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Blindness is just the beginning. Once the virus strips away everything remotely human, all that's left is a mindless, savage...
Category: Thriller and Suspense

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Published by Natthapong Toukanee, 2021-11-01 03:35:52

A Post Apocalyptic Thriller

Blindness is just the beginning. Once the virus strips away everything remotely human, all that's left is a mindless, savage...
Category: Thriller and Suspense

Keywords: Thriller

attached to the sun visor and spent part of a minute hurriedly scribbling a
note on the back of one of the pages, then he reached into the bag nestled
between the seats and gathered up a handful of granola bars, a bottle of water,
a can of Coke and an orange. Then he saw that it was their last orange, and
since Mackenzie loved oranges so much, he swapped it for an apple. Once he
had everything together in his lap, he ripped the page out of the book,
checked the nearness of the swarm, and cracked open his door.

“I’ll just be a minute,” he told Mackenzie as he jumped to the ground.

“Okay, Mace,” the girl nodded obligingly enough, but there was an
anxiousness in her voice that she couldn’t hide completely.

Mason bundled his few meagre provisions in his arms, shut the door
quietly, and hurried to the bench near the lamppost. He knew that if Sarah
came, she would expect some kind of sign. And where in all of Mission
Creek Park would she look for it other than precisely the two square feet of
real estate in which she and Mackenzie had encountered the funny dogs? He
spread the items along the bench, stacked the granola bars in a little pyramid,
and took special care to stick the note under the water bottle where the wind
wouldn’t be able to tear it away.

Sarah, it read, Mackenzie is safe, but she’s sick. I really need your help,
so please be alive! I don’t know how much longer she has, but I promise I’ll
be with her to the end, and I’ll be as gentle as I can be. If you get this, break
into the yellow houseboat and open the drapes as a signal. We’ll come back
every day while we can, but if you don’t see us within 24 hours, know that
Mackenzie was accompanied by a friend, and that I am truly, truly sorry.

There. Good. With those few words, he had effectively absolved himself
from all of the guilt he’d felt the previous night. Whether or not Sarah was
alive, and whether or not she ever found the note, his commitment could
finally be considered discharged. He had done his best, and he’d provided
dear, elusive, probably-already-demised Aunt Sarah with all the closure she
could ever expect under the circumstances. He wondered what else he could
add to the note to make the news less dire, but decided to leave it as it was.
Considering the subject matter, a few words more or less would never make a
difference.

After some deliberation, he unstrapped the pistol from his ankle and

exchanged the near-empty clip for a full one from his pocket, then he laid the
gun beside the water bottle. If Sarah came, she would find it indispensable. If
she didn’t, maybe the thing would help someone else survive. He briefly
considered the possibility that the gun could come back to bite him in the ass,
but the odds weren’t very high. Not now, anyway. Chances were, anyone
thinking of using the gun against them would be far too late to do them any
harm.

He conjured up an image of Becks’ exasperated face and gave her a
mental shrug, confessing grimly, Sorry, Becks. I’m trying, but all the hope in
the world ain’t gonna change the laws of nature...

He was halfway back to the truck when he heard a twig snap from
behind. Apparently, one of the creepers was quicker than he’d thought. He
wheeled around to face the fleet-footed creature that had confounded his
math, intent on snapping a knee or bowling the creature to the ground, but his
heart instantly doubled its beat when he saw a wilder the approximate size of
a house charging directly at him.

The creature came like a bull, roaring and snarling and spitting blood,
and he knew that he had made a fatal mistake. The creature was between him
and the pistol on the bench, and he had left his second gun and his club
behind in the truck for what was supposed to be a thirty second excursion. He
was doomed. And yet, in that brief, eternal flurry of seconds before his
imminent demise, his only thought was of Mackenzie. His nearsightedness
had doomed her as well, and in a way that far exceeded his own. Whatever
she must surely become in the near future, she was still a frightened, brave,
sweet little girl, and that frightened, brave, sweet little girl was about to hear
her last friend on Earth dying.

At any other time, that stark image might have crushed his very soul, but
now, it inspired him. After all that he and Mackenzie had been through
together, after all of the defeats and triumphs, all the near-misses and narrow
escapes, and all the promises and hopes, they deserved better than to let it end
like this. If they were destined to die, they at least deserved the right to end
things on their own terms. Hell, they’d earned it. They’d damned well earned
the right to go out together.

He watched the creature charging at him, and as his anguish turned
suddenly to anger, he growled back at the creature in defiance. The wilder

responded to the guttural sound by increasing its speed, but Mason was
ready. When the wilder was mere feet away, he dropped to a knee and
ducked low, and just as the massive creature blundered into him, he pistoned
his legs and sent the creature flying head over heels overtop of him. It was
back on its feet in a flash and spun around to come at him again, and this time
Mason dove aside with mere inches to spare. But this behemoth was quick,
and it knew prey was near. The creature dropped clumsily to its knees and
clawed at the ground where Mason had been only a moment before, then it
picked up on the sounds of someone scrabbling over dried leaves and lunged
at the sound with a snarl. Mason was able to roll out of the way in time to
avoid the claws, but then he came up against a tree and had nowhere else to
go. He knocked the claws away time and time again, but the creature was like
a wildcat, and he knew that it was only a matter of time before one of those
claws made contact. In desperation, he managed to grab a handful of the
wilder’s hair, then he used what leverage he had to shove the creature’s face
into the ground as hard as he could. Again and again he slammed the wilder’s
face into the ground, but the soil was too soft to do more than bloody the
wilder’s nose. Then the clump of hair tore free, and he fell to his back,
kicking at the creature as it clawed its way closer and closer, snarling and
spitting like an animal possessed.

Seeing no other recourse now, Mason planted his feet firmly against the
base of the tree and used it to propel himself out of immediate danger, then
he leapt onto the creature’s back and set to work killing the thing with his
bare hands. He wrapped one massive arm around the beast’s thick neck and
squeezed for all he was worth, but just as he felt a larynx begin to crush, the
wilder climbed slowly but doggedly to its feet and shrugged him aside as
easily a dog shaking off a dip in the lake.

He landed hard, knocking the breath from his lungs. As he gasped and
sputtered, he saw the pistol lying on the bench only a few yards away, but
just as he was about to make a grab for it, the creature was on him again, and
it was all he could do to roll off to the side. He managed to avoid the claws
once again, but dried leaves and twigs crackled under his body as he rolled,
and the wilder lunged at this new sound. He kicked furiously at the creature’s
legs as the thing came at him, but it was built like a tank and there was just
too much mass to topple. As the creature clawed and snarled and spat away
the blood gushing from its shattered nose, it was all he could do to roll and

scramble and crab-walk just inches out of the thing’s reach. At last, his back
came up against the lamp post, and he could retreat no farther, even as the
creature drew close enough that droplets of red, frothy spittle spattered
against his face.

He felt claws tug at his very clothing as he tried to scramble backward
around the lamp post, desperate to put something, anything between him and
the creature. But then, just when he thought he might stand a chance, one of
the wilder’s hands closed around his foot with a grip like iron. He kicked
furiously against the hold, and clung to the lamp post with all of his strength,
but there was no fighting the strength of this wilder. Slowly but surely, he
was being reeled in like a fish. He felt his grip on the post loosen, and with
one last violent yank, he was pulled free. Before he could make a move, the
creature had him pinned him to the ground, and as he saw the wilder
descending upon him like a ravening beast, all he could think was, Not
now!... Not yet!... Please!...

When the creature’s face was mere inches from his throat, an explosion
shook the air, and the bloody jaws suddenly withdrew. Mason looked on with
utter bewilderment as the wilder arched back, raising its face blindly to the
sky. It hovered there barely long enough for him to conjure up the insane
notion that a sudden peal of thunder must have distracted the creature, before
the thing folded backward and collapsed in a heap to the ground.

In the creature’s place stood the tiny form of Mackenzie, hands together,
arms outstretched, and tangled locks of hair cascading down over one eye.
And in her hands was a pistol. The pistol he had left for Sarah. And as
awareness slowly sunk in, it was all he could do to simply lay there and gape
stupidly at the girl.

She had just saved his life. Somehow, that little slip of a girl had climbed
down from the truck, found the weapon he’d left on the bench, and had
blindly put a bullet in the wilder’s back just in the nick of time. As he
climbed awkwardly to his feet, he realized something else that made him so
weak in the knees that he very nearly collapsed again.

Mackenzie wasn’t focused on some undefined spot in the distance. She
was looking directly at him. Not at his chest, not at his chin, and not at his
nose. The girl was looking him square in the eyes.

It was impossible. Inconceivable. A trick of his addled nerves, surely. In
fact, so certain was he that he refused to allow himself even to contemplate
the notion. But then he saw one corner of the girl’s mouth turn up in a sly
grin, and at that simple gesture, skepticism quickly gave way to recognition,
recognition to relief, and relief to utter jubilation. He ran to her, and when she
opened her arms to greet him, he finally allowed himself to believe it was
real. He took the gun from her hand, hoisted her into the air, and held her so
tight that she might have been a part of him.

“I couldn’t tell for sure,” the girl said, pressing her cheek against his and
hushing quietly into his ear. “I thought I was imagining it, so I didn’t say
anything.”

Mason saw a trio of creepers approaching along the seawall, but he made
no move to go. He kept his arms wrapped around the girl and cooed back to
her, “Oh, Mack, you should have told me.”

“I couldn’t be sure,” she said again, and Mason hushed it all away.

“I know, Mack, I know. It’s okay. I’m just so happy now that nothing
else matters to me in the whole world.”

Mackenzie pulled herself back and faced him squarely, and when Mason
saw those big beautiful green eyes gazing back at him so full of life, he felt a
tear well up and course down his cheek.

She could see. Walker’s little white lie and Mason’s idealistic bullshit
aside, the girl could actually see!

“You look happier than you sound,” Mackenzie said, then she giggled
sweetly and wiped the tear away from Mason’s cheek. “Even though you’re
crying.”

“You caught me at a pretty good time, Mack,” Mason said, and it was all
he could do to keep from jumping for joy. “Oh, Mack, we’re really going to
be okay now. No matter what else happens, we’re gonna be okay because
you’re okay.

She tucked her head into his neck and hushed, “If you say so, Mace.”

“I say so, Mack,” he told her adamantly, and gave her a gentle kiss on
her cheek.

As consumed as he was in his joy and relief, he couldn’t help but note
the swarm gaining ground, so he finally turned and carried the girl back to the
truck. He deposited her in the driver’s seat and smiled as she scampered
effortlessly across the cab to tuck herself cross-legged into her seat. Then she
turned her big green eyes back to him and threw him a toothy grin, and he felt
as if his heart might just leap from his very chest. It had been his intention to
retrieve his weapon and make short work of the gathering creepers, but he
suddenly had neither the inclination nor the desire. Instead, he climbed into
the truck, swung the door shut behind him, and turned all of his attention to
Mackenzie. For several long moments, they sat there, Mackenzie scrutinizing
every feature of Mason’s face, and Mason simply happy to see such life in
those beautiful eyes. Then the girl’s attention was drawn to a particularly
animated creeper banging its way down the side of the truck, and her smile
melted slowly into a scowl.

