by Tera Shanley
Sean’s feet dragged as he shuffled into the front room to retrieve his backpack. He’d empty it of food and give it to Arden for his people. The dark puddle across the floor was smeared and drying, and he pulled up short at the shock of it. He couldn’t think of her. If he let his mind have her, he’d never get off the floor. He’d be useless to the rest of the team. After this was done and everyone was safe, he’d find some place far away and mourn her. He just couldn’t afford the suffering now—not with so many people depending on him. Not with Adrianna depending on him.
Pulling his glance away from the stain, he grabbed his backpack.
“You really trust Arden?” Finn whispered.
“Why shouldn’t I?” he countered tiredly. “He was one of us not too long ago. He’s done well to keep his people alive, and that’s what he’s doing now.”
“Exactly, Sean. He’s got people to protect.” His eyebrows drew into his hairline as he moved closer. “People do crazy things when they have people to protect.”
“Protect them from what? Us? We’re their only shot at getting out of here.”
Finn frowned and stepped back before admitting, “You have a point.”
“Sean?” came a small, shaking voice from the corner.
He jumped. She looked like she’d been standing there for a while, but he hadn’t even heard her come in.
“Do you remember me?” she asked.
Oh, he remembered Shay. She’d thrown herself in his path every chance she got after Aria turned. She’d been petite but voluptuous, with a confidence that enhanced her natural beauty. The waif that stood in front of him, however, was almost unrecognizable. Her eyes twitched this way and that, and with the gaunt and sunken set of her cheeks, they looked overly big and frightened. Her dark hair hung dull and unwashed around her shoulders, and the smile lines he remembered on the old Shay didn’t exist anymore.
He couldn’t wait to get them back to Dead Run River where Dr. Mackey could eventually get them healthy again. “Of course I remember you.” What did he say after all this time? Small talk seemed trivial to place in front of a person who’d suffered like she had.
She didn’t seem to need niceties though. “Come this way,” she said with a small wave.
“Don’t you need a jacket?” he asked, frowning at her bare arms.
“Don’t need one anymore,” she said with a smile that seemed at odds with her face.
“Do you want mine? Really, I’d feel more comfortable if you had something to protect yourself.”
“Don’t need protection. My body learned to protect itself.” Her head twitched. “S-Stop it.”
“I’m sorry? Stop what?”
“Come,” she said in a dreamy voice.
Finn tossed him a wide-eyed look, and Sean reloaded his weapons. No way were they trusting their fate to this poor mouse.
Guist came down the stairs, holding an armload of sheets, and Sean told him in a low voice, “Just to be safe, bar the auditorium door while I’m away. And tell Adrianna—Well, just tell her I’ll be home soon.”
“Why don’t you tell her yourself? She’s upstairs with Laney and Soren.”
“Because if I do, I won’t leave and this won’t get taken care of. Please, watch out for her.”
Guist gripped his shoulder roughly. “I will. Be careful.”
Shay led them to the office window Laney had snuck through the year before. Carefully, she pried a couple of loose boards down and crouched beneath the sill. Deads streamed to either outside corner of the house like they were being beckoned by something on the other side.
When the coast was clear except for one ambling Dead in a dingy pink dress, Shay slid open the silent window and slipped out.
“What about her?” Sean whispered. “She’ll attract the others.”
“No she won’t. That’s Josie. She don’t eat people no more.”
Josie almost looked familiar. Maybe if she had the bottom half of her face, he could place her. The starving Dead didn’t pick up her pace or even veer away from her stumbling destination, wherever that might be. She just watched them escape the house and went on her merry Dead way. It was the scariest thing Sean had ever seen.
An outdoor hallway had been erected a short distance away out of plywood, fence posts, and branches. The space was small and had to be taken sideways, but if Sean removed the rifle from his back, he could fit easy enough. Finn had more trouble and was scraping the wall on both sides with every step he took.
Shay whispered, “The Deads never figured out how to get in here.”
Clever.
After half an hour of moving steadily and quietly through the maze, Shay steered them to a fork that led to open evening light. “Not much further,” she breathed as she swayed dangerously.
“Are you okay?” Sean asked. “We can rest if you need to.”
“No, I’m all right. There’s a ladder that’ll lead us over the gate right through there. If there aren’t any Deads on this side, we can run along the wall without being seen, close it, and re-cross here.” The ply board behind her creaked as she fell backward into it.
“Whoa, Shay, I think you should stay here. You aren’t in any condition to climb a ladder and run a quarter mile.”
“Don’t leave me here alone.” Desperation touched her tone. “I have no weapons and they’ll come for me if I faint. Please, Sean. Just let me come.”
He shook his head and leveled Finn with a look.
“She’ll pass out on us before we even reach the ladder and we’ll be dragging dead weight,” he whispered.
Shay sagged and her breath came shakily. She was going down, and the small space wouldn’t allow it.
“Hey, is there a place that’s safe where we can let you rest a minute?”
“Uh, the old root cellar isn’t too far off, but it’ll waste time if we stop now. More Deads will get in the gates.”
