She gave in, her expression conflicted, but she nodded. “Be careful, Sam.” He could tell she wanted to say more. There just wasn’t time.
“Sammy boy, come on out so we can discuss terms.” Jennings shouted across the distance between house and barn.
“This is it,” Sam told Emily. “Be ready to move.”
She nodded, her teeth clenched and jaw tight. She was nervous, but she was a trooper. Cool under pressure, like any good pilot, she’d get the job done. God, how he loved her.
“I’m coming out,” Sam called. “Don’t try anything or I blow this place.”
Sam unclipped the phone and said one last thing to Sykes. “I’m putting the phone on speaker so you can hear what’s going on, sir. Keep it quiet on your end please.”
Sykes agreed and Sam took a step out the door. He kept his phone in his hand as if it were the trigger mechanism he’d claimed it was, knowing Sykes could hear everything more clearly now that he’d switched it to speakerphone function.
“Oh, shit!”
Sam had walked into an ambush. A half dozen zombies gathered around the entrance to the barn, with more behind them. Jennings had been a busy boy. He’d made an army of the undead, hiding them somewhere inside the house, Sam guessed. There was a side door that had been closed before and was now open. The creatures were coming from there.
Sam started firing but he wasn’t going to be able to take all of them out. Not before they reached him. And not before he ran out of ammo.
A piercing whistle broke through the night.
Dammit. Emily hadn’t stayed put like he’d asked. Instead, she’d sidled out of the barn and had used her earsplitting whistle to draw the zombies’ attention. They headed toward her
en masse
. But Sam wouldn’t stand for that. He kept firing. The report of his handgun split their attention between himself and the new target Emily presented.
Then Emily was next to him, firing at his side. Damn, she was beautiful. But he didn’t want her here. The creatures were too close and she wasn’t immune to their contagion.
“Get in the car and get out of here.”
“Not without you.” She kept firing, even as they held their low voiced conversation. A quick glance upward told him they didn’t have much time.
“I love you, but you’ve got to get out of here now, Em.”
Chapter Sixteen
H
e loved her? No equivocation. No weasel words. He’d just said he loved her. And he’d picked a hell of a time to say it.
“I don’t want to leave you here.”
“You have to. These things can kill you with a single scratch. Get in the car. Put as much distance between yourself and this place as possible. I’ll catch up with you.”
“I’ll drive. You keep shooting from the passenger seat.”
She thought she had him convinced when he moved around to the other side of the car, closer to the advancing army of zombies. Emily ducked into the driver’s side and closed the door, praying Sam would get in on the other side. She couldn’t be sure. Sam had a hero streak a mile wide and a foot deep.
The first of the zombies he’d shot were disintegrating but there were just too many of them. They were only a few yards away now and closing fast. She started the car.
“Come on, Sam!”
She thought she’d won when Sam turned toward the car but a gunshot stopped him cold. The bullet ricocheted off the passenger door, making a pinging sound.
Sam turned, firing even as he raised his arm toward the balcony. Krychek went down hard as Sam’s bullet hit him in the chest.
Krychek had shot at Sam—or at the car. She couldn’t be sure what his target was. Either way, he’d died for it.
Jennings took aim with his rifle at that point, both of his buyers dead, but he didn’t get a chance to fire even one dart. Sam drilled a hole between his eyes and he dropped to one knee, then collapsed. Dead.
That left the zombies. They were getting close enough that Emily could see their faces—or what was left of their faces. Every one of them had dried bloodstains around their mouths and down the front of what was left of their clothing. Many were missing pieces. Noses, fingers, ears, lips. One was more gruesome than the next. All were a ghastly grayish color.
“Sam?” They really needed to get away from here. The creatures were cutting off their escape route. “Sam!”
She looked at him. He was talking to his commander by phone, shooting all the while. He hooked the phone to his shirt and reloaded his handgun with a new clip. He needed help. Emily leaned out the window and fired off as many shots as she could from the awkward angle, trying to make every one of them count. She fired until she was out of ammo but it still wasn’t enough.
Sam kept firing, making his way toward the car. She eyeballed the distance between him and the car. He wasn’t going to make it.
Emily revved the Porsche and tried to move closer. There wasn’t much room to maneuver and moving closer to Sam meant moving closer to the zombie horde. Sam had walked closer to them while shooting and stepped backward as they advanced.
