by Lora Powell
"What's going on?" I directed my question to Colton.
"There's a lot of them. And the noise is drawing the zombies."
"Maggie?"
"I don't know. She and Dante started to run when Charlie first fired. I lost track of them."
"Why are they still fighting?" I had thought that without their leader, maybe the other group would back off.
"Charlie missed. Or he moved at the last second. I don't know what happened, but the guy with orange hair was still alive the last I saw him."
The revelation stunned me into silence. Mack was still alive. Our plan to get him first had failed.
SIXTY-FOUR-DAY 29
A loud crash back at the front of the house had Colton running from the room.
"How many of them can there possibly be?" Bill muttered to himself as he dodged more bullets.
"Too many," Shawn answered him. "This is taking too long and making too much noise. We have to end it."
Another loud crash rocked the house. Shouting followed. Whatever was happening out there, things sounded like they were going worse than back here. With a last look at the pair of guys trying to guard the back, I bolted back to the front.
I leapt over the blood pool that had spread from the man who had almost shot me and darted into the next room. Or what was left of it. Someone had drove a small car through the front of the house.
The mangled front end of the little red sedan had smoke rolling from under the hood. Maya and Alex were struggling to keep from being slashed by a tall man with a frighteningly large knife. Alex's twisted ankle was slowing him down enough that he was practically defenseless, leaving Maya to try to save him.
Colton was there too, but he had his hands full trying to stop the group of zombies that were crawling their way into the house around the wreckage of the car. I took a step towards him to help, but he caught my movement out of the corner of his eye. Looking over, he hissed, "Help them!"
Changing direction, I approached the knife fight. The man, who had been looking smug, grew more worried when he realized that someone else was in the room. His attack changed to defense, giving Maya a much needed breather.
I'd never purposefully attacked another human before. Not that I had any qualms over it, I would defend my family however was needed, but I didn't know how to go about it. Frowning, I attempted to circle around the guy, leaving him in a position where either Maya or I were always at his back.
Seeing what I was doing, he lunged at me with that knife. I barely dodged out of the way, avoiding getting a slice that would have probably killed me slowly. His attack sent Rex, who had followed on my heels into the room, into his own charge.
He didn't make a sound as he leaped through the air and bit down hard on the arm holding the knife. The man didn't have time to even react before Maya swept in behind him and stabbed him in the back.
There was no time to stop or contemplate what had just happened. Colton was slowly losing the battle to keep the zombies out. Whirling around, I darted to help him, using the machete on several zombies. By the time the last one had been killed, the hole that the car had punched through the wall was partially filled with corpses.
The gunfire was slowing down. I hoped that meant that we were winning, and not that we were running out of ammo. The front of the house was quiet for the moment, so I turned around and ran back toward the back.
I hadn't made it to the kitchen yet when I knew that something had changed while I was gone. I no longer heard the sound of bullets raining into the kitchen. Instead, there was an ominous silence. Sliding to a stop, I peered around the corner before rushing into the room.
It was empty.
The door still hung open. The dead zombies still lay on the floor, but Shawn and Bill were both missing.
I had a flash back to Shawn's words just before I'd ran from the room. "No! They wouldn't be that stupid," I said it out loud. In reality, I knew that leaving the protection of the house was exactly the kind of thing that they would do, if they thought they were saving their people.
"What's wrong?" Maya had come in behind me.
"Shawn and Bill were here two minutes ago. Now they're not." I looked at her, distressed.
Her eyes darted around, assessing. "That foolhardy man," she headed for the open door.
Following Maya, I exited into the backyard. No one shot at us, so I guessed that was a good sign. Maybe we weren't running out of bullets after all.
A single shot rang from around the side of the house. Trying to be stealthy in the open yard wasn't really happening, so the two of us just ran as fast as we could toward the sound.
Rounding the corner of the house, I almost crashed into Maya's back. She had come to a sudden stop. The reason was easy to figure out. There, in the small stretch of grass between this house and the next, we found Bill and Shawn. And Mack, holding a gun to Maggie's side.
"The gang's all here!" He sang mockingly, flashing a predatory smile at us. "That's good news. Things are getting a little too hot here for my comfort, but I didn't want to go without two of you. Even better, now I've got four."
Maggie looked supremely ticked off, but other than a bruise that was already forming on her cheek, she seemed ok. I eyed the gun, wondering how proficient Mack was with it without his arm. His grip looked steady.
The others must have been wondering the same thing as they all had stopped a wary distance from him.
"Now, I don't know who this lovely lady is, but I don't as of yet have any quarrel with her. You four, on the other hand, well. That ship has sailed. So, how about we all walk on over to my truck, nice and easy, and you all use the duct tape in the back to tie each other up. Don't give me any problems and I won't have to kill this pretty thing."
There was no way I was going to follow those instructions, but I couldn't just let Maggie die. The others looked as conflicted as I was, and Maggie wasn't giving us any hints on what to do. She stood stiffly, face blank.
