The Becoming (31 page)

Ethan startled as a hand touched his arm. He looked over wildly before he realized that it was just Nikola. The young girl gave his arm a light squeeze and asked, “Should we get out of here?”

“Yeah,” Ethan said. His voice choked as he spoke, and he cleared his throat before he continued. “Yeah, we should. I told my friends that I would track them down in Biloxi before four days were up. They’ve been instructed not to wait for me if I’m not there by then.” He tucked the locket into his pocket, securing it as best as he could to one of his belt loops. “You’re not planning on staying here in Memphis, are you?” he asked Nikola.

Nikola hoisted her backpack up higher on her shoulder. “Depends. Are you willing to let me come along with you?”

“No, I figure I’ll just leave you here,” Ethan said sarcastically. The conversation was doing wonders to distract him from his grief. He plunged headlong into it with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. “Seems like a good idea, you know? I mean, you’re fourteen. It’s about time you went out and took care of yourself.”

Nikola looked at Ethan with wide blue eyes, blinking in surprise as she examined his face. Ethan couldn’t believe that she was taking him seriously, but before he could express that, she let out a merry laugh. The sound was horribly out of place in the charred remains of the emergency room. An involuntary smile spread across Ethan’s face at the sound.

“That’s just wrong,” Nikola said. She gave him a light punch in the bicep. “Come on, can we get out of here?” she asked. “This place is starting to really creep me out.”

Ethan chuckled softly and nodded. He offered Nikola his hand, and she took it. “Place feels like a tomb,” he agreed. With one more backwards glance at Anna’s shrouded body, he led Nikola back out into the parking lot where the motorcycle waited.

“Do we really have to take the bike?” Nikola asked. She stopped beside the red-and-black bike and eyed it warily, twirling her bat in her hand.

“What, you don’t want to ride on it?” Ethan teased. He straddled the bike and kicked the kickstand up with his foot. Then he turned and patted the seat behind him.

“That thing scares the shit out of me,” she complained. She shifted from one foot to the other and continued to make faces at the bike, obviously stalling. “Can we find a car or a truck or a … a tank? Anything? It might be more comfortable or something.”

“Nikola, the roads between here and Biloxi are probably bad,” he explained. “And if they are, it’ll be easier to get a motorcycle through whatever we come across than it will be to get a car through. I don’t want to have to abandon whatever vehicle we’re driving in that case, because I seriously don’t want to walk.” He smirked. “Besides, I don’t know how to drive a tank.”

Nikola giggled and visibly caved. “Fine, fine,” she said. She sighed in resignation, stuffed her bat into her backpack, and slid onto the bike behind Ethan. After jamming Ethan’s helmet back onto her head, she locked her arms securely around his waist, grasping her left wrist with her right hand, and shifted to make sure her position on the bike was secure. “No complaining if I squeeze your guts out through your mouth, okay?” she said once she was settled.

“The mental image that gives me is
disgusting,
” Ethan informed her. “Makes me think of toothpaste tubes.” He turned the key in the bike’s ignition, and the roar of the bike’s engine as he revved it drowned out Nikola’s laughter.

The blast from the RV slammed Brandt to the ground even as he pulled Cade with him. He hit the pavement hard, and his breath rushed out of his lungs with the impact. His handgun skittered away, and he gripped Cade tightly and attempted to shield her body with his own. A tremendous roar filled his ears, and he glanced back behind him. Burning propane rushed out of the remains of the tank, the flames fueled even further by the gas from the RV’s punctured fuel line and the alcohol that had ignited it all. Above it all, though, he could hear the screams of the infected as they burned. The awful sound sent chills down his spine. He gripped Cade tighter to him and wheezed for air, waiting for the debris to quit falling around them. He staggered to his feet. Danger still mounted around them, but he wasn’t willing to wait any longer.

