The Break Free Trilogy (Book 3): Through The Frozen Dawn (3 page)

She saw them before he did.

A veritable wall of infected, thousands of them, were staggering towards them. They looked like an army, one from ancient times. Rags hung from their limping frames, they held no weapons save their teeth. They didn't march on command and yet they were one, an indivisible unit, a surge of infection. Emma pounded on the truck's cab and Jack hit the brakes. They didn't have to speak to know what the other was thinking.

He turned the truck and headed down a side road. It looked like it could go for a while. The horde didn't stop. The tires grit on the pavement but without the wind rushing in her ears, she could hear them. A low moan, sounding like one injured beast, rose and fell. It was pierced with shrieks and the faint thump of bare feet, coming closer.

Where did they all come from? How had there been almost no infected and now there were thousands? Some barrier must have collapsed, it was the only thing Emma could think of. It would be helpful to know exactly where that barrier was, where they were coming in and the best route to escape them. But neither she nor Jack knew the area. Neither had been scouting further than the block of houses they had camped in. Both were injured and had left the scouting to the others.

For the first time, she felt vulnerable.

Infected were leaking from between buildings, running at the car. They bounced off at first, only a couple stray bodies here and there. Then more came. The car rocked and shook as it sped over them. Jack's window was down, she could hear his grunts as he tried to avoid them.

And then another wall, another horde, twenty bodies thick in places, swarmed from over a hill. Jack slammed on the brakes. She could hear his breath, loud and harsh in the driver's seat. A man lunged from the side, his teeth catching on the passenger side door. Emma stuck him in the temple with her spear, felt the last shudder of life as she pierced his brain. He fell with a dull smack unto the pavement. Jack didn't even look at him.

"There's nowhere to drive," he said, staring forward at the advancing, snarling army.

"We have to run," Emma said, finishing his thought. She watched him nod through the back window.

He jumped out of the car, reaching for her arm. She jerked back, reaching for a bag with steady hands. She let out a shaky breath, both relieved and disgusted to find her hands so firm.

"This way," Jack said. Already the horde was bearing down. He turned and sliced the neck of an infected woman lunging for them. Emma brought her boot down on a child who snarled, black refuse hanging from her teeth. They ran to the woods, away from the streets and the concentration of biters.

They came at them from all sides. Emma's leg burned with each step, but she couldn't spare the time to think of it. She ran, noticing as she did that Jack's side was leaking blood. The woods were bright, the trees bare. Sunlight filtered through with no obstructions from foliage or vine. The infected stumbled past the trees, chasing Emma and Jack or just wandering to where they could sense the most food would be.

Ten minutes after entering the woods, they lost sight of the biters. Most had fallen back, not able to dodge through the bracken as Jack and Emma could. They could still hear them though, hear the breaking of the underbrush, the soft shifting and guttural moans. There was a short burst of noise and Jack and Emma both skidded to a stop. The bird song had gone, animals skittered away. From behind them, a sharp, piercing bellow was cut through with gurgling.

"Deer," Jack muttered. For one insane second, Emma thought he was using endearments on her. Her brow furrowed in confusion but then she understood. The infected had caught a deer. They were eating it. The noise from the animal subsided and all that was left was the pull of muscle from bone, the ripping and tearing that filled her nightmares was clearly audible in the still woods.

"We have to move," Emma replied. He nodded.

The woods they had charged into weren't large. Already, Emma could see the outlines of homes in the distance. There was a constant drone of moaning, punctuated with shrieks and snarls. She felt like a spy behind enemy lines, waiting for the bullet to pierce her body. But it wouldn't be a bullet, it would be teeth. They wouldn't do anything to her, not like they would to Jack; but the noise of the deer, the shredding of its flesh, was sharp in her mind. She couldn't be turned, but she could be eaten.

Up ahead the woods shifted. A hill, so sharp it was closer to a cliff, rose above the forest floor. Trees sprung out, straight to the sky, their trunks almost parallel with the ground from which they rose. At the very top, Emma could see clear sky, an opening. And just at the edge, so close to the cliff she wouldn't be surprised to see coffins poking through the soil of the hill, she could see the tips of gravestones.

