Most of their group were silent, other than groans of pain, on the ride away from the airport. David and Katie were driving the two buses, going slowly in part due to the unfamiliar clumsy vehicles and in part because every impact caused the walking wounded agony.

  With the possible exception of Katie there weren’t any of them who didn’t count among the walking wounded. Even with a single healer awake and using his spell as much as possible it wasn’t nearly enough. That plus their medical supplies mostly just managed to keep the worst of the wounded alive.

  He was bone weary, so the only thing which really allowed David to be sure of finding his way back, given the lack of GPS, was the beacon.

  The exit from the airport was tense with zombie sightings telling David that their enemies hadn’t gone that far. Their behavior was reverting to the instinct driven pattern he was accustomed to. Fortunately, none of them got close enough to be a problem for the buses.

  After that they had to make a choice between the tunnel to bypass city traffic and the surface routes. As they had on the way in they picked the surface, unsure if the tunnel was even navigable.

  There were a couple of bad moments getting onto the highway heading north and round downtown. They had to inch their buses past a crashed SUV without too much bumping, leading to David cursing air brakes and a turning circle that felt like it was the size of a city block.

  The driving did do one thing; distract him from a lingering sense of failure. They had come to clear the airport and managed most of one terminal. By any objective measure David felt that defeating the Zombie Queen was a massive victory. The price had been horrific, but they had won.

  David couldn’t turn his brain off. If they had more time to train, if they had all of the men and women they had let ‘Big’ Micky peel off. If they hadn’t surrendered the radio’s to the foraging groups. If he had done a better job with his self-appointed role as scout leader.

  A quiet voice whispered in his head. If you had insisted that scouts avoid fighting, Billy would still be here. So would Bessie.

  He was self-aware enough to know that he wouldn’t stop finding ways to beat himself up until he took concrete action to fix the problems. None of them were trained as soldiers. Life experience, movies and video games didn’t cut it. His mind just kept spiraling, he was good at what if? Or bad he supposed.

  By the time he got off the highway he had concluded a few important things. First, he really needed to get his team together, there was a painful choking pause then he mentally corrected himself. What was left of his team together. They needed to talk through this. They needed to plan, they needed to prepare for more likely problems. Second, they had to do it fast, he couldn’t see the crisis getting any better. Finally, they had to go back to the airport. The reason was simple. They needed to retrieve their dead. A small voice also told him they needed to finish the job. He couldn’t make his mind up if that voice was full of shit or not.

  Even Billy had only been covered with a coat from somewhere, there just hadn’t been time or energy to tend to the fallen. Those who bled and died for their fellows could not be allowed to rise as zombies.

  As he started to navigate along the major road that would take him back to the Obelisk and relative safety he focused, his spirit reserves were low but he pushed those he had out trying to look for trouble.

  To his senses the residential neighborhood rang with the sound of Nath. Other things tickled at his awareness and then suddenly the quiet was shattered by a death scream. David couldn’t help but smile, something out there was killing Nath. He hoped it was a survivor and that they ran before the others converged on the spot…

  David knew he had to pay attention, so far they had been rolling along the mostly deserted roads at a steady pace, knowing their route was fairly clear.

  The sudden emergence of another car turning ahead of him nearly passed David by. That was normal, cars used the road. He couldn’t stop, he needed the safe zone. Needed the Obelisk and he needed to get people healed.

  What happened next nearly caused a collision. The car was about forty yards ahead of him and moving steadily towards the light of the Obelisk. Then someone rushed out into the street waving their arms to flag the driver down.

  They slammed their brakes on and screeched to a halt. David’s reactions were slower. He got ten yards closer before he did anything. Then he hit the airbrakes. Then there was a delay and finally the bus started to slow. Finally he came to a stop with a lurch seeing a desperate woman trying to get into the car in front, who’s driver appeared to have locked their doors.

  All logical choices, but the scream of air brakes from behind him reminded him that they didn’t have time for logic. He wound his window down and yelled.

