“Just don’t use it unless you absolutely have to,” Gray warned. “There are only seven bullets in the box, and I don’t know if Cade has anything left that’ll fit it. And be careful with it. The manual says it has a long-pull trigger, so there’s no safety. I don’t want to have to deal with another gunshot wound, okay? Cade’s was hell as it was.”
“The only safety that matters is the one between your ears,” Remy said sagely.
“You’ve been talking to Cade about guns too much,” Gray observed with a soft laugh. “I’ve heard her say that a million times.”
“It’s true, though. If you’re too stupid to handle a gun safely, then all the safeties in the world won’t keep you from getting your stupid ass shot,” Remy pointed out. She stood and brushed her jeans off, stretched, and picked up the box with the bullets in it. She tucked the box into her jacket pocket and gathered the bowl and water from the roof. “Let’s get inside. I’m tired, and I want your company. Inside.”
“Don’t we need somebody to keep watch?” Gray asked, though he was intrigued at the suggestion underlying Remy’s words. He stood to join her as she made her way to the window.
“Fuck the watch. I haven’t seen anybody in two weeks, maybe more than that. And that includes the infected. I think we’ll be okay for a few hours. Besides, I think you need my company as much as I need yours,” Remy said confidently. She ducked into the window—narrowly avoiding striking her head on the frame in the process—and looked at Gray with a raised eyebrow. “You coming?”
Gray glanced at the street behind him, wrinkling his forehead in a frown as he looked to Remy once more. She winked and offered her hand to him. It was no contest, really. He took her hand, climbing through the window and into the house again. “Hell, why not?” he said. “I doubt anything’s going to come after us here, right?”
Chapter 6
A fist beating on the door broke the otherwise peaceful silence of Ethan’s room. Ethan tore himself from his nap and sat up straight. His gaze skittered frantically about the room. His heart raced in his chest, adrenaline rushing into him at the sudden rude awakening. Ethan rose from the bed and, after stopping long enough only to slip his shoes back on, headed straight for the door. He’d just reached it when it flew open, nearly hitting him in the face. A familiar redheaded figure stumbled inside and shut the door behind her.
Ethan caught Alicia’s shoulder and made the woman face him. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded. “I know you didn’t come up here beating on my fucking door like that just to see me.”
“The infected,” Alicia said. She pulled a spare gun from the waistband of her jeans and pressed it into his hand. Ethan recognized the familiar look and feel of his Glock 17. He’d thought it was long gone after his fight in the alley the month before. “They’re attacking en masse, trying to get into the building,” she continued. “I don’t think they’ve succeeded yet, but we’ve got to put them down long before they get that far.”
Ethan turned his focus from the weapon to Alicia’s pale face. “How many are out there?” he asked.
“Twenty, maybe thirty,” she said. “Could be more by now. We need everyone who has experience fighting the infected.”
Ethan blew out a breath and checked to make sure the pistol was loaded. “Where do you need me, then?”
“I want you with me,” Alicia replied. She wrenched the door open and led the way into the hall. Ethan followed her obediently, almost unthinkingly. “I want to see how well you handle that weapon. That’ll help me decide when it’s a good idea to let you roll out on supply trips with the rest of us.”
Ethan’s mood lifted, despite the presence of infected on the street far below them. The possibility, the very idea, of getting out of the hotel was too amazing to contemplate. He’d begun to feel like a prisoner, and the suggestion that he actually was one niggled at the back of his mind. He shook the suspicion aside and caught up to Alicia.
“Let’s go,” Ethan said, his mood uplifted by the chance to shoot something. “I’m sick of sitting around doing nothing. I’m ready for some action.”
“So I see,” Alicia said in amusement. She led the way to the stairwell, pulling a flashlight from her pocket and turning it on as she stepped through the door. Ethan blinked rapidly as the darkness was broken. Far below them, gunshots echoed. “I personally hope there isn’t more than a quick mop-up left when we get there. I don’t want to risk the infected getting inside.”
