Horizon

sooooo good, you know you want to sink your teeth in me.”

She danced along, shimmying and waving her arms, dangerously close to the other end. If any of them decided to run for it, she was doomed.

“Shel, you’re too close!” Smoke yelled, and then Nadir burst past him, sprinting to her, grabbing her free hand and dragging her back.

Shel fought him, screaming. “No! Let go of me! Come on, I had them!”

It was their struggle that seemed to make the difference. There was a swell of excited chatter, a few garbled cries of excitement, and the group of infected turned toward the bridge. Several pressed forward onto the ones closest to them, knocking one of them over, a middle-aged woman with a fussy short haircut that was sticking straight up on one side and a necklace of purple beads that bounced against the ground when she fell. An overweight man with his shirt unbuttoned, exposing a hairy, pale stomach, stepped right on her outstretched leg and reached in front of him with grasping hands.

“Shit,” Terrence breathed at Smoke’s elbow.

“Keep it together, boy,” he snapped. He was trying to get a shot at the heavy infected, but Shel and Nadir were in the way.

“Get back here!” Bart screamed. “Nadir, come on!”

Smoke saw what had scared him: a skinny Beater in a velour tracksuit was pushing her way through the clump, moving more quickly than the rest of them, her mouth open and her tongue waggling.

Nadir tugged Shel, dragging her backward, and with his free hand he fired. He hit the big man in the chest, slowing him, but not stopping him. Others pressed around him as he wobbled.

Nadir’s second shot took out the wiry woman seconds before she reached him.

“Go, go,” Smoke ordered. “Bart, Terrence-you’ll have to take the other side by yourselves.”

They ran for it. Smoke could hear their footsteps ringing through the great empty cavern of the mall, echoing through all the wasted space that had once cost untold sums of money to heat and cool, Before. All that money, all the shit in these stores, mountains of crap that no one really needed.

The crowd of Edenites was yelling, a terrified sort of cheering. Smoke hoped they’d have the sense to stay where they were. He heard banging, and prayed Dor was getting closer with the door.

Two-thirds of the infected were on the bridge now, stepping on and around the bodies of the big guy and the wiry woman.

“Hold back,” Smoke yelled to Nadir. The worst thing he could do would be to create a blockage on the far side of the bridge; then the things would split off into two groups, get distracted, wander in different directions.

Nadir seemed to understand. He quit firing and dragged Shel back with him. In seconds they were back on Smoke’s side of the bridge, out of breath, Shel’s eyes red and watery.

Terrence had made the circuit down the hall and across the bridge and back up the other hallway, Bart right behind him, but they were going too fast. They needed to let all the infected follow the first ones onto the bridge, where they would be sitting ducks.

“Wait up!” Smoke yelled. Terrence looked over at him and nodded, then stopped, pressing his back against the entrance of a candle shop.

There was a noise from below.

A scream and a great clanging from the first floor. Smoke looked over the rail. A coffee shack in the center of the lounge area shuddered, and four figures burst out of the door, knocking over a cafe table.

Beaters. Mature ones.

They must have been nesting inside the little shack. And they were headed for the escalator. The one that would take them straight up to the end of the mall where the Edenites were huddled.

“Oh, Jesus God,” Shel breathed, and then without pause she shot, over the edge, down into the mall. It was an impossible shot and Smoke grabbed her arm.

“No,” he yelled into her ear. “Save your ammo. Focus on the ones here. The others will deal with those.”

It was the only thing they could do. But once the Beaters got up the stairs, there would be nothing to stop them from attacking. Even if Smoke and his companions laid every one of the things on the bridge to waste, it could well be at the cost of losing everyone else.

But there was nothing else he could do. The roving mass had nearly made its way entirely onto the bridge. Terrence was slinking down the hall toward them, waiting for the stragglers to catch up. Bart was a few paces behind him, looking like he was about to throw up.

He still had a couple more clips-how many rounds, he wasn’t sure. He’d just stand here and pick off the things that staggered toward him until he ran out, counting on the others to herd them onto the bridge or blast them from the other side.

A scream rose above the din, singular among all the others because he knew that voice.

Cass

Smoke forced himself to stay focused on the scene ahead of him, knowing that if he abandoned his post to go to her now he’d doom them both. And yet every fiber of his being rebelled as he lined up his shot.

Chapter 36

CASS RAN TO the side and looked down, just in time to see them reach the escalators. Three of them had no hair at all, and one had a few greasy hanks at the back of its head. At least one of them was missing fingers. These Beaters had been infected for a long time, and their bodies were starting to disintegrate. In a month, maybe two, they’d finally die from the sheer punishment they routinely suffered and inflicted on each other-even their hyper immune system couldn’t save them after they lost enough blood and took enough blows to their savaged bodies.

But until then, they were more dangerous than ever. Hungrier. Faster. Unstoppable.

She ran back to her father, who was cradling Ruthie, rocking her and singing. “Dad, I’m going to help Dor. Just-just keep her safe.”

She pushed through the crowd, knowing how ridiculous her words were. There was no way to help. There was no such thing as safe.

“Where are we at?” she demanded, after forcing her way to Dor’s side. Sammi made room for her, her face white with fear.

“Last one,” Dor muttered, sparing her a quick glance with his flint-spark eyes. “Got the other two hinges out. Shot off the caps and pried out the pins, but this one’s corroded or something, can’t get it free.”

His hands were bloody, and the screwdriver he was using to chip away at the blockage slipped from his hands. “Fuck!”

“Let me.” Cass seized it from him and wiped it on her shirt, leaving his blood streaked on the fabric. “Tell me, show me-”

And he did, his quiet voice in her ear, speaking slowly, steadily, the way he’d done so many times before when it was just the two of them, when he’d cajoled and urged her to the dark heights where they both sought release. She let everything else fall away until it was just her and him and the thing that must be done, his voice, his lips brushing her ear, her hands and the glinting metal and the greasy mechanism and every bit of her energy focused on the task until suddenly the pin fell to the floor with a clang and then everything, the sounds and the people and the fear came rushing back and she was pushed away from the door as the crowd surged forward.

“Back, back!” Dor yelled from three feet away that felt like a thousand, and he and others jammed their blades into the space between the wall and the door and heaved and pulled until it gave a little, just a little and down the mall there was screaming and shooting and Cass could not bear to look so she turned away and found Red and took her daughter back, burrowed her baby’s sweet face into the crook of her neck and kissed her hair and swore it was going to be all right.

Sunlight and screaming. An earsplitting metal-on-metal groan as the door was pulled away from the frame. Four, five men grunting and sweating with effort, and the metal door bent but did not break. The opening grew until