Author: Kylie Scott

The kid was alright. He was on his feet, swearing like a trooper and finishing padding the bullet wound in his shoulder.

Daniel headed up the search party. The group gathered at the Blackstone gate would do fine for his search and rescue squad.

Someone here had to know where Owen would have taken her.

He dodged the tractor they had been tearing up the tarmac with, less than 50 meters out when he saw Andy. Then, Daniel’s feet faltered.

The young man came streaking out from beneath the shadows of a line of shop awnings to the east. He held a small sub-machine gun in his hands. The weapon pointed straight at the four men standing clueless by the garbage truck.

Andy’s mouth opened in a silent scream. A war cry.

“No!” Daniel raised his pistol, fired off three shots in the boy’s direction.

Andy started firing. His victims were clustered so close they didn’t stand a chance. The four men toppled, torn apart by the volley of bullets. Blood sprayed the road, the truck. It went everywhere, bright and beautiful in the light of the rising moon.

Andy’s head turned and the weapon followed. Bullets sprayed up stone at Daniel’s feet. He threw himself behind the tractor, hitting the ground hard while bullets punched into metal. His teeth clinked and his shoulder sang, jarred by the impact.

Then the bullets stopped. The sudden silence chil ed him to his bones. His ears stil echoed with the inferno of noise from a moment ago.

Shit.

Daniel pushed to his feet, feeling every day of his forty-odd years. He snuck a look around the side of the tractor and his gut plunged.

Andy was climbing into the cab of the garbage truck, slamming the door shut. “Oh, no.”

He aimed at the door, firing at the little prick as the truck came to life like some monster of old. Or maybe more akin to the monsters of new. The infected were wel revved up – moaning and snarling on the other side of the big machine.

“What happened?” A hand clapped down on his shoulder and one of Santa’s buddies puffed to a stop beside him.

Others didn’t stop to ask questions, opening fire on the garbage truck’s front windscreen. Glass shattered. Inside the cab Andy jerked and fell, spread across the steering wheel. His head was a ruined, red mush.

It didn’t matter. Mission accomplished.

Andy had managed to reverse back two, maybe three meters. He had almost cleared one lane of traffic and it was more than enough.

The infected spilled into town.

Gunfire filled his ears. Daniel ejected his empty clip, reached for the spare in his back pocket. A weird kind of calm took him over.

His hands held perfectly steady. They were fighting for their lives now. No question about it.

More of the townsfolk arrived, standing alongside him, taking aim. Before them, bodies staggered and flopped and fell, soon replaced by more. The horde gathered on the bridge and along the fence lines poured through the gap in their defenses. Some fell upon the four men Andy had kil ed until a hive of moving limbs surrounded the bodies.

Several tried unsuccessfully to climb the front of the garbage truck to get at Andy.

There were too many of them pouring through to get close enough to reach the truck and close the gap.

Close by, something howled, loud, long and mournful. More joined in and the noise eclipsed al the weapons with ease. Yipping and snapping sounds came from the other side of the truck.

“What the fuck was that?” Santa looked as good as Daniel felt, cheeks puffed up and purple.

“At a guess?” he yel ed back at the man. “The dogs Ali saw, or something like them.”

Santa blanched, turned and hollered, “More guns in the hardware.”

Daniel grabbed his thick wrist. “Where’s Owen?”

Santa squinted, shook his head. “Your woman’s fine. Sent her home.”

It was all he needed to know. The relief was exquisite. Breathtaking. He stupidly grinned, ignoring the look from one of the townsfolk near him. The apocalypse could wait. Or not.

The assembled were slowly being pressed back by the onslaught of infected. Some were slipping through the gap to collapse mere meters before them, but others were spreading out into the town.

This was not a fight they were likely to win.

“She’s safe.” Finn elbowed in beside him, a rifle slung over one shoulder and a pistol in each hand. The front of his shirt was stained dark with blood and there was a tangle of bandages spanning from around his neck to beneath his left arm. An almighty wad beneath his left collarbone, where the bullet had hit.

“You’re a walking happy meal looking like that.” Daniel jutted his chin at the kid’s chest.

“They won’t get close enough.” Finn took aim, popped off a few rounds. “We need to get her somewhere safe. This is going to go south.”

Screams echoed from one street over as infected found prey.

Back down the street more people hurried, loaded down with weapons. More still would be locking down in hopes of surviving by staying put, others loading up to run. He doubted any had planned for this.

