Free Here We Stand (Book 2): Divided (Surviving The Evacuation) by Frank Tayell Page A

drive to the highway, see the zombies, and drive back. The zombies would follow. Luring a few away was a gesture, and nothing more, yet it was all they could do.
    After a mile, Helena began to ease the throttle. The bike sped up. Tom didn’t stop her.
     
     

 
    Chapter 4 - Airlift
    Mifflin County, Pennsylvania
     
    They were only a few miles from the airfield when they ran out of fuel. Tom knew it was only a few miles by the twin-engine jet that soared up into the sky at the same time as the motorbike’s engine died. Tom squinted at the plane as it banked to the west. He’d seen that make of aircraft at a dozen regional airports over the years, but couldn’t even guess at its capacity. All that mattered now was that it was lost to the skies.
    “Looks like we’ve missed our flight,” Helena said, giving the throttle another twist.
    Tom climbed off the bike and gave the tires a vindictive kick. “At least it’s not far to the airfield. Julio said he’d leave some fuel for us, and he’s a stubbornly reliable man.”
    “But we can’t rest there,” she said. As one, they both found themselves looking back the way they’d come.
    The road was deserted, but they’d passed a small pack of the undead barely ten miles before. Those lumpen creatures had been squatting motionless outside a burned-out store. He could only guess at what had once been sold there, but the zombies had been woken by the sound of the motorbike’s passing. The sound of the jet engines would be another siren, luring them in this direction.
    “The airfield can’t be far,” Tom said, unslinging his rifle. He started walking.
    Another plane emerged above the trees. This was a prop that fought valiantly to get into the sky. It jerked up, and dropped down, disappearing behind a clump of red pines. Tom expected an explosion, but instead the plane reared up, clearing the trees. He raised a hand in greeting as it buzzed a wide circle, coming close to where they stood. The wings didn’t waggle, so perhaps the pilot hadn’t seen them. Or perhaps it was too great an effort keeping the cumbersome craft in the air to waste time on such niceties.
    “Where are the fighter planes?” Helena asked, when the plane was nothing but a swiftly receding speck.
    “Already gone, or being saved for last,” he said. “There’s only one very short runway.”
    “But if the planes are still taking off, then there are people still at the airfield, right?”
    He didn’t reply, but started walking more quickly. Soon, they were both jogging along the road. The jog had almost turned into a run when a background sound resolved into gunfire.
    The airfield was attached to a farm. If flying was Julio’s passion, farming was his tradition. Circumstance might prevent him from ever returning to his ancestral home, but the small farm allowed him to stay spiritually connected to the soil. Not quite a ranch, yet too well managed to be called a hobby, it occupied fifty acres north of the airfield. The livestock were gone.
    Another overloaded plane staggered into the sky.
    They jogged past the fields. The stubby control tower got larger far too slowly. Ahead lay a barn that dwarfed the single-level house. With his family thinking him dead, Julio had always said it was larger than he needed. Beyond the house was the double-height chain-link fence separating the airfield from the farm. Access to the airfield was through a gate two hundred yards further down the road. Barrels, tables, and other easily moved furniture added weight to the trucks parked in front of it. Compared to the barricade at the town they’d seen earlier that day, it was truly a flimsy construct. It could have been made of cement and steel and it wouldn’t have mattered. The chain-link fence was broken in three places that he could see. No doubt it was breached in other places currently out of sight.
    “Cars or trucks,” Helena said. “Must have driven right through the fence, trying to get to the