“I think they were less scary when I couldn’t see them,” she announced
grimly.

“They’re scary either way,” Mason replied gloomily enough, though he
wasn’t able to wipe the smile from his face.

Mackenzie saw the look on his face, and a sly smirk began to creep back
across her lips.

“I guess Doctor Walker was right,” she suggested coyly.

“I guess so,” Mason agreed, and though he wanted to shout his joy from
the rooftops, he knew that nothing else needed to be said. Nevertheless, he
found himself sharing a final kind thought for the man he had been so quick
to loathe, and a bothersome sense of remorse served to temper his elation.

Whether or not Mackenzie took notice of his subtle change of mood, she
chose just that moment to narrow her eyes and offer Mason a mischievous,
“You know, you sound different than you look.”

Mason scoffed.

“I’m not surprised. I’ve probably aged a decade or two in the last couple
of days.”

The girl made a show out of studying his face.

“No, you don’t sound older than I thought. Just... different.”

With that, she dismissed the observation and turned back to the windows.
She sat quietly observing the world outside as if she were drinking in every
image, and at last, the creeper that had been alongside the truck came to a
stop directly outside her window. And there it stood, staring blindly at the
closed door and drooling a string of red saliva from the corner of its mouth.

“So, what do we do now, Mace? We can’t just stay here, right?”

Mason looked to the dead wilder with a bullet hole in its back, and
watched as it stirred and began to struggle laboriously to its knees.

“No, Mack,” he told her squarely. “We can’t stay.”

“So, what do we do? Where do we go?”

Until that moment, Mason hadn’t dared to think beyond that night. So
sure had he been that their adventure was drawing to its inevitable close that
he’d given no thought at all to an impossible future. Now, with boundless
numbers of days suddenly stretching out before him like an untrodden path,
his mind fairly reeled under a rush of possibilities.

His original plan had been to get as far away from the city as he could,
and at first blush, it still seemed like the best bet. He no longer imagined a
donut and coffee at the end of the trail, but there would open countryside, and
clean air, and rolling meadows of green. If nothing else, the population would
be thinner outside the city, so it simply had to be better there than here.

But now that he had the luxury of considering the notion as a very real
option instead of a half-imagined pipe dream, he was suddenly not so
confident. Yes, there would be fewer encounters with the dead and the
undead beyond the city walls, but there were other factors to consider. First
and foremost, there was food in the city. Plenty of it. Enough to sustain a
million people for several days, or several people for millions of days. And
there was bottled water here, too, and guns, and bullets, and diesel fuel. There
were matches, and lighters, and dry newspapers by the bushel. And there was
medicine here. Aspirin, and antibiotics, and cough syrup, and Band-Aids.
There were camp stoves, and bottled propane, and plastic tarps. Clean
underwear and socks. Toothbrushes, and toothpaste, and soap, and shampoo.
In fact, everything they would ever need was in the city. Beyond it, who
knew what the world had to offer?

Mason might be a survivor, but in his heart of hearts, he knew he was no

survivalist. As frightening a prospect as it was to imagine the two of them
spending their days scrounging through the detritus of a ruined civilization
with a swarm at their heels, the idea of a city boy trying to eke out an
existence in the wilderness filled him with an undeniable dread. Weighed
against a handful of berries and questionable creek water, a can of Spam and
a warm Coke suddenly seemed like haute cuisine.

Really though, pros and cons aside, he knew the decision was no
decision at all. Not under the circumstances.

“We can’t stay in one place for long, but we can’t leave, either,” he told
Mackenzie pointedly. “Not until we know about Aunt Sarah, one way or the
other. I left a note telling her to break into that yellow houseboat where she’ll
be safe and where she can signal us. I figure we get some distance away and
spend tonight in the truck, then we check the houseboat in the morning, and if
she’s not there, we go out looking for supplies. Then we come back here
before the sun goes down, check for Aunt Sarah again, then we get our
distance again to keep the swarm out of the park, and hunker down for
another night. The next day, we get up and do it all over again. And then
again. And then again.”

Mackenzie didn’t even have to consider. She nodded her immediate
agreement, and all she asked was, “For how long?”

“Dunno,” Mason shrugged. “As long as it takes, I guess.”

The girl fixed him with a wary eye.

“But we’re not gonna give up hope, right?”

Mason heard Becks words echoing back to him, but it was only now that
he realized how true they were. And where before he had merely been
parroting someone else’s aspirations, with his mind still reeling from
Mackenzie’s miraculous delivery from a death he had always considered
certain, he now repeated them back to her with absolute conviction.

“Mack, I promise that we will stay here as long as we have to, and we
won’t give up hope. We can’t give up hope, no matter what. In fact, that will
be our new motto. ‘Plan for the worst and hope for the best.’ Sound good to
you?”

“Sounds good, Mace,” Mackenzie said through a wide grin.

Becks’ face appeared one last time, and now she was smiling. It was the
same goofy, smart-ass grin she always wore when she knew she’d been right
all along.

You win again... Mason happily conceded to the image, Just like
always... Then he grew melancholy and found himself adding a truly
repentant, I’m sorry, Becks. I truly am...

A sudden thud along the driver’s side of the truck ended the reverie, and
his eyes were back to his window. He looked first to the dead wilder pressed
against the driver’s door and then to the gathering swarm beyond, and not for
the first time, he found himself doing the math.

It wasn’t going to be easy. Death was waiting for them at every turn,
hiding in every shadow, and lurking in every corner. It would come after
them in wave after relentless wave, wherever they went. They could do all
the right things a thousand times in a row... hell, a million times, a billion
times, and they only had to be wrong once to end it all. It was going to be a
long, slow struggle, one cautious step at a time, always looking over their
shoulder, forever on the ragged edge of extinction, and always with the odds
stacked against them.

But still, even with the big question mark looming over the far end of his
calculations, his resolve was absolute. He had no idea how long the road
would be, or what twists and turns they would encounter along the way, but
of one thing he was certain... Whatever the world threw at them from this
point on, they would get through it, and they would get through it together.

He turned away from the swarm outside and asked Mackenzie casually,
“Well, Mack, what say we go find some quiet little corner of the world, have
a bite to eat, and get some shut-eye? We had a long day today, and we’re
bound to have a long day tomorrow.”

“Okay,” the girl said obligingly enough, but then she tossed her head
toward the windows and added through a scowl, “You know there’s no such
thing as a quiet corner of the world, right?”

“Yes, I know,” Mason admitted grimly. “I most certainly know.”

Mackenzie pursed her lips, then she took a moment to regard the
resolution in Mason’s eyes, and drew in a deep breath of shared resolve.

“Okay, then,” she said at last, as she settled in her seat and fastened her
seatbelt tight.

With that, Mason keyed the truck to life, and as he began to pull away
from the swarm and into the vast unknown, he reached out and felt her tiny
hand slip into his.

Thank you so much for reading Stage 3. If you are reading this, it probably
means that you stuck with the story to the end. I’m thrilled that you came
along for the ride. I only hope there was no need for the barf bag under your
seat.

Please consider leaving a quick review to tell others what you thought of
Stage 3.
LEAVE A REVIEW

But before that, turn the page and enjoy the opening chapters of Stage 3:
Alpha. The ride has just begun, baby!

To find out more about me and my books, visit my Amazon Page

Free Chapters from STAGE 3: ALPHA

CHAPTER 1

“Come on, Sarah! Move your ass!”

The woman ran across the parking lot, vaulted over a concrete planter
and rolled expertly across the hood of an abandoned police car. She hit the
ground running, grabbed a fistful of the man's shirtfront, and hauled him
close enough to hear her whisper, “You sure you're being loud enough,
Richie? I think there are a few alphas in the next block that couldn't quite
hear you.”

She released him with a sneer and sprinted to catch up to the rest of the
group.

Ahead of them were three others. Two men and a woman. One of the
men was in shirt sleeves and dress pants. The other was dressed in the blue
scrubs of a hospital orderly, just like the man who had done the hollering.
The woman was in the same nurse's scrubs as Sarah, but white instead of
purple, so the blood showed more.

“C'mon, Richie,” Sarah hushed over her shoulder. “Stay close!”

The main group was just rounding a corner when the man in the shirt
sleeves suddenly held up a hand to bring everyone to a halt. He crouched low
and corralled the woman in white under his arm. Sarah crept up behind them
both, and all five of them huddled together against the edge of a brick
building.

“Too many,” the man in the shirt sleeves said.

“We can't go around, Jim,” the woman in white hushed loudly enough
for them all to hear. “There are alphas on both sides, and more coming from
behind.”

“No way through but through,” the other man in blue grumbled. He was
trying to sound tough, but a tremor in his voice betrayed his fear.

“There's got to be another way,” Sarah argued in a whisper. “What if we
create a diversion and try an end run?”

“And what kind of diversion did you have in mind, Sarah?”

The man's face was red, and he was panting like a dog. Sarah looked to
the rectangular bulge in his shirt pocket and wondered idly if he was starting
to regret his life-long devotion to cigarettes.

“We should go back!” Richie declared in a voice loud enough to earn
him baleful glares from the others and an admonishing, “Richie! For the love
of Christ!” from Sarah.

The woman in white ignored the outburst and said, “What we need is a
noise loud enough to draw them this way so we can go that way.”

Sarah instantly agreed. It was a clever plan. In fact, since it looked to be
the only way out of this particular shit storm, it bordered on damned-near
brilliant.

As far as Sarah was concerned, none of them would have made it this far
without the woman in white. She had known Lucy Kwan for years, and knew
her better than most. She thought she had seen every facet of the woman,
from capable ER nurse to relentless firebrand, but this was something else
entirely. Two days ago, Lucy had suddenly arisen as the rock of strength
against which the rest of the ER personnel leaned more and more heavily
with every passing hour. Then, when everything truly started to go to Hell,
this little wisp of a thing with her big, almond-shaped eyes and cute little
hair-bob emerged out of the fray like a modern-day Joan of Arc. She seemed
to know instinctively where things were headed, and she had personally led
the last of the survivors to safety even as the world erupted around them.

As chief resident, the call to evacuate should have been Jim Lambert's to
make, but he was so woefully out of his element in this new paradigm as to
be practically inert. He was an intelligent man and a brilliant doctor, but
book-smarts could never compete with street-smarts. Even after everything
he'd seen, he still showed his practical naivete. As proof, all he could offer
now was a tepid, “Maybe we should just hunker down and wait for help.”

Lucy glared at him.

“Hunker? Hunker where, Jim? And wait for help from who? The police,

maybe? Don't you realize that the last cops in the city were torn to pieces
right in front of us.”

“Someone said they saw the governor on TV before the power went
out,” Jim said, grabbing desperately at straws. “He had declared a state of
emergency and was bringing in the National Guard.”

