Free Black Tide Rising - eARC by John Ringo, Gary Poole Page B

and thank you all very much.”
    “Okay, then. Stand over by your tower,” Andy instructed her. “We’ll bring down the supplies and put them somewhere in the middle. We’ll do our best to sanitize the stuff with disinfectant spray, but…I’m afraid you’ll just have to take your chances.”
    Freddy now chimed in, very loudly, “ And tell the pilot to shut down the damn helicopter engine! You’ll draw zombies!”
    “Too late,” said Sam. The young woman pointed at something in the distance, coming down Chicago Avenue.
    Andy looked. “Well, shit,” she said. A small mob of zombies was approaching them from the east. As they emerged from below the Cline Avenue overpass, she saw that it wasn’t that small a mob, either. There were at least fifty of them, with more appearing every second.
    The crack of the rifle jarred her. Tom was already in position and starting to fire. But even if he didn’t miss a single shot, the zombies would start swarming over the fence very soon—or, still worse, might head down the access road toward the open gate. Tom wouldn’t be able to shoot at them for most of that stretch, because other storage tanks and part of the asphalt plant would be in the way.
    This was exactly what Andy had always feared the most. Once a mob of zombies got attracted, the sound of gunfire would simply draw more zombies. Soon enough, they’d be buried under a swarm of the monsters.
    “Dad!” shouted Ceyonne. “What are you doing? ”
    Turning, Andy saw that Jerome Bennett was coming down the staircase of the tower he’d been perched on. They hadn’t seen anything of him for a day and a half, although he’d occasionally spoken to his daughter over the walkie-talkie. He was still very sick—he looked it, too—but at least so far he hadn’t turned into a zombie.
    Somewhat unsteadily but with obvious determination, Bennett made it to the bottom of the staircase and then started toward his patrol car, which was parked about thirty yards from the tower.
    “Dad!” Ceyonne shouted again, now sounding a little hysterical. Her father looked back, waved his hand in a gesture making clear he did not want her coming after him, and kept going toward the patrol car.
    Ceyonne ignored the gesture and headed toward the staircase of Alpha Tower. She was intercepted before she got there by her boyfriend Eddie, who tried to restrain her.
    She wrestled with him for a moment and then started yelling incoherently and punching him. Ceyonne was a big girl and the punches were powerful, but Eddie just got a determined look on his face and kept clinching with her while ignoring the blows as best he could.
    Andy looked back at Bennett. The policeman had reached his patrol car and started the engine. Slowly, he drove toward the open gate leading out onto Gary Avenue. By now, just as Andy had feared, the mob of zombies had come down the access road instead of trying to climb the face. They’d reach the gate within a minute.
    But as soon as Bennett pulled out of the tank farm and onto Gary Avenue, he turned on his siren and lights. The racket that produced—not to mention the red-and-blue light show—completely distracted the zombies from the sound of the helicopter. Which, Andy saw when she looked, had finally been shut down by the pilot so it wasn’t making any more noise anyway.
    Bennett waited until the nearest zombies were only a few yards away and then drove slowly under Cline Avenue, approaching the entrance to I-90.
    The zombies went after him. Andy realized what he was planning to do. He’d lead them onto the interstate and then, moving slowly ahead of the mob, take them either toward Ohio or the Illinois state line. Once he got a few miles down the highway, he could speed up and escape them easily and come back to the tank farm after getting off on one of the exits.
    Assuming he didn’t collapse from being sick.
    “Come here, Sam,” said Tom.
    He laid the Remington down on the shooting bench and backed his