Crashes from behind propelled them up the hill. Emma skidded on the leaves, using the trunks and the saplings that grew between them to haul herself upwards. Jack slid back, grunting. Hands appeared from nowhere, the nails bent and chipped, stained black and set deep in gray flesh. Emma kicked out. Her heel connected with one of the creature's jaw. The bone snapped under the pressure of her boot. Jack's fingers dug into her arm and he yanked her forward.

Together they scrambled in an vertical climb. At the top, Emma's fingers scraped against the nearest gravestone. She pulled herself onto flat ground. She spared a single glance behind her, watching the slipping and falling and still advancing horde of infected men, women, and children. They came slowly, but steadily, in a line towards Jack and Emma. They didn't tire; they didn't stop. Not until the sun went down. There was no way she and Jack could run that long.

The sun shone directly above them. It was noon at best. Her breath came fast and sharp. Her leg burned and her sides creaked. Jack was bleeding freely now, the whole side of his shirt saturated. Rustling and groans were rising again. Emma took her gaze off the struggling infected below and took in the clearing in which she stood.

It was a small cemetery, no more than thirty headstones. The biters were crawling over the embankment on the far side of the lot. They clawed at the mud, raking tracks through the dead grass with stiff fingers. It was a scene from an old horror movie, two people bleeding, stranded in an isolated graveyard, monsters rising from the dirt to attack.

"The farm house," Jack panted. He paused to press both hands to his side. "The silo. Can you make it?"

"Could you?" she asked, glancing at him briefly before turning her eyes across the lawn.

She hadn't even looked past the confines of the graveyard, but there it was. The roof was collapsed, a dark hole, yawning like a great mouth, the blackness of the house its oral cavity. The windows were shattered and hollow, blank eyes that stared over the cemetery, unchanging and unhelpful. The silo sat alone, a solitary beacon of sustainability. The sides were a dull, corrugated metal that must have once shone silver. A stairway spiraled around it, peaking at the top where a door was latched shut.

There were no windows in that silo, no light. It was the darkness that would save them.

Jack started with a burst of speed that surprised Emma. One last, great push before his body gave out. The last dredges of her adrenaline surged and her lungs wheezed with the effort to keep up with him. They skirted the forming wall of infected, only one set of cracked fingers scraping against the arm of Emma's jacket before she burst through the cemetery and into the tall grass that surrounded the farmhouse.

Jack reached the silo first. There was a small door, it reminded Emma of a doggie door, it wasn't much bigger. But they could squeeze in and shut it behind them. There would be nothing for the infected to grab at once they pulled it shut behind them. He wrenched the door open.

Emma gagged as dust and rotted corn poured out, covering both of their feet in seconds. Jack thrust his hands in, trying to clear the doorway, but it was no use. The corn spilled and spilled, clouding the air with eye-watering dust and filling their lungs with rot.

"The stairs," he coughed. She tripped in the massive, swelling pile of feed, landed sprawled out as more sifted on top of her. Jack pulled her free and she found her feet. The stairs rattled under her but drew her higher, in a continuous spiral, into the sky. From the top of the silo, she could have seen for miles, might have even been able to see where all these infected had come from, find a clear direction in which to go, but shambling feet echoed behind her and there wasn't time.

Jack pulled the door open at the top and they were faced with a rotten pile of grain that reached almost to the rafters. He jumped down on top of the grain. It churned underneath him, sucking him up to his knees in rotted corn kernels in seconds. It was only that the grain was piled so high, nearly to the rafters, that saved him. He reached up, wrapped his arms around the wooden beam that ran the length of the ceiling.

Emma jolted forward, calling for Jack to hold on. The thick beam of the rafter creaked under her weight. She tread slowly towards Jack, aware of the fingernails scratching at the door post behind her. Below the corn was deceivingly still. Her legs trembled with the effort to keep her balance as she carefully sank to her knees on the rafter.

"Get your leg up," she hissed. The infected creature behind her snarled, the noise ripping in an echo through the silo. Jack looked up at Emma. With one last grunt of effort, he pulled his legs out of the feed and over the rafter, panting at the exertion. The corn shifted, a sinkhole opened up in the depths of the feed. The body of an infected man lunged forward. Snarling and groaning, gray flesh reached for Emma and Jack even as the corn shifted and opened to suck the rotted body down. It muffled his groans as it filled his mouth. Emma shuddered. Two more got in, fell and were swallowed, before she could get the door shut to block out the light.

