Blackout

opportunity the Fox had created for us, no matter how insane that opportunity seemed. Shaun looked to Becks, making a complex gesture with one hand. She nodded, picking up on his unspoken command. I felt a flush of jealousy. Just how close had they gotten while I was dead, anyway?

I forced the feeling away. It was none of my business, and even if it was, this wasn’t the time. The Fox was still laughing, but it had a pained edge to it, like she was running out of steam. It was now or never. Being occasionally suicidal, but not stupid, we chose now.

It wasn’t until we were running around to the front of the house that I realized the Cat was no longer with us. The Monkey was running alongside Mahir, but his… whatever she was… was gone. The Fox was still shooting from the kitchen window, keeping the majority of the team in the driveway occupied through sheer dint of being impossible to ignore. Either her aim was incredibly good or she was using armor-piercing bullets; five of them were already down, leaving another nine standing. Part of me was pleased to see that they’d considered a bunch of journalists enough of a threat to send fourteen armed CDC guards to take us down. The rest of me wished they’d been willing to settle for a sternly worded cease- and desist-letter.

Journalism must have been very different before people resolved so many of their conflicts with bullets.

The men from the CDC were so busy shooting at the house that we made it halfway to the van before they noticed us. Three more of them went down in the interim. I was starting to think we might make it when the Fox screamed, a gasping, quickly cut-off sound, and the gunfire from the house stopped. The Monkey froze, face going white. Then he screamed and rushed toward the driveway, opening fire as he ran.

The guards who were still standing turned toward the sound of gunfire. “Oh, sh—” began Shaun, and then they were firing on us, and there was no time left for conversation.

Maggie and Mahir hit the ground, leaving Becks, Shaun, and I to return fire. Fortunately for us, the guards were distracted by the Monkey’s suicide charge; he took down two of the six remaining men before going down in a hail of blood and bullets. That left four standing, all with more firepower and better armor than we had. Our next step didn’t need to be discussed. We stopped firing, raising hands and weapons toward the sky. If we were lucky, they’d want prisoners they could question even more than they’d want bodies they could bury.

Luck was with us. The man at the front of their ragged little formation signaled for the others to stop firing. He held out one hand, palm facing us, and then gestured toward the ground, indicating that we should put our guns down. We knelt to do as we were told. It might have ended there, except for one crucial detail:

The Fox hadn’t been trying for headshots.

My hand was still on my borrowed revolver when the first of the downed guards lurched to his feet and grabbed for the still-living man beside him. His chosen victim screamed and started firing wildly. His commander shouted for him to stand down, but it was too late; panic had already set in. Four men suddenly finding themselves surrounded by nine potential zombies weren’t going to listen to orders anymore.

Grabbing my gun from the ground, I ran full-tilt for the van, trusting the others to follow me and praying the zombies would be so busy going for the accessible prey that they’d let us by.

There were no bullet holes in the van. That was something. Becks and I reached it first, ducking behind the bulk of it while she fired at the guards and I fumbled with the door. The blood test cycle to open it had never seemed so long. Mahir reached us as I was waiting for the door to finish processing, leaving only Shaun and Maggie in the open—and Maggie was still on the ground, not moving.

“Oh, fuck,” I breathed. The lock disengaged. I jerked the door open, motioning for the others to climb in. Mahir promptly clambered over the driver’s seat and into the back, bypassing the blood test.

Becks shook her head, digging a set of keys out of her pocket and tossing them to me. “I’ll cover you! Now hurry!”

“On it.” I slammed the door, shoved the keys into the ignition, and started the engine, hitting the gas hard enough to send Mahir sprawling. Becks waited until she was clear and then opened fire on the guards, living and dead alike.

Driving was another thing I didn’t have the muscle memory for anymore, even if I intellectually understood the process. I barely managed to skid to a stop in front of Shaun and Maggie, the tires digging deep divots in the lawn. Mahir opened the side door and hopped out, helping Shaun lift Maggie inside. The entire front of her blouse was bloody.

“Is she breathing?” Mahir demanded.

“Yes,” said Shaun. “First-aid kit, now.” He slammed the door. “George, get Becks.”

Becks had taken cover behind a half-fallen pine tree that listed at a severe angle across one side of the tiny courtyard. She was firing at the two guards who remained standing, but their attention was more focused on their formerly dead compatriots, who were still attempting to take them down. I pulled up next to her and she grabbed the passenger-side door, waiting impatiently for the lock to release.

“Oh, God, there’s so much blood,” moaned Mahir. I didn’t let myself look. I needed to focus on getting us out of here alive.

The door opened. Becks climbed inside. I looked back toward the house and saw the Fox waving weakly from the window, blood running down the side of her face. She had what looked like a remote control in one hand. Becks looked that way, and her eyes widened.

“Oh, fuck,” she breathed. “Georgia, drive.”

I hit the gas.

We were all the way to the end of the driveway when the house exploded.

The edge of the explosion caught us, hot wind buffeting the van. The frame was weighted to make it harder to tip us over, but even so, it was a struggle to maintain control of the steering wheel. In the back, Maggie screamed. That was almost encouraging. If she was screaming like that, they hadn’t managed to puncture a lung, and with two Irwins playing field medic, she might be able to hold on long enough to get us—

I had no living clue where we were going, and no one else was available to take the wheel. “Where am I going?” I demanded.

“Take us back to the Agora!” shouted Shaun. “Just tell the GPS to retrace the last route we took. It can guide you from—aw, fuck, Becks, keep the pressure on, will you?”

Wincing, I turned on the GPS, tapping the screen twice to make it show me the way back to the Agora. A red light came on above the rearview mirror as the GPS began scrolling the names of streets. “Shaun, I’m getting a contamination warning up here.”

“That’s because Maggie’s bleeding all over the fucking van!”

“Still showing clean here,” said Mahir. His voice was tight, verging on panicked. “Becks, how’s her breathing?”

I took a deep breath and tightened my hands on the wheel, trying to focus on the road. Maggie was shot, not bitten. Her blood would be a problem, especially if she ran out of it completely, but as long as no one else had open wounds on their hands… or on their legs… or anywhere else…

We were fucked. We were thoroughly and completely fucked, and all we had to show for it was a bunch of corpses and a house that wasn’t even there anymore.

As if he had read my mind, Shaun called, with manic cheerfulness, “Don’t stress out about it, George. Things could be worse!”

“How?” demanded Becks.

“We could still be wearing shoes full of homing devices!”

For the first time since she’d been shot, Maggie spoke: “I am going to… kill you… myself, Shaun Mason.” Her voice was weak, but it was there. If she was talking, she couldn’t be too far gone.

Shaun laughed unsteadily. “You do that, Maggie. You get up and kick my ass just as soon as you feel like you can manage it.”

She mumbled something in disjointed Spanish, voice losing strength with every word.

“This would be a good time to drive a little faster, Georgia,” said Mahir. His tone was utterly calm. I recognized that for the danger sign it really was. Mahir only sounded that serene when he was on the verge of panic, or getting ready to pounce on some fact that every other reporter to look at a story had somehow managed to miss. That detachment was the way he handled the things that otherwise couldn’t be handled at all.

I pressed my foot down on the gas, envying that cool veil of calm. It was all I could do not to start