Run (Book 2): The Crossing by Rich Restucci Page A

had driven onto the runway.
    The med-flight helicopter was nowhere to be found, and the fire station looked like it had been a failed last stand. Doors and windows were boarded, but the barricades hadn’t held. Part of the station had burned as well. The garage doors were open, and the terrified occupants of the fire station had tried to escape in two fire trucks and an ambulance. The trucks were twisted together just outside the station itself. The ambulance was on its side a bit farther down, a black hulk that had charred to next to nothing. Perhaps some scared folks panicked and smashed the vehicles together, or there had been too many dead to plow the trucks through, and someone had gotten overzealous with their driving. Dozens of shuffling forms, some crispy, were meandering around the scorched station and vehicles.
    Rick put his hand to his temple and rubbed. “Boone, I’m not trying to buck the chain of command here, but Martinez is in deep shit. I’ll go alone if I have to, but we need those meds.”
    “Rick, we’ll find meds if they’re here, but you’re not going in there, it’s—”
    “He’s going to die if we don’t. He needs help now.”
    Boone frowned. “I understand that, but we—”
    Anna interrupted, “What about the plane?”
    Both Rick and Boone looked at her and chorused: “What?”
    Anna pointed toward the plane in front of them. “There has to be medical stuff on the plane right? I mean what if there’s an in-flight emergency?” She started shaking her head. “Gotta be. Gotta.”
    “There is,” Dallas blurted. “There’s two med stations, one aft of the cockpit in the attendant’s quarters on the second floor, and one to the rear of the cabin by the bathrooms on the first floor.”
    Chris looked at him, “How do you know that?”
    “Used to work for Shiner Air as a cabin inspector.”
    “What kind of supplies are in those stations?”
    Dallas began ticking items off using his fingers. “Band-Aids, aspirin, gauze, tape, scissors, bandages, splints, insulin, maybe some single-use morphine injectors, and a defibrillator.”
    Seyfert looked disgusted. “All that shit would have been in the LAVs if they were combat ready.”
    “Yes, and Usher had most of it too, but he’s gone.”
    Cole piped in over the radio. “At the very least, he could use the morphine and a better splint. He still needs an X-ray, and someone who can pin his wrist together though. A real doctor.”
    “We don’t have one,” Boone said and looked at Rick, “but we’ll get what meds we can.” Boone glanced to his left into the port monitor and saw three forms staggering toward them. “We already have company. We tow the plane to that hangar,” Boone pointed toward a huge hangar to the side of the runway, “we use those stairs, and get on the plane!”
    They sped to the plane inside the safety of the armored vehicle. Androwski produced a fifteen foot length of yellow carrying strap from the bowels of the LAV, and he, Dallas, and Rick affixed the strap between the tow-package of their vehicle, and the pin on the front of the aircraft landing gear. Seyfert plugged a few dead that were getting close with the SAW.
    As they were moving back to get into the armor, undead started dropping out of the jet-way and onto the tarmac below. The ones on the bottom broke the falls of the ones to come out after, and the secondaries decided to get up and come for lunch. They were between the LAV and the plane, so Androwski, Dallas, and Rick had to go in the other direction.
    “Sir, it’s fuckin’ rainin’ pus bags here! Take off and tow this big bitch, we’ll catch up.”
    “Roger that, Andy. Watch your asses.”
    The six-wheeled behemoth began to angle away from the concourse, easily pulling the big aircraft with it. The three people on foot ran at a slant to the vehicles, with ideas on a rendezvous a few hundred meters down the runway. Zombies began to pop up from different areas in ones and twos and they all