The Phoenix Trilogy (Book 1): World On Fire (21 page)

    They
had gone nearly to the entrance of the building before the debris started to
clear. Every few seconds, another growl came from the street, fleeting and
brief as the creatures they came from continued down the road. The explosive
had no doubt drawn quite a crowd, though curiously, none of the undead seemed
to be heading to the apartment building itself.

    Another
rush of movement passing by the door ahead of them confirmed Natalie’s
confusion. The zeds were heading toward another target, that much seemed
obvious, but what? Maybe the mystery man had survived the grenade, too.

    For
once, Natalie had a theory that actually made sense. The ghouls might have seen
him in the street as he left and taken to pursuing him. If the unholy mob was
anything like the one that Natalie had evaded before, then every capable hunter
in the area would be joining in.

    
Silver
linings, huh? Psychotic asshole nearly gets us killed, but hey, at least he had
the decency to provide us a distraction, too.
A smile came over Natalie’s
face, but it was cold and forced. It was no small part of her that hoped the
man would be unable to escape his predators
.

    Soon
enough, they were at the entrance to the apartments and ready to enter the
street. BJ leaned down, peeking his head out the door. He was using his rifle,
but Natalie suspected he was more interested in its scope rather than its
lethality. After a handful of tense seconds, he gestured for the group to
huddle in.

    “We
have about two miles to cover. Traveling at night is a goddamn mistake, but we
don’t have a choice. We’re going to be moving fast and low. If you get spotted,
start sprinting. Once we’re at the gates, we’ll be safe.” BJ’s speech stopped
short, and though Natalie couldn’t make out his face, she suspected he was
mulling something over.

    BJ
peeked out the door again, trying to get as good a handle on their surroundings
as he could, and when he returned his attention to the group it was easy to
pick up on his tension. Natalie’s skin prickled. BJ being tense was not a good
sign.

    “Weapons
free until we arrive.” BJ growled every word, and when Rico started to protest
his decision, he practically snarled. Rico fell quiet, and Natalie’s heart
jumped into her mouth.
Ohhh shit. Oh shit shit shit. This is bad. This is
really really bad.

    String
after string of curses and paranoia nearly overwhelmed her mind, but none of it
mattered. The situation was what it was, and they were just going to have to
deal with it. Natalie slowly put her crowbar away, taking her shotgun into her
hands with serious intent for the first time. It felt different. Heavier,
colder. More foreign than she had expected.

    She
wasn’t ready for this, but as the thought entered her mind, a vivid memory
flashed back to her of the first zombie she had dispatched. She hadn’t been
ready for that fight either, but she had won.

    Tightening
her grip, Natalie let out a steady exhale. She’d won before, and she was going
to win again. This wasn’t how she was going to die, and with the familiar surge
of adrenaline pouring into her system, she felt the foolish confidence to dare
any of these poor bastards to come challenge her conviction.

    Natalie
knew it was bluster, but talking big had brought her nerves back under control.
BJ walked out of the building with Rico at his back, and as Natalie followed
after she recognized she was going to need any boost of courage she could get.
There were countless shadows all around, any one of them hiding more monsters
in the dark. Natalie’s lips curved into a grim frown.

    It
was either going to be a very long night or a brutally short one, and neither
sounded like a great option at the moment. Thankfully, this was not another
slow crawl toward freedom. BJ was wasting no time, moving with decisive action.
Natalie found herself having to work to keep up, but their pace sparked a brief
pang of excitement.

    BJ
had said they were only two miles out. If they kept this pace, they’d be there
in no time. Natalie’s imagination ran amok with visions of what they’d find.
Considering the last two places they’d visited were supposed to be secure, she
was left to rely solely on BJ’s insistence that things were going to be okay.

    Ahead
of them, Natalie heard the loud creak of wood under too much pressure, a short
warning that they were about to have company. BJ ducked down, using a stoop for
cover and the rest of the party fell in line with him. The groan gave way to a
splintering crack; a small group of undead had finally escaped their prison and
found their way into the road.

    Natalie
had to wonder how long the monsters had been trapped before her arrival. She
wasn’t exactly used to having great luck, but the timing here was almost
comically bad. The dead had been stuck here long enough to miss joining the
rest of the horde, but had managed to get out just in time to cut off BJ’s
advance. A suspicious turn of events, to say the least.

    The
end result was a group of walkers set on high-alert were now milling around in
the street while they waited for something to give them direction. It was a
situation that, at least for Natalie and the others, could all too easily take
an even more dangerous turn for the worse.