  “Clear the road! I’m carrying wounded people.”

  The woman outside the car in front was older, he didn’t know her exact age, but she had let her hair go grey so not young. She was babbling hysterically.

  “You have to stop and help me! Philip is having a fit and the phones don’t work. He is twitching and moving but I can’t wake him up. He’s so cold I put an extra blanket on him, in August. The power is out and you have to help. Can you call 911?”

  David yelled at her. “Lady, I have people literally dying here. GET OUT OF THE ROAD!!!”

  The woman turned towards him, saw his bloody face, paled then focused on what he was wearing. Bullit proof vest, helmet. This marked him as a first responder in her mind.

  She turned away from the car she had flagged down and approached him. “Sir, I don’t know what is happening at the airport but I must insist that as a first responder you come and look at my Philip…”

  She was interrupted by the first driver pulling away, clearly glad to be out of there. David cut right to the chase.

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  “Lady, did you get a bunch of messages that just sort of floated in front of your eyes, like they were inside your head when you woke up? Did they include one about reaching safety?”

  Confused the woman nodded. “They are deadly serious. You HAVE to reach safety quickly. There are hostile monsters hunting people. The dead rise again as zombies. That kill people. The column of light rising into the sky is the only safe place I know of. You can get on my bus right now, or you can go help Philip. I have critically wounded people in this bus and I MUST move. So, whatever you do, clear the road or I’ll run you over when I start driving in ten seconds.”

  Seeing the shock on the woman’s face he felt ashamed. Then he remembered Charlie’s face, his cracked skull.

  Ten seconds later he was on his way. The woman wasn’t with him, going back he guessed to a dead husband about to rise as a zombie. It felt wrong, but he hardened his heart, he couldn’t save them all. There were other signs of activity, cars were moving. Not many but the signs of the city waking up were everywhere. It remained to be seen how many survived.

  He was most of the way back to the Obelisk when he had his first encounter with law enforcement. The intersection ahead was partially blocked by a crashed delivery van and a police cruiser with its lights going was inspecting the vehicle. Upon hearing the bus the officer flagged them down.

  “Sir, this isn’t this buses route. What are you doing?” David could see the officer had his hand on his gun, clearly concerned.

  “I’m carrying wounded people from the airport to the beacon ahead where they can receive medical treatment.” David kept it simple still wondering what the hell the officer was doing checking on cars in the road. He got his answer a moment later.

  “What happened at the airport?” the officers response was clearly stressed. “The captain hadn’t heard of any problems there when he assigned me to clear the route for emergency traffic! I’ll have to call this in…”

  “THERE IS NO TIME OFFICER. I have critically wounded people who will die without medical attention and the ONLY place they can get it is that glowing light. Now call it in, but I can’t delay. Let your captain know there are people gathering at the light and the area is safe. The rest of the city isn’t.”

  The officer took about two seconds to process then grabbed his radio off his lapel. “Control, this is Stevenson. I’ve got two buses filled with casualties trying to make it to the light. They say there is medical there. Over.”

  The tinny voice that emerged “Stevenson, this is Control. Heard and understood. How many casualties? Do they know if there is extra medical capacity?”

  After looking at David Stevenson replied. “I don’t know but the guy driving the bus is TSA and his face is covered in blood.”

  David interrupted. “Over thirty. A dozen are critical and unconscious.”

  When Stevenson relayed the body count he got an immediate response.

  “Police escort Stevenson. Get those people where they are going and report back, we have casualties arriving at the Station and still can’t raise the hospitals or 911 dispatch.

  So that was how David ended up driving behind a police cruiser with its siren going. Stevenson drove like a maniac to get to each intersection pulled over and let them blitz past if there was anyone moving.

  The rest of the journey passed in a blur with David seeing more evidence of people waking up. He didn’t know how many had made it or whether there were still comatose survivors, but this was a new phase to the disaster.

