As they crouched, the barrier on the elevated road serving as cover they looked at the second terminal building loomed ahead, dark and lifeless.

  There was no movement. No zombies milled round outside.

  Billy looked at Bessie as the dog whined softly, then crouched lower then whined again. Then with creased brows he turned to David.

  “It don’t smell right. Bessie is picking up the same as before, but something is wrong, she don’t know what but something is very wrong ahead. She doesn’t want to go forward, almost like this is the territory of a bigger dog.”

  David nodded and focused on his spiritual hearing. There were zombies inside. Lots of them. But again, the pattern of sounds was discordant. Not what he expected. Not knowing why he focused on his spirits and began to use his trick to further extend his senses.

  The effect was immediate. As the spirits rushed out of him they amplified the net of murmurs and sounds from ahead, allowing him to interpret the rippling whispers of communication.

  What he heard chilled him to the bone.

  Prey! There! Wait!

  Instinctively with his heartrate spiking he ducked further down pulling Billy with him then desperately popped his head up to see if Zombies had begun shambling toward them. Nothing, it took him a moment to remember that his spirits had extended his range, the clear words didn’t mean zombies were on top of him.

  "What’s wrong?" Billy hissed, Bessie was whining and starting to back away from the terminal on her belly.

  As David tried to organize his thoughts Billy too popped his head up and looked around. After a moment he popped down, then paused and stuck his head up for a longer look before dropping it down.

  “Heck, you scared me. I don’t see anything. What has you and Bessie freaking out? Do we need to retreat?”

  David calmed himself. “I can hear the zombies, there are a lot of them in there and they know something is up. They are waiting.”

  “Well that ain’t good. You know what for?”

  David shook his head then he extended his senses again, his spirits amplified his efforts and he focused on them to again get a sense of what was going on.

  The zombies were moving now, his spirits focused on three groups of them, one on their level, one below and…

  Then it hit him, a stream of alien thought that he could interpret. Far more complex than the others.

  …come, follow, we hunt. This way where they won’t see us…

  Shocked he pulled back. That stream of thought had felt powerful, directed and vastly more complex that the drone of the Nath he had grown accustomed to. The words were somehow harder, denser and with a sense of shock he reached out again.

  There was a third group, as he reached out it came into focus. There were just three of them. All with dense coherent, complex thoughts moving quickly. They had as much density in his spiritual senses as a large group of regular Nath. They were further away, unfamiliar with this new sound and unsure how it carried he thought they were out on the tarmac somewhere but he couldn’t be sure. The direction was more of a concern, back towards Terminal A.

  Suddenly terrified he reached out again trying to get a sense of whether there were any more of these things with the first two groups.

  No, though both groups were now streaming towards Terminal A. The group on their level gave him pause, there was something there, something that tugged gently at his spirits. Then it stopped.

  Knowing what he would see David raised his head above the barrier, not looking at the terminal ahead of them but at the connecting sky bridge and the road beside the terminal below them for handling arrivals traffic. Two streams of zombies moved purposefully towards Terminal A. One along the skybridge and the other streaming along the road towards the terminal below.

  He felt sick. He had been wrong all along. This wasn’t mindless insect-like activity. This was a plan. There were intelligent creatures out there. Directing this. Directing an ambush that was about to close around their little group.

  Desperately David flicked their radio on and spoke urgently.

  “Danger, danger, danger. Two, repeat two zombie hoards closing in on ground level and across skybridge. Extreme danger there is a third group of something also approaching. Over.”

  He knew it wasn’t proper radio discipline but he didn’t care at this point. He needed to get the message across to them. After a pause he heard a strange voice.

  “This is Cassie, what’s going on? Did you say danger?”

  “Cassie, where is Mark? We need to get the fighters ready and pulling back NOW!”

  “Chill man, I’m with the trucks. We sent the backup radio forward to Mark like you asked.”

  David hit transmit again.

  “Mark, or whoever has the radio. Respond!”

  Silence.

  “Mark, what is going on? Respond, over!”

  Nothing.

  Then Cassie was back.

  “Uhh, David is it? What is going on?”

  “Cassie, get the convoy ready to evacuate NOW! We have seen a massive zombie counterattack incoming on Terminal A! We are heading back to your position now. Mark, dammit respond over!”

