The Survivors: Book One

Sam shrugged, trying to match his tone and keep her body blocking his view of the wagon and the weapon. "A seizure?"

Henry looked back down, and Sam immediately lashed out - swinging from the hip and leaning her weight into the unexpected blow.

The pen plunged easily into Henry's neck, making an awful ripping sound, and she jumped back as his body went rigid, blood squirting.

Eyes bulging, Henry's arms jerked wildly as he started suffocating. The end of the pen was protruding from just above his Adam's apple, blood raining down his black shirt in furious streams.

He collapsed across Melvin's chest, unbelieving eyes glaring up at her from his purple face as he slowly died.

Sam sucked in a ragged breath, glorious in her victory…then cold, hard reason took over. She couldn't stand here and wait for Melvin to recover! He was definitely the more dangerous of the two. As if to prove her thought, the surviving brother moaned. She got moving.

Samantha clenched her teeth against a surging stomach, and used her foot to push Henry's bloody body over. She quickly removed the dead man's bootlaces and bound Melvin's hands and feet, shivering violently as he stirred again. With this setup, he wouldn't even be able to stand, let alone run after her, which was good because he wouldn't take her body for this. It would be her life.

Satisfied with his bonds, she took a minute to clear the blood from her hands, using the icy slush to scrub with. That done, she lit one of the cigarettes from the fanny pack and looked around, making her final choices. That icy feeling inside had little to do with the wind. She was a killer now and she would act like one again if she had to.

Sam already knew she would avoid the burning city, and the Badlands to the northwest - she wasn't going anywhere she had already been or Melvin might think she would go. There was also no possibility of traveling the Rocky Mountains that littered her hazy view to the southeast, not alone and on foot.

To the west, more smoke was rising, backdropped by distant purple mountains, and she shivered harder. Yellowstone. Bad things were happening there. That only left due east, or south. Samantha pushed off the wave of fear that wanted to overwhelm her. NORAD was south. She could make it that far.

"Ooohh…"

Melvin was regaining consciousness, and Sam made sure she was out of his range as she tossed the cigarette into a deep-looking drift and stepped back over to the snow-covered wagon.