The first dog came through, red eyes ablaze and bloody foam dripping from its jaws. Fucking hell. Daniel had never seen anything like it. The hot stench of urine hit his nose as someone pissed themselves nearby. More than one on the front line turned tail and ran.

Finn shoved his pistols into his jeans pockets and drew the rifle from his back, the both of them walking backward. “I want you to get her out.”

“If we’re leaving, we all go together.”

Finn fired and the first dog fell, its body flung aside by the force of the bullet and its own momentum. Two more jumped atop the growing mound of dead bodies to take its place. “Stop talking. Start moving.”

“She won’t go without you.”

“Make her.”

“Finn, neither wil I.”

The horde had them on the run. People appeared in upstairs windows, seeking shelter and a decent firing position off the street.

There was more screaming in the back streets of Blackstone as the infected spread.

Finn swore, lined up another shot and pulled the trigger, dropping a second of the hellhounds.

“We’re just going to leave these people to die?” asked Daniel.

And they were dying. The front line was a jagged, hole-ridden thing, doing little to stop the barrage of infected, let alone the dogs.

A truck pulled up behind them, headlights on ful , casting shadows across the crowd of infected. It lit things up nicely for the shooting gal ery. If anyone but his girl had been behind the driver’s seat, he would have thanked them.

“How we doing?” Ali yel ed from the driver’s-side window.

He and Finn both swore.

An infected fell upon someone to their far left who was caught out reloading. A high-pitched squeal filled the air. Finn quickly shifted, lining up his target. The top of the thing’s head turned a red mass as its brains exploded.

But it was too late.

The man fell to his knees, clutching at the remains of his throat, helpless to staunch the flow of blood pumping out through his fingers.

“I need to get to the garbage truck,” Finn said. “We have to close the gap.”

“There are too many,” said Dan.

“We have to push through.” Al revved the engine. “Get in the back.”

Finn turned to Daniel with teeth clenched tight. “I’m begging you, get her out of here.”

“If we need to make a run then she’s right where we want her,” Daniel said. Panic ripped through him like broken glass in his gut. The thought of letting either one of them out of his sight squeezed those shards tight. “Here’s the cavalry.”

Another pick-up truck pul ed up alongside them, Santa behind the wheel. Erin and three men were in the open-top cage up back.

They were armed to the teeth, with an assortment of guns and ammunition lying loose around their feet. Erin handed Dan a couple of pistols, popping off shots at the gate all the while. The woman stayed strong despite the pallor of her face.

“Thanks,” he said.

“We’re going for the garbage truck. Cover our backs.” Finn seemed to avoid Ali’s worried gaze when he passed her by and climbed onto her pick-up’s tray in one smooth jump. “Wind the window up, Al. Whatever happens, you stay put.”

Daniel followed the gunslinger, standing up high, hanging on to the metal frame sitting behind the cab. If possible, things looked worse from up there. He blocked out the cries of panic and pain from nearby, muted the moaning and concentrated on doing his part, gunning down the infected shambling toward them. They were taking her straight into it.

His shoulders tightened and he prayed the gun wouldn’t start shaking.

If they could just all live through this, all three of them get through it in one piece – it was al he asked. And it was a shitload to ask at such a time.

Finn knocked once on the cab roof and they were off. A hot, putrid wind rushed toward them as they drove into the oncoming sea of infected.

CHAPTER FORTY

Finn stood behind the cab on the back of the pick-up, concentrating solely on one lone target at a time. He took it nice and easy, though he could feel the sweat dampening his back, and the trickle of blood running down his front. Not letting the fact that his girlfriend was driving straight into danger mess with his focus.

Shit.

He wanted Al away from this, but Dan was right. Keeping her close was best.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

More dogs appeared, slinking in, cautious now. They growled and bit at thin air. They fell upon the scene like it was a feast. Infected or no, it didn’t seem to matter.

Finn laid the rifle at his feet and Daniel slapped a semiautomatic Browning into his hand. The two trucks moved forward, side-by-side, toward the garbage truck, lowering the risk of friendly fire. It was a bumpy ride, since many of the infected had fal en. There was no clean path.

It was less than a hundred meters, but it felt like miles.

Al kept going till the vehicle’s front gril bumped against the side of the garbage truck. She had made the vehicle into a walkway, delivering him straight to the driver’s-side door.