Elliott stopped to ponder their options, but Fipps didn’t bother. He had a rolling battering ram at his disposal and he gunned it. Elliott tried not to think about Shavian out there, alone, hurting and hunting, but he couldn’t help it.
There continued to be thumps against the side of the truck and as they were jolted about the cab, and the picture that painted made Elliott feel a little green: a virtual sea of undead, their slow broken bodies like left like a wake behinds them.
“Don’t we have a gun on the top of this thing?” Aubrey asked. “Shouldn’t we be… I don’t know… shooting something?”
The general shook his head. “The armor is enough to keep us safe. I don’t want to use up the ammo until we have no choice.”
“How close to the airfield are we?” Roger asked.
McNabb peered out the window, but before he could reply everyone noticed that the truck’s speed had diminished.
“Why are you slowing down?” Aubrey asked, her voice quavering, trying to look out the small slits for windows.
A sputtering and coughing noise from the truck answered for him, but he still said grimly, “I’m not.”
Aubrey’s face went pale and she began to shake. Roger squeezed her hand. “Just stay behind me,” he told her reassuringly. She smiled at him and Elliott resisted the urge to point out that the zombies were not the British Army circa 1776 and would likely not attack only from the front.
The truck rolled on a few more yards, the massive diesel engine gasping hungrily for fuel and then sputtered to a stop. Fipps futilely stomped on the accelerator as though getting angry with it would fill it with fuel. And it did lurch forward, tipping everyone towards the front for a moment, before sputtering to a stop leaving them in a scary silence.
“We make our stand here,” General McNabb said to them.
“Thanks, Chief Joseph, I think we figured that out for ourselves,” Fipps snapped. McNabb was clearly getting tired of the jabs, he drew a deep steadying breath and let it out slowly. But still he didn’t take the bait. Elliott admired his aplomb.
Without the rumble of the armored truck’s engine, Elliott could hear the moans and growls of the zombies outside. They continued to throw themselves fruitlessly against the truck, surrounding it on all sides. Elliott shoved his panic down when at least a half dozen dead, slack-jawed faces peered in at them through the windscreen but his heart didn’t get the message and continued to thump loudly. He could feel acid starting to bubble away in his stomach.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” McNabb said. “We’re going out the top, all of us. There’s no way any of us would survive going out the sides.” Elliott glanced at Fipps but the tall man was still simply staring ahead. “I’ll go first. Junie, you come up behind me with that grenade launcher. You’re going to blast us a path in front and I’ll blast as many as I can from behind. I’ll try to use the Browning as suppressing fire once you’re all on the run.”
Junie jumped a little at having been addressed, but she nodded, her eyes clear and focused. She’d had the tactical mug on the floor at her feet but she picked it up now and cradled it in her lap.
“Roger and Fipps, you cover to the sides as much as you can. I’ll get you from the back.”
“What about you?” Aubrey asked.
McNabb shrugged. “I’ll be along.”
“General,” Junie began, her tone protesting, but the he cut her off.
“No time to argue,” he said, and popped open the gunner’s hatch and crawled out.