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by Angie

  “Inside,” the boy waved the gun in the desired direction.

  They marched her into the cool, quiet of the church building. It smelt nice at first, wood polish and the lingering scent of flowers. It was peaceful, still. Her shoulder beat in time with her steps. The farther they got down the dark red strip of carpet toward an open internal door, the more a pungent odor rose to greet them.

  She knew the stench. Once she had caught it, it was all she could smel . The rank and putrid stink of rotting flesh. A low moan echoed up from below. Everything in her slowed in horror.

  Al shook her head, trying to step back. “No! No.”

  “I can thoot you in the leg now and we’ll drag you down there,” Owen pressed the butt of his gun to her thigh. “Your choice.”

  The lack of options beat her about the head. Her ears filled with gray noise. Her steps toward the dark, open door were small, measured, and each and every one took a year off her rapidly dwindling life.

  “Down the thteps. Don’t try anything thith time.” Owen tapped her head once more with the pistol in warning.

  Andy led the way with his gun and flashlight.

  Below, the cel ar was lit with candles, big and small. Altar candles. The room glowed with light. Rachel was chained to an overhead beam, a dog collar around her swollen, gray neck. She had been fighting her imprisonment. One hand tugged at the collar while the other reached out to the three of them, bloody lips spread wide. The chain jangled as she tested her reach. It almost sounded merry.

  Ali searched for an escape route. There was a line of three small windows halfway between them and Rachel. Pity about the guns pointed at her. The room wasn’t very neat, not up to church standards. Old candelabras and brass vases were scattered about on the tabletop closest. A line of shelves filled with junk covered the far wal .

  “Rachel went to see her dad,” Andy said, his voice breaking. “He was hanging around the section of the wall up by the railway yard, trying to get in. She didn’t understand … infected don’t …”

  “You think she would want to live like this?” Ali clung onto her wounded arm.

  “We can look after her. There’s no reason she can’t still have a good life.” Andy threw back his shoulders, stood tall. “We can do that for her.”

  “We will do that for her,” Owen corrected. He spat a wad of bloody saliva onto the ground and Rachel snarled, yanking on the chain.

  “People wil find out,” said Ali.

  “People need to change their minds about infected. You’ll help with that.” Andy flicked off his flashlight and set it on a nearby table.

  His gun trembled in his hand.

  “How?”

  “We’ll turn you. Your men won’t let them hurt you. They’l have to let Rachel thtay too,” Owen supplied, a wary eye on the homicidal maniac leashed up in the corner. “It’ll work.”

  “No, it won’t. My men will put a bullet in my head and give me a decent burial.” The two idiots dealt her dubious looks.

  “Bullthit,” Owen growled and spat some more blood on the floor. “They would never kill you.”

  “You're wrong,” she said. “They would never let me suffer, like you're letting Rachel. I guarantee it.”

  “We can’t let you go. I guess that makes you dinner.” Andy swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple leaping in his scrawny neck, despite the tough words.

  “You really think you can kill someone?” Ali asked. “It’s not like you imagine it would be, Andy. It’s not fast, no matter how quick they die. It stays with you. Plays over and over in your head til you think you’re gonna lose it.”

  The boy’s eyelids went into overdrive, fluttering like a fan. His gun dipped, trembling.

  She almost felt sorry for the idiot when he teared up.

  “We love her,” the boy sobbed.

  “Enough!” Owen jabbed the barrel of his gun into her head and pushed her backward, toward Rachel. “Think you’re tho fucking thmart.”

  “How’s your tongue?” she enquired, her own voice cracking. Back they went. Her hold on her arm slipped and slid, her palms damp with sweat. “Cause you’re still sounding pretty shitty, Owen.”

  Rachel growled and Owen repeated it.

  Closer and closer.

  “Can I just say, you are one sick fuck of an individual. How did it feel, killing Lindsay?”

  The young man’s eyes fired with rage and his bloody teeth clenched.

  “It was you, wasn’t it? Just because she called poor little Rachel names.”

  “Sthe detherved it!”

