She waited until Max, David, and Matilda were around the corner before she slipped into the teacher’s lounge.
Chapter Seven
The days passed in strange bursts.
A couple of days could feel like only a few hours, while a single day would feel like a lifetime.
Caitlin had taken to pulling out their weathered road map and tracing the lines with her fingertip, studying their next route until it was burned behind her irises.
Once they had more supplies for lodging—mattresses, cots, sleeping bags, pillows—they would be doing a sweep of the lower right corner of Colorado, looking for more survivors or another Ark.
They had their doubts there’d be a camp. Any evidence of an Ark to the west of them either didn’t exist or was months old, possibly from when camps migrated.
Remembering she hadn’t marked the last sign she’d left an X on, she pulled the red pen out from her bag and dotted the page.
Months since they’d left Arkansas and she still made sure to leave a trail for Jorge and the others.
Just in case, she told herself.
Despite everything, she still had hope.
As she folded the map to tuck back into her bag, the sounds of rapid footfalls echoed out in the hallway.
One… then two… three people ran by, all speaking in a hurried, panicked tone that was too low for her to decipher from behind wood and concrete.
Frowning, Caitlin jumped up, yanking open the door.
“What’s—”
Edward slowed just enough to motion at her.
“Rotters broke through the fence,” he said. “You got your weapon?”
“How many?” She asked, already stooping to grab her knife and revolver from her pack.
“I don’t know,” Edward called, still running towards the danger. “Alonzo said thirty or more.”
Caitlin’s heart sank to the pit of her stomach.
“Ed, where’s Booker?”
“Outside already!”
Shit.
Taking off at a sprint, Caitlin caught up to the others in seconds.
She bolted out of the side door like a punch, knife already in hand.
Geeks stumbled around the small grassy courtyard—the gap between the building and the football field downhill from them—making grabs for the nearest warm body.
Thirty had been a lower estimate, and more were filing through the break in the fence, exactly where the razor wire had been.
Questions flooded Caitlin’s mind that she’d have to put a dozen pins in until after they managed to survive.
Blackened, decaying mouths widened, hungrily seeking out living flesh. Gnarled and filthy hands swiped and clawed, attacking anything they could get within range of.
Caitlin spun her knife in her hand, aiming for the eye socket of the closest Geek.
Stabbing it through the skull, she pulled the blade down and out, dislodging it quickly and stepped over the corpse.
With her head on a swivel, she tried counting how many of theirs were in the fray.
Five, maybe six. But she couldn’t see Booker.
And still more Geeks tumbled into the yard.
Caitlin swung her knife out, plunging it into the next Geek’s temple, and twisted it free.
Then another. And another.
Her arm ached by the sixth, but she continued pushing forward, clearing inch by agonizing inch.
This would not be their end. They didn’t not make it that far to get taken out by a wayward herd of undead shitheads.
Grunting, she kicked one Geek in the abdomen, sending it sprawling onto the ground, and stabbed another from under its chin.
Run, run, run…
Defend, defend, defend…
Turning, she spotted Alonzo struggling to shove a Geek away, and ran to help him.
Halfway there, something caught her by the ankle, sending her to the frozen ground with a terrified yell.
The Geek was partially buried in other corpses, slowing its attack, but its rotting maw still looked ginormous from that angle as it groaned, desperate to bite down on her perilously close ankle.
Kicking with all her might, she still couldn’t free herself from its grip on her jeans.
With one hand grabbing onto the dry, frost covered lawn, she fought to retrieve her gun from the back of her belt.
The commotion caught the attention of two other Geeks as they turned and lumbered closer.
“Shit, shit, shit,” she gasped.
Sitting up, Caitlin slashed at the hand of the Geek that had grabbed her, nearly severing it at the wrist.
She could feel it in her gut.
Three seconds—that was all she had.
Not enough time to get up and kill both Geeks coming for her. She’d maybe take out one, but the other…
Just as the shadows of both loomed over, signaling her end, a gunshot rang out.
Brains splattered across the ground as both Geeks fell dead.
Inhaling sharply, she took the opportunity to stab the trapped one through the temple before leaping to her feet.
“Jack!” She cried, ready to reach for him.
But the man holding the .45 in his hand wasn’t Booker.
“Are you okay?” Seth asked, lowering his weapon a fraction.
Caitlin blinked.
Seth had saved her?
“Yeah,” she said finally. “Thank you.”
He smiled. “No problem.”
And with that, he turned to continue fighting.
Remembering why she’d been running over in the first place, Caitlin searched for Alonzo.
He was already yards away, taking care of another Geek in a torn mechanic’s jumpsuit.
Tossing her hair out of her face, Caitlin gulped air and focused on her next target.
More and more people from inside the school rushed to their aid, carrying guns, baseball bats, machetes… Anything heavy or sharp, ready to defend their home.
Nicole’s bright red hair flashed across the courtyard as she and another person ran to try to staunch the flow of undead creatures.
Even through the chaos, Caitlin spotted familiar faces. Edward, Trish, Steve, Luna, even Scott had made it outside carrying a heavy pipe.
But where was Booker?
Nathaniel emerged with a buck knife, slashing and stabbing
