—going to kill us all.
We have to stop them.
If they’re not burned, they’ll destroy our entire town.
Their bodies are infected. We have to burn the bodies to save ourselves.
“Ash!” Sammy’s voice sounded soft and muted, as if it came from a great distance. “Is he alive? You bastards! Is he alive?”
I only had a vague awareness of time as I struggled to regain control of my mind. I hadn’t been unconscious in the traditional sense, but I couldn’t really see or hear anything. Where I was, or what they were doing to me, I couldn’t be certain.
The fear and anger of those surrounding me had so thoroughly bogged me down that it almost felt like I’d ceased to be. My mind was little more than a tiny ship adrift in a vast ocean of thoughts and emotions.
But slowly, surely, I worked my way back. I slogged against the current, finally seeing the shore in the distance.
The infected people continued to change. Their unbridled rage had dissipated a bit, a twinge of fear worming its way through their thoughts. They didn’t want to destroy us for the sake of it, but because they were afraid that we would kill them first. Somehow, they saw us as a threat to them.
Hearing Sammy’s voice calling my name was a lighthouse flashing in the darkness. I honed in on it, focusing on the words, the emotion in her voice.
And I was scared shitless. Drew had taken her to safety. I’d assumed that the quarantine might have kept them in the vicinity of Arthur’s Creek, but never would I have expected to hear them at the town square. Knowing that they were there drove a spike of panic through me.
I could accept my fate, but I couldn’t fathom having them join me.
One of my eyes fluttered open, the bright afternoon blinding me for a moment. The other eye had swollen shut.
The stench of burning meat filled my nostrils.
Pulsating heat thrummed in my face and back. I could taste blood. My face was swollen and immobile.
“He’s alive!” Sammy cried.
“Quiet,” Drew whispered.
I tried to lift my hands to my aching head, but they refused to budge. My eye slowly adjusted to the light.
Sammy’s voice was softer this time. “Ash! Can you hear me?”
“Barely.” I looked around, spotted the two of them ten feet in front of me. They were tied to a park bench, their hands bound behind their backs, ankles lashed together.
I’d been secured to another bench in the same manner.
Sammy’s shirt was torn at the top, exposing her bra and the top of one of her breasts. Mascara ran down her cheeks, bruises covered her neck.
Drew frowned at me, mouthed sorry. Sweat beaded on his forehead and face. He looked tired and more than a little frightened, but he didn’t seem to have been injured.
Dozens of other people were in the area, all tied up. Some were facedown in the grass, others stood against trees, rope encircling them. All wore scared-shitless expressions.
The piles of dead bodies burned, enormous flames extending twenty feet into the air. The stench wafting from the fires twisted my stomach in knots. Black smoke rose into the sky, blotting out most of my view of the courthouse.
Wind gusts blew the smoke around us, cutting visibility down to a few yards in different directions. I tried not to think about the fact that I was breathing in the smoke from burning human bodies.
“Ash?” a male voice asked. “What kind of name is Ash?”
I craned my neck to the left and spotted a man in bloodstained slacks and a dress shirt. Tiny spectacles rested precariously on the edge of his nose. His head was cocked to the side, his eyes darting back and forth from Sammy to me.
A scalpel twirled in one gore-caked hand.
Beside him, flat on her back, lay Allison. Her shirt had been cut away, lying in flaps on either side of her. A long, angry incision ran between her breasts, bleeding profusely. Her eyes were closed, her breathing shallow.
The man saw me looking at Allison and followed my gaze. “You know her?”
I didn’t say anything.
Rage festered in my mind, blotting out the crazed voices that had so overwhelmed me.
“She was giving me her heart, but she passed out.” He gave Allison a longing glance. “I’ve wanted her for so long—it just won’t be the same if she isn’t into it.”
The man walked over and knelt down in front of me. “But you seem like an interesting specimen to turn my attention to while I wait for her to come around.” He waved the scalpel in front of my face in an attempt to scare me. “Ash is an odd name. Who are you? I haven’t seen you around here before.”
I stared him down, said nothing.
Someone wailed from my right.
Butch stood twenty yards away, his face mangled and bloody. He hefted his massive hammer over his shoulder and then brought it down on the head of a man tied up on the ground.
I slammed my eyes shut and turned away just as the man’s head popped.
Sammy cried out and shook in her bindings.
Drew remained still, watching everything around him, his face beet red. I knew that he was probably working at his bindings and doing his best to remain calm. There was no reasoning with these people, so he wasn’t even bothering to try.
“Butch is damn good at this, isn’t he?” the man in front of me asked. “Having a big brute like him around sure has made everyone feel a bit more at ease.”
A bitter laugh escaped me. “At ease? He just murdered someone in cold blood.”
