Bright light stabbed at Lance’s eyes.
Ears thrummed, hissing static blotting everything out.
His lungs refused to cooperate, heaving helplessly against ribs.
Heat baked against him in waves, pulsating and searing.
He tried to speak, but couldn’t hear himself.
The redolence of burning meat wafted in the air.
He blinked.
His vision cleared slightly. He blinked again, longer and slower. The sky above him came into focus, a black spire of smoke cutting through the blue.
He wriggled his fingers and toes, shocked at the numbness in his limbs, grateful as the feeling abated. His side, still a little sore, tightened as he sat up, grunting, fighting for breath.
Smoking rubble surrounded a crater where the office building had been. Debris filled the parking lot and street. Trees by the highway burned along with nearby homes.
Severed limbs twitched in bushes and rain gutters. Devastated bodies dragged themselves across pavement, blood oozing from orifices. Lance stared at the mayhem, dumbstruck.
Warmth eked down his forehead. His hand came away bloody. A headache settled in as he sat on the sidewalk, church steps behind him.
Several of the Vladdies down the street, further away from the explosion, worked back to their feet, heads bobbing around in confused anger.
“Cass?” Lance grimaced at the stiffness of his neck as he looked around for Cass. “You OK?”
He found her sprawled on the lawn of the church, partially hidden beside the broad stairs leading to the front door. Blood stained her butchered hair, matting it to her forehead.
“Cass?” Lance took a tentative step toward her, his knees wobbly, unsure. He cast a glance down the street again, watching as another dozen of the infected struggled to get up. They would be swarming again soon, converging on Lance and Cass like locusts.
“Cass, get up!” His ears rang, his own voice’s delivery muted and soft.
Cass didn’t move. Her chest rose and fell in shallow shifts. Her axe lay at her feet, one side of the blade digging into the grass.
Lance wiped blood from his eyes with his forearm as he kneeled beside her. The seeping wound on her head was an inch long, but didn’t appear deep enough to be a major concern. Lance knew from watching the UFC that head wounds bled like crazy, even if they were superficial.
A piece of cinderblock, jagged and rectangular, lay by her shoulder, drops of red covering it.
Grabbing her shoulder, Lance shook her lightly, trying to wake her up. He tapped her cheek, calling her name.
She didn’t respond.
The dazed infected down the street worked their way toward the burning building, their attention temporarily distracted by the flaming debris.
Cass’ eyes fluttered, but didn’t open.
“Goddamn it.” Lance found his machete by the stairs of the church and tied the loop that hung from its handle to his belt.
After sitting Cass’ axe against the stairs’ railing, he bent down and grabbed her wrists, pulling her into a seated position. Her head lolled against her right shoulder, muscles lax.
Lance’s side strained as he lifted her waist off the ground, bending her torso over his shoulder. His legs shook as he took on her weight, his sliced foot protesting the added stress.
He straightened his back, glad that she was in good shape. If she carried just a few more pounds, he wasn’t sure he would have been strong enough to lift her. Even now, with her small frame draped over his shoulder, he didn’t know how long his stamina would last.
With his right arm wrapped around her legs, holding her in place, Lance grabbed her axe with his free hand. He knew she would ask for the damn thing as soon as she woke up.
She mumbled against his lower back.
“What? Are you waking up?”
She fell silent, her body still limp.
“Guess not.”
The first steps were agonizing. Lance’s muscles, energy depleted and sore, strained against her weight. He felt the slightest of stubble on her legs as he held on to them, the miniskirt she wore not leaving much to the imagination.
Though he was carrying a woman through a monster-laden street, the thought of women no longer shaving their legs occurred to him. What would be the point now? There were no pictures to be taken. Catty conversations around water coolers were a thing of the past. Hygiene in general could be little more than an afterthought when you’re constantly running for your life.
Lance thought of his own five o’clock shadow and realized how fortunate he was to have slow-growing facial hair. His college buddies used to laugh at his pathetic attempts at beards and mustaches. Now, with a dearth of razors and shaving cream to use, he liked the idea of not shaving every day.
Her waist bore down on his shoulder, its muscles fatiguing before he made it twenty yards. He shifted her weight, sliding her as close to his neck as he could. If he didn’t find a safe place to lie low for a while soon, he would need to think of a different way to carry her around.
A fence surrounded the church, separating its property from a neighboring ranch-style home. Lance followed it, leaving the main street behind, knowing that he couldn’t carry her and fight off the sick at the same time.
Though he tried not to think about what waited underneath the church, Lance couldn’t keep his eyes from wandering back to the bricks of its foundation. The size and power of what he’d seen frightened him more than anything else did. What could protect them from such fury? Where could they hide that would provide any kind of safety?
He forced his eyes to remain straight ahead, mentally counting the steps until he reached the back of the church. His shoulder ached already, cramps threatening to set in at any moment.
A smaller street lay behind the cathedral. Homes lined the block, uncut grass growing long in the lawns. A two-story home with yellow siding had an SUV parked inside of the living room. Two red trails ran from the open doors of the vehicle, disappearing through the rubble of the crash.
