Sophie Littlefield - Horizon

Terrence had made the circuit down the hall and across the bridge and back up the other hallway, Bart right behind him, but they were going too fast. They needed to let all the infected follow the first ones onto the bridge, where they would be sitting ducks.

“Wait up!” Smoke yelled. Terrence looked over at him and nodded, then stopped, pressing his back against the entrance of a candle shop.

There was a noise from below.

A scream and a great clanging from the first floor. Smoke looked over the rail. A coffee shack in the center of the lounge area shuddered, and four figures burst out of the door, knocking over a café table.

Beaters. Mature ones.

They must have been nesting inside the little shack. And they were headed for the escalator. The one that would take them straight up to the end of the mall where the Edenites were huddled.

“Oh, Jesus God,” Shel breathed, and then without pause she shot, over the edge, down into the mall. It was an impossible shot and Smoke grabbed her arm.

“No,” he yelled into her ear. “Save your ammo. Focus on the ones here. The others will deal with those.”

It was the only thing they could do. But once the Beaters got up the stairs, there would be nothing to stop them from attacking. Even if Smoke and his companions laid every one of the things on the bridge to waste, it could well be at the cost of losing everyone else.

But there was nothing else he could do. The roving mass had nearly made its way entirely onto the bridge. Terrence was slinking down the hall toward them, waiting for the stragglers to catch up. Bart was a few paces behind him, looking like he was about to throw up.

He still had a couple more clips-how many rounds, he wasn’t sure. He’d just stand here and pick off the things that staggered toward him until he ran out, counting on the others to herd them onto the bridge or blast them from the other side.

A scream rose above the din, singular among all the others because he knew that voice.

Cass

Smoke forced himself to stay focused on the scene ahead of him, knowing that if he abandoned his post to go to her now he’d doom them both. And yet every fiber of his being rebelled as he lined up his shot.

CASS RAN TO the side and looked down, just in time to see them reach the escalators. Three of them had no hair at all, and one had a few greasy hanks at the back of its head. At least one of them was missing fingers. These Beaters had been infected for a long time, and their bodies were starting to disintegrate. In a month, maybe two, they’d finally die from the sheer punishment they routinely suffered and inflicted on each other-even their hyper immune system couldn’t save them after they lost enough blood and took enough blows to their savaged bodies.

But until then, they were more dangerous than ever. Hungrier. Faster. Unstoppable.

She ran back to her father, who was cradling Ruthie, rocking her and singing. “Dad, I’m going to help Dor. Just-just keep her safe.”

She pushed through the crowd, knowing how ridiculous her words were. There was no way to help. There was no such thing as safe.

“Where are we at?” she demanded, after forcing her way to Dor’s side. Sammi made room for her, her face white with fear.

“Last one,” Dor muttered, sparing her a quick glance with his flint-spark eyes. “Got the other two hinges out. Shot off the caps and pried out the pins, but this one’s corroded or something, can’t get it free.”

His hands were bloody, and the screwdriver he was using to chip away at the blockage slipped from his hands. “Fuck!”

“Let me.” Cass seized it from him and wiped it on her shirt, leaving his blood streaked on the fabric. “Tell me, show me-”

And he did, his quiet voice in her ear, speaking slowly, steadily, the way he’d done so many times before when it was just the two of them, when he’d cajoled and urged her to the dark heights where they both sought release. She let everything else fall away until it was just her and him and the thing that must be done, his voice, his lips brushing her ear, her hands and the glinting metal and the greasy mechanism and every bit of her energy focused on the task until suddenly the pin fell to the floor with a clang and then everything, the sounds and the people and the fear came rushing back and she was pushed away from the door as the crowd surged forward.

“Back, back! ” Dor yelled from three feet away that felt like a thousand, and he and others jammed their blades into the space between the wall and the door and heaved and pulled until it gave a little, just a little and down the mall there was screaming and shooting and Cass could not bear to look so she turned away and found Red and took her daughter back, burrowed her baby’s sweet face into the crook of her neck and kissed her hair and swore it was going to be all right.

Sunlight and screaming. An earsplitting metal-on-metal groan as the door was pulled away from the frame. Four, five men grunting and sweating with effort, and the metal door bent but did not break. The opening grew until it was a foot, eighteen inches wide, and the crowd roared and pressed forward and they would not be stopped now, but the space was not wide enough for them all to pass through, they would kill each other trying, there was Craig Switzer shoving Mrs. Nguyen out of the way, his hand on her face, mad with fear-

And then his throat exploded, blood everywhere, his mouth open with surprise, and his hand slipping slowly off poor Mrs. Nguyen.

“Stand back or I’ll shoot again,” Dor yelled, and the crowd hesitated and backed up just a fraction of an inch, enough to spare the ones suffocating at the front, and the door budged a little more and a little more, until there was room for a person to slip through sideways and Phil Booth forced his way out to the other side before Dor could do a thing about it.

He cursed and shot at the floor, chipping up a chunk of concrete at the base of the door. “You go when I say you go or you’re dead. Harris. Benny. Go through and man the other side. One of you help the people through and the other keep everyone together. Women first. Kids. Old people. Line up and so help me God you fuck this up I’ll shoot you so fast you won’t know what hit you.”

It was working. The crowd had retreated-just a little farther, but enough-and the women were being helped along, sliding through, crying. Ingrid went with all the children and then Suzanne, and Dor seized Cass’s arm and tried to push her through but she fought him.

“They’re going to be here in a second,” she shouted, but Dor had been so focused on forcing his way out that he didn’t know, he didn’t know about the four struggling up the stairs, and he’d sent two of the only armed men through the door, and Cass knew he had to stay here to make sure the others got out.

“Who-”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, and then she told a lie, the only way she could make him let her go. “I’m just going to get my dad, I’ll be back in a minute.”

Red was at the end of the line of older people, him and Zihna, and Cass handed him Ruthie and kissed his cheek, and he gave her his gun and whispered that he loved her, her father understood what she was going to do, his eyes were terrified but he took Ruthie and followed Zihna through the crack to the outside-and Cass ran.

Far ahead, on the bridge, there was fighting and screaming and dying, but that was not Cass’s fight. Behind her the terrified crowd continued its exodus. She was alone, she was the only one left to face the ones coming up the escalator. They were terrible at stairs, they stumbled and lost their balance and that was all that had saved her so far; one had stumbled and was splayed upside down halfway down the metal staircase, but the other three clutched each other in a grunting scrum that had nearly reached the top.