The Becoming: Ground Zero (13 page)

Brandt stopped at the railing, where several of the wooden spindles that supported the staircase were missing. He dropped to the floor and slid just over the edge of the staircase, studying a switch-sized metal box nailed to the molding. He lifted his hips to wiggle a pocketknife out of his pants and used the blade’s edge to pop the front plate off. As he tossed the box’s cover to the ground floor, Cade leaned over the railing to watch, rubbing at her ribs with a pained grimace.

Inside the box was a nest of components making up the trigger for a bomb just strong enough to take out the staircase above the second-floor landing. The bomb itself was underneath the stairs. Brandt had spent the better part of three weeks constructing the device out of odds and ends hunted down around Maplesville. In the end, he managed to find enough to complete exactly one explosive device. It was never intended to seal them off upstairs indefinitely, but it would give them enough time to escape the safe house. Cade looked down at Brandt and found that he was already looking up at her, an odd grin on his face that made a chill run down her spine.

In Cade’s opinion, between the RV, the escalator at the mall, two cars, three bikes, innumerable Molotovs, a lawnmower, and now a staircase, Brandt was entirely too creative at coming up with ingenious ways to completely destroy things. And he always seemed to enjoy it a little
too
much.

Men,
Cade thought as she fought the urge to back up at the sight of his grin.

“I’m waiting until there’s more on the stairs,” Brandt said, much to Cade’s horror. He pushed a few wires aside, searching through them for a particular one, the single blue wire in the entire box. Brandt had shown Cade the insides of the box after he’d finished constructing the bomb (“Blue for cool, as in ‘That explosion was way cool,’” Brandt had said at the time, much to Cade’s chagrin.), partially so there would be someone who knew how to use it if he were killed, but also because, Cade suspected, he just really liked to talk about bombs.

It couldn’t
possibly
be because he liked to talk to
her
about bombs. Unless he just really enjoyed the sight of her nervous and twitchy.

“Are you
nuts?
” Cade asked. To distract herself from her nerves, she took his handgun and began to reload it, discovering, to her disgust, that her hands were shaking. She grimaced and eyed the gun she’d dropped when she’d fallen on the stairs; it still rested just a step or two below the second-floor landing. She wondered if she could get it before Brandt cut the wire. She really liked that gun.

“Just a few more,” Brandt insisted. “We can kill a few while we’re at it, you know? Might help slow them down a bit more.”

A slow smile spread across Cade’s face, despite her trepidation. She glanced at the stairs once more, firing a couple of shots into the mass of infected making their slow, uncoordinated way up the staircase. Then she nodded in agreement. “Okay. Okay, fine. Do what you’ve got to do. Just do it
right
.”

“Of course,” Brandt said. He fingered the blue wire out of the bunch inside the box, slipped the blade of his pocketknife underneath it and, with a jerk of his wrist, sliced through it. Then he stood quickly, narrowly avoiding the railing, and grabbed Cade’s arm in a bruising grip, hauling her down the hallway. “Ten seconds! Everybody get down!” he yelled.

Cade stumbled toward the end of the hall, Brandt still pulling at her arm, throwing her off balance. She didn’t make it to where the others crouched before the floor heaved up underneath her and threw her to her knees. Cade let out a cry and collided with the floor, flinging her arms out to catch herself. A blast of air rushed past her and slammed her firmly into the wooden boards.

A heavy body landed on top of Cade and shielded her from the flying debris. Cade grunted at the impact, waiting until the dust settled before she tried to push herself up. She bowed her head and looked past her elbows at the destruction behind her. The explosion was sufficient to destroy the stairs—along with a decent-sized portion of the hallway where Brandt and Cade had stood. Cade slapped the floor in anger and managed to push the body off her. She struggled to her knees. It was Brandt beside her, Brandt who’d shielded her from the blast. Of course.

“Brandt!” Cade snapped furiously. “I thought you said it would only take out the stairs above the landing!”

“That’s what it did, didn’t it?” Brandt said defensively. He stood and offered Cade a hand. Cade glared up at him, refusing to take it.

