Ground Zero

by Jessica Meigs

  “I don’t know.”

  Cade growled under her breath at his useless answer. One of the infected outside slammed against the door again, and she brought her sidearm up to aim it at the door, acting purely on instinct. “How many, Brandt? Guess!” she snapped. There was no point keeping her voice down; the infected already knew they were there.

  Brandt let out an exasperated breath and eased back to the door for another quick look. “Maybe a dozen or so on the porch, a good twenty, probably more, in the yard,” he reported.

  “So full scale, then?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, looks like it.”

  A shock of alarm jolted through her. “Fuck,” she breathed, turning on her heel and striding toward the hallway that led past the kitchen.

  “I don’t think we’ll be able to hold off that many for very long,” Brandt called after her.

  She paused in mid-step and looked back at him. “Get everybody up,” she ordered. She tried to ignore his warning; it left a horrible, unsettled feeling deep in her gut. “I’ve got to find Ethan.”

  Cade searched only moments before she located Ethan in the back office, just where she thought he’d be. He was hunched over a map of Georgia, a pair of wire-rimmed reading glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, squinting in the dim light from a battery-powered lantern. She burst through the open door without knocking and went to the desk, every step of her boots thudding in time with the nervous beating of her heart. She stopped in front of the desk and set Ethan’s gun on top of the map he was looking at with a heavy thunk.

  “We’ve got to move. Now,” she announced. “There are infected at the front of the house.” She went to the window and pushed the curtains aside, peering out through a space between the boards nailed over it. “And out here on this side, too.”

  Ethan didn’t hesitate. He rose from his desk chair and picked up the gun she’d dropped on his papers. “I’ll take this side of the house,” he offered, removing his reading glasses and tossing them onto the desk. “You handle the front. Get Brandt into the kitchen.”

  “And the fourth side?” Cade asked. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, and her hands trembled as it sought someplace to go. She stepped back toward the doorway. “Should I go upstairs and get one of the others?”

  Glass shattered on the other side of the window. “There’s not enough time,” Ethan said, his voice containing a new note of urgency. He grasped Cade’s bicep and pushed her roughly toward the living room. “Get moving! You know what to do.”

  Cade shook off the ominous feeling settling into her gut and ran back to the living room. Her heart hammered uncomfortably in her chest, and she couldn’t steady her hands no matter how hard she tried. “Ethan says he wants you to take the kitchen,” she told Brandt, stopping at the coffee table and scooping up her rifle. “He wants me to handle it in here.”

  Brandt gathered extra ammunition for his own weapon. “Where’s he at?” he asked as he tossed her a black messenger bag. She barely caught it, her fingers hooking the strap and pulling the bag to her. It was the one she normally kept her personal belongings and a few spare weapons in. She nodded her thanks and looped the strap over her head and across her chest.

  “He’s covering the side of the house from the office,” she answered. “We don’t have time to get a fourth for the last side. Doubt we’ll be here long enough for that anyway.” The thuds against the door were louder than ever, and Cade imagined the door straining against its wooden frame. The number of infected outside had seemingly multiplied in the short time they’d been getting prepared. She grimaced, swearing under her breath. “This reminds me of Tupelo. Only worse,” she muttered, just loud enough for Brandt to hear. “At least there we weren’t stuck inside when they came for us. Fuck, I should be on the roof with my rifle.”

  Brandt stepped forward and lifted a hand to run it lightly over her dark hair. She raised an eyebrow. “Think you got time to get up there?” he asked casually, lowering his hand back to his side.

  “Unfortunately, I don’t think so,” she said with forced casualness. Brandt took her hand and give it a quick squeeze before he pulled away. Her hand dropped limply to her side, and her fingers curled belatedly around empty air.

  “Be careful,” Brandt said. He retreated to the kitchen, gun in hand. Cade’s eyes followed him until the doors swung shut and blocked her view.

  “Fuck,” Cade breathed, shaking slightly as she turned away from the kitchen door. Her nerves were starting to get the better of her, and she knew why.

  It was fear. Not fear for herself, because she could easily handle herself in the face of any semblance of danger. She’d done so several times in the previous year alone, and she could do it again.