“Murder?” The man’s head recoiled as if I’d just said something utterly insane. “Murder? You people are the ones who want to take our town away from us. You’re the threats here. We understand the world in a way that you can’t possibly fathom, and you hate us for it. Don’t get things mixed around here, dear Ash.”
Hearing such gibberish was nearly as frightening as anything I’d witnessed that day. Knowing that a signal could so scramble someone’s brain was enough to make anyone swear off cell phones.
A man stood behind Butch with a clipboard. He made a quick check on it with a pencil.
The dickhead in front of me nodded at Butch. “He and the mayor are doing a fine job getting this cleaned up in a jiffy.” He turned his attention back to me, eyes narrowing. “You almost killed him. He was less than pleased when he woke up, but Mayor Bradbury convinced him to let us tie you up for now. He’d been planning on ripping you to shreds right there in the street. I told him that it would be much more fun for him if he could hear you scream.”
“Lucky me.”
The scalpel flashed in front of my face and cut across my cheek. Warmth ran down my jaw a second later. The pain was bad, but not any worse than what I’d already suffered that day. My shoulder muscles burned as I tried to pull my hands free. The anger festering inside me grew.
“No!” Sammy watched me, horrified.
I tried my best not to look in her direction. I wanted that psycho’s attention on me, not her.
“You’re a strong one.” The man gave me an appreciative inspection. “I guess you’d have to be to take down Butch.”
“You aren’t going to kiss me, are you?”
A man shouted for mercy from down the sidewalk. The sound of the hammer crunching something followed, and the shouts fell silent. I couldn’t bring myself to look over there again. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a woman bent over an elderly man, stabbing him in the chest repeatedly. More people wailed in agony and fear behind me.
The massacre was in full swing, and I had a prime seat in the middle of it.
Where in the hell is the military?
Allison moaned. She looked at me, confused, then horrified when she spotted the man in front of me.
Elation lit across his face. He twirled around and stood. “Allison! Welcome back to—”
“I’m not done with you yet, dipshit.” I straightened my back out, getting as much height as I could on the bench. Judging from the blather that had been coming out of his mouth, I had no doubt that he was about to slice Allison to ribbons. “You wanted to know who I am. Well—”
“Now that Allison is awake, I couldn’t care less.” The man moved closer to her.
Allison squirmed on the ground, then cried out in pain. “Dr. Franklin, please don’t!”
“Yeah, Dr. Franklin. Don’t do something you’ll regret.” I bucked against my bindings. The rope around my wrists dug deep. The pain fueled my fury. “If you touch her, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Franklin stopped by her feet and raised his eyebrows. “Please, tell me what it is that you think you’ll do to me?”
“I’ll break you.”
Franklin laughed as he bent down over Allison.
She tried to slither away, but she couldn’t move more than a few inches.
He prodded at the open wound in her chest and she screamed, cords standing out in her neck.
“You fuck!” My mind became a frenzy of hate. My arms worked harder at the rope around my wrists. Blood ran into my hands.
But I couldn’t get free.
Franklin leaned closer to Allison, his face hovering over her chest. “You smell so lovely.”
He raised the scalpel.
All rational thought left me. I was a caged animal throwing itself against the steel bars.
The bench shook underneath me.
Wood cracked and splintered.
Franklin stopped and turned toward me, dumbfounded. “What are you doing?”
I couldn’t answer. Speech seemed impossible. I kept fighting, willing myself to get free.
All the wooden slats under my ass and behind my back broke at once, and I exploded to my feet. My ankles and wrists were still tied, but I was up, and I was really pissed off.
“How did you do that?” Franklin stood and held the blade out in front of him in an attempt to ward me off. His mouth twisted in terror as he took a tentative step backward.
I knew that I was a big, scary-looking dude, but he was acting like I’d just sprouted a second head and had fire shooting out of my nostrils.
Drew jumped beside the doctor and hit him right on the chin with a perfect punch. Franklin slumped to the sidewalk and collapsed to his back, limbs splayed out.
“How did you—?” I cut myself off when I saw the blood dripping from Drew’s left hand. The flesh around his wrist was flayed, hanging down into his hand in ragged strips.
He’d nearly degloved himself getting loose. He held the wrist against his side, the wound oozing all over his shirt.
All the color had drained out of his face. His cheeks twitched as he staggered over to me. What amazed me even more than the steel balls it had taken to torture himself like that, was that he’d done it without uttering a sound.
Hell, I’d almost forgot he was even over there until he jacked the doctor’s jaw.
“Christ, Drew. That’s the most hardcore thing I’ve ever seen someone do.”
His voice trembled when he said, “I wish you would have done that before I shredded my wrist.”
“What?” I hopped on both feet, turning around so he could untie my hands.