    A
garbage can lid went whizzing past Natalie’s ear, the unexpected blur of motion
nearly convincing her to start shooting. Marco was the culprit, but Natalie
felt nothing more than a sigh of relief as the improvised Frisbee rattled and
scraped along the road well away from them.

    As
always, the zombies were falling over themselves in their pursuit of anything
that could be prey, a predictable pattern that Natalie resolved to never take
for granted. With everything else that had a tendency for going sideways, at
least she had one reliable fallback.

    BJ
waited just long enough for the undead to pass before immediately resuming his
vigorous pace. He hadn’t been kidding; they were definitely moving fast, even
with their occasional setbacks. To Natalie, they couldn’t move quickly enough.
Every few seconds there’d be another burst of movement or noise nearby, and
while they hadn’t encountered any other threats directly, she wasn’t optimistic
about that staying the case.

    The
apartment was about a mile behind them, if Natalie had to guess. That meant
another mile to go, but things had taken a turn for the unsettling.

    Nearer
the apartment building, the hunters had been in a frenzy after the grenade had
gone off. The noise and attention they drew was the perfect blanket for Natalie
and the others to escape, but the further away they got, the less assurance
they had that any coming zeds would be distracted. That meant they were facing
quieter neighborhoods, and were more likely to be heard as they progressed.

    Curiously,
Natalie noticed that cars were beginning to show up on the streets again, as
well. They had come to a T in the lane, now given the choice of going left or
right, and for the first time since entering the city proper there was a
vehicle in the road.

    Natalie’s
eyes narrowed in suspicion, realizing that there were actually two cars. One on
the left path, and one on the right. They were even resting in the same place
in the street. That was strange. Markers, maybe, set by the military or for
some other purpose she hadn’t discovered yet. It was not a common sight, and
Natalie felt the hair on the back of her neck rise.

    BJ
was unfazed, advancing tirelessly down the left path after only a moment of
contemplation, but Natalie doubted there was anything they could come across
that would slow him down at this point. She was inclined to follow him. Even if
things went wrong, and by this point she considered it almost a certainty that
they would, they’d find a way to cope.

    They
were passing a wide distance from the vehicle, the first sign to Natalie that
BJ wasn’t comfortable with it after all. The darkness prevented her from
getting a particularly good look at it, but it didn’t appear to be out of the
ordinary, beyond its placement.

    It only
took a few seconds for them to leave it behind, and Natalie almost stopped to
breathe a sigh of relief before she heard the tell-tale chirp of a car alarm
suddenly being set. BJ’s entire body whipped around so fast that Rico nearly
barreled straight into his chest.

    “Son
of a bitch. Son of a bitch!” BJ spit the last word, gesturing violently for the
rest of the group to follow after him with full haste. Natalie didn’t need to
be told twice. The alarm hadn’t gone off yet, but there was no way it being
turned on was a coincidence. It would activate any second, and the more
distance they had between them when it did, the better.

    Natalie
never broke her stride as she heard the blaring begin to echo behind her. Her
mind was dead to surprise at this point, all of her disbelief suspended in the
wake of the impossible odds that had been constantly stacked against them.
Ahead of her, Rico was shouting something to BJ.

    “What
the fuck is going on, B!” His voice carried more frustration than fear, an
emotion Natalie could identify with. After getting screwed over so many times
by what appeared to be pure happenstance, bad luck wasn’t something she was
afraid of anymore. Instead, it had become a growing annoyance that made her
feel like screaming. Whether that was an improvement for her was yet to be
determined.

    BJ
had no time to answer Rico’s question as more corpses swarmed into the street.
The alarm was still active, a small blessing since it gave the zombies around
them a target to pursue. There was only a single alcove for them to hide in,
and so it was their mandatory choice. Hunkering down, Natalie watched as an
uncomfortable number of bodies continued to bolt down the road.

    If
they could keep themselves out of the way, the walkers would pass them by and
the way ahead would be clear again. All they had to do was wait, and let the
car alarm do its job. They might actually be able to make it out of this one
without more trouble being piled onto their plates.

    It
was a brief hope, and it didn’t last. As quickly as it had come to life, the
car went silent with another happy chirp, leaving a sizeable horde of on-edge
undead to scour the street. Natalie laughed, more a giggle than anything, her
head shaking as she felt it overtake her.
Of course. Of course! What else?
What happens next? I’m fucking giddy with excitement.

    
If the others heard her laughter, they
paid no mind. Zombies were everywhere, most of them slowly becoming eerily
still as they settled from their initial frenzy. Now was the time for them to
listen. Any noise, any sound of consequence, and they would descend upon it in
a fury of snapping teeth and grasping hands.