Darkness engulfed them and corn below fell eerily still, infected filled quicksand waiting for its next victim.

"
A
bomb
," Kaylee whispered. She felt Anna stiffen beside her.

"What? Where?" she hissed. Kaylee reached back and wrapped her hand firmly around Anna's wrist. She tore her eyes from the front of the store, from the jeering faces and the spots of blood scattered over the floor.

"We should make one. Now. Somewhere in the back."

Anna's eyebrows drew together but Kaylee ignored her. She turned, bringing Anna with her as she moved back, away from the front. Her feet flew over the stained linoleum floor. Her eyes scanned through the darkness. She didn't head back in the direction from which they came, she knew what was there. Toys and linen piles, stationary and shoes. She wanted the camping supplies, the haircare aisle, anything with pressurized cans, with things that would explode when lit.

"We don't know how to make a bomb," Anna whispered, falling into step beside Kaylee.

"It will distract them, give us a chance to get Andrew and Bill out of there," Kaylee said. She moved into a jog, catching a gleam from rounded canisters down one of the aisles. She dragged Anna sideways, skidding to a halt when her eyes landed on a cardboard display in muted red, white, and blue. Rows of sparklers, all encased in patriotic cardboard, caught her eye. They were dusty from sitting so long, she felt the particles linger on her skin as she grabbed as many as she could, stuffing cases in her pockets. Anna took her cue. She took a lighter from the hanging display next to it, one of those long ones used to light summertime bar-b-cues. The row directly across was what had initially caught her eye, cans of hairspray and men's deodorant casting a faint sheen in the dull light of the store. She ran down the aisle, grabbing armfuls of cans as she went.

The thuds from the front of the store were slowing. Kaylee couldn't even hear the grunts of distress from Bill any longer. She raced up the far side of the store, hearing the soft slap of Anna's shoes behind her. They ended up in a lawn and garden section and Kaylee stooped low to line up her cans. Anna's breath came heavy and fast, the aerosol cans chimed softly against the floor as she lay hers out. Kaylee took her boxes of sparklers, ripping the cardboard and pouring the festive sticks of flammable magnesium and gunpowder into the bottom of a metal wheelbarrow. She mixed them around in the bottom, crossing the pieces over one another like a bizarro version of pick up sticks. Then she threw the shreds of cardboard on top for extra fodder. She placed the cans next, neatly, side by side, on top of the debris.

"Is that going to work?" Anna asked, her features lit briefly in the flash of flame from the lighter.

"No idea," Kaylee answered honestly. Jack had showed her how to make a bomb, it seemed like so long ago. But those were real bombs, using fertilizer and gasoline, making fuses and crimping the ends, having actual explosives to set the whole thing off. This was nothing like that, this was a quick fire, short lived and hopefully hot enough. This was Kaylee having read
Contents Under Pressure
and
Highly Flammable
on the back of the hairspray her mother used for years and hoping now that it was true. She pulled a single sparkler from the pile, held an open flame to the tip.

It lit with white sparks, crackling and dancing in the dark air before them. She could have written her name with the tip, or drawn funny faces like her sister used to. Instead she touched the tip to the corner of the debris at the bottom of the wheelbarrow. It started to hiss and smoke. For good measure, Kaylee tossed the lighter in. She felt Anna's small fingers grasp the back of her jacket and she turned, cutting across to the middle of the store, finding a position under a rack of dusty women's nightgowns.

Her breath came fast and heavy, Anna's grip still twisting on her back. They could see the men, see Bill in the fetal position on the floor, the freezer that held Andrew still chained shut. Kaylee had a moment to wonder how long someone could breath in there, how much oxygen was held in the air tight space, before one of the men looked to their right.

"Do you smell smoke?"

He just had time to ask before an explosion sounded, deafening in the otherwise quiet space.

Chaos. Some men ran towards the explosion, only to be knocked back as another sounded. And another. Kaylee didn't count how many cans she had lined in the wheelbarrow and she was losing count of the explosions, they burst in random pops. One, then another, a pause, and then two more. The men pulled their guns out and went towards the improvised bomb, only to jump as another went off. Some ran in different directions in the store, several close enough for Kaylee to have grabbed if she wanted to. She and Anna stayed silent, not moving until the path to Bill was cleared.