Ethan nodded understandingly, and they began a quick descent of the stairs. She pushed the stairwell door open on the fourth floor. The short hallway beyond was a beehive of activity. People Ethan had never seen before rushed about with pistols in their hands or shotguns and rifles strapped to their backs, looking harried and overworked. Tables were shoved against the walls between conference room doors. Ethan glanced at one table as he passed and spotted a map of Atlanta taped securely to half of the table’s surface. A wrinkled map of Georgia was similarly fastened beside it. On the city map, the metro area had been gridded off, and several of the squares were colored in. It seemed the suppliers for this small community were systematically searching for the necessary supplies to keep the building’s occupants alive. Ethan found the level of organization impressive.
As Ethan contemplated the state map, trying to decide why it looked so familiar, a blond woman brushed past him with a hunting rifle gripped in her hands. Alicia caught the woman’s upper arm to stop her and demanded, “Where’s Dominic?”
“He went to the street level,” the woman told Alicia. “He said something about checking the reinforcements in the parking garage to make sure the infected couldn’t get past the gates.” The woman’s eyes flicked past Alicia to Ethan, blatantly looking him up and down. Ethan nearly fidgeted under the woman’s scrutiny.
“Is there any risk of that happening?” Alicia demanded. Her voice brought the woman’s attention back to her. “Any sign of the infected getting in through there whatsoever?”
“Not that I’m aware of, but—”
“Get down there and get aware,” Alicia ordered. She jabbed her thumb over her shoulder, indicating the lobby behind her and the escalators leading down to the parking garage. “And let me know as soon as possible.”
The woman nodded and pressed past them to head for the escalators. Ethan gave Alicia a questioning look that she ignored and followed her farther down the cluttered hallway toward the lobby.
“Where’s the emergency?” he asked as he pulled even with her and leaned close enough for her to hear him in the noisy hallway.
“Outside,” Alicia said shortly. Ethan glanced at her and imagined he could see adrenaline pumping under her skin. “We are going in here,” she added. She pushed open a conference room door and motioned for Ethan to enter ahead of her. “This is mine,” she said, pushing the door shut. The conference room was sparsely decorated, with only a bed and table shoved into a corner. The room’s long table had been moved aside, and it was lined with row upon row of handguns, rifles, knives, and even a few grenades. Alicia walked briskly across the room to the wall of windows, pushing the heavy curtains aside to reveal that two of the windows had already been broken out; large wooden boards were secured over the voids. She moved the wood aside from a window and leaned out to look at the ground below. “And that is the infected,” she said, seemingly to herself, as she squinted at the ground.
Ethan joined her and chose his own window, wrestling the wood board aside with some difficulty. The infected were smashed against the glass and stone of the building, clawing at the sides as they tried to get in. He started counting and lost track at twenty-four. More steadily made their way down Andrew Young Boulevard. “What happens if they get in?”
“We seal off the parking garage and pray they go away soon,” Alicia said. She raised her voice over the wind blowing into the conference room. She slid her pistol from its holster and leaned out enough to aim into the mass below, hanging on to the window frame. “If they take
the garage, there’s no way we can get out for supplies. Once the food runs out after that, we’d be, in a word, fucked.”
Ethan mimicked her position, holding the window frame tightly with his right hand and aiming his Glock with his left. He picked his target and squeezed the trigger without hesitation. The weapon kicked back in his hand, but he kept his grip on it as his mind settled into the familiar feeling he’d get when qualifying at the shooting range, back when his life actually meant something. Unfortunately, the infected man for which he’d aimed didn’t go down. Ethan gritted his teeth and adjusted his aim, firing several shots even as he realized the distance between him and the infected was too great for his pistol to cover.
“Are they fucking multiplying?” Alicia asked in frustration.