  When they got close to the safe zone there was a lot more activity. People were out on the streets organizing, there were clearly a lot more survivors moving around and people at every intersection were directing traffic, mostly civilians.

  That was when it started to go wrong. The traffic management people were gesturing insistently, clearly trying to direct them away from the Obelisk. There was also a simple wooden barrier – basically a 2x4 with wooden legs nailed to it, across the road.

  David had the advantage of having driven this route several times before and as Stevenson pulled away following the directions he had just received David sounded his horn and swung to turn headed the other way towards the barrier. The officer pulled up even as David yelled.

  “Get that barrier out of the way, I have critically wounded people I have to get to the Obelisk, I know this route was clear so move.”

  The man out on the barricade yelled back.

  “No traffic down this route, we only just got sorted with the mess left by people abandoning cars to get into the zone.” There was a pause. “Wait? You know about the Obelisk?”

  The Other man manning the barrier, who was armed, and likely a member of the militia or whatever they called themselves called out. “David? Is that you?”

  Then he grabbed the barrier and started shouting at the other man. “Help me move this. David is one of the leaders of the airport group. Let them through, let them through!”

  Then he surprised David. “Let me on and I’ll direct you, the open route to get to the park has changed!”

  It was clear that a lot had changed, and that plenty of people were heeding the system message to get to the Obelisk. David and Katie kept on driving until they couldn’t get any closer, well within the safe zone, actually at the edge of the park. They were met by a young woman with a clipboard full of notes. After yelling about having wounded people, they were allowed to bring their vehicles into the park where they were met by Dr. Chen.

  As she started to try and organize triage David cut her off.

  “How many healers do you have who can cast?”

  She responded crossly, “Young man, my staff include some who can heal but we need to do roper triage and save them for the most critically injured. Even then survivors lacking a full system with Health gain little benefit.”

  “They’re all system users! They should all have health! This is what’s left of my fucking raid party. I’m the best off other than Katie and I have a busted skull and too many minor injuries to keep track of.”

  She gaped at him, momentarily shocked. Then nodded. “Gail, get all the medics who have healing skills here NOW!” Credit where credit’s due she shifted to all business quickly.

  “Right, prognosis – who are the worst off?”

  “Second bus, we have one tapped out healer in there with the people who were still unconscious when we left the airport.”

  Then they were both submerged in a flurry of activity. David felt a surge of profound gratitude as he saw dozens of people swarming over the injured getting them onto improvised stretchers and most importantly casting spells to promote recovery. Before anyone could get too far he called out.

  “Anyone who is conscious should get in touch with the Obelisk and see if they qualify to learn Regenerate. That’s what is giving Katie her girlish good looks, and lack of bruises…”

  There were chuckles at that as David suited actions to words heading for the Obelisk, his people were finally safe. He could rest, for just a minute.

  He was sitting with his eyes closed letting magic work on him after a medic cast a healing spell. It had taken a bit of prodding at the System, but he too was eligible to ‘learn’ regenerate. Though without a reward for a quest he would have to pay for the skill.

  Given what he had just been through this wasn’t even a decision. Though he had been shocked at how expensive it was, a thousand experience, which put into context what they were getting with quest rewards. He had paid for it by burning six of his remaining spirits, which had both topped off his resources and given him the experience to buy it immediately.

  Now rather than bothering the medics he was waiting for the injuries to subside and watching his health tick down. It was relaxing to be safe and able to think about absolutely nothing for a bit so he was startled when someone came up to him and shook his shoulder an indeterminate amount of time later.

  It was Camila, she was awake, and she was crying silent tears as he met her eyes. Then she hugged him fiercely and whispered in his ear.

  “Thank you.”

  Even as he was trying to react to that and process she pulled back, maybe feeling him stiffen in surprise. She looked at him searchingly then spoke in a more normal voice.

  “You need to come, it’s Charlie. Estupido isn’t waking up… I’m hoping you have one more miracle in you.”