Lance searched the street, knowing that he needed to find a secure place to put Cass down. His strength would fail him sooner rather than later, and he dared not entertain the idea of leaving her behind. She’d saved his life. Even if she hadn’t, he doubted that he was cold-blooded enough to abandon her anyway.
Two small bikes with training wheels rested against a curb, tassels flowing in the gentle breeze. Lance fought to keep his mind from imagining what had happened to the children who used to ride them.
Cass moaned against his back again, but remained limp. He patted her leg, mumbling a hollow reassurance.
“Think, damn it, think!” Lance turned right, walking down the center of the street. He walked around the cars sprawling across the two lanes.
Stepped over congealed puddles of blood and tissue.
The sick stood in the disheveled yards, staring at vacant homes. Two of them walked after Lance, but he lost them in a tangle of wrecked cars, hiding behind a jack-knifed eighteen-wheeler.
After another hundred yards, he had to shift Cass to his other shoulder. The relief in his right arm and the side of his neck nearly brought him to tears when he sat her down on the hood of a Chrysler Crossfire.
A shriek from behind a row of brick homes startled Lance, but he couldn’t see the Vladdie it came from. Knowing that he couldn’t afford to rest, he switched the axe to his fatigued arm. Cass slid down the hood of the car after a few tugs, her bare thighs squeaking against the metal, and draped over Lance’s other shoulder.
Blood still dripped from her lacerated scalp, but at a slower pace.
Lance plodded on.
The road bent left, a few small shops and an ice cream vendor filtering in amid the homes. The stench of spoiled milk wafted from the abandoned freezers inside the small shack.
“A chocolate-dipped cone would go really fucking good right about now.” Lance patted one of Cass’ hamstrings. “You can’t have any though. We need to keep you light in ca
se I need to carry you again.”
Sweat drenched Lance’s shirt, the cloth sticking to his skin. His left shoulder sagged under the weight, his arm burning from the exertion.
Fear nibbled at his thoughts. If he didn’t see something soon, what would he do? How would he protect her?
The sun, though a few hours from setting, ebbed ever closer to the horizon. If they didn’t find a reinforced structure of some kind by then, they’d be a late evening snack for the horrors that roamed the night.
The patter of distant gunshots rang out ahead. Lance squinted, but couldn’t see where they came from.
A branch of PNC Bank, where Lance had accounts that were now worthless, stood beside the road on his right. The glass front doors were smashed out, no doubt from someone hoping to score some easy cash. Why people didn’t realize that money was as pointless as the accounts that once held them, Lance couldn’t understand.
Paper printed with the portraits of presidents held no value anymore.
More gunfire ahead.
Closer. Much closer.
Sounded like a shotgun to Lance.
Grinding his teeth, Lance picked up his pace. The idea of dealing with anyone else today felt worse than running from the freshly infected. People were too unpredictable. He could use Cass’ pistol, but his arms shook so badly now that his aim wouldn’t be worth a damn.
His breathing grew labored, involuntary grunts escaping him.
Men yelling, at least two, made his heart race even faster.
Beside the bank, sitting under a roof covering the drive through, was an armored truck. Its front bumper, dented and scratched, pushed against one of the brick structures covering the bank’s pneumatic tubes.
The passenger door hung open.
Hope bloomed in Lance’s heart despite the agony his muscles felt.
The voices came again, louder.
Lance swiveled precariously on his wounded foot, twisting around to get to the armored truck. His eye caught movement down the street, giving him pause.
Two men ran into view, firing desperate shots from their hips as they ran toward Lance. They maneuvered around a crashed Silverado, shouting frightened commands at each other. Shotguns held in their hands and ammo belts across their chests, Lance wondered why they needed to run. They had enough ammunition to fight off quite a few of the daywalkers.
Then he saw them.
Dozens of them.
A small army of Vladdies, still early in the mutation, followed the men. More than half ran with ease, the clumsiness of the first few days of infection gone, the hunger taking over. Several were naked, their bodies distorted and pale.
“Shit!” Lance started forward, pushing off his bad foot, grimacing at the pain. He went as fast as his strained and exhausted muscles would allow. His shoulder threatened to dislocate under Cass’ weight.
He peered back at the men as he halved the distance to the truck.
One of them, younger and less fat, shouted something unintelligible at his cohort.
The other man, rather than responding with words, racked the slide on his shotgun and shot his friend in the stomach.
Cries of shock and pain echoed through the neighborhood. The gut-shot man fell to all fours, a hand across his destroyed midsection. His attacker ran past him.
Jesus! He just shot that guy to use him as a distraction.
Lance peeled his gaze away just as the Vladdies closed in on the wounded man. His screams urged Lance to move even faster.
He reached the front of the armored truck just as the blood-curdling agonies died out.
“Hey! Hey you! Wait for me!”
Lance didn’t look back, realizing that anyone who would shoot their friend to help themselves wasn’t the kind of person he needed around. That and the man had an entire platoon of the infected hot on his heels.
The cabin was empty, save for dried blood on the seats. A keychain hung from the ignition.
