“Come on. She’s real y agitated tonight,” Andy said.

“Who is?” Ali levered herself careful y out of the car. The barrel of Andy’s gun hovered by the side of her head.

“Inside,” the boy waved the gun in the desired direction.

They marched her into the cool, quiet of the church building. It smelt nice at first, wood polish and the lingering scent of flowers. It was peaceful, still. Her shoulder beat in time with her steps. The farther they got down the dark red strip of carpet toward an open internal door, the more a pungent odor rose to greet them.

She knew the stench. Once she had caught it, it was all she could smel . The rank and putrid stink of rotting flesh. A low moan echoed up from below. Everything in her slowed in horror.

Al shook her head, trying to step back. “No! No.”

“I can thoot you in the leg now and we’ll drag you down there,” Owen pressed the butt of his gun to her thigh. “Your choice.”

The lack of options beat her about the head. Her ears filled with gray noise. Her steps toward the dark, open door were small, measured, and each and every one took a year off her rapidly dwindling life.

“Down the thteps. Don’t try anything thith time.” Owen tapped her head once more with the pistol in warning.

Andy led the way with his gun and flashlight.

Below, the cel ar was lit with candles, big and small. Altar candles. The room glowed with light. Rachel was chained to an overhead beam, a dog collar around her swollen, gray neck. She had been fighting her imprisonment. One hand tugged at the collar while the other reached out to the three of them, bloody lips spread wide. The chain jangled as she tested her reach. It almost sounded merry.

Ali searched for an escape route. There was a line of three small windows halfway between them and Rachel. Pity about the guns pointed at her. The room wasn’t very neat, not up to church standards. Old candelabras and brass vases were scattered about on the tabletop closest. A line of shelves filled with junk covered the far wal .

“Rachel went to see her dad,” Andy said, his voice breaking. “He was hanging around the section of the wall up by the railway yard, trying to get in. She didn’t understand … infected don’t …”

“You think she would want to live like this?” Ali clung onto her wounded arm.

“We can look after her. There’s no reason she can’t still have a good life.” Andy threw back his shoulders, stood tall. “We can do that for her.”

“We will do that for her,” Owen corrected. He spat a wad of bloody saliva onto the ground and Rachel snarled, yanking on the chain.

“People wil find out,” said Ali.

“People need to change their minds about infected. You’ll help with that.” Andy flicked off his flashlight and set it on a nearby table.

His gun trembled in his hand.

“How?”

“We’ll turn you. Your men won’t let them hurt you. They’l have to let Rachel thtay too,” Owen supplied, a wary eye on the homicidal maniac leashed up in the corner. “It’ll work.”

“No, it won’t. My men will put a bullet in my head and give me a decent burial.” The two idiots dealt her dubious looks.

“Bullthit,” Owen growled and spat some more blood on the floor. “They would never kill you.”

“You're wrong,” she said. “They would never let me suffer, like you're letting Rachel. I guarantee it.”

“We can’t let you go. I guess that makes you dinner.” Andy swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple leaping in his scrawny neck, despite the tough words.

“You really think you can kill someone?” Ali asked. “It’s not like you imagine it would be, Andy. It’s not fast, no matter how quick they die. It stays with you. Plays over and over in your head til you think you’re gonna lose it.”

The boy’s eyelids went into overdrive, fluttering like a fan. His gun dipped, trembling.

She almost felt sorry for the idiot when he teared up.

“We love her,” the boy sobbed.

“Enough!” Owen jabbed the barrel of his gun into her head and pushed her backward, toward Rachel. “Think you’re tho f**king thmart.”

“How’s your tongue?” she enquired, her own voice cracking. Back they went. Her hold on her arm slipped and slid, her palms damp with sweat. “Cause you’re still sounding pretty shitty, Owen.”

Rachel growled and Owen repeated it.

Closer and closer.

“Can I just say, you are one sick f**k of an individual. How did it feel, killing Lindsay?”

The young man’s eyes fired with rage and his bloody teeth clenched.

“It was you, wasn’t it? Just because she called poor little Rachel names.”

“Sthe detherved it!”

“Right, course she did. You’re one sick puppy, Owen. Honest to goodness, deep down where it counts, you really are. You are all f**ked up, my friend.”

She could almost feel Rachel’s stale, fetid breath on the back of her neck, hear her snapping and snarling next to her ear. Fear stiffened every hair on her body. Pain brought tears to her eyes. Fucked if she was dying here.

Being marched backward to her doom had only one positive. Ali kicked the prick in the balls with her bad leg. Gave it her al .

She didn’t want to die. But taking a bullet to the brain from Owen versus getting munched on by Rachel was a no brainer.

She’d take the bullet.