Ground Zero

by Jessica Meigs

  He turned in either direction then signaled to Cade. He stayed in place as she moved forward ten yards past him and checked out the surroundings there. The others followed in their wake, well versed in the method they used to travel through formerly highly populated areas: Brandt and Cade taking turns in the lead and Ethan and Remy guarding the rest of the group. It was a method they’d developed when they went into areas congested with the infected to help out people stuck in bad situations, and it was the best method they’d developed yet. Even in Atlanta, which seemed like an entirely different world to him, he felt it was what they should stick with.

  “I’ve hardly seen anything at all,” Cade said as she passed him on her way to the lead almost half an hour later. They were, by his calculations, nearing Marietta Street, one of the busier thoroughfares in the downtown area. He figured they’d undoubtedly begin to run into serious trouble in that area. This close to the epicenter of the virus, though, they should have been seeing at least some infected. Instead, so far, he’d seen nothing. He caught Cade’s elbow to stop her.

  “I haven’t seen anything, either,” he replied. “It’s weird. There should be fucking infected all over the damn place. They should be practically pouring out of the woodwork, especially with fresh blood nearby.”

  “What’s going on up there?’ Ethan called. Brandt turned to glare at him and motioned for him to keep his voice down.

  “Shut the fuck up,” he hissed for good measure before looking back to Cade. Her eyes were wide and worried. “Something doesn’t feel right about this,” he admitted, his voice hushed and tight with stress. It felt like a struggle to get the words out. “Something just isn’t right about it, but I can’t put my finger on what it is.” He let out a frustrated breath, running a hand through his hair. “There should at least be…I don’t know, bodies.”

  Cade tightened her fingers on her rifle. “Yeah, with what you told me, this place should be crawling with infected.”

  “Shouldn’t be able to move ten damn yards without running into one,” he agreed.

  Remy jogged to them as he spoke. She was breathless, and a faint sheen of sweat decorated her forehead and the sides of her face. She looked concerned as she asked, “What’s going on?”

  “We were just—” Cade started.

  “Have you seen anything?” Brandt interrupted, putting a hand up to stop Cade.

  Remy blinked and jerked her head back as if she’d been struck. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Anything? Anything at all?” he persisted, his voice taking on a note of urgency. “Movement? Any infected? Any survivors? Animals? Birds? Fucking dogs or anything? Anything at all?”

  Remy shook her head slowly in response to his rapid-fire questions, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth. “No. No, none of us have.” She snorted slightly. “Fuck, you’d think you wanted to run into something,” she tried to joke. “Didn’t you know I’m the only one allowed to hope for that kind of shit?”

  “No, I don’t exactly want us to,” he said firmly, running a hand through his hair and blowing out a heavy breath. “We were just talking about how there doesn’t seem to be any—”

  A loud pop snapped out from somewhere nearby. The sound echoed off the buildings and street and magnified as it bounced off brick facades and back at them. Brandt blinked, turning to Cade. Her eyes were wider than ever as she stared at him.

  “Was that…was that what I think it was?” he asked.

  Before Cade could reply, another pop rang out. Ethan and Gray let out a shout of alarm. Brandt whirled around, lifting his rifle instinctively to his shoulder, and aimed it behind him, prepared to take out any infected that approached. He stopped just in time to see Avi stagger forward a step, a shocked expression on her face, her hand clutching her chest. Then she tumbled face down to the pavement. She lay on the black asphalt, unmoving. Blood began to pool beneath her body.

  “Jesus Christ,” Brandt gasped. His brain raced to catch up with his eyes, struggling to process the presence of blood, the lack of life in Avi’s body, the sound of gunshots that had reached their ears.

  Remy, too, seemed to finally comprehend what had happened. “Avi!” she shouted, starting to run toward the blond woman’s body. Two more shots rang out. Brandt lunged forward and caught Remy by her bicep, propelling her in the opposite direction.

  “Fucking run!” he ordered, shoving her and Cade forward. “She’s dead! Go! Scatter!”

