by Sean Platt
The man who had murdered her father stepped into the room, and she immediately regretted lowering her weapon.
CHAPTER 54—SUTHERLAND
Sutherland couldn’t believe his people’s careless stupidity. The men at the front entrance weren’t responding. Nor were any others, except Michaels, who was searching for Ana and the girl, taking out infected as he went.
Where the fuck is everyone?
Then there was Horrance. The idiot had somehow lost Ana and killed the only person Sutherland could count on to finish the cure. Horrance was a special kind of stupid, the kind that came along only once in a generation, whose mom had been too stupid to drown him in the river once she saw what she’d given birth to.
He glared at the man as he paced, waiting for Ana.
Horrance said, “I don’t think she’s coming.”
“No, really? You don’t fucking say!” Sutherland shouted at the ogre, wanting to cleave his head from his shoulders.
As Horrance turned away, looking like he might cry, Sutherland reminded himself to breathe deep, in and out, and relax a little. He couldn’t afford to kill Horrance. Nor could he forget that Horrance, as useless and stupid as he was, had helped him escape from Hydrangea when all was lost.
He breathed in, counting to five, then out, again counting to five, wishing he had some Crash. Sweet chemical relief. It would be a while before he could indulge. Sutherland had to function at his peak level while he found Ana, then cleaned these corpses from the station.
Maybe give the place some fresh paint. Something whimsical, like yellow and pink.
He had an idea.
He turned to Horrance and smiled slow and wide.
“What is it, boss?”
“We’ll drive her out if she won’t come to us.”
CHAPTER 55—ANA LOVECRAFT
Keller was in a full chemical suit, but Ana thought she would recognize the ugly bastard’s crow nose anywhere. He lifted the black glass on his helmet to reveal a clearer glass beneath it.
She reached for the blaster.
The orb fired and melted the weapon. Ana’s hand stopped inches from a gooey stew of metal and plastic.
She pulled back.
“Stay put or I will put you down.”
Keller aimed the largest gun at Ana that she had ever seen. A circular glass tube with swirling red lights spinning through it wound around the stock of the weapon.
“You bastard.” She scowled. “I’m going to kill you.”
“I’m trying to save you, child.”
“I don’t need your saving. Leave!”
“What about the girl?” Keller looked down at Calla. “I know you hate me right now, and I have plenty to explain, but we must get you and the girl out of here.”
Ana swallowed, looking down at Calla.
“How is it that neither of you are infected?”
Ana didn’t want to tell the truth—that Calla was infected, or that Ana herself had been—as both admissions could jeopardize their freedom.
“We tested immune,” she lied.
“Both of you?” Keller asked. “How is that?”
“I don’t know.” Ana turned it back on Keller. “What are you doing here? Why should I trust you?”
“I came to capture Sutherland. He was behind The City 1 attack.”
“So my father was innocent?” Ana spit out.
“Your father was hardly innocent. But I’m not here to argue your father’s guilt or innocence. As I said, we have much to discuss, but I’m not your enemy.”
Sutherland’s voice came over the intercom.
“Attention, residents of this godforsaken hellhole. I’ve decided that I don’t want your precious train station after all. Blood is so hard to scrub from the walls. So I’ll be leaving, but I should warn you that my men have set bombs around The Station’s perimeter, and they’ll be detonating in 10 minutes. If you want to live—I’m talking to you, Ana and Calla—if you want amnesty, all will be forgiven. You can come with me. But hurry, the clock is ticking. Quite literally. Meet me outside The Station and we’ll put all this nastiness behind us.”
A long pause, then: “Or you can stay here and die. Your choice, but I’m tired of playing nice. Good day, Ana.”
“Does he really have bombs?”
Keller’s voice sounded very nervous, not full of the bravado he’d had the last time she spoke with him. She wondered what he’d gone through in getting this far into The Station.
“I have no idea,” Ana answered. “Do you think he’s lying? Do you think it’s a trap?”