“Come on!” Brandt shouted. The loud roar drowned out his words, and he had to repeat himself twice before Cade responded. Cade pushed up onto her hands and scrambled forward a couple of feet in an odd crab-like walk to retrieve her rifle. Brandt groaned in impatience and grabbed Cade by a fistful of her jacket. He hauled her upright onto her feet. Several of the infected—some moderately injured but others without any visible wounds—had taken notice of the prey nearby and, despite the chaos of the explosion and their compatriots burning in the street, began to give chase. “Fuck, Cade, let’s go, let’s go!” Brandt yelled.

Cade gained her feet easily enough. But as she took a step forward to run, her right leg gave out underneath her. She nearly toppled to the pavement again with a pained cry. Brandt caught her around the waist to stop her fall. “You okay?” he asked.

“It’s my knee!” Cade called over the noise. “I think I hurt it!”

Brandt didn’t hesitate. He grabbed Cade’s arm and slung it over his shoulder, then pulled her close and hooked his arm around her waist more securely. “Come on! Lean against me and run as well as you can.”

Brandt helped her along the street, her body heavy against his. Her gasps of pain with every step stirred up guilt in Brandt’s gut. He shouldn’t have thrown her down on the ground like he had. But what was a painful knee compared to getting hit in the face with flying debris? It was no contest, really.

As they hobbled along, Brandt slowed by Cade’s limping progress but never once thinking that he should ditch her to save his own skin, he came to the sobering realization that there was no way they would make it the two blocks to the Jeep. Cade slowed down as she slung her rifle over her shoulder. She drew her handgun instead and gripped it tightly, scanning the street again.

“We aren’t going to make it that far,” Cade said, breathless from the effort of trying to run on her injured limb. “Not with my knee fucked up like it is. We’ve got to find some place to hole up.”

“Yeah, we can catch up with the others soon. I know where they’re planning to go,” Brandt said. He turned his eyes onto the buildings nearby, but gunshots suddenly rang out beside him. He saw several of the infected draw closer to them—too close. He swore and grabbed for his own gun. He kept his grip tight on Cade as he too opened fire. He carefully lined up his shots even as he pulled Cade backwards farther down the street. “Come on!”

Cade staggered after him, her grip on his shoulder tightening, her nails digging painfully into the muscles and tendons where his neck met his shoulder. Brandt ignored the pain; the pain of being caught by the infected would be worse than anything Cade could inflict on him.

As they ran, Cade twisted around and fired into the mass of infected following them. Bullets slammed into shoulders and arms and torsos and whizzed past harmlessly. Brandt breathed out a curse as he scanned the street and the buildings around them. There weren’t many options available to them. Most of the buildings were one- and two-story affairs, and a large portion of their windows were broken. Those would do them no good; they could barricade the doors, but if the windows were broken, the attempt would be futile. Instead, Brandt looked higher. His eyes landed on a five-story building that might have been an office complex before the world went to hell. Many of the first-floor windows were broken, but everything on the top four floors looked secure enough for their use.

“This way!” Brandt shouted.

Cade followed without question, leaning against him more heavily than before. They veered to the right to cross the street, dodging and weaving between cars and bicycles and other debris blocking the roadway. Brandt tripped over the edge of the curb when they got to the other side of the street, but he managed to recover with Cade’s help. He sent up a silent prayer of thanks as he reached the front door of the office complex. He grasped the handle on the front door and pulled.

It didn’t budge.

“Shit!” Brandt yelled. He slapped his hand against the glass inset in the door. Cade pressed herself back against the wall beside the door and fired twice more before she shot him a questioning glance. She sucked in a breath and ejected the magazine to reload. “It’s locked,” Brandt explained. He pulled on the door again uselessly.

“Move!” Cade ordered. She slammed the fresh magazine into her handgun. Brandt backpedaled as she aimed the gun at the door’s lock, and she fired three quick shots into it. The lock shattered, and Brandt planted his boot against the door in a hard kick. It swung open, and as Cade turned her attention back to the mass of infected racing toward them, Brandt grabbed her by the arm and hauled her inside the darkened office building.

Their footsteps echoed on the tile floor as they stumbled inside. Brandt took a moment to push the door shut behind them. It wasn’t going to hold for more than a moment or two, especially since Cade had done such a thorough job of breaking the door’s lock. But even the false sense of momentary security it gave him was enough. He swept the lobby of the building with his gun, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cade do the same. When both of them were passably satisfied that the lobby was clear, Brandt grabbed Cade’s arm again and pulled her to a door labeled in bold capital letters, “STAIRS.”