  Brandt waited for the others to pass him, his eyes scanning the buildings for the shooter’s location, rifle raised and ready to fire. It was a terrible risk to take, to stand out in the open like this when someone was shooting at them. It was like painting a target on his ass and asking for the bullet. But he felt some level of responsibility for the others, and he would not allow them to die under his watch. Not any more of them.

  Another shot struck the pavement at his feet, sending up shards of black asphalt to bite at his shins through his pants. He stumbled back and swore out loud, starting to follow the others as several more shots rang out. Thankfully, none of them came close to actually hitting him, though he wondered if they were even trying.

  “Ethan! Find us some cover!” he shouted, dodging side mirrors and abandoned luggage among the cars that lined the street. Cade stumbled and almost fell, putting out a hand to catch herself against a blue truck before he could go to her aid. The echoing report of gunfire still rang in Brandt’s ears as he veered to the right, following the others into a dim alley that Ethan had chosen for cover. He only hoped none of the infected was sequestered in the alley, too.

  Thankfully, the alley was empty. Brandt skidded to a stop beside a dumpster, slumping back against the brick wall behind him and struggling to catch his breath.

  “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he growled once his breathing slowed enough for him to manage speech.

  “What the fuck was that?” Ethan demanded, jabbing an angry finger toward the mouth of the alleyway, his eyes hard as he glared at Brandt. As if it was his fault that someone out there had a gun.

  “Keep your damn voice down,” he snapped. “It was fucking…I don’t know, some asshole with an itchy trigger finger taking potshots at whatever the fuck moves.”

  “Guys?” Cade said softly.

  Brandt waved a hand at her to motion for her to quiet down as he glared at Ethan. “I told you it wasn’t a walk in the fucking park here,” he said. “There’s not just the infected to deal with in this city. There are survivors here. Avi told us so. And any given bunch of survivors is going to have at least one crazy little shit with a gun and too much time on their hands.”

  “Guys?” Cade said a bit louder.

  Brandt sighed and finally turned to Cade. “What, Cade?” he snapped. He didn’t mean to speak so harshly to her, but his irritation at Ethan had begun to override his senses.

  She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. That in itself was enough to stun his irritation straight into submission. She looked down and pulled her hands away from where she’d clasped them tightly to her side. He sucked in a sharp breath.

  Both of her hands were covered in blood.

  Even as he and Ethan both darted forward to catch her, Cade staggered sideways into the brick wall beside her and slid to the ground with a gasp of pain.

  “I think I’ve been shot,” she managed weakly.

  * * *

  Ethan lunged forward as Cade slumped over, and he reached her in three long strides. He caught her shoulders and helped her lie back on the pavement; then he tore at his clothes, pulling his jacket off. He wadded it up and stuffed it under her head for protection against the hard ground.

  “Remy, Gray, guard,” Brandt ordered as he joined Ethan at her side. The other two moved quickly to obey Brandt’s orders, their weapons out and ready. Brandt lowered himself to his knees beside Cade, smoothing his fingers over her side gently; his fingertips came back stained red. “Where at?”

  “Here,” Cade said breathlessly, touching her side
just below where his hand had stopped.

  Ethan could just make out a quantity of blood soaking into her dark jacket. He slid his hands underneath her back and helped her sit up slightly. “Come on, we need to get this off you so we can see, okay?” he said as Brandt unzipped her jacket.

  Cade grimaced as Brandt slid the jacket off her shoulders. When she lay back again, there was a faint sheen of sweat on her forehead from the exertion and pain. Brandt unbuttoned her flannel shirt and pushed it aside before gingerly grasping the hem of her bloodstained tank top and lifting it from her torso. Cade groaned when the material pulled away from her wound, and Ethan caught her hand and held it tightly, rubbing her skin soothingly. Brandt sucked in a sharp breath as he got a look at the wound.

  “What do you see?” Ethan asked, focusing on Cade’s face as she closed her eyes. Brandt shed his jacket and wrapped it around her side, pressing down hard. She choked back a muffled cry of pain, covering her mouth tightly with one hand.