Ethan didn’t bother responding. Instead, he lowered the sidearm, grimacing as he watched the crowd that kept growing, kept surging against the hotel in an attempt to break its defenses. He eyed the movement below them, watching as the infected began to flood around the corner of the building. “It’s not holding,” he warned Alicia. “There are too many. How many people do you have in the parking garage?”
“There isn’t supposed to be anybody in the parking garage,” Alicia said. “I know Dominic is down there, but he’s supposed to be hauling ass out of there and—wait, where are you going?”
As Alicia spoke, Ethan started for the door, his steps brisk. “If you think for one second I’m leaving Dominic down there to tough it out alone, you’ve got another thing coming,” he said. He jerked the door open and stepped into the hallway. Several people watched him, but Ethan ignored them and started across the lobby toward the escalators separating him from whatever danger lay below.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Alicia said, hurrying after him. Her expression was a perfect mixture of anger, irritation, and apprehension. “You’re going to get killed.”
“So you decide to follow me and, what, witness my inevitable demise?” Ethan retorted. He rolled his eyes and focused on climbing down the escalators. Alicia lunged forward and grabbed the back of his jacket, hauling him back and nearly toppling him to the metal steps. He righted himself and turned on her. “I’m already a dead man, Alicia!” he pointed out. “The least you can do is let me do what I can to fucking help before I bite it.”
“You see, this is what I have a problem with,” Alicia snapped. “You’re so damned defeatist. It’s going to get you killed.”
“Do you really think I care?” Ethan asked. He pulled away from her and started down the escalator again, stepping onto the tiled hallway floor leading to the parking garage. He ran down the short hallway and burst through the glass doors at the end, emerging into the garage just as the infected managed to pull the parking garage’s gate high enough to break the chain holding it closed. They swarmed the garage with single-minded intent.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Ethan groaned. He lifted his Glock and aimed for the infected man leading the pack. It took two shots, but he brought the man down with a clean bullet to the forehead. The man fell back to the concrete, knocking two of his fellow infected down with him. Ethan fired twice more into the mass as they rushed toward him, his shots erratic and misplaced, striking limbs and torsos. He swore at the wasted ammunition and scanned the garage, spotting Dominic nearby. The man had a rifle to his shoulder, and he fired repeatedly into the cluster of infected coming toward him, his shots mechanical and rhythmic as he plugged one bullet after another into the infected, his aim unerring.
Ethan didn’t concern himself with the other man any further once he’d ascertained he was still alive and fighting. Instead, he eyed the blond woman he’d seen on the fourth floor. She’d taken up position on the other side of the garage to Ethan’s left, sheltering behind a dusty sedan and joining her rifle fire with Dominic’s. Ethan shook free from his rapid observations and squeezed the trigger of his own weapon, shooting an infected woman drawing too close to the blond woman’s position for his personal comfort.
“We’ve got to get that gate closed,” Alicia suddenly said to his right. Ethan glanced at her and found that she’d joined him, her weapon raised. But she didn’t fire any shots into the mass. Instead, her eyes focused, laser-like, on the opened gate. The chain that had held it shut had been strained to the breaking point; its snapped ends dangled from the bottom of the gate. “If we can keep more from getting in, we can pick off what’s left and then work on the others outside.”
“Cut them off from the source,” Ethan said, seeing the wisdom in Alicia’s suggestion.
An infected girl no older than sixteen, her face littered with piercings, snagged Ethan’s arm. Ethan put the barrel of his gun against her forehead and squeezed the trigger. She fell back, sprawled limply on the concrete, and didn’t move again. He gritted his teeth and forced his focus to the mess in front of him once again.
“So how do you propose we get to the gate through these bastards?” Ethan called over the gunfire echoing through the garage.
Alicia hesitated, looking between Ethan and the gate uncertainly. An Asian man in a dirty business suit got uncomfortably close to them, and Ethan put a bullet in the man’s skull. Uncertainty was a look that didn’t suit Alicia’s normally confident features, Ethan reflected as he calmly grabbed an infected man by the arm and dragged him to the floor before shooting him in the face. They were on a battlefield; it wasn’t the time or place for Alicia’s indecisiveness. Anger and irritation at Alicia rose from his gut in a massive wave.
