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 c
ould 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.
Why had Joe landed? Why was he still there?
There were so many zoms around the chopper now that all they could see were the dead.
“No,” Benny said.
The others stopped in a line and they all looked back.
There was no more gunfire.
But many of the zoms were running down the access road toward where the five quads idled.
“Benny,” said Nix softly, “we have to go.”
He hung his head for a moment, sick at heart. But when he caught Riot staring at him and saw the look in her eyes, the rage flared up in his chest again. He bared his teeth and ate his pain as he gunned the engine.
Under the noonday sun, the five quads rocketed along the road toward the gates of Sanctuary.
92
THEY LEFT SANCTUARY BEHIND AND found the highway marked on Reid’s map. They headed north on Route 375, and hours later turned west on US 6—the old Grand Army of the Republic Highway.