The Blackhawk moved higher and turned west, increasing its speed, ferrying its very relieved passengers to safety. Its crew chief handed a headset to Thurman and one to Thompson. He moved over to the crew chief's area and returned with two more headsets for Samantha and Jose.

The crew chief spoke first, "Okay, you're all hooked up, can you hear me?"

They all answered yes, Thurman added, "Chief, any change in route?"

"Negative sergeant, ETA 2.5 hours till we reach Grand Junction. Just sit back and relax."

"Wait," Jose interrupted. "We have questions, why are we going there? How bad of a state is the country in?

"Yeah," Samantha added. "What about our families? What's the government doing about all this? What's going to happen to us?"

Thurman took over at this point, "Look, we know all you guys have a million questions, but you are gonna have to wait, until we reach Grand Junction to get the whole story. You will then be briefed on current events."

"But wait, why can't…" Samantha started.

"Listen to me," Thurman demanded, cutting her off. "I'll give you both a quick preview and you can tell Miss Rachel there when you get a chance, but then your gonna have to wait for the rest, understood?"

After both of the survivors nodded he continued. "I won't sugar coat this, but shit is bad, real bad." Thurman didn't wait for any effect those words might have and he went right to it.

"The government is still working but barely. Most of what's left of it is in Pierre, South Dakota. Other parts are locked up tight in NORAD and other fortified locations. We have lost most of the country to the Rot."

"What the hell is the Rot?" Jose interjected.

"Rot, undead, zombies, whatever your flavor, but we call em the Rot."

"Oh my god, how much is gone." Samantha asked, tears forming once again in her eyes.

Thurman nodded at Thompson who began to explain, "We've lost about 80% of the country." He continued over the gasps of both survivors listening to his story on their headsets. "Most of the East Coast has been declared what we call Dead Zones. They are swarming with Rot…or zombies. The government believes them to be totally lost with no hope of ever being inhabitable unless whatever this thing is, ends. The entire west coast and about 98% of the east coast are now deemed Dead Zones as well as the south of the country."

My god, what the fuck happened, what is causing this?" Jose asked.

"No one knows yet but Denver, Boulder and the rest of the middle of Colorado have just been deemed a Dead Zone as well. We were pulling all scouting teams out when you got into contact with one of them. You guys were pretty lucky. You might have been left there for good," Thompson told them.

"Lucky?" Jose looked pissed. "You fucking call what we have been though lucky? We watched dozens die, and some of them get back up to try and kill us."

"Then we get to watch someone we have come to love like family get obliterated by a fucking minigun right in front of us," Samantha threw in.

"Look, damn it, everyone's got a story now. See Trecose over there," Thurman pointed at the young soldier, "Fought his way out of a war zone in Philadelphia losing every single family member right before his eyes and still managed to get to a FEC and now is going right back into it every chance he gets to help people he doesn't even know." Jose and Samantha both turned towards Trecose who simply ignored them, being unaware of the conversation and began to reload his half empty UMP-45 magazine.

"I understand your all upset and have been though a lot but right now you need to cool it and try to relax as much as possible for the rest of the flight. You get more information when you are briefed at the FEC in Grand Junction, plus some food and showers. You can decide whether to tell the beauty queen there or wait for her to hear it at the briefing," Thompson offered.

"Guess your right," Jose said. "We could all use some more rest." With that, he and Samantha exchanged looks and Samantha then smiled.

"Looks like we made it," she told him.

"Looks like it," Jose replied. Jose couldn't help but wonder at how it was becoming easier to lose people they had come to know and trust. They has just found out that Lizzy had died and watched her literally explode in the air, not to mention they seemed to already have forgotten John who he had put an ax into the day before, and now they were here safe and smiling. They had become angry yes, at the way the soldiers had casually dismissed Lizzy's horrible death and even the one who laughed about it, but he found himself just happy to be safe finally. "I guess this is the way things work in this world now. The human instinct has replaced emotions like compassion and pity. Well not fully, but people have to be different now. If you are not one of us you are one of them, and being one of them gets you no more pity, compassion or love. Being one of them only gets you fear and death, not that you would care about either anyway, because you're dead." These thoughts began to hurt his head so he shook his head and laid it back and closed his eyes enjoying the chilled air fighting with the heater above him and drifted off.