“Oh, fuck it,” Ethan snarled. He spared the woman a dirty look before turning on his heel and bolting in the direction of the gate. He ran right into the thickest part of the mass of infected trying to invade the Westin.
Alicia shouted as the stinking bodies of the infected closed in around him, but Ethan couldn’t make out her words. Nor did he care to. He had a more important task at hand, one entailing saving all their asses, since the ones in charge seemed too helpless to do it themselves.
It was a stupid idea, though, Ethan reflected as he jammed his Glock underneath a waitress’s chin and squeezed the trigger before moving on to the next infected obstacle blocking his path. Alicia had all the ammunition; she hadn’t bothered to give him so much as a spare magazine. It wouldn’t be long before he ran out of what he had. And then he’d be right back where he’d been just over a month before.
Ethan couldn’t spare time to think on that. Not right now. Not when he had a job to do. He plowed on, shoving and kicking and shooting his way through the infected, struggling past them toward the gate. Through its links, he saw the forms of more infected approaching the building. He had to put a stop to this before any more gained entry, or the building would never be secured again. And there was no way they could evacuate over one hundred people safely.
Ethan shoved his foot against the stomach of a large man grasping for him. The infected man was a behemoth, massively muscled and standing at least six inches taller than he. His stomach felt like it was made of solid stone. Despite that, the impact of Ethan’s foot managed to force him back several feet into the mass of other infected. This bought Ethan enough time to lift his Glock again and plug a bullet into the large man’s skull. The man tumbled to the floor in a heap.
The slide of Ethan’s gun locked back. Ethan grimaced and jammed the weapon into the waistband of his jeans. Only one more infected man stood directly between him and the gate, though more still surrounded him on each side. Ethan waded through the infected grasping at him and reached the man in three long strides. He grabbed the man’s shoulder and rammed the heel of his right hand against the man’s nose. The cartilage shattered, driving into the man’s brain, and he sagged against the gate and fell to the concrete.
With the last of the immediate obstacles out of the way, Ethan threw himself at the gate, grasping it and slamming it to the floor. A hand caught between the gate and the concrete, its owner an elderly woman with two visibly broken legs, who clawed at Ethan’s ankle.
Ethan gritted his teeth and grasped the gate more firmly, slamming it against her hand with all the strength in his body. Bones snapped, and with another strike, the appendage ripped free. Then the gate fell fully shut.
“Where the fuck’s my backup?” Ethan shouted over the din of infected echoing through the garage. A thud against the gate pushed it an inch inward, jolting Ethan forward. He braced his heels on the concrete and pushed back, grasping the gate tightly and nearly hanging off it to keep it closed. A snap of gunfire rang out to his left, and then Dominic was beside him, two thick lengths of chain in one hand and his rifle in the other. He slung the rifle’s strap over his shoulder and slid the chains in place, wrapping them around and over and under the gate and then attaching them to anything that would hold them—including the large, thick pipes that ran along either side of the gate’s entryway—before slapping padlocks into place. Then, still without speaking, he handed Ethan a fresh magazine of ammunition and moved away, raising his rifle again and firing into the remaining infected.
The mop-up that followed was quick and brutal. Working methodically, the four of them swept the infected, goading them into corners of the garage or shoving them to the floor and firing bullets into their brains. Ethan felt robotic, almost mechanical, as he shot one after another, trying to shut down the part of his brain that screamed at his actions. It could have easily been him. The horror of the idea was too terrible to comprehend. Ethan buried it and set about his disgusting work.
It was only after Ethan fired the last bullet into the last of the infected before him that he realized he was out of ammunition again. He lowered the weapon, his eyes locked onto the man spread-eagled on the concrete at his feet, and waved a hand at Alicia as the woman approached. “Give me a new magazine,” he demanded.
The Becoming: Revelations Page 4
