Focused, realizing she would have time to mourn later, she asked herself what the hell was going on. Why was he in the basement? Why, when he’d been killed, had the bastards left him able to come back? And where was everyone else? As much as she needed the questions answered, they wouldn’t magically come to her. She opened her eyes, mind focused on survival, on killing. It was time to move. The people she loved were in danger.
She moved around the dead zombie, and headed toward the stairs leading to the kitchen. As she reached the staircase, she heard the doorknob turn and she leaped back, turning the flashlight off. Bright, overpowering light cut the darkness away as the door opened. “Who’s down there?” a male voice asked. Riley stood statuesque. The man upstairs let out a chuckle. “Guess you found a little surprise, eh, little girl?”
Her shoulders tensed. They knew about her and the fact that she was downstairs. Then it hit her like a hammer to the head—Renny. He was how they knew about her. Had to be. That son-of-a-bitch. She had been right about him.
“We’ve got your mother and brother and if you don’t come up here unarmed, I’ll be sending them down to you just like your daddy.”
Riley’s mind filled with indecision. George was dead and not just killed, but allowed to become a zombie. Surely whoever had done it would do it again to Joanne and Eric. Riley couldn’t let that happen. She could simply surrender, giving the bastards what they wanted and hopefully save the others. But these were evil people she was dealing with. They couldn’t be trusted and for all she knew, as much as she didn’t want to think about it, Joanne and Eric might already be dead. Riley came forward a few steps, remaining in shadow.
“Guess she wants company,” the man said.
Riley wondered who the man was speaking to and how many hostiles were present. Taking two quick, reaffirming breaths, she jumped in front of the staircase, aimed upward and fired two shots. The man at the top was a silhouette, but she heard him grunt and stumble backward. There was no way she’d missed at that range. He collapsed to the floor like a sack of grain. She dove back into the gloom, Joanne’s voice echoing in her ears.
“Run, Riley, run!” the woman shouted. Riley heard a loud slap and then Joanne’s voice was no more.
She bit down, nostrils flaring like a charging bull’s. Using the flashlight, she ran over to the rear basement door. Without thinking, she flung it open. Two men, both scraggly and smelling foul, stood before her. The one closest to her had crazed eyes and a messy, uneven beard with pieces of food in it. He grinned, revealing an almost toothless smile. His eyes bore into Riley the same way the men in the cabin had. The second man stood just behind the first. He was a foot taller and wore dark sunglasses. His head was shaved and he had tattoos all over his arms. Both men had matching cut-off jean vests as if they belonged to the same organization.
Crazy Eyes reached for her, seemingly naive that a small girl could pose such a threat. She stepped back, raised the rifle and shot the man in his bulging gut. He gripped at the entrance wound, gushing blood, and fell forward—his face bewildered, eyes wide and mouth agape.
The tall man charged, stepping on the downed man’s back, and whipped out a machete. Bringing it high, he swung it forward, his face a contortion of rage. Riley ducked, the attack missing. With her weapon pointed upward, she fired, hitting the man in the shoulder. He howled in pain. She saw a large chunk of flesh was missing, but the arm with the machete was still untouched. The man readied another swing, but Riley shoved her weapon further upward, the barrel connecting under the man’s chin, and pulled the trigger. The arm holding the machete went limp as the man’s brains exploded from the top of his head.
Immediately, she lay with her back up against the wall to the side of the door. She heard the man’s body collapse and then waited, listening for movement.
Peering out of the doorway, she heard the creaking of wood from the porch above, followed by footsteps coming down the basement stairs. Riley stepped outside.
Looking up, she saw the shadows of people, some motionless, others moving. The deck was made from two–by-four pieces of wood. Aiming at the shadow closest to her, she fired twice before moving to the next. Screams of pain filled her ears as the bullets bit into them like angry bees on steroids. “Inside,” one of the men said. The other shadows began moving toward the house, the sound like a small stampede. “That little bitch,” said another.
Riley couldn’t help but grin. She was different now—a hunter looking for prey. They’d underestimated her. With her back hugging the wall of the house, she popped out the rifle’s clip. Feeling the weight, she guessed she had about ten shots left, plus the remaining five in the Glock. Reaching into her pocket, she began loading the weapon’s clip with additional bullets. She’d gotten ten more rounds in and decided that was enough. The clip held thirty, but she didn’t want to get caught with an unloaded gun if someone came from the basement or around the corner.
The air was still, free from wind or insect noise or bird chatter. The gunshots and death screams had silenced all. Riley was a machine, a killing phantasm of death. The people who were stalking her, and who may or may not have hurt Joanne and Eric, had to pay. Had to die. This new, death-infested zombie world was filled with scum, the lowest form of society. Was the world this way before the zombies? Her father had spoken of better times—peace and prosperity. How could people, just because there was no formal law, allow their society to crumble so easily? Were only the evil ones left? The good far and few in number? Everyone was now the enemy and the enemy had to die. Riley needed to make room for more of the virtuous and that meant lessening the wickedness.
She heard footsteps coming from the basement. The fools were noisy, careless. Her position wasn’t great. She was out in the open with nothing to hide behind. She continued along the wall, quick and steady. Her pulse was relaxed, her breathing coming in controlled breaths.
Reaching the house’s corner, she glanced around the edge. The area was clear. Just as she made it around to the side, she heard the men exit from the basement doorway. “She’s not here,” one whispered to the other. They were pathetic.
She was even more of a target now, with no deck above her. Anyone coming around the front or back or peeking over the railing of the deck would have a clear shot. But she needed to keep moving, needed to take chances to improve her position.