It didn't take long. They were able to use the darkness, the flashes of light that distracted everyone, to run crouched to the prone figure on the floor. Anna reached him first. He was groaning as she got to him.

"I'll get Andrew," Kaylee whispered, moving quickly to the freezer. Up close, she could see that the shelves that once held food had been removed, leaving an airtight space just big enough to contain Andrew's slumped body.

Her fingers had just wrapped around the lock that hung open on the chain when a staccato of noise came from outside the store. Bullets pierced the plywood covering the front doors, lancing the store with points of light. The light came through like laser beams, shifting through clouds of dust and smoke.

"Who the hell is that?"

Shouts erupted amidst the gunfire and the last of the explosions. Bursts of fire lit the store from firing gun barrels. The plywood erupted in shards and splinters. The outside light was blinding. Kaylee's fingers slipped on the lock. The shouts changed from bewildered anger to fear. The plywood cracked, something pushed through. It wasn't until the first painful shriek that Kaylee realized what was happening.

A horde of infected was directed into the store. The shouts from behind the horde were triumphant, the shouts echoing off the walls that now enclosed them were panicked and fearful. Moans and growling rose like tidal waves, crashing over the people trapped in the chaos of the dark store. Kaylee couldn't see Anna or Bill, men were running and the infected were stumbling closer. Smoke rose in faint wisps from where Kaylee had set off the canister bombs and the daylight fought through the swirls, leaving misty imprints that hung in the air.

Andrew lay slumped in the freezer. She could see him now in the dim light from the outside. He was heavy, taller than her and more muscular as well. There was no chance of her moving him, not if she had to do so quickly, running from the infected. But she couldn't leave him either. She unhooked the lock and gripped it in her sweaty fingers. Leaving the chain in place, looped between the door handles, she pulled the glass door open a crack and ducked under the chain to slip inside.

The air in the tight freezer smelt of blood. She twisted back, reaching through the doors to the chain. She clamped the lock over two links, leaving enough room to crack the door for air if they needed it. It didn't matter if it trapped her inside, that was good, it would keep them safe. She could always shoot her way out afterwards, the glass wasn't bulletproof. The doors fell into place as Kaylee withdrew her hand. The shouts and explosions muffled as the doors sealed shut. She crouched low, reaching for Andrew.

Her hands landed on his chest. It rose and fell, and she let out a quick breath of relief. He was warm and damp, his shirt sticky with what felt like cooling blood.

"Andrew," she said, shaking him lightly. "Can you hear me?"

He grunted in reply and coughed. It sounded wet. There was nothing left for her to do. Something stumbled into the side of the freezer and jostled them. She tensed, reaching behind to grip the handle of her gun. She had lost the hatchet along the way and was sorry for it.

"Where's Dad?"

Kaylee brought her gaze from the glass to Andrew. The smoke was intensifying, even curling a bit under the glass. She could smell it now. It made it harder to tell what was going on. All she could hear was bangs and screaming and the occasional pop of gunfire.

"Anna's with him," she answered. It was all she could say. She had no idea where Bill was, where Anna was. She could only hope they had run.

Andrew was coughing again. Something warm and wet sprayed Kaylee's neck and when she brought her fingers there to wipe it away, they came back smeared a dark red.

"Drew," she whispered, leaning over him again. He opened his eyes and caught her gaze. His face was bruised and his lip split. He grimaced, though Kaylee thought he was trying to pull off a grin.

"I'm looking that handsome, am I?" he murmured before lapsing into a coughing fit again. Kaylee's hands fluttered useless. She had no idea how to help and it seemed that every part of him was injured, she couldn't even find a safe spot to put her hands.

Something collided with the freezer forcefully, rocking Kaylee back against the opposite wall. She landed on her butt, her legs tangled with Andrew's and her eyes flew wide in surprise. Fingernails scratched along the side of the freezer. She could hear the snarling, ripping noise coming from the creature's chest. It pushed again, this time from behind, and the whole freezer rocked. Kaylee had a sudden, awful idea, picturing the freezer tipping forward, the doors hitting the concrete and trapping them, entombing them in a way that Kaylee would never have the strength to free them from.

