Sophie Littlefield - Horizon

“Nadir, you take the front line with me,” Smoke said, motioning them to hurry. “Bart, you next.” He scanned the people nearby for anyone who could help. “Terrence, Shel-you too. Do you have extra ammo?”

Shel held up her handgun and nodded; her face was pale but her hands were steady. Terrence stepped up without a word. The street-sweeper auto he carried had seemed like a ridiculous affectation to Smoke earlier, but now its bulk and power seemed like a good idea. So what if Terrence was a boy with a man’s weapon? If there was ever a day to become a man, today was it.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

Smoke was conscious of his limp, of the trembling that started in his chest and radiated out his arms. He gripped his gun harder and made a fist with his other hand. He knew it was more important to appear strong than to be strong right now. The others would follow his example, a lesson he’d learned over and over in the Box when he trained with the other guards. He’d never been the strongest, the fastest, the most accurate-but he’d been the most determined.

He had the most to atone for.

And that was the thing he held in his mind as he led them down the mall walkway. It was another day of atonement and that was all right, and if his body screamed with pain and his thoughts fell away until all that was left was this blood-rimed shadow of the man he’d been, that was all right too. The coward’s way, the easy way, would have been to die back in the stinking concrete basement room where the Rebuilders had taken their vengeance upon him, where they left him to lie on a floor streaked with the blood of others, but Smoke did not die.

Because he wasn’t done atoning.

And because of Cass.

He sought her out in the huddled crowd of Edenites. There-there, she had retreated to the center, with Ruthie in her arms and her father close by. Red would keep her safe, for now-another man who’d give his life for Cass, and that was all right with Smoke.

Nadir knew what he was doing. He kept pace with Smoke, though Smoke knew he itched to go faster, and focused on the group ahead.

“Get ’em in the chute, boss, what do you say?” Nadir said quietly.

Smoke saw what he meant-if they could get the infected to come across one of the narrow pedestrian bridges that crisscrossed the atrium, they’d be tightly clustered, a better target than they were now. Not yet close enough to catch the Edenites’ scent, they stumbled and wandered in a loose formation along the side of the mall, momentarily distracted by the brilliant flashes of light being spun by some sort of crystal hanging in the display window of a Hot Topic.

“Good idea.” He turned to the others. “Everyone…we need to get them to come across. I’ll stay on this side with…how about you, Shel? You and me. Then when they’re in the middle, Terrence, Nadir, Bart, you guys get to the other side and we’ll box them in. But you’ll have to be fast because you’re going to have to take the long way, see?”

He sketched the plan with his finger, pointing out the circuit made by the two pedestrian bridges and the walkways on either side of the mall.

“Got it,” Shel said. The others nodded their assent.

“Okay, we’re ready?”

He was more aware than ever that he was the one slowing them down, and Smoke threw himself into the short journey, holding on to the brass rail overlooking the atrium, and favoring his good leg, letting the other drag a little. The Edenites had stopped screaming, at least, though he could hear the moaning and whimpering from those who’d been trampled and injured. In the relative quiet, the voices of the infected echoed, a trick of the acoustics of the place. The mumbled syllables and nonsense words blended together when there were so many of them, almost losing their oddness; they could have been a polite crowd at an art gallery, a group of suburban parents at a middle-school open house.

When they reached the far side of the bridge, Smoke took one side of the opening and motioned them to spread out. “Now we make some noise.”

They started whooping and hollering, and the infected paused and turned their heads. The expressions on their faces were disturbingly, stirringly innocent, a combination of curiosity and good-natured interest, like children at a matinee when the curtains part. Their babble went up a few decibels and they turned gracelessly, bumping into each other and squawking with irritation, shoving at one another.

A couple of them lumbered toward the bridge, but most of the others, their attention fixed on the Hot Topic display-sunglasses and belt buckles and sequined tops all hung just out of their reach-stayed where they were.

Without warning Shel ran forward onto the bridge. She whooped and shot at the ceiling, hitting the skylight with a tinkling of glass that rained down not far from them, sparkling as it fell.

“Come and get me, cocksuckers,” she screamed. “Come on, I know you want me. I’m good, I’m good, I’m sooooo good, you know you want to sink your teeth in me.”

She danced along, shimmying and waving her arms, dangerously close to the other end. If any of them decided to run for it, she was doomed.

“Shel, you’re too close!” Smoke yelled, and then Nadir burst past him, sprinting to her, grabbing her free hand and dragging her back.

Shel fought him, screaming. “No! Let go of me! Come on, I had them!”

It was their struggle that seemed to make the difference. There was a swell of excited chatter, a few garbled cries of excitement, and the group of infected turned toward the bridge. Several pressed forward onto the ones closest to them, knocking one of them over, a middle-aged woman with a fussy short haircut that was sticking straight up on one side and a necklace of purple beads that bounced against the ground when she fell. An overweight man with his shirt unbuttoned, exposing a hairy, pale stomach, stepped right on her outstretched leg and reached in front of him with grasping hands.

“Shit,” Terrence breathed at Smoke’s elbow.

“Keep it together, boy,” he snapped. He was trying to get a shot at the heavy infected, but Shel and Nadir were in the way.

“Get back here!” Bart screamed. “Nadir, come on! ”

Smoke saw what had scared him: a skinny Beater in a velour tracksuit was pushing her way through the clump, moving more quickly than the rest of them, her mouth open and her tongue waggling.

Nadir tugged Shel, dragging her backward, and with his free hand he fired. He hit the big man in the chest, slowing him, but not stopping him. Others pressed around him as he wobbled.

Nadir’s second shot took out the wiry woman seconds before she reached him.

“Go, go, ” Smoke ordered. “Bart, Terrence-you’ll have to take the other side by yourselves.”

They ran for it. Smoke could hear their footsteps ringing through the great empty cavern of the mall, echoing through all the wasted space that had once cost untold sums of money to heat and cool, Before. All that money, all the shit in these stores, mountains of crap that no one really needed.

The crowd of Edenites was yelling, a terrified sort of cheering. Smoke hoped they’d have the sense to stay where they were. He heard banging, and prayed Dor was getting closer with the door.

Two-thirds of the infected were on the bridge now, stepping on and around the bodies of the big guy and the wiry woman.

“Hold back,” Smoke yelled to Nadir. The worst thing he could do would be to create a blockage on the far side of the bridge; then the things would split off into two groups, get distracted, wander in different directions.

Nadir seemed to understand. He quit firing and dragged Shel back with him. In seconds they were back on Smoke’s side of the bridge, out of breath, Shel’s eyes red and watery.