Sophie Littlefield - Horizon

They spotted her, and the closest one-God, it was impossible to believe it had ever been human, with its gaping mouth-hole and sunken eye sockets and torn-off ears and pulped flesh-it saw her and it screamed, and Cass couldn’t help screaming back as she shot it, the gun jerking in her hands. She did not know this gun, it was her father’s gun, it was unwieldy and old and it was too heavy for her, the report traveling up her arm through her elbow into her shoulder, and her palm slipped as she tried to rack the slide.

And the thing kept coming. She’d shot it in the chest and it had gone clear through, but too high, too high. A shard of bone protruded and one arm lay limp as it seized at her with the other. No, no, no, it was too late to run, they were too close, she’d fucked it up, it was an easy shot and she’d failed, and then it was on her, its bone-fingers clutching the fabric of her shirt, yanking her toward it, its mouth open and drooling and its rotting brown teeth shiny with saliva. She put her hands on its head and shoved, anything to keep the snapping teeth away, but she was not strong enough. The mouth closed on her forearm even as she fought it, pushing and writhing with all her might, but there was nothing in the world stronger than a Beater’s lust and this one was mad with its hunger for her and she felt the sharp pain as it bit down, saw the blood spurt from her arm as it ripped her flesh.

Explosions, so close, and the thing fell away from her, rolling back onto the stairs, falling on its companions who shoved it out of their way and kept coming. Then more shots, a staccato burst of them, and their bodies jerked and seized and went limp, and there was Terrence, leaning over the edge with that insane gun of his and one more burst took out the last one and it died upside down on the stairs, staring up at the skylights with empty eyes.

Cass, sinking to the floor, her hand closing over her wound-she looked up and found that she was staring into the barrel of Bart’s gun.

“No, no, don’t do it! Don’t shoot her!”

It was Sammi, racing toward them, her hair flying behind her.

“Sammi, stay back,” she screamed. Bart’s gun hand was shaking from adrenaline; there was no telling what he’d do in the heat of the moment. “Go to your dad!”

“No, Bart, don’t, you don’t understand.” Sammi ignored her, her sneakers slapping on the smooth floor of the mall, echoing around the giant space. Behind her was pandemonium, the crowd pushing through the narrow opening, Dor yelling, people screaming. “Cass can’t get the fever, she’s immune.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Bart waved the gun back and forth between Cass and Sammi.

“Sammi, go, please,” Cass said, her heart caught in her throat as she prayed that Bart would stay calm. “Please just back away. Go outside and we’ll, I’ll-it’s going to be fine, I promise.”

“No!” Sammi’s voice turned into a wail, and tears glistened in her eyes. “Cass, he doesn’t understand, make him understand. Bart, she got attacked a long time ago and she got better and she can’t get the fever again. She’s, like, immune. ”

Bart stared at her for a long, breathless moment, his eyes narrowed, and for a second-a quivering, hopeful second-she thought he might lower his gun.

But then, instead, he raised it and pointed it squarely between Cass’s eyes.

“Look away, little girl,” he muttered.

Cass heard the click and squeezed her eyes shut and when the shot came she was thinking that she would have done the same.

Down on all fours, pain searing her forehead, the echo of the sound filled Cass’s ears. Blood poured into her eyes, but she was alive.

In front of her, Bart was clutching his hand and screaming, and his gun lay on the floor.

Smoke. Smoke staggered toward them and then his leg gave out and he sank to the floor. His strength had finally run out. He’d used every bit of adrenaline for the fight, and then somehow he’d made it close enough to shoot Bart in the hand to keep him from killing her. Cass put her hand to her scalp, found that the bullet had only grazed her, felt torn flesh but no bone. It was nothing.

“Sammi,” she said weakly, and the girl knelt down and leaned into her, sobbing, and Cass hugged her hard, feeling her strong heartbeat against her neck.

“We’ve got to move,” someone yelled, his hand on her shoulder. Cass looked up, blinking. Terrence. He offered her his hand, then withdrew it. “That’s true?” he demanded. “You’re really immune?”

“She is, damn it,” Smoke said, and with a huge effort forced himself to his feet. “We need to get them out of here.”

“We all need to get out of here,” Terrence said. He helped Sammi up, supporting her with an arm around her waist, and Sammi leaned against him, still snuffling, wiping at her tearstained cheek.

Despite the gravity of the situation, Cass felt a stirring of gratitude and hope. The dam between her and Sammi had broken; the girl had let Cass comfort her, embrace her. Sammi could have left Cass for doomed, could have been rid of her forever, but instead she’d tried to save her.

“Let them go first,” Smoke ordered Terrence, but he looked like he was going to fall again so Cass hooked an arm around him and half dragged him to his feet. Terrence hastened Sammi along toward the exit and Bart followed after him, bleeding a trail of droplets.

Cass took one last look at the mall. Bodies lay everywhere, blood pooling on the floor and dripping down the escalator. There were undoubtedly more of them, the shelterers who’d made innocent mistakes as they tried to save each other, who’d paid with their souls. Even now they were probably rousing themselves from their delirious fevered slumber, staggering out from their dark corners, from the remains of the shops where they once bought their designer shoes and their thirty-dollar lipsticks and their coffee grinders and cell-phone accessories.

She and Smoke were the last ones to leave. Dor pushed Bart and Terrence through and then he looked at her, taking in his blood on her shirt, the bite mark on her arm, Smoke nearly unconscious.

With surprising gentleness he lifted Smoke, dragging him to the opening and handing him off to the men waiting on the other side, who pulled him through. Sunlight hit Cass’s face and she blinked and ducked back into the gloom, just for one minute more, one second more.

“He saved you,” Dor said quietly. Outside, Cass could hear the shouting and cheers of the Edenites who’d made it, but inside the mall it was stunningly, eerily still.

Dor put a hand to her cheek, tenderly tracing a path from the superficial bullet wound down to her mouth, brushing her lips with his thumb. “Are you back with him, then? Are you together?”

His voice was a whisper, his mouth so close. Cass’s body was so numb from terror and exertion she knew that she could collapse right here and sleep for a dozen hours, a thousand years. And even in that state she could feel the electricity between them, the memory of the taste of him seared in her mind. She wanted to kiss him. Wanted to consume him and be consumed by him, to ignite and burn down to ash.

Instead she had to go on. They both had to go on.

“I don’t know,” she whispered, and then she slipped out the door into the blinding sun.

THAT NIGHT, THERE was a memorial service for everyone who died in the mall. They made a forced march north, five or six miles, along pretty country roads greening with budding kaysev, and the clouds vanished and sun streamed down to earth.

They stopped at a chicken ranch. The fowl had been among the first casualties of the Siege, laid waste by a bioterror agent believed to have come from North Korea, though it was never proved and remained anybody’s guess. Even after all these months, the place still reeked. Red, who was walking with Cass, asked her if she remembered helping him in the garden, unloading the chicken manure he got for free from a friend who kept a few dozen hens.