Resident Evil_ Extinction - Keith R. A. DeCandido [71]
The crazy crows were turning into some kind of tornado in the sky. As soon as Claire said the word, they was out of there. Betty strapped herself into the driver’s seat and hit the ignition.
And nothing happened.
The engine was roarin’ away, but the ambo wasn’t moving. This did not give L.J. warm and fuzzy feelings.
“Dammit!” Betty yelled. L.J. could see that she was flooring the gas pedal.
“What the hell’s going on?”
“We’re stuck.”
Peering out the window, L.J. saw that the big storm had buried the ambo in sand. Then he looked up and saw that the rest of the convoy was booking the fuck out, and they needed to follow.
He opened the door with one hand and grabbed Betty’s arm with the other. “Come on!”
Betty looked at him for a second, looked at his hand on her arm, and finally nodded yes. They both ran out of the ambulance and headed toward the nearest vehicle, Otto’s school bus, which had a back entrance and everything.
Outside, the crazy crows were making loud flapping noises. The only flapping L.J. had ever really heard in his life was from pigeons, so it was a noise he always figured to be annoying but not scary.
But thousands of crazy crows flapping their wings was some scary shit.
He couldn’t help looking up and was real sorry he did, ’cause a bunch’a them crows was heading right for ’em. Whipping out his Beretta, he fired bullets into them. Betty did the same next to him, but it was like shooting into a fucking pond. Even if they did hit one or two of them birds, there was still hundreds of the motherfuckers.
One of the kids in the back saw them running and opened the emergency exit in the back for them. Betty leapt up onto the stair and ran in, L.J. right behind her fine-looking booty. Then he shut the door just as the crazy crows went crashing into the back door with a splat.
L.J. had seen some seriously disgusting shit in his time, so a bird going all kamikaze and shit into a school bus wasn’t no thing, but Betty and the kids screamed like they’d seen a fucking monster.
“Fuck me!” That was Otto.
Running to the front of the bus, L.J. and Betty saw that the rest of the birds were doing the same dive bombing act, slamming their beaks into the windshield and the side windows. It was like it was night all over again, with them crazy crows surrounding the school bus like fucking locusts.
Then the bus lurched and crashed to a halt. L.J. stumbled forward, and half the people in the bus fell on their faces.
Otto hit his fool head on the steering wheel. Rubbing his forehead, he turned around and said, “We hit something!”
“No shit,” L.J. said.
Then the windshield cracked.
Fuck.
Betty ran up to stand next to the driver’s seat and held the windshield in place. L.J. was right behind her, standing in the stairwell to the front door.
“Help us!” Betty yelled.
Freddie, Jared, Blair, and Dillon all ran forward and helped Betty, Otto, and L.J. brace the windshield.
Unfortunately, some of them crazy crows got in through the side windows. Dillon broke off and pulled out his Glock and started shooting. L.J. was about to call him a crazy motherfucker when he remembered that Dillon was the one who was a better shot than Carlos.
Over the PRC, L.J. heard Kmart cry out Claire’s name, and Claire responded, “Dammit!”
L.J. hoped that meant that the cavalry was getting their asses in gear.
The kids were all cowering at the back, screaming their heads off. L.J. saw a couple of crows heading for ’em, so he ran back and grabbed them, dashing their bird brains out on the bus wall.
At least one of them. The other one started pecking at his wrist—the same one he told Carlos he’d sprained—and L.J. winced at the pain as he slammed the motherfucking bird into the wall.
Fuck.
“Jared, no!” L.J. turned to see Jared panic and open the bus door, running toward the motel. Freddie pulled the door shut, but they could see Jared