  It was fear for Brandt.

  Cade didn’t know why she was scared for Brandt; he was at least as well trained and capable as she was, if not more so. He was the very best at hand-to-hand combat. He could fight with nearly any weapon put into his hand. It wasn’t like he had a higher chance of getting killed by the infected than any of the others; hell, he probably had the best chance of survival out of all of them. Despite his chances, however, the stew of emotions running through Cade hinted at a deeper reason why she was scared: It was because she was possibly a little bit in love with Brandt.

  She didn’t want to be in love with Brandt. She didn’t want to be in love with anyone. Love complicated things. It was a distraction from her ultimate mission: the survival of herself and those she cared about. And the last thing she needed in the deadly world in which she lived was a distraction.

  “This is so not cool,” she muttered. The stress coupled with her thoughts was making her head hurt.

  Footsteps thudded above her head; it sounded like a bloody stampede down the upstairs hallway. She glanced over her shoulder to see Remy hurrying down the stairs, pulling her dark hair into a ponytail as she moved. She wore a pair of jeans and the knee-high boots that all the ladies adopted after Cade, a form-fitting shirt, and a black hoodie layered on top. A long bolo knife in its sheath was strapped to her belt, a weapon Remy never let out of her sight. She was sure the knife had special meaning to her, but she’d never been forthcoming as to what that meaning was.

  “Theo woke me up, said we’ve got company coming for dinner,” Remy quipped. Her chill tone surprised Cade; she hadn’t expected anyone to be calm—much less jesting—in a situation like this.

  “Never fail to show up when there’s a chance to poke dangerous things with a stick, do you?” Cade asked. She kept her own voice light, though the acid in her stomach churned violently. She was going to have a raging case of indigestion after this fight.

  “Hell yeah,” Remy said enthusiastically. Her attitude bordered on cheerfulness. Cade frowned and gave her a short look that said everything it needed to say: If Remy got careless and ended up dead, she’d never forgive her. Remy must have gotten the message, because she sobered up and asked seriously, “Where do you need me?”

  Pleased at the change in her attitude, Cade nodded to her right. “Side of the house,” she instructed, digging another sidearm from her bag and offering it and spare ammunition to her. “Don’t waste them. Where is everyone else?”

  “Gray’s on the roof doing what he can do from there. He mentioned something about the van. Theo’s guarding the other ladies. We figured it’s better to keep the weaker elements out of the way,” Remy said flippantly. Cade almost informed her that under the right circumstances, she’d easily qualified as a “weaker element.” Remy gave her a sarcastic salute and disappeared into the darkness to her right.

  Cade shook her head and shifted her attention back to the front door. The noise on the other side had further increased in intensity, the thuds now accompanied by scraping and scratching at the door and boards. The door creaked and groaned under the weight pressed against it. She sucked in a steadying breath and let it out slowly. A board cracked, and the muscles in her shoulders tensed.

  “Fuck,” she breathed in agit
ation. She wiped her palms against her jeans. She hated when their safe houses were compromised and their lives put in more danger than they dealt with on a daily basis. They’d become complacent, almost careless in the long lull they’d had not dealing with a mass attack of infected. One must have followed a member of the group on their return from the last scavenger hunt; perhaps Remy wasn’t as careful as she should have been when she fought her way back to the safe house. Perhaps Brandt was less than attentive when he shouldn’t have been. Maybe Nikola had gone into the wrong place hunting for supplies. Cade had no way of knowing, and at that point, it didn’t really matter, anyway.

  All she knew was that it was a matter of sheer numbers. If enough infected gathered around their safe house and realized they were there, any physical defenses the group erected would be inevitably overwhelmed. Usually they had some forewarning of an imminent attack, such as a large massing of infected in the area or the sighting of an infected scout nearby. But there was nothing. It was almost as if the enemy had appeared out of nowhere.

  “Well, I guess this is as good a warm-up for Atlanta as any,” she muttered.

  The doorframe splintered and gave way.

  Cade aimed her weapon and opened fire as the infected swarmed in.

