It ended up taking us a week to get to the airport. The closer we got, the more tightly the cars were packed. It became harder and harder to make a path through for our little convoy. And that should have told us something. We weren't the only ones who thought about this place, even though it wasn't declared an emergency shelter. It should have at least made us more cautious in our approach. But we were too excited to have made it to the Denver International Airport and so we just blindly went forward.
By the time we were at the intersection of the 470 and Pena Blvd, we had to leave the vehicles and take just what we could carry. The way was blocked by hundreds of vehicles parked end to end. There was no way to make a clear enough route to get our vehicles through. Again, looking back, this should have been a large clue for us about what we were getting ourselves into. Aaron pointed out that we could come back for whatever else we need from the vehicles once we took a look around, even if it was tomorrow or the day after. Why didn't we send in a team of people to look investigate the situation first? Why did we take everyone, including the children, in with us? One of the main reasons we had decided to come to this place was because of the tunnel system that was supposed to have supplies stored somewhere in them. If we knew that, then everyone did.
We made it to the first terminal and forced the doors open. They made a screeching sound as they slid in their dirty tracks. Gary Bruce, a former Sherriffs Deputy, and Steve Moore, took point on entering the building and chose several of the others to go with them. The group of ten, including Jonathan, our old camp admin, and fellow former button pushers Ed and Adam, went ahead while the rest of us stayed by the doors with weapons pointed out in a circle for protection, children in the center.
We had been waiting less than ten minutes when we heard the first shots and saw Gary, Steve and Adam running ahead of too few others yelling and gesturing for us to go. Behind them, we could see a wall of surging undead. Gary and Steve were taking turns turning and firing at the closet approaching zombies to cover the others as much as they could. From could see right off, the ten men had been pared down to six. Then panic ensued in our group. Mothers grabbed their children and started to run. Some of the adults formed a firing line and fired into the group of undead following our initial entry group.
I just kept firing while first Gary and then Steve came even with our line and turned to fire. Russell, a former tire salesman, tripped fifteen feet from us and that was all the undead needed to make a meal out of him. Steve yelled for the rest of us to "get the fuck outta here" and we turned to go after the rest of our group. Paul, the last man to fire, was pulled down before he could take more than four steps. He pulled the pin on a grenade he had been showing everyone since the begining as he was covered by a blanket of biting undead. The last thing I heard him yell was "Fire in the hole!" and then the ground shook and pieces of bodies were flying through the air.
Once the world righted itself again, I could see the rest of our people running about 50 yards ahead of us, but I could also see the undead coming towards them from all sides. We were screwed. Marjorie was near the front holding her daughter, Catherine, and pulling her son Matthew behind her. One of the undead, a pilot by his uniform, tackled her and before she hit the ground, her and the girl were covered by the creatures. Henry, a former PE teacher, grabbed Matthew from the side and pulled him away from his disappearing family and tucked him under his arm like an extra large football. There was no where to go, though, we were surrounded and our group started to circle up. Women and children were crying and even the men were making scared noises that they would later deny were cries of fear and despair.
Suddenly from our left, a burst of semi-automatic gunfire took out a large group of undead and a young female voice yelled "This way!". This was followed by continued bursts gunfire as we all started racing for our unknown rescuers. People were being culled from our group by the zombies. I saw Jessica, our camp assigned RN, carrying Tim while his mother ran next to her carrying his sister. I saw a large zombie, wearing a chauffeurs uniform, lunge out of the crowd of undead and pull her down. His mother, Stephanie, started to stop but Henry grabbed her arm and dragged her along.
Time seemed to slow down. I just concentrated on fire, step back and repeat. I saw others in our group fall to the mass of undead. I watched Debbie, a four year old, pulled from her screaming mothers' arms. Gordon, who was a lawyer before the pandemic, did not allow Pam to stop for her daughter and pushed her from behind before succumbing to the undead creatures himself. After that, I my mind fogged over and I just looked where I was shooting. My world became fire, step back, and repeat with the occasional break for reloading. We fought our way out of the area around the airport step by retreating step.
When I finally caught sight of our rescuers, I was suprised to see only two people. One was a large man who looked very capable with the firearms on his person. The other was a teenage girl who was doing her best to cover our fleeing people. We worked together to make our way past the mile long traffice jam back to where our vehicles had been left. Without our rescuers, we would have run out of ammo and been devoured long before we made it back. As we began to run out, the guy started throwing ammo to whoever was in need from his backpack. When we got back to our convoy, there was a large truck sitting at the rear and I knew it belonged to the strangers. We all piled into the vehicles and backed out the same path we drove in on.
We drove for hours and finally stopped around midnight. Everyone was so tired, we agreed to put talking off until this morning. I am looking forward to learning about our new friends. We also need to take stock of who made it and who didn't. What a day.
As a writer and artist, I appreciate
any readers and their comments. Thank you for taking the time to read
this blog. Please, come read the other blog I write for our artisan
collective, Raven's Castle Creations, on our website at
www.ravencastlecreations.com. It includes posts on art, the mythology
of symbols we use in our art, history and more! Also, come see the
art we produce in our Etsy store at
etsy.com/shop/RavenCastleCreations. Follow us on Twitter at
@ravencastleart and on Facebook at @ravencastlecreations.
No comments:
Post a Comment