by M. Van
“What do you mean?” Preston asked. A bit shocked, I looked at him. It felt as if this was the first time he had addressed me since our meeting in Marshall’s office. I shook myself, trying to regain my thoughts.
“Out on the road,” I said. “A few months after the initial outbreak, Ash and I encountered these large groups of zombies. They were enormous, and they stuck together as if something told them to do so.”
Preston nodded in understanding, but I doubted anyone understood.
“Guess this explains why Eaves had been so reluctant to send anyone in,” he said.
“And why they sent us in,” Angie said. “If Divus can get these people out, that would make a solid case for dispensing it.”
“Come on,” Preston said as he turned. “Let’s find these people first.”
Without hesitation Tom followed him, but I still stood frozen as my eyes lingered over the open space.
“Mags,” Angie said in a soft voice, and she placed a hand on my shoulder.
I steeled myself ready to follow as the light from my flashlight bounced off metal on the ground just below us. Among the stumbling bodies, I recognized the stairs that once probably fitted between this railing and the wall.
“Somebody’s been busy,” I said pointing my light at the jagged and, in some places, melted edges of where the stairs used to fit.
“Smart,” she said, “isolating themselves from the zombies—they must have used a cutting torch.”
“Ladies,” Tom called out in a loud whisper. Angie and I looked over our shoulders and saw Tom standing with his hands on his hips as if he’d been waiting for us while we were shopping for clothes or something. His rifle hung across the middle of his chest, and his helmet sat high on his head.
I steered my light to his face, and he released an instant groan.
“Hey, stop that.” Tom raised his hand to shield his eyes and added, “The sarge is waiting, c’mon.”
We followed Tom down the corridors and caught up with Preston. My hand had held a firm grip on the gun handle, and I released it to clench and unclench my fist. The sight of those zombies had gotten to me, and I had no idea how anyone could have stayed alive inside this place. There had been contact with the survivors a few days ago, but I couldn’t help wonder if we should fear for the worst.
Preston sat in a crouch, peering around the corner. Tom raised a finger to his lips as we stopped behind Preston with our backs against the wall.
“What is it?” Tom whispered. Preston made a gesture with his hand near his ear, and then he tapped his helmet. Tom turned to us pointed a finger and then balled his fist. Angie nodded.
In a practiced move, both men eased themselves around the corner and disappeared from my view. Angie moved around me and edged closer to the corner.
As she peered around it, I whispered, “Not fluid in hand speech, but I’m guessing they’re checking on something Preston heard and we’re supposed to stay put.” Angie nodded her head in answer.
I eased further from the wall in an attempt to peer around Angie to see what was going on. Preston and Tom moved down a hall with doors lined on either side. The place was still dark, so I couldn’t make out Preston or Tom that well, but I could see the beams from their flashlights.
For a moment, the lights halted before one of them pointed in our direction and shifted from left to right.
“We’re up,” Angie said. Without looking back at me, she stood and stepped forward. Shifting my weapon to aim at nooks and crannies and from door to door, I felt as if I were back at that gun range, and I expected a cardboard figure to pop up at any second.
Angie’s flashlight acted as an extension of her rifle as the light veered from left to right. In a fluid motion, she moved down the hall, shining her light around corners of intersecting hallways and doors we passed. I followed close on her heels. Ahead of us, Preston and Tom disappeared around another corner, and it started to make me wonder just how big this place actually was.
A moment later Preston’s voice came over the radio.
“We’ve located survivors. Hang back a moment while we make contact.”
Angie shrugged and moved a few steps further down the hall.
“I guess we wait,” she said as she leaned against the wall. Ever so vigilant, she kept bouncing the light from left to right so she could keep an eye on things.
I stretched my back, and my bones cracked loudly. The sound made Angie sweep her light over my body.
“Sorry,” I said in a low voice.
“Having fun?” she asked as I stepped closer.
