They weren't attacking. They were retreating.

This is bad, Lee decided.

He tried to peer through the woods, but they were too thick, even in their leafless state, to see much farther than Jacob. But Lee watched the soldier-scientist tighten quite suddenly, and he began to fire. Puffs of gray smoke erupted from his barrel, his muzzle swinging in this direction and then that, not from the recoil.

Fast moving targets.

Oh s.h.i.t...

Someone in the element began screaming as they came within a dozen yards of the fence: "Hunters! Hunters in the woods!"

Lee swore loudly. "Devon! I need that f.u.c.king fence open now!" he didn't wait for a response. "Nate! Stay on that yard!" The element came abreast of Lee and he stepped forward, stood tall and pointed back in the direction they came. "Everyone fan out along the fence and face out! Do not f.u.c.king move until I tell you to move!"

Eventually the fence would be open, and the last thing they needed was a logjam at the opening, too many panicked people trying to get through and f.u.c.king up the works.

Jacob ran back to them at full speed, and Lee could now see what they'd been running from. The shapes moved quickly through the trees, flashing between them with inhuman speed. They didn't climb the trees, but they reached out and grabbed the trunks to swing around them, making quick direction changes and giving them a strange, apish quality.

Everyone opened up at once, Jacob barely making it behind the line before the air was riddled with bullets. For no other reason than it scared the s.h.i.t out of him, Devon began to scream, but he never stopped clipping the fence.

"Almost there! Almost there!"

Lee tried to target one of the infected as they hurtled towards them through the woods, but the direction changes were so rapid that it became impossible. Lee simply aimed in the general direction and fired as fast as he could, hoping to score a hit simply from the volume of lead he threw down range.

"Keep shooting! Keep shooting!"

The infected were close enough now that Lee could see them-lean, abnormally sinuous bodies. They did not have the same form of musculature as a normal, physically fit man. Compared to the rest of their bodies, their arms seemed lean and wiry. The bulk of their muscle seemed to be packed into their core and, oddly, their backs and shoulders, giving them a hunched appearance. Their necks seemed to have disappeared amid the veiny protuberance of their shoulders, and their jaws hung open loose as they ran, disturbingly wide on their otherwise human faces.

Lee managed to sync his rhythm with one as it dodged through the trees, screaming an unearthly ululation, and he fired once, managing to halt the thing in its tracks, and then put two more rounds into it as it hung in the air for a half second before collapsing to the ground.

The victory was a small one-there must have been a dozen more coming at them.

They needed to get in the fence.

"Done!" Devon yelled.

Lee slammed a fresh mag into his rifle and recharged it, then reached for the nearest person to him and slapped the man on the back. "Move!"

The man didn't waste any time. He hauled out of position and dove through the opening in the fence, followed quickly by Devon, then Nate. Lee moved down the line, initiating people with a slap and a command to move. He kept looking up as he went, kept judging how close the infected were getting, and every time he did he felt his heart sink a little more.

We're not gonna get everyone through, he realized.

He stood tall, planted his feet. "Everyone go! Move!"

The remaining four people in the entry team made a mad rush for the opening in the fence. Lee didn't watch them. He raised his rifle and began firing as he sidestepped towards the opening in the fence. "Jacob! Go!"

"I got it!" Jacob yelled back, standing maybe a yard or so in front of Lee. "Get in there!"

There was no time for argument. Lee turned for the hole in the fence. Jacob backpedaled as one of the infected took a giant leap and landed just in front of him. Jacob planted his muzzle right in the thing's face and took it off with a double-tap.

Lee reached the fence just before Jacob did and he grabbed the man by the back of his collar, guiding him through. Jacob didn't miss a beat, letting himself be guided through as he kept firing, firing, until his rifle went dry and they were suddenly on the other side of the fence.

Lee saw the bolt of Jacob's rifle lock back and stopped where he was. Jacob went down to one knee to reload and Lee moved in close to him, putting his legs up against Jacob's back so that he would know Lee was shooting right over his head and wouldn't stand up into Lee's lane of fire.

Lee could see one of the infected moving towards the cut in the fence, down on all fours like an animal but still moving fast. Lee put three into it and it kept coming, so he simply gave it everything he had left in his mag. The thing died, one hand outstretched through the opening in the fence.

