The group’s arrival in Atlanta wasn’t met with fanfare or celebration or even the instantaneous death Brandt had come to expect. Instead, they walked into the city unimpeded for nearly half an hour before they stopped in the middle of an intersection. Brandt took a careful look around them, attempting to negotiate his view of the street around the cars and trucks and vans parked all around him, even as he tried his best to guard the others’ backs. Brandt frowned deeply and squinted at the restaurants and shops surrounding them, trying to get his bearings.
Brandt and the others had driven the motorcycles as far into Atlanta as they dared. Now they stood at the Y created by Highway 8 and Hollywood Road. Brandt held his hand out to Ethan. “Let me see the map,” he said, wiggling his fingers impatiently.
Ethan quickly handed the crumpled paper over, and Brandt scanned the surface. “We’re right here,” he announced, pointing to the map. The wind ruffled the paper, bending it over itself, and Brandt let out a sigh and flattened it out again. The others leaned over his shoulders to look for themselves. “We’re not too far from where we need to go. Maybe five miles. If we hurry, we can make it in an hour and a half, maybe two, assuming we don’t run into any trouble. Which I can almost guarantee you we will.” Brandt looked to them each in turn and added, “It’s just a matter of what kind of trouble we run into.”
“Any trouble is bad trouble,” Ethan added solemnly. Brandt looked at him. The older man stared down the road, squinting into the distance over the tops of the vehicles. Brandt could almost guess Ethan’s thoughts. Their destination might have been only five miles away, but that five miles could easily mean the difference between blessed salvation and bloody death. Brandt suddenly wished they’d kept the motorcycles, if only to get to the Tabernacle that much faster, but the noise would have brought the entire city down on them quicker than anything else.
Remy tapped Brandt’s arm and pointed off the side of the road wordlessly. Brandt followed her hand to a marketplace and noticed a significant amount of movement to the side of the building. It looked suspiciously like the infected, or at least enough so that it made Brandt’s stomach turn over. He shoved the map back at Ethan for safekeeping and motioned for the others to follow him. “Come on. We’ve got to move. We’re killing time here, and the longer we stay in one spot, the higher the chances someone or something will see us.”
Brandt took Cade’s elbow as they started down the street, leaning in close to speak so that only she could hear. “Keep your eyes open, you hear me?” he ordered. She gave him an incredulous look, but he pressed on regardless. “I don’t want to dig you out of a hole, literally or figuratively. I want us to get to Luckie as fast as we can move, and I want us all to get there together and in one piece.”
Cade let out a slow breath and nodded, hefting her rifle to get a better grip on it. “I’m not new to this type of picnic, Brandt,” she replied. “I learned urban street fighting a long time ago in the IDF. I think I can handle this.” She pushed her bangs out of her eyes and asked, “Should we leapfrog?” She leaned away from him to keep her eyes on the area around them.
“That might be a good idea,” Brandt said with a nod of his own. “You and I will be on point. I’ll go first. Let Ethan and the others know what we’re doing.”
Brandt moved ahead of the group to the center of the street, between two rows of cars, and lifted his rifle in a firing position. He heard Remy ask what was going on, but he continued on his way. He stopped about twenty yards out in front of the rest of the group and scanned the street ahead. There were no signs of anything coming toward them. Brandt glanced back at the others and saw Cade positioning herself ten yards behind him. He smiled slightly. She seemed so in sync with him now that it was almost ridiculous. They worked well together, and it was all he could hope that they’d be in tune enough to be alert to any dangers coming after them. Then again, the whole damn city was one massive danger as far as Brandt was concerned. The sooner they got to the Tabernacle and pleaded their case for help, the better.
Brandt turned in either direction and then signaled to Cade. He stayed in place as she moved forward ten yards past him and checked out the surroundings there. The others followed in their wake, well versed in the method they used to travel through larger cities: Brandt and Cade taking turns in the lead and Ethan and Remy guarding the rest of the group. It was a method they’d developed when they went into areas congested with the infected to help out people stuck in bad situations, and it was the best method they’d developed yet. Even in Atlanta, which seemed like an entirely different world to Brandt, he felt it was the method they should stick with.
“I’ve hardly seen anything at all,” Cade said to Brandt as she passed him on her way to the lead almost half an hour later. They were, by his calculations, nearing Marietta Street, one of the busier thoroughfares in the downtown area. He figured they’d undoubtedly begin to run into serious trouble in that area. This close to the epicenter of the Michaluk Virus, though, they should’ve been seeing at least some infected. Instead, so far, Brandt had seen nothing. He caught Cade’s elbow to stop her as she moved to pass him.
“I haven’t seen anything either,” Brandt replied. “It’s weird. There should be fucking infected all over the damn place. They should be practically pouring out of the fucking woodwork, especially with fresh blood nearby.”
“What’s going on up there?” Ethan called. Brandt turned to glare at Ethan and motioned with his hand for Ethan to keep his voice down.
“Shut the fuck up,” Brandt hissed for good measure before looking back to Cade. Her eyes were wide and visibly worried. “Something doesn’t feel right about this,” Brandt admitted to her, his voice hushed and tight with stress. “Something just isn’t right about it, but I can’t put my fucking finger on it.” He let out a frustrated breath, running a hand through his hair. “There should at least be … I don’t know, bodies.”