  “In and out,” he replied hoarsely. “It’s ugly, but where it’s at, I don’t think it hit anything major.”

  “It hit me,” Cade ground out through gritted teeth.

  Ethan snorted and gave her hand a squeeze. “She’ll be okay?”

  “Yeah, as long as she doesn’t go into shock or lose too much blood,” Brandt said. He let the pressure off the makeshift bandage long enough to take a closer look at the still-bleeding wound before pressing down on it again. The pressure elicited another pained cry from Cade. “We’ve got to get the bleeding stopped. And we need bandages.”

  Remy looked back from her intent staring at the entrance to the alleyway, pulling a bag from her shoulder. She tossed it to Brandt, and it landed at his side with a soft thump. “It’s Theo’s bag,” she explained. “He shoved it at me before we left him.”

  “Thank God for Theo,” Ethan breathed. Brandt tore into the bag and pulled out first aid supplies as he searched for what he needed.

  “We have to hurry,” Brandt said suddenly, as if the thought had just occurred to him. “We’re not going to have much time.”

  “Much time for what?” Gray spoke up for the first time since they’d entered the city. He moved closer to them, gun in hand.

  “Much time until what,” Brandt corrected. He started to hastily bandage Cade’s side, pressing down to use the bandage to staunch the flow of blood. He wound gauze around her midsection rapidly to hold the padding in place. “The sound of those gunshots is going to draw the infected right to us.” He tied off the Kling gauze around her waist, a soft expression in his eyes as he double-checked the dressing and ran his knuckles along her jaw. “You going to be okay?”

  Cade let out a slow breath; her voice was strained when she spoke. “Yeah, I think so. it’s essentially superficial, right?”

  “Yeah, all things considered. You’re bleeding like a mother fucker, but it could have been worse.”

  Cade breathed out again and closed her eyes for the barest of moments. “We need to move,” she said. Ethan brushed her hair out of her face. She started to sit up, but a cry of pain slipped out past her lips, and he pushed his hands firmly against her shoulders, pressing her back down.

  “Lie down, Cade,” he ordered. “You need to take a few minutes to just rest.”

  Cade shook her head stubbornly. “There’s not enough fucking time for rest,” she objected, panting slightly, winded by the pain. “We have to get out of here. Just help me up.”

  “She’s right, Ethan,” Brandt said. “We don’t have time to wait.” He put his hands out to take hers in his own, and she gripped them tightly. Ethan moved to help, sliding his own hands under her shoulders to push as Brandt pulled. Between the two of them, they managed to help Cade back to her feet. She staggered woozily and caught herself against the wall, shaking her head as if to clear it. “Do you think you can make it to Luckie?” Brandt asked, his voice heavy with worry, and he rubbed a hand soothingly over her back.

  “I have to, don’t I?” Cade replied. She looked up, past Brandt and Ethan, to the entrance of the alleyway. “Now, about this bastard shooting at us.”

  “What do you propose we do?” Ethan asked, retrieving his jacket from the ground. He offered it to Cade, but she waved it away and continued to study the alley’s mouth.

  “I’m pretty sure if I can figure out where he’s positioned, I can take him out,” she said, tugging her tank top down to cover the gauze.

  “Are you sure?” he persisted. “I mean, I know you were a sharpshooter in Israel, but I don’t know if your rifle—”

  “My rifle is made for shit like this,” she replied. She motioned toward it where she’d propped it against the wall after they’d come into the alleyway, and Brandt picked it up and passed it to her. “I just need someone to hold me steady so I don’t fall over. And I need to draw him out to pin down his exact location.”

  “And how do you propose to do that?” Ethan demanded.

  “I need bait,” she replied.

  “Wait a minute,” Gray spoke up, stepping forward and putting up a hand as if to stop everyone. “What we’re talking about is the murder of another human being. It’s not right.”

  “Gray, Avi is dead because of another human being,” Ethan snapped. “I know you didn’t care for her too much, and I didn’t, either, but that doesn’t change the fact that she was one of us.”