With Lee's own rifle empty, he glanced down and watched Jacob whip out a magazine-and then fumble it. He tried to catch it but it just bounced off of his fingers and tumbled into the dirt. Lee swore and reached for his second of four spare magazines. It was always bad when both shooters were empty at the same time. Bad for business.

Jacob bent forward to grab the magazine off the ground.

Lee pulled the mag from his pouch. The two of them racing to get their rifles back up.

Straight ahead of them, a pale form scrambled over the body of its pack mate and slipped through the opening in the fence, seeming to explode onto its feet when it had cleared the chain link. There was no moment where it eyed Lee up and growled at him, giving Lee the precious second or so that he needed to complete his reload. No, this creature already knew what it wanted and it did not have to think about it. It launched itself at Lee, arms stretched out.

Then it simply fell to the ground, like G.o.d's hammer had come out of the sky and smacked it down. A red hole on its back. The boom of the far away rifle report. Tomlin, up on the hill, looking out for them. The thing twitched, raised its head. Lee put his magazine in, let the bolt fly forward and gave the infected one on the nose to end it permanently.

Below him, Jacob put the fresh mag in. "I got this, Lee!" his voice was insistent. He turned and glared at Lee, not because Lee had done anything wrong, but because Jacob didn't want to leave any room for argument. Because Jacob was not going to let Captain Mitch.e.l.l die for him all over again. It was his turn to stand tall. "You take that building, okay? Go get Angela and the kids!"

On the other side of the fence, the rest of the infected hit the chain link and began to climb. Four of them, latched onto the fence like spiders, then five, then seven and eight. Jacob turned his back to Lee and raised his rifle, picking the target that was closest to the top of the fence.

Lee turned back towards the Camp Ryder building. The rest of the entry team was stacked up along the back wall of the building, staring at Jacob as he stood before the fence, slowly moving backwards as he shot carefully, steadily at the infected, but failing to stop them from negotiating the fence.

Lee pointed to three of the members of the entry team. "Help Jacob! The rest of you get on my a.s.s!"

Lee hit the left corner, pied it quickly.

Straight ahead he could see the gate, unmanned, still hanging off its hinges from where Marie had driven through it to escape only hours before. Beyond that, there was Shantytown, predominantly blue and gray with its numerous sections of tarp and faded wood and metal. Far on the other end of it, Lee could see a small group of armed men-maybe three or four-huddling behind an empty connex container and taking pot shots at the snipers in the woods.

A few unarmed people running about in a panic.

No other hostile movement.

Watch that corner, Lee thought as he started moving. He kept the front sight of his M4 on the corner, just past the big rainwater bins they'd built. Waiting for that one, enterprising motherf.u.c.ker to pop out and try to take a shot at him. He moved a little quicker than normal because he needed to close the gap. He needed to take that corner. This long, straight, empty wall was just a shooting gallery. A no man's land. A great place to get shot.

The corner was the next grounding point.

He stayed an arm's length off the wall. Your first instinct was to hug it, but ricochets had a habit of travelling along walls, and the wall didn't do anything for you but make you feel protected. Best to keep away from it.

Behind him, he could hear the footfalls of the others following him. Farther behind them, he could hear the furious shooting of Jacob and the other three as they tried to stop the infected from jumping the fence. The shooting became interspersed with shouting, and then there seemed to be more shouting than shooting.

They broke, Lee realized. They had to break.

He looked behind him and saw what he didn't want to see: Jacob running, two of the three other men running with him, and the third on the ground, screaming b.l.o.o.d.y murder as an infected landed on him, clamped its jaws around his neck and reduced his screams to gurgles.

Jacob was yelling: "They're inside! They're inside!"

It happened fast.

Life and fate always conspire to take you by surprise. Rarely are you allowed to sit and ponder, or see the buildup, like a scientist reading a seismograph and determining when the mountain will blow. Rather, the circ.u.mstances are simply hurled at you without warning and you respond on instinct, and you hope to G.o.d that your instincts are true and correct. Then you are simply left in the dust, hoping you did the right thing, and wondering, what the h.e.l.l just happened?

Jerry stalked the room, caught in a brief moment of indecision as gunfire raged outside. He kept cursing, growling under his breath like an ornery cur. His eyes kept travelling to Angela and there was still the bitter hatred there, but there was something else squirming around inside of him, and it looked to Angela like fear.