Just then, a pair of figures appeared from a doorway far down the block.
It was a man and woman. Young. Frightened. Dressed in mismatched
clothing as if they'd thrown on whatever was at hand before fleeing into the
streets. They moved furtively at first, bent at the waist and tiptoeing
cautiously. The man was in the lead, guiding the woman along with their
hands clasped tightly together. The woman's head was on a swivel, but her
eyes alit on nothing. She was obviously blind and being led by the other. But
if the man still had his vision, he was doing a piss-poor job of leading them to
safety.

Jim Lambert made as if he were about to call out to them, but Lucy
clamped a hand across his mouth, told him unequivocally, “Don't you fucking
dare!” and all he could do was acquiesce with a horrified nodding of his head.

The man and woman took several wary steps across the sidewalk, then
they stopped so the man could assess the wild things all around them. He
leaned close to the woman and whispered something in her ear, and she gave
a scared little nod and allowed herself to be guided toward some perceived
safety on the other side of the street. Maybe they were making for the
apartment building across the way, Sarah considered. Or maybe the man's car
was parked against the far curb. Or maybe, she decided grimly, just maybe
they wanted to be anywhere else but precisely here. Either way, they didn't
get far. As they stepped off the curb, they came too close to an overturned
garbage can, and the woman's foot inadvertently sent an empty beer can
skipping and skidding across the pavement. And all at once, every creature
within twenty yards rushed at the sound, growling and snarling like wild
dogs. The young couple tried to retreat, but the woman tripped over the curb
and fell to her knees, and when she cried out in sudden shock and pain, she
effectively sealed their fates.

The alphas were on them in seconds. One of them thundered into a
parked car and was stopped short, but a big male in a bloodied suit and tie all
but dove on the woman. He clawed his way up one leg until he was on top of

her, then he tore her blouse away in a stroke and began clawing away great
swathes of pale, white flesh. As the woman's screams died away in a gurgle,
her companion tried to run, but two others descended on him before he had
taken a dozen steps. They were a slim-built male and a little girl no older than
seven, but the virus that fuelled their madness gave them both the strength of
lions. The male raked his claws at the sound of the man's footfalls and
managed to grab a handful of jacket. The man squealed in terror and spun
around to throw feeble punches at his attacker, but then the girl crashed into
his legs, howling and clawing and gnashing her tiny, perfectly white teeth.
The poor man flailed away at them as he tumbled awkwardly back, but he
may as well have been fighting the wind. As his shirt rode up to reveal a bare
crescent of skin, the girl sunk her dainty little teeth into his belly, and soon
enough, the man lay still amid a widening pool of blood.

Sarah grabbed Jim Lambert by the lapels and told him in a hush, “We're
on our own, Jim. Best you get that through your thick fucking skull!”

The chief resident's face turned red, but no words came out. Sarah
regarded his mouth opening and closing like a landed fish, and she released
him with a sneer as she turned back to Lucy.

“We'll do it your way, Luce, but we're going the wrong way.” She
hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “I have to get home!”

“I know you do, Sarah, but we have to be smart. We get clear of this
first, then we'll circle around.”

Sarah looked back to the swarm gathering a hundred yards away, and
quickly did the math.

“Alright then,” she agreed with a nervous nod. “But just how the hell do
we get clear of this?”

“We need a diversion,” Lucy replied. “Something to draw them in.”

“Rocks?” the other man in blue suggested, a frightened hitch in his voice
cracking the word in two.

Lucy scowled away the notion.

“We need something louder than that, Diego.”

“No, I mean throwing rocks through a window,” the man tried again. “I

used to pitch in the Mexicali Little League. I bet I could put a few through the
lower windows of that building across the street. That could work.” His voice
hitched again as he added an almost plaintive, “Couldn't it?”

He was speaking to Lucy, but it was Jim Lambert who spoke up.

“Hey, how about a car alarm? Diego, do you think you could hit one of
those parked cars? One of them's gotta have an alarm, right?”

“Good idea!” Richie hooted, again loudly enough to garner a chorus of
shushes.

“I can put one within an inch of a batter's chin,” Diego said with no
small amount of pride. “You just watch me.”

He stooped to pick up a loose piece of brick, but Sarah stopped him.

“No! We want it loud, but not that loud.” She crept up beside Lucy and
pressed close enough that their cheeks were nearly touching. “Luce, a car
alarm will draw them in from a mile around. But maybe a few windows
breaking…”

“It's not enough,” Lucy declared with certainty. She turned to face Sarah,
and when their lips grazed with the closeness, she gasped and drew back.

“Sorry,” Sarah offered awkwardly,

“S'okay,” Lucy replied casually enough, but then she locked eyes with
Sarah and pursed her lips, and for one crazy moment, it looked to Sarah like
she might actually lean in and kiss her. Only when her cheeks blushed did
Lucy withdraw with a grin, then she turned and spoke to the group as a
whole, all business again.

“Breaking a few windows isn't enough, but a car alarm is too much,” she
said. “We need something that will act like a dinner bell for the alphas that
are already close, but not so loud that it will bring others in from far and
wide. An old-fashioned alarm clock would be perfect, but I can't… Wait a
minute. An alarm clock!”

Sarah picked up on it right away.

“Richie, you have one of those Lifeproof cases for your iPod, right?
Waterproof? Shockproof? Please tell me you still have it with you.”

Reluctantly, Richie reached into his pants pocket and produced his iPod.

“What are you going to do with it?” he asked advisedly, keeping the
thing just out of Sarah's reach.

“It has an alarm function,” Sarah replied, holding her hand out, palm up.

His brow furrowed.

“So does your phone. C'mon Sarah, this thing set me back two weeks’
pay!”

“Cell phones have to tie into cell towers, which they can't do when the
power's out,” Lucy told him matter-of-factly. “iPod's have an internal clock.”

Richie looked from Lucy to his iPod, then from his iPod to Sarah's
outstretched hand, and his grimace deepened.

“Dude, you shouldn't become so attached to material objects,” Diego
hushed.

“That's easy for you to say, Diego,” Richie snapped. “Your parents left
you money.”

“Jesus, Richard!” Jim howled in a whisper, “If we live through this, I'll
buy you fucking car! Just give it to her already!”

Reluctantly, Richie dropped the device into Sarah's hand, but not without
a sour pout.

Sarah brought up the appropriate app with a few swipes and showed the
screen to Lucy.

“Good,” Lucy breathed, close enough that Sarah could detect the faint
smell of strawberries from what remained of her lipstick. “Make it thirty
seconds and turn it all the way up.”

Sarah did as instructed. Then with a single furtive and apologetic glance
over her shoulder, she hurled the orderly's iPod out into the street as if she
were skipping stones across a pond.

It clattered loudly to the pavement and skittered all the way across the
street before finally coming to rest under a Peugeot parked near the front of
the line. Two of the closest alphas were drawn in by the noise, but after they
each took a few staggered steps forward, they stopped, held fast, and adopted

the all-too-familiar head tilt.

A few groans of disappointment arose from the group, and Diego even
had the audacity to whisper, “You should have let me throw it.”

That's great, Sarah,” Jim Lambert sighed. “All you did was put them on
alert.”

“Wait for it,” Sarah declared in a whisper, and put her hand on Lucy's
shoulder.

Lucy put her own hand on top of Sarah's, swallowed hard, and drew
Sarah in so close that they might have been glued together.

When the countdown reached three seconds, Lucy put a finger under
Sarah's chin and guided their faces together. She leaned in and planted a kiss
directly on the other woman's lips just before all hell broke loose.

At the count of zero, the iPod's alarm went off. But instead of the simple
beeping or buzzing or chirping of a traditional alarm, Richie had apparently
set it to a specific song in the device's library. As the app activated from
beneath the parked Peugeot, a snare drum became audible. Then a bass guitar
that echoed like thunder into the street. Then a horn, a sharp whistle, and
Walter “Clyde” Orange's voice belting out, “Oh, she's a brick… house! She's
mighty, mighty, just a-lettin' it aaaaallll hang out!”

All eyes turned to Richie, but all he could offer was an embarrassed
shrug.

It hadn't been quite what Sarah had expected, but the trick worked better
than any of them could have imagined. The music reverberated out from
under the car as if from an echo chamber, and all of the creatures within
earshot launched themselves directly at the Commodores' funkadelic beat.
Ten full seconds later, once the little Peugeot was surrounded by alphas
clawing at its windows and pounding on its roof and groping fruitlessly
beneath it, Lucy picked herself up, waved a hand over her shoulder, and
hushed to the group, “This way. Now!”

She held out a hand, Sarah took it, and together they ran as fast as they
could. They didn't run in the opposite direction, but perpendicular to the
surging throng of alphas, toward the mouth of an alley halfway up the block.
Sarah cast a quick glance over her shoulder and saw the others following at a

gallop, but she knew it would never do. Their feet were too heavy. The men
were getting tired and reckless, and Jim was back to panting like an aged
plow horse.

Wordlessly, Sarah and Lucy made for the alley ahead of the others. They
exchanged a gentle squeeze of the hands, and with that simple silent signal,
they were now complicit. The group was now effectively split into two, and
their fates were their own. If the men were able to keep up, great. But if those
heavy-footed apes attracted undue attention, or if they couldn't keep up with
the pace the women were setting… Well, as much as it pained Sarah to
acknowledge the fact, from then on it would be every man for himself.

Sarah and Lucy reached the alley and spared a handful of seconds to stop
and wait for the others.

Too loud! Sarah shouted inside her head. Jesus, Jim, too loud! Slow
down! Take it easy, guys. Can't you hear yourselves? Christ!

Sure enough, several alphas in the swarm picked up on the three men
thundering past with their big feet and their yawps of encouragement and
their ceaseless panting, and charged after them.

Out of the three, Diego was the first to realize the danger. He skidded to
a stop and froze in place even as Richie and the good Doctor Lambert
thundered on. Lambert finally grasped the situation and came to a stop a few
steps later, but by then it was too late. With creatures raging toward him from
every side, Lambert read the writing on the wall and propelled Richie rudely
forward.

Whether he'd meant to get the other man clear or save his own ass, Sarah
had no idea, but either way, the outcome was inevitable. Richie took several
awkward, top-heavy steps to safety, but just as it looked like he might
actually be able to regain his balance and make it to the alley, he tripped over
his own feet and fell hard, slamming his chin into the pavement. But even so,
all was not yet lost. If he regained his feet and ran, he might still make it, but
then he made the mistake to end a lifetime. As he lay there spitting out little
bits of teeth onto the pavement, he let out an anguished squeal of pain.

With that, every creature in the street descended on him like hyenas on a
wounded gazelle. One alpha brought its teeth down on the man's thigh,
another dug its claws into his abdomen, and a third tore great chunks of meat

from his exposed forearm. Then more joined in, and together, they literally
ripped the hapless orderly apart. As one dug into his throat, another tore at his
chest. And as another ripped intestines out like braided knots of sausages, yet
another deftly sucked an eyeball right out of its socket.

The women looked longingly to Jim and Diego only yards away, but
there was nothing they could do. The men were trapped on the other side of
the feeding frenzy, and there was no way to get through. The four colleagues
stared across at one another through a scene of unimaginable horror, and each
of them implicitly understood. Whatever camaraderie of dissolute souls it
was that had held this little band together thus far, they were now on their
own. Each pair would have to go their own way from here on, and take their
chances alone.

