"Good idea," Ginger said, "Just give me something to keep busy with."
The group broke off to cook and pack up. Alison stayed behind at the truck with Rex. "What are you doing?" Alison said.
"I'm going to watch the road," Rex said. "I also want to break up a few of these ammo crates into pouches."
"Do you need some help?" she said.
"Sure, these crates marked with 7.62 are the ammo for the AK-47s and the SKSs. Some of the crates have ammo that is pre-packed in stripper clips. Those can be used to fast load an SKS. Drop those in these pouches here. If the ammo is loose, you can load into these magazines here in this bag. We should have done this last night, but I was afraid that the doors would come bursting open at any second."
Alison opened a box of ammo full of the stripper clips and grabbed a handful to push into a pouch.
"Do you think your wife is okay?" she asked.
"Looks like she’s trying to keep busy; I suppose it’s a good thing," Rex said. "I shouldn’t have let her mom run into the house last night."
"It's not your fault, Rex," Alison said, "And you don’t need to second guess yourself right now."
"What about Ginger?" Rex said. "I can deal with my own ghosts, but I don’t know if I can handle it if she blames me."
"She's a lucky girl, Rex. Even if it does take her some time, she is going to remember that."
"And if she doesn't remember?" Rex said.
"Then I’ll remind her of the fact," Alison said. "I’ll also tell her about my life having a husband that cheats on me. I don’t know if you remember, but last night they had a doctor they were interviewing at the airport."
"Your husband?" Rex said.
"And his special assistant," Alison replied. "While I’m out here struggling for my life, she's with him."
"I'm sorry," Rex said.
"Don’t be sorry for me,” Alison said. “I’ve made my own choices in life. I did this to myself."
"What are you going to do when we get to the airport?" Rex asked.
"Do you think it's even worth it at this point?" Alison said. "I mean the world is ending and he is a piece of shit. At best, I can't say much better for myself. I loved him yes, but I stayed in the marriage because of the money he makes as a doctor. What does that say about me? I'm not much better than a whore. But I can’t even feel bad about that cause I let those poor kids get killed with their parents."
Alison's knees buckled and hit the gravel on the driveway. She lowered her face to the ground and dug her fingers into the rocks and squeezed until it hurt.
"He never would give me kids," she sobbed.
Alison felt soft warm hands lift and separate her face from the ground and she looked up into Ginger's face.
"I came out to see if I could help with the ammo," Ginger said. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I didn’t know what else to do."
Rex knelt beside Alison and took one her hands clutching the stones. He eased her hand open letting the gravel to patter against the ground.
"I really need to thank you Alison," Ginger said, "You reminded me that we’re all going to be dealing with things. I’d rather deal with them together than to lock myself apart. If you want, you can be part of our family and we’ll deal with whatever comes."
Alison felt the tension ease from the other hand and several stones came tumbling out. She stopped the last two stones in her hand and held on to them. "That sounds nice,” Alison said. “When we get to the airport I have to confront them. After I do that, if your offer still stands I'll go wherever."
###
Donna stood beside Jack in one of the offices inside a hanger at the airport. Naomi sat on a desk behind them bathing herself after being cooped up in her carrier for too long.
She held on to Jack’s hand while they watched the television feed being broadcast from the stadium in Pittsburgh. The camera zoomed in on a dark winged shape in the sky.
“C-130,” Jack said, “Bet it’s a gun ship.”
The craft dipped a wing and slowly turned to circle the stadium.
“Oh, shit,” Jack said as the plane’s midsection came alive and breathed fire. The cameraman pulled the zoom back revealing a long chain of tracer fire reaching to the ground. The hail of bullets ripped into the mass of zombies pushing their way through a fallen gate near a smoldering chopper. Dozens of the undead fell by the second as fire from heaven rained down on them.
Donna could tell that the effort was too late. The dead were pouring in by the hundreds and were fanning out inside the stadium. The gunners in the plane would be forced to shoot closer and closer to the civilians.
In the middle of the field, a squad of soldiers fought back-to-back while the undead came at them from two different directions.
“They must be getting through somewhere else to be getting on the field like that,” Donna said.
“I can’t watch this anymore, Donna, it’s making me sick.”
She reached out and turned the television off. The room filled with silence. Outside of the room, Donna could hear voices carrying on a conversation in the larger part of the hanger.
“Jack, can I ask you a question?”
“What do you want to know?”
“I saw a picture of you and your wife back at your house.” Donna said. “I figure you didn’t get divorced cause it was still hanging up. What happened?”
“She had a stroke,” he said. “It’s pretty rare for someone so young to die like that. We didn’t know it at the time, but she had something called Familial Combined Hyperlipidemia. She was adopted, so her parents didn’t have her biological family’s history. She also took birth control that caused an increased risk of stroke. I had to spend a year fending off lawyers wanting to bring legal action against the pharmaceutical companies. I didn’t bother; it wasn’t going to bring her back to me.”
“I’m sorry,” Donna said. “I hope I didn’t upset you.”
“I’ve been upset about it for years, you didn’t cause it.”
Donna squeezed his hand then let go, she walked over to the desk and petted the cat.
“What about you?” he asked.
“My dad didn’t let me date a whole lot in high school,” Donna said. “Not that he needed to discourage it. I was pretty shy. In college I went a little wild at times with the introduction of alcohol, but nothing serious. Oh, I did nearly make a huge mistake on a trip to Europe.”
“What happened?” he asked.
“I was dating this French political science major,” Donna said. “One day he got pretty drunk in front of his friends and started ranting about how America was the source of everything wrong with the world. He blamed me for being part of it. He called me his charity case. I was devastated. He was my first real crush and he turned out to be such a jerk. It’s kind of like that for me. I date the wrong guys to find out they have other intentions. It’s like there is something wrong with me that they can zero in on. It’s kind of kept me from dating anyone seriously for the past couple of years.”
###
Captain Rick Anderson’s convoy arrived at the airport to the cheers of civilians and militia at the gate. The convoy had cut its way through the carnage.
Anderson stepped out of his Stryker and was greeted by a younger man extending his hand to the Captain. “Pleased to meet you in person Captain, I’m Paul Sulla.”
“Let me introduce Sergeant Ryan Winters, he is my acting number two,” said Anderson. Sulla and Winters shook hands.
“Captain what do you need from us?” Sulla said.
“I’d like to set up in the main hanger with my vehicles and unload supplies,” Anderson said. “If you can take the civilians off my hands we can focus on breaking and blowing things up. I also have a population of armed civilians that I can turn over to your militia. For now, I’d like to keep things separate when it comes to unit organization. I can also pass out a little heavier hardware than the deer rifles your boys seem to be carrying.”