The tree line stood a good twenty feet away from the side of the house. She ran toward the front of the house and looked around the corner. Motorcycles, ten in total, were parked in the driveway. Riley wondered if maybe Renny had been telling the truth about a gang. Were these the same people that had chased him? Or was he a member? She needed Renny to be a member. She called upon the hate inside her, needing someone to blame.
Without hesitation, she sprinted toward the woods. Her heart sped up and it seemed for a moment that she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. Fear, for the first time entered her mind. She hadn’t liked it, hadn’t wanted it, but it came nonetheless as she waited for the inevitable pain of a bullet to strike her down.
She made it to the forest unscathed, kneeling down behind a tree. Not as much cover as the bushes, but the thick trunk proved much better armor than twigs and leaves. Looking toward the house, she saw the men come around the corner—guns at the ready—like kids jumping out to scare their friends.
“Where’d she go?” one man said. The other man glanced around nervously.
An obese man with a patch over his right eye appeared on the deck, holding a handgun. Riley wouldn’t have to worry too much about him—handguns were not very accurate for long range shooting. “Find her,” he commanded. “She couldn’t have gotten far.”
Now was her chance to lessen the odds. She had three men in range. Aiming at one of the men on the ground, she fired. The man’s head exploded as if a cherry bomb had been inside it, leaving a watermelon-like splatter against the house’s siding. As his limp body began to fall, Riley had already sighted the guy next to him. His head exploded in similar fashion.
The man on the deck began firing in her direction, missing by a large margin. Another man joined him, but he had a rifle. Instead of resting his arm on the railing to get a better bead on his target, he began firing from a standing position. The shots went wide.
Focus had been on the man with the handgun, but she moved her sights to the guy with the rifle and blasted a hole in his neck. He fell away, hands around his throat, blood seeping through his fingers like melted ice cream.
Riley saw the man with the eye patch turn to run away. She fired prematurely, greedy to get off a shot, but missed. The railing took the bullet, splintering into slivers.
She needed to move her position and took off running through the forest, working her way over downed logs and around trees with ease, as if the forest was her home. The best location for more carnage would be to position herself in the woods behind the house. She would have a clear view of the deck and any unfortunate soul who was on it.
She crept forward, moving carefully, avoiding twigs and other noise-producing objects as best as possible. Soon she found herself behind a thick maple just within the tree line. As she predicted, she had a wonderful view of the back deck and the surrounding yard. Focusing on the people on the deck, her shoulders slumped.
“Okay, little girl,” the obese man on the deck said. He had the same denim vest as the others, but he was twice the size of the other men. His head was shaved and he wore a goatee that came to his chest. He was holding Joanne in front of him, a gun to her head. “You’ve impressed me. But now it’s time to give up.” Two men stood to either side of him like sentries. They scanned the forest, but by the looks of them, they had no idea where she was. “Surrender or your mother dies.”
Of course Joanne wasn’t her mother, but Riley had come to think of her as one. Joanne had been kind, taking her in. Clothed and fed her. Surrendering was something Joanne wouldn’t want her to do. She would tell her to run. But there was more than just Joanne to worry about. What about Eric? He was only a child. This was the trouble with having loved ones in her life in this hateful, forsaken world. They could be used against her. Make her weak. She could easily take Joanne out, ending the situation completely. They’d probably rape and kill her anyway and Riley would be doing her a favor. But deep down, she knew she wouldn’t be able to.
Riley had finally found a home, a place were she belonged and was loved. These brutal bastards had ruined everything. Why would someone want to destroy something so precious and hard to find in this ugly world? Where did the need to hurt and kill others come from?
She began to wonder if the zombies were the more advanced race. They never attacked each other. Were they the evolution of the human race? The need to kill each other removed? If everyone was a zombie, there’d be no more fighting or worrying or death. Just mindless wandering. Zombies never fought against each other, never backstabbed or argued. Maybe they were nature’s way of cleaning up the human mess. The idea was almost funny. Either way, the men holding Joanne and Eric had to die.
Riley raised her rifle, aimed at the man standing to the right of Joanne and fired. The crack of the rifle was loud in the silence, echoing off the back of the house like a crack of thunder. The man’s head jerked back from the bullet’s impact, sending his body into the sliding glass door and shattering it into tiny fragments.
The sentry on the other side of Joanne crouched low, looking around frantically and clearly not knowing where the shot came from.
The large man holding Joanne backed inside the house through the shattered doorway, obscuring himself in shadow, but leaving Joanne’s form visible. “You think you can take me on and win?” the large man yelled. “Remember, bitch, this is on you.”
Riley watched as a knife appeared in the man’s hand. He placed the tip against Joanne’s skull just above her temple and dragged the blade down. Joanne screamed in pain as blood covered the woman’s face. Riley grimaced, clenching her jaw to keep from crying out. She took aim down the barrel of her gun, trying to get a bead on the bastard but he was hidden in gloom.
Moving her gaze to the sentry on the left, she fired, dropping the man instantly like a piece of dead weight. Joanne screamed again as the man sunk the knife into her thigh. “I can spend all day carving this bitch up,” the big man hollered. Riley fired a couple of close warning shots just above the man’s shadowed form. She heard him yell before disappearing into the house. A second later Eric appeared in the doorway, a knife to his throat. “The kid dies if you don’t come forward now.”
She couldn’t watch Eric die. Who knew what they might do, but she couldn’t have that on her conscience. He was only a child, had a whole future ahead of him. He was one of the good guys and the world needed more of those. Resigned to her fate, Riley raised the rifle above her head and walked forward, out of the forest and into the backyard.