in stages to the airport. Hopefully by then, help would arrive.
There were other places east and west the zombies could get across the water, but the horde coming down the road needed to be slowed down.
All the while, other volunteers would try and evacuate as many people south to Pittsburgh, or to the Butler County Airport.
Sulla sent a couple of the guys that were with him to the Airport. He wanted them to help out with securing the fenced in facility. The gates needed locked down, and Sulla wanted to make sure he had people who saw what's coming securing those gates. In the distance, Sulla heard the rotor pitch of a helicopter, and it sounded like it was headed in his direction.
###
Captain Rick Anderson, of the Pennsylvania National Guard, commanded the Reserve Center in Butler County. The unit had been deployed to Afghanistan three months ago leaving behind only a few personnel to handle logistical issues and paperwork. New recruits and soldiers rotating home, for whatever reason, would report in to the post off and on.
Captain Anderson, had completed two tours of Iraq in the regular army, and he retired to the Pennsylvania Guard unit as its senior stateside officer a month ago. With the position would come a promotion to Major, but the paperwork had not been fully processed yet.
From the post, Captain Anderson listened as the County EOC lost cohesion with emergency responders in the field. In his opinion, it was almost complete anarchy.
From what Captain Anderson could tell, the shit had really hit the fan in Butler. He expected to get a call from the Governor’s office at any moment asking him to mobilize what personnel he could to help.
The good thing about guardsmen is when emergencies happen the men just report in on their own. Many had already arrived, and were listening to the radio with Anderson.
If Anderson did get orders to move out, he would at least be at platoon strength.
The phone rang, but it didn’t come from the Governor’s office, it came from the VA hospital next door. The call came from Joe Swanson; he was an administrator at the hospital.
Joe was a portly fellow with thick black rimmed glasses. Anderson had hung out with Joey just a couple of days ago. They had gone down to one of the bars in Lyndora, and they enjoyed some brew and a couple of deep fried Twinkies. While they were there, Anderson met several of the locals who were old chums with Joe. They introduced Anderson to Joey’s official nickname, “Joey Bag of Donuts.” Ever since then, Anderson automatically thought, “Joey Bag of Donuts,” when he came across Mr. Joe Swanson.
Anderson picked up the ringing phone on his desk, “This is Captain Anderson,” he said.
“Rick, it’s Joe, we need help,” the man on the other end of the phone wheezed. “We have people tearing up the place and attacking my staff. They killed one of my security officers-,” his sentence was interrupted by gunfire in the background. “Shit, did you hear that?” Joe said.
“Joey,” Anderson said. “Get somewhere safe, we’re on our way.” The line had already gone dead.
###
The chopper Sulla heard turned out to be a news chopper for channel six. When they saw the people with municipal equipment and guns, they decided to set down the chopper and get the story. They landed right on Route 8 in front of the dealership.
A woman, followed by a cameraman, emerged from the chopper. Peggy Davil had been shocked from the images her crew had taken from the air. They had been trying to find a safe place to land in Butler for the past hour that would be close enough to the crisis to get on-location information. They had swung by the Butler County Airport to refuel and learned Penn Township had an elected official directing operations just north of the airport on Route 8.
After taking off, it only took them a couple of minutes to find Sulla’s location.
Peggy got out of the