Something thudded against the back of the car.
A quick look back told her there were even more of the creatures coming up behind them. They were cutting her off from Sam!
She could hear him yelling into his phone. He was ordering the air strike.
“Send the missile now!” he screamed. “Do it now. There are too many of them.”
Twenty of the creatures got between her and Sam, cutting off her view. She tried to ram them with the car, but they felt no pain. They didn’t move out of her way and she couldn’t get up enough speed in the small space to push them or throw them. One broke the passenger side window and a flash of bloodstained claws swiped at her face. More were coming around to the driver’s side. If they surrounded her, she was dead.
“Emily!”
She could hear Sam screaming her name above the inhuman moaning of the creatures and the purring of the high performance engine.
“The bombs are on their way,” he shouted. “Get out of here! Go now!”
“Sam,” she whispered, tears running down her face as she saw him fighting hand to hand with one of the creatures. He was totally surrounded now and bleeding.
Oh, God! He was bleeding. He’d been scratched or bitten. It didn’t really matter which. Either way, according to what he’d told her, he was dead already.
“Sam.” She felt tears streaming down her face as she put the car in gear, cutting sharply to the left, away from Sam and the majority of the monsters. “God, Sam, please forgive me.” She gunned the engine and drove away from the horror scene as fast as she could.
In her rearview mirror, she saw the giant, all consuming fireball a few moments later. The thunder of it roared in her ears and the pressure wave beat against her chest like a bass drum. The ranch house had sustained a direct hit.
No way anything survived that. Or anyone.
Emily stopped the car and cried in great, heaving sobs for the man she loved.
It could have been minutes or it could have been hours before she was startled out of her sorrow by a tapping noise. Someone was tapping on the hood of the car. She looked up, fearing the worst, half-expecting to see one of the creatures who’d escaped the blaze.
But it was a man in black combat gear, heavily armed, concern on his face.
“Ms. Parkington?”
He knew her name. That meant he was most likely part of Sam’s team.
Oh, God. Sam.
“Sam was back there . . .” she hiccuped and pointed behind her.
“It’s okay, Ms. Parkington. We’ll find him. Stay here.” A group of similarly outfitted people started jogging through the drifting smoke toward the flames.
She’d be damned if she was going to stay here. She had the car. If those creatures were still out there, she could drive away again before any of them got to her. She was pretty sure they were all gone. Blown to kingdom come and then fried to ash in the inferno that followed the explosion of the most destructive missile she’d ever seen.
Of course, she’d never seen ordinance explode at this close range before, but she’d heard about it from her brother. Knowing he’d been the one to fire the weapon made it somehow more surreal than it already was. And she’d been on the ground. She hadn’t heard anything overhead. He must’ve fired that sucker from miles away.
All that ran through her mind as she shoved the car in reverse. The car almost spun out when she turned it around too fast. Then she was on her way, back the way she’d come. She passed some of the black-outfitted team members on her way. She caught an expression of surprise on one of their faces. A woman. She would have been surprised herself if she’d given any thought to the fact that they had a woman on their team at that moment. As it was, she sped past the surprised woman and her partner—a man who shouted at her to stop.
Yeah, right. Nothing was stopping her until she knew for certain what happened to Sam. If he was dead . . . Oh, God. If he was dead . . . she had to see it for herself. If not, she had the fast car. She’d get him to a hospital if these mysterious soldiers didn’t have the means to treat him on the spot.
The majority of the soldiers were clustered around the far wall of the barn. It was the only part of the structure still standing. Emily maneuvered the bright red car around to shine her headlights on the scene from the other side of the bonfire that still raged from the direction of the house.
She heard gunshots as she approached and realized not all the creatures had been destroyed by the bombardment. Then she saw them in her headlight beams. The soldiers had formed a line and were gunning down the remaining creatures. There were only a few and the team made short work of them.
Then she saw the figure on the ground. The zombies had been clustered around him.
Sam.
She slammed on the brakes and threw the car in park even as she opened the door.
“Get back in the car, Ms. Parkington,” a man ordered her but she wasn’t listening. Nothing would keep her from Sam.
“There could be more of them. This area’s contaminated.” Another man tried to prevent her from getting to Sam, stepping in front of her.
“I don’t give a damn,” she cursed him, trying to push him aside. “I need to see Sam.”