  * * *

  Brandt was only alone in the kitchen for scarce moments before he heard the familiar sound of a handgun open fire in the living room. He reflexively looked over his shoulder, but he wasn’t able to see past the closed kitchen door. He’d positioned himself directly across from the back door; he could hear the infected on the other side of it, confirming his suspicion that their safe house was completely surrounded.

  Hearing Cade’s gun firing only made him want to abandon his post and run to help her. He hated the idea of her getting hurt. Cade’s tough, he reminded himself. She can kick ass better than most women, infected or no infected.

  If anyone ever asked Brandt—and he was sure he wouldn’t be asked—he’d kindly inform whoever would listen that he found that particular trait in a woman incredibly sexy.

  The thumps at the back door grew more insistent, rattling the door in its frame. He pulled his mind away from Cade and backed up a step to give himself more room. The back door cracked and broke open under the sheer weight of the infected, and Brandt raised his weapon.

  The first of the infected rushed in. He was a tall man with dark hair, his clothes hanging loosely on his frame, torn and rumpled and bloodied. Brandt wrinkled his nose in disgust and squeezed the trigger. The bullet buried itself in the man’s forehead, and he dropped to the tiled floor.

  As the second and third infected people rushed into the kitchen, clamoring in through the doorway and almost getting stuck in their haste to get inside, the others behind them shoving up against them as they almost bottlenecked themselves in the frame, Brandt knew this attack was going to be too much to handle. He doubted they’d be able to push all of the infected out of the safe house and build up their defenses to deflect the attack.

  Their safe house was no longer safe.

  They’d have to retreat.

  He took a few steps back and pressed against the living room door. He fired four more bullets. Three more infected fell to the floor; their bodies blocked the space between him and the back door, creating obstacles to buy him a few precious seconds to push the door behind him open with his foot.

  “Hey, Cade?” he called. Snarling, hungry growls came from the infected in response. He shuddered at the sound.

  “Yeah?” Cade called back to him. Her voice sounded stressed and angry. Despite the tone, a flood of relief washed over him. He knew Cade was fine, since he could hear her firing her weapon, but hearing her voice put her on a whole new level of “okay” in his mind.

  “I think we’ll have to blow it,” Brandt warned. He shot down one more infected with a well-placed bullet then backed into the living room and pushed the door shut. He dragged a heavy armchair into position to block the door. It wouldn’t hold for long, but it would at least delay the infected, buy them the few minutes they needed to get to safety.

  “Think so?” Cade asked. She shot one of the infected through the throat, following with a second bullet to the head. Brandt raised an eyebrow, impressed with her almost nonchalance at the situation. Her adrenaline must have been pumping hard. “Remy and Ethan are both down here,” she said. “I haven’t heard anything from either of them, but I don’t think these bastards broke in through the sides, so they’re probably fine.”

  “Yeah, no doors,” he agreed before turning and jogging down the hall toward the office. “Ethan! Remy! We’ve got to go!” he yelled out, hoping Ethan could hear him from the office.

  Then Cade’s gun stopped firing. His eyes widened, and he whirled back around, his heart pounding in his chest. “Cade?”

  “I’m out!” she yelled. Two shots rang out before he reached the living room. Much to his relief, Remy had joined Cade, taking up fire in her place. Cade stood behind her, reloading her pistol. Ethan joined them moments later, firing a couple of shots of his own as Brandt glanced at the top of the stairs. Theo was there, Nikola and Avi several feet behind him. Gray was nowhere in sight. All three were armed.

  “Theo, we’re coming up in a minute,” Brandt warned, breaking away and heading toward Remy. He took up position beside her and called out over her gunfire, “Get up the stairs! You and Ethan!”

  Remy knew better than to question his orders. She grabbed Ethan’s arm and pulled him to the staircase. Brandt started to follow but stopped as he caught sight of Cade. She was dodging between two of the infected to grab a heavy black duffel bag from the coffee table.

  “Jesus, Cade!” he yelped. “You got a death wish or something? Come on!” He aimed his gun and fired a single shot, taking down an infected woman that almost had her hands on Cade. She seemed to realize the level of danger she’d put herself in then and bolted to him, slinging the bag and her rifle over her shoulder.

