The Ruins Part 2 (Sequel to The Ruins)

Chapter 74

Dreaded Skillz held the Infected off as Mal and Negan climbed out of the pit. Dreaded Skillz came up after them. Mal and Negan stared around them at the absolute carnage. Scores of people lay dead. Hundreds of Infected filled the arena, and hundreds of people fought them and fought one another.

"Where's Tom? The Saviors? God, where are the kids?" Yelled Negan.

Mal shook her head. "Please, let them be safe."

Then Mal saw something that twisted the mind into a weird new shape. She suddenly recognized some of the fighters. Not the ones attacking her, but the people fighting White Bear's men. These were faces she knew from Famous Infected Cards. It was a surreal moment.

Basher Clay had a baseball bat in each hand and was using them to block from entering the hotel which was the only exit, unless people wanted to jump from the top of the bleachers, and that was a forty-foot drop. A dozen yards away Hector McGinnis stood on the top of one set of bleachers, firing blast after blast from his shotgun into anyone who came at him. He surrounded by heaps of the dead. DJ Derby now guarded the other door, and his double-bladed ax was painted bright red with blood. Others from the Famous Infected Cards were peppered throughout the battle with the Saviors at their sides.

White Bear's guards, the ones who still had guns, kept trying to shoot their way into the hotel, but there were sharp cracks from one of the upper hotel windows, and one by one the armed guards pitched backward, dead before they hit the ground. Mal craned her neck to see who was going and had a brief glimpse of the Mohawk and intense face of Sally-Two Knives peering along the barrel of a high-powered sniper rifle.

"MAL!" Mal whirled to see a wave of armed Saviors with Queen Arnica. They were armed with guns, spears and swords and knives and axes. Mal saw the kids: Max, Killeen, Johan, and Rin. And she saw their smiles.

Mal had seen the kids fight before, but it was mostly the living dead, not a battle. Their bodies were a blur of movement. As a man with a reaper's scythe came at Lugh, Killeen lunged in and down and his spear whipped a silver line across the man's mid-section. Without even watching to see the effect, Killeen rose and thrust and cut through the man's throat. A burly bounty hunter ran at him with two yard-long blades, but Johan darted forward between Killeen and the weapon, and rose now and released her notch. The arrow was fast and elegant into the man's chest. Rin jumped on top of a bounty hunter, her blade rose through chest and chin and skull as Max covered her with his pistol, bullet after bullet.

With Lugh by their side, he moved like a dancer, seeming to slim along the surface of the ground, turning gracefully to evade, using each ten to put incredible power into his ax and cuts. It was ugly and beautiful at the same time, a ballet of destruction that pitted Lugh's lifetime of dedication to ax-play against brute strength and seemingly overwhelming odds. It seemed the group; the kids, Lugh, Alec, and the rest of the people were building around themselves a castle of corpses.

Then a shout tore Mal away from the scene. She turned to see Heap, a Calvary Boy, charging toward her, but then a figure stepped into her path. Sam grabbed Heap by the throat and belt and heaved him all the way and threw him into a knot of the living dead. The big thug was instantly swamped by white hands and yellow teeth.

"Enjoying this?" Mal said to Sam.

He gave Mal and Negan a charming smile. "Yep, I saved you, my princess."

Then Negan cursed and she whirled to where they saw Preacher Jack pulling off aluminum siding on one of the wagons. He was seconds away from escaping. Without even thinking what they were doing, Mal and Negan launched themselves that way. Negan held his bat and Mal's gun that has only two bullets; Mal had the jagged machete. Would the be enough against one old man?