Samantha had turned to look at Rachel who had her attention on the young Corporal who she had hugged earlier. He was leaning out of the side of the helicopter looking up at something. Not being able to talk to them over the noise of the machine she began to tap Rachel on the shoulder when the soldier next to the Corporal caught her attention. Specialist Helem was staring at her and when she looked back at him he began to make kissy faces. She rewarded him with a middle finger and a smirk. Helem shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "Your loss," smirked back and then laid his head back and closed his eyes.

"Now that's a good idea," she thought as she followed suit and drifted off almost immediate despite the dull roar of the engines.

Most of the others did so as well except for Thurman who began to speak with the pilot on a different channel.

As the helicopter continued west out of the city, Justin had leaned out of the side of the aircraft and looked up at the spinning main rotor. He had always liked the way the static electricity played across the blades visibly at night. Pulling his head back inside, he noticed the young women who they had just rescued looking at him with a curious expression. Although she was gaunt and dirty, the moonlight was reflecting off of her pale skin and had given her a luminous glow. He then realized that this girl, Rachel, now he remembered, was absolutely beautiful. He actually had a hard time pulling his eyes off of her. He felt his heart drop as he sat there frozen with her eyes meeting his. Finally he shook himself out of it, realizing that he probably looked pretty fucking stupid staring at this woman with his mouth hanging open. Rachel lips slightly turn up in a small knowing smile.

He then found the strength and smiled back at her and raised his arm in a slight wave. Rachel nodded and then cocked her head in a questioning manner.

"Oh, she wants to know why I was leaning out the side looking up, duh," he thought. Justin then leaned back out a little and pointed upward. Seeing her eyes shift in puzzlement he pointed to his eyes, then upward and finally to her.

Rachel nodded again this time with understanding and began to lean across the empty seat across from him and look up.

Justin watched as her face brightened with wonder and smiled again. He watched her lips split in a widening grin as she traded looks between him and the rotor blade giving them both a light show.

About 20 minutes later Justin caught a glimpse of other helicopters moving off to what he thought was the north. He though he saw an Apache accompanying two other Blackhawks. "I guess that rumor of a survivor stronghold in the Rocky Mountain National Park was true," he rationalized.

He looked back at Rachel who had quit watching the static and had rested her head back and had her eyes closed. "Damn," he thought, "That girl is fucking gorgeous."

He watched her sleeping think of how much she looked like an angel although a dirty one, glowing like that in the light of the moon, willing her to wake up so he could look into her eyes some more.

After another 20 minutes or so, he looked around the rest of the cabin and saw that everyone else had their eyes closed and figured it might be a good deal to catch a nap too. Even Trecose was sleeping a little, twitching every once and a while. "That guys lives a nightmare then sleeps through one too," he thought. "Can't imagine what goes through that guys mind."

Justin laid his head back against the cabin wall staring up at the ceiling and was about to close his eyes when he saw a faint orange flash light up the end of the cabin and disappear again in an instant. That drew his attention and he leaned back out of the cabin again and took a look below.

The first rays of damn had finally appeared on the horizon and allowed him to see what he thought was an armored convoy heading east. He even caught a glimpse of what looked liked an Abrams moving down the highway. "Must be the expansion operation," he said out loud to himself, his voice drowned out by the Blackhawk.

He watched the flashes of gunfire still lighting up what darkness was left of the night and even saw a few bigger flashes from the convoy's vehicles. The resulting flashes were even bigger and seemed be directed out towards the town and eastern Route 6/ Interstate 70. He thought he could make out the mass of dots that were the Rot horde trying to get to the soldiers firing at them. He noticed the dots were falling very rapidly and by the time he passed out of view of the battle he could see the Rot horde couldn't even be considered as such anymore. Whoever was involved in that operation was definitely bringing the pain and using a hell of a lot of ammo.

Looking at his watch, he stowed his weapon and laid his head back down, determined to catch the last half an hour trip napping. Something told him that today was going to be a busy ass day. For some reason some douche bag had mandated that any soldiers who had rescued survivors had to stick with them at least 24 hours, to make sure they got their briefing and understood the new laws of life. Without this knowledge, any city could become a new Dead Zone. He had seen it happen in Dodge City, Kansas, because no one told those idiot survivors that it wasn't a good idea to go slit their wrists in private. Shaking off that nightmare, he closed his eyes and welcomed the coming bliss of oblivion.