“It’s almost certainly a trap. But we can’t take the chance he’s lying about the bombs. He did have weaponized zombie virus, so clearly he’s got access to whatever he needs to bring this place down.”
“What are we going to do?” There was no we—and she hated herself for slipping it into the sentence. She was not on Keller’s side. But, at the same time, she had to figure the best play for the hand she had been dealt. Just as her father would advise.
He turned to the orb and its on-screen Watcher. “How long would it take for more orbs to back us up?”
“Twenty minutes, Sir. Maybe more. That would include the risk of someone at City Watch discovering the request. Would you like me to order more, Sir?”
Keller shook his head. “We don’t have time. We’ll play this by ear.”
Keller looked at Ana. “You two coming with me?”
“I’ll have to carry her,” Ana said. “She hit her head.”
“OK, then you stay behind me. The orb will take the lead. Here . . .” Keller reached down and stripped a blaster pistol from his belt.
As her hand closed around the gun’s handle, Keller pulled it back until she met his eyes. “Don’t shoot me in the back. The orb will kill you both. Understood?”
“Yes.” Ana yanked the pistol away. He smiled ruefully. “You can always try to kill me after we get out of here alive.”
“You better have a good plan,” she said, ignoring his efforts at . . . whatever he was trying to do. She knelt down and gathered Calla in both hands.
“I’m sure it’s better than hiding in here and waiting to die,” Keller said, ordering the orb into the hallway.
They followed one corridor after another. Their route didn’t feel familiar, but Ana felt too defeated to map it. She stepped over bodies, horrified. A small girl—Ana thought her name was Lora—had shared her mom’s homemade cookie with Ana yesterday. Now she was staring up at Ana with eyes that couldn’t blink. Her throat was gouged out, eaten or torn from the rest of her.
My fault.
Ana swallowed, longing for it all to be over, as she followed the orb and told herself with every step that soon enough she wouldn’t ever again be forced to make another horrible decision. She tried to think ahead, to what Keller would do with her and Calla once they got free, but she couldn’t fall into that trap of wishful thinking. There were undoubtedly enough actual traps ahead.
It was one step at a time, until they were clear of this terror.
After several turns through many halls, she finally realized where they were—just outside the exit tunnel. However, there was a fire at the entrance to the tunnel. Black smoke rolled toward them, stinging and clouding her eyes. Ana wondered if the fire had been set intentionally or was simply a result of the chaos.
She wanted to stop and turn around. She called out for Keller, but he kept moving forward into the smoke. She had no choice but to follow him into the darkness. There was sudden rain from the sprinklers, but it did little to smother the smoke.
She coughed as she struggled to hold Calla and navigate the darkness. The heat was intense, covering her face and body with a second skin of sweat that blended with the water. She blinked, struggling to peer through the thick haze.
Calla started coughing and slipped from Ana’s wet hands.
Ana stopped, grabbed the girl’s body in the dark, choking on smoke as she picked Calla up again.
She was
lost in the inky darkness, blind, not sure which way to go. Ana tried to cry out for Keller but could only cough. She turned, trying to decipher direction, but everything was black.
Oh, God!
Then Keller stepped in front of Ana, shining his light on her and Calla.
“I have a thermal view in my helmet,” he said. Ana was struck by the ever-increasing softness in his voice. Almost kind. “Stay close and I’ll get us through.”
Keller charged deeper into the wall of smoke. Ana carried Calla, stumbling after him.
Calla began to choke again, the smoke probably burning her lungs just like it was burning Ana’s.
“It’s OK,” she whispered to Calla.
Ana looked up, blinking into the smoke. She saw daylight ahead, clean like a promise. The sight gave her strength. She tightened her grip around Calla and rushed forward, passing Keller, hope fueling her flight to fresh air.
“Come back!” Keller called behind her. “Be careful!”
Calla was heavy in her arms, but Ana couldn’t bring herself to care. Keller wasn’t shouting—or shooting—as he fell farther behind.