That was when I saw the bench I’d been on. The wood slats were destroyed. They’d been broken and splintered around the outline of my body. Each piece was more than two inches thick and would have been impossible for me to break by just standing up. I doubted I could have even broken them with a series of kicks.
For the first time since I’d jumped up, I realized that the slat my hands were bound around still rested between my palms.
Drew worked at my bindings with his good hand. “The whole bench was shaking around like there was an earthquake under you. You were doing that crazy telekinesis shit again, I think.”
I kept staring down at the bench, unable to comprehend how I’d done that. Ever since that day in D.C., I’d attempted to move things without touching them, but I could never get it to work. Not even so much as a tremble had happened since then.
And now I was destroying benches without even realizing it.
Holy shit did my head hurt. I’d suffered migraines or hangovers almost every single day since I’d been blown up in Iraq, but few of them approached the pounding in my skull at that moment.
My hands finally popped free and I bent down, yanking on the rope around my ankles.
“You get Sammy, I’ll check on Allison.” Drew started toward her before I grabbed his arm.
“The feds should be storming in here any second. They’re dropping gas and using rubber bullets. If you see or hear anything, just go hide—don’t worry about us.”
Drew shook his head. “No way. We split up once. Not doing that shit again.”
A barrage of gunfire echoed from a few streets over. More screams followed from the same direction.
I gave Drew a wary nod. “Guess we won’t have to worry about it. The cavalry has finally arrived.”
Sammy wept while I untied her. She’d passed hysterical several hours earlier. “I thought you were dead when they dragged you over here!”
“I probably should have been.” I finally got a finger under one of the loops in the knot by her wrist and pulled it free.
She ripped her hands out and helped me get her feet untied.
And then she jumped against me, throwing her arms around my neck. She squeezed me close to her, and I felt every perfect contour of her body. I could have stood there forever, just holding her close.
Except that it hurt. A lot. My face was a swollen mess.
And people were being slaughtered all around us.
But otherwise, yes, forever.
A gas canister rolled onto the lawn beside us, spewing its contents into the air.
“We need to get away from here before they starting shooting everyone.” I grabbed Sammy’s waist and spun her around, urging her toward Drew and Allison. I’d never been hit by a rubber bullet, though I’d seen it happen to someone else.
It didn’t look like fun, and I had little interest in finding out what it felt like.
Drew was knelt over Allison, untying her hands, his wounded wrist still pressed against his side. His entire body had begun to shake from shock.
Another gas canister dropped into the grass.
Crazy folks took off in all directions. Very few stayed around and continued with the massacre, leaving their would-be victims in the courtyard. They screamed and hollered for help from one another, as if they hadn’t been murdering their friends and families seconds before.
I caught my first whiff of the gas and gagged. “No time to untie her, Cueball. I’ll carry her.” I bent down and scooped Allison up, one arm behind her shoulders, the other under her knees.
The back of her shirt had soaked through, and a slash ran down the fabric. Dr. Dickhead had really sliced her up, and I had no way of telling how much blood she’d lost. Her forehead had a swollen bruise just above her left eye.
She looked up at me as I straightened my back out with a groan. “How did you do that with the bench?”
“You don’t want to know.” My injured shoulder and chest struggled with her weight, though she couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and twenty pounds.
The wound running down her chest was eight, maybe ten inches long. The cut was clean and straight though—the scalpel had been sharp. I hoped that a decent stitch job would minimize any scaring, and she would be fine.
The emotional scars would last a lot longer.
Several dozen more gas cans fell around us. The air grew thick with smoke from the burning bodies and the gas. I couldn’t see the buildings surrounding the quad anymore, and my sense of direction was skewed.
Butch roared from behind us.
“Don’t go that way,” I said to Drew. “I can’t handle another fight with that big bastard.”
“What are we going to do?” Sammy asked. She walked right beside me, our shoulders touching, arms crossed protectively over her chest.
“We’re going to get some cover and wait for everything to calm down.” I fell in line behind Drew, letting him lead us through the smoke.
All four of us were gagging and coughing before we made it ten steps. I was growing lightheaded in a hurry.
The gunfire moved closer, the shots coming faster and faster. By the sound of it, some of the infected people were returning fire, even though I hadn’t seen more than a handful with guns. Psychotics seemed to prefer scarier, more intimate weapons.
Drew stumbled into one of the maple trees and ducked down behind it. He hacked a few times, spat out a wad of nastiness. “We need to take cover. It sounds like they’re blind firing.”
“Why are they gassing us?” Sammy stopped beside the tree, putting her hand on the trunk and bending over in a coughing fit.
I lowered Allison to the ground and closed her sliced shirt over her chest. Considering what all she’d been through, having her breasts exposed didn’t amount to much, but I still wanted to protect her modesty as much as possible. I stayed beside her, scanning the fog for threats. “The gas is nonlethal. We just need to get through this last part, and we’re in the clear. They’re putting everyone in the town to sleep and then they’ll—”
Another series of gunshots cracked from behind the tree.