“Yeah, and half the fucking hallway too!”

“Don’t blame me! You and Ethan were the ones who asked me to build it!”

“Why
not
blame you, you … you
ben zona,
” Cade snarled, reaching for a Hebrew insult when her mind didn’t immediately dredge up an American one strong enough for her taste. “You’re entirely too convenient, and besides, that shit was your fault!”

Brandt stared at her for just a moment, clearly baffled. “I have no idea what a
ben zona
is, but the way you said it implies it’s something really unpleasant, and I don’t think I appreciate it!”

“You are such a—” Cade started.

“Cade, Brandt, that’s enough,” Ethan broke in, stumbling to his feet. Cade glanced at him as he helped Avi up and reached for Nikola. “Is everybody okay?”

“Couldn’t be better,” Cade muttered wryly. She finally gave in and took Brandt’s hand, gritting her teeth as he pulled her to her feet.

Remy groaned and sat up, pushing her dark hair out of her face where it had dislodged from her ponytail. She rubbed at her lower back with a grimace. “I feel like I’ve just been to a chiropractor,” she complained as Ethan helped her stand.

That section of the second floor suddenly dropped at least a foot, tilting toward the blown-out end of the stairs, the entire hallway shaking violently. Cade slid backward, and she braced her boots firmly against the hardwood floor. Brandt grabbed her hand again to help her, and she managed to keep both of her feet on the floor without too much difficulty.

“We’ve got to get the hell out of here,” Cade said to Brandt. She dislodged her hand from his and took a slow step toward the end of the hallway. Brandt retrieved his gun and nudged her along, walking backward as he trained his weapon on the remains of the staircase. Once everyone was in the bedroom at the end of the hall, Cade pushed the door shut for added security.

Gray hovered on the roof outside the window, motioning for the others to hurry. “What the hell blew up?” he asked. Much to Cade’s surprise, Gray wasn’t particularly bothered by the prospect of an explosion. Perhaps they were all becoming oddly immune to Brandt’s creative ways of diverting the infected.

“Brandt blew up the stairs,” Nikola announced. She followed Theo out the window, grasping Gray’s arm tightly. He put his other arm around her waist and set her lightly beside the window.

Gray laughed and reached for Remy. “Come on, let’s go,” he said, helping her through. “I think we can get to the van from the roof. It’s parked right at the side of the house. If Cade can keep those bastards away with that badass rifle of hers, we can get inside through the sunroof.”

Cade climbed onto the roof with a groan, waving off Gray’s attempts to help, and dragged her duffel bag and rifle out behind her. “Why me?” she complained.

“Probably because you’re the best shot we’ve got,” Ethan said gruffly, sliding out the window. As his feet found the roof, he stumbled and slid down several inches on the sloped surface. He caught himself by the windowsill and straightened before he went to the edge and looked down.

Cade knelt and quickly checked over her rifle, mostly out of habit, but partially out of nervousness. She glanced up in surprise as Brandt dropped down beside her and began to rummage through her bag. “What are you doing?” Cade asked, resisting the urge to snatch her bag back.

“You should know that I’m not going to ditch you and make you cover all of us by yourself,” Brandt said. He pulled an additional sidearm from the bag and twirled the two guns he held like an Old West gunslinger. Cade rolled her eyes even as a large grin spread across her face. She was glad to have Brandt by her side in a tight spot yet again. He and Ethan were the only ones on whom she relied without question.

“So how are we going to do this?” Cade called to Ethan. She slid down to the edge of the roof and checked out the ground below. Everything was comparatively quiet after the trouble they’d had inside; none of the infected had reached this side yet. The van sat like a quiet sentinel on the grass, completely undisturbed, waiting patiently for their arrival. “Just jump down?”

“Yeah,” Ethan answered. He too studied the van’s surroundings intently. “It’s not too far, I don’t think. And like Gray said, we can climb in through the sunroof.”