Ana fled the tunnel into the daylight and fell with Calla in the snow, both of them breathing in deep gasps of air and coughing the smoke from their lungs.
We’re alive!
The joy was short-lived. The hunter orb raced past them and fired into the woods.
Someone fired back, a blast of energy tearing through a tree to Ana’s left.
Keller sped from the tunnel and put himself between Ana and the gunmen in the woods, opening fire with the giant gun.
“Stay down!” he yelled.
Snow and rock kicked up around Ana as she lay on top of Calla, pressing the girl into the snow, hoping to make a low, barely there target.
Keller blasted the tree line, screaming as if it somehow helped scare the men away.
The gunfire was deafening, but Ana could still hear Calla bellowing in her ears. She was trying to push Ana off of her and crying loudly for her father. “Daddy! Where are you?”
Ana hugged Calla, glad that she seemed to be coming to but also afraid she would get scared and run straight into danger. Ana did her best to keep the girl beneath her and out of the line of fire.
Keller ceased fire long enough to investigate the perimeter. He called to her, “Wait here. I’m going to make sure it’s safe.”
Ana’s ears were ringing as she turned, still on the ground, and watched her father’s killer walk into the woods, the hunter orb just ahead of him firing off shots at either Sutherland’s troops or zombies.
The ringing began to fade in Ana’s ears. She was about to get up and off of Calla when she felt a blade at her throat.
Her hand tightened on her blaster, then the blade pressed into her skin and she softened her grip.
Someone pulled the blaster from her hands, then yanked her to standing, peeling her from Calla.
She turned to see Sutherland.
Calla cried out.
Sutherland yelled at the little girl, “Shut up or I’ll kill her!”
Calla looked up at Sutherland, terrified, then toward the tree line, searching for a Keller who was no longer there, gone along with the orb.
Ana wondered if Sutherland was fast enough to have ended both the orb and Keller before she could notice.
“Now, now, little Calla,” he said in a syrupy, sick voice. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. If I wanted you dead, you’d already be dead. But look, you’re both still alive! Now, I’m going to remove this knife from Ana’s neck and you are both going to follow me. Do you understand? Nod if you do, Ana.”
Ana nodded, the knife still sharp and cold against her throat.
“Calla? Do you understand?”
Calla was clearly frightened and could barely look back at Ana. Ana gave the girl a small nod, and she nodded in return.
“Good,” Sutherland said, removing the knife, then training his blaster on Ana. “Now let’s go. You lead the way, Ana, so I can keep an eye on you.”
“Where are we going?” Ana asked as they marched forward, in the opposite direction that Keller had gone.
Still pleasant, Sutherland said, “To find my truck, so we can get the hell out of here.”
They walked for a few minutes, the cold wind picking up and bringing snow. Ana shivered in her soaking clothes. If Sutherland didn’t kill her, hypothermia might.
“What happened to my father?” Calla asked, stopping to face her captor. Ana stopped as well.
Sutherland stopped clomping. He looked at the girls, brushed snow from his jacket, then focused on Calla. “I’m very sorry, dear, but your father won’t be coming with us. Unfortunately, he’s dead. Now, this wasn’t my fault. Your father was an enemy and made the silly mistake of standing in my way. Honestly, it’s not personal.”
Calla clearly disagreed.
Something broke inside her. She rushed Sutherland, blindly flailing on her way to attack. Ana watched in slow motion as the girl lurched toward him. He made a fist, reeled back, and punched Calla hard in the face.
Calla cried out. Ana wasn’t sure if she imagined the sound of something snapping before she saw the very real fountain of blood spraying from the girl’s broken nose.
Calla dropped to the ground. Sutherland arrogantly turned his back to Ana, kneeling over the girl. Ana was through with hesitating today.
She charged at Sutherland.
Sutherland, as if waiting for Ana’s stupidity, turned toward her before she could reach him, sword drawn.
He swung his blade in a wide arc that cut the air in front of Ana, forcing her to stop and hurl herself backward.