    It
didn’t take a genius to realize the street was no longer a viable option. They
were in a dead-end alleyway, and the only choice they had left to them was a
window leading into the building they were butted up against. Slowly, they
crept backwards, mindful of any garbage that they might step on that could
signal their position to the enemy.

    Once
at the window, Rico moved to open it before BJ caught his hand. Natalie was
confused, and both cousins mirrored her uncertainty. There was no way BJ could
see anything beyond the window right now; the alley was dark, and the inside of
the building was pitch-black. They were flying blind, but this was the only
path they could take, and hesitation wasn’t going to do anything but get them
killed. One by one, BJ pulled them all close, clearly intending to take the
risk of speaking.

    “We’re
being hunted. I don’t know who or why, but somebody wants us dead. It isn’t
just the car alarm, either. I spotted at least a half dozen other snares on our
way here, and I doubt I caught them all.” Natalie’s heart sank, realizing that
their supposedly poor fortune had nothing to do with luck at all.
Just gets
better every second, doesn’t it?

    “We’ve
managed to get by so far, but we’re on their turf, and we’re playing their
game.” BJ’s voice was a rough whisper, just loud enough for the group to hear,
but Natalie was barely able to focus on it. Her attention was glued to the
alley entrance, watching for any sign that they had been followed. Any second
now, somebody was going to be there, ready to finish the job. Unaware of her
growing paranoia, BJ continued.

    “I’d
bet money this window is trapped. If we survive, the next path we take will be,
too. We’re prey being guided, step by step, into a snare.” A scuffing noise
drew their attention to the road, and BJ quickly fell silent. Natalie’s heart
raced, expecting the noise to belong to their human hunter.

    Instead,
a monstrous silhouette scraped past, and Natalie shuddered. She almost wished
her first guess had been right, instead. Even with the dark obscuring most of
its features, it was hard to imagine that thing had been human once, and she
tried to prevent herself from picturing what it must look like up close. She
was failing, morbid images beginning to pour into her mind, when BJ took the
opportunity to finish speaking.

    “If
we want to live, we break the pattern. Otherwise, it’s only a matter of time
before we miss something and one of us gets snapped up.” As he finished, he
took a step away from the window. After a moment of contemplation, Rico did the
same. Coming up with another plan was something easier said than done, especially
when they had so little light to see. If they really were going to find a way
around this, then they had their work cut out for them.

    Natalie
couldn’t deny that BJ had a point, though. Somebody was after them, and they’d
had traps set up well ahead of time. It looked like they were trying to keep
people from making it to the outpost, and if that were true, there were likely
many more pitfalls ahead of them if they kept to this path. A surge of bitter
frustration reared its ugly head as Natalie considered their options

    No
matter what they knew or suspected, finding another route to take wasn’t going
to suddenly become possible. If their antagonist had thought this far ahead,
there was the distinct possibility that they would have sealed off any alternatives
well before Natalie and the others had even arrived here.

    The
alley was surrounded on three sides by solid walls. The only exits were to the
street that all but guaranteed certain death, or through the window into who
knows what other devices. Natalie shivered as another stereotype entered her
mind, her gaze dropping to the ground in search of a sewer entrance.

    She
was almost surprised when she didn’t find it. A jaunt through the underground
was about the only thing that would have made Natalie feel more uneasy, so she
was thankful it wasn’t an option they’d be able to explore. Or at least, she
would have been, if BJ hadn’t chosen that moment to speak again.

    “The
only way forward is back. We take the street.” His words didn’t register in
Natalie’s mind at first, and while it was too dark to see clearly, Rico’s
outline had frozen in place. Even Marco took an uncertain step toward BJ, as if
to hear him better.

    In
unison, the crew looked out the alleyway, trying to grasp exactly what BJ was
suggesting. Rico’s head was shaking slowly back and forth again; a sign Natalie
had come to recognize as his expression of extreme discomfort. She opened her
mouth to protest BJ’s newest game plan, but Marco had beat her to it.

    “That’s
a really bad idea, B.” It was a significantly tamer response than the one
Natalie had in mind, but the flatness in Marco’s tone did convey the sense of
disbelief they had at what they’d heard. When BJ turned his attention to the
young man, the only response Marco had to give was a half-hearted shrug. There
was nothing else to say; it
was
a bad idea.

    Natalie
wasn’t sure what she expected of BJ now, whether it would be a hard response to
put them in their place or grim silence, but she was convinced she’d hold her ground.
Avoiding the road behind them wasn’t an act of fear or paranoia; the sheer
number of alerted hunters they would need to avoid was staggering. Going
forward might lead them to more traps, but she couldn’t help feeling that their
survival odds were higher if they took the risk.