“Tons,” I replied, shining my flashlight down the hall. The truth was that this place gave me the creeps. It felt haunted, and as the thought crossed my mind, I heard the creek of a door.
For a second, I froze, but then I swirled around until my light and the barrel of my gun aimed at a door that stood ajar. I couldn’t remember if it had been like that as I had casted my light across it before.
“What is it?” Angie whispered as she raised her weapon at my sudden movement. I also couldn’t remember an appropriate hand gesture, but I figured Angie would know what I was doing if I slowly approached the door, gun raised.
My heart rate had gone from pretty excited to out of control within seconds, and I tried to slow my breathing as I edged closer to the door. I pressed my hand to the door and pushed slowly.
“Who are you?” a tiny voice called out. I whirled around, shocked at the sound. Moans, growls, I had been expecting those, the voice of a kid not so much. The young boy had appeared in the hallway behind me, seemingly from out of nowhere. In my clumsy attempt to turn, I hit the doorpost with my back, and the door I had been wanting to ease open before swung open.
Angie had her flashlight on the young boy, but I had barely time to make him out as another voice spoke up.
“Jimmy, you’re not supposed to show yourself to strangers.”
“Goddammit,” I called out after being startled for the second time within two seconds and pointed my light in the direction from where I thought the voice had come from.
Shock riddled the girl’s face. Her dark eyes were wide, and her mouth stood open.
“You used a bad word,” the girl said in a tiny voice. Her mouth hung open, and as the expression brought a smile to my lips, it also managed to calm my racing heart. I turned my flashlight to Angie who had knelt beside the boy as she talked to him. Footsteps down the hall drew my attention and saw two lights bumping up and down.
“It’s Preston and Tom,” Angie said. Blowing out another breath, I shifted my weapon to point it at the ground and turned to the girl. She stood next to a bunk bed, holding a teddy bear in her arms.
“Hey,” I said as I kneeled to be closer to her level and removed my helmet. She stood frozen in her spot. I cleared my throat and pointed a thumb over my shoulder.
“I’m sorry about the bad word back there,” I said, “but you kind of startled me.” She closed her mouth but didn’t say anything, so I added, “Are you okay?”
Slowly her head bobbed forward. I guessed her to be around five, maybe six years old, and she must have been terrified.
“My name is Mags,” I said in my most reassuring voice. “What’s yours?”
The young boy popped his head inside the door as the girl continued to stare at me.
“It’s okay, Joanie. They’re here to help,” he said. The boy stepped inside the room. He looked a bit older than the girl and seemed to radiate confidence. He stopped in front of me and stuck out his hand.
“I’m Jimmy,” he said as he shook my hand.
“Mags,” I replied.
“Nice to meet you,” he replied. “This is my little sister Joanie—she’s a bit shy.”
“I’m not,” Joanie replied in a tiny but loud voice. Still, she remained in her corner beside the bed clutching her teddy bear.
“Who’s that big guy?” I said and pointed at the bear in an attempt to make the girl feel a little bit more at ease. Befor
e she could answer, a frantic female voice called out down the hall.
“Jimmy, Joanie, where are you?”
I stood and turned to the door opening and found Preston leaning against the post. A woman burst through the door past him, dropped to her knees, and threw her arms around Jimmy. She reached out a hand to Joanie.
“Come here, baby. It’s okay. Mommy’s here,” she said. The girl didn’t hesitate and reached for her mother’s hand. I moved around them and looked to Preston for answers.
“These are the kid’s quarters,” he said. “The rest of them are held up down the hall, and I have to say they were pretty surprised to see us.”