Lucy mouthed the words, “Good luck,” and accepted a chin-jut of
recognition in return, then she and Sarah clasped hands, turned, and fled
down the alley. Away from the carnage, and away from last people they
knew on earth.

At the far end of the alley, Lucy flung them down a narrow causeway,
and it was all Sarah could do to keep up.

“They're surrounding us,” Lucy panted. “Gotta move or we'll be cut
off.”

Sarah was too winded to respond. She let herself be dragged down the
causeway, then they were into a side street and another alley just as quickly.
She had a few seconds to register the appearance of a dark mob at the far end,
then they were back on a wide avenue and charging toward a main
intersection. A knot of alphas came barrelling around the corner just then, so
Lucy plunged her into yet another alley where she was allowed to stop just
long enough to help roll a trio of garbage dumpsters across in a makeshift
barricade, then her hand was back in Lucy's and they were off again at a
sprint.

A secluded little alcove appeared midway down the alleyway, piled high
with cardboard boxes and discarded bits of lumber, and covered over with
garbage bags. Sarah assumed that it was simply one of those dead spots
where the flotsam of the streets always seem to gather, but as they drew even
closer, something stirred within. Then, when they nearly upon it, the mound

of trash suddenly erupted, and a dirty, ragged, howling thing launched itself
at the two of them, hair flying out in wild confusion, and angry red froth
dripping from its gnashing teeth.

Sarah gave a single startled yelp and lashed out a foot that caught the
alpha just above the ankle, dropping it to its knees, but it didn't stay down for
long. It leapt back to its feet in a flash, clawing at the air, but now it had lost
track of its prey, and Sarah and Lucy were giving nothing away. They both
froze like statues, and as the wild thing flailed wildly about, Lucy put a finger
to her lips and they both backed slowly away, inch by cautious inch. The
alpha charged about in confusion, first one way, then the other, then spinning
back, snorting and huffing like a wild boar. At last, it took two angry steps
toward Sarah, but where anyone else might have fled, she froze defiantly in
place. She drew in a deep, slow lungful of air that stunk of stale urine and
vomit, then she held her breath and moved not a muscle as the creature
advanced close enough that her eyes stung from its hot acrid stench. The
thing took one more puzzled step toward her, then it suddenly halted,
silenced its incessant snorting and snarling, and assumed the familiar head-
tilt.

It knew they were still here. The sounds had stopped, but the prey hadn't
fled, so the alpha was waiting. Waiting for that first faint echo to give it
direction.

Three seconds passed. Then five. Then ten, twenty, thirty, and there they
all stood, three statues separated by the length of an arm and the paper-thin
divide between life and death. Then, at forty seconds, the alpha drew back its
lips and emitted a low guttural snarl. It was sensing something. Had it picked
up some lingering scent of antiseptic from the clinic? Had the jackhammer in
Sarah's chest given her away? At fifty seconds, Sarah's lungs began to burn.
At sixty, they felt like they were going to explode. Finally, at sixty-three, she
could simply hold her breath no longer. But in that brief fraction of a
heartbeat between releasing her breath in a gush and the death that was sure
to follow, an image popped unbidden into her mind. It was the crystal-clear
image of a child. A beautiful little girl with emerald-green eyes and curly
tangles of fiery red hair.

And just like that, energy poured through her like a wave.

The alpha was fast, but Sarah was faster. She threw herself at it, both

hands curled into fists and both fists slamming directly into the creature's
breastbone. It wasn't a knockout blow for a monster that felt no pain, but for
the human physiology beneath, it was predictably effective. The wind was
knocked from the alpha's lungs, and it staggered back drunkenly, gasping for
air, but before it had a chance to recover, Sarah drove her foot as hard as she
could into the creature's knee. She heard the sharp snap! of bones breaking,
but though the alpha swayed like an aspen in the wind, it didn't go down.
Instead, it merely hovered on the very edge of collapse, howling with rage
and spitting gobs of red froth from its snapping jaws. It righted itself and
made ready to lunge, but before Sarah could even start to react, something
dark and heavy came out of nowhere and impacted the side of the creature's
head with the dull, wet thud.

After that, it was all Biology 101. With the neural axons of the alpha's
brain stretching and misfiring as a result of the blow, functional
communication was effectively interrupted. And as the stunned creature
slumped to the ground in dazed confusion, Lucy swung again, bringing
whatever club she'd found straight down on the back of the alpha's neck,
smashing its spine to dust. She stepped over the corpse with a smug grin, then
she slung her makeshift weapon up to her shoulder and threw Sarah a wink.

The thing round, straight and a good seven feet long, so it had probably
started its life as a signpost. Then it had been repurposed, back when the
alpha was just another raggedy man trying to survive on the streets. He'd
made it part of his crude little shelter, and there it had stayed until man turned
to monster and reduced the makeshift home back into rubble. Lucy must have
found the thing lying among the debris, and so it was repurposed yet again.
Now, it was the weapon that had saved Sarah's life and ended the raggedy-
man's existence.

“It suits you,” Sarah offered with a smirk.

“Right?” Lucy smiled back, patting the lumber affectionately.

Just then, a tumult arose from behind, and both women gave a startled
jump. The swarm was through the dumpster barrier. Sarah quickly swept her
eyes across the rest of the debris, but there was nothing so obvious as a twin
to Lucy's weapon, and there was no time to dig through the debris. The
swarm would be on them in seconds. All they could do was run. There were
two alphas standing vigil at the mouth of the alley, but the women exploded

out of it so quickly and disappeared down a side street with such speed that
they quickly left them both far behind. Lucy led them down the side street
until a big alpha howled and charged, then she angled left and cut into a
narrow parking lot, and by dragging Sarah through a brilliant series of
manoeuvres around and over several abandoned vehicles, she managed to get
all three of them trapped.

At last, they hopped a fence where the parking lot met an access road,
and after what seemed like miles, they finally slowed. It was destined to be a
short reprieve, though. Lucy hollered a whoop! and stooped to grab
something from the ground, and Sarah barely had time to register a ravaged
corpse, a big sedan sitting lopsided on a jack, then they were off again as
something hard and heavy was thrust into her hands.

“Take it,” Lucy hushed.

Sarah did as she was told, and now she had a weapon of her own. It was
a tire iron, no more than two feet long, but one end was sharpened to a point
and the other held a socket the size of a baseball. It would be a good weapon.
The thing was heavy, solid, and perfectly capable of crushing the strongest of
skulls.

They ran on for another half a block, then Sarah felt herself being drawn
into a doorway and pressed into a corner. She was finally able to catch her
breath, but even bent at the waist and gasping for air, she was still alert
enough to count at least six alphas running in at them from all different
directions.

“We're boxed in, Sarah,” Lucy told her without a hint of fear,

“Well,” Sarah said, raising herself upright with a groan, “like the man
said, 'no way through but through'.”

A young male was ahead of the pack. It would be on them in seconds,
but Lucy was already in full swing. She brought her lumber around to sweep
the creature's legs out from under him, and when the thing stumbled to its
knees, Sarah delivered a blow to the top of the creature's head that split its
skull all the way down to the orbital sutures. The alpha collapsed in a heap,
but another male was right behind. Lucy swung again, but the alpha zigged
when it should have zagged, and she missed its legs entirely. She yelped a
warming to Sarah, but it wasn't necessary. Sarah was ready with the tire iron

cocked over her shoulder like a batter at the plate, and when the howling,
snorting alpha drew close enough that she could see the rage seething behind
those horrible dead eyes, she swung away, striking the creature on the temple
with enough force to shatter bone and spray a geyser of blood into the air. It
wasn't a killing blow, but the creature was effectively stunned, and could now
only stumble clumsily after her, blood cascading down the side of its face and
one eye dangling from its optic cord like a lure at the end of a fishing line.

She stepped back to buy time and space as she brought the tire iron up
for a killing blow, but Lucy was already on it. She rammed the end of her
club into the creature's chest to drive it back, then she deftly spun the thing up
and over her head and brought it down on the exact center of the creature's
frontal bone. The creature fell in a heap, its dying body convulsing violently
enough to have the dangling eyeball dancing against his cheek, then its brain
finally died and the corpse lay still and silent.

Sarah barely had time to give her friend a nod of thanks before two more
were on them. Sarah lashed out a foot that sent a teenaged boy in a bright red
hoodie crashing to the ground, then a crazy-haired female in a bloodied and
soiled designer gown came in, screaming like a banshee and dripping viscous
goo from a double row of perfectly straight and expertly capped teeth. The
female went straight at Lucy as the kid in the hoodie struggled back to its
feet, and each of the women suddenly had a fight on their hands.

The kid was quick, despite the sharp end of a broken tibia sticking
through a bloody hole in his jeans. Sarah lined up a shot to cave in his skull,
but the kid rushed at her with terrifying speed and it was all she could do to
dodge out of the way in time. She recovered quickly and took a wild swing at
the back of the kid's head as he tore past, but she was too slow, and now the
creature was skidding to a halt and wheeling around for another charge. It ran
at her again, claws raking the air and red froth bubbling up at the corner of its
gnashing jaws, so she backpedaled out of range of the claws and resorted to
dancing in circles around the kid like a prize fighter, fending off every
advance while looking for the chance to deliver the knock-out blow.

It was no good. At least two more alphas were coming at a run, and this
fight was ticking away precious seconds. They were barely holding their own
against two, so what the fuck would they do with four? And if there were still
others within earshot of the battle, how long would it be before they had a

whole swarm at their throats?

She chanced a quick look at Lucy, hoping against hope that she'd already
dealt with the banshee and was coming to the rescue once again, but no such
luck. Lucy was in a desperate struggle of her own. Sarah was able to catch
momentary glimpses of blood-red teeth and wild, empty eyes, and she could
hear the occasional whoosh! of Lucy's weapon between bestial shrieks and
grunts of exertion, and all the while, she counted down the seconds to when
they would be hopelessly outnumbered.

At last, she felt claws graze her very clothing and she reacted on pure
instinct, bringing the tire iron down on the kid's arm. When she heard
something in the arm crack, she immediately fell back on her training.

Radius. Thick and quadrilateral at the distal end, prismoidal shaft,
narrower above than below, and convexed slightly toward the lateral aspect.
Head, neck and tuberosity at the proximal extremity more vulnerable to
fracture from blunt-force trauma...

A single heartbeat later, she swung the tire iron high over head and
brought it down near the kid's elbow. This time, there was a distinct snap!
like the breaking of a tree branch, and though the creature was far beyond the
ability to feel pain, the range of motion from that one arm was now
significantly reduced. Emboldened, she took a swipe at the creature's other
arm and heard another bone break. And while the kid flailed helplessly with
arms it could no longer control and claws suddenly rendered useless, she
raised her weapon one last time and brought it down in the precise center of
the creature's head. She registered the horrible sound, saw the spray of blood,
and even had time to glimpse something raw and wet through the shattered
coronal suture, then the creature's blind eyes rolled back in its head, its arms
slumped to its sides, and the kid collapsed face-first to the ground.