The sickening smirk on Mack's face slipped a little. He jabbed the end of the gun at Maggie, "I don't like repeating myself."
Not sure what else to do, I took a slow step toward the road, mind racing to come up with a plan. I didn't know how we would rescue Maggie without getting one of us killed in the process. I'd taken another step when something caught my eye.
Charlie was leaning around the front corner of the house, rifle aimed.
Too busy trying to keep an eye on the four of us, Mack failed to notice the biggest threat of all. She didn't miss the second time.
"Gotcha that time, asshole," Charlie looked like she had been vindicated. Everyone else looked stunned. They must have missed her approach too.
Wiping the bits of blood that had splattered on her face and neck, Maggie sprang back into action. "Is everyone ok?"
"Everyone who was in the house is just fine," Charlie limped her way to our group. "Dante?"
Maggie frowned and shook her head, before starting toward the back door. "We need to get everyone and get out of here. Now."
It didn't take long to gather the rest of our group and get out of there.
The sun was higher in the sky than I would have expected. Growling from what sounded like at least a dozen zombies, sounded like it was coming from a couple of yards over. It wouldn't be long before they made it to us. At least, it seemed, any fast zombies within hearing distance had already reached us and been dealt with. The ones that were showing up now were the slow variety, not that that would be much help if too many of them came at once.
Maggie cautiously edged her way out of the house at the lead of our group. We were fairly sure that all of Mack's followers were either dead, or had run away, but there was no way to know for certain.
Luna was hanging on to the tail of my shirt and her tight grip was causing my shirt to rub uncomfortably on my neck. I knew the kid had been terrified to be left alone in the dark bathroom. The experience must have brought back her ordeal, trying to survive all alone, waiting for her mother to come
for her, so I didn't say anything.
After the noise from the fight, the silence that had now settled over the street was even stranger than it had been before. It seemed heavy and expectant.
We crept down the driveway. I stepped carefully over the body of a zombie and then over another body, this one one of Mack's men. We were nearly to the street when Rex suddenly darted away from the group and toward the black pick-up that was parked sideways in the street.
The dog circled the truck fast before jumping up to put his front paws on the side of the bed. Trying to peer over the side, he whined.
Shawn looked over his shoulder at me worriedly. The group shifted uncomfortably before Maggie, Bill, and Shawn started toward the truck. Hanging back a few seconds, morbid curiosity got the best of the rest of us as we followed a few steps behind them.
Bill was the first to see what was inside the truck, naturally. The stricken look on his face alerted the others that they weren't going to like what they saw. The next second, Shawn and then Maggie both looked inside.
We were close enough to the truck now that I noticed the steadily dripping red that was escaping from the tailgate end of the truck and pooling in a large puddle on the pavement. I watched it drip for a second before swallowing hard and taking another step.
I stepped right into a hard chest. Eyes finally coming away from that puddle of red, I found Shawn right in front of me. "Don't," he shook his head at me slightly.
"Who is it?" My voice was steadier than I felt.
"Don't look, ok?" He waited for me to nod agreement before he answered. "Fallon."
I blinked at him, trying to sort through myriad complicated emotions. There was anger, and fear, and grief. But overwhelmingly, I was just tired.
"We need to get out of here before too many zombies show up," Charlie backed away from her fast look into the back of the truck.
"At least she's been spared the indignity of turning," Maggie gently turned Bill away from the sight. "Charlie's right. We need to get out of this area while we still can."
SIXTY-FIVE-DAY 30
Being so close to a previously populated area had a few perks. It hadn't been hard to find another house to spend the night in, a few miles away from the scene of the fight. It also hadn't been hard to find a couple of vehicles with full gas tanks and enough food and water to give us a good start.
As soon as the sun was up, we were gone. We didn't have much of a plan except to go South, keeping watch for a place to start over along the way.
We still had more questions than answers, but we were the ones who had survived. That had to count for something.
Ahead of us, a small face surrounded by wildly curly hair appeared in the back window of the suv. Waving, Luna smiled when I waved back at her, before disappearing back into their vehicle. Smiling a little, I had no idea how my face could even still make that expression, I turned to look at Shawn driving beside me.
Then again, the world as we knew it had ended, but in the chaos, I had found family. That was certainly something to smile over.
Shawn felt me staring and looked my way. He smiled a little back at me. Not the full blown grin that I loved, it was too soon for that, but it was enough.
As long as we had each other, it was enough.
"We're going to be ok," he echoed my thoughts.
"Yeah."
"Yes, we are," Maya chimed in from the back seat.
I nodded, "It's not going to be easy. People are only going to get worse."
"We stay together," Shawn quietly said. "No matter what happens next, it's going to be ok so long as we have each other."
To be continued…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lora Powell is an enthusiast of reading who especially loves all things paranormal. Completing this book has been the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. She lives in a small farming community in Pennsylvania, along with her husband and daughter.