  Again there was silence.

  After a minute Cassie was back. “We need more information! What’s going on.”

  At this point David was running, Billy following him and Bessie dashing to cover the ground back to Terminal A.

  He barely heard Cassie’s voice coming over the radio in his hand.

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  “Uhh David, don’t be mad. Well, we uhh might have turned off the backup radio to like save the battery, you know?”

  David didn’t reply, he just tried to run faster.

  The assault on the customs hall was going well. They had ended up launching their attack through baggage reclaim and had baited the zombies out down the silent escalators with predictable results.

  The first zombies emerged into the kill zone. Gunfire erupted in controlled bursts. Headshots, center mass, methodical elimination. Bodies piled up in the entrance, creating an obstacle course that slowed the ones behind.

  More zombies pushed through, climbing over their fallen kin with no regard for self-preservation. Camila's melee fighters engaged the ones that made it past the initial fire, finishing them with brutal efficiency.

  Sarah's ice magic created slick patches on the ground, sending zombies sprawling. Charlie's firebolts punched through clusters, buying the shooters time to reload.

  It was working. The tactics were working.

  The fight at the escalators continued for another five minutes. They cleared dozens of zombies that shuffled down from above. Things got so bad that as the tide slowed they had to clear the bodies to access the escalators to get up and continue deeper into the building.

  Mark’s team was still scouring the departure areas so Carl ordered his teams to start checking for survivors.

  “Here! Here! I got one! She’s got a pulse!”

  The shout changed everything. With a ragged cheer everyone fanned out, starting to check bodies. More cries arrived in short order. There had been a huge crowd around two of the baggage carousels, flights arrived from wherever. The screens were dead so they couldn’t tell.

  People started to drag survivors out of the mess arranging them to haul upstairs.

  Finally, with a semblance of organization restored they were ready to move on.

  "Clear! Now get organized people!" Carl yelled. "Fire teams, secure the stairs. Melee fighters, prepare to move up and sweep the customs and immigration areas."

  They pushed up cautiously, weapons ready. The immigration checkpoint was a scene of frozen chaos. Bodies everywhere. There had been hundreds of people waiting here, dozens of immigration officials. There was abandoned hand baggage everywhere.

  And among it all, survivors. Fewer signs of those who were awake, and thankfully less signs of tragedy.

  "We're here to help!" Camila called out. "If you can move come to the sound of my voice. If you need help call out!”

  A couple of people emerged from hiding. Crying, terrified, grateful. Katie moved to help them. Everyone was checking those who were down. Too many were dead, perhaps ready to start moving but without David they couldn’t tell.

  Carl looked on, watching AR-15 at the ready. Something nagged at him. So many bags, relatively fewer survivors. Check. Camila and Katie helping people. Check.

  Charlie had an odd look on his face, screwed up like he was doing Math. Carl moved over to stand by him, both of them on overwatch as most of the others checked for survivors. Yells of triumph bringing the tally up every few seconds.

  Even though he wasn’t here David’s paranoia was infecting them. He had been muttering about something being off since they got here. Carl didn’t see it. Dozens of zombies killed, hundreds of people to check up here.

  Then it hit him. So he moved over to Charlie.

  “Uhh, Charlie. Do the numbers seem off to you? Hundreds of people to check. Dozens of zombies eliminated to get here. Shouldn’t that be you know, flipped?”

  Charlie shook his head. “Dude, not necessarily. We know lots of bodies don’t move for a while. Healthy travellers might well not be succumbing early so the zombies should be lagging behind…”

  “You sure son? We got folks who are awake and every evidence to suggest zombies get up faster…”

  Charlie shook his head. “Look, we have the morning rush of people coming in. piling up here. We can see there are like six pieces of…”

  Then he trailed off before continuing.

  “Uh, dude I don’t mean to alarm you but I’m pretty sure there are more people down being checked than we cleared zombies below. And based on the number of bags lying around that doesn’t add up.”

  “So, we’re missing a whole heap of zombies?” Carl spoke softly, calmly.

  “Yep, so where the hell are they?” Charlie wasn’t quite so calm. Not panicking but still his heart rate was up.

  “We need David and his zombie sensing ability. Can we get him on the horn?”