  “It also doesn’t change the fact that I can’t move fast right now, and that bastard is going to start shooting again the minute we walk out of this alley,” she said. “I’m not willing to make it this far only to get taken down by some trigger-happy moron. And the infected could be converging on this area as we speak. We have to get out of here, and we can’t do that until he’s dead.”

  Gray shook his head, but he didn’t seem too intent on arguing the point any further, much to Ethan’s relief. He walked away, back to the alley entrance, and Cade leaned against the wall, exhausted, as she checked her rifle for damage. Her hands trembled, and she frowned as she tried to steady them.

  “So how do you propose we lure him out?” Brandt asked, pulling Cade’s hair back, his fingers deftly braiding it. Ethan watched silently, unable to help thinking of that night he’d accidentally witnessed the last time Brandt had done that for her. Brandt noticed him watching and added, “She won’t be able to aim if her hair’s blowing in her eyes.”

  Ethan nodded without comment as Brandt tied the braid off. “We need someone or something out in the street so I can figure out where the gunfire is coming from,” Cade said.

  “What about Avi?” Brandt suggested.

  She raised an eyebrow. “That’s a possibility,” she acknowledged.

  “Wait, what?” Ethan asked, lifting his own hand to stop them. “What’s going on? What do you mean about Avi and possibilities?”

  Brandt looked past Ethan to the alley’s entrance and swallowed hard. “We need to figure out the bullet’s trajectory to figure out which direction the shot came from so Cade has a baseline to start with to look for the shooter. The body is our biggest clue.”

  “I was looking right at Avi when she got shot,” Gray offered suddenly. Cade’s eyes were bright as she turned them onto Gray. Ethan noticed, as Gray spoke, that the younger man’s jacket was soiled with a faint spray of blood droplets. “She was standing right here,” he said. He grabbed Remy and moved her to stand by him, using her as a visual aid. “She was facing this way. You and Brandt and Remy were just ahead of us, right that way.” He pointed to an imaginary spot ahead of them. “She stood at a bit of a slant, toward me.” He shifted Remy a bit. “And she was asking something about how much further until we got to Marietta. The shot sounded, and it hit her in the back, right here.” He touched Remy’s back, to the inside of her left shoulder blade.

  “Kill shot,” Cade murmured. “That was no accident.”

  “She fell forward, like something had shoved her,” he continued describing. “But she didn’t fall toward me. It was more this way.” He jos
tled Remy again to indicate the direction Avi had fallen.

  Cade nodded slowly and tried to look at her own wound. “He’s definitely shooting from off the ground,” she agreed. “My entry wound in my back is higher than my exit wound, which means he was aiming downward. Maybe from a second- or third-story window.” She lifted her rifle and carried it to the opening of the alley. She walked slowly, keeping a hand pressed against the wall for support. Brandt followed closely behind her and watched her worriedly.

  Cade slid the barrel of her rifle over the corner of the wall. Her eyes focused as she aimed it in the direction they’d come, looking through the sight and studying the buildings behind them, trying to find one suitable for a sniper’s purpose. A faint grin crossed her face as she saw an opened window on the second floor of a building just a bit down the road from them.

  “I see him,” she whispered, spotting the faint glimmer of a hunting rifle’s scope as the sunlight reflected off of it. She edged closer to the corner of the building, and Brandt hooked an arm around her waist to steady her.

  “Take your time,” Brandt murmured. “Don’t worry about the infected. Just do what you do best.”

  Cade nodded and closed her eyes for a moment before letting out a slow breath, repositioning the rifle, and taking aim. A shot rang out, and she fell back, pushing against Brandt; he staggered and fell against Ethan, who barely caught himself against the dumpster beside him. A shard of brick shattered off the wall near Cade’s head and cut into her cheek. She wiped furiously at her face as a trickle of blood oozed down her cheek. “Jesus, fuck!” she yelped in surprise.

  “Are you okay?” Brandt asked. She looked back at him, and Ethan saw a look of determination in her eyes as her face flushed with anger, her chest heaving with adrenaline. Nothing was going to stop the woman from taking out her target, not now that he’d pissed her off so badly.