  “Right, course she did. You’re one sick puppy, Owen. Honest to goodness, deep down where it counts, you really are. You are all fucked up, my friend.”

  She could almost feel Rachel’s stale, fetid breath on the back of her neck, hear her snapping and snarling next to her ear. Fear stiffened every hair on her body. Pain brought tears to her eyes. Fucked if she was dying here.

  Being marched backward to her doom had only one positive. Ali kicked the prick in the balls with her bad leg. Gave it her al .

  She didn’t want to die. But taking a bullet to the brain from Owen versus getting munched on by Rachel was a no brainer.

  She’d take the bullet.

  Owen howled and clutched at his junk, gun forgotten in his agony. Ali skipped aside and shoved the prick with all her might while he was still doubled over. Balance gone, Owen stumbled into the waiting clutches of his infected girlfriend.

  Rachel fell upon him with malevolent glee. The infected woman had a good grip on her prey, fingers gouging into his flesh as she tore at the side of Owen’s neck with her teeth. Owen’s gun slid behind Rachel, out of Ali’s reach. The man screamed, and Andy ran toward the couple, caught in their morbid embrace.

  The still sobbing boy started yelling something, but Ali didn’t stop to listen. Hel no. She made straight for the stairs. Her shoulder throbbed and her bruised leg dragged behind her in her haste.

  Shards of wood hit her bare feet and the noise of Andy’s gun firing echoed through the concrete room, bouncing off the wall at top volume. The sound made her ears sing.

  No stopping. Again and again, he fired wildly.

  Owen screamed.

  The top of the stairs was so close, if she could only reach the door. There were no footsteps behind her, only Rachel’s snarls and Owen’s wailing.

  Andy didn’t follow her.

  Ali hauled herself up onto the small landing, threw herself through the door and slammed it shut. There was no lock, and the heavy christening font would need two good arms to shift it. She had to keep going.

  Down the red carpet and through the shadowy church. She bumped off the ends of pews like a pinball. Her choppy breathing and the muffled yel s from below were the only noise.

  The side door was unlocked and she threw herself through it, emerging out into the open air.

  Thank fuck.

  Her body ached but she couldn’t stop yet. Ali hustled her ass into the pick-up, the key stil helpfully sitting in the ignition. It wasn’t like people stole cars anymore. She pushed in the clutch and shoved the gear stick into neutral, turned the key. Every movement was awkward and slow with her one good hand all over the place. The engine didn’t care, it roared to life.

  Lift-off.

  Ali threw it into reverse and the pick-up truck shot backward like a rocket, taking out a panel of the wire fencing. A bullet cracked the front windscreen and her foot slipped.

  The engine stal ed.

  Andy started walking toward her, tear tracks lining his face.

  She swore, threw it into first and turned the key, wincing at the stabbing pain and keeping her head down, lest Andy’s aim improved.

  The truck took flight again and she was off. Bullets slammed into the side door as she careened past the little prick, almost clipping him along with another section of fencing. Her foot nearly slipped again when she jumped the curb but no, no way.

  Ali roared down the quiet street.

  Thing
s were happening in her rearview mirror. People wandered out onto the footpaths, weapons in hand, alerted by the shooting.

  Final y.

  Andy took off at a run, disappearing into the darkness behind her. She wasn’t alone. The little prick was not going to get to kill her.

  Not today. A noise came from low in her throat, relief and anxiety and fear.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Ali eased up on the pedal, turned the corner one-handed in a great arc of a circle and headed back toward Main Street.

  The group on the corner had grown. There was help. The pick-up slowed to a crawl, seemingly of its own volition. Strength seemed to be seeping straight out of her as the adrenalin eased.

  It was Santa who threw the truck door open, surprise and concern dragging at his face. His mouth hung open. “Ali? What the …”

  “Finn’s shot. Back at the apartment.”

  “What?” His bushy brows met. “Who?”

  “Owen,” she said. The big man scrunched his face up at her and she lost it, yel ing at him. “Owen shot him and took me to the church.

  He and Andy have got Rachel there, she’s infected. Do something for once, would you?”

