himself, unceremoniously, inside. Dr. Valentine is next to jump in, followed close behind by Connors. She can hear his heavy steps falling hard as if he’s carrying some great weight. She turns to see that the bloody body of the sergeant. It’s slung precariously over his shoulder, wrapped inside ornate drapery. Connors stops to reposition the soldier, so he doesn’t drop him.
Connors is calling out to her, but she can’t hear what he’s saying. Raised voices of angry man-eaters outside are rapidly growing louder. She concentrates on his lips, trying to make out what he is saying. He’s only telling her to hold the door open for him and to help him get Hollander’s body inside. There’s not much time, the cannibals are tearing at the gaping hole, making it bigger by the second. They’ll soon be in.
Connors lays the body down as gently as he can manage, and Dr. Valentine helps hoist the dead man into the ambulance. The passenger seat makes it hard to lift the weight of the body, but Rose helps by pulling at one of the man’s dangling arms.
“They’re in!” cries Dr. Shaw, who’s been watching through the ambulance’s rear doors.
Connors goes to his sidearm, but it’s too late. The first cannibal is nearly on top of him. From inside the ambulance, a rifle emerges from one of the ports and blows the cannibal’s brains from his head. Connors pops off a series of shots that drop four more. He scrambles into the ambulance slamming and securing the door behind him.
The murderous horde pound on the exterior paneling and windows of the vehicle. The glass holds. Soon they’ll make a hole, though, and come through. Connors unceremoniously grabs Dr. Shaw by his shirt and tosses him out of the way. The cowardly man pings like a billiard ball, coming to rest on the floor. Dr. Valentine’s still unloading her weapon on anyone unfortunate or stupid enough to come within range of the porthole.
Connors shouts, instructing Shaw. “Pick up a weapon and kill something or, so help me God, I’ll throw your ass outside, and let them have it as a consolation prize.”
Shaw, taking the threat as genuine, grabs a pistol and empties the entire clip out a porthole. Bodies begin to pile around the wheel wells
Rose vacates the driver’s seat, and Connors slams himself down into it.
“Hang on!” says Connors. He throws the ambulance into reverse and slams the accelerator to the floorboard. Wheels spin and slip as they tear into the dead cannibals under and around them. The smell of burning skin and hot tires floods the church. The flesh of the flesh-eaters caught under the wheels is reduced to particulate matter and rises in a plume of smoky-red mist. The ambulance jerks free, gaining traction and breaches the gaping hole, where the double doors were once hanging before Rose plowed through them like a god damned heroine. They escape from the slaughterhouse, crushing several of the hungry wretches on the way out.
Snipers open fire from the low rooftops of the base, pinging and piercing the Flying Fish. Small pops echo throughout the base, and puffs of smoke vomit from the ends of rifles and pistols.
“Up on the rooftops! Hit the snipers!” says Connors, pointing up at the top of the buildings. “We can’t afford to let them hit the engine or the tires.”
Dr. Valentine and Dr. Shaw dispatch the snipers and return to picking off the cannibals who are still giving chase. Connors has a plan and slows the Flying Fish to a crawl.
“What are you doing?” Why are we slowing down?” says Shaw.
Connors ignores him and continues to tap the breaks slowing even more, not so much as to make the pursuing crowd suspicious, but enough to allow most of the bastards to get closer and group up in a tight cluster.
“Rose, there’s a small, green, thing in my pack. I need you to get it and hand it to me. Don’t do anything else with it. Just hand it to me,” Connors says.
Rose slides to the pack and digs through it carefully, not knowing what dangerous things he might keep inside. A book slides from the pack to the floor. She doesn’t bother with it, no time. “I don’t see it,” she says.
“It’s in there. Look in the side pocket,” says Connors, pulling the steering wheel hard to the right to miss a cannibal who is running from a latrine to give chase.
She unbuckles and lifts the flap on the side. There she finds what Major Connors is asking for; three grenades rest like eggs in a nest. Carefully she takes one out and offers it to him.
“No, I’m driving. You have to do it. When I tell you, pull the pin and throw it into the center of the crowd. Do not drop it. If you drop that in here, they win, we lose. Got it?”
Rose nods. Her mouth is dry. Her sympathetic nervous system kicks into overdrive. Gripping the little egg in her hand makes her palm sweat.
“Swing the door open, and when I tell you, you pull the pin, you throw it, and then you close the doors as fast as you can,” says Connors.
Rose swallows hard. She opens the door and stares, wide-eyed, at the knot of evil humans closing slowly in on them. The ambulance gradually builds speed and pulls slightly ahead of the crowd. Connors shouts for her to toss it. She pulls the pin and rolls the tiny payload to the people; like a mother playing a game of catch with her demented offspring.
It bounces across the ground. The group stops and focuses on the bouncing object as it comes to rest in their midst. Before they realize what it is, it’s too late. The resulting explosion takes out the majority of the group, finishing the job that the apocalypse started. Those surrounding the grenade took the brunt of the blast, allowing Ewing and two others to get away.
Ewing runs as fast as his stunted legs will carry him, through an open field, then he stumbles. Something holds tight to his feet, not letting him go. He falls, scrambling, he tries to stand up and run, but he can’t. Then another cannibal falls. Then the third.
“Shaw, hand me the binoculars,” Connors says, pointing to the binocular case.
“What is it?” says Rose.
“Not sure,” says Connors.
Dr. Valentine’s peers through one of the gun ports, but finding it a bad angle, she goes to another to get a better look. “Something’s got them.”
Connors says nothing. Placing the binoculars to his eyes, it takes only a few moments of squinting, and moving them around, and making small adjustments to the focus, before he can get a clear view. “It’s the Turned. It’s Grubs. They’re pulling them down.” The tips of his eyelashes press against the glass lenses. He watches as the last of the cannibals are pulled underground to experience an uncertain, but most assuredly awful death.
Dr. Shaw is covered in sweat and shaking. Rose takes a seat on the floor. She’s shaking too. She feels a lump under her and reaches down, removing the thing she sat on. It’s a book. She sees the lettering and the strange symbols. It’s an ancient manuscript, it’s the book that slid from Major Connors bag when she was looking for the grenade. She reads the cover: Holy Bible. She holds it tightly to her chest. Maybe when things settle down again, if they ever do, she’ll read it. She misses reading The Wizard of Oz.
“We need to get the hell out of this place, right now, Major,” says Shaw.
“We have to bury, Sergeant Hollander, first,” says Dr. Valentine, referring to the private.
Connors nods in agreement. “Not here, not on this soil. He deserves better than to be buried in this cursed place. He goes with us, we’ll bury him somewhere nice, somewhere fitting. And I have my orders. Three crates in warehouse number six.” He looks down at Rose, and says, “Nice driving, kid. We owe you one.”