The Green Flu

Chapter 23 - Blake

"But where are you, exactly?" Devon asked the pilot, who we found out was named Stella. She had been working as a pilot for one of the airlines at the airport and was on break when the city-wide evacuation was called. She and her roommate Peter decided to get to the airport and when they arrived the planes were either destroyed or gone.

Stella knew how to fly a cargo plane that wasn't made for passengers but it'd be perfect for this kind of thing. And during probably the luckiest stroke of luck that's happened all day as the cargo plane was here, undamaged and ready for flight. Though it had no fuel. So Peter volunteered to go get the fuel as he wasn't the pilot.

"I'm the small plane on the only empty runway." Stella told Devon. "It'd be pretty hard to miss me."

Everyone looked through the window and saw what she was talking about. There were a couple of runways, but only one was clear. The rest had vehicles and piles of dead bodies on them. It was unclear whether the dead bodies were of the Infected or humans.

"Okay." Devon told Stella. "We'll find that fuel and be there. Just make sure you're ready. I have a feeling we're going to need to take off quickly."

"Hold onto the walkie talkie and tell me if you have any troubles." Stella suggested.

"Got it." Devon responded and began gazing out the window.

"Now we're back to square one." Edward Swindle voiced my worries. "How are we going to get through all those Infected?"

"We...uh..." Devon thought intently and for the first time today, he seemed unsure.

"And where is this fuel exactly? How will we find it?" Alexis mentioned.

I racked my brain for any ideas, anything. But I came up empty. Could this really be it? Did we come all this way just to die off here? Are we all going to end up like Sarah? I shook my head and pushed that thought to the back of my head. I couldn't be doubting our chances now. Not when we're so close.

I turned to everyone and one look at their faces told me that they were close to giving up. Devon was confused and kept staring out the window. Swindle just had his eyes glued to the ground. Micheal kept playing with his necklace with a far away look on his face. Alexis just kept checking and rechecking the ammunition for her gun. It looked like a sad band of people and I wasn't going to let it end like this.

"Guys, come on! There has to be some way to get there. Maybe we just aren't looking hard enough." I tried my best to brighten this grim predicament. "I mean, there has to be another way out of this mall."

"All the other exits just lead to the streets around it. It wouldn't help." Devon told me, sighing and taking a step away from the window. "Well, I guess there's an exit leading to the parking lot, but I doubt that could help us."

Once again a heavy, tense silence fell over our group. And this time I didn't have any inspirational words to give to everyone. But this time it wasn't me that broke the silence.

"You'd think that all these people could've gotten away." Swindle said grimly. He was looking outside at all the Infected people wandering around aimlessly. Some were sitting down and some were making high pitches groans. Others were holding their heads and some were even fighting each other. A couple were throwing up. I never realized just how sick these Infected looked. They were monsters, but they acted as if they just needed some medicine to get better. If only medicine was the only thing you needed to fix this disease.

"The airport, I bet, shut down once it got overrun and people just kept coming here looking for help." Devon responded to Swindle. "And most of these people are probably from the mall here. The parking lot connects to the parking lot for the airport. They've even got a tunnel connecting them." No one said anything else as they all thought about how many people died here.

Then an idea popped into my head.

"Wait, the parking lot is connected?" I asked Devon.

"Yeah, there's an underground tunnel that goes beneath the road." Devon's eyes lit up. "And we could take that to get to the airport!"

"Exactly!" I exclaimed and everyone shared a smile. But then Alexis brought back attention to the other problem.

"But we still don't know where that fuel is." She said, gesturing to all the Infected outside. "It could be anywhere out there."

"You know, I don't think so." Micheal told everyone. "I mean, look at these doors. They're exits. They're meant to let people out, not let them in. I'm not even sure if it would open from the outside. And Peter's body is right here. I bet he died trying to get in here to find the fuel."

"So you think it's in here somewhere?" I asked, looking around. "We haven't seen anything like that on the way here."

"No, I know. But let's find out which direction Stella came in and then check that way." Maybe it was because Micheal sounded so sure about it. Or maybe because we really didn't have any other option. Or maybe it was because it's high time this sad band of people had something to believe in. But I looked at everyone and they all had a smile on their faces. Now we had a plan. Now we can finally get out of this city.