18. Taryn
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
TARYN
Iwas still a little dazed after Lucas woke me so abruptly. “Now, Taryn. We’ve got to go!”
He yanked me up and chucked my clothes right at me, which were on a chair in the corner.
I frantically pulled my shirt over my head, then dragged on my pants. “What the hell is going on? And why are you here?”
“Shots are being fired.” He threw my boots at me, ignoring my second question. “If the infected aren’t already inside the fence, they will be soon.”
He was right.
The infected stayed close, drawn by the sounds from inside the fence. Generators, voices, children playing. These were normal in a world past, but now they were dangerous. Adding gunfire to the mix would draw a horde we couldn't hold off.
Fence or no fence.
I grabbed my go-bag and gripped GG. “I’m ready.”
As soon as we walked into the living room, Beck opened the front door.
Max exploded through, barking so hard his whole body shook.
“Ruhe!” Beck snapped at him, and Max immediately fell silent.
“I can hear them inside the fence. We have to get the hell out of here.”
Lucas grabbed his rifle even as Adrian caught my hand. “Stay between us.”
No one argued; we’d been through this before, and we all knew our roles.
At any sign of danger, all three of them surrounded me and the other females in our group.
It’s just who they were.
I could fight it, but I wasn’t an idiot. There was no doubt I was nearly as powerful as they were, but I followed their orders to keep them from worrying about me. The last thing I needed was to distract them.
We were enhanced, but an infected bite could still turn us into one of them.
We rushed out of the house into a street that wasn’t fully awake yet.
The sky was still gray, with the sun barely peeking over the horizon.
Front doors opened, and people stumbled outside, most half-dressed.
They were confused in a way they shouldn’t be, given how far along the apocalypse was, but I supposed some of them had never even left this town since it all began.
Until you’d traveled and seen the devastation and the number of infected, it was hard to comprehend the danger humankind was in.
An infected tackled a man before he even reached his porch. His woman screamed, and someone inside fired.
Another rifle answered.
Then another.
Within seconds…
The entire town was shooting.
A man on guard duty raised his rifle, but he was too slow. The infected in his sights would reach him long before he could fire.
Beck suddenly moved and covered twenty feet before I even realized he’d taken the first step. His fist made contact, and an infected sailed sideways through a wooden fence, its head caved in.
Lucas caught movement two houses away. “Left!” He fired before anyone else even saw it.
Adrian jerked me backward, and a second later, an infected burst from behind a truck exactly where I’d been standing. “Get your head in the game, Taryn!”
I nodded. I’d been so worried about Beck that I hadn’t paid attention to what I was hearing.
Across the square, I caught a glimpse of Gideon. He was directing people and barking orders. “Hold the line! Stop firing blindly and get the women inside!”
For a moment, I believed he could save this place. But then I noticed a woman inside the makeshift barricade screaming as a man who had been limping nearby suddenly turned and bit a large piece from her shoulder. Then he bit again…
And again.
And again.
The barricade collapsed, and I didn’t look back.
“We’ve got to get to Lila!” I yelled at Adrian, and he nodded.
Beck stopped in front of us and picked up an infected, throwing it back over the fence.
“Kill those motherfuckers! Don’t just heave them over the fence!” Lucas yelled as he bashed another in the face with the butt of his gun.
Beck punched a skinny infected with a piercing through his nose in the side of his head and wiped the brain matter off his jeans. “Don’t worry about me, teacher. I’ve got this.” He let out a manic laugh, killing infected almost faster than the eye could see.
“You better not get bit, asshole!” I yelled even as I drove my bat through the skull of a girl about my age, with one eyeball dangling onto her cheek.
“Never, Fox! There’s no way I’d jeopardize my chance to claim that sweet pussy again!” He grabbed a skinny, infected teen and broke him in half.
Did I find that sexy?
Yes, yes, I did. The man may no longer wear the cut, but he was a dirty biker through and through.
And I liked it.
We ran breakneck toward the hotel when I spotted Mace through the crowd. He was staring directly at me, hungry and possessive.
If that son of a bitch got close, I would show him why I’m not to be fucked with. After seeing how upset Lila was because of that dick, he was on my shit list.
He started toward me, and I gripped GG tighter.
Then, two infected slammed into him from opposite sides. One latched onto his arm with a hand that was missing two fingers, and the other grabbed his shirt. He threw the first one twenty feet and the second through a nearby wagon.
Even surrounded… he was terrifying.
A smile broke across my face because Beck still kicked his ass. I bet that had shocked the big fucker.
Then, suddenly, smoke swallowed him.
Gone.
Hopefully dead.
We finally fought our way into the hotel where Lila and I had stayed. It was eerily quiet and felt empty. No infected seemed to have made it inside.
Beck reached Lila’s room first and threw open the door, but it was empty.
“No,” I whispered, then raced out and threw open every door in the hallway.
Every single one of them was empty.
“What the fuck?” I mumbled as I jerked open the last one.
All the beds were made, and no belongings were anywhere to be found. It was almost as if they were never here.
“Lila!” I called, even though I knew it wouldn't do any good.
Nothing.
Silence.
Max barked, alerting us to someone's presence. I turned to see Harper running around the corner, carrying Rory, with Finley close behind, a medical bag slung over one shoulder.
