She couldn’t say when the dozen sets of feet thudding overhead had petered out, but she knew she was alone. The building sat silent.
They had left her behind. How? No way in hell would Dan leave her, and yet the quiet was complete.
Her water bottle sat on a box containing snail bait, right beside where her gun should have been. Without a weapon, she’d be dead.
Panic bent her double and her lungs flattened like a hand held her down.
“Stop it,” she snarled, wincing when it echoed back. Quiet. She should be quiet. The sun couldn’t have set yet, impossible. Where was a f**king watch when she needed one? “Calm down,” she whispered. “Think.”
All comfort bled out of the space and the dark pressed in claustrophobical y. She needed to get upstairs. She forced slow steps, made her way over and around the boxes. Tiptoed up the stairs and through the door with its broken lock. She flicked off her light, set her helmet aside, delaying.
What was the point? Either way, she needed to know.
Ali stepped out onto the shop floor. It was empty. Nothing moved. Things were scattered here and there, articles deemed unimportant. The afternoon sun shone through dusty plate-glass windows with splendid shades of copper and red. It lit up the dust motes floating about.
Her heart fisted as a meltdown commenced, which helped nothing.
Something nudging the side of her boot snagged her attention. It was the weight of the holster shifting on her leg. Finn had buckled the ankle holster onto her himself this morning before heading for the station, making her love him that much more.
She was so f**king scared it was hard to think straight. Trembling fingers fumbled for the catch, pul ed the weapon free and flicked the safety off.
The hardware was wide open, front doors busted, the back the same. Things were stirring out on the street. Shadows moving. The moaning might have been her muddled mind, but it was doubtful.
The sun ducked behind the line of buildings across the way. Above her was a foam ceiling. It wouldn’t hold her.
Out on the street there came a low, drawn-out groan. Her muscles trembled.
Move.
She bolted for the back door, keeping low, trying not to make a target of herself. The building behind this one was three-stories high, blocking out the afternoon sun and casting her in shadow. Still a better bet than the open space of the street front.
There was an overgrown patch of grass running alongside a fence, a docking bay with a van parked in it. The windows had been blown out and a long-dead body sat in the driver’s seat, rotted arm hanging down, skin like leather.
A forklift was parked alongside the back of the building, a pal et stacked with bags of potting mix weighing down the front. In lieu of a ladder, it looked good. It was also the only option.
More moaning.
“Go. Go. Go. Go.” Ali chanted under her breath, navigating the climb from inside the forklift’s cab onto its front load. The gun in her hand slowed her down.
Something grabbed her. She almost screamed. The noise stuck in her throat, wanting out.
A grasping hand clutched at her boot. She kicked out, dislodging it for a moment. Where the hell had it come from so fast? Over her shoulder she saw decaying features smeared with dirt and dried blood, eyes empty of color, as though the irises had bled to white. The remains of his torn greasy shirt named him “Mike”. In less than a minute she could put a bullet smack bam through Mike’s forehead. Be done with him, no matter the noise. But noise would draw more of them.
Fuck. The rabbit went wild in her chest.
She scrambled onto the forklift roof. Mike tugged at the hem of her jeans, scratching and clawing at her pants, trying to pull her back, skewing her balance and sending her onto one knee.
Nothing could save her sweaty grip on the gun.
The pistol slipped from her hand, clattered to the ground. Going, going, gone.
She gave a helpless groan, shaking with fear and adrenalin. “Oh, f**k you, Mike.”
She kicked out, boot connecting with the hard bone of his skull. Mike reeled back onto his ass.
Ali scrambled to her feet, perched atop the forklift. There was a narrow window off to the side of the building, about the right height to give her the leg-up required. It would be difficult. She stretched out. Her fingers could just reach the edges of the gutter. The muscles in her legs screamed in protest, thighs and feet and everything in between. Ali pulled herself forward, increasing her hold on the gutter inch by inch. Metal dug into her fingers, but she had it. It held and she wasn’t letting go. She stuck her left leg out to kick in the window, the crack in the glass painfully loud.
Ali wedged her foot into the space and reached for the moon. She was stuck stretched between the window and the forklift. Mike, the tenacious bastard, yanked on her boot, stil sitting atop the machine.
Mike moaned, a noise that wound down to a death rattle. It sounded like someone had squeezed the air out of him, accordion-style.
The poor guy was probably frustrated over watching his meal get away. Another infected stumbled around the corner, drawn by f**k knew what instinct.
God help her. Panic reduced her to an implausible leap of faith.
Ali pushed off with her toes, dislodging Mike’s claw, and put her weight on the leg stuck akimbo in the window. She clutched at the gutter and dragged her sorry self up. Her arms felt like fire, no, like lead. It took forever. Her ribs scraped on the gutter and her fingers tingled, thick and numb.
She didn’t fall a story to the street below and become a broken-boned meal for the horde. Fucking up wasn’t an option because she was getting home. Yes, she was.
The aluminum roof blistered her hands and cheek. It was a piss poor welcome to safety.
Ali rolled onto her back, folding her arms over her body, trying to keep her exposed limbs off the scorching metal. The hot pain through her t-shirt was the final insult.
She lay there and cried from relief and horror both as the sunset faded and the infected gathered below.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“What do you mean she’s missing?”
Santa blanched, held up his chubby mitts in a placating gesture. “Now then, son, calm down. She’s a smart girl.”
“I. Want. Facts.” Finn clamped his teeth shut, his stomach ready to spill. People milled about amongst the pick-ups piled high with the day’s takings. He ignored the audience and the pounding of footsteps behind him. “Explain to me how she was the only one who got left behind.”
“What’s going on?” Dan demanded, landing a heavy hand on Finn’s shoulder. “Finn?”
“They lost her. They f**king lost her.”