  “I’ll check on Finn.” Erin said from behind him and took off at a run.

  “Good.” Ali rubbed gingerly at her shoulder, tried to catch her breath. “That’s good.”

  Santa gave her a dubious sidelong glance and pulled a walkie-talkie from his belt, pushed the button. “Tom, anything happening at the front gate?”

  “Nuh —” was all the man got out before the sound of more shots came from exactly that direction.

  One. Two. Three shots. Then an almighty tempest of gunfire. Andy had lost it, too.

  “Give me a gun.” She crawled out of the pick-up and shoved her good hand at Santa.

  “You’re hurt. Stay out of the way.”

  At the sound of shots, the people he had been standing with had started back down Main Street, running toward the gate. Santa followed at his heftier pace.

  Ali followed the path Erin had taken and hobbled toward home, her arm nursed against her chest. Finn was propped against their downstairs front door, a gun in each hand. His skin was pasty and covered in streaks of blood.

  Erin slipped out of the doorway beside him and sprinted toward the front gate.

  Ali burst into violent tears, startling herself. They ran down her face unchecked while she crossed the distance between them. “You’re alive.”

  “Course I’m alive. He only got me in the shoulder.” Finn gave her a lingering kiss, eyes squeezed tight. When they opened, he had his game face on. “Where’s Owen?”

  “Dead, I think. And Andy’s at the front gate.”

  “That’s where Dan headed to get help looking for you. What’s wrong with your arm?”

  “Dislocated, maybe?”

  “Al,” Finn sighed. “Upstairs and stay there. Lock the door. Lock every damn door.”

  “You just got shot!”

  “I field-dressed it. Go on.” Finn turned and broke into a steady if slow jog.

  A chorus of moaning rose in volume down the street. But it wasn’t enough to drown out the noise of the garbage truck serving as the settlement’s front gate chugging to life.

  Andy was going to let in the infected. The whole settlement was dead.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Daniel had an aneurysm. He could feel it. Without a doubt it was going to pop if he didn’t find his girl right fucking now.

  He jogged down Main Street, his small semblance of calm thinning with Finn’s blood on his hands. He rubbed his palm on his jeans, spread his fingers out and wiped off the blood in between them. His gun was slippery.

  The kid was alright. He was on his feet, swearing like a trooper and finishing padding the bullet wound in his shoulder.

  Daniel headed up the search party. The group gathered at the Blackstone gate would do fine for his search and rescue squad.

  Someone here had to know where Owen would have taken her.

  He dodged the tractor they had been tearing up the tarmac with, less than 50 meters out when he saw Andy. Then, Daniel’s feet faltered.

  The young man came streaking out from beneath the shadows of a line of shop awnings to the east. He held a small sub-machine gun in his hands. The weapon pointed straight at the four men standing clueless by the garbage truck.

  Andy’s mouth opened in a silent scream. A war cry.

  “No!” Daniel raised his pistol, fired off three shots in the boy’s direction.

  Andy started firing. His victims were clustered so close they didn’t stand a chance. The four men toppled, torn apart by the volley of bullets. Blood sprayed the road, the truck. It went everywhere, bright and beautiful in the light of the rising moon.

  Andy’s head turned and the weapon followed. Bullets sprayed up stone at Daniel’s feet. He threw himself behind the tractor, hitting the ground hard while bullets punched into metal. His teeth clinked and his shoulder sang, jarred by the impact.

  Then the bullets stopped. The sudden silence chil ed him to his bones. His ears stil echoed with the inferno of noise from a moment ago.

  Shit.

  Daniel pushed to his feet, feeling every day of his forty-odd years. He snuck a look around the side of the tractor and his gut plunged.

  Andy was climbing into the cab of the garbage truck, slamming the door shut. “Oh, no.”

  He aimed at the door, firing at the little prick as the truck came to life like some monster of old. Or maybe more akin to the monsters of new. The infected were wel revved up – moaning and snarling on the other side of the big machine.