Cade tightened her fingers on her rifle. “Yeah, with what you told me, this place should be crawling with infected.”
“Shouldn’t be able to move ten damned yards without running into one,” Brandt agreed.
Remy jogged to them as Brandt spoke. She was breathless, and a faint sheen of sweat decorated her forehead and the sides of her face. She looked concerned as she asked Brandt, “What is going on?”
“We were just—” Cade started.
“Have you seen anything?” Brandt interrupted, putting a hand up to stop Cade and turning his attention to Remy. He frowned as he waited on Remy’s answer, relying on Cade to keep an eye on their surroundings as he tried to gather information.
Remy blinked and jerked her head back as if she’d been struck. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“Anything? Anything at all?” Brandt persisted, his voice taking on a note of urgency. “Movement? Any infected? Any survivors? Animals? Birds? Fucking dogs or anything? Anything at all?”
Remy shook her head slowly in response to Brandt’s rapid-fire questions, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth. “No. No, none of us have.” She snorted slightly. “Fuck, you’d think you wanted us to run into something, Brandt,” she tried to joke. “Didn’t you know I’m the only one allowed to hope for that kind of shit?”
“No, I don’t exactly want us to,” Brandt said firmly. He ran a hand through his hair and blew out a heavy breath. “We were just talking about how there doesn’t seem to be any—”
A loud pop snapped out from somewhere nearby. The sound echoed off the buildings and street and magnified as it bounced off brick façades and back at them. Brandt blinked and turned his eyes to Cade. Her own eyes were wider than ever as she stared up at him.
“Was that … was that what I think it was?” Brandt asked.
Before Cade could reply, another pop rang out. Ethan and Gray let out a shout. Brandt whirled around, lifting his rifle instinctively to his shoulder, and aimed it behind him, prepared to take out any infected that approached. He stopped just in time to see Avi stagger forward a step, a shocked expression on her face, before she tumbled face down to the pavement. She lay on the black asphalt, unmoving. Blood began to pool beneath her body.
“Jesus Christ,” Brandt gasped. His brain raced to catch up with his eyes, struggling to process the presence of blood, the lack of life in Avi’s body, the sound of gunshots that had reached their ears.
Remy too seemed to finally comprehend what had happened. “Avi!” she shouted, starting to run toward the blond woman’s body. Two more shots rang out. Brandt lunged forward and caught Remy by her bicep, propelling her in the opposite direction.
“Fucking run!” Brandt ordered, shoving the two women forward. “She’s dead! Go! Scatter!”
Brandt waited for the others to pass him, his eyes scanning the buildings for the shooter’s location. It was a terrible risk to take, to stand still in the full awareness that someone was shooting at them. It was like painting a target on his ass and asking for the bullet. But Brandt felt some level of responsibility for the others, and he would not allow them to die under his watch. Not any more of them.
Another shot struck the pavement at his feet, sending up shards of black asphalt to bite at his shins through his pants. Brandt stumbled back and swore out loud, starting to follow the others as several more shots rang out. Thankfully, none of them came close to actually hitting him, though he had his suspicions about the nature of the attempt.
“Ethan! Find us some cover!” Brandt shouted, dodging side mirrors and abandoned luggage among the cars that lined the street. Cade stumbled forward and almost fell. She put out a hand to catch herself against a blue truck before Brandt could go to her aid. The echoing report of gunfire still rang in Brandt’s ears as he veered to the right, following the others into a dim alley that Ethan had chosen for cover. He only hoped none of the infected was sequestered in the alley too.
Thankfully, the alley was empty. Brandt skidded to a stop beside a dumpster, slumping back against the brick wall behind him and struggling to catch his breath.
“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Brandt growled once his breathing slowed enough for him to manage speech.
“What the fuck was that?” Ethan demanded, jabbing an angry finger toward the mouth of the alleyway, his eyes hard as he glared at Brandt. As if it were his fault that someone out there had a gun.
“Keep your damned voice down,” Brandt snapped. “It was fucking … I don’t know, some asshole with an itchy trigger finger taking potshots at whatever the fuck moves.”
“Guys?” Cade said softly.
Brandt waved a hand at Cade to motion for her to quiet down as he glared at Ethan.
“I told you it wasn’t a walk in the fucking park here,” Brandt continued. “There’s not just the infected to deal with in this city. We’ve got to handle the crazy little shits with guns and too much time on their hands too.”
“Guys?” Cade said a bit louder.
Brandt rolled his eyes and finally turned to Cade. “What, Cade?” Brandt snapped. He didn’t mean to speak so harshly to her, but his irritation at Ethan had begun to override his senses.
Cade looked up at Brandt, and tears streamed down her face. That in itself was enough to stun Brandt’s irritation straight into submission. She looked down and pulled her hands away from where she’d clasped them tightly to her side. Brandt sucked in a sharp breath.
Both of her hands were covered in blood.
Even as Brandt and Ethan both darted forward to catch her, Cade staggered sideways into the brick wall beside her and slid to the ground with a gasp of pain.
“I think I’ve been shot,” she managed weakly.