“Watch out behind you!” The infected was closing fast.
Sarah forgot her own pain and shouted a warning.
But Brian was already moving.
He spun on his heel and drove his foot into the creature’s knee.
The infected crumpled, slamming face-first into the pavement.
Brian planted his boot on its back and drove his knife into its skull, ending the fight.
Sarah stared at the boy in front of her.
He seemed different.
Harder.
Like a stranger wearing a familiar face.
Brian pulled the blade free, eyeing the corpse.
He’d spotted the infected through the truck’s window long before it struck.
These things weren’t so dangerous alone.
It was the numbers that would kill you.
His gaze shifted to Sarah.
A dark stain was spreading across her pant leg.
“Sarah, you’re bleeding.” She looked down, and the pain hit her all at once.
A sharp cry escaped her lips.
Joel had just pulled himself from the wreck.
The moment he heard his daughter was injured, his heart sank.
A leg wound in the middle of all this was a death sentence.
He hurried to her side and helped her up.
“Can you walk?” She shook her head.
Joel’s expression hardened.
He knew what that meant.
He looked at Brian.
The boy had done more than any neighbor should have to.
There was no obligation to stay.
Brian saw the look.
He understood what was coming.
He’d already decided he wasn’t going to die for people he’d known for a month.
He wasn’t that kind of person.
Then Tommy appeared from nowhere, breathless and wild-eyed.
“We’ve got trouble!
The infected are flooding the town!” The group had been unconscious long enough.
The infected from the highway had already spilled into the streets.
People who’d fled toward the road were now streaming back, dragging the horde behind them.
Joel didn’t hesitate.
He handed his pistol to Tommy and scooped Sarah into his arms.
“Cover us.” Tommy nodded, checking the weapon.
He glanced at Brian.
“Kid, you’ve got a gun too, right?
Stick with them.
I’ll watch our backs.” Brian hesitated, then gave a short nod.
Whatever he decided later, the immediate priority was getting out alive.
They ran.
The crowd surged around them, a tide of terror.
People spilled from buildings on both sides, screaming, crawling, trampling each other.
Behind them, scattered infected gave chase.
At the next intersection, a speeding car careened out of control and plowed into a gas station.
BOOM!
The impact sparked a fireball.
The entire station erupted, flames swallowing the vehicle and everyone unlucky enough to be nearby.
Dozens were set ablaze.
Some rolled on the ground, trying to extinguish themselves.
Others ran toward anyone they could reach, spreading the fire like a plague of living torches.
The survivors ahead stopped dead.
The inferno blocked their path.
Panic shattered the crowd.
They scattered left and right like ants from a kicked nest.
“This way.
Right.” Joel didn’t waste time.
He steered the group toward the right side of the street.
Sarah was shaking in his arms.
He whispered for her to close her eyes.
Brian followed, keeping pace.
The Maddilo Theater was just ahead.
Past that, the highway was only a short walk.
If they could find a working vehicle, they’d be gone.
But reality had other plans.
A burning car exploded at the intersection ahead.
The crowd reversed course instantly, stampeding backward.
Then the infected arrived from behind.
The first wave of runners slammed into the back of the mob.
Those at the front, sensing the trap, tried to turn, but the people behind them kept pushing, shoving them straight into the waiting jaws.
They were trapped.
Nowhere to go.
“Over here!
An alley!” Tommy spotted a narrow gap between two buildings, blocked by a rusted iron gate.
He waved them over.
The gate wasn’t locked.
They slipped through.
Tommy jammed a metal pipe through the latch just as two more survivors lunged for it, sealing them out.
Inside the alley, Joel nearly got blindsided by an infected that had been hiding behind a dumpster.
Brian’s shot went off before he’d even thought about it.
The bullet caught the creature square in the head.
They kept moving.
The alley twisted deeper into the block, but the infected were relentless.
They scaled fences, vaulted walls, pursued with single-minded hunger.
Sarah’s weight was slowing Joel down.
The infected were gaining.
They burst through the back door of a bar and slammed it shut.
But a hand, bloody and clawing, wedged itself in the gap.
Tommy threw his weight against the door.
Brian fired through the crack, forcing the creature back.
The door clicked shut.
They didn’t stop.
They crashed through the bar’s front entrance and emerged onto another street.
A lone infected was dragging someone down.
Brian dispatched it without breaking stride.
A broken wall led them up a hillside alongside the highway.
They were close now.
So close.
Then a blinding light hit them from above.
A soldier, fully armed, stood on the rise ahead.
“Stop right there!
Don’t move!
Hands in the air!” Tommy dropped his gun immediately, arms stretched high.
Joel froze, Sarah still cradled in his arms.
The soldier’s stance eased slightly.
His eyes moved from the armed man who’d surrendered to the man carrying a child.
He didn’t pay much attention to the other boy standing off to the side.
Brian, however, was already moving.
Slowly.
Subtly.
He drifted to the right, half his body slipping behind a rocky outcropping.
He’d seen this scene before.
Every zombie movie ever made.
Survivors find a soldier.
The soldier radios his superiors.
The superiors give the cold order to eliminate the civilians.
Maybe it wasn’t real.
But it paid to be ready.
“Sir, please!
Help us!” A figure stumbled out of the shadows.
Brian recognized him.
The man they’d saved outside the bar.
He’d been following them all along.
The soldier snapped his rifle up.
“Stay where you are!
I will fire!” The man didn’t stop.
He kept running, arms outstretched, babbling incoherently.
“Help me, help me, please…” The soldier didn’t hesitate.
His finger tightened on the trigger.
The rifle spat fire.
The man’s body jerked, blood spraying from a dozen wounds.
He collapsed in a heap.
Silence.
The man’s death was his own fault.
He hadn’t stopped.
But the cold efficiency of it left everyone stunned.
Joel stared at the twitching corpse, then at the soldier.
His mind raced.
This wasn’t good.
He glanced to his side.
Brian was gone.
The boy had already slipped behind cover.
Smart kid.
Joel felt a chill crawl up his spine.
If the soldier opened fire, Sarah would be caught in the middle.
He’d be holding his own daughter as a shield.
Slowly.
Carefully.
He began inching toward the rocks where Brian had taken cover.