Lucy was still holding her own, but only just. She was still trying to trip
up the creature, but she kept missing, and with such a long and unwieldy
weapon against an alpha now toe-to-toe with her, she simply didn't have the
time or space to deliver a decisive blow. Unable to do anything more, she
resorted to holding the creature at bay with the staff against its chest, and
alternatively ducking away from its claws and kicking at its knees and ankles.
Sarah tiptoed around behind the creature, and with no more compassion than
one might feel swatting a fly, she stabbed the sharp tip of the tire iron

between the first and second vertebrae just below the back of the woman's
skull, severing the spinal cord and dropping the alpha to the ground like a
sack of potatoes.

They had won the battle, but they might still have lost the war. To their
great relief, one of the last two alphas had somehow gotten itself trapped
behind a tangle of abandoned vehicles, and the other had run blindly into one
obstacle or another and now made its way at a crawl, dragging both legs
behind him like a wounded dog. But those two were no longer the only
concern. Wars were never fought in a vacuum, and the sounds of their
desperate battle had filled the streets. Already, Sarah could see five… no,
seven coming at a run, and from every direction. While they were still far
enough away, she corralled Lucy in and hushed her into silence, and together
they watched all seven slow, stop, and finally freeze in place, heads tilted to
the side.

Sarah had been one of the first to see a method to the madness of alphas,
and she'd even had the presumption to give names to some of it. This was the
vigil. If these creatures picked up on something that may or may not be
human, the vigil would become the slow, curious probe. If there was anything
at all that signalled a human presence, the probe would turn into the charge,
and there simply weren't words to describe what came next.

In fact, Sarah had even come up with the term 'alpha'. When she saw the
notation on a patient's chart alluding to an 'Apparent Loss of Frontal-Lobe
Activity', she had begun referring to stage 2 as the ALFA stage. Soon
enough, the 4-letter notation was adopted by the rest of the staff, and it
quickly morphed into Alpha. Eventually, some started to suggest that the
acronym actually stood for 'Acting Like a Phucking Animal', but by then, few
remained who could adequately appreciate that particularly poor attempt at
gallows humor.

As she and Lucy retreated to the doorway and huddled together, several
more alphas came tearing into view. Most slowed and stopped and settled
into vigil, but three continued probing, and every second that Sarah and Lucy
remained in place, the closer they came. The alphas moved slowly and
furtively, sniffing the air and flicking their heads one way or the other with
every stray noise, but they were coming sure as shit, and their individual
paths would have them converge directly on the pair within seconds.

Both women knew that those few seconds to catch their breath had cost
them dearly. With the swarm closing in, they had to move, but as soon as
they did, all three probers would attack. They might stand a chance to fight
off those three, but it would take time, and the sounds of battle would trigger
the others to charge.

No. Standing and fighting was a losing proposition. The only chance
they had lay in running, but they were at the crossroad of a street running
laterally and the mouth of an alley across the street, and every direction was
covered. Cut off they'd been, and cut off they were again. Two women
against ten blood-crazed alphas. If they fought, they would lose, so they had
to run. But with every exit covered, they wouldn't just have to run from the
things, they'd have to run over them.

As Lucy huddled close and whispered suggestions in her ear, Sarah did
her own calculations. A big male was coming down the alley to the north.
Too big. No way. A young female in torn yoga pants was cutting them off
from the west. Better, but not great. She had obviously been a fitness buff,
and she sported the kind of muscles most men could only dream about. She
would give them a fight that might last five or six seconds, and those were
seconds they couldn't spare. The only real option was east, where a middle-
aged male was plodding along slowly and awkwardly. He was big, but his red
face and the paunch hanging over his belt marked him as a desk-jockey.
Better still, the front of his shirt was covered in blood. Maybe some of it was
his, maybe not, but either way, he had the heart and lungs and atrophied
muscles of an office worker, so he was their best chance.

The analysis took only a second, and Sarah's decision was made. She was
just about to whisper her idea in Lucy's ear, but apparently, Lucy had already
come to the same conclusion. She pointed east, Sarah nodded, and they rose
as one. Sarah raised her tire iron to her shoulder, Lucy brandished her
signpost like a spear, and without a word passing between them, they set
about making their escape.

There was no point in attempting anything so time-consuming as a
strategic flanking manoeuvre to get past the desk jockey. Instead, they ran as
quietly as they could on their toes, shoulder to shoulder, and made straight for
it. In the seconds before contact, Sarah caught a glimpse of blank, dead eyes,
a shirt front smeared with blood, and something dark and angular protruding

from the man's chest, then Lucy slammed the end of her staff into the
creature's knee, Sarah planted the tire iron between its eyes, and they were
over it before it hit the ground. But something didn't seem right to Sarah. It
had been too easy. There were no claws. No desperate flailing of limbs and
snapping of jaws. In fact, the creature hadn't done a thing as they'd come at it.
No growls. No snarls. Nothing at all.

As they fled away from the scene, Sarah chanced a look over her
shoulder. The big male and the gym-rat were coming at a run, but Lucy led
them deftly through a maze of tipped-over trash cans and oddly human-
shaped mounds of litter, and the alphas began to fall behind as they were
forced to stumble blindly over one obstacle or another. At last, they reached
the far end of the alley, and Sarah felt herself being propelled into another
doorway. She dropped to her knees to catch her breath, and Lucy squatted
down beside her, panting like a thoroughbred. Sarah poked her head out to
check, but the only alphas she could see were out of earshot or busily chasing
after some other perceived prey. Only one creature seemed to have taken any
notice of them, but the poor wretch was soaked with blood and coming at
them in such a plodding, unsteady gait that it wasn't an immediate threat. A
strangled scream drifted down from one of the apartment windows above, but
she discounted it and fought to catch her breath.

She felt Lucy huddle even closer, then fingers under her chin turned her
face, a pair of warm, moist lips pressed softly against hers, and she did
nothing to stop it. In fact, she revelled in it. After hours on the ragged edge of
oblivion and snuffing out more life than she'd ever had a hand in saving, here
was something she could finally embrace as truly real. Even though their
relationship had ended nearly a year ago, the familiar touch of that amazing
woman was like an elixir, and it did more than anything else imaginable to
bring her back to life.

When the embrace eased and she was able to draw breathlessly back, she
beheld Lucy's dilated pupils, the beckoning tilt of her pretty face and the
pursing of her full, red lips, then the lips were on hers again. And this time,
there was no urgency. This was no kiss brought on by fear and gone as
quickly as a breeze. This was the soft, warm kiss of love, and it lingered.
When the two finally pulled apart, Sarah laid a gentle hand on Lucy's cheek
and gazed into her doleful brown eyes.

“If we live through this…” she said, and left the rest unspoken.

Lucy pulled a blonde strand of hair away from Sarah's face and told her
sweetly, “Well, that gives me something to truly live for.”

Sarah said nothing. She simply leaned into Lucy and let those lips wash
away the world.

CHAPTER II

“This way, Sarah. This way.”

By now, Sarah knew better than to waste her breath asking why. If Lucy
chose one direction over another, she had a reason. They ducked out of the
alley and turned right, and sure enough, when Sarah glanced quickly behind,
she saw that the road dead-ended a block and a half back.

They scurried along the wall until they were safely past a pair of alphas
in vigil, then Lucy led them into the middle of the road and straight down the
centreline. The crepe-soled shoes they wore were quiet enough, but this was a
densely populated area. As such, the infected were everywhere, and the place
was so heavily littered with garbage and broken glass and the other detritus of
a ravaged city that every step had to be planned, reconsidered, and finally
taken as stealthily as possible. Still, several creatures stirred from their vigil
as the women snuck by, and more than a few of them were interested enough
in the soft, whispery footfalls that they took to probing.

Slowly but surely, they were becoming the focus of too much attention,
but there was little they could do about it. To gain distance, they would have
to pick up the pace, thereby raising the volume. Conversely, to reduce the
noise level, they would have to slow their pace and chance letting the
creatures already probing to blunder right into them.

It was a balancing act. Sarah felt like she was on a high wire where one
good gust might send her plummeting to her doom. Three probers were on
their trail, and for every dozen yard they covered, another vacant-eyed wild
thing would detach itself from its vigil and drift slowly toward them. And yet,
with the next intersection still a hundred yards away, she trusted Lucy and
continued on, placing one foot carefully ahead of the other on that imaginary
tightrope while trying desperately not to look down.

Lucy began veering them away from the road's centreline, and Sarah
immediately grasped the strategy. Perfectly attuned to the movements of the
swarm around them, Lucy had altered their path just enough to bring them
close to a line of parked cars. When the timing was just right, she took hold
of Sarah's hand and led her between two low-slung sedans and up onto the
sidewalk. As the probers on their tail followed dutifully along, they soon

bumped into the impediment and came to a halt, and once the subtle sounds
of an ambiguous prey melted away, they eventually lost interest and returned
to their vigil. Once clear, Lucy steered them back through another gap and
back onto the roadway, and when another prober appeared to block their way
forward, she took them across to the other sidewalk, trapping the creature
against the side of a delivery truck.

It was genius, pure artistry at work, and Sarah was awestruck by it all.
How this humble, quiet girl packed so much brain under that cute little
pageboy haircut, she had no idea. She was only glad that she'd been one of
those left standing when Lucy made the call, and was smart or devoted or
desperate enough to follow her. They were still hand-in-hand, and even
though she would have stayed glued to Lucy's side come hell or high water,
she made no attempt to release the grip. And to her delight, neither did Lucy.
In fact, if anything, the embrace had only gotten tighter.

Lucy led them back to the far side of the street and stooped to collect
something from the ground before she squeezed between an old Camaro and
a city works truck. Then, when two creatures on their trail became stymied by
the roadblock, she flitted back into the roadway, Sarah in tow, and pranced
them quickly to the opposite sidewalk as she casually tossed what she'd
collected over her shoulder. When the empty Coke can clattered to the
sidewalk and drew a handful of creatures out of their vigil, she led Sarah back
to the centreline and continued on as if it was just another a walk in the park.

Sarah gave Lucy's hand an appreciative little squeeze, Lucy returned it
with a grin, and on they went, all the way to the intersection. Once they
reached the crossroad, Sarah took note of the street signs and brought up a
mental map of San Francisco. From what she could tell, they were still in the
Embarcadero district. With all of their diversions and backtracking and
circling this way and that, she doubted that they were more than half a mile
from the clinic.

She drew Lucy in and whispered in her ear, “That way,” then she added
in a plaintive tone, “My apartment is south, and I have to get home, Luce…”

“I know,” Lucy whispered back with a nod. “That way it is.”

And so, with both of their heads on a swivel, Lucy set them off toward
the south.

Almost immediately, they both regretted the decision. There were just so
many in this heavily populated part of the city. The street was filled from end
to end with alphas; most in vigil, several others feeding, and still more
actively probing one way or the other. Sarah could almost imagine the
ancient mariner's warning, 'Beyond this place there be dragons', but they were
committed now. Going back was unthinkable, so there was nothing else for it.
They would have to get through this, and they would have to do it without
alerting the swarm.