“That can’t be helped. It’s either rest or we leave you here.”
“Please don’t.”
“All right, then show us the best way to get to the cellar without being seen.”
Moisture rimmed her dark eyes, and she pointed with a violently trembling finger. “That way.”
Backtracking, they took the opposite fork and walked back into a mouth of the hallway. The cellar stood at a slant against brambles and winter-dried weeds. It used to dwell in the shadow of a large cabin, but the home had burned and only half of the structure remained. Looking around with those ever searching eyes of hers, Shay bolted for the cellar and tried to heft to doors up. She failed, too weak to move it much, but Finn and Sean pulled them as quickly and quietly as they could and disappeared down into the darkness.
It was cold at the bottom of the stairs, and a steady drip, drip, echoed off the concrete walls.
“There’s a lantern hanging from the wall, and a box of matches on the table,” Shay squeaked. The poor woman didn’t have much strength left, yet she’d volunteered to help them.
Sean’s pile of guilt was growing by the second, like the sand at the bottom of an hourglass.
He felt around for the matches, and the clank of metal said Finn had set the lantern on the table beside him.
A frantic little flame licked the wood of the matchstick as he struck it against the tabletop. Protecting the tiny glow from the cold air with the palm of his hand, he pressed it into the lantern and turned it up.
The click of a metal hammer being pulled back on a pistol bounced off the walls, and Sean froze.
“Hand over your weapons, and do it slowly,” Shay said in a steady voice. Her transformation there in the glow of the lantern light was remarkable. She stood at her full height and stretched her neck like staying hunched over for so long had irritated the muscles in it. No longer did her hands shake, and her breath puffed steadily from her mouth in chugs of freight train steam. A small, cruel smile tugged the corner of her lips. “Weapons,” she reminded him languidly.
“Now, Shay, I don’t know what’s going
on here—”
The barrel of her gun flicked downward, and she pulled the trigger. Finn staggered forward and held his hand up with a stunned look. It was covered in blood, and the fabric around a well-placed hole, right above his knee, was staining by the moment.
“There’s your only warning. Set your weapons on the table, and sit in those chairs.” She motioned with a flick of her gun.
Five chairs lined a bare wall, and rope ties dangled from the arms and legs of each. Dread spread through Sean’s stomach as a dismal future stretched before him. Maybe if he kept her talking, he could buy them some time. “Why are you doing this?”
“Oh my gosh, you idiots all ask the same questions. It’s like, try to be original, for once. God, you’re all so boring. It literally takes all of the fun out of this when I can predict exactly what you’ll ask next.”
Sean slid his rifle over his head nice and slow and set it on the table as Finn did the same. “Sorry.”
She sighed and searched the heavens like she was praying for patience. “I’m doing this because Denver is our colony.”
“What happened to Erhard?” he asked, setting both pistols on the table with a clunk.
“Ha! He was the first to go.”
Something in the way she said it brought a new slash of panic, like a lightning strike had run through his veins and jolted his heart into a galloping pace. “Do you eat people? Is that how you’ve survived?”
“Gross. Hell no we don’t eat people, Sean! Maybe that’s what you would do when you got desperate, but we’re better prepared than all of that.”
He frowned and sank into a chair. “Oh. Well what do you do with the people who’ve come?”
“We feed them to our pets,” she said with a wicked smile.
His blood ran as cold as the frozen wall behind him. Finn limped to the chair beside him, but she waved them apart, and he settled in the one three spots down instead.
She bent down to tie him and that was his chance. If he was going to get them out of this, it was that moment when she was vulnerable. Gripping her neck and preparing to twist, he found the cold end of a knife, poking just into the skin covering his throat.
Shay lifted her head and held him with her emotionless gaze. “See? Predictable. Arden lied about us and knives. We’ve had a year to practice nothing but blades.” She pressed harder, and thick wetness trickled down his neck at the sting. “Don’t try that again, or I’ll make you watch me slit your friend’s throat over there.”
The skin at his wrist chafed under the next tight knot she tied. “I told you why my people are doing this to you. I didn’t tell you my reasons though.” She patted his arms gently. “I saw that baby your team brought in. It looks like a Dead, but it was suckling at the breast like a human. I want it. The others we’ll feed to our horde, but the baby will be raised by people who revere it. I don’t know how you created a hybrid, but I knew the second I saw those eyes, I was the one meant to mother it. Arden said I could have it before I even had to ask.”
These people were insane. They hadn’t survived the last year at all. Instead, they’d turned on their own species and were contributing to human extinction. Like it needed their help.
“Tie your legs,” she told Finn with the gun aimed in the general vicinity of his forehead.
“The child needs her mother. What will you feed her with Laney is gone?” Maybe if he helped Shay remember they were human with names and identities. Personalities. Maybe he could appeal to any heart the woman had left.
“Oh, a girl.” An absent and dreamy smile ghosted over her lips. “I always wanted a girl. And don’t worry. We can keep the mother alive for milk. And when she’s old enough to wean, we are perfectly capable of providing for her.”
