It had been seven long minutes since his last call. There had been a lot of noise back then, a lot of shooting and screaming coming up from below. All of that had since stopped.
'Any second,' Clark repeated, and Vikram muttered in acquiescence. Behind them the Pave Low helicopter spun its rotor uselessly. There was only so long that they could wait'fuel for the aircraft was at a premium.
'Ah, Bannerman'here he is,' Vikram announced, as a human shape appeared in the stairwell door. 'Nothing to worry about, I'' Vikram fell silent for a moment, then let out a terrified shriek. He raised his sidearm and fired three rapid shots into the doorway. The bullets collided with dead flesh and sent the figure there spinning.
'That was so totally unnecessary,' the shadowy figure said.
It was the girl. She stood up and stepped onto the starlit helipad. A bullet hole in her neck oozed crusty powdered blood, dried up so long ago it wasn't even shiny. She prodded the wound with one undead finger.
It was so easy to forget that she wasn't one of the living. That she wasn't exactly what she appeared to be, a helpless, innocent survivor of this horror. Clark had to remind himself from time to time that she was part of the Epidemic, not a victim of it.
'What did you do with Sergeant Horrocks?' Clark demanded.
The girl frowned. 'Older guy, white hair, three stripes on his arm? He didn't make it. None of them did. I watched them go under, Captain. I would have tried to help but, well, your men were trying to shoot me at the time. If they could have focused on their enemy, well''
'That's exactly what they were doing.' Clark stood up straighter than before and stared at her with his best command face. 'So. Are you going to eat us now, or did you have something else in mind?'
The girl's face soured and she threw him a mock salute. 'I thought we would get in that helicopter and fly out to that mountain you were so excited about. You know, what we were supposed to do in the first place.'
'You don't honestly expect me to take you with us,' Clark sputtered.
'I think you need all the help you can get. Listen, Captain'I don't know anything about military tactics or politics or epidemiology or anything. I lost whatever expertise I may have had when I died. But I do know my destiny is up there. I'll walk if I have to, but I'd prefer to catch a lift with you two.'
Clark felt a sinus headache coming on. He had no answers. He had no information. His chain of command was broken and his direct superior had turned against humanity. According to every order of warfare that he knew that meant it was time to fall back and call for evac. Yet fate had put him in the position of being the one who had to decide the entire future of the human race.
'Oh, hell,' he said, sounding prissy even to himself. 'Mount up already. We've got no time to lose.'
It was all too true. Their destination, Bolton's Valley, was nearly a hundred miles away even as the crow flew. The pilots assured him they could reach the Epicenter with the fuel onboard but it would be a close thing. Once they had completed their mission they would have to find alternate transport out of the area of operations.