Rebecca Levene - Kill or Cure

There was a heart-stopping moment as the boat's keel scraped against a sand shelf beneath us and I thought we'd be grounded, still too far from dry land. But then the boat jerked itself over the ridge and suddenly I could see that we weren't going to stop at all.

The people on the shore could see it too. Their tight little formation began to fragment and then it was a free for all. Half a dozen ran off to the left, another five to the right. Two morons tried to outrun the boat straight back, sprinting towards the regimented line of hotels. The boat shot onto the sand, bumping twice as it went over their bodies. I didn't hear their screams because by then the first shot had been fired.

I staggered to my knees as the boat finally ground to a halt. Haru was flung forward against the hard wood of the cabin. I saw a spray of blood and a shard of something white that might have been his tooth. His howl of pain was lost in the din of gunfire.

The boat splintered beneath the hail of bullets. The wood chips were as lethal as shrapnel, a threat to flesh and eyes. All I could think about was escape. I'd run twenty paces before I'd even thought about firing my gun.

The fighting was too close, too intense, for any kind of game plan. The only thing that saved us was the numbers game. The boat has scattered Queen M's troops in a wide circle and they couldn't fire at us without firing through their own. Instead they pulled out knives and I knew that the fighting would be brutal, bloody and personal. It was better that way. I wanted to see the faces of the people I was killing – punish myself with reality rather than abstraction.

Another five paces away from the sea and the first of Queen M's men was on me. It was Curtis, as stony-faced as ever, even as he swung the machete that was aimed straight for my throat. I didn't feel a moment's remorse as I put a bullet through his chest. His eyes glared all the way into dark. The last thing he saw was me smiling. I thought about the ghosts of Ireland and was glad.

I could hear a fierce whooping somewhere to my left and something told me it was Kelis, filled with the berserker rage of battle. There was a whimpering too, and that had to be Haru. I think maybe I was laughing but I didn't know why, except that there's a certain exhilaration in facing death. Another face and another bullet, but this one got his own blow in. I saw a thin line of red bloom and then widen on my forearm, the flesh beneath the cut parted with surgical precision.

The agony followed a second later. I gritted my teeth against it and kept on fighting. I knew where I was heading now, towards the hotels that lined the beach and the grid of roads behind that offered the only possibility of escape. Not fucking much of one, but any hope will do.

Two more bullets, then a pause to reload. It left time for one of Queen M's men to duck right in and shove something bright and sharp into my chest. But the blade glanced off a rib, tearing through skin and flying away to the left. There was no time for a bullet before the next killing blow. I jammed the handle of the Magnum brutally hard into his nose. A crack and then a fountain of blood. I knew that I'd managed to drive the shards of bone right up into the brain. I grinned, feral like, at those long-ago anatomy lessons paying off.

All I initially saw of the grizzled, grey woman now attacking me was a flash of silver as her knife headed straight for the wide target of my back. But Kelis was there, sliding a blade between the woman's vertebrae as hers had been meant to slide through mine. Kelis took down another one after that as did I. But there were always more, and how could we possibly kill them all?

I looked at Kelis and her brown eyes stared back at me and we both knew that there was no chance.

Except we weren't the only people coming in from the sea. I didn't realise what they were at first, the ragged, blackened figures falling on Queen M's men from their rear flank. For a crazy second I thought it must be some kind of mutiny, an uprising that we'd somehow sparked.

But the newcomers had never served Queen M. They only served one leader and he must have ordered them to come here, to follow us in from the sea. Their skin was red and crazed, untreated third degree burns. It was astonishing they were even standing. They were barely fighting. It didn't matter, though. The presence of the Infected, like an old fashioned zombie horde, routed the others. Half the people who should have been following us turned to face the new threat. The rest kept on, but there was a hesitation to their actions now. They knew what was coming up behind them and inside something was screaming at them to turn and face it.

I only took a second to watch the new reality unfold. Then I kept on running, using the time the Infected had bought us. The others must have had the same idea because suddenly we were at the road and astoundingly it was all five of us. Haru's mouth was a bloody mess, and there were droplets all over Ingo's face that might have been blood or might have been sweat. Nothing in his expression told me which.

We were almost clear but in much more danger now. Up here we were a tight little target and Queen M's people were all behind us. There was nothing to stop them using their guns. Two seconds later and they realised it too. Concrete sprayed out from the sea-wall of the hotel as I dived for shelter behind it but it was only five feet high and there was no way I could stay there. I lifted my head above the wall and emptied my clip at my pursuers. They dived for cover too but for them there was nothing but sand. Soren's semi-automatic blazed beside my Magnum. A few moments of that and the sand was more red than gold.

I knew I had to get up and run. We'd bought ourselves only a tiny window of time. But my back itched with cold at the thought of turning it on all those weapons. Soren got up and turned to go. I don't know how he sensed that I wasn't moving. Maybe all those years away from people had made him hyper-sensitive to them.

He spun round, grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet, then flung me in front of him. Kelis was already running, Haru and Ingo trailing her by only a few paces. Ingo was somehow managing to run backwards as fast as the others ran forward. There were two guns in his hands and he wasn't even breathing hard.

I sprinted. I couldn't believe that I still had the energy when my legs felt like they were made of over-cooked pasta. My stomach was churning and loose, wanting to spill out everything inside it. There was a grunt from behind me, hard and bitten off, but I didn't turn round to look. The bullets were streaming all around us. Every millisecond could be my last, and call me selfish, but all I wanted to think about was me.

I almost laughed when we came through the narrow road between the low-rise hotels and into the main road behind. Queen M was smart but boy was she cocky. I guess it never occurred to her that we might break through the line of men she'd left on the beach. Her people had left their rides right where we could get them, with the keys still in the ignition. We took the nearest vehicle, a big red jeep with silver spoilers and paint that hadn't seen water or polish since the Cull. The back was stacked high with barrels of petrol. More guns and more ammo too. There was no food, but that we'd be able to find on the journey.

Kelis took the wheel, I jumped in shotgun while Haru and Ingo piled into the rear, both facing back and firing. She'd turned the key and started the engine before I even realised that Soren hadn't climbed in with us.

The second bullet took him in the shoulder as we watched, but that wasn't the one that was going to kill him. That one had gone in through his stomach, exiting raggedly through his back. There was no return from a wound like that.