I stepped out into the hall and found several people had come to greet us.
| 14
Ash
“What? No!” My voice was shrill and urgent. I blocked my wheels with the brakes, and the delivery guy bumped into me. He braced himself on my shoulders, and I took the moment to unlatch the brakes and pulled away from him. I turned to see Baldy standing with his gun raised, pointing at Luke, who had his own weapon aimed at the bald man’s chest. Luke held his weapon left-handed and had his body pressed against the doorframe, no doubt holding Rowdy around the waist with his other. At this point, the kid was screaming, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
I reached for the baton in my pocket, unfolding the stick in one swift motion, and swung it at Warren, who was still within reach. The metal rod connected with his upper arm, and Warren let out a shriek of pain. Before I could raise my hand to smack him again, the delivery guy hit me on the wrist, and the baton fell from my hand. He shoved me hard, causing me to tip over, and I landed hard on my shoulder.
Looking up, I saw Baldy’s attention shift from Luke to Warren and then behind him. I glanced in that same direction but couldn’t see over the hedge from my position on the ground. It didn’t prevent me from hearing the rumble of an engine, and it sounded close.
I tried to push myself up, and although I knew how to get myself righted again, I also knew it usually took me a minute or so.
“Fuck,” I muttered as I saw Warren and Baldy heading my way. At the sound of automatic weapons firing, they picked up their pace and almost seemed frantic. I hadn’t seen the delivery guy was already hovering over me as he gripped my arm and roughly jerked me up. I couldn’t help crying out at the pain that shot up my arm, but that didn’t stop me from lashing out with my other. Baldy stopped my attempt midswing and held my arm tight.
With both of my arms trapped, it was easy enough for them to hoist me backward. I barely heard Luke shout my name from the porch, between the increasing gunfire, and I craned my neck to see him. He took a step forward but hesitated at the edge of the porch. Rowdy clung to Luke’s chest, his face contorted from crying as the two men dragged me to the van. Just before they jerked me around the back, I saw a green army truck pull up behind the truck that Warren had left to block the road. Shots rang out, and I twisted my head in an attempt to get a glimpse of what was going on. Soldiers standing on the army truck fired their weapons at the surrounding zombies as I heard the familiar voice.
“Secure the house!”
“Mars!” I shouted as loud as I could, but the gunfire was too deafening. A sense of relief filled me at the knowledge that Mars had finally come. I knew he would, but it would have been better if he hadn’t cut it this close.
Baldy opened the back door of the van, blocking the situation even more from my view. One of the men released me and stepped around the opened door. From the closeness of the shots, I assumed he returned fire. With one arm free, I swung a fist at my remaining assailant. It was Baldy, and my fist might as well have collided with a wall. He grabbed the wheels of my chair and lifted me off the ground. He tossed me in the van as if I were a toy. I landed on my side, all the while I screamed for help.
The doors closing muffled the sounds of gunfire around me. A jolt of fear reared up inside me as the engine of the van came to life. The darkness that surrounded me grabbed me by the throat as if it were choking me, but that didn’t stop me from shouting.
“Get me the hell out of here, Mars!” I shifted to the side of the van, dragging my chair, and started banging on the metal. Panic set in as the van started to move. This couldn’t be happening. Mars was right there. Why didn’t he come get me? Reflexively, I wrapped my arms around my head as bullets struck the van.
“Go! Go! Go!” someone shouted, and I suspected Baldy, because his was the only voice I’d never heard before. The van picked up speed, and my stomach dropped. In the darkness, I searched the inside of the van for a latch, anything to get out of there.
The van must have hit something hard, because the vehicle jolted, and the impact lifted me off the floor before I landed with a thud. I grabbed my elbow as pain shot through it, but a sharp turn had me grabbing for something to hold on to. Finding nothing, I skidded across the floor, smacking hard into the side. Another sharp pain jabbed at my skull. I tried to blink, but I couldn’t even tell whether I had as my consciousness slowly faded into oblivion.
“Please tell me that you didn’t kill her.” I was pretty sure I heard Warren’s voice, but a thick fog seemed to cloud my brain functions. Fingers stabbed at my throat, and I flinched.
“Nope, still alive,” a vaguely familiar voice said as the fingers stopped poking my throat.