Then…Wren.
She appeared from nowhere, clutching a weird stuffed animal. It looked like a chicken with only one eye. “I’m here, Robin!”
Even in a time of crisis, with the living dead coming at us from every direction, she stood out as strange.
“Thank God we found you!” Harper panted, out of breath. “We have to get out of here. The town is collapsing.”
“I can’t find Lila!” I grabbed Harper’s arm. “Is there anywhere else she might be?”
Before she could answer, we heard an explosion from outside.
“Come on! She’s probably outside somewhere, looking for us,” Lucas panted, already heading for the exit.
We were all moving again immediately. No time to linger as the dead came through the fences in droves. Being trapped here would be a death sentence.
As soon as we got outside, I saw a man stuck beneath a collapsed porch.
“Help me!” he begged as soon as he spotted us.
Harper stopped, but Finley grabbed her. “There isn’t time.”
“Quick, help me pull him out.” She jerked free from Finley and pushed Rory into his arms.
She knelt as the man reached toward her, and out of nowhere, another hand shot out from beneath the porch.
“Watch out!” I screamed, but it was too late.
An infected, its matted, rotting hair almost gone, pulled back its lips in a fierce snarl and sank its teeth into Harper’s forearm.
As he drew back to bite her again, Lucas shot him, blowing his head off.
“Fuck!” Finley screamed as he shoved Rory at Beck and dropped to his feet.
Everything stopped.
Harper slowly looked down as blood ran down her wrist.
“It’s going to be okay,” Finley muttered to himself as he grabbed gauze from his bag and wrapped it. “I’ve got my research, and I know I can fix this.” He lifted her into his arms. “She’s going to be fine.”
“Let’s go!” Adrian commanded, grabbing my arm and moving quickly.
“Keep an eye out for Lila.” I frantically looked around. “She has to be somewhere around here.”
“I don’t think she’s here,” Harper grunted out between gritted teeth.
The pain she was feeling must have been excruciating.
“Where else would she be?” I asked, wondering if Harper was already becoming confused.
Some people turned quickly, while others didn’t turn for hours. I’d learned that there didn’t seem to be any set rule.
Harper looked at Finley as if waiting for him to answer, but he had his hands full trying to keep up and avoid the infected coming from all directions.
Adrian stopped suddenly and led us around a building, out of the fray for a moment. “Where would she be?” He repeated my earlier question.
Finley hung his head, then squared his shoulders and met Adrian’s eyes. “Gideon has been trading unenhanced women.”
What the hell?
Lucas let out a growl. “With whom and for what?”
“For fuel.” Harper’s voice cracked. “But I didn’t think Lila would be involved in the trade.”
Finley nodded in agreement. “He wouldn’t want to piss your group off.”
“Mace probably threw her in without Gideon knowing.” Wren tapped her chin in thought. “He didn’t like it when he lost in the ring to Robin’s man.”
Suddenly, gunfire drew closer.
Wren nodded towards an alley near us. “This way.”
Nobody questioned her, and that, more than anything, showed our determination to get the hell out of here.
She ducked behind an abandoned shed and pushed through the thick brush. A hole in the fence was loosely wired together.
Wren grabbed it, opened it within seconds, and crawled through. “Come on.”
“How did you—” Beck began.
“Get the fuck through!” Lucas barked as he shot another infected attempting to grab Finley.
“Put me down,” Harper slapped Finley’s chest. “Now! Help them get Rory through!”
Finley set her on her feet and helped Beck shove Rory through to Wren first. Then we squeezed through one by one as Beck stood guard, only attempting to go through after we’d all made it.
“Fuck, I don’t know if I’m going to fit.” He grunted in desperation.
Lucas stuck his gun through the fence and fired another shot. “Come on, Beck! A large group is heading this way, and I can’t stop them all!”
I reached down, grabbed Beck’s arm, and, using every bit of my enhanced strength, pulled him through.
Beck stood, then grabbed my face with his huge hands and kissed me fiercely. “You are one sexy badass.”
“Yes, she is, but we need to get the fuck out of here.” Lucas grabbed my hand.
What?
“We’ve got to find a clinic of some kind,” Finley growled. “I have an idea based on my research.”
“There’s a vet clinic a couple of miles away, in Linkirk,” Wren said, pointing in the opposite direction we needed to go to reach the farm.
“What about Lila?” I asked, torn in two directions.
“We can’t look for her right now,” Finley snarled. “Harper’s time is limited.”
I looked over and saw the devastation on Harper’s face as she held Rory with her unbitten arm. That poor little girl was going to have to face this shit show without the most important person in her life to help her.
Adrian stared at him intently. “We’ll help you with Harper. Then you’ll tell us everything you know about Gideon’s operation.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Absolutely,” Finley agreed. “But we need to go now!”
Adrian stared a few moments longer, then nodded.
He turned to Wren. “Take us there.”
Wren looked at the stuffed chicken in her arms. “Lead the way, Mojo.” Then she took off running, the arm holding the chicken stretched out in front of her.
We all looked at each other in disbelief. Were we really going to follow a woman who thought I was her long-lost sister while a one-eyed stuffed chicken took point?
Beck shrugged and jogged off behind her, and the rest of us followed.
I guess I had my answer.