No way through but through…

They tiptoed as carefully as they could and as slowly as they dared, but
barely had they made it a quarter of the way down the block before Sarah
truly started to wonder what they'd gotten themselves into. They were forced
to pass within a few yards and sometimes within inches of more than a few
alphas on vigil, and despite their best efforts, it was impossible to move with
absolute silence. At first, Lucy led them unperturbedly around, behind, and at
times recklessly through the swarm, but as more and more creatures set about
probing, Sarah could see her confidence starting to waver. At last, when there
were no fewer than a dozen alphas probing toward them from every
imaginable direction, Lucy finally pulled the plug.

She wasn't foolhardy enough to use spoken word, but with a squeeze of
Sarah's hand to get her attention, a flick of her eyes to indicate direction, and
an urgently drawn thumb across her throat, she got the point across. Sarah
nodded her understanding and allowed Lucy to lead her across the blacktop
to the far sidewalk, and when the closest probers were nearly close enough to
touch, they scooted behind a trio of parked cars and tucked themselves into a
doorway.

Lucy pressed her lips against Sarah's ear and breathed, “Too many.”

Still, the swarm kept building. Within seconds, there were twenty or
more within fifty yards of them, and the noose was continuing to tighten.

Sarah knew that they were in trouble. Real trouble. And it was all her
fault. If she hadn't been so hell-bent on setting the course, they wouldn't be in
this situation. Still, her reasons hadn't been entirely selfish, so maybe karma
wouldn't weigh too heavily against her. After all, there was a child's life at
stake.

With that single thought, an image of little Mackenzie appeared in her
mind, and she was overcome with a veritable flood of emotions. Guilt. Self-
recrimination. Sadness. Heartache. But then something strange happened.
Even as she watched a dozen slavering, bloody-faced, dead-eyed monsters
angling inexorably toward them like sharks circling for the kill, she was
suddenly filled with an inner fury the likes of which she had never known
before.

No! She heard herself screaming inside her head… Hell, no! Damned if
I'll let you take me away from that sweet little girl. Mackenzie needs me, and
if I have to destroy every last one of you mother-fuckers to get back to her, so
be it...

Just then, she felt Lucy's hand on her shoulder and turned to see a sly
smirk and a single arched eyebrow. No more words were needed. They were
on the same page. They would get themselves out of this mess, or they would
die trying.

With that, they stepped away from the doorway and onto the sidewalk. A
young male was inching down the sidewalk fifteen feet away, and an older
male was fumbling his way around an abandoned Honda at half that distance.
A shared nod later, Lucy was fairly charging down the sidewalk, and Sarah
was flinging herself into the street. Both creatures heard footfalls and began
their own charge, howling and snapping their jaws, but the working end of a
chunk of lumber connected with the side of a jaw and a tire iron embedded
itself in a frontal bone, and both went down hard.

And then came bedlam.

With the new flurry of sounds, every creature within earshot came at
them like raging bulls. Lucy returned to Sarah's side, and together they fought
for their very lives. A slight woman in a sari was the next to fall, and before
Sarah could even pull her weapon free with a horrible wet shluuuck!, Lucy
laid lumber across the jaw of a young male with enough force to send him
catapulting over the hood of a car. She whipped around and brought the back
end of the staff down to meet the legs of another, and when it splayed face-
down on the ground, Sarah stabbed her tire iron through the back of its neck.

No good. For every one they dealt with, the sounds brought twice as
many more. At last, Lucy grabbed Sarah by the shoulder, and they both raced

off as quietly as she could. They got to a line of parked cars and slid across
the hood of a Buick, reemerging onto a sidewalk free of alphas, but it wasn't
going to stay that way for long. While the general mass of the swarm flailed
about uselessly on the far side of the vehicles, two more appeared around the
far corner and came at them down the sidewalk, snarling and snorting like
rabid dogs. Lucy managed to plant her weapon against the first creature's
chest to hold it at bay, so Sarah dealt with a mousy little female by quickly
caving in its occipital bone, then she spun around and rushed to Lucy's aid.

The signpost was holding the creature back, but Lucy was rapidly losing
ground under the weight of so massive an alpha. Sarah skipped around
behind it and hammered the back of its skull hard enough to hear bone
splinter, but though the alpha dropped to its knees, barely had it hit concrete
before it began struggling back to its feet. She lined up a kill shot, but another
alpha found its way through a gap in the line of cars and Lucy's hand was
back on her shoulder. They spun on their heels and ran, but it was no use.
There were too many, and every escape route was blocked. They ran across
the street to gain a few seconds, but those few seconds would never be
enough.

They needed an opening. Just enough to allow for an end run. If there
was ever a time for a Hail Mary play, it was now. If they'd still had Richie's
iPod, maybe they… But wait. Sarah fished through her pockets and could
have leapt for joy. She still had her cellphone. It wasn't shockproof like
Richie's iPod, but it didn't have to be. She showed the phone to Lucy and got
a big, fat smile in return.

They scooted a little farther down the sidewalk to where a trash can had
been knocked on its side, and a few sweeps of a finger later, Sarah slid the
phone as far into the can as she could reach. They slid over the hood of a
decidedly awesome-looking Charger, sprinted back across the street, and
huddled in a doorway just as the music started, and as wave after wave of
alphas closed in from all sides, a voice like the howl of a wolf suddenly filled
the street.

“Hey hey, Mama, said the way you move, gonna make you sweat, gonna
make you groove…”

The song wasn't chosen at random. It started loud and only got louder,
and it worked like a charm.

Set me back a week's pay… Sarah mused to herself as she and Lucy set
off in a quick, light pace away from the swarm.

“You're fantastic…” Lucy smirked, reeling her in for a quick kiss.

Sarah gave her hand an affectionate squeeze, hushed, “Fantastic can
wait,” and looked to the intersection only a dozen yards away.

Two more creatures stood in their way, but Lucy knocked the legs out
from under the first, Sarah drove the sharp end of her tire iron up under the
chin of the other, and at last, they were out of immediate danger.

Sadly though, the celebration was short-lived. Alphas were everywhere.
The swarm stretched out as far as the eye could see, and more than a few of
the creatures had picked up on the sounds of music.

They had only seconds to decide which way to go. One direction looked
as good as any other, but to Sarah, east looked just a little bit better. Maybe
there were slightly fewer alphas in that direction, or maybe they were just a
bit slower, or with a little more space between them. If they'd had the time to
observe in detail and discuss the matter thoroughly, she knew she might very
well choose differently, but they didn't, so the math was simple. Where they
wanted to be was anywhere but here.

She took Lucy's hand, and without a word, the two of them set off toward
the east.

CHAPTER III

“Gotta… rest… “Lucy managed between furious gulps of air.

She was bent at the waist, hands on her knees and wheezing like an
asthmatic. And Sarah wasn't fairing much better. She stood over her friend,
free hand massaging the painful stitch in her side, and the tire iron hanging
loose in the other.

It had been a hard slog to get this far, and their energy was all but gone.
For three hours or more, they had padded slowly and softly when they could,
froze like statues when they must, ran at full speed when necessary, and
fought for their lives when there was simply no other choice. They had
passed through streets as crowded as Fisherman's Wharf on a Saturday
afternoon, snuck down blind alleys as furtively as rats in a sewer, and scaled
more fences and fire escapes than either of them cared to remember. They
had encountered alphas of every description, from great hulking brutes
spitting blood and breathing fire, to sad little crippled things that could barely
drag themselves over a curb. They had alternatively advanced, backtracked,
circled around and engaged in full retreat so often that Sarah had long since
given up trying to guess where on God's green Earth they were.

And they had seen people, too. Other survivors, just like them. They'd
seen them gazing down from windows and balconies, they'd seen them hiding
in dark little crannies like frightened deer, and they'd seen them taken down
and torn to pieces right in front of their eyes. On two different occasions, they
had even seen people attempting to navigate the ruined city in motor vehicles.
They had averted their eyes when one of those vehicles got stuck behind a
tangle of abandoned cars and an entire family was ripped apart, and they had
given a hushed cheer as the other escaped to the north, mowing down alphas
like grass before disappearing around a distant corner.

Now she and Lucy were both soaked in sweat, spattered with blood,
physically and emotionally exhausted, and nowhere close to being out of the
woods.

A pair of alphas were feeding on a fresh kill near the end of the block,
three more were standing vigil just beyond, and the clammer of huffing snarls
and heavy footfalls from behind meant that at least some of the swarm they

thought they'd lost were still on the hunt. Sure enough, two massive giants
chose just that moment to come tearing around the corner some thirty yards
away, growling and snorting red froth, and they came charging straight
toward Lucy and Sarah like guided missiles. One of them tripped over a
dismembered corpse and fell hard, but despite a nose smashed to pulp and a
ragged laceration over one eye literally gushing blood, it leapt immediately
back to its feet, gurgled a wet snarl, and resumed the headlong charge.

“Jesus…” Sarah sighed, laying a gentle hand on Lucy's back, “Okay, we
can't keep going like this. You win. Rest it is.”

There was a place across the street that looked good. A little bodega with
a garish 'Hernando's Food Mart' sign across the front, and an overturned
flower display scattered across the sidewalk. A dead body lay across the
threshold, but that was what made it acceptable. The corpse was holding the
door ajar, and in a city so aggravatingly made almost entirely of glass, not
having to smash their way in and leave a gaping hole behind was a godsend.

Sarah made the decision in a fraction of a second, but before they could
take a step, a bloody-faced female with hair-extensions and an exquisitely
tailored pantsuit emerged from a doorway and came charging across the
street. Too exhausted to even contemplate a long, drawn-out fight, Sarah
backed a wheezing Lucy up to the brick wall and kept the tire iron hanging
loosely at her side. Lucy struggled to raise her lumber, but Sarah inexplicably
hushed for her to leave it where it was, and when the creature was barely
more than an arm's length away, she shoved Lucy aside and let the alpha slam
face-first into the wall. Blood sprayed across brick and shattered teeth rained
down like hail, and while the creature's brain sloshed around inside its skull,
dulling connections and short-circuiting neurons, Sarah punched her tire iron
through its back and straight into its heart.

“Across the street,” she hushed, grabbing Lucy's hand and half-dragging
her toward the bodega, “Now!”

They were almost out of time. The two raging alphas were joined by
another, and then two bloodied faces raised up from the belly of a dead man
half a block in the other direction and they, too, joined the charge. Sarah all
but threw Lucy into the bodega, then she grabbed the dead man's wrist and
set about hauling him clear of the doorway. But the man was big, and after
she'd managed to drag him only a few short inches, some part of him snagged

on the doorjamb and he would move no more. She chanced a quick look
around as she reset her grip, and her heart sunk as she saw a sixth and seventh
alpha appear from out of nowhere.

No time! No time!

She tucked the tire iron into her waistband and grabbed both of the dead
man's wrists, but even with the better hold, she knew it was impossible. She
managed to bully the corpse a single inch farther, then she looked again to the
advancing swarm and did the math in her head. She would never get the door
closed in time. She had fucked up. Even if she abandoned this fat bastard,
grabbed Lucy and fled, it was already too late. Too late to run, and too many
to fight.