With a surge of fear she knocked her shoulder into the back of the freezer. She heard groans from outside, mangled fingers beating at the freezer and trying to pry their way inside. She scrambled to her feet and slammed herself into the back, tipping the freezer. It didn't fall, but it rocked. She hit it again and again and again until it caught, careening over. She fell with it, feeling weightless mid-flight before slamming into the ground. Her head connected with the back and bright bursts of light exploded behind her closed eyelids. Her groans mixed with the creature's outside.

The freezer landed lopsided. The infected man who had been beating at it was now pinned underneath. He was wriggling, trying to get free. The freezer tipped and pitched as he squirmed before falling flat with a thunk.

Andrew had been crumpled at the bottom and now his legs were completely tangled, his torso at odds and flung out. He was moaning, light noises of pain between breaths. Kaylee gripped him under his arms and hauled him up, cradling his back against her chest as she lay them both out along the length of the freezer.

"Are you okay?" he mumbled. She could feel the words vibrate through his chest. She pressed her free hand to his sternum, reassured by the movement of his breath. She laughed lightly into his neck, resting the gun and her other arm on his hip.

"I'm fine," she muttered, "but lay quiet. We're safe enough for now."

Her eyes sought out the undefined shapes of the store. There wasn't much to see but swirling light. A hand slapped at the glass of the freezer doors and Kaylee flinched, tightening her grip on Andrew.

Slowly, the creature crawled over the doors. Her hair was tangled and matted with mud and blood, it hung in strands over the glass, sweeping against it and leaving damp streaks. Her breath clouded the door, making harder to see the yellow shards of her teeth. Kaylee couldn't see her eyes, just that they were sunken in the rotting flesh of her face. She growled, low and intense, as her fingers pawed at the doors.

The click of the gun as Kaylee cocked it sounded loud in the enclosed space. She wouldn't shoot unless she had to, unless she was absolutely positive the glass was about to break. She wasn't even sure if Andrew was aware of what was happening. His body had collapsed into a state of relaxation that most only knew when deep asleep. He was hurt worse than Kaylee had thought. He would not be able to run.

"Drew," she whispered, her lips close to the skin of his neck. He shifted in her arms, grunting. "Where does it hurt?"

"Everywhere," he murmured. She frowned, her attention pulled momentarily back to the glass. Dead teeth were scraping along the glass, like nails on a chalkboard. She cringed against Andrew's neck.

"Be more specific," she urged. Her hand ran the length of his chest. He was damp, but she thought with sweat more than blood. His face was a wreck, she knew that from the brief glimpse she got of it. But it was the coughing, more than anything, that worried her. She remembered the warm spray of blood that hit her neck. He was bleeding, though not from any wound she could see. He needed Anna. Kaylee's eye flit to the glass again, to the infected woman squirming on top. Her clothing gaped and dead flesh pressed to the glass, sliding over the smooth surface in flat planes as her teeth scraped.

Where were Anna and Bill?

They were ten yards away at most when the infected broke in. Bill was a crumpled heap on the floor. Did Anna lift him? Could she? Kaylee wouldn't have been able to. Anna may have run, left Bill. Or she may have stayed, armed with six bullets.

The explosions from the store had stopped, the gunfire had ceased. There were still occasional screams, though Kaylee couldn't recognize the voices. They were mostly male, she thought. She could make out the shuffling gait of the infected, roaming through the store, knocking things over, groaning.

Something knocked into the freezer and a new set of hands slid over the glass. Soon his teeth were scraping the smooth surface as well, his lips pressed in a circle as his grey tongue wriggled, flat against the glass. Kaylee felt her stomach turn and she moved her eyes from the door to Andrew.

"Are your legs hurt?" she asked. She curled over him, using the hand that held the gun tight to prod down his legs. He shook his head.

"They kept mostly to my stomach and face. It hurts to breathe."

"Okay, just rest then," she whispered, nervous about the way his words gurgled at the end.

The scraping on the glass was distracting. She tried to focus on the sounds behind it. A scream sounded and then died out. There were no guns, no boots on the ground. All she could hear was shuffling. She wasn't sure who had been shooting the plywood to bits. Someone who hated the men who held the store. Hated them enough to sic a horde of infected on them. They didn't want survivors. She wasn't sure what that would mean for her and Andrew if they were found.