Rounding the corner into the main dining area, David came into view. Pulling Carly in close, they leaned into the wall, and watched as Ben sprinted across the cafeteria floor and into the kitchen. Gaining the attention of a second, and much larger, group of Feeders, the kid was actually serving a purpose.
Moving on their hands and knees through the twisted mess of tables, Ethan and Carly reached the barricade protecting her fiancé. Through the vertical void between two of the barriers, they could see that David had freed his ankle and now appeared to be nursing another injury along his right arm.
Turning to Carly as he came to stand, Ethan held his index finger over his lips and whispered. “Remember, we’re trying to be invisible. But, once I move this table, we may get some company.”
“Okay?”
“Stay close, David’s gonna need help. I’ll get him out, but I need you to see what we don’t. You ready?”
Ethan pushed his back into the wall and gripped the long edge of the table. His left leg braced against the floorboard and with David now aware of his presence, he began to slide the table away and to the right.
The gap growing, he asked Carly to stay at his back as he moved in and helped David to his feet. “Watch for Ben. As soon as he comes back through this room, we’re going in the opposite direction. Let him lead them away, and we’ll have a shot at getting to the back door.”
Onto his feet, David winced. He pulled his right foot off the ground and hopped the three steps to Carly. Coming together, they embraced and began to kiss, clinging to one another for support. Pulling her in close, David whispered into her ear and looked back to Ethan for their next move. “What’s with Ben?”
“You know that kid?” Ethan asked.
“We met him last night, you don’t remember?”
“I don’t know, I’m still a little fuzzy on what even happened this morning.”
“So, are we just running out the back door?”
“That’s the plan,” Ethan said. “As soon as the kid comes by, we’ll head through the back hall and hopefully the parking lot is clear. How many rounds you got left?”
“I don’t know five, maybe six. Why, where’d yours go?”
“Your buddy, the track star. He took it.”
“What?”
“Long story. But I’ll tell you what, that boy is gonna know my name before this day is through. He picked the wrong person to screw with.”
As the tide of Feeders followed Ben back out of the kitchen and across the cafeteria floor, Ethan leaned under David’s right arm. He pointed to the last few Feeders filtering out of the swinging doors. “Carly, stay on my back. Hold on and don’t let go. We go as soon as those last two clear the area.”
Carly fell in behind Ethan, her hand shaking uncontrollably as she clutched his utility belt. As they started across the floor, Ethan allowed the tables to slowly crumble into themselves. The sound of metal on metal rumbled through the well-insulated room, sending riotous soundwaves down each of the four corridors.
“Come on.” Ethan’s head on a swivel, they crossed the floor with David doing his best to keep up. Reaching the archway leading into the rear hall, Ethan guided his friends to the second recessed doorway and stopped. “I’ll go check it out. Don’t move.”
Without the use of his sidearm, he descended the darkened hall, quickly making his way to the set of double doors. From a squatting position and his back against the wall, he slowly leaned in and parted the doors. Just as they’d left it, the last fifty feet were a mess of metal-framed cots and further along, what remained of Leslie Franklin.
Back to David and Carly, Ethan was nearly out of breath. “Same as before… but.”
“But what?” David said.
“A few of the cots are now empty. And I don’t see any of them back there.”
“So, that’s good.”
“Okay, but where’d they go?”
“Who—”
Four shots in rapid succession detonated from the far end of the hospital. And then another three seconds of silence before the thundering clap of shattering glass.
Ethan pointed into the half lit corridor. “Now.”
David had already begun to hobble in the direction of the doors as Ethan matched his pace and offered his shoulder. “No Ethan; I got it. Just watch the rear.”
Traversing the two long rows of cots, Carly held David’s hand and stayed as close to center as was possible. Maintaining eye contact with her fiancé, she avoided looking down and the thoughts that would come with allowing her mind to focus on anything but survival. She only wanted another twenty seconds. Just to get to the end. Through the rear doors and away from this hell.
Please, just please
.
Four steps behind, Ethan again turned and without a hint of what had become of the kid, he began to slow. He let David continue on toward the last set of double doors, leading Carly past their childhood friend and what was left of the annihilated corpse.
“Three…” Ethan waited.
Reaching the exit, David and Carly stopped and paused at the threshold. “Let’s go, Ethan.”
“Two… come on Ben.” Ethan stared back in the direction they’d come. “I’ll leave you here, I swear.”
Standing near the center of the aisle of death, something at his back stirred. Ethan knew what it was, but didn’t turn. Two, maybe three new foes, struggling to free themselves from under the thin layer of hospital bedding. He was semi-confident in his ability to handle himself one-on-one and out in the open against these things, but he wasn’t ready to die for the kid who’d just run off with his only advantage. It was time to go.
“One… Damn it kid, I’m sorry.”
Twenty minutes since leaving the bridge in their rearview mirror, and without another human crossing their path, their world seemed much bigger than the mountain they’d fought to leave. Griffin had attempted conversation three times, partly because he hated absolute silence, but mostly because he felt something he didn’t know what to do with. Something that typically he shoved aside. Guilt wasn’t his thing, but maybe today it was.
The nine millimeter sat on the bench seat, dividing the cab into equal parts. Griffin behind the wheel, and Cora alternately staring at the map and out into the midafternoon sky. “Looks like we’re coming up on Third Street. Turn left and then look for Mineral Street.”