  “What happened?” A hand clapped down on his shoulder and one of Santa’s buddies puffed to a stop beside him.

  Others didn’t stop to ask questions, opening fire on the garbage truck’s front windscreen. Glass shattered. Inside the cab Andy jerked and fell, spread across the steering wheel. His head was a ruined, red mush.

  It didn’t matter. Mission accomplished.

  Andy had managed to reverse back two, maybe three meters. He had almost cleared one lane of traffic and it was more than enough.

  The infected spilled into town.

  Gunfire filled his ears. Daniel ejected his empty clip, reached for the spare in his back pocket. A weird kind of calm took him over.

  His hands held perfectly steady. They were fighting for their lives now. No question about it.

  More of the townsfolk arrived, standing alongside him, taking aim. Before them, bodies staggered and flopped and fell, soon replaced by more. The horde gathered on the bridge and along the fence lines poured through the gap in their defenses. Some fell upon the four men Andy had kil ed until a hive of moving limbs surrounded the bodies.

  Several tried unsuccessfully to climb the front of the garbage truck to get at Andy.

  There were too many of them pouring through to get close enough to reach the truck and close the gap.

  Close by, something howled, loud, long and mournful. More joined in and the noise eclipsed al the weapons with ease. Yipping and snapping sounds came from the other side of the truck.

  “What the fuck was that?” Santa looked as good as Daniel felt, cheeks puffed up and purple.

  “At a guess?” he yel ed back at the man. “The dogs Ali saw, or something like them.”

  Santa blanched, turned and hollered, “More guns in the hardware.”

  Daniel grabbed his thick wrist. “Where’s Owen?”

  Santa squinted, shook his head. “Your woman’s fine. Sent her home.”

  It was all he needed to know. The relief was exquisite. Breathtaking. He stupidly grinned, ignoring the look from one of the townsfolk near him. The apocalypse could wait. Or not.

  The assembled were slowly being pressed back by the onslaught of infected. Some were slipping through the gap to collapse mere meters before them, but others were spreading out into the town.

  This was not a fight they were likely to win.

  �
�She’s safe.” Finn elbowed in beside him, a rifle slung over one shoulder and a pistol in each hand. The front of his shirt was stained dark with blood and there was a tangle of bandages spanning from around his neck to beneath his left arm. An almighty wad beneath his left collarbone, where the bullet had hit.

  “You’re a walking happy meal looking like that.” Daniel jutted his chin at the kid’s chest.

  “They won’t get close enough.” Finn took aim, popped off a few rounds. “We need to get her somewhere safe. This is going to go south.”

  Screams echoed from one street over as infected found prey.

  Back down the street more people hurried, loaded down with weapons. More still would be locking down in hopes of surviving by staying put, others loading up to run. He doubted any had planned for this.

  The first dog came through, red eyes ablaze and bloody foam dripping from its jaws. Fucking hell. Daniel had never seen anything like it. The hot stench of urine hit his nose as someone pissed themselves nearby. More than one on the front line turned tail and ran.

  Finn shoved his pistols into his jeans pockets and drew the rifle from his back, the both of them walking backward. “I want you to get her out.”

  “If we’re leaving, we all go together.”

  Finn fired and the first dog fell, its body flung aside by the force of the bullet and its own momentum. Two more jumped atop the growing mound of dead bodies to take its place. “Stop talking. Start moving.”

  “She won’t go without you.”

  “Make her.”

  “Finn, neither wil I.”

  The horde had them on the run. People appeared in upstairs windows, seeking shelter and a decent firing position off the street.

  There was more screaming in the back streets of Blackstone as the infected spread.

  Finn swore, lined up another shot and pulled the trigger, dropping a second of the hellhounds.

  “We’re just going to leave these people to die?” asked Daniel.

  And they were dying. The front line was a jagged, hole-ridden thing, doing little to stop the barrage of infected, let alone the dogs.

  A truck pulled up behind them, headlights on ful , casting shadows across the crowd of infected. It lit things up nicely for the shooting gal ery. If anyone but his girl had been behind the driver’s seat, he would have thanked them.