She stopped looking at him and looked at her daughter, because Jerry didn't matter. Abby mattered. She didn't want to speak, didn't want to draw any attention to herself, or, G.o.d forbid, give Jerry any ideas, but she held Abby's gaze and she nodded, tried to look confident, and mouthed the words, "I love you."

Jerry stopped in the middle of the room and glared at her. "Angela, Angela, Angela...you stupid, stupid b.i.t.c.h. This is your f.u.c.king fault." He turned and looked at Abby. "Go lock her up with the little brown kid," he said to Kyle. "And do it quickly."

Kyle took Abby and guided her out of the room. Abby didn't like that at all and began to scream, but she walked along with him, somehow sensing that she should not fight. Angela watched her go, panic rising in her chest, causing her vision to narrow and darken at the edges-tunnel vision coming on. Don't take my baby girl away! Don't take her away from me!

Jerry stood in front of her. She turned on him and she could not see him as threatening any more. She was at the end of feeling threatened. She was all out of fear. All out of compliance. She could only see him as craven and pathetic.

He grabbed her by the shoulder of her jacket. "I guess you're my hostage."

He pulled her up to her feet and she was already in that forward motion, and she watched the double-barrels of that sawed-off shotgun float away from her as he tried to balance himself. And there it was-the chance, though she wasn't sure why this was it, and not a hundred other instances. It was simply the feeling of breaking inertia.

She launched herself forward. She grit her teeth and put everything that she had into it, planting her head straight into his midsection and toppling him backwards. He grunted as she hit him, screamed out a curse. She kept driving forward with her legs and let out a scream.

The shotgun blasted. Shook the room and deafened her.

Maybe she had been shot. She wasn't sure.

They slammed into the desk with a giant sound, the metal crashing noisily, all the objects on the desk clattering over. She felt the stillness of Jerry's body. Felt the ache in her own neck from the harshness of the impact. Rolled off of him.

He was slumped against the desk, eyes still open, still moving, still alive, still gripping his shotgun. Just stunned. Breathing little shallow breaths as he tried to get the air back in his lungs.

Angela was on fire. She didn't think. Didn't feel much else besides murder. She lashed out with her feet, kicking at the shotgun and sent it spinning out of his hands. It jarred him slightly and he seemed to regain a little of himself, turned to face her with a look of shock.

Don't let him get you...

She couldn't find any words. She opened her mouth but all that came out of her were noises that had no meaning. She rolled onto her back, tucked her legs in and managed to get her bound wrists underneath her b.u.t.t. Then she rolled up into an almost-sitting position and began working her hands out from under her legs.

Just a few feet away, Jerry was getting a hold of himself, his hand going to the back of his head where it had struck the side of the heavy desk and nearly knocked him unconscious-but no, she hadn't been quite that lucky.

He shook his head, blinked away some cobwebs. Saw her getting her hands out from under her. He turned, lunged for the shotgun. It had already fired, but Angela didn't know whether the thing had fired one barrel or both. There might still be a live round of buckshot in it.

She worked her bindings past her feet, then launched herself at Jerry, looping her arms over his head just as his fingertips touched the shotgun. She hauled back like a wagon driver trying to stop his horses, the duct tape that bound her wrists together now becoming a noose around Jerry's neck.

Immediately, his hands left the shotgun. He catapulted himself backwards, scratching at her hands. She landed on her back with Jerry on top of her, nearly knocking the wind out of her. He thrashed like a wild animal caught in a trap. Somehow her wrists moved from his throat to his face. He let out a wild yell and bit down hard on the meat of her palm. She screamed and jerked her hand away and at the same moment, Jerry twisted his head and rolled, like a crocodile trying to drown its victim.

This time she ended on top, straddling Jerry's waist, the last bit of air still screaming out of her throat as she looked at her hand, a chunk of pale flesh missing from it and revealing the meaty workings underneath that quickly welled and began to spurt blood. She looked down at the b.a.s.t.a.r.d underneath her, saw him grin, the piece of flesh still hanging in his teeth. Then he spit it out and both of his hands rocketed up towards her neck.

