ARENA ONE: SLAVERUNNERS (Book #1 of the Survival Trilogy)

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

I take my eyes off the driver for too long, and it is a stupid mistake.

He pulls out a handgun and aims it right at me. He smiles a cruel smile. He has me.

He cocks back the trigger and is about to fire. I brace myself. There is nowhere to go. I'm dead.

Over the driver's shoulder, a Crazy jumps out of a manhole, aims an RPG, and fires. The missile sails through the air, coming right for us.

An explosion rocks our world. The noise is deafening, and I am thrown up into the air, smashing my head, as I feel the tremendous impact of the heat. Then my world turns sideways, as the bus crashes onto its side and skids.

Because I'm the only one standing, the only one not buckled or chained down, I'm the only one who goes flying across the bus. I go through an open window, propelled out of the bus just as it explodes, and the shockwave sends me even farther. I continue soaring through the air and land twenty yards away, face-first in a mound of snow.

Flames rip through the air, searing my back, but I roll in the snow and put them out. I feel the tremendous heat of the waves of fire behind me.

The entire bus is up in flames, on its side, in the snow. The flames must rise twenty feet high. It is an inferno. My heart drops as I realize that no one could possibly survive that. I think of all those innocent little girls, and I feel sick.

I lay there in the snow bank, trying to catch my breath from the smoke. My head spins, and I hurt more than ever. It is an effort to sit up. I turn and set my sights on our Humvee. It sits there in the distance, at the base of the Flatiron building, on its side, like a dead beast, two of its tires blown off.

Logan. I wonder if he is alive.

I claw myself to my feet with my last ounce of strength, and manage to hobble his way. He is a good fifty yards away, and it feels like I am crossing a desert to reach him.

As I get close, another manhole opens up, and a crazy suddenly sprints right for me, holding out a knife. I reach down and raise my gun, take aim and shoot him in the head. He lands on his back, dead. I take his knife and put it in my belt.

I check over my shoulder as I run, and several hundred yards back I spot a group of Crazies charging right towards me. There must be at least fifty of them. And all around them I see more manholes open up, more Crazies crawling up from the ground, running out of the subway stations, scurrying up from the steps. I wonder if they live in the subway tunnels. I wonder if any subways are even still running.

But there is no time to think about that now. I race for the Humvee and as I reach it, I find it's destroyed, useless. I climb up on it and open the driver's side door. I brace myself as I look in, praying I don't see Logan dead.

Luckily, I don't. He is still sitting in the driver's seat, buckled and unconscious. Blood is splattered on the windshield and he's bleeding from his forehead, but at least he's breathing. He's alive. Thank God he's alive.

I hear a distant noise, and turn to see the Crazies getting closer. I need to get Logan out of here—and fast.

I reach in, grab his shirt, and begin to yank him up. But he is heavier than I can manage.

"LOGAN!" I scream.

I pull harder, shaking him, afraid the Humvee will blow any minute. Slowly, he begins to wake. He blinks and looks around.

"You okay?" I ask.

He nods back. He looks stunned, frightened, but not seriously injured.

"I can't get out," he says back in a weak voice. He struggles with the twisted metal of his seatbelt buckle.

I climb in, reach over him, and jab at the buckle. It's jammed. I check back over my shoulder and see the Crazies are even closer. Fifty yards and closing in. I use both hands, pushing it for all I have, sweating from the exertion. Come on. Come on!

Suddenly, the buckle snaps and the seatbelt whips back. Logan, free, rolls over, banging his head. He begins to pull himself out.

Just as Logan sits up, his eyes suddenly open wide, and he reaches out with one hand and roughly pushes me aside. He raises a gun with the other and takes aim just past my head and fires. The fire is deafening in my ear, which rings badly from it.

I turn and see he's just killed a Crazy, a few feet away. And the others are only thirty yards behind him.

The Crazies are closing in fast. And there's no way out.