Instead, she slipped and fell on her ass, barely missing the blade the first time. Then Sutherland took another swipe.
He stabbed through her leg. She screamed, soaking wet and freezing, blood spilling from a leg on fire. Sutherland stood over her, holding his sword as if deciding whether to end Ana now.
Ana heard something like a dog growling and looked over to see Calla gritting her teeth, shaking her head, and rushing Sutherland a second time. Calla landed on his back, grabbed on, and used her weight to knock him down to the ground.
His sword fell just a couple of feet from Ana.
Calla punched Sutherland in the back of the head furiously, getting in several blows before he screamed out loudly enough to shake Ana’s core.
Then he shook Calla off, grabbed her, and threw her nearly four feet ahead of him where she landed in a gasp.
Sutherland walked over to her, balling his fists, as she tried to crawl away. He dropped on top of her, straddling her, and punched her twice in the stomach.
Ana cried as she tried to stand, but her leg betrayed her and she fell to the ground.
Sutherland turned back, just to make sure she wasn’t a threat. He laughed at her helplessness, then put his hands around Calla’s throat, choking her.
“Look what you did, Ana! Just look what you’ve made me do!”
Ana slithered toward his sword, but the pain was intense, and moving her leg made it feel like the limb was exploding.
Ana’s heart hammered in her frozen chest as she pulled herself forward, knowing she’d never reach Calla before Sutherland killed her.
She called out, “You coward!”
Sutherland kept choking the girl, ignoring her taunts.
“You fucking coward, you’re gonna kill a child?”
Sutherland ignored her, laughing as he leaned closer to Calla, perhaps to better look into her eyes and whisper some horrible thing while snuffing out her life.
The monster!
Ana reached out despite the pain, fingers clawing at the cold, wet snow, searching for purchase to pull herself forward.
But the sword, like Calla, felt a million miles away.
Ana could do nothing to save her.
Calla was going to die.
And so was she.
Ana heard the footfalls of someone running up from behind.
&
nbsp; Oh, God, zombies!
But when she looked back, it wasn’t the shuffling undead. Instead, it was a tiny shape racing toward them. It took a moment before Ana registered the figure as Father Truth.
The dwarf grabbed the blade—almost as tall as he was—and yelled out an incoherent scream of syllables, still racing forward.
Sutherland had exactly enough time to turn and see the dwarf before the sword cleaved his head from his body.
CHAPTER 56—CALLA EGAN
Calla gasped for air and kicked the headless corpse from her body.
It fell back, neck spurting hot blood into the snow as Calla scrambled toward Ana, lying still, eyes closed and arms outstretched.
“Ana!”
Calla’s scream was drowned by the howling wind and brewing storm.
Father Truth dropped to the snow beside Ana. He ripped the blood-drenched pants along her left calf and looked at the wound.
He said to Calla, “She’s lost a lot of blood. Put pressure on the cut. Keep holding it, even if she wakes and screams.”
Calla looked at the wound that was still gushing blood and turned away before pressing her hand down, afraid she would wake Ana or hurt her even worse.
Branches snapped in the surrounding woods as the storm grew violent. Calla’s heart beat harder. She’d seen enough blizzards to know that they needed to get inside quickly, before they were blinded and unable to find The Station.
Father Truth ripped off his shirt, tore long strips from the bottom, and started making Ana a makeshift tourniquet.
“Keep pressure on it.” He reached under her leg with a length of cloth, then folded a second strip and handed it to Calla. “Put this on her wound; press down.”
Calla saw movement out of the corner of her eye and looked up to see dark shapes approaching. As the wind dimmed and flurries whirled more softly, she recognized Trina and Harris, a couple who’d come to The Station last year.
At first, Calla was happy to see them. More help. Then her stomach ate itself as she realized they were no longer Harris and Trina. Then she saw several more dark shapes moving within the white—zombies spilling out from the woods, about to converge on her, Father Truth, and Ana.