“Okay,” Griffin said. “How’s your side?”
“It’s fine. I’ll live.”
He hated this. She came as close to blowing his head off as she did saving his life. And from where he sat, that fact was crystal clear. He believed he had every right to react the way he did and then some. And at some point she was going to see that, no matter how long it took him to convince her. “How are we going to handle the questions?”
Cora continued to peer out the opposite window.
“Hey, this is something we have to talk about. I’m still not asking for details about your past, but—”
“Well, then don’t.”
“It’s not that.”
Folding the map and laying it on the dashboard, Cora straightened up, loosened her seat belt, and turned to face him. She flashed a sarcastically-fake grin and said, “What—what is it that you think
WE
need to discuss? What kinds of things are you hoping that I tell you? Are you trying to find out what heinous act put me behind bars, or are you simply trying to apologize for acting like a child?”
“Neither. I just figured that we may want to get our stories straight as far as where we came from and you know, who we are.”
“This isn’t a movie.” Cora said. “We aren’t going to give them some fake story about who we are, have them patch up my side, and then just walk right out the front door.”
“I realize that, but with everything—”
“Like you said earlier, you’re going to drop me off and get back to your life. I’m going into the hospital and telling them exactly what happened back there. I’ve got less than six months left on my sentence and I’m not going to screw that up. Hell, life inside is a cake-walk compared to what we’ve been through the last few hours.”
“I’m not leaving you. I’ll stick around to make sure they know what happened out there, and to make sure they know that you never tried to—”
“Tried to what, escape?”
Growing tired of the direction this one-sided conversation was heading, Griffin shook his head. “That’s not what I was saying, I just—wait, what the hell is that?”
She began to respond, but seeing that his focus had moved away from the cab of the truck, Cora instinctively reached for the weapon that separated the front seat. Even before she was fully turned, the movement from three hundred yards away was undeniable.
Slowing the truck, Griffin pointed toward the end of Mineral Street. “See that big blue sign, white lettering?”
“Yeah?”
“That’s the hospital, that’s where we’re going.”
Counting the number of tortured individuals flooding the streets, she stopped when she reached twenty-five. As Cora held her breath, the roadway beyond Fourth Street disappeared into a sea of bodies. Men, women, and even a few children were gathered in small groups along the east end of Mineral. They walked in massive circles, each autonomous from one another. “There is no way we’re going over there.”
Pulling to a stop, Griffin leaned into the steering wheel. Squinting into the distance, he focused on the massacre that was about to take place in less than thirty seconds. “Do you see that?”
“Yeah, I do. What does that look like, maybe a few hundred? Do you think this is where it started? Is this the reason we almost died out there on that mountain?”
“No, look over there, that guy. He’s running from them—no, over there on the right. There’s actually someone still alive out there.” Griffin shifted into drive and pushed the gas pedal to the floor. “We’ve got to get to him before they do.”
“Griffin, no.”
Pushing the truck to toward the crowd, Griffin kept one eye on the unidentified runner as he turned the corner and moved into the hospital’s employee parking lot. The young man appeared to be carrying a handgun and was closely pursued by more than a dozen of the dangerously aggressive individuals.
Dropping the magazine from the bottom of the nine millimeter, Cora looked back at Griffin. “Not good.”
Arcing wide and aiming for the center of the drive, Griffin continued to track the unusually speedy individual. With each aggressor he was able to run away from, he would unfortunately find another three to join in the attack. At present, the young man was attracting more of the ridiculously enthusiastic followers than he was losing.
“What’s not good?” Griffin asked.
“One gun, only two rounds left. We can’t help him.”
“We have to try.”
Bracing herself against the passenger door, Cora slid the gun under her left leg and held tight to the seatbelt. Only seconds from reaching the young man, now running in a straight line toward the employee entrance, the pain along her left side returned with a vengeance. Lurching forward as Griffin weaved between the slower moving individuals, she vomited onto the floorboard.
Finally gaining the attention of the young man with the gun, Griffin pointed the truck at those closing in on the rear entrance. “Cora, I’m sorry, but I have to do this—hold on.”
Steering the truck into the crowd, the front end pitched forward. Going airborne, the engine throttled wildly as Griffin shot from his seat and collided with the roof. Leveling more than a half dozen aggressors, the truck came to rest alongside the emergency parking lane and rocked from left to right.
The man with the gun had momentarily disappeared. Although ten seconds later, he reappeared twenty yards away, darting out from behind a decorative stone column. His hands in the air, the young man locked eyes with Griffin and began to shout, although his words were masked by growl of the engine.
Shifting into reverse, Griffin looked through the rear window, and punched the gas. The truck’s back end fought to gain traction as he searched for a clear route away from the mayhem. As the right rear tire gripped the asphalt, the massive vehicle shot backward and into a handicapped parking sign. “Perfect.”
Before she could compose herself, a second wave of nausea hit, this time accompanied by a thunderous spike that ended behind both eyes. A migraine so powerful that it threatened to rip her skull in two. The pain had taken control now, nothing for her to do but let it come. Just endure, somehow.
“Cora, just hold on a minute longer. Please.” Dropping the truck back into drive, he plowed his right foot down onto the gas pedal and without warning, the engine died.
With long beads of sweat beginning to form along her forehead, Cora placed both hands on the dashboard and looked out over the side view mirror. “Griffin, they’re coming for us—all of them.”