“It’s best if you don’t,” another man walked up from where Sam lay a few yards distant. He had a kind face, but his expression was hard.
“I need to see him.” She stood her ground, facing the two men down. She wasn’t giving an inch. “Please.”
One of them shifted on his feet. He was weakening. Finally, he turned to his side, allowing her to pass.
“Don’t touch anything,” the other one called out, following her as if he were an honor guard.
There was a woman at Sam’s side, dressed like the others, all in black. But this woman had gloves on her hands and she seemed to be treating Sam’s wounds.
“Is he alive?” Emily’s voice shook as she approached.
The woman kneeling at Sam’s side looked up in surprise. She looked from Emily to the silent soldier at her back. Seeming to get permission to speak, the woman answered her.
“He’s alive.”
“How is that possible?” Emily had seen the blast. She’d been sure nothing could have survived the maelstrom.
“This part of the barn shielded him, as did a few of the creatures who landed on him. A couple of them made it too. We had to put them out of their misery,” the man answered.
Emily edged closer. “Can I see him?”
The woman silently leaned back so Emily could see Sam’s face. He was unconscious and every spot of flesh she could see from his face to his arms through his ripped up shirt was covered in blood, scratches, deep gouges, and burns. He’d most likely be horribly scarred if he made it through this alive. Her heart broke. She loved him. At that moment she knew she’d stand by him no matter how it turned out. She’d stay by his bedside and nurse him if he let her. It would be her honor.
She moved closer. “Sam?” She knew he was unconscious, but she hoped somehow he heard her. “I’m here, Sam. I’m not going anywhere, so don’t you leave me.” Her words choked out on a pained whisper. She didn’t care who heard. The only person who mattered lay bleeding and burned on the ground at her feet.
“Sam’ll be okay. You’d be surprised what a man can take and still come out of it okay.” The man was at her side awkwardly trying to comfort her.
“It looks a lot worse than it is,” the woman offered. She had a kind face and she was trying to be nice but Emily wasn’t a fool. Sam would never be the same carefree man she’d fallen in love with but it didn’t matter. She loved him. He loved her. He’d said so and she’d hold him to it, if he made it out of this alive.
“Do you have a helicopter or something to get him to a hospital? If not, that Porsche can move fast. He needs medical care.”
“I’m a doctor,” the woman said. “Don’t worry. I’ll look after him. I’ve done it before.” A small smile touched her mouth.
“What about the contagion?” It suddenly dawned on her that he was scratched up and even bitten in a few places that she could see, but he was still breathing. He wasn’t dead. From what she’d witnessed earlier, the contagion should have ended his life long before now.
“He’s immune,” the woman said offhandedly. The soldier at Emily’s side shifted uncomfortably.
“That’s need to know, doc,” he reminded her.
“For goodness sake, she’s seen these things up close and personal. I think she’d have figured it out when things calmed down anyway.” The woman went back to treating Sam. She had some kind of swabs she was using to clean out the worst of the dirt and dress the deepest wounds.
The relief that hit Emily when she learned that there was such a thing as immunity to the zombie bug calmed her nerves somewhat. Sam was immune. Such a simple statement that meant so much. No wonder he’d claimed the creatures couldn’t hurt him. They couldn’t turn him into one of their number. He’d never succumb to the contagion. That’s why they sent him after the zombies in the first place. His immunity had no doubt been his ticket onto this eclectic team that seemed to be made up of both men and women, soldiers, doctors, and who knew what else.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Emily asked the woman.
“Not really. I’m just doing a quick field dressing so we can move him without his losing too much more blood. We’ll give him a thorough cleanup once we get him someplace cleaner. Where are we going, by the way?” she asked the soldier.
“The air base.” The man touched his ear and turned slightly away, indicating he was communicating with someone over his tiny headset. He turned back and his gaze pinned Emily in place. “You’re welcome to come with us, Ms. Parkington. We’ll send someone to the B&B to get your stuff.”
“And release Mrs. McGillicuddy. Scott tied her to a chair in the front parlor,” she said absently. Everything was taking on a surreal quality again. Relief that Sam was alive battled with worry that he was so badly injured, and left her numb. The adrenaline rush that had kept her going was leaving her now. She was crashing hard, her limbs shaking.
She knew one thing for certain though. She was going with them. She’d go wherever Sam went. She’d stay by his side and see him through this. However long it took.