Lance grabbed the open door and started to hoist Cass up to the seat when he paused, wondering if the bulletproof windows could stop the nightwalkers. They were strong enough to withstand gunfire, but what about the continuous blows of a dozen monsters? Once they went inside, it could be days before an opportunity to escape would present itself.
“Shit!” Lance staggered around to the back of the truck, finding the doors locked. He tossed the axe to the ground.
“Hmm?” Cass shifted on his shoulder. “Whazzit?”
Ignoring her, Lance dropped to a knee on the hard surface of the drive through, the jolt sending bolts of pain into his joint. He lowered her to the pavement, skirt sliding up her thighs as his arm stabilized her descent. A flash of black panties caught Lance’s attention as he fought to his feet and wobbled back to the cab.
The armed man closed in, less than fifty yards away, slowed by his age and obvious fatigue. Death followed closely behind him, shrieking and gnashing.
“I said wait!”
“Fuck you!” Lance shouted as he climbed into the truck.
He pulled the keys from the ignition and wriggled backward, shoulder aching with every movement. He jumped to the ground, stopping just long enough to lock the doors of the cab before running to the back again. They didn’t need the gun-wielding asshole getting behind the wheel and doing something stupid while they were stuck in the back.
The shotgun boomed behind Lance as he turned the corner. Pellets ricocheted off the armored vehicle, missing him by less than two feet.
“Dumbass?” Cass lifted a hand to her head. Her eyelids fluttered open, confusion filled and dreary. “What are you shooting at?”
Lance fumbled with the keys. “Some asshole is trying to kill us. No big deal.” He stabbed a key at the hole in the door, but it didn’t fit. The next one slid in and he turned it, hearing a loud thunk as the lock opened.
“Where are we?”
Opening the door, Lance held a hand out to Cass. “Come on! There’s a whole street full of Vladdies bearing down on us.”
Cass took his hand, groaning as he jerked her to her feet. “Easy, dumbass—I have a helluva a headache.” Her words slurred as she spoke, eyes still cloudy.
Lance didn’t argue with her. He grabbed her shoulders and spun her around, shoving her toward the open door. She put her foot on the first of two steps leading into the back of the truck, but her movements were lethargic. Knowing they were out of time, he knelt down, placed his hands under her ass, and pushed as hard as he could.
Her light frame flew into the back of the truck, landing with a thud on the metal floor.
“Don’t touch my ass, you stupid mother—”
Lance grabbed the open door, about to pull himself inside, when he felt the touch of cold metal on his neck.
“Step away from the door,” the man said.
“We can—”
“You said ‘fuck me’.”
“I watched you shoot that guy.” Lance licked his lips. He caught Cass’ gaze, saw her eyes clear when she spotted the shotgun.
“Let him go, hillbilly.”
Dozens of feet clopped across the pavement by the front of the truck. Lance knew they had seconds before the daywalkers took them.
“Shut up, bitch. I’ll—”
Lance grabbed the Rambo-style knife from the sheath on his hip and spun around. His right elbow caught the barrel of the shotgun, shoving it aside as it roared. The deafening blast went off by his ear, filling his head with a high-pitched ringing.
He continued spinning on his heel, coming face-to-face with his would-be murderer. They locked eyes as Lance drove the ten-inch blade into the man’s sternum. The razor-sharp edge slid in with surprising ease, stopping only when the hilt jammed against skin.
The air exploded from the man’s lungs, his eyes widening, mouth falling slack.
Warmth ran over Lance’s hand. He stared at the man’s face, forever etching his features into his memory. Deep lines across his forehead. Dark hair, graying at the temples. Slight belly hanging over hi
s belt.
Lance pulled the knife free.
Red-tinged saliva spilled over the man’s lower lip.
The first daywalker appeared around the corner of the truck, grabbing at the dying man’s shoulders, sinking its teeth into the exposed flesh of his neck.
Lance stepped away, bending to grab the axe from the ground, and lunging for the back of the truck.
Cass grabbed the back of his shirt as he climbed in, pulling him clear of the door. Hands grabbed at his trailing feet.
He kicked them away, twisting around in time to see Cass boot one of the infected in the face. She slammed the door shut.
The back of the truck went dark.
They sat without speaking for a while, listening to the screams of the man outside. He lived for quite some time, pleading for death. It finally found him a few minutes later and he fell silent.
Lance found a bench on the left wall and sat on it, rocking back and forth, as he replayed the knifing in his mind. He couldn’t erase the image of the man’s shocked face as the blade pierced his body. Remembering the blood on his hand, Lance wiped at his pant legs frantically, overtaken by the need to clean himself of the deed.
Cass found him in the darkness. She placed her hands on his shoulders. “You didn’t have a choice. He was going to kill you. I saw it in his eyes.”
Lance thought about it for several seconds before responding. “There are so few of us left. We shouldn’t be killing each other. It’s different with them—the Vladdies—than it is with a man.”
“It was him or us. You did the right thing.”
He understood what she was saying, but it didn’t make him feel much better.
The bench shifted as she sat beside him, unseen in the darkness.
“Care to tell me how we ended up in an armored car?”
As the daywalkers outside began to beat against the reinforced sides of the truck, Lance recounted the exploding office building.
Chapter 19