It had all been for nothing. After everything they'd been through, she had
doomed them both with a single bad decision. She gave the dead man's wrists
one final desperate tug as the last thought she would ever have formed in her
mind. If there was a God, she considered crazily, maybe she'd be impressed
with them both surviving this long and take pity by making their deaths
quick.

But then she heard the ripping of cloth and found herself suddenly
stumbling backward, hauling the corpse after her.

God… she thought for one surreal moment, but then she realized what
was happening. Lucy was at the other end of the corpse with one of the dead
man's ankles tucked under each arm and her face as red as a beet.

“Go, Sarah, go!” Lucy shouted, and Sarah pulled with all of her might.

As soon as the doorway was clear, they dropped the dead man and
retreated, but it was too late after all. A big, bald alpha was almost within
arm's reach of Sarah. It would be on her in a second. There was no time to
run. There wasn't even time to defend herself.

In that last second before death silenced her mind, a familiar image arose
in her mind's eye. A little girl's face. Big green eyes. A big mop of curly red
hair.

Sorry, Boo. I tried. I really tried…

She saw red froth dripping from the creature's mouth in anticipation of
the kill, but in those last few milliseconds before making contact, its foot

came up against the body of the dead man, and while the alpha sailed through
the air, a pair of hands suddenly grabbed Sarah by the shoulders and
propelled through the open doorway and into darkness. She spun around, and
there was Lucy, charging in after her and throwing herself against the door. It
swung easily on its hinges, but just as it closed to within inches, an arm was
thrust rudely through the gap, and before Sarah could gather her wits enough
to go to her friend's aid, the bald creature barged its way through and came
straight at her.

Fortunately, Lucy took the extra second to shut the door fully and snap
the deadbolt, for no sooner had she done so than one alpha after another
crashed into it. But even with only that one lone alpha getting in, Sarah was
in the fight of her life. She backpedaled away from the thing, swinging away
furiously with her tire iron, but she was quickly running out of room. She
stumbled over Lucy's dropped weapon and managed to keep her balance, but
then she came upon a rack of shelves and could retreat no farther. The alpha
clawed at her face, and it was all she could do to fend off one, then the other,
then the other again. But her strength was ebbing, and every time the creature
clawed, she was just a little slower to react. She tried kicking at the creature's
legs, but the alpha was too big and she was too weak. But then, all of a
sudden, the claws were gone and she found herself fighting air. She took one
last wild swing with the tire iron, but there was nothing to hit. She struggled
for a fraction of a second to understand what it all meant, but then a pair of
crumpled shadows on the floor told the story.

Lucy had saved her ass. Again. Completely spent, and with no weapon at
hand other than her own resolve, she had launched herself bodily at the
creature, knocking its legs out from under it and ending up in a furious tangle
of limbs. The alpha had hit the floor hard, turning its nose into hamburger
and spreading teeth in a spray across the floor, but Lucy had suffered more.
Already, the ugly bald alpha was trying to climb back to its feet, and Lucy
wasn't moving at all.

Dear God, no…

“Mo mhuirnin!” she shouted aloud, raising a renewed flurry of banging
and clawing at the door.

She raised her weapon to strike, but her foot came down on Lucy's chunk
of lumber and she was thrown off-balance. She stumbled back, pinwheeling

her arms, but even as she fought to right herself, she saw the alpha still
coming. Lucy was tangled up with its legs, preventing it from climbing to its
feet, so it had taken to crawling along the floor, dragging Lucy's limp body
along like excess baggage.

At any other time, the mad scramble might have seemed like slapstick,
but in the dark confines of the bodega, it could not have been more dire.
Sarah was being backed into a corner, and Lucy was either out cold or worse.

For several precious seconds, all she could do was kick at the creature
and stomp on its fingers as it crawled toward her, snarling and drooling and
spitting blood, then she found herself backed into a corner just as the thing
shrugged Lucy off to the side and clambered to its knees. She took a swing
with the tire iron, landing a brutal blow to the side of the creature's head even
as it hauled itself fully upright, but it shook it off with little more than a
flutter of its eyelids, and she suddenly had neither time nor space for another
shot.

But then a slender arm appeared over the creature's shoulder and
clamped firmly around its neck, and it was stopped dead in its tracks. Then
another arm came out of the darkness to pin the creature's flailing arms
momentarily to its side, and Sarah didn't hesitate. In that extra second
suddenly granted her, she brought the tire iron up point-first, stabbed it into
the creature chest just below the sternum, and didn't stop until its heart
exploded in its chest.

The creature collapsed in a heap, and there in its place stood Lucy, so
weak that she threatened collapse, but managing a wink, a coy little smile,
and even a quipped, “Who the hell said fantastic can wait…”

It was meant to sound blithe, playful even, but the words came out in a
series of urgent little gasps, and even in the dim lighting, Sarah could see that
her pretty face was ashen-grey and glistening with sweat. Then she saw
Lucy's knees begin to buckle, so she rushed to her and gathered her in her
arms, and once they were well away from the widening pool of blood, she
lowered her gently to the floor.

“I believe that might have been me, but it was a lifetime ago,” Sarah said
lightheartedly enough, but she couldn't keep her eyes from narrowing with
worry. “Are you okay, Luce?”

The poor girl couldn't seem to catch her breath. She drew her knees to
her chest and cradled her head exhaustedly in her arms, then she gave Sarah
another wink and offered a weak, “Sure thing… Just gotta rest a bit…”

“Sure, Luce,” Sarah said back, brushing a lock of wet hair from her face.
“Take your time. We're safe enough for now.” She kissed Lucy on the
forehead and again on the cheek, then she gave her one more kiss on the lips
and found them as hot as coals. “Give me a minute,” she said, rising to her
feet and casting a quick eye around the bodega.

Little light came through windows plastered with posters and
advertisements and banners, but she could see enough to know that whoever
had looted Hernando's during the craziness had done a good job. Bare shelves
stood like skeletons, and an empty spot on the counter showed where the cash
register must once have been. But it wasn't a total loss. She uncovered a few
canned goods among the mounds of litter strewn about the floor, and a
display of chocolate bars still held a few goodies. Better yet, once she carved
a path to the back of the store, she found an unlit cooler containing all
manner of drinks, and several packages of beef jerky, pepperoni sticks, and
individually wrapped fingers of cheese. She grabbed cans and bottles at
random, helped herself to handfuls of meats and cheeses, and topped off the
haul with a few chocolate bars, then she returned and lowered herself cross-
legged beside her friend.

“I bring gifts,” she grinned, dumping the spoils in a pile.

Lucy tried to smile, but it looked more like a grimace of pain.

“Must be Christmas,” she managed. Barely.

They sat close enough together that Sarah could actually feel the heat
radiating off of Lucy. She put a hand to every bottle and can in her plunder
and found one can of Coke that felt a bit cooler to the touch than the others.
She tucked the can into the crook of Lucy's neck just over the carotid artery,
and after an initial gasp and subsequent sigh, Lucy took over and cradled the
Coke under her ear.

Sarah popped open an energy drink and handed it to her, dismissing the
wrinkling of her nose with an insistent, “You're dehydrated, Luce. You need
fluids and electrolytes. Drink.”

“Yes, doctor,” Lucy answered meekly back, an attempted smirk playing

at the corners of her lips. She took a long swallow that ended with a gag, but
managed to take a few more sips for Sarah's benefit. But when a bag of beef
jerky was torn open and a piece held out for her, her nose wrinkled again and
she turned away with a disgusted, “Ughhh!”

“You need the salt,” Sarah reminded her.

“I'd never keep it down,” Lucy grimaced. “Just let me rest a bit first. I'll
try to eat later, okay? I promise.”

Sarah scowled, but she knew better than to force the issue. Instead, she
popped open a second energy drink, drained most of it in a single swallow,
and swapped the can under Lucy's ear with the coolest of those remaining.
She found that the Coke that had spent less than a minute against her friend's
skin was hot to the touch, but she pretended not to notice and discarded the
can into the general mass of litter.

She turned her attention to the narrow gaps of window through which she
could see, and noted several distinct shadows mottling the rectangular shafts
of sunlight. Now that the sounds of battle had ceased, the swarm had grown
quiet, but she knew that without something else to draw them away, they
would all be out there still. Listening. Waiting.

“We'll stay here for a while,” she hushed. “An hour or two, anyway.
Maybe by the time we regain our strength, some of the alphas will be gone.”

“After some other poor bastard.” Lucy tried to sound glib, but her eyes
were half-lidded and her voice was wavering. “You have to get home, Sarah.
Just give me a minute or two and… and I'll be… I'll be right as…”

The words trailed off, and Lucy folded into Sarah's arms. Sarah held her
tenderly, but it felt as if she were holding a steam pipe. She put a hand to
Lucy's forehead, hushed a mild curse, and lowered her friend gently to the
floor. She found an old coat hanging from a hook behind the counter and
tucked it under Lucy's head as a pillow, then she set about scouring the place
for something more important than food.

There was certainly nothing like medical supplies in this little bodega,
but she did find little packets of aspirin and an old glass thermometer, and to
her great delight, when she dug through the darkened ice freezer, she
discovered a few bags in the middle of the pack that hadn't yet melted
completely. She quickly located a bucket in the back room and filled it with

two bags of cold water and the remaining slivers of ice, then she grabbed a
handful of cleaning rags and paper towels and returned to Lucy's side.

Lucy had curled herself into an inert ball by then, but a cold, wet cloth
across the back of her neck roused her enough that when Sarah eased the
thermometer between her lips and warned her, “Don't make me do this the
other way,” she obligingly opened her mouth and let Sarah slip the thing
under her tongue.

“Maybe if you buy me a drink first…” she managed through the
semblance of a smirk.

The cold compress seemed to work. In the two minutes Sarah waited
before removing the thermometer and checking it against a thin shaft of light,
Lucy sat up with Sarah's help, and even managed to finish her energy drink
with a forced smacking of her lips. But still, Sarah grimaced and shook the
thermometer, looking every bit the epitome of the classical nurse. Lucy
watched the display, from the tightening of the lips to the furrowing of the
brow, and couldn't help but laugh. It was weak, and it ended in a rasping
cough, but it was pure joy for Sarah to hear.

She took Lucy's hand in hers, swept a few errant hairs from a forehead
slick with sweat, and then they simply sat there, side-by-side and hand-in-
hand. They stayed quiet, spoke barely above a whisper when they spoke at
all, and every so often, Sarah would immerse the cloth back into the cool
water and gently stroke Lucy's face and neck. Lucy would invariably grumble
about the fuss she was making and that she'd be right as rain in no time, and
at one point she even had the audacity to dip her fingers in the bucket and
flick water at Sarah. When Sarah faked outrage, she simply shrugged and
said, “Just didn't want you to worry about me maybe losing my vision.”