  “Um, I don’t think we have the backup radio yet…”

  “Well shit.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Let’s not go start a panic, why don’t you head back to Mark’s people and see if you can scare that radio up. Tell Mark to keep his eyes open and get his people to watch out for our passel of missing zombies.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to have a chat with Camila and start being drill…”

  Both of them heard it. Distant, muffled. The crack of gunfire, panicked shouts.

  From behind them.

  Carl didn’t wait barking out loudly. “Heads up! We got gunfire, that means incoming! Stop checking folks and FORM UP!”

  With his yell the excited hubbub, the activity of saving people trickled to a halt. People looked shocked. Then they started to listen.

  Camila started giving orders. “Melee fighters, move the identified survivors inside our formation!”

  Carl barked “Belay that! We need to get back and help our people. The only guns out there are support folks and not all of them are even packing!”

  Seeing Camila gearing up to argue he spoke sharply “They are not in danger, whoever is firing is. Let’s go!”

  Camila turned to argue “NO, Puta! The shooting has stopped, it’s just a stray zombie. Nothing to worry about. Send a few people to check while we help here.”

  Carl shook his head in frustration and started walking towards her. Charlie didn’t wait and just blurted out for everyone to hear. “Camila, listen to him. We did a nose count and there are a lot of bodies missing. Just look at the bags.”

  Now everyone was looking around as more distant gunfire rang out.

  Katie broke the deadlock with an urgent plea.

  “Stop fighting, Mark is back there with all the support people. We need to help! Now.”

  With a final shared glance Camila gestured for Carl to take point.

  “Allright! Let’s go people. Nice and organized. Buddy up.” After a few seconds he spoke again. “Now team up and let’s head in that direction, remember we cleared the customs hall but we are hearing shots…”

  They started moving, dropping down the stairs into the baggage reclaim, nothing. Sweeping towards the exits they still saw nothing.

  The gunshots sounded again, louder now though still distant, muffled by the last barrier between them and the curbside areas. Nobody was panicking, but they were moving faster.

  They burst through the last door leading out to the meeting area they had already swept. Things were quiet again.

  The sight that confronted them chilled the blood. They could see through the plate glass windows to the street. There were hundreds of zombies teeming out there flowing like a shambling tide along the streetside face of the terminal but not yet entering.

  From above, where the only people with guns should be moving in and out of the terminal as they rescued people they heard movement and distant shouts, followed by the crack of a pistol then the roar of a shotgun.

  There were at least some zombies above them…

  Standing alone, apparently confused was a survivor. A lone woman, perhaps in her fifties or sixties. Brown skin marked with the freckling associated with long years spent in the sun, greying hair tied in neat braids tumbling round her head. She was wearing the kind of comfortable tracksuit some people like to travel in an her face was tilted towards them making it easy to see the fixed gaze and slightly milky eyes of a blind woman.

  As they spilled into the hall her head turned towards them and she called out.

  “Who’s there? Help! Where is everyone! What is going on?”

  Camila reacted first. “Ma’am you’re in danger. We need to move fast, can I take your arm to guide you?”

  Carl assessed the situation. “Quick, grab her. We need to get up the stairs and find our people. We have to hold the check in area to get everyone out.”

  Camila reached the woman and quickly started guiding her towards the stairs with a constant low stream of information warning the woman what to expect.

  Carl kept barking orders. “Steady, don’t fire on them, they are still outside. Even when they get in hold your fire!” They kept moving, reaching the escalator and preparing to push up.

  Then the trap closed. The first fire team was on the stairs upwards when they froze. There was movement above. Zombies, a lot of zombies which had been pulled back from the escalator now streamed forward to block their advance.

  At the same time zombies started streaming in through multiple street entrances, rushing towards them.

  Charlie’s eyes widened. "That's not normal zombie behavior."

  "They waited for us," Carl realized. "We can’t get back now, not in time."

  "Madre De Dios, it’s an ambush. Just like we did to them." Camila spoke softly, shocked.

  The zombies didn’t wait, rushing towards them. Even as the first shots rang out Carl started to yell orders and Camila spoke softly to the blind woman.

  “Get ready, I have to go and fight but someone will guide you to safety.”

  Then she raised her voice “Carl, we have to get out now. Pick a direction and break up the zombies then my group will charge.”