In three quick strides, she was at a heavy wooden door and kicked it open with the toe of her boot. Inside were rows of wooden crates housing quietly clucking chickens.
Shay ran her hand suggestively over Sean’s shoulder. “I remember when we looked like you. Do you know how much food it takes to keep up this physique? I’ll admit it’s fun to look at, but wasteful in the grand scheme of things. Now, you just look weak to me. And you.” She threw a seething glare at Finn. “You probably eat what six men need to survive.”
“Crazy woman,” he said, leaning his head back weakly. “This was how I was born. Even if I starved myself, I’d still be bigger than most. Why aren’t you feeding us to your little pets now?”
She clucked behind her teeth. “See what I mean? It’s like you don’t know how to ration. If we fed the Deads every time we got a new shipment of fresh meat in, they’d be starving in between idiot heroes storming the gates. We don’t want them all looking like Josie out there, now do we?”
“Uh, yes,” Finn said. “The only good Dead is a dead Dead. And you’re a fool to forget it.”
If looks could kill, Finn would be a dead man. “You’ll feed a hundred Deads. And I’ll revel in the sound of your screams.” With that, she spun and blew out the lantern before shouldering their weapons and jogging up the stairs. The doors slammed closed, blocking the last wisps of daylight.
Finn’s voice cut through the dark. “She didn’t even tie my hands up.”
Chains rattled across the heavy wood above, and something wet splattered against the doors. The smell of rot and iron wafted down through the cellar and the groaning of Deads could be heard within seconds.
“Because she didn’t need to.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
HOW IN HONEY-FRIED PICKLES was she supposed to sleep with the creepy people-eaters plotting their favorite recipes in the next building over? One tiny set of barred doors separated them from the boogie men, and nervous energy consumed her body as she bowed to the feeling of wrongness that had taken over since Eloise told of Sean’s disappearance.
Vanessa willed strength into her limbs. Her injured body needed to heal, and preferably right now if she was going to be of any use to anyone. Adrianna breathed deeply beside her, bundled up tight and clutching Bunny. She didn’t even stir when Vanessa reloaded a magazine and slid it into her Glock.
The floorboards creaked above her and stilled. If the vaccine could’ve given her some X-ray vision, that would’ve been fantastic.
The brush of a shoe sounded further down the room above.
Mitchell and Guist had left for a search-and-rescue mission no more than half an hour ago, and Eloise and Laney slept soundly by the baby in the next room over.
The crazies were coming for breakfast.
Vanessa lay back down and pulled her gun under the covers before feigning sleep. It was impossible to relax knowing something terrible was coming. Steadying her breath, she waited.
Minutes stretched on and on until finally the senses that had been screaming since she woke up picked up something heavy in the room with her and Adrianna. The cold tip of metal touched her neck, and a woman whispered, “Where are the weapons?”
“What weapons?” she asked, cocking the gun that now rested against the crotch of the intruder’s pants. The advance of the blade stopped. “Take that shank off my neck before I blow a hole in your baby maker.”
The smelly woman obliged, but ungraciously. “I’m not alone, you know. Dillon,” she called out.
Stupid girl. She’d given Vanessa plenty of warning that her partner was coming in. An emaciated man, Dillon, she’d venture to guess, rushed the corner, and she fired a shot as soon as she had confirmation he wasn’t one of her team. He sagged to his knees, and the woman tore at her with a feral scream and a slashing blade.
Ducking out of the way, Vanessa grabbed her wrist and kneed her in the rib cage. With a pained grunt, the woman wrenched out of her grasp and spun, then disappeared around the doorframe.
“Vanessa?” Adrianna murmured sleepily. “I’m scared.”
So was she, but the kid didn’t need to know that. “I’m right here. Grab Bunny, and let’s go check on the others.”
The next room was chaos. Soren was nowhere
to be seen, and Laney searched the small space frantically. Sobs of panic and agony wracked her body, and she chanted, “They must’ve taken her,” over and over, like it would undo the burden on her soul.
“Vanessa,” Eloise whisper-screamed. “Where are you going?”
To get baby soup off the breakfast menu, but Laney probably wouldn’t appreciate the word choice. She opened her mouth to say something more kosher, but the creak of an opening door stopped her.
The exaggerated noise chilled her blood, and she gripped her Glock a little tighter. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and as she rounded the corner, she witnessed the first Dead step over the threshold.
The crazies had let the monsters in.
“We have to move!” she rasped, and Laney snatched her Mini-14 off the night stand.
Tugging Adrianna’s hand, Vanessa bolted for the stairs just as the Dead caught wind of them and groaned triumphantly. Eloise and Laney climbed the stairs in a rush, their clattering footsteps echoing off the growing volume of groaning and gnashing teeth.
Sean’s old room was the furthest from the stairs, and Vanessa slammed the door behind them. Sean, bachelor that he was, had furnished the room about as simply as he was able, and after the twin bed was shoved against the rocking door, there was nothing left to stack besides a night stand and a squat three-drawer dresser. A few boxes had been tossed haphazardly to the floor, but none of them looked heavy. Not enough to keep them safe.