When All is Lost

Chapter 17

"Kate? Kate, you need to stand up." I could hear the concern in Ian's hushed voice, but it was his tone of urgency that had me scrambling to my feet.

"Who are you?" Ray asked from behind me and unlike Ian, his voice was harsh and raised. I whipped around to see a single, grimy-looking woman coming towards us from some thirty feet off. "What do you want?" Ray called out as she staggered to a stop.

Her long, dark hair hung in her face, masking her from us. I struggled to comprehend what I was seeing. My heart squeezed in my chest.

Zombie?

She tilted her head slightly as if she was trying to get a better look at us. It took all my willpower to not take a step back. But then, she slowly raised her hands. "What's in the backpacks?"

My gut twisted.

"Why do you ask?" Ian sounded friendly, but as he moved to stand between me and Ray, I could see him adjusting his grip on his knife. The next time he spoke, it came out just above a whisper. "There should be a big, old church about two miles east of here. If we need to-"

A clang came from our left. It sounded like metal against stone. An overwhelming feeling of trepidation rose up inside of me and I didn't want to look. But I had to.

It wasn't nighttime. There were no shadows or secret dark places to sneak in or out of. Even if it were dark, the man in the alleyway to our left didn't seem like he had any interest in hiding. He was filthy. The wispy hairs on his balding head stuck to his forehead from the weight of the grease and dirt that covered him. His clothing was also much too thin for the weather. Lacking a jacket, I could clearly see that the right sleeve of his plaid shirt was ripped all the way up to his bicep and was stained a brown-red color. Despite his state, his scraggly, thin frame stood tall and confident. It also became obvious that the sound we'd heard had come from his shovel hitting the side of the alleyway as he did it yet again.

The second clang of his shovel had me raising my gun. Our eyes met and I lost the air in my lungs. His expression wasn't one I was prepared for.

Hopeful.

"Don't go right either," Ray whispered as loudly as he dared.

I finally understood our situation. I wasn't one hundred percent sure if the woman was meant to be bait or distraction, but it didn't really matter. She was meant to keep us busy and it had worked. We were being surrounded.

"The church," I said, quietly repeating what Ian had told us. "Run."

I turned heel and ran past the pile of bodies, not looking back. I heard either Ian or Ray running just behind me, but I couldn't focus on them. I could only focus on going as fast as my body would let me.

"Don't lose them!"

Two bullets.

I have two bullets.

I repeated the phrase over and over in my head like a mantra, reminding myself why I couldn't stop. Until or unless I got more ammo, the gun was supposed to be a prop to intimidate more than anything.

They didn't look intimidated.

I shut my mind down and focused on putting one foot in front of the other. A few times, my sneaker skidded a bit as it hit the snow, but I was able to keep my balance. I took turn after turn, avoiding narrow alleys in case of dead ends. After a while, it seemed as though the world had gone quiet. I no longer heard the sounds of someone else's thudding steps behind me.

Slowing to a walk, I reached a place that wasn't visible to the road and then finally stopped. On a dirt lot at the back of an office building, I caught my breath and waited. I heard what sounded like a crow make a call far off in the distance. I heard the rustle of the wind brushing the thin, empty branches of the small tree to my side. I heard my own gasping, short breaths as I took the cold air into my stinging lungs. I heard nothing else.