“Where are we going?” Cade asked breathlessly. She started up the stairs as quickly as her injured knee would allow.

“Top floor. We can barricade ourselves in,” Brandt said. He pushed her ahead of him as he entered the stairwell. The door swung shut behind him with a clang. He fumbled at it for a moment as he searched for a lock, but he gave up and pulled a flashlight from his shoulder bag. He flipped it on, and the bluish LED flooded the stairwell before him with light. He followed Cade up the stairs, keeping his gun in one hand and the flashlight in the other. His speed was halved by her slowed pace, but Brandt wasn’t going to complain about that. “When we get to someplace safe, we can figure out how to get in touch with Gray and Theo.”

“They’ve probably left us,” Cade said. Her words were short and panting as she pulled herself along by the stairwell’s railing, but her tone was matter-of-fact. When she made it to the top of that flight, she spoke again. “I would have left us, if you know what I mean.”

“Uh huh,” Brandt said noncommittally. The sound of shattering glass from downstairs met his ears. He resisted the urge to turn back to look or to prod Cade to speed up. He tightened his grip on his gun instead and took the stairs two at a time.

“Think Theo and Remy made it back to the Jeep?” Cade added. She was still short of breath as she started up the next flight of stairs. “Or do you think we’re the only two left?”

“How about we
not
think about that?” Brandt suggested. “It’s too fucking depressing.”

Cade fell silent as they ascended another flight of stairs. The only sound was their boots on the stairs and Cade’s pained breathing. The noise in the lobby had blessedly abated. Brandt was just about to send a silent thanks for small miracles to whatever deity was listening when Cade spoke up again.

“Do you think Ethan will make it back?”

“Cade!” Brandt snapped, a little louder than he meant to. He winced as his voice echoed through the stairwell. Cade froze, her back stiff and her hand gripping the railing. Even Brandt stopped to listen. He strained his ears for even the slightest sound to warn him of impending danger. But there was none, so he relaxed and continued. “You’re depressing the hell out of me, Cade.” He reached the woman and gently poked his finger into the small of her back to get her attention. “Go on. We’ll stop at the next floor for a break before we keep going. I’m sure your knee could use a rest.”

“Oh God yes,” Cade groaned. Her shoulders sagged as she reached the next landing. “It hurts like a very painful hurting thing.”

Brandt laughed softly and shook his head.

It took nearly thirty minutes to reach the final landing that opened up to the fire escape on the fifth floor. As Cade panted and slumped against the stairwell railing, Brandt slipped past her to get to the landing door. He rested a hand against it for just a moment and listened intently for noises on the other side of the door. Not hearing anything, he pushed it open and eased out into the hall. Cade followed, stopping just inside the stairwell door with her handgun out and her eyes focused on the hallway. Brandt nodded his acknowledgement of her support before he stepped away to ease down the hall. His heart pounded in his chest as he made his way halfway down the hall, but his nervousness was unwarranted; the hallway was empty, as were the offices into which he peered as he passed them. He turned around and beckoned for Cade to join him.

“I take it it’s safe?” Cade asked as she approached, bracing her hand against the wall for support. Brandt hesitated and wondered if she would smack him if he offered his help in a non-life-threatening situation. He decided to risk it and moved forward, taking her elbow gently in his hand. She didn’t resist as he led her to an office that faced the street.

“It looks like it’s about as safe as it’s going to get,” Brandt said. “I don’t think we could hope for much else.”

An hour later, Cade and Brandt had settled into the office as comfortably as they could manage. Brandt had ceded reign of the cushy black leather office chair to Cade, and he’d taken up residence on the mahogany desk. Brandt reloaded all of their weapons and took inventory of their supplies as Cade studied her knee. She had pulled her pant leg free from her leather boot and hitched the fabric up to just above her knee. She poked at the injured area gently, kneading and prodding at the skin and muscle, making faces as she felt it for damage.