Brandt slid down to take a knee beside her. “If you can get down there and get the van started, I can help everyone onto the van,” he offered. Ethan stared off the roof for a long moment, as if measuring distances with his eyes. Then he jumped off. Cade’s heart leaped into her throat, and she sucked back an involuntary gasp. Ethan landed on the van with a thud, and Cade leaned forward to make sure he was okay. Thankfully, he was.

“Jesus, Eth!” Cade called out. “Way to give me a fucking heart attack! A little warning next time, please?”

Ethan merely waved at her and shrugged, grinning like a fool. “I’m not planning to jump off any more roofs anytime soon!” he called quietly. He leaned down and ripped free the blue tarp covering the front end of the van, revealing the already-opened sunroof, and shoved the tarp to the ground. He slipped down into the sunroof and waved again to get Brandt’s attention. “Get Remy down here first! She can help Cade guard while we get everybody else in the van!”

Brandt reached out a hand to take Remy’s, but she pushed it away and moved to the edge of the roof. “I’ve got this,” she said confidently before she jumped off. Her ponytail flew out behind her as she leaped to the van unassisted. Cade was impressed; the slender woman’s jump had the grace of a gazelle.

“Try to keep the noise down,” Cade ordered, rising to her feet. She tossed Remy some extra ammunition and looked at the ground again. They were making entirely too much noise, and the prospect of the infected noticing and coming after them before they were all off the roof did nothing to calm Cade’s nerves. “I don’t think they’ve noticed us yet. Let’s keep it that way, okay?”

Once Nikola was safely on the van and sliding inside via the sunroof, Brandt assisted Avi down. Gray accepted Brandt’s help in turn, but Theo decided to go on his own. He landed on the van with a thud loud enough that Cade winced.

“Fuck, Theo, keep it down!” Cade ordered hoarsely. She looked toward the front of the house. Sure enough, several of the infected had taken notice of the group. They began to make their way around the corner of the house, some moving quickly but most at a slower pace. Cade swore and brought her rifle to her shoulder, aiming at the infected man in the lead of the pack. He’d once been a young man in his late teens but was now skinny and gray, almost bald, with one hand missing below the wrist. Bullet wounds riddled his torso. He was obviously far into what they’d come to call the second stage of the virus’s effects, post-death but still animated and still violent. Cade shuddered and squeezed the trigger, sending the bullet directly into the infected man’s head. He crumpled to the ground in a heap. It was the only mercy she could offer him.

Cade immediately repositioned herself, taking aim at a middle-aged housewife with the remains of an apron hanging haphazardly around her neck. She fired her rifle but was forced to shift her aim to the infected behind the woman she’d just dropped. “Damn it,” she swore under her breath. She ground her teeth together, squeezing the trigger again. Five more infected swept around the corner of the house as her bullet met its target. “Brandt, on the van, now!” she snapped. Remy opened fire from the van’s roof, joining her attack with Cade’s. “There’s too many of them! I can’t handle this many, even with Remy’s help!” Cade dropped to a knee to steady her aim, the shingles scraping at her skin through her jeans.

“Not going without you,” Brandt said stubbornly. He aimed his weapon into the growing crowd of infected and fired three shots.

Cade gritted her teeth again and took aim at another target. “Brandt Evans, I swear to God, if you argue with me, I’m going to shoot you myself,” she threatened.

“Oh fine, fine, but you
better
be right behind me,” Brandt warned. He turned and took two steps, dropping out of sight and landing on the van almost silently. Yet another thing that impressed Cade about Brandt: Despite his stature and musculature, Brandt could be as silent as a cat when the need arose. Cade often wondered where he’d learned it—she’d met other United States Marines during her service in the IDF, and while all of them had been incredibly well trained, they hadn’t been anywhere near Brandt’s level. Brandt had yet to indulge her curiosity and tell her how he came by his skills.

Cade shot down two more infected that got uncomfortably close to the van and her companions. She looked down at the vehicle itself and contemplated the distance. Brandt knelt by the sunroof, and Remy had slid down inside it; she stood on the seat and beckoned to Cade urgently.