Sammy pitched forward, sprawling into the grass. She rolled over and collapsed to her back, her arms by her sides, fingers clawing into the lawn.
Blood welled around three exit wounds in her chest.
“No!” I crawled over to her, put my hands over the ragged holes in her shirt, and pressed down. “Hold on! Help is coming.”
I coughed more, felt myself slipping, as if I were on the verge of falling asleep.
Shook my head, forced myself to stay conscious.
“Help!” I screamed at the gray cloud swirling around us. “We’re friendlies! Someone help us!”
“Keep pressure on her chest,” Drew muttered between coughs. He crawled toward us on his knees, using his good hand for balance. He made it halfway before he paused and swayed in place, blinking several times, each one slower than the last.
He was going out, and I didn’t have time to try to keep him awake.
I turned back to Sammy. “Just breathe. I’m going to take care of you.”
Her eyes were locked on to mine. Her throat worked, but she didn’t speak.
Blood poured through my fingers, the flow faster than I could ever hope to staunch.
I pressed hard, fighting against the panic that consumed me. Her chest was a mound of ruined flesh beneath my hands.
Oh God, oh Jesus, I couldn’t stop the blood. She was slipping away, the one woman who kept trying to help me no matter the danger surrounding me.
I looked around frantically, screaming, pleading for someone to help us.
My life meant nothing—I would’ve gladly given it up to save her. Oh dear Lord, I begged. Don’t take Sammy! She doesn’t deserve this. Take me. Take me!
She kept staring at me, her lips working even though I couldn’t hear anything over the battle surrounding us.
Her breathing grew shallower with each rise and fall of her destroyed chest. The blood flowed faster than I could bear to look at.
Drew collapsed facedown in the grass.
Sammy mouthed something again.
“What?” I leaned close, her lips brushing against my ear. “What?”
Her voice was so low that I could barely hear her despite our closeness. “Kiss me.”
I turned my head so we were face to face. “Just stay with me, Sammy. You’re going to—”
“Kiss me.” Her eyes dimmed as she mouthed the words again, no sound coming out.
I pressed my lips against hers, breathing her in, savoring the first and only intimate moment we would have. Her lips moved against mine, tender and soft, loving.
As I kissed the woman of my dreams while she died in my arms, I realized that I knew almost nothing about her. We’d gone through hell together, yet I’d never asked her anything about herself. I’d never delved into her mind enough to know who she truly was.
Sammy had come to save me and it would cost her everything, yet I didn’t even know her middle name.
The passion in her kiss calmed, the pressure between our lips eased.
In a moment of panic, love, and inimitable misery, I lowered my mental barriers and latched onto Sammy’s mind. I delved deeper than I’d ever gone before, encompassing her thoughts and emotions with my own.
I saw everything, experienced each memory, and lived every moment.
Her hopes and dreams, fears and insecurities, were mine. We were one and the same, two people drawn together through a process I could hardly fathom.
I walked with Sammy down the aisle of her teenage wedding, felt the love she had for her young husband, the excitement of a blossoming life.
My face hurt along with hers when he struck her for the first time. We shared the shame and embarrassment from seeing the same police officer at her door for the third month in a row. I absorbed the sense of failure when she signed the divorce papers less than two years into the marriage.
I saw the way she viewed me in the bank during our first encounter, seeing myself through the prism of kindness and awe that she placed around me. There was no pity there, just an understanding of what it was to be broken and alone, of knowing the pain involved with hard times and bad decisions.
Tears ran down my cheeks as I held our kiss. I knew what made her laugh and cry. Her favorite color became my own, the scent of her most beloved flower tingled my nostrils.
My head swam from the gas and the shared experiences. I struggled to stay awake, to hold onto her for every last moment.
Her lips stopped moving against mine.
I opened my eyes, saw the distant sheen descending upon hers.
Her mind fell away, the brilliant light of her last thought flashing in my own. Being in someone’s mind as they died was a painful, horrible experience, but I refused to release Sammy.
The tendrils of my consciousness tugged at hers, grasping at her fleeting thoughts.
But she slid away, the essence of her blinking out.
And then she was gone.
I watched her as I fought the effects of the gas. My muscles were fatigued, my mind beyond exhaustion. But I didn’t dare take my eyes away from her angelic face.
Boots appeared through the fog, trampling the grass as they encircled us. A man shouted something I couldn’t make out. He barked at me in angry, short bursts.
More soldiers marched up beside him.
I finally let my body give in and I carefully lay on top of Sammy, our cheeks touching.
As I slipped away, I focused on the smoothness of her warm skin against my mangled, swollen face.