Slowly my memories started to return—Warren and his men, the van. An overwhelming oh-shit feeling started to take me over as I felt a pair of hands grab me. I kept my eyes shut, and pretending to lull my head wasn’t a problem. I didn’t think my neck would work anymore. The pain that shot through my skull was excruciating.
Whoever had grabbed me set me down on my wheels. I slumped forward, and that wasn’t even on purpose.
“Ugh,” the man who I presumed to be Baldy said disgustedly.
“Let me see,” Warren said and tilted my head. I groaned and jerked my head as he poked at it, but that sent even more pain through my skull. “Stitches will have to wait; put some gauze around it. Should be fine.”
My eyelids refused to work as I tried to open them. I heard someone move away from me and fuss around before footsteps came closer again. A hand grabbed my head and jerked it up. My eyes shot open at the sudden motion.
“Ooowwwww,” I wailed, sounding like a small child. “Watch it.” The big bald guy stood before me, looking down at me as if I were some bug that he was about to crush.
“Don’t be a baby, kid,” he said as he grabbed my head and started wrapping gauze around it.
“Stop it,” I said as I tried to swat his hands away, “and I’m not a goddamn kid.”
“You sound like one,” Baldy said as he finished and slapped a piece of tape to my head so the gauze would stay in its place.
“Well, we’ll talk again when someone grabs you from your home and bashes your head in.”
Baldy took a moment to think about that and shook his head as he weighed the thought inside that thick skull of his.
“Okay, you win,” he said. I glared at him. He just shrugged and walked away.
With my eyes working again, I glanced around. I sat in the corner of a barn of some kind. The building was made of wooden planks that, in some places, allowed slivers of moonlight to penetrate the space. The doors stood wide open, but I couldn’t detect any lights in the darkness outside.
A big eighteen-wheeler truck, not unlike the one that had blocked the house in front of the Marsden home, stood in the center of the space. I squinted at the all-black vehicle that somehow reminded me of the Knight Rider. I forced a disturbing image of David Hasselhoff from my mind and focused on my surroundings. Baldy walked around the truck as if he were inspecting it. He didn’t seem to pay much attention to me.
I glanced at the doors, but there weren’t any guards. Straw and dirt covered the ground. This could be a problem in gaining speed, but I felt confident I could outride Baldy. He didn’t seem like the athletic type, except maybe in the lifting weights department. I spotted War
ren as he walked to the back of the truck and climbed inside. If there was a good moment to try to get the hell out of here, it would be this one.
I hesitated as I peered out the doors and then back at my surroundings. This place definitely looked like a barn. What if they’d dragged me to some farm or something that was surrounded by farmland? How the hell would I be able to wheel my way out? But even farms had roads, which would give Warren and Baldy over there the perfect opportunity to pick me up again in their van. Besides, I hadn’t spotted the delivery guy yet, so he could still be out there.
My hands hovered over the push rings. What did I have to lose? I was pretty sure Warren’s plans wouldn’t be the kind that had me doing a happy dance. I’d rather be dead than end up on that man’s cutting table again. At least Rowdy was safe. Even when Mars hadn’t been able to get to me out, he would have gotten Rowdy and Luke out.
I pushed the rings. Something clinked and rattled before the wheels locked in place. Glancing around me, I noticed the chain holding me in place. Baldy looked up from what he was doing and chuckled.
“You didn’t think I was that dumb,” he said. I stared at him and narrowed my eyes. If looks could kill, Baldy would have been a bleeding mess on the ground.
“Actually I did,” I said in a venomous tone.
Baldy scowled and turned back to what he was doing.
“Don’t worry, Ms. Reed,” Warren said, poking his head out the opening at the back of the truck. “It’ll be your turn soon enough.”
I tried to keep my face deprived of emotion; I wouldn’t let that bastard see how much he got to me. My hands clamped around the push rings so tight that my fingers started to cramp, but at least it kept my body from shaking, as a cold chill ran through it.
“Ah, bite me,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt.
“Be careful what you wish for,” he replied.