Sarah snorted the matter away, but deep down, that was exactly her
concern. This wasn't just exhaustion. Something else was at play here. Maybe
a bug, maybe not, but considering what had happened in the last few days,
one particular culprit loomed larger than the rest. But according to all reports,
and attested to by the countless hundreds of patients she had examined
personally since the outbreak, the presenting symptom was always a
complete loss of vision. Not once had she seen or heard anything about
someone presenting with fever. Whatever bizarre shit came later on, the
disease always started with blindness.

Having talked herself into a modicum of relief, she wiped droplets of
water from her cheek with the back of hand and playfully flipped her middle
finger at Lucy.

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

Lucy laughed again, but it quickly devolved into a wracking cough that
brought a renewed banging and clawing at the door. Sarah helped her take a
sip of Coke to quell the cough, then she finally had to admit out loud, “Well,
it's not simple exhaustion and dehydration. Not with fever, fatigue and an
acute cough.”

“And a headache,” Lucy tacked on with a grimace, but then she forced it
back into a half-smirk and gave Sarah's hand a gentle squeeze. “Hey, maybe
it's Mono, and now you got it, too…”

A bashful warmth filled Sarah's cheeks, but she replied flatly, “It's
probably just a cold.”

“Could be cryptococcosis,” Lucy countered weakly, “Or meningitis. Or
hepatitis. Or frickin' Legionnaire's Disease.”

“Or bronchitis,” Sarah offered, leaning close enough that their noses
almost touched.

Lucy drew in a sharp breath of air with the sudden closeness, then her
eyes dropped from Sarah's eyes to her full, red lips.

“It could be anthrax,” she hushed. “Maybe even Dengue Fever.”

“Or hay fever,” Sarah hushed back, feeling Lucy's warm breath against
her lips.

Lucy swallowed hard and came close enough to Sarah that she could
almost taste her.

“Probably cancer.”

“More likely syphilis,” Sarah announced, then she leaned back with a
smirk.

With the mood thus broken, Lucy merely shrugged noncommittally.

“Well, there's that,” she said, pretending to consider the possibility, but
then the grimace returned and she put a palm to her temple. “Hey, did I see

something that looked like aspirin in your pirate treasure? 'Cause my head
feels like it's about to explode.”

Sarah snatched up one of the little foil packs and tore it open into Lucy's
outstretched hand. She tried to help her wash the pills down with the can of
Coke held to her lips, but Lucy took it from her and flashed a quirky scowl.

“I'm quite capable of administering my own meds, Ms. Nightingale,
thank you very much.”

She'd said it playfully, but it had been with such a deep pleural rasp that
Sarah only grew more concerned, and she began to run through a mental list
of signs and symptoms of every illness she had ever heard of. Once the pills
were down, Lucy set the Coke on the floor and put a comforting and familiar
hand high up on Sarah's leg.

“Honestly, sweetie, I'm fine. Stop worrying, and please stop fussing. In
case you missed it, the whole world's gone to shit, girlfriend. People aren't
just killing each other like back in the good old days of, oh I dunno, Tuesday.
Now, they're fuckin' eating each other. Everyone on the entire planet is
desperately trying to tear the life out of one another, your little girl is all alone
and going through fuck-knows-what, and here you are, fussing over an ex
with a headache.”

Even as the words left Lucy's mouth, she pulled Sarah close and pressed
the foreheads together.

“I'm sorry, băobėi,” she hushed, both of them suddenly on the verge of
tears. “I didn't…”

Sarah sniffled once, but only once. Then she gave Lucy a quick kiss on
lips as hot as Hades and shrugged the whole thing away.

“It's okay. Mackenzie's home, and she's safe.”

“I know, băobėi. I know she is. She's a smart little girl.”

“She's as smart as whip,” Sarah said with absolute conviction. “Smarter
than me by a longshot. After all, I'm out here, and she's safe at home. She's
home, she's safe, and she's waiting for me.”

“I know,” Lucy nodded weakly, “So what do you say we get you back to
your little girl?”

Lucy made an attempt to rise, but her eyes pinched closed and she
collapsed back down in a coughing fit. She laid herself down on the floor and
would have curled back into a ball had Sarah not helped her to her back and
nestle her head gently into her lap.

“Sorry…” Lucy managed between gulps of air, “Just give me… a couple
more minutes and I'll be… right as…”

Her coughing became convulsive, and all Sarah could do was cradle her
head and wait for it to subside. At last it did, but the animated ball of energy
that Lucy had always been, was now little more than a rag doll. Sarah dipped
the cloth in the water and stroked her face and dripped cool water over her
forehead, then she kissed her gently on the lips and found them hotter than
ever.

A diabhail… she cursed to herself. What is it, mo mhuirnin? What the
hell is wrong with you?...

As much as the mere mention of Mackenzie had fuelled her desire to
move, her heart was suddenly torn. That girl was the only family she had left,
and she meant more to her than anything in the world. But Lucy needed her,
right here, right now. This was no hay fever, and no common cold. Lucy was
well and truly sick, and damned if she knew what it could be.

She wracked her brain, trying to remember everything she'd learned in
medical school. Could it be cryptococcus? Staphylococcus, maybe? No, the
timing was just to suspect. At last, even though all logic was against it, she
forced herself to consider seriously, could it be a variant of the virus? Did
that vicious bastard still have a trick or two up its sleeve?

A faint murmur arose from her lap. She stroked Lucy's cheek and held a
wet compress to her forehead, and all the while she wondered, could it be?

Another murmur from below. Lucy was trying to speak. Sarah bent low
enough that their cheeks were touching and cooed gently into her ear, “I'm
here, mo mhuirnin. I'm here.”

Lucy's speech was mumbled, so Sarah could only gather little snippets of
words.

“… north… too many people…take what… go north…. “

Sarah rewetted the cloth and wrung it out over Lucy's head, and she

could almost see the steam rising. Truly worried now, she kissed a cheek that
blazed with fire and gently stroked a forehead that felt like a furnace.

Whether it was the cool water or the comfort of another's touch, Lucy
slowly roused herself enough to speak. It was still little more than a
somniferous mumble, but Sarah had known her long enough to make out
most of it.

“Go north, băobėi. All the way to Canada. Too many people here. Too
many alphas, too many survivors, and too many guns. People will keep
killing each other until there's no one left.”

It wasn't delirium talking. Lucy had spent a few postgrad years at VGH
in Vancouver, so the reference to Canada was too specific. Well, the
argument seemed valid enough, considering, but there was no point in
making plans for the future when the present was still so much in doubt.

She rewetted the cloth, drew it across Lucy's brow, and said in a hush, “I
hear you, mo mhuirnin, but we can discuss it later. Once you're feeling better,
we'll go get Mackenzie, and the three of us can plan our next step together.”

She reapplied the cloth and combed some of its wetness through Lucy's
hair, but it had little effect. The fire still raged, and Lucy's breathing had
deepened into a laboured rasp. But then the faintest flicker rippled across
Lucy's lips, and she stirred as if awaking from a deep sleep.

“Like a family…” she cooed.

Sarah kissed her on the lips and beamed a smile beneath eyes filling with
tears.

“Yes, mo mhuirnin. Like a family.”

Lucy managed a smile, but only just. She began a cooed, “I never
stopped, băobèi. I never stopped lov…” but then the words died away, and
she lapsed into unconsciousness.

Sarah fingered a tangle of wet hair from Lucy's face and kissed her again
as tears streamed down her cheeks. She dipped the cloth into a bucket of
water already growing warm, and mopped sweat from Lucy's forehead, then
she ran the cloth down both cheeks, wiped a crust from the corners of Lucy's
lips, and stroked the cloth gently under her chin. She wetted it again and drew
it along her neck from one ear to the other, then she ran it under the neckline

of her scrubs to wipe away as much as she could of other peoples' blood.
There was one big smear that seemed to be the worst of the lot, so she
loosened Lucy's top and pulled it down off of her shoulders, and that's when
she saw it. And for the first time since this whole shitstorm started, she began
to feel real fear.

In the course of her duties, she had seen all manner of injury. She had
seen things done to a human body that would have sent the strongest of men
running. She had witnessed fellow professionals burst into tears at the mere
descriptions of what she'd seen. Once, on the witness stand, she had given an
accounting so vivid and so gruesome that the prosecuting attorney, the jury,
and even the defence lawyer required counselling afterward. She had seen
horrors that most people couldn't possibly imagine, and she had never so
much as flinched. But now, seeing that single palm-sized wound just above
Lucy's left breast, she felt her entire world begin to unravel.

It was a perfect human bite mark. Two semicircles, from the upper
canines to the lower premolars. Only the incisors and canines had broken the
skin, but the entirety was oozing pus, and the skin all around had taken on the
ugly black stench of putrefaction and decay.

“A diabhail…” she breathed aloud.

She wiped away a fresh sheen of perspiration from Lucy's forehead, and
gingerly, almost reluctantly, eased open one of her eyelids. The light was
poor, but she could see a milky haze drawn across the sclera, and a pupil
contracted to a pinpoint.

“A Dhia…” she breathed. “Ní mo mhuirnín…”

After the initial shock, she fell back on her training, but her hands
trembled as she dabbed carefully around the periphery of the wound.

Irrigation first. Isotonic sodium chloride, or dilute hydrogen peroxide.
There has to be hydrogen peroxide around, right? If not, table salt and hot
water. Then debride devitalized tissue and particulate matter, and dress the
wound to allow for drainage. Follow up with antibiotic prophylaxis if
practicable…

She was too much of a professional to waste any more time on tears, but
it was with the first inklings of a very real panic that she gently removed
Lucy's head from her lap, nestled it carefully on the makeshift pillow, and

jumped to her feet.

Hydrogen peroxide… she repeated over and over in her mind as she ran
from one shelf to another, sweeping whatever remained to the floor in her
frenzy. Hydrogen peroxide. Not a chance. Okay then, table salt. Where's the
goddam table salt?

On the very next shelf, she found it. One lone box of salt. The little girl
on the label was wearing a raincoat and holding an umbrella. An image of
Mackenzie popped unbidden into her mind, but she mouthed a silent prayer
and tucked the image away for later.

Now, hot water. How the hell am I supposed to boil water?

Just as she began to conjure up notions of building a campfire in the
middle of the bodega, she heard a rustling from where she had left Lucy.

“Luce?” she called out. “Hang on, Luce, I'm coming.”

She grabbed a roll of paper towels, ran behind the front counter for a
cigarette lighter, and had just come back around to the front of the counter
when a dark shadow loomed up before her. She saw dead, empty eyes, hands
turned into claws, and a blood-caked mouth snapping open and closed like
landed shark.

It was the bald man. The man she had already killed.

GET YOUR COPY OF STAGE 3: ALPHA

About the Author

KEN STARK was born in Saskatchewan, but has called Vancouver home
for most of his life. He was raised on a steady diet of science fiction and
disaster movies, so it seems right that his first published book series be about
the zombie apocalypse. In his spare time, Ken tries to paint like Bob Ross
and play poker like Doyle Brunson, but results suggest that he might have got
it all backwards.

Tweet Ken @PennilessScribe
Website: www.kenstark.ca


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