She tried to lean away from them but her torso was not as long as his arms and they slipped around her neck and constricted. The world around her took on strange shades of red and green. She tried to make a noise but couldn't. The two of them, smashed up against the side of the desk and Angela thinking, Not like this. Not for this sonofab.i.t.c.h. I won't die for him.

She strained to look to her left, her eyes bulging out of the already-swollen flesh of her raw-beaten face. She reached for the desktop, her blue, numb hands scrambling clumsily atop it as she suffocated, her vision blackening. She seized upon something long, thin, and metal. She wasn't sure what it was, but she got the impression of a tire pressure gauge.

She could barely feel her hands, but she sandwiched the object between them and forced her hands together, not holding it by any grip but simply by the force of her arms, so that the stem of it pointed downward. Then she leaned forward, oblivious of anything but the singular, insane idea that she was going to plunge whatever was in her hands into Jerry.

The sharpness of an object had little to do with whether it could be pushed inside of you.

Mostly, it had to do with force.

Jerry's arms attempted to lock out, attempted to keep her away from him, scared to death of whatever she had found on the desktop, though he wasn't even sure himself what that thing might be. But she just kept pressing forward, her bloodshot eyes insane, purple veins standing out around them. She put the stem of that object against the right side of his throat and began to press.

He tried to recoil, but she just kept pressing. He lunged for her hand, trying to bite her again, but it only buried deeper into his skin when he moved. His grip began to loosen, panic taking its toll on him. Angela could barely see anymore. She could feel unconsciousness hovering over her, ready to take her out. She wouldn't let it. She had to keep pressing.

Jerry gasped, let go of her neck with one hand, at that was the worst mistake he could have made. The shaft of the thing plunged past the barrier of his skin, embedding itself in his throat and breaking through his windpipe.

His reaction was immediate and violent.

He let go of her throat, and it was like his entire body had been jolted with electricity. The movement was so sudden that it threw Angela off of him and he scrambled backwards towards the door, his throat making a strange, rasping, whistling sound as he tried to scream. Angela sat on the floor, trying to catch her own breath past her swollen throat. Jerry touched the little silver thing sticking out of his neck and tried to form words. Blood came out of it in a slow trickle.

Then he crawled through the door, rising to his feet as he went, clawing his way up the banister of the stairs and stumbling down them and disappearing from view. Angela watched him go for a moment, almost shocked at what had just occurred, almost sick to her stomach.

Almost.

She reached her wrists under the jagged metal corner of the desk and rubbed them, trying to get the metal burs to cut through the layers of duct tape. It took longer than she expected, but she didn't stop. Sweat broke out over her forehead. She took a second to catch her breath, then went at it again. After a few minutes, the duct tape split and she ripped her hands apart with a cry of pain. It would be worse in a moment, she knew, as the feeling returned to them.

The shotgun still sat on the floor. She grabbed it with her ungainly hands, nearly dropped it twice. She had to put conscious effort into what each of her hands needed to do in order to grip the d.a.m.n thing. After some negotiating, she managed to break the shotgun open.

She shivered uncontrollably as she looked at it.

One sh.e.l.l had a neat little pock-mark in its primer.

The other was clean.

If Jerry had been able to reach that shotgun, her brains would have been all over the office. She would have died right here, right in the same spot as Bus. Killed by the same man, with the same G.o.dd.a.m.ned gun.

She swallowed all of that down. Ignored it for the time being.

Angela stripped the spent sh.e.l.l out, left the live one in. Slammed it closed.

She was going after her daughter.

CHAPTER 41: THE STEPS.

Jerry stumbled down the stairs. Everything was a nightmare. Everything was falling apart. Why was this happening to him?

Maybe it's not that bad, he thought desperately. I don't feel like I'm going to die.

The thing protruded out of the side of his neck, like some cyborg creation inside of him had just sprouted through his skin, taking over his body. And he could feel it, he could feel the tip of it sc.r.a.ping the inside of his throat, like he had something caught in it, making him want to cough or swallow, or just do some d.a.m.n thing to make it go away.

He leaned on the banister with one hand as he descended, gripped the object with other, terrified by having it there, but even more terrified by the concept of pulling it out. It was in his neck! In his f.u.c.king neck! What if it was the only thing keeping his blood inside of him? What it if was like a stopper in a barrel and if he pulled it he would just drain out?