  “Sorry, sorry,” she said breathlessly. “I had to get my bag!”

  Brandt’s panic swiftly turned to anger. “I sincerely fucking hope that whatever the hell is in that bag is enough to risk your life over!” he snapped. He motioned to Cade with a short jerk of his arm and began taking the stairs two at a time. This time, Cade followed, moving backward to lay cover fire for their retreat.

  He was halfway up the stairs when Cade let out a sudden shout and a thud sounded behind him. His heart nearly stopped. He lifted his gun and turned, pointing it down the stairs, not knowing what to expect. As his eyes registered the sight before him, he couldn’t suppress the gasp that escaped.

  Cade lay on her back on the stairs. Her handgun was several steps below her, where it landed when she fell. One of the infected gripped the ankle of her left boot with both hands, and it pulled at her violently.

  His eyes widened, and he adjusted his aim and squeezed the trigger.

  Chapter Six

  Cade cried out as she fell backward and landed heavily on the stairs, the edge of the step above her digging painfully into her back. That was the least of her priorities, though. Her gun lay below her, out of reach, and there was no way she could get the duffel open fast enough to retrieve another weapon or to pull her rifle free from underneath her. The infected man dragged her a few more inches toward his mouth. That was the last place she wanted to go.

  She grabbed desperately for the banister, and as she clutched it tightly, she felt like her arms were going to be ripped from their sockets. She dug her nails into the wood; two of them broke painfully.

  A gun went off above her head, and a bullet wound blossomed in her attacker’s shoulder. Cade glanced up for only a second to see Brandt standing protectively over her, his gun pointed at the man. But the slide of Brandt’s gun had locked back; it was out of ammo.

  “Oh God, no,” Cade gasped. Brandt hooked his hands underneath her arms, even as she pulled her right leg up enough to kick the infected man in the face once, twice. She felt the crunch of hi
s nose as it shattered beneath her boot, and the impact was enough to dislodge his grip in order to break free. She scrambled backward up the stairs with Brandt’s assistance, dragging herself up several steps.

  As she retreated, the door between the kitchen and living room finally gave way. The infected pressed through the door, shoving the armchair forcibly out of the way, and poured into the main portion of the house.

  “Fuck! Go!” Ethan yelled from the top of the stairs. He put a well-placed bullet into the infected man’s head, eliminating that threat. Cade regained her feet and staggered up the steps, hauling her bag with her, adrenaline coursing through her veins and making it feel like her entire body was quivering. Brandt took her elbow supportively as they both reached the top, and Ethan nodded in their direction. “Brandt, Cade, blow it,” he ordered, beginning to push the rest of the group toward the end of the hall. “Theo, where’s Gray?”

  “I left him on the roof,” Theo answered. “He was trying to shoot them from there. He might be out of ammo by now, though.”

  Cade paused at the top of the stairs and took in a deep, gasping breath, trying to get enough air into her lungs. It felt like her chest was compressed in a vice, a sensation that was incredibly painful, and she had an inkling of how Gray must feel when he had an asthma attack.

  Brandt stopped at the railing, where several of the wooden spindles that supported the staircase’s railing were missing. He dropped to the floor and slid just over the edge, studying a switch-sized metal box nailed to the molding where he’d placed it to prevent anyone from accidentally triggering the trap he’d set up. He lifted his hips to wiggle a pocketknife out of his pants and used the blade’s edge to pop the front plate off. As he tossed the box’s cover to the ground floor, Cade leaned over the railing to watch, rubbing at her ribs with a pained grimace.

  Inside the box was a nest of components making up the trigger for a bomb just strong enough to take out the staircase above the second-floor landing. The bomb itself was underneath the stairs. Brandt had spent the better part of two weeks constructing the device out of odds and ends hunted down around Maplesville. In the end, he’d managed to assemble exactly one large explosive device. It was never intended to seal them off upstairs indefinitely—nobody could survive up there like that for an extended period of time anyway—but it would at least give them enough time to escape the safe house. Cade looked down at him and found that he was already looking up at her, an odd grin on his face that made a chill ripple down her spine.